Page 7 of Somewhere Only We Know (Healing in Cincy #4)

JAX

COLLEGE, SPRING SEMESTER - MARCH, JUNIOR YEAR

I find the room I’m looking for and bang my fist against Nate’s door five times until the side of my hand automatically aches from the force.

The sound echoes down the empty dorm hall and I’m hoping he’s in here because I’ve been all over this godforsaken campus looking for him after he left me at the picnic table behind the football stadium.

As soon as I pulled myself together, meaning I dried my tears and made sure I didn’t resemble a panda, I threw our trash out and began my search for him.

He wasn’t in his usual places he hangs out at so with one last hail mary I came here.

It’s just after four in the afternoon and I know I’m not disturbing anyone. With a huff, I start to bang on his door again when it flies open. My fist hangs suspended in the air as I take in his ruffled and annoyed state. Clad in only grey sweatpants, my mouth goes dry but then I remember my anger.

“You just leave and that’s that?” I screech. “You tell me you have a crush on me and then leave? Nate!”

He rests his hands on his hips. “What else do you want me to say, Jax? Do you want me to take it back? Trust me, I weighed the consequences for a long time, but it’s out there.” Defeat weighs him down and it’s my fault. “Is that all?”

“I–” no other words come out. Because what else can really be said? He said he has a crush on me and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the same way. But, he’s my Nate. And he has been for the last three years.

“Nothing else to say?” It’s a rhetorical question Nate asks when he steps closer to me. “You always regale me of your day and talk about guys in your classes that flirt with you and suddenly you’re speechless. Tell me what you want me to say, Jaclyn.”

I wince because the only time someone calls me by my first name is when I’m in trouble or when I’ve hurt them.

And it’s clear I’ve hurt Nate. My eyes burn into his.

With him this close, his body heat reaching out to mine, I can't think straight. “I–I don’t know, okay? It’s always been easy with us.

I don’t—how am I supposed to handle this? You’re my Nate and…”

“Stop talking.” Nate demands roughly before he snakes his arm around my waist and slams his lips to mine.

He takes advantage of my gasp and slides his tongue against mine.

We back into his dorm and the door slams shut.

My body is pressed up against the wall and my hands claw at his waist, wanting to get closer than I already am.

With this position, I can feel how hard he is through his sweats and a whimper travels up my throat. He hooks his arm under my leg and wraps it around his waist.

“Nate,” I gasp out when his lips travel down my neck. My eyes close of their own volition as I feel everything down to my toes.

His hands traveling over my body leaves fire in its wake. All of the simple kisses with boys in high school have nothing compared to this with Nate.

“Jax,” he sings back.

Nate doesn’t wait for a response before he’s bending down and picking me up by the back of my thighs, moving us to his bed and laying me down.

His body follows until he’s nestled in the cradle of my thighs.

In this position, the feel of him pressed against me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

Which I have nothing to compare it to and it feels better than I ever could have imagined.

My arms wrap around his neck and our lips move in sync.

Nate runs his hand through my wild curls and tugs on the strands, sending lightning bolts of arousal down my spine.

His hands roam down my body and travel back up, his hands cage my ribs and I revel in the feel of his thumb rubbing the underside of my breast. My nipples harden and I wonder why I’ve starved myself of his touch.

“Wait, wait.” I say, breaking the kiss. My chest caves with my deep breathing and I lightly run my thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip.

He pulls back an inch with confusion written over his face. “What’s wrong?”

“I um…I’ve never,” I try telling him that I’ve never gone further than kissing and elementary over-the-clothes groping. But I think he catches on when his features soften.

“Are you–Jax, are you a virgin?” Nate asks softly.

I bite my bottom lip and play with the gold chain hanging around his neck that he never takes off.

“Yes?” I don’t know why I phrased that as a question.

It’s not like I’m waiting for anyone special.

I could’ve lost my virginity in high school like my friends.

But it felt more like marking an item off a checklist. And I didn’t want that for my first time.

But coming to college–I don’t broadcast that I’m still a virgin at twenty-one.

Nobody does because there’s this urban legend that by eighteen you’re supposed to have lost your virginity, like it’s a pair of keys that you’re destined to never find again.

And once the horny college guys hear a girl is still a virgin, they’ll jump at the chance to befriend her and then leave her once they take what she willingly gave them.

I mean, I’m sure I would like sex, love it even, when I get the hang of it.

It’s like riding a bike. Or so I’ve been told by my countless Sex and the City marathons.

“Hey.” He starts and gently lifts my chin up to meet his eyes. “If you think I’m about to blow past every stop sign to be with you, then you haven’t been paying attention. I want this–us, as more than friends and more than I’ve wanted anything.”

“Oh,” I say. I feel like an idiot and don’t know why I lumped Nate into that category. But after years of our friendship and him never making a move on me, I just assumed he wasn’t into me. Joke’s on me though. Because it’s clear he’s wanted us to be an us for longer than I suspected.

“Yeah, oh . I won’t rush you, okay? We can take this as slow as you need to. But just so you know, as soon as my lips touched yours, I became yours. And I hope you became mine?”

I nod my head as best as I can while on his pillow and meet his eyes. “Yes. Slow. And you’re mine.”

Up close I can see each perfectly curled eyelash that guys are blessed with and the amber flecks splattered in his brown eyes.

“There she is,” Nate says and that gets me smiling. “Now, can we go back to kissing? Because that’s all I’ve thought about for the last three years.”

“You have?” I ask, thinking he’s joking.

Although he’s said something along those lines but in my confusion and hurt, I refused to believe him.

I thought he said that in a moment of anger.

But now laying under him, with his still hard erection pressing into my center, it’s clear that he wasn’t lying.

“Yes.” He tells me and dips his head to lay a kiss on my neck.

Tingles spark all over my body when he kisses me there and the necklace he’s wearing dances along my chest. “I’ve wondered what sounds you would make if I kissed you here.

” A breathy moan escapes as he kisses and suckles on my neck.

“And here.” A whimper travels up my throat when he nibbles on my earlobe.

Nate hikes my leg up high around his waist and rolls his hips into my clothed center.

His eyes flare with renowned heat when I moan and grip his arms. “And that. I won’t rush this with you, Jax. I promise to go as slow as you want.”

“Okay,” I exhale shakily.

Nate dots kisses over my face. Relaxing me. Getting me comfortable with him before he’s kissing me like he’s been walking through the desert for days with no water. He kisses me like I’m the only person alive. And maybe now I finally do feel alive.

I never thought kissing was a big deal. I always thought it was a means to an end.

Turns out I haven’t been kissed by Nate Holloway.