Firsts (9 page)

Now he felt confused. Either she wanted to end things or she didn't.

“You just said—”

“It's different now.”

“Yeah, I got that memo, ducks. But—”

“Aren't you going to ask me why?” Her voice climbed several octaves in a way he'd come to identify as something solely female. In most girls he knew, it signaled the first of many drastic mood swings, and while Savannah definitely did not stand immune to sudden fluctuations in temperament, he typically thought her more reasonable than most. Granted, and considering of course, the time prior to their relationship leaping off the deep end and into the territories of the unknown. Sex did changeeverything . “I mean,” she continued, “you seem to be taking this pretty well.”

He stared at her for a second. “You're outta your head.”

“About time you noticed!”

“I noticed since the beginning! For God's sake, Savannah,how many times did I tell you this was a bad idea?” He threw his hands in the air before she could respond and turned away quickly. If he grew careless, the monsoon of emotion he'd struggled to keep at bay would break through his walls, and then they'dreally be buggered. “But I went along with it. You said it was important to you, and that was enough to make it important to me. So here we are. Because I didn't say no,here we are.”

“It was supposed to be easy.”

“Sex isn't easy.” Probably the dumbest thing he'd ever said, but in this case, it rang as true as anything else. Sex might be as easy as sodding pie; it seemed the emotional shite got them well and truly head fucked. Therefore he decided to stick by it.

“Well, it's supposed to be!”

“It can't be. Not with us.” Another lie, but why stop now? He was on a roll.

To his surprise, Savannah didn't argue. But then, after a second, he realized, of course she wouldn't. Sexwasn't easy with them, not with the way things had progressed between them. She was here because of it. She'd decided to end things because of it.

“Did something happen today?” he whispered. “Something that made you realize—”

She held up a hand and shook her head.

“No?”

“It was yesterday,” she said.

“Yesterday.”

“Actually the night…after we talked, and I asked you to…and you agreed. Allison and I were on the phone.” Savannah sighed; it seemed half her body weight rolled off her shoulders with that sigh. “You're my best friend, Wes.”

They were back toWes now.

“You're mine,” he agreed softly.

“That's why this was supposed to be perfect.” Her eyes had fastened on the space between their feet. “I just hadn't… God, I can't believe I'm saying this…”

“Savannah?”

“Not because it's unbelievable, just… It's the sort of thing girls don't do. Or aren't supposed to do. And you'd think I would've learned my lesson by now.”

He didn't know why, but his heart suddenly roared.

“But you've earned my honesty, and I don't want…” Savannah shook her head and met his eyes, and what Thorn saw there would have knocked him dead had he not been so certain, at that moment, he had a world of things to live for. “I've told you everything. Always have.

And…well…”

The air thickened. He wanted to prompt her but didn't dare interrupt.

“Ah, what the hell? Everything's so warped now, you might as well…” Savannah licked her lips, but her gaze didn't budge. She ostensibly wanted him to see her eyes. “I realized there was a reason I asked you to do it, Wes. Beyond… You're the only person who it could've been. I…

God, I just can't—”

He couldn't help himself. “Savannah, please—”

“I love you.”

The space between them grew too great, the dull ringing in his ears paralyzed him, nailing his feet to the ground. A thousand different times, a thousand different ways, a thousand different places, he'd envisioned her saying those words. Nothing could compare to this, to the fulfilled wonderment that she truly stood here, in his house, looking at him with eyes that didn't lie.

Warmth flooded his veins, spread through his fingers, and tickled its way toward his worn, long-agonized, and gun-shy heart before believing it could be real. This wasn't a dream. He would not wake up in an empty room. Savannah's eyes burned real. Her voice lived real. The words felt real.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “Savannah—”

“Oh God.”

“You love me? You really love me?”

“I can't believe I said that. Oh my God, I really said that.”

“You love me?”

She nodded slowly, pained, as though unable to say the words again.

He'd fantasized about it yesterday when he'd buried his tongue inside her. He'd wondered in the aftermath, when she blushed and mused aloud and danced around things he'd never seen her dance around. He'd choked back the words himself a dozen times while kissing her and most forcibly when her lips wrapped around his prick. Yesterday he'd begged the universe to give him this very thing, only to be denied. But now—Godnow—he understood. It couldn't have happened anyway but this. Perfection existed here. Right here. It wasn't whispered in the dark or off the buzz of lovemaking. This lived real in the real world. Savannah stood right here, and she loved him.

“I know this isn't what you were looking for,” she said quickly. “And that's, well, that's why I came by. I wanted to call things off before I got myself in even deeper, because, hey? Lovesick Savannah is kinda—”

A warm smile spread across Thorn's face, new life pulsing through his skin. “Savannah…”

“Disastrous. And…ummm, well, I told you because I obviously can't… We can't be friends anymore, Thorn. I can't be the sort of friend who stands by while you date skanks like Paige.”

“Savannah—”

“And pretend it doesn't kill me. But you deserve the truth, and now that you have it, I'll just pick up the tattered pieces of my dignity and go home.”

Thorn shook his head. “Can't let you do that, love.” Her brow wrinkled, inspiring a chuckle.

“I really can't believe,” he continued, “after all these years, after everything we've been through…how you never knew.”

“Knew what?”

He sighed. “Savannah, I've been in love with you since kindergarten.”

And then he couldn't stand the distance between them. He watched her race through emotions he couldn't name, watched realization, understanding, and euphoria spread across her skin, and he had to taste her.

