Every part of her body tensed, and she whispered, “I’ve never been kissed before. Never done anything with a guy before,” like it was the most embarrassing thing on Earth.

My eyes squeezed shut and I felt like a dick. Of course she hadn’t been kissed, hadn’t been f**ked. She hadn’t been around guys most of her teenage life, too busy starving herself to be thin.

I was such a grade-A f**kin’ dick.

But then I felt her soft lips brush against my sternum, and I just about lost my mind.

Slowly guiding her head up with my hand, my lips ghosted across her hair and down along her cheek. “Pix, I need you,” I rasped out once more.

Tilting her chin, she replied, “I think… I think I might need you too.”

If I wasn’t dying of anticipation of her taste, I might’ve smiled, but instead, I dipped down until our lips met. At first, I just let her get used to me, the movement of the kiss, but it wasn’t long before my hands threaded into her hair and I pushed open her lips with my tongue.

Expelling a whimper, Lexi gripped my arms and, a second later, I felt her hot tongue shyly meet mine.

She may never have been kissed before, but she was blowing my f**kin’ mind. She was brave. She was everything I never thought a chick could be.

Each second of her touch only made me want her more, but like a snowflake, she was fragile and I needed to go slow.

Reluctantly breaking from the kiss, I reared back a fraction, enough to catch the glimmer of water in her eyes. I immediately felt a fast rush of guilt.

I’d pushed her too far. She’d told me in no uncertain terms she couldn’t be touched. I’d broken my promise, all to serve my dick.

“Austin…” Lexi sighed, and I stared at her, hoping she could see the apology, the shame in my gaze. Her bright red-stained top lip hooked into a shy smile, and she looked at me like I was suddenly her whole world. I felt that look sear right into my heart. Ain’t no one ever looked upon me with such grace, with such trust before, and I felt humbled that she chose to gift it to me.

It was the strangest of feelings.

All anyone ever saw when they looked at me was the white trash ex-gang member from the Heighter-famed trailer park across town.

But not her.

Fuck knows why, but Pix only ever saw more. Even after everything I put her through.

“Austin… thank you…” she murmured, and once again that embarrassed flush engulfed her face.

“No, thank you,” I replied and, leaning down, pressed one more chaste kiss to her lips, then, gripping her hand, pressed another to the back of her fingers.

“Stay with me tonight, Pix. No sex,” I said and smiled. She slapped my chest in playful admonishment with all the strength of a gnat. “Just stay with me. Sleep next to me. Be beside me.”

“Okay.” She agreed and, taking her hand, I pulled her to the bed, and we resumed the same positions as before. But our hands never let go of one another’s. We’d moved on to a different place.

That thought had me reeling. Maybe we were now together; maybe we weren’t. I didn’t care what we labeled it. She could talk to me and I could talk to her. Boyfriend/girlfriend titles had no place among the truly f**ked up. Just that there was someone else like you, someone to understand. Some of our buried secrets had been brought out into the open, and it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my chest.

“Austin?” Lexi asked and licked along her bottom lip.

“Mmm?” I replied, watching that circling tongue, my dick twitching painfully in response.

“Could you kiss me again?”

My fists clenched at my sides. I really wanted to do more than kiss her—suck on her tits, taste her clit on my tongue, take her virginity—but I knew that wasn’t gonna happen.

“Get on over here,” I told her and jerked on her hand. She came closer still. I reached out to wrap my hands around her back when she stilled.

I moved my head back. “What did I do?”

Lexi lifted her hand and timidly brought it to lie on my cheek. “I have trigger areas.”

“Oh-kay,” I said slowly, not knowing what a “trigger area” was.

Sitting upright, she looked down at me and lowered her chin. “My back. My entire back is my trigger.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise, and Lexi cleared her throat. “I can’t have my vertebrae or the ribs on my back touched.”

The pain in her voice when she talked about herself this way cut me.

“It’s the place I hate most. It… causes me a lot of stress.” Lexi’s embarrassed eyes regarded me warily, and I pulled her down to lie against my bare chest.