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I swallowed what felt like razor blade after razor blade. Because what did she mean she hadn’t kissed anyone in as far back as she could remember?

Filthy thoughts ran through my mind from our one night together. The way she ordered me around, her impeccable body, the way we so easily fell into a natural rhythm. But she wasn’t easy to give her lips away.

Her rule was starting to make more sense now. But I needed to know why.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I vowed a long time ago not to give someone that part of me.”

She hadn’t completely backed out of our bet, though. Maybe that meant she was considering giving me that little piece of her? Or did she truly put all her eggs in the basket that she believed was me choking on a silly little game of pool?

“Why?” I asked, straight to the point.

When her soft green eyes dipped away from me, I lifted my hand that was resting on her hip to her cheek, so I was now cupping her jaw with both of my hands.

“It’s okay, you can tell me.” I lifted her gaze back to mine.

She sighed before finally giving in.

“Call me crazy, but sex is easy. I can detach myself if necessary. But kissing feels like so much more to me. It’s intimate. It’s soul-baring. It’s what I imagine you do with someone you love.” Her tongue reached out, licking her lips.

“Have you ever kissed someone you loved before, Andi?”

“Of course, I have. I don’t know if love is the proper word, though. Maybe puppy love. It’s just been a while.”

“How long is a while?” My jaw clenched.

“Somewhere in my early twenties. The last relationship I had before I said, ‘fuck the pain’ and created rules for myself—no kissing, and I won’t fuck a guy more than once.”

“Remind me how old you are.”

“Thirty-one.”

That’s what I thought.

Had she really stuck strong to her rules for almost a decade now? Who hurt her? What happened in her past to make her fear an emotional connection?

“So, for nearly eight to ten years, you’ve had casual one-night stands with no kissing whatsoever?”

“Are you judging me, Hunter?”

“No. No. No.” I shook my head at a rapid speed. “Judging you is the last thing I would do. I’m just trying to understand you.”

“Well, now you have it.” She shrugged so aggressively that I couldn’t tell if she was upset or embarrassed. “I don’t just run around and kiss people.”

“I respect you, Andi, and I respect your rules. Thank you for letting me in and telling me. The last thing I would want to do is make you kiss me because of some stupid bet.”

I dropped my hands from her face, combed her hair from her eyes, and helped her down from the pool table. Standing almost chest to chest with me, her sad green eyes were filled with unsaid thoughts.

Until she broke the silence.

“I can’t really explain what I’m feeling … I don’t know how to put it into words. But what if I said,” she paused, and I held my breath, “something inside of me was aching to kiss you?”

Her words nearly knocked the wind out of me.

“Andi...” I fed one arm around her lower back, and with the other, my fingers filled the space between them with her deep crimson hair.

Inching closer to her, forehead to forehead, our heavy breaths intertwined.