“I’m going to ask you one more time. Please.”

“Oh, and then what? You gonna count to three and give me a time out? Open your eyes.”

He keeps his eyes shut, moves me off him, gets up, and walks out the door.

I suddenly feel very naked.

I sit here, not sure what to do.

I’m so disappointed. This has been the perfect weekend.

Then he had to ruin it. Why does it always have to get ruined?

I’m so tired of this. I’m so tired of being told no.

Maybe I should be done with him.

I’ll call Dawson. Tell him that I’ll go out with him. Let him be his sweet, adorable, and compliant self. He never, ever tells me no. And he went to Columbia again this weekend. He would come over and be glad to appreciate my nakedness.

I pull my robe on, hop out of bed, and walk purposefully to the kitchen.

I spy my purse sitting on the table.

Aiden is standing in the kitchen watching me, but I ignore him.

I sit on the bench and scroll through my phone.

“What are you doing?’ Aiden asks.

“Calling Dawson.”

Aiden rips the phone out of my hand. “I’m not going to let you do that.”

“You don’t have any say in what I do, Aiden.”

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“I’m stubborn?”

I walk to the living room, raise my eyebrows at him, and pick up the landline phone.

Aiden marches over and presses the receiver down.

“Stop it! Give me my phone back.”

“No.”

“Now.”

“No.”

“I’ll just go use another phone,” I say, heading back toward the kitchen.

Aiden comes up from behind me, grabs me, and marches me back into the bedroom.

“You done with your little tantrum yet?”

Oh, my. He has no idea. That was no tantrum.

But he’s about to see a tantrum of epic proportions because I’m coming unglued, unhinged, and off my freaking rocker. I have been pushed to the point of no return.

“Give. Me. My. Phone.”

“No.” He sets my phone down on the dresser, grabs me around the waist, and pulls me in close to him. “You told me that you wanted to work on our foundation, our framework.”

I glare at him. “No amount of framework could keep us from crumbling.”

He runs his hand across my shoulder.

It instantly calms me. Which I completely hate.

“Don’t touch me.” I back away, sitting on the bed. I need to stay mad at him.

He sits down next to me.

I immediately stand back up and walk into the kitchen. No way am I going to sit on the same bed with him.

“Do you really think that was a rejection?” he asks, following me with my phone.

“Yes.”

He grabs me and pulls my hips tightly into his. “Does this feel like a rejection?”

“All we do is fight.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“Um, yes we are. And now we’re fighting over whether or not we’re fighting. It’s pathetic.”

“I want the same things you want. We’re going to take it slow.”

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to take it slow. And I don’t get what the big deal was. It’s not like I was naked.”

“Keatyn,” he says firmly. “All you had on was a tiny pair of underwear.”

“I’m done arguing with you. Give me my phone. I don’t even have to flip a coin to figure it out. I want a guy who wants me.”

“You were going to flip a coin to decide between us?”

“I did flip a coin, actually.”

“And that’s exactly why I told you to get dressed.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Sit down and listen to me, please.”

I roll my eyes and comply. Why do I comply? Why don’t I run naked straight to Columbia?

“When you decide that you want me and only me, that’s when I’ll let you keep your clothes off. Until then, we’re going slow. I have never turned down a girl before.”

“Oh. Wow. That makes me feel so much better.”

He cradles my face in his hand. “Boots, I promise you. I want you. It took every single ounce of my conviction to do that. To walk out of the room. The foundation was your idea.”

“Can’t there be some boobs in our foundation? We’re talking middle school stuff here, Aiden.”

He shuts his eyes tightly. “I feel like I’m on that survivor show. Survive this and you can win the big prize.”

“Your dick is the big prize?”

“I’m not talking about my dick. You know what? If sex is all you want then, here, here’s the phone. Call him.”

I stare at the phone in my hand. “I asked my grandpa for advice on choosing between you and Dawson,” I say softly. “He’s the one who told me to flip a coin.”

“I’d think you’d want to decide with your heart, not by chance.”

“That’s what I said. I said, What if I don’t get what I want? And he said, Exactly. That when the coin is in the air, you’ll know what you want.”

“So what happened when the coin was in the air?”

“I knew before I flipped it that I wanted it to land on you.”

“Did it?”

“No. Dawson won three out of four.”

“So why isn’t he here with you now?”

“Because.”

Aiden stares at me, searching my eyes for answers. “Do you still want your phone back?”

I hold his gaze. “No.”

Aiden picks me up quickly, pushes me onto the kitchen counter, and kisses me.

Hard.

Full of desire.

This isn't a sweet chaste kiss.

No.

This is a tongue, and heat, and laying-me-across-the-counter kiss.

I remember a scene in one of my favorite books, That Wedding. When Phillip comes home to find Jadyn making cupcakes and they get in a frosting fight and do it on the kitchen counter. I so want my own scene like that.

Aiden moves his mouth away from mine, leans back slightly, rips open the front of my robe, shoves it off my shoulders, and stares at my naked chest.

A single finger touches me. Traces the curve of my breast. Circles my nipple. Grazing across the top of it.

He glances at me briefly, the hunger in his eyes returning. Then he attacks. He covers one breast with his big hand, massaging it, and rubbing his thumb across my nipple. The other breast he takes in his mouth. Sucking it in forcefully. Teasing it with his tongue. Licking around its edges.

I feel like I’m lost somewhere between heaven and the underworld. All I can do is breathe.

Until he takes my nipple in his teeth.

I gasp and hold my breath as he pulls it taut before letting it go. Giving me a teeny second of pain and then pure pleasure.

“Does that feel like middle school?” he says raggedly into my chest.

