Page 61 of Let’s Make a Scene

Suddenly he stills, looks down at me, pupils blown wide with lust. “Are you sure?”

I think any other time, with any other person, I’d be able to appreciate this careful consideration. Even in the grip of this moment of madness, I recognize that it is something good and right, but I can’t help it when I snap, practically sobbing, “Yes, for fuck’s sake. Yes. Now.”

And then he pushes into me, and his hand comes over my mouth to muffle the scream that flies out of it, and he’s so big and I’m so full, and my body is on fire, everywhere he touches me.

He leans down to kiss me again, and his tongue thrusts against mine in time with his hips, and I’m vicious, my fingernails digging into his back. When his hand reaches down between my legs and he circles my clit as he rocks into me, a warm, building sensation starts in my toes and spreads through me until suddenly, I detonate, fracturing around him in a million sharp-edged pieces, and sobbing his name, totally stunned by the force of my own orgasm.

“Fuck, Cynthie, fuck,” Jack groans. “So good.” And then, pressing his face into the side of my neck to stifle his own exclamation, he follows me over the edge. The two of us lie, shuddering for air, suspended from reality, while there is only this: his mouth on me, my hands on him.

Eventually, I come back to myself. Floating back from wherever I went, to settle in my body, and I’m aware that the floor is hard and cold underneath my back, and that Jack is hard and warm on top of me. I touch a shaking hand to my mouth, tasting blood.

Jack lifts his head and looks down at me. His cheeks are pink, his hair stands on end, and I realize the blood in my mouth is his, that I’ve bitten his lip that hard. His expression is one of absolute shock.

“I…” he starts, but he clearly doesn’t know what to say next.

I push my palm against his chest. “Maybe you could get off me,” I suggest. My voice is uneven.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Jack looks down at where our naked bodies are still joined, and his eyes widen, darting up to meet mine. “Oh, shit,” he whispers, and I come to the same realization at the same time. “I’m so sorry, Cyn… I didn’t… We didn’t…”

“I’m on the pill,” I croak. “And I get tested.”

“Okay.” He nods, his eyes drifting closed. “Me too. Get tested I mean. And I’ve never… I mean not without protection before.”

“Me neither,” I manage.

“But I should have checked, before,” he says, and he sounds angry. This time, fortunately, I realize it’s with himself. “I can’t believe I just…” He looks down at me again, sighs, his expression troubled, and then he eases off of me.

I feel alarmingly naked. Like a whole new level of nakedness exists without the warmth of Jack’s body on mine. He grabs his pajamas and pulls them on, before handing me some kitchen towel so that I can clean myself up.

This is the moment when it fully sinks in that I just had sex with Jack Turner-Jones on the kitchen floor where absolutely anyone could have walked in on us, and the insanity of it is dazzling.

What the hell is wrong with me? And why, why, why did the first orgasm I have ever had with another person have to be courtesy of someone I can’t even stand? God, my ears are still ringing.

Fortunately, it turns out my own pajamas are indeed still in one piece, and I waste no time in putting them back on. Then Jack and I stand across from each other once more.

“So… that happened,” I say.

Jack’s mouth pulls up on one side. I try not to think about kissing it, about how the desire I feel for him hasn’t been tempered at all—that it’s worse than ever. Because of course it is. I want to scream at myself. It’s like I’ve never read a romance novel before—just once to get it out of our systems? That shit notoriously never works. I want to hurl myself at him and wrap my body around his like a vine.

I am so fucked.

I think Jack might be reaching a similar conclusion because his expression grows wary.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” I say before he can. I can’t face another rejection like last night, but the words suck all the air out of the room.

His eyes shutter, and he takes a step back. He rubs a hand absently over his chest. “No,” he says after a moment. “Probably not.”

Perversely, I realize it’s not the answer I wanted. I don’t know how to handle this. Do we still hate each other? I thought I hated him, but maybe… maybe I don’t. Maybe—and this feels like the scariest thought of all—maybe I could have very different feelings for him. If I let myself. It’s hard to concentrate when my entire being is still singing with the intensity of what we just did.

“It was a mistake. We don’t even like each other,” I say, and a pathetic part of me, one that I wish didn’t exist, hopes that he’ll disagree.

“I don’t think what we just did had much to do with liking each other,” he says instead, and he runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it back into place and undoing the work of my busy fingers. Removing the evidence.

It’s the wake-up call I needed. He’s made no secret of how unwelcome he finds the attraction between us, his words shouldn’t come as a surprise… and still, there’s a pain in my chest, still my stomach drops.

“Right,” I say hollowly. “So now we can just… pretend this didn’t happen.”

After a beat, Jack shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “Like you say, it was a mistake. It’s not as if it’s going to happen again.”