“Where are we going?” I whisper against his lips as he starts to move somewhere.

Pressing me even closer to him, he slides a hand underneath my butt. “To my room.” His voice is uneven, off-pitch, gravelly.

I link my feet behind his back as he stumbles blindly down the hallway and kicks open his bedroom door. I get lost in the kiss, the feel of his hands, the beat of his heart slamming through his chest and against mine. I get so lost I barely notice anything around me until we’re falling onto the mattress.

His solid body lands on top of me, but his arms brace the weight of his fall. He pulls back to look down at me, breathing heavily, and panic flashes in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” I ask, cupping his cheek. “We can slow down if we need to. We always can.”

“I’m fine.” He gasps for air, battling to calm down. Once he’s settled, he stares at me with strands of his hair in his eyes. “I know we can always stop, but I . . . I think I want to keep going.”

I sweep his hair out of his eyes and let my hand linger on his scruffy cheek. I’m not sure what he means. Keep going? How far? More kissing? More touching? More . . . ?

My thoughts dissipate as his lips return to mine, and he gives me a deliberate, sensual, soul-stealing kiss. His hand wanders up the bottom of my skirt, slowly, slowly, slowly. Every brush of his fingers, every caress of his tongue is deliberate, which makes every second that much more erotic. His fingers stop moving the moment they reach the hem of my panties. He never takes it farther than this, and I haven’t asked him to, even though I want to. Badly.

I gasp and wiggle below him, desperate for him to touch me more. For me to be able to touch him. Touch, touch, touch him all over. I want to touch him like he touches me.

Knowing he’ll more than likely stop me, I dare to slide my fingers down his back and fiddle with the hem of his shirt, stealing a touch. When he doesn’t budge, I test him further, delving my fingers under the fabric and caressing his bare flesh. I hold my breath, waiting for him to panic, which makes the kiss instantly turn awkward because I eventually have to suck in a huge breath.

“One . . . two . . . three,” he whispers under his breath then kisses me deeper, kisses me through the awkwardness and back into the intensity of the moment.

I’m not sure what’s up with the counting, and I don’t really care. He’s letting me touch him more than I ever have. I grasp onto the moment, inching my hands up his back and tracing a soft path up his spine. He either shakes or shivers from my touch—maybe a little bit of both.

“I can stop,” I tell him when his breathing shifts to erratic.

He takes a few measured breaths. “No . . . You’re okay. I can do this.”

I sketch a line up and down his back. “So, are you . . . ? I mean, you can touch me.” I actually blush. Yeah, I, Lyric Scott, blush. It’s something I thought would never happen, and it feels so freaking weird.

Thankfully, Ayden’s face is too close to mine to notice.

He nods, either to himself or to me, before he slips a finger into my panties. Nerves bubble in my stomach, about to burst. I try to prepare myself, but the instant he slides a finger inside me, I’m lost.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

Lost inside you.

Lost inside me.

Lost inside us.

I feel so alive.

Breathing, heart beating,

Needing, needing, needing.

I can hardly breathe,

Can hardly think

Past the pleading, pleading, pleading.

By the time I return to reality, I’m out of breath, and my pulse is soaring. Ayden is staring down at me with so much desire blazing in his eyes I barely recognize him.

“Was that okay? I mean, you don’t regret it, right?” He smooths strands of my blonde hair out of my eyes.

“No regrets at all,” I assure him breathlessly, fighting back a grin, but eventually, a smile plasters across my face.

His fingers splay across my cheek and he traces a line below my eye. “You’re so beautiful. I just . . .” He sighs and rolls off me.

“What are you doing?” I pout, rotating on my side.

He stares up at the ceiling with his arm draped across his forehead. “I just worry about you all the time. I mean, you’re so happy and outgoing, and I worry I’m going to ruin it.”

“You don’t ruin anything, and you need to stop saying that.”

“Not even when you can’t touch me?”

I roll over to him and swing my leg across him, pushing myself up and straddling him. “I can’t touch you, huh?”

His hands mold to my waist as he grasps on to me. “You know what I mean. We can’t even take our relationship further.” His cheeks redden as he looks away.

“We can’t?” I challenge, reaching for the bottom of my shirt. I lift it up and tug it over my head, shaking out my hair. “I think we take it further every day.”

His breathing speeds up as his grey eyes drink me in. “I’ve been working on some stuff to help calm me down when I’m panicking,” he whispers. “I want to get better for you.”

“Is that what the counting is about?”

He nods. “My therapists taught me some breathing exercises and stuff.”

“While I love that you’re trying, I still need you to know that it doesn’t matter to me. I want to be with you, no matter what.”

He leans up and kisses me, his hand sliding around my back. I shiver from the graze of his fingers against my flesh as he fumbles with the clasp of my bra. Once he gets it unfastened, the straps fall from my shoulders, and the cool air nips at my skin. Even though I’m pretending to be as cool as a freaking cucumber, my heart slams against my chest.