“Call me, at some point, okay?”
“Honestly, Beth…I know no one wants to hear this, and I don’t want to have to say it, but I don’t think I’m going home. I think Wes is going to have you guys stay there, so you’re close.”
She shakes her head—she knows what I mean, what I’m not saying out loud. “Jo, don’t —”
I cut her off. “I won’t say anything else. But I feel it, Beth. I sense it.”
“Maybe your grandma is right. Maybe God has a miracle in store for you.”
“I want to believe that.” I crush her to me in a fierce hug. “I really do. I’m gonna hold on as long as I can. I promise.”
She nods, her cheek moving against mine. “I love you. Thanks for talking with me.”
“You’re my best friend. Always and forever.” She glances back the way we came, and sighs dreamily. “He’s literally on the porch waiting for you.”
I glance back, and sure enough, he’s sitting on the top step, phone-glow lighting his face blue-white.
“He worries about me.”
She wiggles her eyebrow at me. “Or, he’s antsy to have you alone.”
I snicker. “You’re not wrong. We haven’t had much time alone since I stopped feeling like poop.”
What I don’t say—to her, and what I haven’t said to him, either—is that I did stop feeling like death warmed over, but I haven’t entirely gone back to anything like normal. Not like I have in the past. There’s a deeper ache that remains, this time. A sharper, lingering, whole-body pain that I’ve never felt.
A sourness in my…spirit, I guess. I don’t know how to capture it, even in my own mind.
It’s an ache that feels…permanent.
And frightening.
As I say one last goodbye to Bethany and walk back, slowly, preserving my energy, I do my best to push the fear and the ache to the back of my mind, the edges of my awareness. Don’t think about it.
What’s that line from Frozen? “Conceal, don’t feel.”
I approach him, and he stands up, shoves his phone into his back pocket.
I step up to the same level as him, and wrap my arms low around his waist, tilt my face up for a kiss. “Hi.”
He gives me the requested kiss, a slow, deep, thorough one. “Hi.”
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“For what?”
“Bringing my family here. Getting them the house. Taking them on the tour and entertaining them. You went above and beyond, and I appreciate it.”
“At the very least, you’re my girlfriend. Which means your family is important to me.”
“And at the most?”
“At the most, your family is my family, too.”
That makes my heart do a little thump and patter. “Oh.”
He scoops me up into his arms. “Come on. I have something for you.”
“Okay.”
I busy myself as he carries me inside with kissing him, wherever I can reach. Chin, jawline, earlobes, throat, shoulders, lips, nose. He grunts laughter as pepper kisses on him.
I hear water running, and then the sound becomes an echo as we enter the bathroom, and I realize he’s run a bath.
“I don’t have any, like, bubbles or anything. But I thought maybe you’d like a bath. Just, you know, sit and soak for a while.”
We have a bathtub at our house, obviously, but it’s a small, old one, and even I don’t fit in it very well.
This tub?
It’s a small swimming pool, and looks deep enough that, fully filled, the water would come to my chin.
“That sounds really nice.” I kiss his lips, this time. “Thank you. You’re so thoughtful.”
He sets me on my feet. “It’s been a whirlwind few days, and I figure you might like to relax a little.”
“It does sound amazing. Our bathtub at home is from, like 1956, and built for leprechaun children or something, so I don’t really take too many baths.”
He smiles at me. “Well, that’s a real-deal soaking tub, for actual full-size adult humans.” He backs away. “So, yeah. Enjoy your bath. If you need anything, just holler.”
I frown at him. “Wes.”
He pauses. “Yeah?”
“I think maybe I’d enjoy it more if we took a bath.”
He hesitates. “I meant it for you, though.”
“I know. But we’ve been so busy with my family that we haven’t gotten to spend any time together. We don’t have to do anything, just sit and talk.”
“I think I can handle that.”
I peel off my T-shirt. “I mean, I’m just saying we don’t have to do anything. Not that I don’t want to do anything.”
