Pulled Under

by Sarah Darlington

  “What movie do you want to watch?” was her only question. She gestured toward my small stand in the corner.

  I shrugged. “You pick.”

  Her mouth opened like she had something more to say. She said nothing. Then she sat on the carpet, her knees tucked under her body with her beer in hand, as she started inspecting my collection. God, she was beautiful. Certainly too good for me and certainly someone who didn’t belong in my room. Her hair fell in these golden waves down her back, kind of fluffy from our time in the car. Her red dress hugged her hips—hips that I got an up close and personal view of—quite exquisitely. And the way she sipped her beer…she had my cock hard already (yeah, it hadn’t died down in the least) and it was growing painful now.

  But the memory of her coming for me, in my car, that was pretty un-fucking-believable. Nothing had ever happened so easily, so fluidly, or felt so…damned…right. I was high off the feeling she’d given me. And, no, I hadn’t ‘finished,’ but that didn’t even matter.

  My whole body shivered just thinking about it.

  “I’m going to go take a quick shower while you’re deciding. Okay, sweetheart? I smell like the bar. I’ll be fast.”

  “You don’t smell,” she muttered, not taking her eyes off the movies.

  “Well, it feels that way. It always feels like work is still on me after leaving that place, like it sticks to my skin. So I need to wash it off,” I explained. “I’ll be fast,” I repeated, leaving her alone in my room before she had a chance to respond.

  In the bathroom, I turned the water on burning hot and jumped under the stream with my beer still in my hand. I hardly ever drank—it just wasn’t my thing. But I sipped on the cold liquid, such a contrast to the scalding water that beat against my back, as I tried to collect my thoughts.

  I liked this girl.

  I didn’t know her. I didn’t even know her name. Nor did I know who that tattooed guy was who’d punched me in the face, called me as ‘nasty motherfucker,’ and made her leave the restaurant when he caught us kissing on the first day we met. He kind of worried me. And for all I knew, the only thing she really wanted out of tonight was sex. That was the only thing most girls wanted from me. But this voice inside my head kept screaming at me that she was the real fucking deal. This was the ‘whatever’ in my life that I had been waiting for and the reason everything else head been feeling lackluster lately. I couldn’t ignore that feeling. It kind of freaked me out, but I couldn’t ignore it. So I was going to explore the hell out of whatever this was I was feeling.

  After soaping up my body twice and rinsing off, I stepped out of the shower, dried, and then knotted my towel around my waist. I’d forgotten to grab clothes to change into, so going back half naked to my room where I’d left her was my only choice.

  I found her in my bed. On top of the covers. Remote in hand, flipping through the TV stations. The moment I entered the room, she sat up as if I’d caught her watching porn. She, obviously, wasn’t watching porn. The Food Network was on.

  “Did you pick out a movie?” I asked.

  She held up my copy of The Princess Bride. “Is this okay?”

  “Works for me. But you’ve got to get out of my bed.”

  “Why?”

  “Just for a minute, please.”

  Shooting me a confused glance, she scooted over to the edge and stood. “Did I do something wrong?” she questioned. “Rhett.” She poked a finger at my bare chest, still a little damp from the shower, and gave me a small smile. It wasn’t a hard jab, but a playful one. She’d taken off her shoes in the time I’d been gone. Before, she’d been closer to my height. Without them, I now had a few inches on her. But her green eyes challenged me like she was twice my size.

  I instantly had to reevaluate whatever first impression the girl with glasses and freckles by the dumpsters had given me. Yes, she had a shy, sweet side. But, like I’d seen in the car not even a half hour earlier, and like she was showing me now, she also had this spicy, sexy, playful side. I really wanted to get know that side. I think that was the side that was calling out to me.

  “You don’t like me in your bed?” she joked, still teasing, baiting.

