Page 97 of Off Plan

“Wow.” His smile lit up all the dark and anxious parts of me like a sunbeam. “Somebody’s excited about—”

I kissed him—a hard, claiming kiss, cradling the back of his head with both hands as my tongue invaded his mouth.Hell, yes.

His hands were cool from the shower as they trailed up my naked back, and I shivered against him, breaking our kiss so I could suck at his neck, lick at his earlobe, paint his Adam’s apple with my tongue.

“Shit, Fenn.Shit.” Mason’s green eyes glowed warm in the dimness of the room, and I vaguely remembered thinking he wascoldwhen we’d first met.I was such a fucking idiot. I’d wasted so much time. Days anddayswhen he could have been mine, but hadn’t been. My hands tightened on the back of his neck.

“Are you okay?” Mason asked, cupping my cheek with one hand. “Fenn…baby… are you—”

He said the word tentatively, gauging my reaction, and I pressed my forehead to his.Oh, yeah, I liked it.I reached one hand up to grasp his wrist, and the fucking thingshook.

Get it together, Reardon.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. I’m fine. I’m just—”

“Fenn, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Mason said, his face anxious but his words calm and slow, like I was one of Beale’s feral cats and he didn’t wanna scare me off. I almost laughed out loud. Likethatwas what terrified me right now? “We haven’t talked a whole lot about this, but I really wanted—”

I cut him off with another swift kiss. “I wantyou, Mason Bloom. Any way you want. Okay?”

His anxious frown melted into something warmer. “Yeah.” He bit his bottom lip, clearly pleased. “Yeah, good.”

I pushed his damp hair back from his forehead. “So, tell me how you want this to go.”

“Oh, I. Um. I mean.” He turned bright red, so Ihadto lean in and press my lips to his cheek in an openmouthed kiss, just to taste that blush. “I’m pretty open-minded but I…”

“But you?”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“Have you now?”

“And I thought, just for the sake of trying all the new experiences, that I might like to try…” He nodded at the bed and somehow managed to flush harder. “You know. That… thing.”

He was gonna kill me with this shit, he really was. And I was gonna love every second of it.

“Say the words, Mason. Ask for what you want.”

I trailed my lips down his throat andfelthim swallow.

“I’d like tobottom.”

Well, fuck. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted that until he said it out loud. I was vers and I’d never minded bottoming in the past, but in that moment, with Mason, I wanted to top more than I ever had before. I wanted to be inside him. I wanted to stay there forever.

I kissed him again, harder, and slid my hands to his shoulders, pulling his chest into mine.

I felt him hesitate, just the tiniest bit of resistance against the embrace before he gave in. I pulled back. “Mason?”

He shook his head and pulled against my hips. “No, don’t stop. It’s fine. Never mind. Come back.”

I would not be moved. “What? If we’re going to do this, you need to be a hundred percent honest with me about what’s going on in that brain, starting now.”

“I just—” He rolled his eyes. “It’s stupid. I stopped at Pickles’ and got snacks. And I have the beer from the Barrel House. And I thought maybe we could make it, like…” He waved a hand in the air.

“Words, Mason,” I prompted gently.

“A date. Or a date-like, date-typethingwith, um… drinking, and talking, like last weekend.” He darted a look up at me, green eyes behind dark lashes. “But I like your idea better. Less talking, more kissing. The talking can wait.”

Fuck. This was Mason’s first time having anal sex—which, let’s face it, was reallynota huge deal in the grand scheme of life or a thing to get precious about, considering I barely remembered my first time, and there’d sure as hell been no hearts and flowers—but alsowasa huge deal, because I’d gone and fallen for an overthinker, and all kinds of unimportant shit took on deep significance for him.