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His hands fumble around my legs like he wants to fuck me, but his body is too damn drunk to manage it. He can’t even get a firm grasp in his hands. Instead, he jerks his hips upward and reaches for my hands.

“Come here, baby,” he stutters. Once he gets a hold of my hand, he pulls me down so that we’re chest to chest and he tries to kiss me, but I pull away.

Not like this, I tell myself. My kiss on his lips was different. That moment belongs to me. But this? Kissing him so he can kiss me back while he’s too drunk to remember it and still has some other bitch’s taste on his mouth? No fucking way.

Not like this.

“Get up, Alex,” I order him, my tone cold and level. The person who needs the most convincing at this moment is me.

“Bedroom?” he asks with one eye open.

“Yeah, let’s go to the bedroom.” Which is exactly what we’re going to do, but not to do what he wants.

Finally, he helps me get his drunk body off the floor. He winces when his foot hits the floor, but by some miracle, he stays on his feet. I’ve never actually been to Alexander’s bedroom, and I can feel my hands shake as we make our way up the stairs. This could be a very, very bad idea.

What if we get to that bed, and I give in? Dear God, please don’t let me lose my virginity like this.

Once we reach the end of the hallway, I wait for him to pull me in the right direction, and he stumbles toward the right. Of course. His room faces mine.

When we enter the dark space, I breathe in the smell of his room. It smells like him. Musk, cologne, something sweet. There in the middle of the room, looming like a warning sign, is his bed. Sheets unmade, thrown about like he hasn’t touched them since he rolled out this morning.

He seems to have sobered up enough to sit on the bed without collapsing, but not enough to stop him from pulling me with him.

“No, Alex,” I say, keeping my voice calm. He yanks me onto his lap, but I pull away before I let my weight settle around his hips.

“Sunny,” he mumbles, pulling me closer, and I start to panic that he’s too strong for me to resist. “I wanna fuck you, Sunny.” His voice is a low growl, and it warms me from the inside like a fire ignited behind my belly button. If only he knew how much I want him to, but I don’t want my first time to be something he wouldn’t even remember and likely pass out midway through. I would remember it for the rest of my life.

Plus, he’s calling me Sunny, and that feels wrong now. If this ever happens between us, then I want him to call me what he always calls me. His little rain cloud.

When he opens his bloodshot eyes and stares up at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time tonight, my heart lurches in my chest. If he keeps looking at me like that, I’ll give in—I know it.

“I want to fuck you, Sunny…but I can’t,” he mutters in a raspy tone.

My mouth stays closed tight as I stare back. He reaches up to brush a stray curl of my hair behind my ear. “Tell me I can’t, Sunny. Tell me no.”

This brief moment of lucidity is dissolving my will to refuse him.

“Say it, Sunny.” His tone is harsh and cold, but his body is so warm, and I find myself leaning farther into it.

With all the strength I have, I open my mouth, and quietly whisper, “No, Alexander. You can’t fuck me.”

His eyes flutter closed. “Good girl.”

He collapses onto the bed, bringing me with him. I let him hold me against his body, rubbing his groin against me a couple of times. He only gets in two thrusts before he stills, and his eyes roll closed.

But just when I think he’s out, he speaks.

“I couldn’t do it,” he mumbles somewhere between awake and asleep. “I couldn’t fuck her.”

I don’t move, though. Lying on him chest to chest, I stare at his face and let those words sink in. I want to ask why. I want to know if I was the reason. Or if he has finally turned a corner from that old Alexander my sister told me about today to this new one who protects women instead of taking advantage of them.

It makes it even harder to keep from falling for him.

When he starts to snore, and I know he’s properly asleep, I climb from the bed and carefully undress him. After he’s down to just his underwear, I drag the blanket over him and crawl into the bed beside him.

He seems so at peace now, no longer at war with himself and what he wants. His golden-brown hair hangs over his forehead, so I delicately brush it aside. Then, I lean forward and press my lips to the soft skin of his cheek.

“I want to let you fuck me, Alexander,” I whisper against his chest. “Please don’t ever ask me to turn you down again.”