by J. Nathan
I pulled in a sharp breath when his hands slowly coasted over my breasts. My breaths became shallow. The pulsing between my thighs was intense. “Oh, God.”
His mouth drifted down my neck as his hands began to kneed my breasts, his thumbs tracing my nipples. When I didn’t think I was going to be able to take anymore, he tugged on my nipple, sending tremors shooting between my thighs. My knees nearly buckled. He did it again. I couldn’t take anymore. The tremors between my legs pulsed in rhythmic beats. “Jordan,” I whimpered.
“Em,” he said between kisses to my shoulder. “You feel so good.”
“Bed,” I said, incapable of a coherent sentence.
He twisted me in his arms and his lips crashed down on mine. I wasn’t the only one having difficulty controlling myself. His tongue dipped inside my mouth, entangling with mine, fighting for control. He walked us back toward the bed. When the backs of my knees hit the bed, he picked me up and lowered me down in the center. He pulled back and kneeled over me. It was the first time he was seeing me virtually naked and his eyes lit up as they wandered over me.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows and stared back, wondering what he was thinking. He’d seen me at all my awkward stages, but he’d never seen me like this.
“You’re a dream come true,” he said, before reaching behind his neck and pulling his shirt over his head.
My cheeks pulsed with heat, undoubtedly reddening as he stood. I watched him strip down to his boxers then step toward the bed.
“Wait.”
His eyes narrowed.
I swallowed down hard. “Take off your boxers.”
A slow cocky grin slid across his lips before he unabashedly pushed his boxers down his legs.
I tried not to stare, but I’d never seen a naked guy before. Sure, I’d seen them online, but not like this. Not right in front of me. Not Jordan. And I knew, by the looks of…it, he was ready if I was. I stared at him. He stared back. With bated breath, I nodded slightly, giving him the okay.
Jordan didn’t hesitate, moving forward and climbing on top of me. I lay back, slipping my arms around his hips as he covered me with his naked body. He braced his weight on his elbows beside my head and gazed down at me. “If this is as far as we go tonight, it would still be perfect.”
“For who?” I asked, incredulously.
He snickered. “I told you I don’t want to ruin this, Em. And sleeping together on the first date is a surefire way to do that.”
“Says who?”
“Anyone who’s done it.”
“But they’re not you and me. And they haven’t waited almost their entire life to have you look at them the way you’re looking at me right now. So, I say we make up our own rules. And we do what feels right for us.”
He bent his head and kissed me slowly, giving me what I wanted.
My hands drifted up his back, his tight muscles forming dips and valleys under his smooth skin. His lower body relaxed on top of me, and my thong’s single strip of material didn’t shield me from the hard length of him pressing between us.
My fingertips skated down his back, sliding over the dip beneath his spine and over his ass. My fingernails dug into his skin as his mouth continued to torture me slowly. I wanted to feel him between my legs. I wanted to feel him inside of me. I shifted my hips, trying to get closer. The head of his penis brushed me. Holy. Hell. I shifted again, trying to hit the same spot. My eyes rolled back as the friction sent zingers to my core.
Both of us were panting hard when Jordan pulled back from my mouth. “Em, I’m having a really hard time controlling myself right now, and you shifting your ass and trying to rub up on my dick is sending me pretty close to the edge.”
The matter-of-fact way he said it made my belly ripple.
“And while, that’s not always a bad thing,” he continued. “Tonight, I wanna make this good for you.”
“It already is good,” I assured him.
“Yeah, well, just because you’re stroking my ego right now, doesn’t mean I want it over in five minutes.”
I nodded again, realizing he wasn’t upset, more frustrated he couldn’t control himself.
“Now you need to promise me, for the next few minutes, you’re not going to touch me.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t believe you.” He reached down, grabbed my wrists, and pinned my arms above my head.
I couldn’t move. And I liked it. More than I ever thought I would. My chest rose and fell, my body buzzing with need.
Jordan released my wrists.
I didn’t dare move.
“There are a million things I want to do with you,” he said, all raspy and sexy. “And having you spread out like this is testing my resolve—”
“Jordan, I want you inside of me,” I blurted, unable to stop my horniness from speaking for me.
He closed his eyes, as if in pain.
But why? I’d told him what I wanted. I didn’t want there to be any confusion. Was that wrong?
He opened his eyes. “That’s the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Nervous laughter rushed out of me.
He gazed down at me, probably realizing my boldness came from never having felt such intense sensations happening to my body at one time. He reached into his nightstand and grabbed a small package. I didn’t peek to see if he had a huge stash. This was about him and me. No one who’d come before mattered now. He tore open the packet then reached down, rolling the condom on. He braced himself once again, hovering over me. “I—”
“Stop talking.” I lowered my arms and pulled his mouth down to mine, kissing him the way I wanted to be kissed. My tongue pushed inside his mouth. I was in control now, and my tongue was hell bent on consuming him.
