Even If It Hurts

by Marni Mann

  “Thank you,” I replied softly, silently thanking Molly for picking my outfit.

  She’d paired the ripped black jeans with ankle boots and a sweater that hung past my shoulders and was snug around my waist. She insisted I wear my hair down and curled. She picked a bold lipstick with just some highlighter on my cheeks.

  And it had paid off.

  His hand went to his beard, and it was as long and shaggy as it had been the other day.

  A winter hat covered his head, and his dark jacket and scarf made his eyes appear an even icier blue.

  “I just have to grab my jacket.” My palm loosened, my fingertips now holding the door. “You want to come in?”

  He stepped forward, hand brushing mine as he clasped the thick metal. The contact caused a spark to rush through me, and I left him there and went to my bed, where I had placed my coat. Once I had my arm through one of the holes, I turned around and saw him standing in the center of the room, checking out the whole space.

  His eyes finally found mine. “Hasn’t changed.”

  “You’ve been here before?” I put my other arm through the sleeve and worked on the zipper.

  “I lived here my first year.” He pointed toward the right side of the room. “End of this hallway, one floor up was where I stayed.”

  Even though he was only a senior, Oliver seemed so much older. Maybe it was because he was so close to graduating, and I still felt so far away. Maybe it was the maturity I saw in his face. But I felt so young in comparison.

  “My three best mates I live with now, I met them here.” He smiled, and I followed his gaze around the room.

  It wasn’t much to look at, certainly not like the dorm Molly and I had shared our freshman year before we moved off-campus. And because I’d only brought my personal items, the room wasn’t decorated.

  He adjusted his posture, arms crossing over his chest, a smile covering his deliciously handsome face. “Chloe …” When his eyes traveled down my body, I no longer felt stable on my feet. “You’re going to have one hell of a term.”

  Goose bumps began to rise over my skin.

  Something told me Oliver was talking about what was going to happen between us.

  And my body started to shake.

  “Ready?”

  I didn’t know what I was answering, but I nodded, and then I lifted my bag off the chair and hung it across my body, meeting him at the door. I locked it behind us, and we went down the hallway to the first floor and out the lobby of the building. Once we stepped outside, his hand briefly touched my lower back. Then, his touch was gone, and we were walking in the direction of the Eye.

  “What do you think?”

  I glanced to the side he was on and slowed my pace a little, immediately noticing him do the same. “You mean, about London?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s … more than I expected.”

  We were at the end of the block, waiting for the light to change, and when I looked at him, his eyes were already locked with mine.

  Boring through me.

  The tingles threatened to explode inside me.

  “You seem surprised by that,” he said.

  The surprise is you.

  I took a breath, feeling the tightness in the back of my throat. “I am …” My voice drifted off, as I was afraid to say any more.

  A smile came across his face that was so beautiful. “But I think it’s exactly what you’ve been looking for, Chloe.”

  I felt the warmth of his hand as it surrounded my fingers.

  When the light changed, I waited for him to let go of me.

  But he didn’t.

  He brought our hands down to his side, and that was where they lived for the next few blocks until we reached the ride. When we got to the front of the line to purchase tickets, Oliver wouldn’t let me pay for those or for the glasses of champagne he bought us before we entered the capsule.

  Once we got inside the pod, I took a seat and waited for others to join us. It was large enough to comfortably hold a decent amount of people, but so far, it was only us in here. Because we’d waited in line for several minutes, watching the boarding process, I had seen how quickly the other capsules filled up, and I wondered why that wasn’t happening to ours.

  Then, the door closed.

  Our pod began to lift in the air … and I knew.

  My body faced the River Thames, but my eyes were on Oliver’s. “Why do I get the feeling you made sure we had this all to ourselves?”

  In this intimate space, as we moved higher in London’s cold black sky, Oliver stared at me with a look I would never forget. It was so strong; I had to remind myself to breathe.

  “I hope this is everything you wanted.” He clinked his champagne against my glass, his thumb briefly grazing mine. “Cheers, Chloe.”

  Seven

  “Wow.” I gawked, leaving my jacket behind while I stood from my seat and went over to the wall of glass.

  Our capsule had only lifted a few feet from where we’d gotten on, but from here I could see around several buildings I couldn’t before, giving me a whole different view.

  My fingers pressed on the window, face so close to the glass that I was breathing in the coolness that leaked in from outside. “It’s breathtaking up here.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, connecting stares with Oliver. He was sitting next to the spot I had just stood from, his legs crossed, foot hanging over the edge of his other thigh, arms spread across the back of his seat and most of mine.

  And while he took me all in, I saw the intensity move across his face, and it was a good thing the wall could hold me because I wasn’t sure my legs would.

  Is this what I’ve been missing?

  When my friends had described how they’d felt when they met their boyfriends, they never told me about the part where it became impossibly hard to breathe, where everything inside you felt like it was melting together. What they had described was an excited, anxious feeling that I completely understood from the few dates I’d gone on in the past, but those feelings weren’t anything like this.