  Too bad my reason for making her get up was a shitty one. Or I would have played along with this. “I don’t really know how to say this without sounding disgusting as fu—” I started and then stopped myself mid-sentence. “Sorry,” I cleared my throat. My mom taught me to never curse around women. That lesson obviously hadn’t stuck because I cursed all the time. With her though, I was trying to be a little different. “Without sounding disgusting,” I corrected. “I need to change the sheets on my bed.”

  She chuckled for a moment, probably thinking I was joking. Then she grew serious when she realized I wasn’t. I’d had a girl in this bed a couple nights ago, and I knew it wasn’t clean. Very far from it. I hope that didn’t hurt her feelings, but I couldn’t change what had already happened.

  “Oh,” she muttered, realizing my meaning. “Well, go ahead.” She stepped aside.

  With her eyes on me, I found my extra set of sheets in the closet and made quick work of removing the dirty set. It was hard to maneuver in a towel, but I managed. “I screw around a lot. It’s no secret,” I told her, wishing to God I didn’t have to say this. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “I have.”

  Finishing with my bed, I next went for the pillows. “And you’re here now because of that…or despite that?”

  I stopped working because this was important.

  “Despite that,” she said slowly.

  That was the answer I needed to hear, but one more thing still weighed on my mind. “Are you a virgin?”

  She made this weird sigh, maybe more like a growl, and rolled her eyes at me. My question had obviously offended her, but it had to be asked. I wasn’t about to be her first.

  “It’s a legit question, sweetheart,” I argued, tossing my pillow back on the bed. I grabbed the remote off my nightstand and turned off the TV. I couldn’t have Guy Fieri blabbing in the background about how good some hamburger was while we discussed this. “The truth is, you’re standing there looking pure as snow. While I’m pretty sure I’m fucking yellow snow.” Shit. I cursed in front of her again. I had to stop doing that. “Look. It may not seem like it, but I’m trying very hard to be a gentleman with you. I like you. And that sort of thing just doesn’t happened to me.” I took a breath. I felt like I was talking myself into a hole. “Sorry,” I added. “I’m nervous and that doesn’t happen to me either.”

  For several long seconds we both stared at one another. I became very aware that I had on only a towel. There was a little spark of anger between us, but also a spark of lust. One that had my heart hammering and my skin crawling. With such a rush of emotions going through me, I waited for her to say something…anything.

  Instead, she let out a small laugh. I didn’t get what was so funny. “Did you just compare yourself to yellow snow?” she giggled.

  Oh. Right. That.

  “That probably wasn’t the best analogy,” I acknowledged, unable to keep from smiling.

  “Probably not.”

  She bit her lip and shook her head. “You’re too much. And I like you too,” she admitted. “I’m not a virgin, Rhett. You don’t need to be anything else but yourself around me because I’m not as ‘snow white’ as I might look.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you, Jesus,” I said to the ceiling. Because, dammit, I wasn’t really a gentleman. I was a guy who liked to fuck. And I’d never wanted to fuck someone as much as I wanted to fuck her. “This evening can go one of two ways,” I told her, my confidence back in place and suddenly stronger than ever. “In the first scenario, we watch Princess Bride and we snuggle. And if that’s all you want to do tonight then I’m cool with that. I like you so I’m going to do whatever. Or…in scenario number two…I can drop this towel and we can go from there. It’s your choice, sweetheart.” My han
d lingered on the edge of my towel. “What’s it going to be? And I should probably learn your name.”

  Two. The way her eyes devoured me alive told me her answer was scenario two.

  “Drop the towel,” she finally uttered.

  I dropped the towel.

  CHAPTER 7:

  SYDNEY

  Rhett had a very large penis. Was I allowed to think that? Was I allowed to like that? Holy crap. Kind of intimidating and kind of pretty. And it matched his seemingly photo-shopped abs and mouthwatering thighs perfectly. Jeez, what was it about his thighs that I found so damn attractive? I didn’t know. I just knew I liked them. And now I knew I liked his penis too.

  Man, I was such a weirdo.

  A weirdo and a virgin.

