I screamed, scrambling back and pushing at his chest to get away. “Pervert!”

Elliot grabbed my waist and flipped me over as he sat up, pulling me backward into his lap and tickling me with his crazy long fingers, digging into my ribs.

I gasped and cackled, squirmed as he tickled, and laughed and held his arm around my waist until he rolled over onto me.

He pinned me gently; his hips fit perfectly between my legs.

We both froze, out of breath, staring at each other.

I was seventeen, but I’d never felt something like this before. He was hard, pressing right up against me.

The mood was suddenly completely different from the wrestle-ticklefest of one minute before.

Elliot glanced down at my mouth, and then back up to my face. I wanted to say something, to joke about the wood in his pants, anything. But my throat felt tight, my face burning.

With one elbow propped by my head, he whispered a quiet “Sorry” and began to climb off me.

I trapped him with my leg around his thigh, and his eyes flew back to mine.

“Stay,” I whispered.

I think.

It might have been my subconscious saying it, because I really didn’t want him to get up. I was obsessed with what was under those buttons on his jeans, and more than that, I wanted to know if . . . well, I wanted to know what could happen.

He swallowed audibly. “Okay.”

I rolled my hips up, watching as his mouth fell open and his eyes fell closed.

Elliot shifted forward and back, pressing the solid length of himself against me, and did it again. And again. His breath was harder, puffing my hair off my neck, and then his hand gripped my leg and he held his breath and we started grinding in earnest . . . together. My body was all instinct, chasing something familiar, just in the distance.

Oh, my God, what were we doing?

I ran my hands down his back. If I overthought it, I would ruin it.

This was Elliot.

This was my Elliot.

I made fists around his T-shirt, thought about the weirdest things like how his weight felt over me, and that I wanted to kiss him but didn’t want to turn my attention away even a little from the feeling building inside me . . . and then I spun into a strange loop of wondering whether I was imagining this.

We were having sex with our clothes on.

He was so quiet, although I guess I was quiet, too, because I was listening so intently for any clue as to what he was thinking.

I needed more. I needed him. I’d never felt that sort of weighted heat before, not even when I was thinking about him by myself. It was a rush all over my skin and that heavy need low in my belly. The warmth of his mouth landing on my neck pulled a tiny, helpless sound from me. He wasn’t sucking or licking, just pressing his mouth there, putting his breath that much closer to my ear so I could hear his reaction in every sharp exhale.