“You were making me sit through that shitty movie and you’ve seen it six times?” he bellowed as she sprinted down the hall. She heard him slam the door to the art room shut, and with a squeal, she raced for the bedroom. Pillows would make sufficient defense weapons. She needed one. She sprang for the bed and grabbed one just as he grabbed her hips from behind. When she gave another squeal of surprise, he immediately released her and backed away a few feet. “Shit, Chelsea, I’m so sorry.”

She turned and faced him, batting him with the pillow. “For what?” At his wary expression, she sighed in frustration. “You were fine.”

“I grabbed you.”

“And I was fine with it. Are we going to do this constantly?”

“Do what?”

“Cast me into the role of victim?” she snapped. This time when she smacked him with her pillow, she was legitimately pissed. “I can have fun without freaking out, you know.”

“But I thought—”

“There’s no rape-victim guidebook. I can be fine about some things and not about others. So as long as you don’t stuff me into a dark closet and try to leave me there, I’m good, all right?”

He looked shocked. “I would never—”

“Exactly. So quit tiptoeing around me, okay?”

“The last thing I want to do is scare you or hurt you.” He snapped his fingers and strode around the bed. “We need a safe word.”

That made sense. “How about derby?”

He shook his head and picked one of the spilled pillows up off the floor. “I have a feeling derby’s something you’d talk about in bed. What about pillow instead?”

She snort-giggled and thwacked him with a pillow. “You really think I’d talk about derby in bed?”

“Yeah I do,” he said. “You talk about it in your sleep.” He gave her a half-hearted nudge with a pillow.

Surely he could pillow-fight better than that? She gave him a hearty smack with her pillow and moved to the far side of the bed before he could retaliate. “I do not! What do I say?”

“Stuff about elbows and how you’re going to trip bitches on skates if they don’t let the jammer through.” He crawled after her on the bed, readying his pillow.

Okay, that did sound like her. She thumped him with the pillow again. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to talk about it during sex.”

“Yeah, but I might. Oh, Chelsea, baby, put the jammer hat on for me.”

“Jammer hat? Jammer hat?” She died laughing. “It’s a helmet panty, you doofus.”

He grabbed her leg while she was laughing and she went down. The next thing she knew, she was on her back and he had slid on top of her. A boyish grin lit his face. “A helmet panty sounds sexual.”

“That’s because you’re constantly thinking about sex,” she retorted. His face hovered inches above hers, close enough that she could see the gorgeous olive of his skin, the light stubble on his jaw, and the darker shades of brown in his brilliant green eyes.

“It’s true. You’ve got me thinking about sex,” he murmured, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. “I’m thinking about it right now.”

She shivered, and a spike of worry shot through her. They’d been having fun, and now she was going to ruin it, wasn’t she? “Sebastian . . .”

“I know. It’s okay.” He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her against him, then flipped onto his back. A moment later, she was on top of him and he was below her. “And there we go. Now I’m yours to play with.”

Chelsea hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“I trusted you. You can trust me, right? I’m not going to do anything. We can just kiss.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know that I like kisses anymore.”

“Have you even tried?”

“I kissed you at the party, didn’t I?”

He grimaced and held a hand to his chest. “Ouch. There goes my ego.”

“Oh, please. I think it’d take more than that to hurt your ego.” She sat up on top of him, her hips meeting his. She could feel his erection underneath her, but he linked his hands and put them behind his head, acting like it was no big deal.

“You want me to close my eyes?” He did so, and puckered his mouth like he was waiting for a cartoonish kiss.

Another giggle escaped her. He was being utterly silly and yet . . . it was making her relax. She should have felt tense, but she didn’t. “How should we do this?”

“Well, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve heard it works best with lips on lips.” And he puckered again.

She chuckled and leaned in and gave him a smacking kiss. “There.”

“See? Was that so hard?” He kept his eyes closed.

“It wasn’t,” she agreed. He made it easy. He actually made this kind of fun. So she leaned in and pressed her mouth against his again. His lips parted under hers, and she started to press small, light kisses to his mouth, mostly because she liked his lips. They were awesome lips, full and sculpted. Lips that would look sensual on a woman, but he still managed to look masculine and sexy. And it . . . wasn’t bad. She wasn’t bowled over with desire from kissing him, but she wasn’t freaking out, either, which was good. It was just sort of . . . there.

Maybe she needed to try to deepen the kiss to get her brain to unlock. When his lips parted, she nibbled on his lower one. Man, she was rusty at kissing. All of this felt terribly awkward. Was it time to add tongue? She slicked hers against the part of his mouth.

He groaned and his hands moved from behind his head to her hips, pulling her against him. His tongue flicked against her own.

And that suddenly felt like too much. She pulled away, breathless and scared. “Derby. Derby, derby, pillow. Whatever the word was.”

Sebastian’s eyes opened and the glazed look disappeared immediately. His hands flew off of her. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, sitting up again.

“That was good, though,” he said. “Did you enjoy it?”

She bit her lip, thinking. “It was . . . all right?”

He rubbed a hand down his face. “Damn. I was going to say I needed a cold shower but I think all that praise effectively killed my erection.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He spread his arms. “Wanna hug it out?”

Chelsea laughed, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I do like a good cuddle.”

“Then that’s all we’ll do for the rest of the night,” he said, and wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back. “I told you we’d go slow and if it takes months, then that’s what it’ll take.”

“Years?”

“Or years,” he agreed.

She buried her face against his neck, inhaling his scent. He really was the sweetest guy.

*   *   *

He really, really was going to die of blue balls. Sebastian held Chelsea against him, stroking her back as she dozed.

Years. Jesus.

She hadn’t been into the kiss. He could tell that the moment he opened his eyes and saw her frustrated expression. Instead, she’d analyzed it like it was a problem. Like if she added tongue plus lips, it might equal fun. He wondered if she was in her own head too much to enjoy things.

He wondered if the problem was him.

That was a blow to the ego. He knew he was good-looking enough, and he was rich. And (to his great dismay) marginally famous. That usually added up to more women than he could possibly ever want. Now he wanted one, and she had zero interest in sex.

One thing was clear, though. He wasn’t going to pressure her. She was going to take the reins, and he was going to let her have full control, however she wanted, for as long as she wanted.

And while it might be a bit torturous for him at times, it would be the most delicious kind of torture. Already his mind was racing as to how he might ease her into their next round of awkward foreplay.

At some point, she had to snap out of it, right? To recover what she felt she’d lost?

Then again, it was like she said: There was no rape-victim guidebook on how to feel. She’d been through hell and emerged out the other side. If she took a bit longer to get turned on, then, well, he’d just have to wait for her.