Then he asked me.

"What does that mean?"

What's another word for desperate?

Oh, and I don't deserve you.

I'm selfish and narrow-minded and old fashioned and prude. I expect too much and give too little.

I don't deserve you at all.

I suppose I could be content.

Even if only for a little while.

This is getting out of hand.

I think I just lost a battle. A part of myself that I can't get back. I don't want to be an addition to the collection. I want to be something else.

Self-control.

Oh, but you're so pretty. I would have at you, I really would. What I wouldn't give to see you helpless, eyes stunned and breath heavy, labored. Shaking, trembling, because you don't know what to do with yourself. Biting down on your lip because you just can't take it.

My hands would be at your neck, pulling you closer, holding you down, pushing you away. Fingertips brushing across the tops of your cheeks, kissing your nose, stroking your hair.

I want to absorb your confidence and self-assurance, wipe off the loose, easy, heart-breaking smile that lights up your face so aptly, knock down the boy who thinks he's got it all and render you breathless and gasping and fighting—just one more inch of skin, please. I want to be that standard, the one you'll relive constantly, blushing to yourself in class and shoving your face in your hands, thinking damn it, not again, and stare furiously down at your assignment. The one that's always in the back of your mind. I want to make sure you won't forget me.

But I have self-control. Sometimes I hate myself for it.

I'll admit it.

I probably do spend more time than necessary pondering the shapes that your lips make around certain words (especially the Korean ones) and how that mouth might feel against mine. Also, your voice is nice, and the bones in your wrists are nice, and the mischievous smile that trails behind the sidelong look you cast me is nice, too.

This was not part of the plan. But damn if I'm not enjoying it thoroughly. Oh you.

Elaboration.

I want to see you intoxicated. I hope you'll get that pretty pink flush right across your cheekbones. That your eyes will get glossy and bright, shine with a sort of hero worship that never gets old. Not even for me.

I imagine that you would taste sweet. Sweet in a way that only a boy like you could taste. Experienced, confident. (But you've never done anything like this, have you?) You're still so untouched.

I imagine that you would close your eyes, lashes fluttering shut to cast paper-cutout shadows on your cheeks. Maybe you'll tilt your head back and I'll be able to feel the nervous flutter of your pulse. The stumble of your heartbeat and the catches in your breathing. I'd like to hold your hands in mine, the bones in your wrist standing out against the spiderweb criss-cross of veins silhouetted in your skin. I'd run my fingers along the sloping angles of your face, the smooth expanses of your neck.

"You're so lovely," I'd say to you.

"No I'm not," you'd say right back.

I can't stop fantasizing.

But you would look so cute tipsy.

Eyes too bright, glassy. Cheeks flushed a pretty pink. Mouth a little nervous. Inviting, tempting.

That's my kind of appealing. You're my kind of appealing.

I want to see you come undone. I want to be the one who does it to you.

And I want to do a whole lot more than that to you.