BRIANNA LAY ON her back with her arm over her eyes. She never imagined that making love could feel so good, and she wondered if that’s what it was like for everyone. Had she just been too young to know any better before? Is that why Kat always pushed her to get close to someone? Her whole body was on fire, humming with a gratified afterglow. If she’d known sex could be this amazing, she’d never have waited so long. Now that she’d experienced making love with Hugh, there was no turning back—and there was definitely no carrying out a twelve-year plan. What on earth was I thinking?
Hugh came out of the bathroom naked and ridiculously handsome, with a playful smile on his lips and a contented look in his eyes. He climbed onto the bed beside her and laid his hand across her belly.
“You okay?”
“You’ve asked me that a hundred times. I’m more than okay.” She touched his cheek. She loved how he worried about her, but she didn’t want him to think of her as fragile. “Hugh, I’d let you know if I wasn’t all right. Okay?”
He nodded.
“You’re so thoughtful, but you don’t need to ask to touch me. I love when you touch me, and you should just know I’m okay unless I say otherwise, or I look like I’m having trouble.”
“Okay, fair enough. I just don’t want you to feel pressured. I really like you, Bree, and I feel like I want to protect you from everything. I don’t think I’ve felt this way about anyone. Ever.” He drew circles on her belly with his finger. “It kind of scares the heck out of me, so I’m probably being even more careful.”
Relief swept through her. “Oh, thank goodness.”
“Thank goodness it scares me?” He wrinkled his brow.
“Kind of, yeah, because I feel the same way. I feel so comfortable with you, and I never knew…that…could be so amazing.”
He laughed. “It’s not. I think it’s only amazing when you have feelings for the person; otherwise it’s just kind of a lot of energy for a few minutes of pleasure. The reason everything feels so good between us is because of the emotions we have for each other.”
“Are you a secret sex-ed teacher?” She ran her finger down the line of his jaw.
He kissed her forehead. “Hardly. I just know that there’s a lot of emptiness that goes along with meaningless sex.” He looked away, and this time, she drew his eyes back to her.
“My turn to ask. Are you okay?”
He nodded, but his eyes were solemn. “There’s just all this stuff going through my head. When I look at you, I want to be sure you’re happy. When we were close, my thoughts weren’t about me or even about being intimate with you. I was thinking about what I wanted to do for you. How I hoped you felt. And afterward, I couldn’t help but think about Layla.” He lay back down beside Brianna and held her hand. “I want you to be sure of me before she knows about us, even if that takes a long time. I already feel so much toward you that the thought of not being with you is painful. I can’t imagine what it would be like to get close to Layla and then be out of her life for whatever reason. For me or for her. It would be confusing for her, hurtful for me.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “You do that a lot, you know.”
“What?”
“Take Layla’s feelings into consideration. That means a lot to me.”
His dimples appeared when he faced her. “I told you. She owns half your heart. I’ll always consider her.”
Brianna felt another tug on her heart.