by Neal, Toby
“What I don’t understand is why you couldn’t just tell me that. And then I have to remind myself you’re not even nineteen yet. Your brain isn’t fully mature.”
I looked up and glared, and he grinned at finally catching my eye. “Good. That’s better. Now tell me what’s really going on. Just spit it out.”
“Fine.” I pushed back from the edge of the bed and sat cross-legged with my back against the wall. “I came here to lose my virginity. And somewhere in the middle of all we got up to in that hotel room, I realized you had no intention of doing the deed with me.” I picked up the noodles again. “I have no idea what you want from me, but if we aren’t going to have sex, I don’t want to be with you. There. Now you have the truth. I hope you’re happy.”
I tried to take a bite of noodles, but my throat had totally closed. Tears were pouring out of my eyes and giving lie to my tough words. I fumbled for a napkin to blot them.
“I thought we were having sex back in the hotel,” Rafe said mildly. “There are lots of ways to do it, you know.”
“I begin to,” I said, flapping a hand. “But I don’t understand why you’re being how you are with me. What are you trying to do? Make me fall in love with you or something?” The question came out on a squeak. “Because I can’t fall in love with you. You’re all wrong for me. Long-term.” The words came out in a rush. “And I have to get back to school and get away from you before…before.” I ended the muddled speech by stuffing my mouth with tasteless noodles before I told him that before had already happened. It was too late.
I’d fallen for him.
More than for Sam, who was nearly perfect and great husband material.
More than for Henry, who loved me already and was a terrific boyfriend.
No. Every minute I spent with this surfer, sailor, drifter, I fell a little more inappropriately in love.
“Ah.” He sat beside me, with a couple of feet between us. The space seemed to hum with that chemistry we could never get away from. “Because to be honest, I’ve been feeling confused, too. You aren’t any more right for me than I am for you.”
“At least we agree on something,” I honked my nose on my napkin. I caught Rafe’s eye.
He smiled, but it was a little sad. “And yet.”
“And yet what?”
“I’ve been around a lot longer than you. Eight years longer. Long enough to know that this feeling…” He gestured to the charged emptiness between us. “This feeling doesn’t come along often. It’s unusual. In fact, I’ve never had it before. I can’t stop thinking about you. Wanting to be with you.”
“I like some other people,” I argued. “I think I can get over you.”
He nodded. “And I expect you to try. In fact, I think you’re already trying to get over me.”
“I am. Getting over you.” I bobbed my head like a marionette.
“Okay. Well, because of my greater wisdom, I didn’t want to have sex with you. Because you grew up the way you did, in the church and with the family you have, you can deny it all you like, but it’s going to mean something. Something big. That I’m your first.” He said it definitely, as if there were no question about him being my first. “I didn’t want to make the breakup worse by having that experience with you, because I knew I wasn’t right for you. We want different things.”
I was still nodding, that puppet’s movement. “Right. Different things entirely.”
“So I decided to just spend time with you awhile when you got here, see if we liked each other. And I found I really liked you. You’re fun to be with. I enjoyed all of our time together.”
“Me too,” I admitted, thinking of the crab picnic on the deserted rooftop at Fort Point. Flying kites in Golden Gate Park. Riding the carousel on Pier 39. Walking through the zoo, holding hands and eating cotton candy. Picking up sand dollars on the great empty sweep of Ocean Beach. Yes, San Francisco was a romantic city indeed.
“But that other thing.”
“The chemistry,” I said in a rush. “I can’t be near you and not think of being with you. That way.” My cheeks flamed at this bold admission. “Which is why I had to get away. Before it got any worse. Any more painful. Like measles.”
Rafe threw his head back and laughed. “But it didn’t work, did it?”
“No. It didn’t.” And I set the noodles down on the little table and turned to him, and he hugged me close, awkward because of the angle. I wriggled closer, and his arms tightened around me. I leaned my head down on his chest and sighed at the wonderful sound of his heart beating against my cheek. It felt like everything in my off-kilter world was coming back into alignment.
“And that’s why I think we should get married.” Rafe’s voice rumbled in his chest next to my cheek, and his words vibrated in the air above me like a plucked chord.
Chapter 7
I couldn’t scramble off of Rafe’s lap fast enough. I jumped up off the bed and turned to face him, hands on hips. “You need your head examined. Didn’t we just get done listing all the ways we’re wrong for each other?”
Rafe spread his hands, pitched his voice low, and gave me a lot of sincere eye contact. I hadn’t seen this side of him before: confident, persuasive, almost like a businessman.
“I’m operating from my greater experience, you see. I told you, I’ve never felt this way before, and the longer I’m with you, the worse it gets, just when I usually lose interest.” He reached out, picked up one of my long red ribbons of hair. “Now that I’ve seen you, tasted you…all I can think of is getting more of you. And having you be mine, always.”
“And you can have me.” He wound the hank of hair around his fist, and I let myself be drawn closer. I could feel my breasts tingling with the anticipation of his touch. His passionate words were loosening my knees already as I sank to the bed and kept coming toward him as he drew his fist, wrapped with my hair, up against his chest. Inches from his mouth, I said, “You can have me. I’m yours. But we’re not getting married.”
