Page 84 of Every Step She Takes

But I also never want this exact moment to end. I want to live in this innocent pleasure forever, with Sadie making herself feel good against me. Sadie breathing, Sadie blushing, Sadie making eye contact with me as we tug on each other’s bodies. I kiss her, because it seems natural that every part of me should be attached to every part of her. We click together like the gears inside a clock, and something in my brain locks into place.

This is why I never should’ve agreed to this. I don’t know how to have sex without feelings, and I don’t know how to havesomefeelings without havingall of them. Without getting lost completely in the other person.

Sadie goes still, her labored breaths quieting against me. “Is… is this okay?” she exhales against my neck.

“Yes,” I croak. Very,veryyes.

She cranes her head back to look at me, and I can see in her sky-sea eyes that I’ve lost her. That she’s in her own head, not here with me on this bed, not against me anymore.

I’m not quite ready to lose her. I’m too scared I’ll never get her back.

“Sadie,” I say, knowing it comes out in a husky growl, betraying exactly how much I need her. “What do you want?”

Sadie

“What do you want?”

I shrink involuntarily from her at this question. What do Iwant?

If I knew the answer to that question, we wouldn’t be on this bed fully clothed. I wouldn’t be nervously wringing my hands. Mal wouldn’t be completely still, holding me in place, as if she knows the smallest movement could send me running.

“I-I don’t know what I want,” I mutter into the pillow.

“I don’t believe you.”

I jerk my head up. “What?”

“I don’t believe you,” Mal repeats. A tiny smile curves the left side of her bowed mouth. “I think youdoknow what you want. I think you’re afraid to ask for it.”

“That… that’s not…” I shift on the bed and accidentally rub myself against her leg again. Andthat. That is what I want. To feel likethat.

“This will be our first lesson, then. I want you to practice talking about your pleasure.”

“Can we, maybe, not do that instead?”

Mal shakes her head. “If you can’t talk about what you want, how will you ever have good sex?”

“I don’t need it to be good,” I quickly reassure her. “I just need it to be over with.”

“Sadie.” She says my name in an annoyed growl. “If we are going to have sex, I’m going to make damn sure it’s good for you.”

The rough edge of her voice rakes across my skin like fingernails. And holy hells. It turns out that what I really want is for Mal to scold me again in that deep growl.

“Sex is about good communication. You have to be able to tell your partner what you need, and you have to be able to listen to your partner’s needs without letting your ego get in the way.”

“Okay, let’s practice that.” I jump in. “Why don’t you tell me what you want?”

Her mouth curls into another smile. “Nice try. This is about your pleasure. What gets you hot?”

That disappointed tone of yours, it would seem.The way you lean against random shit.

Mal’s glistening calves and her staggering widow’s peak. Her tattoos and her mouth. Her spontaneity, her sense of adventure. She’s like no one else I’ve ever known, and I’m someone new when I’m with her.

But I could nevertellher that.

“I-I can’t do this.”

Mal is perfectly calm as she asks, “What did you think about when you masturbated in the bathtub earlier?”