With our tongues melded together, Jordan reached down and pulled my thong off my legs. Now there was nothing between us. Nothing stopping us from going further. He reached down and dragged his thumb over my wet folds. My eyes pinched shut. Then he hit my clit. I gasped, the sensations overpowering. He kept at it, stroking relentlessly with the pad of his thumb. Circling. Stroking. Circling. Stroking. God. Glorious throbbing beat like a bass drum between my legs. I focused on the eruption inevitably awaiting me. But all too soon, Jordan withdrew his hand.
He pulled back from my mouth and stared down at me. “Are you sure about this, Em?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
He reached down and positioned himself between my legs, guiding the head of his penis up and down my wet skin. I was ready for him. And if his thumb was any indication of the pleasure awaiting me, I was all in.
I expected him to thrust inside me. To push until the pain I’d heard about subsided. But he didn’t. He continued moving his erection over me. Back and forth. Circling my clit. Then back and forth again. Was he purposely teasing me? Or was he making sure I was ready?
My panting must have clued him that I was turned on beyond reason because he pushed the head of his penis inside me an inch. “How’s this?” he asked.
“Keep going,” I said, my eyes locked on his.
He pushed in a little more. “Still good?”
“Stop talking and do it,” I said.
He snickered as he kept his eyes on mine and pushed the rest of the way inside me. Thanks to the wetness he created, he slid right in. His eyes never wavered from mine as he stretched me wide. “I love being this close to you.”
His words and the feel of him inside me proved too much. Tears glazed my eyes.
“Am I hurting you?”
I shook my head, unable to articulate what I was feeling. I’d never imagined he and I could actually physically be one. But in that moment, with him inside of me, I felt like we were. Wild emotions rocked through me, happiness trumping them all.
Jordan pulled out slowly and pushed back inside me. I was getting used to the feel of him. It didn’t hurt like I’d heard it would. It felt right. He pulled back again and pushed inside me, his thrusting gaining a slow and steady rhythm. He
lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me slow as he continued to move inside of me. He somehow kept himself balanced as he reached one hand down between us and moved his thumb over my clit. A fluttering sensation started up. Then tingling. And tremors. The fact that he was stretching me wide, made the sensations more intense. The throbbing became harder. Something was building inside me. Something was coiling up and ready to bubble over.
“Jordan,” I whimpered.
“Just relax and let it happen,” he said, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His thrusting became faster and his thumb stroked harder.
I closed my eyes and let myself be in the moment. But it was difficult to stop images of Jordan and me at all stages of our lives from flashing through my mind. All the hopes he would one day want me, flooded my body as intensely as the throbbing between my thighs.
He moved his thumb around, circling my clit until my body clenched around him and erupted in a rush of sensations. My body quaked, humming with the glorious after-tremors.
Jordan didn’t let up. He thrust harder and deeper until he stilled, a growl rumbling out of him. He lowered down on top of me as I wrapped my arms tighter around him. He stayed inside me, pulsing until we’d both come back down to Earth.
“Is it always like that?” I whispered.
“God, no.” He pulled away from my neck so he could see me, his cheeks flushed and his face beaded with sweat. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”
“Don’t just say that.”
“Em, you waited for me. That alone made it amazing. Are you hurting?”
“Only in the best possible way,” I said.
He leaned down and kissed me hard. “Keep stroking my ego, baby.”
I snickered.
He pulled out of me slowly.
A sense of loss passed over me as Jordan rolled off the bed. He removed the condom and discarded it in a trash bin. “Be right back.” He opened his door and padded down the hallway. He returned a minute later, locking the door behind him and crawling back onto the bed with a wash cloth. “This might be a little cool.” He reached between my legs and ran the damp cloth along my folds. My head dropped back as he did, not having any idea what he was doing until he stood and I could see a hint of blood on the cloth.
I cringed. “Sorry.”
He folded the cloth and tossed it into the trash bin. “Nothing to be sorry about.” He returned to the side of the bed. “Let’s snuggle.”
I snickered as I moved under the sheets.
Jordan crawled in and pulled me into him, fitting me into the hard planes of his chest. “Thank you, Em.”
My brows lifted. “For what?”
“Letting me be your first.”
It took everything in me not to add, ‘And hopefully my last.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Emery
I awoke wrapped in Jordan’s soft sheets as sunlight peeked through his curtains. The previous night rivaled the most amazing dream. I rolled over, only to find an empty spot beside me. I sat up, hugging the sheets to me and listening for the shower down the hallway or movement downstairs. There was nothing.
I wondered if anything would change in the light of day. Had the cloak of darkness given me a boldness I’d no longer possess? Would things between us be awkward now that we had to navigate a relationship?
The door knob suddenly rattled.
I stilled.
For the first time since being with Jordan, an anxious feeling clutched my chest. Thoughts of Wayne bombarded me. He’d disappeared from my mind while in Jordan’s arms.
Damn him.
The door pushed in and I unconsciously crept back toward the head board, as if that would somehow protect me.
Jordan maneuvered himself inside the room, balancing two coffees in one hand and a plate of food in the other.
Air punched out of my lungs. I scrambled off the bed with the sheet wrapped around me to help him. As my nerves slowly subsided, I took one of the coffees from him. “What are you doing?”
