“What?” I gasped again, trying to catch my breath.

“You ever make yourself come?”

My cheeks heated and I shook my head. “No.”

“Can I make you come?”

“Do you even have to ask?” I moaned.

Jake found this amusing. I didn’t. I was too impatient to discover whatever it was my body was reaching for.

He stopped moving against me and I instantly frowned. “What are you doing?”

In answer, Jake reached for the top button on my pants. Thankfully, I’d taken off the belt with the cuffs before I’d gotten onto the truck bed so we had no obstacles slowing us down.

“Is this okay?” he asked softly, unbuttoning my pants. I had to admit I liked that he kept checking to make sure I was all right.

“Yeah, baby,” I whispered back and saw his eyes flare at the endearment. It was the first time I’d said it.

He kissed me as his fingers tugged on my zipper, the sound abnormally loud in the quiet night. My hips jerked at the touch of his fingers above the line of my panties and I could feel Jake hesitate. He began to pull away so I clutched his neck and kissed him harder. As our tongues tangled, the kiss deeper than any we’d shared before, Jake’s hand slipped under my panties and his fingers pressed against me, coming to rest on my clit.

The feeling made me cry out. Our mouths parted as I looked up into his eyes in shock.

He lowered his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, and he began to move his fingers over my clit. The coil of tension in my belly tightened and I whimpered.

“That’s it,” he murmured against my mouth, “baby, that’s it.”

I pushed against his fingers, my own digging into his waist as I clutched him tight and let him build my body up to something wonderful.

Not much time passed before the coil snapped and lights flared behind my eyes as I arched my back and fell apart, my body shuddering against him as I experienced my first-ever orgasm.

It was a whole new world.

Coming back down to earth, I tried to catch my breath as my heart pounded against my ribs. The blood rushed in my ears, drowning out all other sound.

Jake kissed me, a butterfly brush against my lips, then my jaw, then my collarbone, and then my br**sts. Lazily, because my body felt all jellified and languid, I ran my fingers through his hair as he played with my br**sts and licked at my ni**les, sending beautiful aftershocks and shivers through me.

“Thank you,” I whispered and Jake’s head immediately shot up.

He shook his head, his expression impassioned. “No, baby … thank you.”

Loving that and wanting to repay it, I shoved against him and the move so surprised Jake, it allowed me to roll him on his back. As I moved over him, my br**sts seemed to hypnotize him and he immediately reached up to cup them in his hands.

I closed my eyes in pleasure as his thumbs brushed over my ni**les and it took me a minute to shake myself out of the spell he kept putting me under. “No,” I murmured, pulling back. “It’s your turn.”

“Charley,” his voice cracked with need, “you don’t have to. Tonight was for you. We don’t have to do everything at once.”

“But I want to see you.”

Jake closed his eyes as if he was in pain. “You’re going to kill me.”

I smiled and leaned over to whisper over his lips, “But what a way to go.”

He reached up to cup my cheek in his hand, his expression seeming somewhat awed. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

His words seeped into my chest and curled around the ache of feeling that lived in there, that ache that belonged to him and him alone. “You make me feel amazing, Jake. You make me feel like I can be just who I am. I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trust you.”

Abruptly, Jake sat up and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me hard against his chest. “I feel the same way about you.”

“Good.” I nibbled his lower lip and then smiled against his mouth. “Can I see you?” I repeated his words back to him. Jake nodded slowly.

His arms loosened so I could move from his lap to his thighs. Cockiness seeming to return, Jake casually leaned back on the palms of his hands and stared at me as if to say, “Well?”

I narrowed my eyes on him, which made him smile.

My faux frown disappeared, melting under his charm. I smiled back and then looked down at his lap where his erection strained against his jeans. Suddenly feeling a little dry-mouthed again, it came as no surprise to me when my hands trembled as I reached out to unzip him.

Jake noticed. “Baby, we don’t have to do this tonight.”

“I want to,” I promised him. I attributed the trembling to not wanting to disappoint him, but I shoved that thought away as soon as I looked deep into Jake’s eyes. I trusted myself when I was with him. I trusted him with me. He would never make me feel bad about myself.

Slipping my hand under Jake’s boxer briefs, his abs jerked at my touch. My heart was back to thudding like crazy as I encircled my hand around his hot, silken but throbbing erection.

I squeezed it gently, testing the waters, and Jake groaned. Spurred on by the sexy strain in his features and dark heat in his eyes, I tugged him out into the cold air and stared.

So that was what it looked like. Wow.

His reddish-purple mushroom-headed hard-on was so big, I instantly wondered how this thing was going to eventually fit inside me. My mind wandered briefly and my stomach flipped with nerves, but the sound of Jake’s scratchy voice asking me to stroke him pulled me back to the present.

As I watched Jake watch me, his hips jerked to meet my strokes and his cheeks colored with heightened passion. His breathing grew more and more shallow and he began to pant. Witnessing his arousal and knowing I was the cause of it was almost as good as what he’d done to me. It turned out I had nothing to worry about regarding getting this stuff right. I caught on quickly, and honestly, Jake seemed easily pleased.

When he came in a sticky mess all over my hand, my eyes grew so big, Jake was still amused about it when he took me home. I endured his teasing, though, knowing I’d find some way to pay him back.

Later, before I got out of the car, my palms already sweating at the thought of seeing my parents and hoping that they didn’t notice the lack of innocence in my eyes, Jake tugged me close and kissed me. I also then hoped my parents weren’t spying on us because the way Jake kissed me … well … it was filled with knowing. It was sexual. It was possessive. It was different from any kiss that had come before it because our relationship had changed.