Free Firsts by Rosalie Stanton Page A

respond and turned away quickly. If he grew careless, the monsoon of emotion he'd struggled to keep at bay would break through his walls, and then they'dreally be buggered. “But I went along with it. You said it was important to you, and that was enough to make it important to me. So here we are. Because I didn't say no,here we are.”
     
    “It was supposed to be easy.”
     
    “Sex isn't easy.” Probably the dumbest thing he'd ever said, but in this case, it rang as true as anything else. Sex might be as easy as sodding pie; it seemed the emotional shite got them well and truly head fucked. Therefore he decided to stick by it.
     
    “Well, it's supposed to be!”
     
    “It can't be. Not with us.” Another lie, but why stop now? He was on a roll.
     
    To his surprise, Savannah didn't argue. But then, after a second, he realized, of course she wouldn't. Sexwasn't easy with them, not with the way things had progressed between them. She was here because of it. She'd decided to end things because of it.
     
    “Did something happen today?” he whispered. “Something that made you realize—”
     
    She held up a hand and shook her head.
     
    “No?”
     
    “It was yesterday,” she said.
     
    “Yesterday.”
     
    “Actually the night…after we talked, and I asked you to…and you agreed. Allison and I were on the phone.” Savannah sighed; it seemed half her body weight rolled off her shoulders with that sigh. “You're my best friend, Wes.”
     
    They were back toWes now.
     
    “You're mine,” he agreed softly.
     
    “That's why this was supposed to be perfect.” Her eyes had fastened on the space between their feet. “I just hadn't… God, I can't believe I'm saying this…”
     
    “Savannah?”
     
    “Not because it's unbelievable, just… It's the sort of thing girls don't do. Or aren't supposed to do. And you'd think I would've learned my lesson by now.”
     
    He didn't know why, but his heart suddenly roared.
     
    “But you've earned my honesty, and I don't want…” Savannah shook her head and met his eyes, and what Thorn saw there would have knocked him dead had he not been so certain, at that moment, he had a world of things to live for. “I've told you everything. Always have.
    And…well…”
     
    The air thickened. He wanted to prompt her but didn't dare interrupt.
     
    “Ah, what the hell? Everything's so warped now, you might as well…” Savannah licked her lips, but her gaze didn't budge. She ostensibly wanted him to see her eyes. “I realized there was a reason I asked you to do it, Wes. Beyond… You're the only person who it could've been. I…
    God, I just can't—”
     
    He couldn't help himself. “Savannah, please—”
     
    “I love you.”
     
    The space between them grew too great, the dull ringing in his ears paralyzed him, nailing his feet to the ground. A thousand different times, a thousand different ways, a thousand different places, he'd envisioned her saying those words. Nothing could compare to this, to the fulfilled wonderment that she truly stood here, in his house, looking at him with eyes that didn't lie.
    Warmth flooded his veins, spread through his fingers, and tickled its way toward his worn, long-agonized, and gun-shy heart before believing it could be real. This wasn't a dream. He would not wake up in an empty room. Savannah's eyes burned real. Her voice lived real. The words felt real.
     
    “Oh God,” he whispered. “Savannah—”
     
    “Oh God.”
     
    “You love me? You really love me?”
     
    “I can't believe I said that. Oh my God, I really said that.”
     
    “You love me?”
     
    She nodded slowly, pained, as though unable to say the words again.
     
    He'd fantasized about it yesterday when he'd buried his tongue inside her. He'd wondered in the aftermath, when she blushed and mused aloud and danced around things he'd never seen her dance around. He'd choked back the words himself a dozen times while kissing her and most forcibly when