He grins. “I know what you meant.” He smirks at me. “You just want to get me naked and take advantage of me.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Then I suppose I can admit I was hoping you’d invite me in with you.”
“But you weren’t going to invite yourself.”
“No, of course not. I’m not going to draw you a bath so you can relax, and then assume you want to get naked with me and do stuff.”
I shuck my shorts and underwear together, and I’m naked. He hasn’t even started taking his clothes off, so I decide to help him. First, his shirt, so I can get my hands on his yummy, muscular torso. He holds his arms up and lets me rip it off and drop it, and I run my hands over his shoulders and back and chest, on the way to the fly of his jeans. He yanks his foot out, turning the leg inside out, and then the other, kicking the inside-out garment aside. His underwear is bulged.
I touch the bulge. “Someone is eager to come out and play.”
He rumbles a laugh as I tug the undergarment away from his belly, allowing his burgeoning erection to unfurl. “Always. Especially when you get naked.”
Me, naked, makes him get hard.
I love knowing that.
We play with each other in the bath. Touching, teasing. Never quite taking it to the point of rising to climax. We talk. We touch. We soak. I lie against him, my back to his front, and I close my eyes, and relax in his embrace, hot water splashing around us.
After a while, I’m ready to be out of the tub and in bed with him.
I want to finish what we started in the tub.
Maybe even finish it in a new way.
“I think I’m ready to get out,” I whisper.
He’s set towels aside for us, and he gets out first, towels off quickly and wraps it around his waist, and then holds the other out for me, wrapping around me as I step out.
I dry off, and then drape the towel on the tub, which he’s set to drain while I was drying off. I reach for his towel and tug it free. “You don’t need this.”
He’s fully erect, a thick pink-tan rod flat against his belly, straining. I want him.
I want to make love to him.
Right now.
I take him by the hand, lead him to the bed. To our bed.
Climb in, toss the covers aside. He follows, and lays on his back, curls me into his arms. As if he’s trying to slow this down.
I rest against his chest, gaze up at him. He’s watching me, and I see the heat in his eyes, the desire. But I also see a hesitation. Something else.
I wonder if he’s still holding back because he’s worried about me physically.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Wes,” I whisper.
He rolls a shoulder. “I…” a sigh. “I…”
I don’t like the hesitation. It’s not distance—he’s here with me, and the desire for me is plain as day in his face, but there’s something holding him back. I grasp him, touch him slowly, caressing him.
“Tell me, Wes. Please?”
He closes his eyes as I touch. “The way you touch me, Jo…god, it feels good.”
I squirm closer to him, wriggle higher, lean against him and drape one leg over his, thighs parted. Touch his hand and guide it to me. “I love how you touch me too, Wes.” I rub against his fingers. “I want you.”
; He closes his eyes. “I want you too.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“What’s stopping me is I want you too much.”
I laugh. “No such thing.”
He grits his teeth as I continue slowly caressing his length, the way I know he enjoys best: with a squeeze around the top and a twist at the bottom, on the way back up. “It’s more that…as much as I love doing this stuff, just touching…I want…more. With you. And I have plans for us, tomorrow. And I don’t want to…to rush.”
I stop stroking, just hold him. “Plans, huh? Like what?”
“Well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Just…a romantic date. Something hopefully magical, and romantic, and…”
I let go of him and clasp his face in my hands. “Wes…” I feel bold. I swing a leg over him, sit astride his hips. “I want a magical, romantic date with you so bad. That means more to me than I can say.” I lick my lips and sort through my feelings. “But don’t think that what we do, here, together, in bed, is…is tied to that date.”
“I just…” He holds my hips in his hands, thumbs caressing the divot and crease where my legs bend at the hip bones. “The next step for us is…is making love. Like, all the way. And I want that to be…incredible. I want your first time, our first time, to be…magical. Special.”
I fall forward and press my forehead to his. “How can you be so freaking sweet and sexy at the same time?”
