The flattened bud protruded again in response to his tongue whipping it. She fought to keep her toes flat on the floor. Her body twisted involuntarily, edging closer to the source of its delight.
When the unending silk of his tongue was replaced by the sharp prick of his teeth, biting her bud into submission, she whimpered with unadulterated pleasure. It felt so good. She could almost understand how pain could be pleasurable.
The plastic cover rustled and Andrew tossed her a bottle of lube.
“Open it,” he said, moving on to cup her other breast with his canines.
She fiddled with the packaging, managing to figure it out at last. Her intelligence must be severely impaired if she couldn’t even open a simple lube bottle. The fog in her brain was growing denser with every nibble on her nipple.
“Pour it onto my fingers,” he demanded, a sensual haze smoking his voice. His chin was still on her breast, making his words vibrate inside the cavity of her chest and all the way down to her toes.
She squeezed the clear liquid onto his outstretched fingers until it dripped.
Her breath caught when his fingers traced over the inner lips of her labia, tickling them open. Scorching currents telegraphed ecstasy to her system. His thumb stimulated her clitoris with light, lazy circles. The stroking turned into an urgent push as he played with her clitoris more aggressively. Waves and waves of white-hot desire crashed into her belly.
She had never been on the verge of instability before. Her body tried to accommodate the tremors of delight. When he thrust a single finger into her, a scream emerged from her vocal cords.
Stiffening around him, she tried to fight the uncomfortable intrusion into her vagina. She was at the tip of the iceberg, the point between release and pain. Leaning more towards pain, through. Her clitoris had soaked up his touch like quicksand, and it had been easy, sensual pleasure all the way, but her opening was trying to resist him.
“Mmmmm.” Her eyebrows furrowed.
“Relax. Feel me in you. Feel me move in you.”
She held on, and when she was almost getting used to one finger, he inserted another one. The flesh surrounding him attempted to clamp shut. She scrunched her face. Despite the lube, she was raw and it hurt. Closing her eyes, she sucked in her lips. She needed a breather.
“Andrew,” she cried.
“Don’t panic. Ashley, look at me,” he said, catching the distress in her cry. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes. It’s too much. I can’t keep so much inside me.” Her voice tore, cut by her uneven breaths.
He removed both his fingers.
Her opening locked into its initial position. The traces of pain left her gradually.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think we should take it slow. I am still new to this.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t help my impatience. Are you okay?” The impassioned tone of his voice gave away the fervency of his desire. “I want you, Ashley. Bad. So bad I can’t wait,” Andrew said.
She wanted him with the same intensity. But sex was going to take more work than she’d imagined. The easy, effortless satisfaction she had believed it would be had been idealized.
“You need anything to drink to make you feel comfortable?” he asked.
She doubted water, coke or juice could quench her thirst. Her thirst was of a different kind—and it could only be quenched by a certain someone. As soon as the aches left her, the urge to have him touch her returned stronger.
“No,” she lay her hands on his shoulder blades and clasped them behind his neck. “I just needed to catch my breath.”
If she let too much time lapse, the fear would cool down her ardor.
He got out of his jeans, which were showing signs of moisture—the moisture from her that had clung onto them. She was too tense to spend much time staring at his chest, but she saw the outlines of his bones when he stretched his hands up. He was thin, spindly almost.
“Hurry up.”
For someone about to take such a step, she had no apprehension when she said it. He wouldn’t let her down.
It defied common sense. She had barely known him for any length of time, but she trusted him as if they had known each other all their lives.
The pain earlier had been a prelude to the even greater hurt that would follow the tearing of her hymen. She had to calm herself down so that she was ready for it. She eyed him nervously as he dropped his boxers and bared his penis.
It was fully erect. Erotically he rolled a condom over it and she tried not to succumb to the fear she was feeling inside. How was something that huge going to get into her?
Her throat turned into ice. The physics of this situation were starting to baffle her. She had never been particularly good at that subject.
“Touch me, Ashley.” His voice was a rough whisper.
Seeing him so full and primed in front of her was birthing new urges in her. Her fingers skated over his shaft in a careful, conscious waltz. Was she touching him right? Was she being too awkward? Was she using too much pressure?
“Tell me what I should do,” she said, shyly.
“Keep touching me like that.”
So she was on the right track. That was a relief. She familiarized herself with the texture of him. He held her hand and guided her further up his shaft. She tried to recall what she had read in Cosmo about giving a hand job and summoned up the bravery to try it out.
She gripped the base of his length and played her fingers back and forth, keeping slow, steady rhythm. Her movements synchronized with her deep breathing. One, two, three, four… the countdown looped in her head, bringing back memories of her piano training.
At least it was serving some function now.
“Planning to kill me slowly, are you?” He smiled. For once, she felt like she actually knew what she was doing… and that she was doing it pretty well. She was lucky that Andrew was so supportive of everything she wanted to try on him.
“You prefer a quick death?”
“Hell, yes.”
