Fear of Falling

sleepovers.” Blaine rolled over onto his side as well, putting us face to face. “And I do mean sleep. No funny business, young lady,” he jibed.
    “And here I thought you were going to wager a kiss,” I said just above a whisper.
    “Nah. No need,” he replied, matching my hushed tone. “I was gonna do that anyway.”

This.
    All I needed was this .
    Her warm, sweet breath fanned across my face as she sighed with anticipation. I could almost hear her heartbeat stutter over the music. Hooded, sultry eyelids blinked slowly, those emerald green retinas sparkling under the moonlight.
    This.
    This moment was the only one that mattered. This woman in front of me was the only one that existed.
    I wanted to make Kami mine in every way, shape, and form. I wanted to claim every moan, every whimper, every shudder. But for right now, I would settle for this . I would savor this. I would put every ounce of the concentrated desire exploding in every synapse like fireworks on the 4 th into this.
    This.
    I couldn’t see anything beyond this . Beyond her. Beyond us.
    I just had to make her feel this too.

I always thought of myself as physically, well… normal. As emotionally and mentally fucked up as I was, I almost took pride in the fact that sex was never the issue. It was a welcomed distraction. An outlet for all the suppressed aggression and pain. I could be completely detached and let my carnal instincts take the reins. I could be as expressive as I wanted to be.
    I could be fearless.
    It numbed the pain and gave me a substitute for the love and affection I could never receive. My body felt what my heart could not. I knew I was damaged goods. But, it was the one thing… he …never took from me.
    Sex, affection and love would never share the same space in the tidy little compartments of my psyche.
    Until now. Until Blaine.
    Everything I thought I knew about my heart and body was completely shattered the moment Blaine’s arm snaked around my lower back and drew me to him. And when his soft lips fell on mine, I knew that I was far from normal. I knew I had never felt true intimacy until that very moment. I don’t even know what I had been doing before.
    I had kissed this man a thousand times in my head. In my dreams, he had explored every inch of my body with thorough precision. Blaine had already known me inside and out, and he didn’t even know it. Hell, I couldn’t even understand it. But the moment that metal barbell slid against my tongue, I knew. I knew that I was forever changed.
    Blaine took me in that kiss. Right in the back of his truck with the crescent moon overhead and the forgotten Mason jars of fireflies at our sides.
    With my breasts pressed against his hard chest—a chest that I had studied and committed to memory—our lips melded into one moving, tasting, teasing entity. He was gentle yet demanding, aggressive yet compliant. He was perfect. His scent, his taste, the way his lips seemed to know mine automatically. Absolutely perfect.
    I allowed myself to get lost in him, wrapping my arms around his neck and back, our legs tangled together, seeking the warmth of each other’s bodies. I moaned as his hand gripped my bare thigh and coaxed my leg around his waist. He groaned when my hand slid up from the nape of his neck and into his hair, tugging lightly.
    I hardly registered the rumbling of thunder overhead. My tightly closed eyes didn’t see the flash of lightning that ripped through the sky. I was too consumed by him. Too overwhelmed by my own aching need for more.
    Lightning sliced open the clouds, bleeding warm, summer rain down on us in buckets. Reluctantly, we broke apart, panting, our eyes trained on each other. I wasn’t done, and the seductive gleam in his eyes told me that he wasn’t nearly done with me either.
    “Come on,” he growled, pulling me up with him.
    We hopped off the truck and scrambled to shelter, laughing and squealing as the rain soaked us. I was only too aware of how my sheer top clung to my body, creating a silken second skin. But I didn’t care. I would have peeled off every wet layer that very second if Blaine had asked me to.
    The moment we were safely inside the cab, the heat of our humid bodies creating fog on the windows, reality set in. We had just officially crossed that unseen line between “just friends” and “much, much more.” My cards were on the table. He now knew that I wanted him just as badly as he apparently wanted me. Fighting it would have