Tulsi watched the spark in Pike’s eyes kindle into a flame with equal parts fear and excitement. There was no doubt she’d captured his attention, but when he reached for her, the moment still felt surreal. She’d been fantasizing about Pike taking her in his arms for so long that when he finally did it, it felt like a dream: a scene from a movie she’d watched too many times to believe she would ever play the starring role.
But then Pike’s lips dropped to hers, the soap and grass smell of him swirled through her head, and things got very real, very fast.
Tulsi had never exchanged more than a few experimental kisses with boys during seven minutes in heaven back in junior high and was, for all practical purposes, a kiss virgin. But her response to Pike’s tongue slipping between her lips was anything but timid. She welcomed his invasion with a moan, parting her lips and pressing up on tiptoe to deepen the kiss, mating her tongue with his, tasting mint and something intoxicating that was all Pike.
He tasted like dessert for dinner and midnight on New Year’s Eve, like sinful indulgences, bright new beginnings, and impossible dreams coming true. By the time he palmed her bottom in his hands, drawing her up his body so they could kiss without Tulsi standing on tiptoe, she was thoroughly addicted. Kissing Pike was even better than she’d imagined it would be. Her body felt like a hot air balloon, soaring into the sky on the heat they generated together, and she never, ever wanted to come down to Earth.
Mercifully, it seemed he felt the same way.
“Shit, Tulsi,” he said, breath coming fast against her lips. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?”
“Hours of imagining what it would be like when you finally kissed me,” she confessed, tightening her arms around his neck. “I’ve been crazy about you since I was a kid, you big dummy.”
Pike laughed, his hazel eyes sparkling as he gazed into her face, studying her like an unexpected gift discovered beneath the Christmas tree. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep a smile from her face. “I did! I said it a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. You just weren’t listening.”
“Well, I’m listening now.” He hugged her closer, sending a thrill of awareness racing across her skin. “Can I take you out tonight? We have training early tomorrow, so I can’t stay out too late, but we could get dinner and talk, or…whatever.”
Tulsi sighed dreamily. “I would love to get dinner and talk. And definitely whatever. I want lots and lots of whatever. As much of it as I can get.”
Pike shook his head, that wonder-filled glow still lighting his face. “I really am an idiot.”
“Yes.” She laughed. “But I still like you.”
“I like you, too,” he said. “I more than like you. I just thought…”
“What?” she asked, heart still floating even when he set her back on her feet.
“I thought there was something wrong with me, thinking about you the way I did,” he confessed, his gaze shifting to the ground. “You’re Mia’s friend, and I’ve known you since you were this tiny little thing. I felt like I should be protecting you, not noticing how good you looked in your swimsuit.”
“God, Pike,” she said, her head spinning. “You don’t know how much I wanted you to notice me. Seriously, I’ve been crushing on you since I was practically a fetus.”
“That’s a long time.”
“You’re telling me,” she said, loving the way his eyes sparkled when he laughed.
“I wish I’d gotten the hint sooner,” he said, smile fading. “I’ve wasted so much time, fighting the way I feel, when I could have been kissing you, instead.”
“It’s okay.” Tulsi fought the urge to weep with relief, not wanting to ruin this perfect moment with a runny nose and red eyes. “We’ll just have to kiss more often to make up for it.”
He nodded as he drew her into his arms. “As often as you’ll let me.”
He leaned down, sealing the promise—and Tulsi’s fate—with a kiss.
While Tulsi was busy kissing him back, her heart was busy falling into Pike’s hands, where it vowed to stay until the day it stopped beating. Her most impossible dream had become a reality, proving there was no wish too big or outrageous to come true. It was like discovering the unicorns she’d loved as a kid were real. Realizing Pike Sherman cared about her as more than a friend wasthatmiraculous, that magical, and from that moment on, she was helpless to do anything but fall deeply and profoundly in love with him.
They spent the entire week together, grabbing lunch at the drive-through down the street, taking picnics out to the nearby lake for dinner, and spending hours lying on the quilt they’d spread on the hay in her aunt’s back pasture, talking, laughing, and kissing until their lips were numb. By Friday night, Tulsi was ready for more than kisses, but Pike insisted they wait. He didn’t want Tulsi to have any regrets about going too far, too fast. He wanted their first time together—her first time with anyone—to be perfect.
They parted on Sunday afternoon with promises to see each other as much as they could before Pike joined the minor league season already in progress when he graduated in June. Tulsi cried all the way back to Lonesome Point, not knowing how she was going to make it through the three weeks until his next planned visit. Now that she knew what it was like to be with Pike, living without him felt like trying to live without oxygen.
She was still in a state of deep despair when Pike surprised her the next weekend. She walked into the barn Friday afternoon after school to find him waiting with a fistful of flowers, and a plan for them to be alone. Tulsi told her parents she was going camping with friends and she and Pike took sleeping bags, the camp stove, supplies, and a bottle of sweet white wine out to the old cabin at the edge of the Hearst family’s sprawling ranch. They cooked spaghetti with meatballs, drank wine while watching the stars come out, and made love for the first time in front of the campfire with orange and yellow flames dancing across their bare skin.
Tulsi had never seen anything as beautiful as Pike without his clothes on or felt anything as earth-shattering as the way he made her feel. He touched her in all the places she’d been dying for him to touch her, kissed her until there was no place his lips hadn’t explored, and when he knelt between her legs and pushed inside her with aching slowness, the emotion in his eyes was enough to banish the brief flash of pain.
“I love you,” she whispered as he held still inside her, knowing she would never feel this close to another person in her whole life.
“I love you, too,” Pike said, his hands skimming gently up and down her ribs. “Is this okay?”