DON’T STOP
The hard length of him pressed against my thigh through his jeans, a silent reminder of his earlier confession, of what he claimed I’d awakened in him after years of nothing.
My voice cracked before I could stop it.
The word hovered on the tip of my tongue, sharp, dirty, forbidden. I hadn’t said it out loud in years. My parents had drilled it into me early. Nice girls don’t talk like that, Lila. It’s vulgar. It’s beneath you. Even now, miles away from their house, the rule clung to me like damp clothes. I bit my bottom lip so hard I tasted copper, trying to trap the word before it escaped.