Free True by Erin McCarthy Page B

were direct enough to scare me. For a week his attention to me had been escalating, and was unexplained. Friendship? Or future bed buddy? There had been teasing innuendos, but never forthright, never totally obvious. Any of them could have been explained as a joke. Now here it was, his moving from friendly study buddy to flirt with a purpose.
    When he moved closer to me, head descending toward mine, hand slipping around my waist, I panicked. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m planning on kissing you. If that’s okay.”
    “I haven’t decided,” I answered truthfully, backing up a little and sinking into puffy coats as I retreated to gather my thoughts.
    His amusement came out in a soft exhalation and he smiled. “Rory, you seriously kill me. I don’t know a single other girl who would have answered like that.”
    Tell me about it. “I’m sorry. But it’s the truth.”
    “I don’t want you to be sorry. I
like
that about you.” His hand slipped inside his jacket, to touch the small of my back, gently urging me to move forward toward him. “But you know what I do want?”
    “What?” Though I could take an educated guess.
    “I want you to kiss me.”
    “And that’s it? Because I can’t promise anything else.” I wanted to be clear on that point. I wasn’t sure how far I was willing to go, and in a world where sex partners were passed out and around like a mutual pack of cigarettes, I didn’t want to find myself in a situation I wasn’t cool with.
    “That’s it. For now, anyway. But don’t worry. Only what you want, I promise.”
    Though his eyes seemed to indicate that I would want a whole lot by the time he was done with me.
    “What about Jessica?” I asked, because it also seemed important to hear his feelings on my roommate. The soft down of the coats was surrounding my shoulders, and I could feel a hook poking me in the back of the head, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. It felt safe.
    Though it didn’t feel as safe when Tyler evaporated the space between us by raising his other hand and burying it in my thick curls, his hips pressing against mine. He looked serious, his voice quiet, but firm. “Jessica and I were in agreement to use each other and now we’re in agreement to stop using each other. You heard her. She doesn’t care. We’re friends. Nothing more, nothing less.”
    I was out of rational reasons why I couldn’t do the one thing I wanted to do more than anything else. There was nothing left to discuss or negotiate, and I was well aware I was most likely the first girl who had done either. But this was it—I was in or out and the choice was mine to make.
    So I nodded. “You can kiss me.”

Chapter Six
    Something passed over his face, maybe a flash of relief, but that could have been my imagination.
    “Thank you,” he murmured, a satisfied smile in place, before his mouth descended onto mine.
    Then I couldn’t see or think. I could only feel the press of his body against me, his breath a hot rush past my ear as his lips brushed over mine. It wasn’t what I was expecting. It wasn’t a determined or aggressive or erotic kiss. It was delicate, worshipful, teasing.
    But that only made it all that much sexier. I found myself curling my fingers into the front of his Metallica shirt, needing to steady myself. The guys I’d kissed in the past, which admittedly was not exactly an extensive list, had been amateurs. Tyler was a pro. The pressure of his hand in my hair, stroking carefully, felt intimate but not demanding. His thumb moved across my waist, back and forth, back and forth, raising goose bumps on my arms under his jacket, as every inch of my body became aware of him and his mouth taking mine.
    The little kisses he started with became deeper, longer, until I was heating up from the inside out, my lips swollen, my breath frantic little bursts between moments of intense contact. He pressed me harder into the coats and I clung to him, shocked to realize that his thigh was