She hastened her motions, increasing pressure until his expression shifted to one of bliss. His eyes shut and she knew he was throbbing with the same acute need. Semen flowed from the tip of him.
“You are so full of surprises,” he said, kissing her nose tenderly.
He rid himself of the used condom and slipped on another one.
“We could go all day. How does twelve-hour sex sound?”
“I’m already nervous.”
“Don’t be. You can’t help feeling that way, because it’s your first time, but you’re doing really well. Extraordinarily well. This might be one of your other natural talents apart from kissing.”
She sure had a strange set of talents.
His alarm wailed like a police siren. His hand darted out and shut it off. He cursed the alarm while at it.
“Why is it ringing at this hour?” she asked, curious.
“It rings whenever it wants to. It has a will of its own.”
“It’s not the only thing that has a will of its own.”
She yanked his large, hard body to close the space between them until he lined up neatly on top of her on the bed. The rays of light filtering in from the windows exposed the veins on his pale chest.
She spread her legs under him, pushing him into her.
He gathered her buttocks with his palm and angled her body closer to him. Dumping a generous dose of lube on her sensitive spot, he massaged her opening to ensure that she was ready for him.
“Close your eyes. It’ll make it easier for you.”
“I can live through it with my eyes open. I don’t want to miss a moment.”
He entered her with patience, in measured movements, waiting for her to grow accustomed before he pushed further. The friction of his penis pushing through her tissues caused her to cry out.
“I’m in, baby. Relax,” he assured her.
Her clenched muscles obeyed, unraveling from the tight spasms they had knotted themselves into.
&nbs
p; He moved inside her. It was a thrilling feeling. Trying to grow accustomed to having a male sex organ inside her for the first time, she rocked her hips to steady herself.
As his penis stroked her in a maddeningly teasing manner, she gained awareness of parts of her she had never known existed.
Every cell in her body was on fire. She became one with the heat, allowing him, their blazing passion to become a fiber of her. With every thrust, he made her shudder more until the tremors erupted into something too intense to describe in words.
There was nothing for her to hold onto except the constant rushing of her blood. The mass of sensors went over their limit one by one.
“Andrew…” she moaned, reaching her breaking point.
Then, before she knew what to expect, she was flooded with something so intense, so explosive, that for five whole minutes she tried to make sense of what had happened. Every tissue, bathed in satiation, felt alive. Felt like it had been reborn today.
Dopamine was having a field day, circulating through her veins like oxygen. The surge of chemicals lifted her higher and higher up.
“Am I in paradise?” she questioned the curtains.
“No, you’re still in my hole-in-the-wall apartment.” The sarcastic humor grounded her.
But this was a shifted reality. A reality where Andrew was holding her tightly against him. If reality was this good every day, she could stop dreaming altogether. Looking at his serene side profile, it finally sank into her.
She had finally lost her virginity… to Andrew. And boy, it felt so good. She felt transformed—like something had changed, and not just physiologically.
So sex wasn’t so overrated after all.
They lay on the bed, wordlessly, hazy with the wonder of what they had done. The world stood still. She basked in the afterglow of fulfillment. Andrew’s fingers coiled around hers. A murmur of residual heat pricked her finger pads.
“I love you,” he admitted, resting his head against a giant fluffy pillow. His eyes did not stray from her. “You’ve turned the worst day of my life into the best.”
She cozied up to him, inhaling him. “Today is the worst day of your life? Why?”
“The Johns Hopkins deal fell through.”
A sharp pang contracted her chest. She could feel his disappointment as her own. “How?”
“My dad interfered.” Anger simmered under the pale surface of his skin.
“Your dad? I don’t understand. Why would he be the reason for the failure of the deal?” Gathering the sheets over her breasts, she sat.
“It’s complicated.” Andrew motioned with his hands, trying to skirt around the issue, but her probing gaze did him in. “He asked the provost to choose a competitor for the same service.”
“Why would the provost take his advice? It makes no sense.”
“He’s one of the richest men in America. Everybody takes his advice.”
“Wait… what?” This was confusing. One of the richest men in America? “I don’t get what you’re trying to say. Is this an early April’s Fool’s? I thought you were from a normal family.”
“That’s the best accolade I’ve received from anyone. Being normal was once my ambition in life.” Andrew passed his smartphone to her. “Carl Smith. Google him.”
She typed the name C-A-R-L S-M-I-T-H with shaky fingers, trying to grapple with what she’d heard.
Pictures upon pictures of a man with steely eyes identical to Andrew’s popped up. The Wikipedia entry on him took some time to digest.
Carl Smith. Founder and CEO of Finn Associates. Net worth three point two billion. One of New York’s richest men. There was a picture of him with a much younger Andrew at the Time 100 gala.
“I used to work for him as the vice-president of emerging markets at Finn before I went to college,” Andrew volunteered, when she zoomed in on the picture with his father. “We’re estranged now.”
“You were vice-president of a Fortune 500 company at seventeen?” Her jaw hung open.
Talk about an overachiever.