He pulled me in, and the kiss was demanding, harsh and hard and hot. When I tried to pull back, the handful of hair he held tugged my scalp painfully. I wrenched my mouth loose, tears stinging my eyes. “You’re hurting me.”
Immediately, he loosened his grip and used his other hand to unwind the hank of hair from the hand holding it.
“I’m sorry. I’m not used to hearing no.” Rafe smiled, one side of his mouth cocking up. “I’m not used to making marriage proposals either. You don’t know what this means to me. But then, you wouldn’t. I’m the one with greater life experience, who knows how special what we have is. And therein lies the rub.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand.
“I leave tomorrow,” I whispered. “We have tonight.”
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said against my mouth. “But I want all of you, and not for just one night. Forever.”
I pulled away again, and this time I walked across the room to get away from him.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, hands on hips. “You’re scaring me. You’re asking too much. I’ll never marry someone like you. Surfer, sailor, drifter. We want different things.”
His cobalt eyes had gone even darker at my words, and his brows drew down. “You don’t know anything about me, really,” he whispered. “If you did, you wouldn’t say that. But you have to come to me freely. I see I’ll just have to change my strategy.”
He slid to the edge of the bed and stood up with the grace of a leopard, walking inexorably to me. “Come to bed. Let me give you pleasure. So you’ll know what you’re saying no to, and so you’ll remember me when you go back to Boston.”
I trembled as he reached me, unable to look away from his gaze.
“Okay,” I whispered, my whole body switching on at his proximity, lighting up like a power grid as juice coursed through it. “I’m gross, though. I need a shower. I’ve been in bed, crying and eating ice cream, all day.”
“And I’ve been sweating and going crazy looking for
you.” Rafe pulled me into his arms. His mouth on mine was tender this time, and he stroked the tears that started involuntarily with the balls of his thumbs. “Come to bed,” he whispered, and I did.
He took each piece of clothing off me carefully, his eyes and hands and tongue kissing every revealed inch of my skin. When he had me naked, he just studied me as I sat cross-legged on the bed, dressed in nothing but my hair.
“I want to see you, too,” I said. “I didn’t really get to, yesterday. Except in the mirror.”
“The mirror?”
“There was a mirror over the bed.”
“Minx,” he said. “Red-haired witch. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
I smiled, a distinctly cat-with-canary smile. “I enjoyed seeing your body so much. Seeing it against mine.” I could see I was affecting him with my words as his nostrils flared and eyes widened, but I just put my hands on the broad planes of his chest in the black T-shirt and tugged. “Off.”
He skinned the shirt off obediently and tossed it on the floor. His torso was every bit as amazing as I remembered.
“Off,” I said again, tugging at the waistband of his jeans.
He slid out of them. Now he was wearing just a pair of black silk boxers. His erection distended the front of them, and like the first time on the hike on Saint Thomas when I’d glimpsed that evidence of his reaction to me, I felt a deep feeling.
A tender awe. A breathless anticipation, a kind of inner wonder.
I did this to him.
He stood before me at the edge of the bed, letting me look my fill.
He was magnificent from the top of his wide, tanned, contoured shoulders, down the broad chest roughened by hair in the center, across tapered, chiseled abs to narrow hips. His sculptured buttocks flowed in a clean line into heavily muscled legs.
I slid to the edge of the bed, feeling my own arousal heat me to melting. I hooked my fingers into the black silk boxers and pulled them down.
He hissed as the material caught on his straining erection. I looked at it inches away, feeling my mouth go dry.
There was no way this thing was going to fit all the way inside of me. The glimpse I’d had in the mirror hadn’t done it justice, and it was downright intimidating.
I glanced up at Rafe’s face. I saw him struggle to restrain himself and the conflict in his expression—hope that I’d find him attractive, warring with worry that I’d be scared away.
I could also see that he’d decided to let me examine him and take all the time I needed.
“You can touch it,” he said. “You won’t hurt me touching it. Though I can’t promise I won’t lose control like I did last time.”
I tentatively wrapped a hand around the thick shaft. It felt unexpectedly warm, silky, and pleasant. He groaned above me as I slid both hands up and down the length of it, learning how it felt, like silk over steel. Tenderly, experimentally, I licked the smooth helmet-like tip.
The whole thing jumped in my hand, and I laughed.
“Thanks a lot,” Rafe gritted.
“No. It’s not funny. It’s just kind of amazing the way it responds to me,” I said, and put my mouth all the way over it.
It tasted a tiny bit salty, and I used my tongue to explore the seam on the underside.
Rafe moaned again, and now his hands came down on either side of my head to clutch handfuls of my hair. “Unbelievable how good that feels,” he choked out. “And you don’t even know how.”
I pulled back and looked up the vast expanse of his chiseled body to his cobalt eyes, vulnerable with need and something more. I could recognize the something more for what it was now.
Love.
Rafe McCallum loved me. It was amazing and scary and ridiculous, but it was real. I could see it in the transparent blue gems of his eyes.
“Teach me,” I whispered. “Teach me what you like.”
