He doesn’t know my secret. He doesn’t know what I’m hiding.
After eight months of dating, I think I might be ready. I think, for the very first time in my whole life, I might be able to let him see. To let him witness all of me. To let him see the real me.
I’m scared. Terrified that when he realizes what I’ve been hiding from him that he’ll reject me. Scared that he won’t be able to take it.
Brad might be the one. He’s so good to me, making me feel special. But he doesn’t realize how special I really am.
Because things aren’t as simple as they seem. Because I’m a woman to him, and he doesn’t know that the line isn’t that clear. Because tonight he’s going to see me.
I’ve never done this before, not once. I’ve never been with a man or let a man see the real me. Tonight is the ultimate test and he just might be the man for the job.
The one who can take every last inch of me and beg for more.
Excerpt
“I think I’m nervous,” Brad said behind me, following up his words with a little laugh that backed them up, “Why am I nervous?”
I turned to face him, smiling shyly, “I’m the one who’s never done this before, if anything I should be the one that’s nervous here.”
“You don’t look like you are,” he said.
I laughed, “I am. I guess I’m just good at acting.”
There was a beat and a pause and Brad reached for me tentatively, pulling me into him and kissing me quickly before pressing his forehead against mine, “What are you nervous about?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, stilling my nerves, “That you won’t love me anymore.”
It was, I believe, the first time that either of us had dropped the L-bomb. Having that linger in the air in the midst of everything else might have just made things worse, and combined with the fact that my eyes were closed when I said it and still stubbornly closed afterwards made me so terrified because I just couldn’t see his reaction.
But then he kissed me again and it was layered with all the reassurance he could give me.
“I’ll always love you,” he whispered, “And nothing you could say or do could change that.”
“What about be?” I said, too quiet for him to hear and almost like I was just moving my lips without the sound even passing them, “What about just what I am?”
Before he could ask me anything else I opened my eyes and backed him up to the bed. I pushed him down to sit on it, stepping back out of reach and taking in a deep breath as I stood in front of him.
My fingers hooked into my belt and I unlatched it. I drew down my zipper and I looked him in the eye and then I shimmied my hips and slid my shorts to the ground and I revealed myself to him fully for the first time.
Every last inch of me.