Calmly, Carefully, Completely

  She turns and puts two fingers to her lips. A shrill whistle bursts through the air. Link covers his ears and grins. Suddenly, a horse gallops up, barreling toward us like a streak of black-and-white lightning. Reagan shrieks when I thrust her behind me, but she’s laughing too. The horse stops a step from my feet and snorts in my face. “Motherfucker,” I breathe.

  “Motherfucker,” Link parrots.

  Oh, hell. That’s bad. I’ve got to learn to watch my mouth around the kid. “Pretty horse,” I say, and I watch Link.

  “Pretty horse,” he repeats.

  “That’s better,” I say quietly. Link nods, and he holds the bucket up so the horse can stick his nose in it.

  “This is Romeo,” Reagan says as she slips a halter over his head. She pats his sides. “He escapes all the time and goes to hang with the cows. Then Juliette gets upset and takes it out on everyone else.” She pats him but all he wants is to stick his head in the bucket. She starts to walk back toward the barn.

  I follow, careful where I step, as we walk together. She’s quiet. Hell, maybe she’s thinking about birth control. I don’t know. I’m prepared. I’m always prepared, but she’s not ready for what I want. Not even close.

  When we get to the barn, Reagan tosses the lead rope to Link and says, “Would you take him to Juliette, Link?” He nods and takes the horse, and Reagan motions for me to follow her. We walk behind the barn, and I can’t help but think of all the ways her dad would try to emasculate me if he caught us back here.

  She narrows her eyes at me and a corner of her lip kicks up. “You remember last night when you said you could have some real feelings for me?” she asks quietly.

  I nod.

  She clears her throat and her discomfort is so damn cute that I want to kiss her immediately. “Well, I want you to know that I know I have some very real feelings for you, Pete. There’s no doubt about it. So, yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared of these feelings, and my mom was being a mom and my dad was being a dad and their first thought was keeping me from getting pregnant.”

  Damn, I want to sleep with this girl, but I want so much more than just to sleep with her. “Reagan,” I say. I reach for her, and for the first time ever, she doesn’t flinch. She lets me cover her hips with my hands and pull her against me. “I’m the guy,” I say, trying not to grin. “I’ll take care of all that birth control stuff when the time is right.”

  She nods. “I know you will.” She lays her forehead against my chest, and I can feel her breath against my skin, hot and warm. “You just asked about what my mom and dad had to say. And that’s what they had to say.” She shrugs. “So I told you.” She steps up onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to against my cheek, lingering long enough for me to smell her minty toothpaste. “Don’t worry, Pete. I promise not to defile you.” She grins. But with what happened to her, that’s not the least little bit amusing.

  I groan and lay my head back, closing my eyes while I think. I can’t think while she’s looking at me.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. She steps back, and I feel the loss of her immediately. “The idea of having sex with me turns you off completely?” she whispers. “Doesn’t it?” She shakes her head. “I should have known.”

  “No,” I start, but I don’t know what to say. She steps away, and I reach for her fingertips. She turns, and I grab her shirt. She spins around, but this time she doesn’t clock me. She looks at my hand and smiles. But it’s a sad smile. It’s not what I want to see on my girl’s face. “I want you.”

  “It’s okay, Pete,” she says quietly. “Maybe I read this all wrong.” She motions from me to her and back again. “I thought we were at the same place.”

  “I’m further gone than you are,” I blurt out.

  She stops walking and looks me in the eye. “Gone?” Her green eyes blink slowly.

  “Gone. Done. Head over heels. Can’t stop thinking about you. Want to be with you all the time. Can feel you against my skin even when you’re not with me. Gone.”

  Her breaths quicken. “Oh,” she says. Her hands lay flat on my chest.

  “But I think I might be further gone than you are.” I lean down to look into her eyes. “Are you going to break my heart, Reagan?” I ask. “You’re already thinking about birth control, and it scares the fuck out of me, the very thought of getting to be inside you. Because I want you, Reagan. I want every piece of you.”

  “Even the shattered pieces?” she asks.

