Random guy: Tate, you want to have sex?

Me: Sure. Let me finish up with these two guys, and I’ll be right over. By the way, I don’t have any rules, so anything goes.

Random guy: Awesome.

Fifteen minutes pass, and the television finally switches off. As soon as the door to Corbin’s bedroom closes, mine opens. I’m across the living room and slipping out the front door and then bumping into Miles, who is standing in the hallway.

“Good timing,” he says.

He’s holding a bag. He moves it to his other hand so it’s not as visible to me.

“After you, Tate,” he says, pushing open his door.

No, Miles. I follow. That’s how it is with us. You’re solid, I’m liquid. You part the waters, I’m your wake.

“You thirsty?” He walks toward his kitchen, but I’m not sure if I can follow him this time. I don’t know how to do this, and I’m scared he’ll notice that I’ve never had a rule number one or two before. If the past and the future are off limits, that only leaves the present, and I have no idea what to do in the present.

I walk to the kitchen in the present. “What do you have?” I ask him.

The bag is on the counter now, and he sees me eyeing it, so he pushes it aside, out of my view.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I have it,” he says.

“Orange juice.”

He grins, then reaches toward the bag. He pulls out a container of orange juice, and the simple fact that he even thought about it is testament to his generosity. It’s also testament that it doesn’t take much to make me melt. I should tell him my one rule has just become Stop doing things that make me want to break your rules.

I take the orange juice from him with a smile. “What else is in the bag?”

He shrugs. “Stuff.”

He watches me open the juice. He watches me take a drink of the juice. He watches me put the lid back on the juice. He watches me set the juice on his kitchen counter, but he doesn’t watch me closely enough to notice how fast I can lunge for the bag.

I grab it right before his arms wrap around my waist.

He’s laughing. “Put it back, Tate.”

I open it and look inside.

Condoms.

I laugh and toss it back onto the counter. When I turn around, his arms don’t leave me. “I really want to say something inappropriate or embarrassing, but I can’t think of anything. Just pretend I did and laugh anyway.”

He doesn’t laugh, but his arms are still around me. “You’re so weird,” he says.

“I don’t care.”

He smiles. “This whole thing is weird.”

He’s telling me how weird this is, but it feels pretty damn good to me. I’m not sure if weird feels good or bad to him. “Is weird good or bad?”

“Both,” he says. “Neither.”

“You’re weird,” I tell him.

He grins. “I don’t care.”

He moves his hands up my back, to my shoulders, and slowly down my arms until his hands are touching mine.

That reminds me.

I pull his hand between us. “How’s your hand?”

“Fine,” he says.

“I should probably check it out tomorrow,” I say.

“I won’t be here tomorrow. I leave in a few hours.”

Two thoughts cross my mind. One, I’m very disappointed he’s leaving tonight. Two, Why am I here if he’s leaving tonight?

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t sleep now.”

“You didn’t even try,” I say. “You can’t fly a plane on no sleep, Miles.”

“The first flight is short. Besides, I’m copilot. I’ll sleep on the plane.”

Sleep isn’t on his agenda. Tate is.

Tate overrules sleep on his agenda.

I wonder what else Tate overrules?

“So,” I whisper as I drop his hand. I pause, because I don’t have anything to follow the So. Nothing. Not even a la-ti-do.

It’s quiet.

It’s getting awkward.

“So,” he says. His fingers move through mine and spread them apart. My fingers like his fingers.

“Do you want to know how long it’s been for me, since I know such an intimate detail about you?” I ask him.

It’s only fair, considering my entire family knows how long it’s been for him.

“No,” he says simply. “But I do want to kiss you.”

Hmm. Not sure how to take that, but I’m not about to analyze his no when it’s followed up with a statement like that.

“Then kiss me,” I say.

His fingers leave mine and move to the sides of my head, and he holds me still. “I hope you taste like orange juice again.”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

I count the words in that last sentence, then search around in my head for a place to store those eight words forever. I want to hide them in a mind drawer and label it Things to pull out and read when his stupid rule number two becomes a sad and lonely present.

Miles is in my mouth. He’s invading me again. I shut the mind drawer and get out of my head and come back to him.

