But Reid, he doesn’t say anything at all at first. He only plants his hand back on the mattress and bends his head to kiss me again, his hair falling over his brow to tickle pleasantly across my forehead—another soothing, delicate touch.

“Okay,” he says simply, between the kisses he presses against my mouth. For a while we get lost all over again, and I come back to my body. I don’t think of anything except how good his warm skin feels on mine, how his shoulders make me feel as if I’m under the sturdiest shelter.

“Do you like what we’re doing now?” he murmurs eventually, moving to kiss at the corner of my mouth, the line of my jaw, the skin beneath my ear.

I make a noise, something I hope comes out close to Mmmm-hmmm.

“Tell me what you like about it.” Direct, direct, direct.

“I like you above me. And I like the way you kiss me. The way you work up to it, same as you did in the park.” He does it again, now, that one, two, three pattern over my face, and I shudder out a breath, whispering to him again when he pulls his mouth away.

“I like the way you make me wait. That’s how I am—everywhere on my body, I guess. I like the anticipation.”

“Good,” he says against my skin.

And oh, the way he says that Good. The sound says it’s pleasure for himself and praise for me, all at once.

“More,” he demands, pulling his mouth away, looking down at me with heat in his eyes, and I somehow know what he’s asking me to do with that look, and I can hardly believe I want to. It’s so intimate, so close, so honest.

It’s what you’d do with someone you really, really trust.

And I realize, with certainty, that I trust Reid.

I take my hands from his body, and I put them on my own.

It takes me a minute, long seconds where my palms rest somewhere safe, on the soft skin of my stomach, feeling myself inhale and exhale, gathering my courage, thinking of all the hidden parts of me I want to show Reid. It’s broad daylight in here, Reid’s window covered with a sleek, pale-gray shade that offers privacy but not darkness, and he’ll be able to see everything.

But maybe that’s right. Maybe that’s exactly right, for me and Reid.