  I bracket her face with my hands and pull her face up to mine. “I’ll be the glue that puts you back together,” I breathe. “I’ve been locked up a long time, Reagan,” I say.

  “I’ve been locked up even longer than you have, Pete,” she says, her voice heavy with emotion. She swallows.

  “Don’t give me hope unless you’re sure,” I plead.

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she says. She wraps her hands around my neck and pulls my head down to hers and kisses me. Her lips are soft and warm and insistent, and when her tongue touches mine, I almost come in my pants. I break away from her because I can’t take much more. She looks into my eyes. “I’m not ready for sex yet, Pete,” she says. “But I’m closer than I was. I feel like you’ve unlocked the door to my future. Now I just need for you to walk through it with me. So, quit being so fucking scared you’re going to hurt me, Pete. And just like me. And then someday, maybe you’ll love me.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. I chuckle quietly. “I’m glad you had the birth control talk with your mom,” I say. “My brother Paul shoved condoms at me as I was going out the door to come here. I don’t know who he thought I’d screw at a camp for boys.”

  Her face goes rosy red.

  “I mean, not screw. Well, if it wasn’t you, it would be screwing.” Shit. I’m fucking this all up. With her, it’s going to be so much more than screwing. “That’s what scares me, princess. I’ve never done what I want to do with you.”

  “You’ve done it lots of times,” she says with a breezy wave.

  I shake my head. “No, I haven’t.” I look her in the eye. “Now you think about what that means and be sure you’re ready for it.”

  I turn and go back to Juliette and take her lead rope. My fucking legs are shaking, and I can barely breathe. If this is what love feels like, I’m glad it waited until I was old enough to understand it.

  Reagan

  Maggie’s not feeling well again, and I hear her wretch from across the room. “Mags,” I say. But it’s too late. She tosses her kibble all over my bedroom floor. I rub her head. She’s still pretty spry for her age, but she’s been throwing up for the past few weeks. I’m going to have to take her to the vet to see what’s up. I clean her mess, and hunker down with a wet cloth to scrub the carpet. But there’s a knock on my door. “Come in,” I call absently.

  The door opens, and my heart leaps into my throat when I see Pete standing there. It’s late. “Pete,” I say, as I look up from the puke spot. “I was just…” Are you supposed to talk about puking with a man? Probably not. “Maggie got sick,” I finally say.

  “Need some help?” he asks. He walks toward me and drops down.

  “I think I’ve done just about all I can do with the floor.” I look down at my pajamas and cross my arms in front of my chest. I don’t even have on a bra.

  Pete grins and looks away like a gentleman. I’m wearing a tank top and tiny shorts that my dad would freak out if he saw. I’m not even allowed to leave my room when I’m wearing them. I go into the bathroom and wash my hands really quick. I walk back out and find Pete looking around my room. He touches a music box on my dresser. He opens the top, and a ballet dancer stands up and twirls around to the tune of a song. He smiles and looks over his shoulder at me. “It’s pretty,” he says. “Kind of like you.” His eyes roam down my body, and he licks his lips.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  He startles for a second. “I wanted to see you. Your mom said I could come up.”

  That make
s me smile. “Does my dad know you’re here?”

  He shakes his head. “He wasn’t downstairs.”

  I have a feeling that Dad wouldn’t like Pete being in my room. Particularly with the way I’m dressed. “If I’d known it was you, I would have dressed,” I try to explain. My gaze skitters to the bed, where a hoodie lies balled up. I usually sleep in it, and I pull it over my head and down past my hips.

  Pete’s eyes narrow at me. “That sweatshirt looks familiar,” he says. His eyes grow wide. “Is that the one I gave you that night?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah.” I kept it. And I love it. “Do you want it back?”

  He grins. “If it means you’re going to take it off, then hell yeah, I want it back.”

  Heat creeps up my face. I reach to pull it over my head, and I close my eyes to do it, but suddenly, Pete stops my motion with his hands.

  “I was just kidding,” he says. “Keep it.”

  I nod and tug it back down over my hips.

  “I’m surprised you still want it, considering how you ended up with it.” His brow furrows.

