Dean watched me while planting soft, goosebump-inducing kisses on my inner thighs and lower belly. He looked like he was having the time of his life, and I decided when the time came to find a guy I actually planned to spend my life with, that was a new goal. Find a guy who looks like he enjoys giving me oral as much as Dean.

And that innocent little thought started the spiral.

I was coming down from my orgasm as Dean moved up over me and slid a condom on himself. I tried all the mental tricks I knew to shut down my anxiety brain, but none of it was working. The paranoid, worried thoughts seemed to echo in a kind of feedback loop until I could barely pick them out from each other. All that was left was a cacophony of noise and a tightness in my chest that made it hard to breathe.

Dean had been about to slide into me when he lifted his eyes to mine. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. It’s okay. Go ahead.” I’m just thinking how we’ll never be together and I’ll never find a guy like you. How I’ll never be happy and my future is going to be full of dusty houses, the meows of cats, and probably hair curlers and ugly slippers.

He shook his head, eyebrows furrowed as he rolled to his side. His hand was on my belly and the other was propping his head up above the ear. “Talk to me, Pearl. What’s wrong?”

I laughed a little at myself and put the backs of my hands over my eyes. “It’s stupid. I don’t even know what it is. I just had this thought and it spiraled and now I’m sort of freaking out on the inside.”

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You know that, right? It can be done. Right now. I’ll just go off to the bathroom and take care of this thing myself. No hard feelings.” He was smiling in that boyish way he did sometimes.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It looks like it’s going to need professional help.” My eyes were on the shape of his manhood, which seemed like if it got any more erect it might explode.

Dean laughed. “I’m serious, Pearl.”

I let out a breath. “I want to. I want this, I mean. But I can’t help remembering the last time. I told myself I would never do that again. It just made it too hard to keep acting like this was all pretend.”

“Because it felt real when we slept together?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. Saying as much to Dean made my whole body want to blush.

“I felt it, too.”

My heart started pounding in a way that had nothing to do with my anxiety. Was he admitting he wanted to give making this real a try? Because I was pretty sure if he said as much, I’d jump all over the offer at this point.