In a blink, he had her against him, her mouth a slave to his. Everything else fell aside.

She loves me.

If this were a dream, he never wanted to wake.

“You love me?”

He barked a laugh against her lips, tugging her shirt over her head. They had somehow made it down the hall she knew so well and danced dangerously close to crossing the threshold of his room.Wesley's room . She knew what would happen there, yet her mind had joined her heart, steadfastly refusing to focus onthat when she only heard his words over and over again.

It didn't seem real…didn't seem possible.

“I fucking worship you,” Thorn replied, and for how hard he was trembling, for the desperate openness in his eyes—those eyes that peeled away layers with such ease, it unnerved the strongest of wills—she heard the truth in his words. Hell, shefelt the truth. It just didn't seem real. These things only happened in movies. The comically confused protagonists of some Nora Ephron feature. These things did not happen in real life, and they most certainly didn't happen to her.

“For how long?” Savannah whispered. She vaguely knew her tee had disappeared gone and her jeans would soon follow. It seemed he had his heart set on getting her naked.

“Told you,” he replied, his mouth dropping to nip at her bra strap. “Since the first day I saw you.”

“We were three!”

Thorn shrugged a lazy shoulder, and it hit her that he had officially becomeThorn to her.

Completely, wholly, thoroughly. Wesley was a boy she'd known, a boy she loved; Thorn was the man he'd grown into, and the one she'd fallen in love with. The change happened so rapidly in her head, she nearly didn't catch it, but when she did, it shook her to the core.

She'd tried to label Thorn as the side of Wesley who would touch her. Wrong. Thorn and Wesley lived as one in the same… Wesley had grown up into Thorn.

“I saw you, and I was yours, baby,” he murmured, fingers deftly popping open the snap of her jeans. “I always knew it'd be us.”

“But you never said anything.”

He laughed again, though it sounded forced this time. “Couldn't very well, could I?

Savannah… I'm serious. I loved you the second I saw you, and every day since then, I've just fallen deeper. But you never looked at me like that.”

“I never knew.”

“And I love you too much to bollocks up a good thing. I didn't wanna tell you I was crazy about you and have you run scared.” Thorn shook his head. “Kick off the shoes.”

She obeyed without thinking. “So all this time…”

“Every sodding second.”

“Paige said you were in love with someone.”

Thorn arched a brow. “She did, did she? When did you two chat?”

“She came up to me in the hall today,” Savannah replied. “She said…she said there was always someone else, and that she thought you'd told me about it, and that's why we weren't talking.”

“Never would've pegged her for having any sort of perception.”

“It was me? You were in love with me?”

He made a face. “Why the hell do you think I hooked up with Paige in the first place?”

Savannah wiggled but didn't say anything.

“I couldn't stand it,” Thorn continued, jerking her jeans down her legs. “You with Daniel. Do you have any idea what that was like? Hearing you fawn—”

“I never fawned!”

“Over that prized wanker like he was your own personal messiah? And Christ, the things I imagined…what he was doing to you, touching you the way onlyI should touch you.” His hand slipped up her leg until he had her sex cradled against his palm. “Like this.”

“I…” Savannah shuddered hard. “I never let him touch me like that.”

Thorn's jaw tightened. “Know that now,” he acknowledged roughly. “Didn't stop the images.

I hated him, Savannah. I fucking hatedhim . Hated the way he played you like a fiddle and how you justlet it happen . Hated the way he hurt you. Hated the tears you shed over that ponce.

Those months you were with him… I lived and died every night. You belonged tome , and he had nofucking right to touch you.”

Savannah just stared at him. “I didn't know you loved me,” she said softly.

“I know.” He bunched the crotch of her panties to the side. “But if it wasn't him, it was someone else. Someone else touching you like this…” The slight flicker of his thumb against her clit nearly made her knees buckle. “Someone else touching you, tasting you, worshipping this pretty pussy… Christ, love, I've driven myself right outta my mind.”

She trembled and braced her hands on his shoulders. “You know the reason I called you every night, right?” she asked softly, her teeth worrying her lower lip when he slipped a finger inside her. She was slick but unprepared, and though the whollywoman part within her rejoiced, the fragile, timid virgin couldn't help but feel the pinch. “I…uhh…”

Thorn sank to his knees, pressing her firmly against the bedroom door. “Want me to stop?”

he asked, then leaned inward and drew her clit between his lips.

“Ohhhh…”

“That's it, kitten. Relax.”

Discomfort receded in place of pleasure; suddenly she didn't feelenough of him.

“That…that's good.”

He smirked. “So that's a no on the stopping, then?”

Savannah blinked, squeezing his shoulder. “You really love me?” she repeated, hating how needy her voice sounded. It just seemed too unreal to be grounded in reality.

His fingers slipped out of her without warning, his mouth releasing her clit. Savannah's eyes widened, and a long whimper hissed through her lips, but he was on his feet, pressed against her before she could think to question his intent. His thick erection nudged her needy wetness, his fingers on her swollen bundle to calm the ache.

“I love you,” Thorn said firmly. “I've always loved you…so much it hurt at times. Being with you, touching you, laughing with you, never thinking you'd want anything more with me.”

It sounded absurd now that she had evernot wanted this. Still, Savannah knew it had happened…and it killed her to think there she might never have realized what had always stood right in front of her. “I really was the girl Paige was talking about?”

He nodded. “There's only ever been you, Savannah. That's why…I lost my head a bit yesterday when you asked me…when you kept prying about what I'd done with her. It wasnever this. That relationship was just—”