The Book Boyfriends Collection: Wither, Wait For You, The Edge of Never. Lauren DeStefano
in the mornings?”
My eyes grow bigger in my face. I just watch out the windshield.
“Not every morning,” I say, still trying not to look at her.
“What, just like Tuesdays and Fridays or something?”
I know she’s smiling, but I refuse to confirm it.
“Is this a Tuesday or Friday?” she adds, taunting me.
Finally, I glance over at her.
“It’s Friday,” I say simply.
She lets out an aggravated breath.
“I’m not a slut, or anything,” she says, dropping her legs from the dashboard, “and I’m sure you don’t think that since you are the one who has sort of pushed me to be more open with my sexuality and what I want …” Her voice trails. It’s as if she’s waiting for me to confirm what she just said, like she’s still worried of what I might think of her.
I look right into her eyes. “No, I would never think you were a slut unless you went around screwing a bunch of guys, for which then I would be in jail because I would have to beat the fuck out of all of them—but no, why are you saying this?”
She blushes and I swear her shoulders almost come up around her cheeks.
“Well, I was just thinking …” she’s still not sure if she wants to say it, whatever it is.
“What did I tell you, babe? Say what’s on your mind.”
She tilts her chin and looks at me gently. “Well, since you did something for me, I thought maybe I could do something for you.” She changes her tune fast afterwards, as if still worried what I might think. “I mean, no strings attached, of course. It’ll be like it never happened.”
Ah, shit! Why didn’t I see that coming?
“No,” I say instantly.
She flinches.
I soften my face and my voice. “I can’t let you do anything like that for me, alright?”
“Why the hell not?”
“I just can’t—God, I want to, you have no idea, but I just can’t.”
“That’s stupid.”
She’s getting seriously aggravated.
“Wait …” she looks at me inquiringly and turns her face at an angle, “you got some kind of ‘issue’ down there?”
My mouth falls open. “Ummm, no?” I say with wide eyes. “Shit, I’ll pull over and show you.”
She throws her head back and laughs and then gets serious again:
“Well you won’t have sex with me, you won’t let me get you off and I had to force you to kiss me.”
“You didn’t force me.”
“You’re right,” she snaps, “I seduced it out of you.”
“I kissed you because I wanted to,” I say. “I want to do everything with you, Camryn. Trust me! In just a few days I’ve imagined more positions with you than there are in the Kama Sutra. I’ve wanted to—” I notice I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel.
She looks wounded, but this time I don’t break.
“I told you,” I say carefully, “I can’t do anything like that with you or—”
“Or I’ll have to let you own me,” she finishes my sentence angrily. “Yeah, I remember what you said, but what does that mean exactly: let you own me?”
I think Camryn knows exactly what it means, but she wants to be sure of it herself.
Wait a second … she’s playing games with me; either that or she still doesn’t know what she wants, sexually or otherwise and she’s just as confused and reluctant as I am.
He passed my test. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want to have sex with him, or pleasure him in other ways like he did for me—I totally want to do all of those things with him. But really I wanted to see if he would take the bait. He didn’t.
And now I’m terrified of him.
I’m terrified because of how I feel about him. I shouldn’t feel this way and I hate myself for it.
I said I would never do it. I promised myself I wouldn’t …
Trying to gain some sense of lighthearted normalcy back in our conversation, I smile gently at him. All I want to do is take back the offer and go back to how we were before I brought it up, except with the knowledge I have now: Andrew Parrish respects me and wants me in ways that I don’t think I can give him.
I bring my knees toward me, propping my feet on the leather seat. I don’t want him to answer my last question: what does it mean to let him own me? I hope he forgets that I asked at all. I already know what it means, or at least I think I do: to own me is to be with him, the way I was with Ian. Except with Andrew I believe in my heart that I could fall in love with him, true love. So easily I could. Already I can’t stand the thought of being away from him. Already all of the faces in my daydreams have been replaced with Andrew’s face. And already, I dread the day our road trip ends, when he has to go back to Galveston or to Wyoming and to leave me behind.
Why does it scare me? And where did this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach come from all of a sudden?
“I’m sorry, babe, I really am. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not in any way.”
I look up and over at him and then I shake my head hard. “You haven’t hurt me. Please don’t think you hurt me.”
I go on:
“Andrew, the truth is …” I take a very deep breath. He’s having a hard time keeping his eyes on the road now. “… the truth is that I—well, first off, I won’t lie and say that pleasuring you isn’t something that I wouldn’t do—I would do it. But I want you to know that I’m glad you refused me.”
I think he understands. I can see it in his face.
He smiles gently and reaches out his hand to me. I take it and scoot over next to him and he wraps his arm around my shoulder. I tilt my chin upward to see him and drape my fingers over his thigh.
He is so beautiful to me …
“You scare me,” I finally say.
My admission sparks a faint reaction in his eyes.
“I said I would never do this; you have to understand. I promised myself that I would never get close to anyone again.”
I feel his arm harden around my arm and the beating of his heart has picked up speed; it thumps rapidly against the side of my throat.
Then a grin slides across his mouth and he says, “Are you in love with me, Camryn Bennett?”
I blush super-hard and twist my lips into a hard line, pressing my face deeper against his hard pec.
“Not yet,” I say with a smile in my voice, “but I’m gettin’ there.”
“You’re so full of shit,” he says, squeezing my arm a little tighter.
He kisses the top of my hair.
“Yeah, I know,” I say with the same amount of jest in my voice as was in his and then my voice trails, “I know …”
I get my very first glimpse of New Orleans from afar: Lake Pontchartrain and eventually the sprawling landscape of cottages and townhouses and bungalows. I’m in awe of it: from the Superdome, which I’ll always be able to recognize after seeing it all over the news during Katrina, to the giant, expansive oak trees that are creepy and beautiful and old, and to the