“That kind of thing only sounds glamorous in magazines,” Hard creases appeared on the corners of his eyes. “I had no friends in high school. Most of the time, I didn’t even go to school. My world revolved around meetings, deadlines, shareholders and quarterly reports.”
That sounded stressful for a seventeen-year-old… and lonely.
“I quit at eighteen when I was accepted into Columbia. Carl told me I was wasting my time going to college, but I wanted to get away from the company and get a life.”
“How did you pay for college? I assume he refused to pay.” A dad who was ready to wreck his son’s business couldn’t have agreed to pay his college tuition.
“I had money saved up from my time as the vice-president. And I did a few jobs here and there. I sailed through somehow.”
“Is he the reason you decided not to get a job after graduation?” Now, she was beginning to figure him out.
“Yes.”
“But I still don’t understand. Why is he trying to tear down what you are trying to build? Shouldn’t he be proud?”
“He’s never been proud of me.”
The vacancy in his cloudy eyes stabbed her heart. The only parent he had was a monster. She wanted to comfort him, but his scars ran too deep for her to reach.
“You have me now.” She wound his fingers through hers. “I’m really proud of what you’re doing. I think it’s a great company that you’re trying to build.”
Andrew rested his head against her naked shoulder. The closeness between them amplified. Ashley laid her head on his.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice sincere.
“I know you will succeed, no matter what he does. You are special. I’ve felt that since we met. And you’ve come so far with your determination. You can definitely go all the way.” She closed her fingers around his.
“Mmmmm.” He was spacing out.
“What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking, what’s the minimum amount of time a guy has to date a girl before proposing to her? Is two weeks too short?”
“Andrew, you can’t seriously be considering…”
“I love you, Ashley.” The deepness in the timbre of his voice couldn’t be a prank.
Ashley found herself being drawn in by his intensity. He made her feel that what was between them wasn’t a fling but a deep connection. A connection deeper than anything she’d experienced with anyone before.
Her head spun with spiraling joy. “This is too fast.”
She wrestled with the voices inside her head that screamed at her to say yes. She knew she loved him too, as silly as that sounded after having known him for only two weeks. She knew so little about him, but she’d done things with him she couldn’t imagine doing with anyone else.
“I can’t believe it myself. But you’ve sucked me into you like a vortex. I can’t think of anyone but you. I want to be with you for a long time.”
Goosebumps rose on her skin when he ran his mouth over her throat, all the way down to her breasts. Then, when he spoke the next sentence, the playfulness was back. “Now I hope you’re ready for the second round.”
“Oh, yes.” She smirked.
Then she closed her eyes and sank back into her slice of Eden.
Chapter 4
Four months later
Ashley had never expected to be married at twenty-three. The way she’d planned her life, she would get a good job first, rise up a few ranks, save up some money, buy a house and start dating seriously after thirty, marry by thirty-three and have kids by the end of her thirties.
But after Andrew’s proposal, she had fed that order to the sharks.
She was getting married at twenty-three. She was still without work. A house was nowhere in sight. And if she and Andrew kept having the steamy sex they were having, she would have five kids before she could blink.
That thought was scary. She wasn’t ready to be a mother at twenty-three. Kids… she wanted
to have them eventually, but not now.
Andrew’s business was still not steady and she was now going to be financially dependent on him. He hadn’t betrayed any hint that he wouldn’t be able to handle it, but she wondered if they really could manage.
The lace and tulle of the white mermaid gown prickled against her moist skin. It was hot in here. She felt the dampness of the cloth where it rubbed her armpits. She tugged at it and scanned the crowd.
Her silence when she was supposed to be saying her vows sent a wave of whispers through the sea of faces inside the chapel. In the nervousness, she had forgotten the lines she had rehearsed so many times they should have become a part of her.
Her parents looked at her expectantly. She couldn’t quit now. Pull yourself together, she scolded herself.
Every bride was plagued by doubts on her wedding day. It was normal to be anxious. But she had the most important thing—love—so she was going to be okay.
Her hands shuddered. Andrew squeezed them lightly. She refocused. She could get through this if she kept looking at him. He stood before her in his black tuxedo and brilliant smile, looking like he had materialized from the movie screen. Holding her hand gently, calming her nerves. All that needed to be said to bind them in matrimony was a few words.
Ungluing her lips which had been stuck together for a while now, Ashley looked into the most serene, steadying pair of gray eyes. The air returned to her lungs again and despite how tight the bodice of the dress was, she managed to draw a deep inhale.
“I, Ashley Brown, take you, Andrew Smith, to be my wedded husband.”
Despite the doubts and fears plaguing her, the words came with surprising ease. They sounded so right. His name sounded so perfect from her lips. Like she had been meant to say it all along.
“To have and to hold for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer…”
She didn’t even register the strings of syllables that flowed from her mouth after that.
Then it was over. A splash of relief, followed by their solemn first kiss as husband and wife. She wanted to hold onto the moment for a little longer, savor the friction of his mouth sliding over hers, but it passed like a spell of rain, leaving her thirsting for that all-consuming passion she was used to.
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