Page 39 of Every Step She Takes

TWENTY BAIONA, SPAIN

Mal

Damn. She’s good.

It’s a pathetic Hail Mary, a last-ditch effort to convince me to go along with this bonkers scheme by making me feel special, singular, seen .

No, the pathetic thing is that it works. The flimsy resolve I’ve been clinging to since I walked into our room and found her standing there in her sheer pajama shorts finally escapes my grip. I’ve run out of ways to talk myself out of this mistake.

Honestly, I didn’t need to be talked into it in the first place.

Because she doesn’t have a crush on Inez. She has a crush on me . And I have a ridiculous, misguided, adolescent crush on her too. I feel seventeen and absolutely stupid over a girl.

Sadie wants me, and I am so fucking honored.

It doesn’t matter that we’ll both regret this before we reach Santiago de Compostela.

It doesn’t matter that one or both of us will end up hurt.

All I can think about is kissing her again, touching her, feeling her body against mine, and now she’s right here with her plump thighs and this white T-shirt that hugs her every curve, and I’m not going to miss the chance to explore those luscious curves with my fingers, with my tongue.

She’s standing here with her flushed cheeks and her heaving breath, and all I can do is imagine making her that way with my mouth.

I’m picturing how those freckles would look surrounded by starched hostel sheets as I kiss her in a million new places.

God, I want my face between those thighs.

I want to find out what combination of hands and tongue, speed and pressure, will make Sadie unravel for me, and then I want to watch as she falls apart from my touch.

I want to figure out what she wants and then teach her how to touch herself like that.

Sadie is a distraction. She’s an unhealthy pattern of behavior.

She’s a way to forget everything I need to face.

But she’s also beautiful and kind, and she reminds me that the world is mostly beautiful and kind too.

She’s maybe the most vulnerable person I’ve ever met.

She’s given me more of herself in a week than all the other women I’ve been with combined, and now she’s offering me the chance to show her how she deserves to be loved. I’m not strong enough to resist that.

This is obviously a terrible fucking idea. And I’m obviously going to do it.

I try to clear my throat, but it’s thick with lust and longing. “We… we would need to be on the same page. About this. About… what it is.” My voice cracks over the words.

“Of course.” Sadie breathes onto my cheek.

I tilt my head back so I can study her flushed face. “This is… this is just practice, right?”

“Absolutely. It can be just practice,” she says breezily, and I ignore the part of my heart that withers at this.

I push on with professional indifference. “If we’re going to do this, we need to be clear. Either of us can say no to sex at any time, no questions asked.”

“Yes, obviously. Agreed.”

“And a safe word,” I choke out. “We should have a safe word.”

“How about octopus ?” Sadie bites down on a smile.

She reaches up and touches two fingers to my throat.

I don’t realize I am clenching my jaw until she glides those fingers down my strained tendon.

Everything relaxes under her touch. Sadie doesn’t break eye contact, doesn’t move her hand away.

“Are you done with your rules?” she whispers.

I’m so mesmerized by the smooth column of her exposed throat, her creamy skin, freckles like a trail down to her collarbone, that I can barely speak.

“One more thing,” I croak. “You have to promise that we’ll stay friends after.”

Sadie’s fingers twitch on the back of my neck as her eyebrows scrunch together. “You… you consider me a friend?”

A chuckle escapes my clogged throat. “Do you think I’d give sex lessons to just anyone?”

She unleashes her full smile, and something inside me shatters, then reassembles itself, a sense of certainty clicking into place. I lean in and kiss that smile. She kisses me back, and it click, click, clicks in my brain.

Sadie grabs my waist and deepens the kiss, and it’s tempting to let her be in control, to let her do whatever she wants with me.

I break off the kiss, and Sadie sways into me. “Where do you want to start?” I ask like I’m a tax accountant, not a lovesick fool.

“Um…” Sadie’s glossy eyes drop down to her feet. “With sex?”

“Yes, but what ? Sex can mean a lot of different things.”

The blush explodes in little blossoms across her chest. It’s only been a week, but I’m already fluent in the language of Sadie’s blushes. I know these stress splotches mean she has no idea where she wants to start with these lessons. She doesn’t even know what’s on the table.