  In fact, I had absolutely no idea what this feeling was.

  I pushed through the tightening in my chest as our pod moved higher, and I tried to refocus my attention on the scenery. From up here, I could easily pinpoint Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament—landmarks I’d been walking by since I arrived that became more beautiful every time I saw them. I spotted a few of the adorable red phone booths, thinking of all the photos I’d taken with them and posted online. And just as I was glancing across the Thames, the air inside the capsule changed.

  It warmed.

  Thickened.

  Because he was standing and moving closer to me.

  My hands slid down the glass, needing a new piece of cold to hold on to as my body began to heat. I didn’t turn around to meet him. I stayed, looking out the window, anticipating his actions, hypersensitive to every sound and swish of air. Tingles were shooting through my legs and around my chest, and as soon as he touched me, there was an explosion that I felt everywhere even though he was only holding my waist.

  “Someone’s ticklish,” he whispered near my ear.

  I wasn’t. Not normally anyway.

  But with him standing behind me, positioned so my back could rest against his chest, I felt the outline of his body and the zipper of his jacket and the thick buckle of his belt.

  And it was setting me on fire.

  “What do you think?”

  My eyes closed just briefly while I searched for my breath, and when they opened, the lights below were almost twinkling; they were so bright. “It’s so beautiful.”

  My hands were still on the glass, and his were on top of mine, gripping me like he needed to hold on as well. “Not as gorgeous as you.”

  When he’d moved, he’d closed the separation between us, and the parts of his body that had just been outlined before, I could feel them in full detail.

  If I’d thought I was
exploding during any of the moments leading up to this, it didn’t compare to what was happening in me right now.

  “Look at me.” His breath hit my cheek, his scent a combination of leather and lust, and his fingers loosened, giving me the ability to turn around. “I want to say this all to your face.”

  I was tingling in places I hadn’t known could give pleasure, my heart was pounding, and emotions were bolting through me.

  Slowly, I turned toward him, and it was as though his hands had been waiting for me because they immediately landed on my face and held me steady. And then his eyes roamed my face like he was looking at me for the first time all over again.

  “God, this red hair.” He lifted a chunk of it between his fingers, staring at my long auburn locks. “And these perfect lips.” His thumb grazed over my pout, dragging back and forth across it. “And these wild honey-colored eyes.”

  Each word, each second his gaze was on me, was like a blanket of heat that spread farther over my skin, and I was basking in it. But the closer his lips got, the more this weight began to eat me.

  The weight of the truth.

  “Oliver …” I said so softly, but it was as loud as my throat would allow. “I have to tell you something.”

  His eyes were making this so much harder. I clenched my fingers together, digging my nails into my palm.

  “I have no idea how to say this.” I could see his confusion; he didn’t know what I was going to tell him, and my stalling wasn’t making it easier on any of us. “Most of this is new to me.”

  “New?”

  “Yeah … I …” This was so much harder than I’d thought. I’d never had to have this conversation before.

  The few guys I’d gone out on dates with, it never moved beyond the basics with them. And that was because they just hadn’t interested me enough.

  But now, I was twenty-one with only three semesters left of college before I would be starting my career. And my body was more turned on than it had ever been before.

  I was ready.

  I’d been ready; I was just waiting for the right time.

  I looked at his breathtakingly handsome face and admitted, “I have no idea what I’m doing, Oliver.”

  His thumb rubbed across my hip, each flick causing me to arch my back a little.

  “I do.” He glanced at my lips and then gradually back to my eyes. “You’re seconds away from kissing me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t mean that. I mean …”

  His hands lifted up my sides, every inch emphasized. By the time he reached my neck again, my entire body was screaming. He leaned in, and we were as close as before but from an entirely different angle. His lips were almost on mine. I could taste the lust in his cologne, and I knew I couldn’t hold it in for a second longer.

  “I’ve never done more than kiss.”

  The recognition passed over his face. “A virgin …”

  “Yes.”

  He looked me over, his eyes giving me the compliments instead of his mouth. “How is that possible?” He held me tighter. “How has someone not worshipped you?”

  “Because I wouldn’t let them.”

  “And me?”

  His thumbs were stroking my cheeks, and they paused for his eyes to dive again. This time, he pulled back, and they fell past my face and chest. My thighs began to burn when his gaze reached them. With no rush whatsoever, he climbed back up until his stare was on my mouth.

  I swallowed, silently clearing my throat. “Oliver, I told you this so … you would know to be gentle.”

  He sighed, and his air smelled so good. “My sweet girl.”

  His hands tightened on my cheeks, and so slowly, he leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. With my eyes closed, I instantly felt the roughness of his beard, a sensation I’d never had before on my skin and one I was seriously loving.

  My mouth parted, taking more of him in, and I was filled with the warmth of his tongue. As the pads of his fingers bore down even harder, mine found his waist, holding his belt buckle, squeezing the thick leather strap. I inched up and felt the softness of his sweater, the heat from his body coming through the material.