“Not at all.”

He grins at my chest, trails his tongue slowly from one boob to the other, and then takes it in his mouth.

A little moan escapes my lips.

Which seems to cause him to react. He sucks harder, massages harder, teases more, and his hips . . .

Oh. My. God.

My legs are spread apart. His hips are rocking between them.

Like we’re having hot sex on my kitchen counter.

I can feel his hardness pressing against me.

I push my hands just below the waistline of his pants.

He removes his lips from my chest and mutters, “Don’t. Unless you want me to stop what I'm doing.”

I quickly move my hands to his back.

I don’t want him to stop.

But I’m seriously going to have to wring my panties out after this.

Sunday, November 13th

Not PG.

4pm

We’re almost back to school when I notice the feathers attached to Aiden’s backpack. “I never got to finish with the feathers.”

His eyebrows raise in amusement. “Oh, really, what else were you planning?”

“I don’t know. Just, you know, rubbing them around some.”

“Rubbing them around or gliding them across my naked skin?”

“Uh, the gliding one” I say, swallowing hard, as my cheeks flush.

“Sounds like we have a date for next weekend.”

When we get back to my dorm, he gives me a sweet kiss.

“I loved our rainy day weekend,” I tell him.

“Me too. I have to get to the playoff meeting, otherwise I’d stay here and kiss you all night.”

He gives me one more kiss and then heads down to the field house.

I take my bags into my room and put my stuff away. Just as I finish, Maggie, Annie, Peyton, and Katie bound through the door.

“So what happened?” Katie asks.

“Did you sleep with him?” Maggie says at the same time.

“No, I didn’t.”

Maggie screws up her face. “Really?”

“Really. We're taking things slow. Really, super, excruciatingly slow.”

“So it wasn't that fun?” Annie questions.

“What? No. It was the most amazing weekend.” I tell them how we got dressed up and went to the top of the Empire State Building. I tell them all things we did and saw, but I keep the good parts to myself. I don't want to share them with anyone. They feel like they should be savored. “So what happened here?”

“Whitney and I took Cooper Steele to dinner,” Peyton says, her eyebrow raised, suggesting it was more than dinner.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. It was fun. The asshole is so charming, I’d share him if I had to. Hell, Whitney even suggested sharing—in a not so subtle way—but he acted like he didn't get it. Do you think he could be gay?”

“No, I think he's smart. He doesn't want to lose his job over a student when the guy could clearly get any woman he wanted.”

“Good point,” Peyton says. “I’m gonna have to try harder. Or maybe play hard to get.”

“Or give up.”

“No, not just yet. And it’s not like I care about him. I just don’t want Whitney to get him.”

“So what about you, Maggie? Did you decide to wait with Logan?”

“We didn't have sex, but we did everything else. Like you and Aiden.”

“You trying to trick me into admitting something?” I laugh. “It won’t work. Besides, there’s nothing to tell. I’m talking second base.” I was going to add that it was all very PG, but then I remember the deep kiss in the elevator, the ice the bathtub, the naked boobs on the kitchen counter. We may not have gone very far, but what we did felt so sexual, and so not PG.

Tuesday, November 15th

Stolen kisses.

11:45pm

Today was a blur. A happy blur. Of holding hands. Of sweet texts. Of stolen kisses between classes. Of whispering to each other at lunch. Of French words spoken in my ear. Of the pep rally. Of wishing him luck. Of winning the playoff game.

Of sitting on the bus with him on the way home.

We’re holding hands. Lazily rubbing them together. Sometimes his fingers are laced between mine. Sometimes clasped together. Sometimes just our pinkies touch. Sometimes he runs his fingertip across my palm. I watch our hands in a daze.

It’s like our hands are dancing.

I feel like I could sit for hours and do nothing but hold his hand in hundreds of different ways.

He stops every once in a while to bring my fingers to his lips.

I stop every once in a while to kiss his lips.

And then we’re back home, and it’s another amazing goodnight kiss.

Wednesday, November 16th

Sleeps with James Bond.

11am

Today is college and career day. The gym is set up with tables representing a multitude of college options. I dressed in a really cute uniform look for the occasion.

But first, I have an appointment with my academic advisor, who is going to give me the results of the career survey I took earlier this week.

“These surveys always make me laugh at the jobs they come back with,” Miss Praline says. “I just went over James Barnsworth the sixth’s—you know, of the railroad baron Barnsworths?—and it suggested a job as a sanitation worker. Can you imagine?”

I laugh. “Maybe he doesn’t want to join the family business.”

“Yours, however, are spot on. Actress, Producer, CIA Agent, Foreign Service Officer.” She hands me my results. “What do you think you want to do?”

I can’t say actress, for obvious reasons, so I go with one that actually sounds pretty cool. When I’m not reading romances, I read spy novels. I can totally picture myself as a badass spy. A classy one, though. Like the kind who gets dressed up in a designer gown, goes to fancy parties, carries a little gun in her garter, and sleeps with James Bond.

“I’ve always thought I wanted to be a doctor, but the CIA agent intrigues me. Really, it’s kinda brilliant. I have decent acting skills. I’m good with languages. And I love to travel. What would I have to do to become one?”

Miss Praline types a few things on her computer and prints out a sheet. “Here are some things you can do to prepare. Let’s see. Do a background check on yourself. Make sure your life stays squeaky clean. Don’t do drugs within twelve months of applying. Learn foreign languages.” She stops to look at me. “Do you speak anything other than French?”

“Yeah, I’m not as fluent but I can speak pretty well in Italian, Spanish, and German. I know some Swiss and Japanese too.”

She tilts her head at me. “Really?”