“I brought breakfast.”
“I can see that, but why didn’t you wake me?”
“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to stop your dreams.”
I stared back at him. Didn’t he get that he was my dream. Always had been. Always would be. Gahhhh. I was so far gone it would be impossible to return. Of that I was sure of. “Thank you.”
He sat down on the bed and I cozied up next to him against the headboard. We drank coffee and picked at the dish of fruit he brought up.
“I’ve got class in about an hour.”
He nodded. “I know. I’m gonna drive you back to your dorm and walk you to class.”
“I appreciate that, but you’ve got your own classes and football to worry about. It’s broad daylight with thousands of people around. I’m not nervous. I’ll be okay.”
“I know. But maybe I want to spend time with you. Do things for you. Be seen with your hot self.”
I rolled my eyes.
“What? I’m serious.”
“Seriously crazy.”
“Never claimed not to be. But now I’m crazy about you. So deal, woman.”
I shook my head. This sudden switch in our relationship was going to take time to get used to. Being in the dark, with our bodies wrapped around one another was one thing. But in the light of day, with all the outside factors at play, I needed to figure out how we worked. How to act around him. How to be the new us.
Forty minutes later, Jordan waited in my dorm room to take me to class. He’d showered at his house and changed into basketball shorts and a T-shirt with a hat pulled down low. I threw on jeans and a T-shirt, slipped on my flip-flops, and tried to twist the strap of my bag across me, but Jordan grabbed it from me.
The walk across campus with Jordan was…different. Lots of guys held out their fists for him to bump and multiple girls stared as we passed by. But regardless of their looks, he kept my hand in his and his eyes on me.
“Grady,” a girl called.
He stopped, holding me back with him.
A beautiful blonde stopped in front of us. She looked questioningly to him, like he should know what she was thinking.
“Em, this is Sabrina,” he said with a grin, alleviating any fears I may have had that she was an angry ex or one-night-stand. “Sabrina, this is Em.”
“Nice to finally meet you,” Sabrina said with a smile. “Anyone who can put up with his shenanigans is a good person in my book.”
I laughed. “Yeah, someone’s got to do it. And since I’ve known him since he was eleven, I think I’m up for the challenge.”
Sabrina laughed. “Challenge is definitely the word I’d use for him.”
“Hey, I’m right here, ladies. And I’ve yet to hear anything about my glowing personality or killer body.”
Sabrina and I rolled our eyes, both pretending not to be amused by him.
“And for the record,” Sabrina said to him. “We were friends before the hot body.”
Jordan threw his head back and howled in a way I’d never heard him do before. “Did you hear her, Em? Not only did she admit we’re friends, she also said I have a hot body. All in the same sentence. I never thought I see the day.”
Sabrina pointed right into his chest. “If you tell anyone, I will kill you.”
“Em’s my witness,” Jordan said.
Sabrina grinned and shook her head. Then she said to me, “When he’s not around, we’ll have to grab a coffee and you can fill me in on what you see in him.”
I nodded. “That would be nice.”
Sabrina walked away without so much as a backward glance.
“She was interesting,” I said, unsure what to make of their exchange.
Jordan started walking again. “Yeah, she wants to hate me, but she just can’t seem to do it.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I gave her roommate shit when I first met her, so she wanted to hate me for that. But then she got to know me, and my uncle helped her and h
er hockey player boyfriend with some legal stuff.”
“So, she has a boyfriend?” I said, trying to hide the fact that the information brought me relief.
“Yeah. He plays professional hockey now. She won’t be around here long. She’ll follow him up north, no doubt.”
“Why weren’t you nice to her friend?”
I shrugged.
“No, tell me.”
His lips twisted as he contemplated whether he should. “I hated the world after you disappeared. I didn’t trust people.”
My stomach clenched uncomfortably at his words. I hated that I’d hurt him.
“And I sure as hell didn’t want to stand by and watch a weak female put up with mistreatment—like you had to do for your mom’s sake. So, when I first saw Finlay—that’s Sabrina’s friend—I knew she needed to toughen up if she was gonna put up with a bunch of rowdy football players. So, I gave her shit until she gave it back. I guess I just saw you in her. And I wanted her to stand up for herself.”
“You don’t think I stood up for myself?” I asked, disappointed he viewed me that way.
He stopped us and tunneled both hands in my hair so his nose was almost touching mine. “I think you’re one of the strongest people I know. The fact that you lived that way with Wayne and still smiled every day, showed how strong you really are. Do I wish we could have stood up to him and gotten him out of your house? Hell yes. But we were kids. And it was something we couldn’t do.”
I nodded, his words stealing my breath away and silencing my fears.
“Now,” he said, pulling back a little. “Let me walk my girlfriend to class so everyone on this campus can see me with her.”
I laughed. “You really are crazy.”
“And you love it, baby.”
* * *
Jordan stood outside my building after class ended, looking all hot and protective.
I greeted him with a smile. “You take your bodyguard duties very seriously, don’t you?”
“If anyone’s gonna be guarding your body, it’s me.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head as he swung his arm over my shoulders and walked me back toward my dorm.