  “You’re the only good thing that happened to me that night, Pete,” I say.

  He opens his mouth to say something but shuts it quickly.

  “I sleep in it.” I lift the neckline to my nose. “It used to smell like you, until my mom made me wash it.” I have a small futon in my room, and I motion toward it. “Do you want to sit down?” I ask.

  He nods, but he has gone back to assessing my room. He drags his fingertips down the winning horseback-riding ribbons that line my mirror. I sit down and cross my feet under me. I stick a pillow into the space and rest my elbows on it. Pete wanders toward my bathroom and sticks his head inside. “I think your room is bigger than our whole apartment,” he says.

  I don’t know what to say to that, so I say nothing.

  “When you go back to school, will you be in the dorm?” He sits down on the other end of the futon. He turns to face me, and his knee brushes mine. I like it, so I inch closer.

  “I have an apartment across from campus,” I say. “Dad didn’t want me in the dorm, and I wanted to take Maggie back and forth with me after what happened.” Maggie hears her name and wanders toward me, slipping her nose beneath my hand. I absently rub her head. “I don’t like to be alone at night.”

  Pete makes a kissy noise with his mouth, and Maggie wanders toward him. She’s wary, but she’s not afraid. He lets her sniff his hand and touches the top of her head gingerly. She pushes herself into his path, and he scratches behind her ears.

  “You trying to win over my dog?” I ask. But secretly, I love that Maggie trusts him. She has good instincts, much better than mine.

  “Trying?” he scoffs. “Succeeding,” he says with a grin. Maggie hops up on her back legs to put herself in his lap. He leans back and pats his leg, and she hops up to sit on him, between us. He pets her head. “You look pretty in my hoodie,” he says to me.

  My face is probably scarlet, with the way that he’s making my face flush. “Thank you,” I breathe.

  “I like the idea that my hoodie has been all over your body while you sleep,” he says. His voice is suddenly gravelly and thick. His gaze lingers on my legs, but he doesn’t reach for me or try to get me to come closer. He just keeps petting my dog, who is all but upside down as she tries to give him her belly.

  I swallow hard, my heartbeat thick and heavy. I clear my throat, and he just looks at me from behind hooded lashes.

  “So, what do you want to do?” he asks.

  Honestly, I want to kiss him. “Is this a date?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “This is me coming to visit you for a few minutes because I wanted to see you and inviting myself to stay for a while.” Maggie flips over, and Pete laughs. “You’re a pushover,” he says to my dog.

  “She’s a dangerous beast,” I say with a laugh.

  “As long as she protects you, she can be as beastly as she likes.”

  “Fine job she’s doing of that right now,” I grumble.

  “Dogs like me. Because I’m a good person.” His lids lower, though, and he licks his lips again.

  I tug the hoodie lower over my hips. “Stop looking at me like that,” I whisper, my voice cracking.

  “I would, if I thought you really wanted me to,” he says. He jerks his head. “Come here,” he says quietly.

  I shake my head, but a grin tugs at my lips. “Nope,” I say.

  He jerks his head. “Come here,” he says again. “Please?”

  I smile at him. I can’t help it. “What do I get if I come over there?” I ask.

  “Come here and find out,” he says.

  My heart thuds. What should I do? Should I stay? Should I go? I feel like there’s an invisible tether between us, and he gives it a tug when he lifts his hand and crooks his finger at me, beckoning me forward.

  I give Maggie a gentle shove to get her off his lap. Because I suddenly want to be there. I want to snuggle against him and wrap myself in his warmth. Maggie hits the floor and blows out a breath as she flops at his feet. And I crawl toward him on my hands and knees.

  Pete

  One minute, the dog is in my lap, and the next Reagan is heading toward it. She’s so fucking pretty as she crawls across the couch that she takes my breath away. One palm lands on my knee and the other on my thigh. She bites her lower lip between her teeth as she looks up at me. I brush her hair back from her forehead and look at her. I really look at her. She’s trembling. Her hand shakes against my knee, so I cover it with mine. Her eyes meet mine. “I’m all right,” she whispers.