  Closing my mouth, because it was pretty much hanging wide open, I reminded myself to breathe. A moment ago, when he’d asked me if I was a virgin, I’d lied. I’d lied because I feared if I told him the truth he might start treating me differently. Everything had been going well thus far, better even, and I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he’d stopped looking at me like that. Because that was the way he’d been treating me all night—like I was something special, like I hung the freaking moon in the sky. It was the exact way I’d always wished Ben had looked at me. Maybe Rhett wouldn’t look at me any different if he knew the truth, but I wasn’t willing to find out. Besides, he would never know the difference…right? Guys couldn’t actually tell that sort of thing. It was only a myth that they could.

  I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure. But I hoped not.

  My eyes finished their inspection of his naked body, my gaze returning to his face.

  “Like what you see?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  His ego was through the roof, but I couldn’t even begin to deny my attraction.

  “Good.”

  Our eyes connected. Then, as if he couldn’t stay still another second, he moved across the room, took my face in his hands, and kissed me. The intensity of our kiss was like no other. When we kissed there was some sort of mutual, automatic, animalistic understanding that passed between us—like we were perfectly in sync on a physical level. Every kiss we’d shared thus far, including this one, seemed to always have that common denominator. It was good. It didn’t make sense…but it was good.

  “I want you naked,” he whispered against my mouth. “Now. No more foreplay. No more banter. Just sex.” Before I even had a moment to process his words, he lifted me up into his arms and tossed me onto his freshly made bed.

  Um, wow. Damn. What was that? Maybe I’d let loose some sort of beast by telling him I wasn’t a virgin and giving him the green light. Because the naked guy that stared down at me, with eyes so full of life and fire, didn’t look like he was about to be easy or gentle or hold anything back with me. Which was exactly what I needed and expected from him. This was the Rhett Morgan with the reputation.

  He joined me in the bed and his fingers began working immediately, unbuttoning my dress. There were too many buttons, and he could have ripped my dress apart in haste, as he had so indelicately done with my panties in the car, but Rhett carefully unbuttoned each one. He reached the end and pushed the pieces of material apart, exposing me.

  “Sit up,” he ordered.

  I did as he asked.

  He pushed the straps of my dress off my shoulders so the material fell away. Then he reached around my back and unclasped my bra. He tugged it away and then, always one for the dramatic, flung it into some unknown corner of his room.

  Topless with a guy. Another first.

  The lights in his room weren’t even dim. There was no hum of music or any other sound to distract away from the fact that it was just the two of us, fully and completely naked. And yet…I didn’t feel all that uncomfortable or embarrassed. Actually, all I felt was need. I needed his hands on my body. I needed his lips on my lips. I needed to feel him inside me. Now that this moment had come, I was glad it was about to happen with Rhett. I didn’t feel the same shyness with Rhett that I used to feel around Ben.

  Rhett crawled on top of me and his mouth went straight to one of my nipples. He kissed, sucked, and licked in ways I never knew possible. A shot of pure heaven. He had my skin prickling and buzzing. His mouth worked its way from my breasts all the way to my waiting mouth. Those X-rated lips of his pressed against my lips. With one easy probe of his tongue, I opened up and let him in. Our tongues met and danced in a way that was quickly becoming familiar and easy.

  This lasted for a minute or two, perhaps longer, I’d sort of lost track of time so it was hard to know for sure, then suddenly his touch and his kiss left me. He jumped out of bed and grabbed something off his nightstand—a condom. I watched as he ripped the packaging, dropped the wrapper somewhere on the floor, and then rolled the condom over his length in a manner of seconds. It was an impressive sight to see.

  “You like watching?” He winked and shot me a cocky grin. “Don’t you?”

  I shrugged, but I think he could tell how much I was enjoying myself. Because I was.

