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  asks, grinning broadly as she walks over and flops down on my bed. "If you were doing the deed, I'd be scarred for life. But I didn't hear any uhhhh-uhhhh-uhhhh."

  I slap her hard on the arm. "That is not what I sound like."

  "Stop getting distracted. Did you do it or not?"

  "I'm not kissing and telling!"

  Sable looks at me like I have three heads. "I tell you about my sexual misadventures."

  "Yeah, because you never learned appropriate boundaries as a child and you think that talking in great detail about your sexual conquests is totally normal."

  "My sexual conquests," Sable says. "I like the way that sounds."

  "Speaking of which, how's Tank?" I ask.

  Sable sighs and leans back with her head against the wall. "Jonathan is…good."

  "Jonathan?" I ask, laughing.

  "That's his name. His actual name, not his nickname."

  "Since when did you start learning the names of the guys you bang?" I ask. That sounds like a bitchy thing to say, but it's not. Sable prefers to refer to the guys she dates by a moniker other than their names – The Artist, or The Drummer, or The Jackhammer. "I've never heard you call anyone by his name."

  Sable shrugs. "I like his name."

  I sit up straight in bed. "You like him."

  Sable rolls her eyes. "I do not," she says. "I like banging him."

  I narrow my eyes as I point my finger at her. "No, no, no, this is not the I-like-sex Sable I know and love. This Sable is all weird."

  "Oh, shut up," she groans, her cheeks pink.

  "You're blushing again."

  "So what? I think Jonathan is cute and I like hooking up with him."

  "You liiike him," I tease, dragging out the word.

  "Shut up, Virgin."

  "Not anymore."

  "Hah. I knew it!" She bolts upright in the bed, turning to face me and crisscrossing her legs. "You have my undivided attention. Tell me absolutely everything in exacting detail."

  "We did it," I say. "That's it. I'm not a virgin anymore."

  Sable screws up her face. "Oh. I see. Well, don't worry about it. You know, it's not necessarily fireworks and magic the first time anyway."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "It's okay if it was disappointing," she assures me. "I mean, it's a lot of pressure, twenty-three years of waiting for the big moment. So it's naturally going to be hard for it to live up to the expectation."

  "It wasn't disappointing," I tell her. "It was… really good."

  "Why did you make it sound like it was disappointing?"

  "I didn't!" I protest. "I just said that I lost it and that's it."

  "Where did he take you?" Sable asks. "Did he make me proud?"

  "Make you proud?" I ask.

  "He was worried about the whole deflowering thing."

  "What??" I squeal. "He talked to you about it?"

  "Not exactly," she says, waving her hand dismissively. "He wanted a little advice. It was so sweet."

  "He needed advice on how to do it?" My voice goes up approximately three octaves. It's one thing for Sable and I to deconstruct our sex lives or lack thereof, but another thing entirely for Colton to talk to her about how to deflower me.

  Sable cocks her head to the side. "No, he was clear on the mechanics," she goes on. "I mean, at least I hope he was."

  "Yes," I mumble, my teeth gritted. "We were both clear on the mechanics, thanks. What exactly did he say to you about it?"

  "He wanted to make the experience… special," she explains. "Romantic."

  "So you told him what to do?" I ask. I feel a sudden pang of disappointment that he asked Sable for advice. Here I was, thinking that he had come up with the back-of-the-truck thing all on his own.

  "Of course I didn't tell him what to do," she says. "I just told him you weren't a flowers and dinner kind of girl and he should think outside the box."

  "That's all you told him?" I ask. "And who says I'm not a flowers and dinner kind of girl?"

  "Come on," Sable whines. "Don't deny me this. How did he do it?"

  "Missionary style."

  "Hilarious. I don't want to know the position. Did he think outside the box or not?"

  I exhale heavily. "He brought me out into the country," I tell her. "In his truck. That sounds a lot lamer than it was."

  "So you did it in the back of his pickup truck?" Sable asks, wrinkling her nose like she smells something bad. "When I suggested he think outside the box, I kind of meant a suite at the Four Seasons or something."

  "Ok, I'm not telling you anything else."

  "No! Keep going! I'll zip my lips. Promise." She makes a fake buttoning gesture and gives me a patiently waiting look.

  I roll my eyes. "I'm not telling you any more," I say. "It was outside under the stars and it was very nice and he did well. It was outside of the box. And it was romantic."

  Sable grins broadly. "Good. I'm glad neither of you got poison ivy on your junk."

  "You're such a bitch."

  "Did I wish poison ivy on you or did I literally just say I was glad that neither of you came home with junk-rashes?"

  "So Jonathan is your boyfriend, now, right?"

  "That's a low blow, bringing relationship labels into this conversation," she says. "We're having fantastic sex and that's that."

  "Sure you are."

  "Look at you. One time having sex and now you're an expert on no-strings relationships."

  "Not one time," I confess, my face warming at the thought of Colton taking me up against the side of his truck.

  "You hussy!"

  "Was that pride I heard in your tone?"

  "My little baby is growing up," Sable sings, wiping a mock tear from her eye. "Colton's not going to know what hit him."

  * * *

  Sable was right.

  It's like a switch got flipped the night Colton and I had sex. I mean, I don't know how I've gone twenty-three years without sex. I thought I had a good idea of what it entailed – it's not like I'm a prude. I had sex toys and my fingers and, really, they worked just fine.

  Now, I'm learning "just fine" is nothing compared to Colton King's cock.

  Virgin girl goes cock-crazy once she gets a taste. Virgin girl gets debauched and becomes a very bad girl. It's an eye-roll-inducing cliché. Except here I am, practically begging for Colton's dick constantly. I'm a walking ball of need and want and desire, perpetually aroused, wanting Colton to bend me over and take me anywhere, anytime. It's like I'm making up for lost time, trying to cram years of pent-up frustration into one summer of sex.

  I've become one of those girls who get a little bit of cock and lose their damn minds.

  Except with Colton… it's not a little bit of cock. It's a hell of a lot.

  He seems to have a sixth sense, seems to know exactly how to touch me – the right place, the right intensity, the right position – to send me hurtling over the edge so quickly.

  And Colton has been only too happy to oblige my crazy sex drive.

  In fact, he obliges over and over again.

  In my room in the apartment – on the bed, on the desk, on the floor, against the wall. On the sofa, the kitchen counter, on the floor just inside the doorway of my place. In the tutoring room. In the truck at the lake. In his room while I pretend to be helping him study, but I think his roommates know exactly what's going on.

  I'm on a sex-induced high, and I don't want to come down from it. The problem is, I have the nagging feeling that it's just a matter of time until it all comes crashing to the ground.

  29

  Colton

  "You have a thing for her." Drew says it into the phone to me, and then repeats it in a whisper that I can totally hear.

  "Are you kidding me, Drew? Is Beth right there in the room with you?" I ask. I should have known. Drew and his girlfriend have been joined at the hip since they started dating in eighth grade. They even picked the same college to attend to keep from being separated.

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