Remind Tess there are boys she already knows (Wyatt POV)

It was time to step in.

"Why play the field?" I questioned, giving her a meaningful look. I set my coffee aside, and Tess did the same - the charade had served its purpose to break the ice. "Your first time should be special. Especially with how important this is going to be for you. You need somebody who knows you. Somebody who cares about you." And that somebody would be me if I had anything to say about it. "There's got to be a boy closer to home."

Tessa gave me a defeated look. "Like who? Everybody I know is a dork, Wyatt."

She missed the subtext entirely. I admit it, it hurt she never once thought of me that way. But I didn't let my disappointment show. Just because I hadn't been eligible in the past didn't mean I wouldn't be eligible in the future.

Last week, she undressed at my command. We shared a moment where she bared herself to me, and where I showed my desire for her. I'd felt something important in that moment - an intimate connection, if only for a heartbeat, and I had hunch Tess felt it, too. She was primed for sex now. The thought of it excited her. Fascinated her. With this last script, she had **** in the matter. She wanted to be sexually active.

So no matter what blocks were left, deep in her subconscious mind, I knew Tess was ready.

"I want to do it with somebody who can look me in the eye," she said, quietly, but firmly. "That's not too much to ask, is it?"

Unwavering, I looked her straight in the eye. "No, Tess, that's not too much to ask."

We held eye contact for a long, pregnant moment. Tess's blinked away first, chuckling nervously. "Wyatt, that's not funny."

She moved to pull away, but I didn't let go of her ankle. "You have beautiful eyes, Tess."

She was shaken, but she didn't immediately try to jerk out of my grip. "Let me go."

"Why?"

This was the decisive moment. My pulse raced. I'd never felt so alive.

She fidgeted. "You know why."

My hand slid higher from her ankle and over her bare calf. "Because we're friends?"

"Yeah." But at the sensation of my hand creeping higher than it had ever gone, Tess closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. The unspoken offer paralyzed her.

"Don't you want to know what it's like?" I caressed her leg up to the knee. "I'd take care of you."

She stiffened. "Not right now. Not..." with you. But she didn't say that. Her cheeks flushed a very deep shade of red.

I smoothly drew Tess's out leg out over my lap. "Are you sure?" I lazily caressed her bare skin up and down, from her knee to mid-thigh.

Tess bit her lower lip, and her breathing deepened. "Wyatt, I don't... I'm not sure this..."

"Sounds like you don't know what you want," I said, purposefully squeezing, pumping her thigh, just to feel the meat of her. To feel her warm, smooth, supple body.

Tessa fought to keep herself from sinking deeper into the bench, but more important was what she wasn't doing: stopping me from massaging her leg.