16. Time to Breathe

~ JESSE ~

Laying there with Cazz’s weight pinning me to the bed, my head was reeling. My insides were at war because half of me was already halfway in love with him. I wanted to hold him to me, keep him there, lay under him and just soak him up like a good smell.

I knew—I knew—that I was never going to be the same. And that was scary, because something I had never anticipated was suddenly very clear: Having sex really did affect my feelings.

I’d talked to my friends over the years. I’d shaken my head over and over again, baffled about why they were so attached to some douchebag who was inconsistent and insensitive at best—sometimes downright abusive.

And they’d always talk about how they wanted him. Couldn’t get enough of him. And how rare that was…

I’d been skeptical—naively, as it turned out—that this kind of connection had anything to do with it. I’d never had a man make me feel anything close to what Cazz had just wrung from my body, so I assumed they were just trying to romantici