Invade me, invade me, invade me.

I must taste like orange juice, because he’s certainly acting as though he’s enjoying the taste. I must enjoy tasting him, too, because I’m pulling him to me, kissing him, doing my best to infiltrate him with nothing but Tate.

He pulls away to catch his breath and speak. “I forgot how good this feels.”

He’s comparing me. I don’t like that he’s comparing me to whoever else once made him feel this good.

“Want to know something?” he says.

I do. I want to know everything, but for some reason, I pick this moment to get revenge on that one word he spoke to me.

“No.” I pull him back to my mouth. He doesn’t kiss me back right away, because he doesn’t know what to think about what just happened. His mouth catches up pretty quickly, though. I think he hated my clipped response as much as I hated his, and now he’s using his hands to get his own revenge. I can’t tell where he’s touching me, because as soon as he touches me in one spot, his hands move to another. He’s touching me everywhere, nowhere, not at all, all at once.

My favorite part about kissing Miles is the sound. The sound of his lips when they close over mine. The sound of our breaths being swallowed by each other. I love the way he groans when our bodies join together. Guys usually tend to hold back their sounds more than girls do.

Not Miles. Miles wants me, and he wants me to know it, and I love that.

God, I love that.

“Tate,” he mutters against my mouth. “Let’s go to my bedroom.”

I nod, so he pulls away from my mouth. He reaches across the bar to get the box of condoms. He begins walking with me to his bedroom, but he quickly walks back into the kitchen and grabs the orange juice. When he shoulders past me to lead the way to his bedroom, he winks.

The way that one little wink makes me feel leaves me terrified about what it’ll feel like once he’s inside me. I don’t know if I can survive it.

Once we’re in his bedroom, I begin to grow apprehensive. Mostly because this is his place, and this whole situation is pretty much on his terms, and I feel a little bit at a disadvantage.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. He’s slipping off his shoes. He walks to the bathroom and flips off the light, then closes the door.

“I just got kind of nervous,” I whisper. I’m standing in the middle of his bedroom, knowing exactly what’s about to happen. Usually, these things aren’t discussed and prearranged like this. They’re spontaneous and heated, and neither party knows what’s happening until it happens.

But Miles and I both know what’s about to happen.

He walks to the bed and sits on the edge of it. “Come here,” he says. I smile, then walk a few feet to where he’s seated. He cups the backs of my thighs, then presses his lips to the T-shirt covering my stomach. My hands fall to his shoulders, and I look down at him. He’s looking up at me, and the calmness in his eyes is contagious.

“We can go slow,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be tonight. That wasn’t one of the rules.”

I laugh, but I also shake my head. “No, it’s fine. You’re leaving in a few hours and won’t be back for, what, five days?”

“Nine this time,” he says.

I hate that number.

“I don’t want to make you wait nine days after getting your hopes up,” I say.

His hands slide up the backs of my thighs and come around to the front of my jeans. He flicks the button open effortlessly.

“Being able to imagine doing this with you is in no way torture for me,” he says as his fingers touch my zipper. He begins to pull it down, and my heart is hammering away in my chest so hard it feels like it’s building something. Maybe my heart is building a stairway for himself all the way to heaven, since he knows he’ll explode and die the second these jeans slide off.

“It’ll for sure be torture for me,” I whisper.

My zipper is undone, and his hand is sliding inside my jeans. He pushes his hand around to my hip, then begins to tug them off.

I close my eyes and try not to sway, but his other hand has lifted up my shirt just enough for his lips to press against my stomach. It’s overwhelming.

Both his hands slip inside my jeans now, around to my backside. He pushes my jeans down slowly until they’re around my knees. His tongue meets my stomach, and my hands get lost in his hair.

When my jeans are finally around my ankles, I step out of both them and my shoes at the same time. His hands slide back up my thighs and to my waist. He pulls me to him so that I’m straddling him. He adjusts my legs on either side of him, then cups my rear and pulls me flush against him. I gasp.

I don’t know why it seems like I’m the inexperienced one here. I certainly expected him to be a little less take-charge, but I’m not complaining.