He laughs. “I just want to make every moment we have together something we’ll never forget. And your first time should be…special.”
“I don’t know if I can argue with that.” I inhale slowly. It would be so easy, right now, to just…move slightly. Slip him where he belongs, and take us there. I can feel myself doing it. “I want it to be magical and special, too.”
He groans. “You straddling me like this is…erotic as hell, Jo.” He laughs. “It’s confusing me.”
“Want me to get off?”
He laughs. “Get off? Or get off of me?”
I moan a laugh. “Set myself up for that one.” I grasp him, stroke him. “Problem is, Wes…I want you right now. Right here, just like this.”
“Jo,” he breathes. One hand grips my hip, the other presses a fingertip to my seam. Slides down. “I want to give you everything.”
“All I want is you, Wes.” I sit upright. Lift up on my knees. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know this feels right. “This would be magical. And romantic.”
He groans, eyes closing, jaw clenching. “Jo, god, Jo. I want to be inside you.”
“I want to know what that feels like. I want you to be inside me. I want to make love with you, Wes.”
He groans again, and then suddenly I’m on my back and his mouth is on mine, and his kiss is fierce, hungry, and wild. Just for a moment, and then he’s off me and stalking into the bathroom.
Stunned, I lie in bed, wondering what just happened. I glance, and see him standing facing the mirror, hands braced on the frame of the vanity, spine arched, taut bubble of his buttocks tensed. Shoulders bowed. Fighting with himself.
I rise, move up behind him. He starts at my touch, as I wrap my arms around him from behind, clutching his broad shoulders and thick chest. “Hey, what’s going on, Wes?”
“I almost lost control, Jo. I want to make your first time something truly…memorable. Not just…a moment of desire, but an intentional memory we make together.”
My heart aches for the intensity in his voice. “I love you for that, Wes.”
He stills further.
I rest my cheek against his back. “I don’t take it back. I love you for that. For a lot of reasons.” I kiss between his shoulder blades. “I don’t need that, though, Wes. I just need you.”
“But I want to give it to you.”
“It’s important to you?”
“Isn’t it, for you?”
I nod. “I’ve dreamed about my first time a lot. And since meeting you, I’ve thought about it a lot. And what you’re describing, a romantic date together that culminates in us making love? That sounds like this fairy tale I’m living made even more magical.”
“And that’s why I stopped. Because I want you, and I was about to let us…ruin that.”
I laugh. “It wouldn’t ruin anything.”
He huffs. “You know what I mean.”
“I know that you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. There’s nothing you can do that would disappoint me or let me down or upset me, Wes…except suddenly not want me.”
“I didn’t stop us because I wanted to. Or because I don’t want you.”
I glide my hand down his chest, to his belly. To his erection. “So I could still do this?”
He stands upright, and now I can watch us in the mirror, my body almost entirely hidden behind his, just my pale, freckled forearm and small hand visible, and some of my face and bright orange hair.
“You could,” he murmurs.
I clasp him in both hands. Caress him. Slowly. Take my time. Feel him, enjoy the weight and thickness of him in my hands. Enjoy watching us in the mirror—it’s beautiful. His manhood, my hands. The contrast. The eroticism of it, us, reflected.
I can’t take my eyes off of our reflection as I caress his length until he starts huffing, and his hips flex forward.
“Jo,” he breathes. “God, Jo.” He’s watching, too. His eyes tell me he loves this as much as I do, watching us in the mirror.
I feel him approaching the edge, and I like that he’s quick to get there. I know he’ll hold out, make it last as long as possible, but I also like knowing I can make him feel so good he can’t help it. I consider using my mouth, but decide against it—there’s still a faint miasma of nausea I’m doing my best to ignore, and a general ache that makes getting down on my knees not a good idea.
Maybe in bed, where it’s soft and horizontal.
