“Get on over here,” I told her and jerked on her hand. She came closer still. I reached out to wrap my hands around her back when she stilled.

I moved my head back. “What did I do?”

Lexi lifted her hand and timidly brought it to lie on my cheek. “I have trigger areas.”

“Oh-kay,” I said slowly, not knowing what a “trigger area” was.

Sitting upright, she looked down at me and lowered her chin. “My back. My entire back is my trigger.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise, and Lexi cleared her throat. “I can’t have my vertebrae or the ribs on my back touched.”

The pain in her voice when she talked about herself this way cut me.

“It’s the place I hate most. It… causes me a lot of stress.” Lexi’s embarrassed eyes regarded me warily, and I pulled her down to lie against my bare chest.

“But I can touch you anywhere else? Everywhere else is free rein?” I asked and ran a finger down Lexi’s slim neck.

“Within reason,” she replied breathlessly.

“Explain further, Pix. I’m kinda desperate to f**kin’ touch you like I want,” I pushed as my finger began skirting down the material of her sleeve.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” she said as my finger closed in on the hem of her black dress and her eyes closed in pleasure, a red flush warming her pixie face.

“Don’t know what?” This time my voice sounded off. The way she was lying too close to my c**k was making me lose my mind. Stopping my finger, I waited for her response.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been with a guy before. Not even close. I don’t know what will trigger me, apart from my back. Don’t know if I’ll freak out on you.”

I cupped her chin and Lexi nuzzled her face in my palm. But then her head stilled and she said, “I do know that I will never be able to be naked with a guy. I’ll never be a normal sexual partner. Will never just be free and unrestrained. I just think I’ll never be in a place to be that comfortable with myself.” She sighed and added, “Run now, Austin. Run far, far away from the girl with too much baggage.”

Lexi’s head was still turned into my hand, away from my face, so I said, “And I’m dirt poor, still tied to a gang that deals drugs for cash, and have a brother that will do anything to protect his crew’s turf. I got a mamma who’s dying and a dean that wants me out of the school. I’m scarred head to toe, and, believe it or not, I have only ever been with three girls in my life. None of them knew the real me.”

Lexi’s head turned in my direction in interest. “None of them were your girlfriend?”

I shrugged and my thumb ran up and down her cheek. “I suppose Louisa Tripodi was my girlfriend, for about a week. We lived three trailers down from each other our whole lives. Her folks were Sicilian immigrants like my dad.”

“And what happened?”

“Got high and ended up f**kin’ on her bathroom floor. I lost my virginity that night. Louisa lost hers long before then.”

“How old were you?”

This time it was my turn to be embarrassed. “Thirteen.”

Lexi’s eyes widened. “And what happened to her? This Louisa… Louisa…”

“Tripodi,” I finished.

“Yeah, Louisa Tripodi.”

“OD’d three years ago. Heroin.”

Lexi jerked and frowned. “Austin, how horrible.”

I shrugged. “Just another victim of Westside Heights,” I said wryly.

Lexi boldly leaned forward until her mouth hovered above my mine. “And the other two girls?”

“One-night stands. Didn’t know the chicks. They knew I played for the Tide. We f**ked. They left. And that is my entire sexual history.”

“But look at you,” Lexi said and gestured to my shirtless chest. “You’re perfect. You could have anyone you want.”

I laughed. “Perfect is relative, Pix. Beauty is relative.” The twist of her mouth told me she didn’t believe me.

“You like all the tattoos I got?” I asked, and she smiled.

“Yeah. I love them,” she confessed and stared deeply in awe at the dove and fleur-de-lys on my neck.

“But not everyone does,” I confessed to her, and I gained her attention once more.

Taking her finger again, I ran it across the bullet wound scar on my arm. “Do my scars repulse you?”

Lexi started at that and shook her head profusely. “No! Why would the scars repulse me? They’re not who you are. They’re from your past. They don’t bother me at all. It tells the story of your life.”

I smirked at her and moved my hands to hold her arms. Lexi’s breath paused and she frantically looked down, arms tensing as she breathed through my touch.

“Just like your weight’s no concern to me. You’re you because you’re you. I don’t give a shit about weight or height. I look at true people. Real people. You’re real, Pix. You got that shit in spades.”

Lexi’s blank face made me think I’d lost her to her mind again, but with a shake of her head, she came back to me quicker than before. And before I knew it, her hands had planted on my cheeks and her lips crashed down to mine. Instinctively, my hands stroked down her arms, and I kept mind to avoid her entire back.

Lexi got more into it. Her small tits pressed against my chest and her leg brushed up against my cock. At the contact, I groaned. Lexi snapped back her head. “You okay?” she asked breathlessly.