Not at all.

I lift my arms for him when he attempts to pull off my shirt. He throws it to the floor behind me, and his lips reconnect with mine as his hands work the clasp of my bra.

It’s not fair. I’m about to be left with one article of clothing, and he hasn’t removed anything yet.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, pulling back to slide off my bra. His fingers slip beneath the straps, and he begins to slide them down my arms. I’m holding my breath, waiting for him to take it off. I want his mouth on me so bad I can’t think straight. When the bra lowers, revealing all of me, he exhales. “Wow,” he says with shaky breath.

He tosses the bra onto the floor and looks back up at me. He smiles and briefly presses his lips to mine, kissing them softly. When he pulls back, he brings his hands up to my cheeks and looks me in the eyes. “You having fun?”

I bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling as much as I want to smile right now. He leans forward and takes my lip into his mouth, pulling it away from my teeth. He kisses it for a few seconds, then releases it. “Don’t bite that again,” he says. “I like seeing you smile.”

Of course, I smile again.

My hands are on his shoulders, so I slide them lower on his back and begin to tug on his shirt. He releases my face and lifts his arms so I can take it off of him. I lean back and take him in, just as he’s taking me in right now. I run my hands over his chest, touching every contour of every muscle. “You’re beautiful, too.”

He presses his palms into my back, urging me to sit up straight. As soon as I do, he lowers his mouth to my breast and softly glides his tongue across my nipple. I moan, and he covers it with his mouth completely.

One of his hands moves to my hip and slides beneath the hem of my underwear. “I want you on your back,” he whispers. He keeps one hand on my back as he seamlessly switches positions, pulling me from his lap to his bed. He’s bent over me now, pulling on my underwear as his tongue dips inside my mouth. My hands immediately fall to the button on his jeans, and I unbutton them, but he pulls away quickly. “I wouldn’t do that yet,” he warns. “Otherwise this will be over faster than it started.”

I kind of don’t care how long it lasts. I just really want his clothes off of him.

He begins to slide my underwear off of me. He bends one of my legs and slips it off my foot, then does the same to the other. He’s definitely not looking me in the eyes anymore.

He allows my legs to fall back to the bed as he stands up straight and backs two feet away from me.

“Wow,” he whispers, staring down on me. He’s just standing here, staring at me as I lie na**d on his bed, while he’s still in the comfort of his jeans.

“This feels a little unfair,” I say.

He shakes his head and pulls his fist against his mouth, biting his knuckles. He turns around until his back is to me and takes a long, deep breath. He faces me again, scrolling up the length of my body until he meets my eyes. “It’s too much, Tate.”

I feel the disappointment seep in with his words. He’s still shaking his head, but he’s walking to the nightstand. He picks up the box of condoms and opens it, then pulls one out and puts it between his teeth, ripping it open.

“I’m sorry,” he says, frantically stepping out of his jeans. “I wanted this to be good for you. I wanted it to be memorable, at least.” He’s out of his jeans now. He’s looking me in the eyes, but I’m finding it hard to keep eye contact with him, because now his boxers are off. “But if I’m not inside you in two seconds, this is going to be really embarrassing for me.”

He walks swiftly to me and somehow slides the condom on at the same time as he’s pushing my knees apart with his other hand. “I’ll make it up to you in a few minutes. Promise,” he says, pausing between my legs, waiting for my approval.

“Miles,” I say, “I don’t care about any of that. I just want you inside me.”

“Thank God.” He sighs. He takes my leg behind the knee with his right hand, and then his lips meet mine. He thrusts himself inside me so unexpectedly hard and fast I practically scream into his mouth. He doesn’t stop to ask me if it hurts. He doesn’t slow down. He pushes harder and deeper until there isn’t any way we could possibly get any closer.

It does hurt but in the best possible way.

I’m moaning into his mouth, and he’s groaning against my neck, and his lips are everywhere, along with his hands. It’s rough. It’s carnal and heavy and hot, and it’s not quiet at all. It’s fast, and I can tell by the tensing of his back beneath my hands that he was right. This won’t take him long.

“Tate,” he breathes. “God, Tate.”