  “I know you are,” I say, and I slowly and gently pick her up and flip her over so that her bottom is in my lap, and her legs lie toward the empty end of her futon. I try not to move too fast because this is all so new to her and I know it. “I think I’m the one who’s scared,” I admit, my voice quavering. I clear my throat.

  Her brow furrows. “Why?” she whispers. She lays her forearm on my shoulder, and her fingers absently tickle the hair at the back of my neck. I can’t even think when she touches me.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” I say.

  Her face flushes, and I can tell she took that the wrong way. A laugh bursts from my throat. “I meant come across the couch toward me, doofy,” I say, and I reach up to tweak her nose. I lean toward her and kiss her quickly on the cheek. “Although,” I say. I have to stop and clear my throat again. I drop my voice down to a whisper. “When you came with my hand in your panties, that surprised me, too.”

  Her breaths aren’t falling naturally now. They’re a little more hurried, and her cheeks are all rosy. I run my hand up the outside of her thigh, all the way up her leg because she’s wearing those crazy-tiny little shorty-shorts. “How do you think I felt?” she asks. She laughs, and it’s the prettiest sound I’ve ever heard. I can feel her words against my cheek, she’s that close to me. They’re hot and humid and all Reagan.

  I jostle her in my lap with a bump of my knee. “Tell me how you felt,” I prompt. I want to know everything.

  Her brow arches. “You mean, when we were doing that?” she asks.

  I nod and slide my hand around the top of her thigh, tracing the line of those shorts, which really means that I’m tracing the crease of her inner thigh. Her legs part ever so slightly, and my heart thrills at the way she responds to me.

  She hesitates for no more than second. Then she starts to talk. “I was angry,” she says. “Chase was an ass all night long, and then he touched me and I actually thought about walking away from him, but he was so damn smug. It wasn’t completely a knee-jerk reaction when I hit him. It was me being pissed off and hitting him just because I could. Just because he deserved it. Then I stole his car and came home, and he showed up. But then you were there. I knew you were there in the bushes. And I knew you’d seen me come home with my clothes all messed up, and I was afraid you’d think the worst.”

  “The worst?” I ask. Her legs part a little far
ther, and her mouth opens on a heavy sigh as I trace her inner thigh. I want to pull her shorts off and drag her panties down her legs. Then I want to touch my mouth to all of her wet girly parts and lick her until she comes on my face. But her parents are downstairs.

  “You were afraid I’d kissed him?” she asks.

  I don’t respond because I’m too busy sliding my fingers beneath her shorts to trace the line of her panties. “Uh huh,” I mutter.

  “I thought about it,” she says. “I kind of wanted to get it over and done with.”

  I look up. Did she really just say that? “Over and done with?” I ask.

  She winces. “You make me feel these…feelings, Pete. And I don’t know what to do with them all or where they came from. And that scares the crap out of me, that I can be like this with you without even having to calm myself down or work to push my feelings into the corner of my mind. So, I kind of wanted to test it with Chase. But when he touched me, I didn’t feel anything.”

  “Did he scare you?”

  She shakes her head. “Not really. He was an ass. And I knew it before I went out with him. But then he grazed my boob, and my skin began to crawl. It wasn’t like when you touch me at all. So it made me think. It made me want to come back here to you. But I figured I should probably finish out the night. But then he touched my boob again and laughed about it, and I hit him. It wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction. I meant to hit him.” She winces again. “I feel kind of bad about that.”

  I just realized I stopped tracing her panties when she started to talk about this, and I look into her eyes. “So you didn’t freak out. You hit him on purpose?” She has no idea how fucking happy this makes me.

  “Yeah,” she admits. But she’s not smiling. She’s laboring over this a little. “But then you came into the barn and asked me if I kissed him. I couldn’t lie to you.” She turns my face to hers and looks into my eyes. “You’re the only one I want to kiss, Pete. You’re the only one I want to be with. You’re the only one I want to hold me and touch me.” She waves a hand in front of her face like a fan. “God, it’s getting hot in here,” she says.