“You coming to bed, Calliope?” he called from the bed, breaking me out of my thoughts but never looking away from the phone in his hands.

I drug my feet across the ugly-as-shit brown shag carpet as I made my way to the bed while I tried to psych myself up. We were just sleeping like we had for the past eight days, right? It was nothing to get all bent out of shape about. Just me and Asa, camping out… but this time with a pillow top mattress and five hundred thread count sheets.

Fuck.

I wasn’t a virgin, and I wasn’t worried about that aspect of our relationship. I also wasn’t freaked out because we were sleeping together—we’d been doing that for over a week. It was the mixture of sleeping together in an actual bed, surrounded by household goods that we’d bought together, and the knowledge that we’d never have to be careful or sneaky about what we were doing. For the first time, I was completely without guidance or rules—and for some reason that made me anxious. Beyond anxious.

“We’re not having sex,” I blurted out as soon as I’d climbed into what I guessed was now “my side” of the bed. Fuck, it was getting weirder by the minute!

“Uh, did I ask for sex?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“No. I mean, well, you seem like you want to and everything, but, no, not tonight. You haven’t said anything tonight,” I was babbling, trying to get my point across, and I was doing what my dad would call a “piss poor” job.

He scooted down in bed and set his phone on the floor, mumbling about how we needed bedside tables, before rolling back toward me and gesturing with his hand.

“Come here, Sugar.”

“Why don’t I just stay here?” I asked, my spine straight as a ruler against the headboard.

“Calliope, it wasn’t a question,” he rumbled back, his voice coming out deeper than it had before.

With a huff that I made sure he heard, I hopped out of bed and shut off the light, then crawled in next to him. As soon as I was within reach, he rolled me to my side and spooned his body against the back of mine.

“We’re not having sex anytime soon, Callie,” he told me gently, and then squeezed his arm around me as I tried to bolt.

“Baby, I’ve got blue balls like you would not believe.” He moved his hips against my ass, grinding for a second until I could feel him, and I held my breath as I waited for what he’d say next, hoping he would keep moving. “You’ve had a ton of shit happen in very little time, Calliope. We’re not gonna add fuckin’ each other’s brains out to that long list of shit.”

He couldn’t see me as I opened my mouth to argue, but he must have felt my head move, because he cut me off before I could say a word.

“Let me finish. I want you like hell on fire—I see you bending over to put shit in cupboards and my dick gets so hard I can’t fuckin’ think straight. But, baby, I don’t wanna fuck you up worse than you’ve already been fucked. Shit is crazy for you right now, and you’re sixteen years old. Sixteen. I’ve known sixteen-year-olds that live with their man and they’re happy as hell with that life—but those girls came from shit lives that they were trying to get away from and they were more grown up than most middle-aged men. That’s not you. Less than two weeks ago you were fuckin’ grounded for staying out past your curfew. You had parents that loved you and coddled you.”

By the time he finished speaking, I was pissed. I rolled over and got in his face to bitch at him for making me seem like an immature brat—but I hadn’t counted on the smell of his minty and smoke flavored breath or how close our faces would become. Instead of pitching a fit like I’d intended, I found myself diving toward his mouth as if to prove him wrong.

I licked into his mouth and was instantly wrapped in his arms and rolled so I was on top of him. I thought he was only rolling me off the arm that had become trapped underneath me, so he could use both arms to push me away, but the minute I was on top of him I moved my knees up his sides until I was straddling and grinding into his hips.

I felt the moment he gave up the fight.

It was the same moment that I gained the euphoric feeling of oblivion from everything else.

He growled down my throat as his hands began to move over the curves of my body. One hand slipped inside the t-shirt I was wearing to wrap around my breast and the other slid to the bottom of the shorts I wore to bed. My hands were braced above his shoulders, holding my weight, and I groaned, my elbows almost buckling when his fingers found my nipple and pinched it lightly.

I was a frenzy of movement the more turned on I got, and I arched my hips even harder into his, trying to get the friction I needed—then he made a sound in his throat like I’d punched him. His hands slid out of my shirt, causing me to whimper and push even harder, but he suddenly grabbed my hips and practically shoved me back, ripping his face from mine.

“Jesus Christ, Callie! You’re gonna push my balls into my throat!” he winced, gasping for air.

I’d had sex in that position before, and I thought I knew what I was doing, so his words were like a splash of ice water to my face.

I sat back hard on my heels in shock before shame swamped me and all I wanted to do was get as far away from him as I could. I thought it was dark enough in the bedroom that I had a little protection—but he must have seen the look of horror on my face, because before I could make my legs move to scramble off him, he sat up straight and wrapped his arms around my back.