For now, I just enjoy watching my hands slide down his length, and I wonder at how familiar he feels, already. He’s mine. And I can’t wait to see and feel him lose his control, and even more, selfishly, I’m anticipating how he’s going to make me feel good when I’m done with him.
I want to make love to him.
This is a placeholder.
Not what I want.
But his reasoning has swayed me—as much as I want him, right now, as much as I want to know that feeling and that intimacy, right now, I want even more to have our first time making love for real to be a magical, unforgettable night of romance. And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he’ll provide that, and it’ll be worth every minute of the wait.
Plus, this is nearly as fun.
He’s grunting, groaning. Pushing into my hands. His head tips back, and a growl snarls from his throat.
“Jo,” he breathes. “I’m…oh god, Jo. I’m coming.”
I slow my touch as he begins the explosion. One of my hands glides down his length, the other caresses in gentle circles around the head. He moans, chin dipping to his chest, hips locked forward as he lifts up onto his toes. And there it is, the warm wet rush of his seed splashing through my fingers. I pump him slowly, smearing his own sticky essence down his length, making my fist slide slick-smooth, and now I speed up my touch, fast and shallow around the upper portion, and he spurts into the sink, and over my hands and onto the counter, again and again.
Finished, finally, he sags, bracing his hands on the counter, head hanging. “Good lord, Jo.”
I kiss his spine. “I love doing that to you. I really do. I love watching you, feeling you.” I kiss his shoulder. “I love touching you. I love making you feel good. I love knowing I can do that to you.”
He doesn’t answer immediately, panting hard. “I’ve never felt the way you make me feel, Jo. I mean that. You touch me and it’s…it’s pure heaven. It’s ecstasy.”
There’s a washcloth folded on the towel rack. I reach around him and turn on the water, run it to warm, and rinse the washcloth. Use it to gently, lovingly clean him, and then the co
unter and sink, and then, last, wash my own hands.
When we’re clean, his eyes fix on me. Hunger burns in his gaze.
With eager hands, he scoops me up, and my legs clamp around his waist and I cling to his neck and his kiss meets mine, hunger meeting need, passion meeting arousal. His tongue is insistent and wild, and he moans into the kiss, and he walks with me out of the bathroom and suddenly I’m tipping backward onto our bed, and I love knowing that it’s our bed. Not his bed, or mine, but ours.
He kisses me there, for a long moment. Kisses me delirious, breathless. Until our mouths part and I’m panting. And then he kisses me again, but this time his lips touch my cheek. And then behind my ear. And his breath huffs hot on my ear.
“I’m going to eat you out until you scream my name,” he whispers.
I whimper at this, because I want it. I’m not ashamed of how badly I want it. “Please?” I whisper. “Please, Wes. I want it. I need it.”
“Need what?” he asks, his tone teasing.
“Your mouth on me.”
He kisses my breastbone. “Here?”
I shake my head. Clutch him by the ears and push his face to my breast; his mouth latches on, and I whimper.
“Here?”
I shake my head again and move his mouth to my other breast—he obliges with kisses and tonguing.
“Here?” he repeats.
I shake my head yet again. Let my thighs fall wide open and guide his mouth to my sex. Lift my buttocks off the bed and press my opening to his lips. “Here,” I answer, finally. “I need your mouth here.”
“Tell me how you like it,” he murmurs. Kisses me, as if it was my mouth, slowly kissing my sex. “Like that?”
I shake my head. “No. That’s nice, but…” I groan as his tongue finds me. “Yes, like that.”
More tongue, lashing side to side, up and down. “Like this?”
“Uh-huh,” I groan, gasp, letting my hips pivot as he intensifies his attention. “I want—Wes, I…I want…”
“Tell me, darling. Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”
Darling.
My heart swells to overfull, the unabashed sweetness in that one word torching my soul and setting my emotions afire. “Touch me. With your fingers. Inside me.”
He fills me with a finger, then two…and his mouth is wild and hungry, and I lose myself in this. In sensation. In pleasure.
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