Chapter 8
I learned to make a tight circle with my thumb and forefinger at the base and lick the length hard, like a Popsicle, and to flick the head with my tongue at the end of the stroke. I learned more creative things to do with my tongue, swirls and sucks and flips, and finally I learned how to draw it all the way in and use my swallowing muscles.
When he finally let himself come, I hung in all the way to the end. It wasn’t nearly as gross as I’d imagined it would be when Jenny first told me about this kind of goings-on. I felt hot and achy with sexual frustration, but also triumphant. I’d learned to give head and apparently hadn’t done too badly at it.
Rafe collapsed with a groan and lay like a giant felled across the tiny twin bed.
“This isn’t how I pictured this would go,” he muttered, face down across the bed. “I thought I was going to be the one working you over.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll get to that,” I said. “We have all night.” I couldn’t believe I was saying such bold words.
I rolled him over so his back was against the wall, and I drew the thin spread up over us. I snuggled against his heat and tucked myself in under his arm.
* * *
I woke to the feeling of his hand exploring my breast.
As awareness prickled, I also became aware of his hardness against the curve of my hip.
I pretended to be asleep for a while longer as his hand drifted down the smooth, silky plane of my stomach to my mound, and just as I was having trouble controlling my breathing, it drifted back up, cupping my breast again, sliding around it, playing with the nipple until I could feel the flesh tighten into a hard knot. My hips twitched backward against him.
I felt rather than heard his chuckle in the wide chest against my back, and I ceased any pretense of sleep, turning in his arms to face him.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Are you willing to try something adventurous?”
“You’re the teacher, remember?” I whispered. A little light from the street came in the window and gilded his tall, naked body as he got out of bed and rummaged around, finally returning to the bed with a couple of drapery cords from the curtains in his hands.
“Do you trust me?”
“Not really,” I said, and smiled, to take the sting out of my words. “But if it feels good, I want to learn.”
“That’s my flame-haired goddess.” He positioned me on my back, and I felt my breath getting quick and hard as he lightly tied my hands above my head to the iron bedstead.
I tested the cords and they were loose enough to be comfortable, but there was no doubt I couldn’t get out of them. I was still deciding whether or not I liked this idea when I felt him open my legs and tie each of my ankles to the footboard.
“Hey,” I whispered. “Am I going to like this?”
“Yes. Very much. Even more than I liked what you did to me,” he whispered back.
“Okay, then.” I shut my eyes, feeling nervous. Cool air wafted across my tight nipples.
He turned on the old-fashioned bedside lamp with its rose-colored shade, gazing down at me for a long moment. “You’re so beautiful. I want to remember every second of this,” he whispered. “Because I’m going to enjoy every minute just as much as you are.”
Rafe played a melody on my body, layering the sensations and taking his time.
He started with light touch, trailing fingertips, tender kisses. When I was tossing, begging and twitching, my skin shuddering with want, he positioned himself between my legs.
“So beautiful,” he whispered. “I’ll never get tired of looking at you.” It felt amazing to hear such devotion after my red hair had been so reviled by peers. I felt the building waves of sensation almost immediately as he touched my most sensitive center, and I cried out.
“Shhh. There are other boarders. We don’t want them to get jealous.” Rafe stripped the pillowcase off the pillow and offered it to me. “Bite down on this if you like.”
“Yes. I won’t be able to be quiet.” My voice was already ragged with need. “Please. I need you to do that…what you were doing.”
He gave me the pillowcase to bite on and went back to work on me. “So tight,” he murmured as I pitched and moaned helplessly. “I can’t wait to be inside you.”
One hand and his mouth worked me and the other reached up to roll my nipple between his fingers. I was so overwhelmed with sensations that the melody quickly reached a crescendo.
I bucked so hard as he took me over the edge that my body bowed upward off the bed, muscles I didn’t know I had spasming and straining, the pillowcase muffling ecstatic cries as showers of pleasure exploded through my body.
I sagged into a molten puddle a few moments later, exhausted. He lay his head gently on my belly, his fingers playing with the satiny skin of my inner thigh, and I could feel his heavy length against my leg. I longed for him to try to put that giant thing inside of me, ridiculous as it was to imagine—but instead, I felt a tiny pressure again, a swirling slickness that could only be his tongue. I tried to wriggle away, but of course could not.
I spat out the pillowcase. “No. I’m too tired. I can’t do any more,” I gasped. “Oh please, no. I think I’m going to die. Really. My brain is going to explode or something.”
Rafe stopped. His dark blue eyes gleamed mischievously from the valley of my breasts as he looked up my body at me. “I don’t think you begin to know what you’re capable of,” he said softly. And he applied his tongue, gently, so gently.
It wasn’t “no” anymore that I was saying as the tenderness expanded and plumped again. It took longer that second time. He was very gentle and very thorough.
I came so hard that I knew my wrists and ankles would be bruised the next day, and I had a charley horse in my left ass cheek from the extremity of torturous, wonderful pleasure when he untied me.
He gathered my limp, gasping form into his arms.
“I didn’t know how intense that could be,” I panted. My throat was raw, and I wasn’t at all sure the pillowcase had been enough to muffle my cries.