I’m not.
I’ve had my fair share of lovers, more than my fair share of sex, and I’ve yet to hear a single complaint about the way my dick and I do business.
My devotion to my little sister, my work addiction, and my obsession with keeping my sock drawer organized—I like to know where each kind of sock is at a moment’s notice, so sue me—have all come up for critique.
But sex? Not a problem.
I’m all good in the bedroom.
And up until the moment Harlow kicks the bedroom door closed behind her, taking a moment to strip off her sweater before launching herself back into my arms, I’ve never experienced a moment of anxiety about doing the deed. Not even when I was a virgin myself.
Katy was a senior in high school, I was a sophomore, and I happily let her tell me exactly what she wanted me to do until my own instincts kicked in. When they did, her clear directions and my own enthusiasm for making women scream my name mid-orgasm, did the rest.
But now…
I’m fucking sweating, my heart is slamming against my ribs, and the words “Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fucking fuck this up,” are playing on endless repeat in my head as we kiss our way across the room to the bed.
Finally, when it feels like I’m about to choke on the lump rising in my throat, I pull back, cupping Harlow’s face as I breathe, “I need a second.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Her breath is coming faster, too, making it impossible not to glance at her full breasts, fetchingly heaving up and down above her black satin bra.
“God, no,” I say, with a tight laugh. “I just don’t want to do something wrong.”
She blinks faster, seeming confused for a moment before her expression softens. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous.”
“No,” I scoff. “Nervous? About what?”
“I don’t know. Being my first peen, maybe?” She rolls her eyes. “But if that’s it, you don’t have to be stressed. I have an incredibly high pain tolerance, and I’m already so wet you could probably bend me over the bureau and nail me from behind, and I’d be just fine.”
“But I don’t want to nail you from behind,” I say. “I mean, eventually, yes, I want to do that. I want to do that a whole lot, but not the first time.”
“Then let’s fuck,” she says, moving in for another kiss.
I step back, and even I can’t really say why.
I want to keep kissing and more than kissing her. Hell, yes, I do. But I don’t want it like this. I don’t want it so…casual.
“Fuck,” I mutter, as the reason for my crisis of faith hits like a ton of bricks.
“Yes, that,” she says, tension pinching the skin around her eyes. “You still want to do that…right?”
“No, I don’t,” I confess, a goddamned storm raging inside of me as my cock and my heart duke it out over whether or not this is the time to bare my soul. But my heart wins. I have a feeling it always will when it comes to Harlow. “I want to do something more intimate and meaningful than that.”
Her brows snap together and her bottom lip pokes out in a way that would be comical if I weren’t on the verge of fucking up the one thing I’m dying not to fuck up. “If you tell me you want to make love to me, I’m leaving. No, I’m going to barf on your shoes first, and then I’m leaving.”
My lips twitch. “Why? What’s so gross about that?”
“Firstly, it’s the corniest phrase ever. Secondly, gag. And thirdly, we aren’t in love. So, it would be a lie, and the only thing worse than a corny truth is a corny lie.”
I wrap my arm around her, keeping my eyes locked on hers as I draw her slowly, intimately against me. She pulls in a breath and holds it, but she doesn’t pull away. “Okay. But I think you’re beautiful and smart and funny and you keep me on my fucking toes like nobody ever has. And I want this to be amazing for you because of all those reasons, but also because…I care about you. I have warm, achy-chest feelings about you, Harlow. If you don’t like that or you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. But I’m not going to lie to you about the way I feel or anything else. So maybe we could make up a new phrase? Just for us? Maybe we could…make sweet and sexy friendship to each other?”
Her lips press into a thin white line.
“Okay, a hard no on that one,” I say, with a tight laugh. “Make fun to each other? Make special—”
“Stop.” She puts her fingers to my lips and pulls in a breath. It’s only when it shudders out, sending a tear sliding down her cheek that I realize she’s crying. I’m about to apologize and beg for a redo from the moment I opened my stupid mouth, when she says, “I feel that way about you, too. But I’m scared of it, Derrick.”