“I-I think this is a mistake,” she stutters, detaching from me. “This—this is a terrible idea. I don’t know why I thought this would work.”

“Sadie.” I exhale her name. “You just spent thirty minutes convincing me to do this.”

“Yes, but I think I underestimated how humiliating it will be.”

“There is a steep learning curve, to be sure, but it’s not humiliating.” When she doesn’t laugh at my teasing, I take her chin in my hand and gently tug her gaze up to meet mine. “Will you come lie down with me?”

“Okay,” she whimpers.

I lead her back toward the twin beds. I briefly drop her hand so we can push the separate twins together into one king-size bed.

I lie down, and Sadie eventually follows, careful to position herself as far away from me as humanly possible.

We could fit another person between us. “Saving room for lesbian Jesus?”

“I know that pop culture reference! Hayley Kiyoko.” She smiles as she tucks both hands between her head and the pillow. It’s damn near the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

I prop an arm under my head to look at her. “Do you like Hayley’s music?”

She shifts restlessly on the bed. “Is small talk usually part of foreplay?”

“Anything can be foreplay if it gets you hot,” I tell her, trying to find a way to get her to relax. Desperate for a way to get her closer to me. “I once dated a person who always wanted to have sex right after Jeopardy! Alex Trebek’s mustache really did it for them.”

She stifles her laughter into her pillow.

“Actually, it was me,” I deadpan. “I was the one who always wanted to have sex after Jeopardy! I’m the one who loved the mustache.” Then I do the sign of the cross in bed. “Rest in peace, you silver-haired aphrodisiac.”

She doesn’t hide her laugh, and I risk scooting a little closer. She doesn’t scoot away, but her expression sobers. “I’ve never been in a bed with another woman before,” she admits quietly into the three feet between us. “Except my sister, but that obviously doesn’t count.”

“Didn’t you ever share a bed with a friend at a sleepover?”

“I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, and at the few sleepovers I did get invited to, I would choose to sleep on the hard floor instead of sharing a bed. It made me too anxious, the thought of sleeping next to another girl.”

“ Dude .” I draw out the vowels like the linguistic equivalent of an eye roll. “You were so gay.”

She buries her face in the pillow, but I can hear her laughter spilling out. “I know .”

I slide a little closer again, and her head snaps up when she realizes what I’m doing. “Is this okay?”

She licks her lips before she nods her consent.

She’s only one-fourth of a Hayley Kiyoko away now.

I wrap my free hand around her waist, and when she doesn’t flinch at the contact, I pull her even closer, so we’re face-to-face, bodies flush.

I leave it at that for a moment, waiting for her to adjust to the touch.

When she relaxes a smidge, I weave my legs between hers. She stiffens again. Holds her breath.

“You feel really good,” I say, because she really does.

Some of the tension eases from her body. “Uh, so do you.”

We lie like that, with our legs and arms intertwined and our cheeks on the same pillow, waiting for Sadie to relax completely.

Eventually, her breathing elongates and her eyelids grow heavy, and I think we might fall asleep like this. Maybe that’s what Sadie needs. Maybe she needs time to work up to sex.

I would be more than content cuddling her all night long.

But then Sadie shifts and my knee accidentally presses between her legs. Her breath hitches, and we’re both very awake now.

She rubs herself against my knee again, not accidentally at all.

I slide closer until my thigh is entirely between her legs, and she rocks herself until her breath sputters.

She stops, starts to pull away, but I hold her in place until she relaxes again, then gently rock my clit against her hip bone, trying to show her that she’s okay, that this is okay.

That she’s allowed to feel pleasure in whatever way works for her.

The confusing thing is that it’s working for me, too, even through all our clothes.

She feels so good . She’s so soft, and her skin is like the cool side of the pillow. She smells sweet and summery, and I am seventeen, with a girl for the first time, excited over every little touch.

Sadie rocks against me, pushing her body into mine, grinding harder on my thigh, and it’s hotter than ten Trebek mustaches, and I’m spiraling out of control with want.

I want to finally get my hands on the dimpled flesh of those thighs. I want to slide a finger into her shorts and feel her wetness. I want to lick her off my own fingers while she watches. I want her on top of me and underneath me and I want her smell all over me.

I want to taste her, eat her, devour her.