  His thumbs moved to the corner of my lips, and he was pushing against them like he was molding me just the way he wanted me. And I was taking all of it—the lesson, the attention, these feelings he was creating that were pulsing through me.

  And just when I started to gain more of his tongue, when my hands flattened against his stomach, his muscles contracting under my grip, he pulled away.

  My eyes opened and caught his.

  And I felt myself gasp.

  I hadn’t heard it; neither had he. But once I sucked in that breath, it didn’t move from my lungs.

  It couldn’t.

  Not with the way he was staring at me.

  My God.

  It wasn’t just his eyes or his touch. It was a feeling created by both that was burrowing into me.

  I gasped again, but it was because his hands were on my shoulders, and he was turning me around in the same position I’d been in before.

  His chest pressed into my back, and my exhale heated the glass, my hands rubbing against the window to cool them.

  A stunning city was before me, but my entire world at this moment was behind me, and he was all I could focus on, especially once he said, “You taste more delicious than I imagined.”

  I didn’t recognize this hunger, this neediness that was owning me, but I certainly wasn’t the same girl who had walked into this pod.

  “Tell me what you want, Chloe.” His fingertips were underneath my sweater, running up and down my stomach, each dip sending another wave of tingles through me. “Do you want me to tell you about London?” His lips were closer, pressing along the edge of my ear. “Or do you want something from me instead?”

  I couldn’t breathe even though I was positive my chest was rising and falling.

  London was twinkling in front of us, but I couldn’t process anything I was looking at. All I could concentrate on was his heat.

  The feel of him pressed against me.

  How every nerve ending in my body was humming.

  “You.”

  His lips moved once again to the side of my face, just below my ear. And when he exhaled, half of the air trickled down my neck, causing goose bumps everywhere, and the other half went across my face. “You’re not getting all of me in here.”

  His thumb brushed my ribs, and I shivered, giving him the same reaction when he did it on the other side.

  “But you can have a part of me.” His teeth grazed the bottom of my ear. “Any part, Chloe.” He moved my hair out of the way, his lips now on the back of my neck where I felt just the faintest swipe of his tongue. “Which do you want?”

  I had never felt consumed—until now.

  All I could think, feel, taste … was Oliver Bennett.

  He was asking me to make a decision that was far outside my scope of knowledge. I didn’t know what any of the parts felt like; choosing one felt impossible.

  I lifted one of my hands off the glass and closed my eyes, navigating toward the feel until I found the back of his palm. For being in a pod made entirely of glass, it felt like the safest option. And for my body, it felt like a good place to start. “This.”

  He growled—a sound I’d heard from him, but not this deep or drawn out. “We’ll save my mouth for next time.”

  “Oh God.” I shivered again.

  I couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to have his lips on that private, sensitive spot. And then, suddenly, I got the tiniest hint of it when he began to pull at the button at the top of my jeans, the thick metal knob popping through the hole. He held my long locks a little tighter with his other hand, his lips still on the same spot on my neck.

  I no longer knew I was in the capsule, on a ride, moving higher and higher in the sky.

  I no longer knew anything aside from the fact that my palms were pressing on the freezing glass, and they we
re holding on with everything I had.

  Because he had opened my zipper, and there was tickling and throbbing and an urge to tilt my hips back and forth, the lower he got.

  I quivered, whispering, “Oliver,” into the window as he dipped into my panties, grazing a whole different area of skin.

  “That’s my sweet girl.” His breath warmed my neck. “Fucking perfect.”

  My lips opened the same time my eyes did, and just as I was connecting with the lights, his fingers slid down the front of me, curved around, and circled my wetness.

  “Ohhh,” I moaned at this incredible feeling.

  I only knew my hand, the expected movements, the boundaries I didn’t push past because I just didn’t know better.

  This … was nothing like that.

  His fingers didn’t stay still. He pulled back to the front, a place he had passed so quickly before, and he rubbed the top. Back and forth. Slow and fast, a different amount of pressure applied each time his hand shifted.

  “Oh my God,” was all I could groan.

  He went deeper again, and his finger was sinking into me. Just the tip.

  “It’s so fucking sexy to know I’m the first guy to touch your pussy.” He released my hair, and he was on my nipple, rolling it, giving me a pressure that was the most overwhelming combination.

  But it didn’t stop there.

  He had put his palm on my clit, and now, he was going in as far as his middle knuckle.

  “So tight …” I heard him echo over my skin.

  This was a whole different level of being consumed.

  This was ownership.

  “Oliver …” My forehead pressed against the glass. “Oh my God.”

  He was all the way in, holding steady, his palm pulsing against my clit.

  My legs were spread wide, hands still flat on the window, my eyes on the blinking white below.

  But I was lost in a bubble of passion that I couldn’t find my way out of.

  And it only got more intense as his hand began to move—his fingers and his palm.

  “This”—I tried to breathe—“feels so good.”

  He went back as far as his nail and then drove in again—a pattern he repeated over and over. His palm was moving just as fast, both of them twisting in a circle.