“I’m sensitive here,” I whisper finally, letting one hand trace up, my fingertips lingering on the full underside of my breast, a curve of skin that always makes my nipples harden in response when I’m touched there. My face is hot, the skin on my chest dewing with sweat. I feel shy, exposed, but still unbelievably aroused. All I want is for him to tell me Good again; I want him to give me that Good with his hands and lips and teeth and tongue, so I’ll show him everything.

I draw a single finger across my nipple, flicking it the way I’d want him to. He watches, his tongue darting out to lick at the corner of his mouth, his eyes hot and focused, and I know he’s seeing me, reading me, cracking this code I’m leaving, letters on this page for him alone, and suddenly I have a new, powerful rush of feeling, a different sort of passion: I hate every man who ever made me feel I shouldn’t say what felt right. I hate the way they didn’t try to understand. I hate the way they made me feel demanding and difficult for asking them to do something they hadn’t figured out on their own; I hate the way they got frustrated and impatient and wounded.

My hands grow rougher, more grasping, and Reid says “Good” again, and I forget about every other guy, ever.

“Where else,” he says, the muscles in his arms straining tighter now, and I don’t think it’s fatigue.

I want to reward him for the way he’s enjoying this, and for the way he holds himself back from it. For the way he doesn’t say, I’ll take it from here.

I raise my hips from the bed. “Take these off for me?”

He doesn’t hesitate. He leans away from me and pulls my underwear down, and as soon as he’s exposed the triangle of hair between my legs his jaw clenches, his body a study in restraint. Smooth, hard lines, fully upright. W-A-I-T, those lines spell.

“Show me,” he says, and if it’s impatience, it’s exactly the right kind. It doesn’t promise me anything but his desire, his enjoyment of this, wherever it goes from here.

My hand smooths down my stomach, lingers in the soft, curved space between my belly button and my pubic bone. I stroke my fingers there lightly, a tiny, gentle cursive, the same way I would at home, in my own bed, late at night.

“I like this to start.” I already know I don’t like it as much as I would if it were Reid’s hand, Reid’s fingertips.