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He opened up the door and reached out to the counter, where he found the packet.

And then she found herself being kissed again, long and deep, pressed against the wall as he maneuvered around, tearing open the packet and rolling the condom over his length.

He grabbed her thigh and lifted it up over his hip, and she had the dim thought that she should maybe tell him she hadn’t done this before, and that it might hurt, or that she maybe didn’t have the skill level to be taken against the shower wall, but then he was right at the entrance to her body, and she couldn’t think, because she wanted him so badly. Because she needed this so badly. Needed him.

So what was experience?

She knew about sex.

Her sister Rory left her romance novels lying around all the time, and Quinn had read them before.

She had also been around the internet, so she had seen some things. She knew what sex was.

She wouldn’t say she had made a study of it or anything, but she had a fair idea.

She didn’t need to announce her inexperience.

She relaxed, or at least she tried to, taking a deep breath as his eyes met hers. And then she forgot. Everything. Because he was looking at her. Those blue eyes staring straight into hers, but he wasn’t angry, or upset with her. They weren’t sparring outside. He was about to be inside her.

Levi Granger.

This man that she had thought she hated... Was it twenty-four hours ago that she thought she hated him?

This man she’d wanted since she was fourteen and hadn’t fully known what it meant. This man she’d told herself she just liked the look of, not the heart of.

How could she have gotten that so wrong? And right then, just before he thrust inside her, she realized she didn’t know anything. And that felt like a free fall.

And that was when he gripped her hips and thrust deep.

She cried out, the sharp, tearing pain of the invasion a shock she hadn’t seen coming.

She didn’t know anything. She didn’t know a damn thing. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready for him.

She thought that grabbing a condom and ambushing him in the shower put her in charge? She wasn’t in charge.

He was huge, and he was inside her, and he was so much bigger than she was, and she had made a mistake.

She froze, because she didn’t know what else to do. Because she had no idea...

And then he was kissing her, slow and tender, and she felt the panic begin to recede.

So her desire began to come back. That ache in her body suddenly recognizing that this was what it had wanted all along. To be filled by him. This was the answer.

She just hadn’t known it.

And maybe it was okay that she didn’t know. Because he did. She looked at him, asking all the questions that she didn’t have a voice for with one look.

But in his eyes, she saw questions, too, and she knew that he was going to ask them when this was over. And it would be over whenever she said—she recognized that, too. She could tell him to stop now. That it hurt too much. That she was too afraid.

And right in that moment, she would never know if she was driven by pride or desire. Because later it would be lost in all that need.

But for now...

“Please,” she whispered. “Show me.”

He let out a long, slow breath that broke right at the end, the only thing that really betrayed how on edge he was.

He drew back, then thrust deep, and she dug her fingernails into his shoulder when he did. Then he pulled out again, thrusting in again. She couldn’t say that it felt great, but it felt right.