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Safe for our hands to wander, for her lips to flutter over the sensitive juncture between my neck and shoulder, for her own fingers to slip beneath the fabric of my dress.

“I think about it sometimes,” she said quietly, and I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t sure my heart was still beating; my chest burned with a need so strong I thought it might suffocate me.

“Think about what?” I barely breathed. Reid’s thighs shifted a little, and I tightened my hold on them, suddenly worried that I’d misread the entire situation.

“Our first kiss.”

My concern fizzled out almost as quickly as it appeared. Something inside me quirked up in interest, braver than I’d ever been.

“You think that was a kiss?” I challenged her, surprised the words had left my lips at all.

Reid’s mouth was still on my shoulder, and I felt her lips curl into a smirk. “Oh?”

I turned around to face her, velociraptors running rampant in my gut. Her knee was inches away from my vagina, and I shoved the thought out of my mind, breathless enough at the thought of kissing her.

Pressing my lips together, I shook my head.

“Then what would you say is a kiss?”

My gaze dropped to her lips, quirking into a smirk as I leaned forward. Her breath blew across my lips, the soft scent of strawberries making me dizzy.

“Are you going to show me?” she whispered, dragging featherlight fingertips up my arm and curling them under my chin. “I’m very interested.”

“If you wanted to kiss me that badly,” I breathed, wrapping my hand around her wrist, “you just had to say so.”

Before she could launch her next witty retort, I closed the breathless distance between us, her lips finally,finally, on mine.

And I groaned.

Her lips were heaven on my own, soft and yearning, so at odds with the hold she had on my upper arm.

So different, I thought wildly. So different from when she’d kissed me in front of her mother, so different from the quick, hard press of her mouth on mine. And the sharp pang of guilt that followed.

This was entirely new.

With no one else around, she licked deep into my mouth, lighting up every nerve in my body. The rustle of the sheets below us, the tug of the almost-undone zipper on my back, and the faint click of our tongues filled the charged silence of my room.

Uncertainty prickled down my arms as I lifted them, my palms craving the heat of her skin. I wrapped my hands around her waist, trying to hold onto what little sanity she left me as she hummed a soft moan into my mouth.

Exhausted and giddy from our long night out, we tumbled back down amongst the pillows together, our legs and arms a tangled mess.

Hesitant, slow, achingly careful.

That’s how she kissed me.

The taste of strawberries sat heavy on her tongue, familiar almost. I could almost picture the dinner and dessert we’d had.

If I cared to.

She palmed my breasts through my dress, and suddenly I wished the inches of space between us would disappear.

She groaned into my mouth and I swallowed the sound greedily, my hands holding onto her wrists because, fuck, what else could I do?

“Fuck,” she murmured, and tugged on the front of my dress. “Get this off; you’re going to get sand everywhere.”

I sat up so quickly I almost headbutted her, and she giggled as our hands collided in a clumsy attempt to pull my dress down, and Reid swore.

“Christ, you’re gorgeous.” She sighed, leaning forward and wrapping her lips around one of my exposed nipples. I hissed at the sudden heat, my skin burning with need. A small, insignificant part of me quaked at the rush of insecurity that strung along behind my moans.