  Joking aside, he cleared his throat and grew serious. “You know, I’m in awe of you. You’re cool as hell, the most beautiful woman that has ever and will ever be in my bed, and I’ve got this mad crush. Seriously, out of left field, blindsiding, call my mother with the good news—that sort of crush.” He gave me the most genuine smile. It made my stomach flip and this shiver run through me. “I just needed you to know that.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. All I knew was that I suddenly felt vulnerable as hell. He moved over me, settling between my legs, and he positioned the head of his erection against my entrance. I wrapped my legs around him, ready for it, wanting it, but scared to death of it. He pressed a kiss to my cheek and then suddenly he was pushing inside me, filling me, and it hurt way more than I ever expected.

  I’d been planning on hiding my pain—if there was any—and lying until the cows came home about my virginity. Hell, if my hymen broke and he questioned it, I even had a lie for that. I figured I’d tell him the only other guy I’d been with had had a really small penis. Something. Anything other than the truth. I wanted tonight to be fun and easy, not complicated and emotional.

  But I couldn’t lie to him. Because, even if he was the world’s biggest player with a million and one notches on his bedpost, I liked him just as much as he seemed to like me. Despite everything else. Despite my broken heart and despite Ben. And as he pressed inside me, as the pain overwhelmed me and my emotions exploded, as he was probably realizing the truth for himself, I wrapped my arms around his neck as tight as I could and whispered, “I’m a virgin.”

  He stilled the second the words left my lips. Shit. I messed everything up. Tears pooled behind my eyes. I waited for him to pull out and end everything…except, he didn’t. He only remained frozen. So I froze too.

  Then finally he whispered something to me. “And you want me to be your first?”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  “Okay,” he said softly.

  My heart squeezed.

  This wasn’t over.

  Without argument, complaint, or comment, he ever so slowly and carefully, pulled out and inched back inside me. It stung, but not nearly as bad as his initial thrust. I let my death-grip around his neck loosen. Once I gave him a little room to move, he started pressing little kisses to my shoulder, then up the side of my neck, and then all over my face and lips. All his kisses felt so good, so comforting, and they helped me relax. He moved slowly in and out for a third time, and this time the pain from before was significantly less.

  I laughed a little at my own fear. This wasn’t bad at all.

  Rhett shifted his weight onto his arms, so that he could properly stare down at me. He gave me this fake stern look, followed by a flirty grin, and then more kisses. Meanwhile, our love-making fell into a gentle rhythm. My emotions were still sky-high, but whatever was left of the pain transferred into pleasure. Really. Amazing. Pleasure.

&nbs
p; But there was something I enjoyed even more.

  Never in my life had I felt so connected to another human being. Telling him the truth and the way he had handled it, had created this instant bond between us. It was intense, crazy, and wonderful all at once—like my ribs were cracked wide open and my heart was showing. It wasn’t a one-sided feeling either. There was no doubt in my mind that Rhett felt exactly what I did—all the emotions, all the tingles, all the excitement. I could see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch. Instead of being only physically on the same wave length, we were mentally there too.

  Then, as if I wasn’t feeling enough already, he reached a hand down between our joined bodies and his fingers brushed across my clit. “What are you doing?” I asked, stunned.

  “I’m going to try to make you come.”

  “You shouldn’t do that,” I breathed, squeezing my arms around him and burying my face against his shoulder.

  “Why not?”

  He continued to stroke his hand against me as his thrusts remained deliberate and even. To be honest, I didn’t think I could handle more. If I came for him right this moment, like I had in his car earlier, I might do serious damage to my already fragile emotional state. Everything happening was already too overwhelming, too exposing on every level. But the combination of his hand against me and his dick buried deep inside felt too good to protest.

  “Trust me,” he whispered into my ear. “Just trust me.”

  Only now did I notice that his breaths were uneven and choppy, his skin glistening with a layer of sweat, and the muscles in his arms tense and straining. I was getting to him just as much as he was getting to me. It also occurred to me that having slow and gentle sex wasn’t normally how a playboy like Rhett did things. And yet, here he was, making another exception for me. Knowing how much he cared—knowing how much I cared—that realization had a direct effect on my clit, no lie, and this overwhelming tightening feeling hit me.