by Roxie Ray
“Good night,” I whispered, then put my key in the lock.
Well, I tried to put my key in the lock. My hands shook so hard the key rattled and scraped against the doorknob until Stefan reached over. “Allow me.”
I looked at his face, and he had the cockiest grin written all over it. “Don’t be so smug,” I muttered.
Instead of acting reprimanded, he unlocked the door, turned the knob, and pushed it open without going inside. He did all this with an enormous, face-filling grin. “Who is smug?” he asked.
Then, the cocky, smug, fucking hot man pressed one more rather tame kiss to my lips, and walked away. He had a spring in his step I hadn’t noticed before. “Bye,” I whispered. When he turned to wave at the end of the driveway, I put my hands on my hips. “You’re only an okay kisser,” I called.
He burst out laughing and walked around his truck. When he got in and looked again, I was inside the house, but still had the door open and watched him. He blew me a kiss. My response was a smile I couldn’t hide, and then I slammed the door shut.
He knew damn well he’d gotten under my skin, and he loved every second of it.
The next few weeks were filled with date after date just like the first two. If we weren’t dating, he was bringing coffee to the salon or I took lunch to the shop.
We laughed, flirted, and kissed. We talked about our pasts and other serious subjects. We learned about each other, talked about our dreams and fears. He was as open with me as any man I could’ve dreamed of. And I was honest with him without holding anything back. I’d never allowed myself to be so open and vulnerable with a man.
Every once in a while, I sensed he was hiding something about his past, but I couldn’t press him. I had a wonderful childhood, despite our occasional struggles and the absence of my mother and father. He’d had a very difficult upbringing and those demons didn’t come out easily. He’d tell me when he was ready.
When it was time for another girls’ night, most of the town knew we were heavily dating. Even Claire had begun to tease me about it. Nana knew we were going out a lot, but I hadn’t confided in her how I was considering taking it to the next level. It had been weeks of nothing but bliss. I’d begun to trust him in a way I hadn’t trusted anyone except my Nana in all my life.
Charlotte was starting to show, a little bump we couldn’t see unless she lifted her shirt. It was too cute. Ava said she needed girl time, so she’d invited us both over for a Friday night at her house.
I’d opened the shop, but I had a rare Saturday off, so I was eager to go. When I went in to tell Nana goodnight, she beckoned me over. “You’re going to be gone all night?” she asked.
“Yes, but Claire is staying the night. I arranged it already. She’s going to sleep in my old room, so she’s right across the hall if you need her.”
Nana nodded and took my hand. “Are you spending the night with your young man?” she asked, her tired eyes sharp and knowing.
I laughed and shook my head. “Nana, you know more than I ever give you credit for. No, I’m doing girls’ night at Ava’s. But things are getting pretty serious with Stefan,” I admitted.
“You’re a smart girl. You’ve got one hell of a head on your shoulders. But this is the first relationship where you’ve had more than a couple of dates.”
She was right. I’d never really considered getting this serious with anyone else.
“Be careful,” she warned. “I want you to have someone, especially when I’m gone, but I also don’t want you to get hurt.”
Her soft hand felt too fragile to squeeze, so I patted it instead. “We’re taking things very slow, Nana. We haven’t even slept together yet. He’s very respectful of my boundaries and wishes. Do you know, he even asked permission to kiss me the first time he kissed me?” I grinned at the memory, sure that it would be burned into my mind forever.
“Does that mean you kissed him first without permission?” Nana raised one white eyebrow.
I chuckled and my grin widened. “I guess it does. I should apologize to him for not getting his consent first.”
“Consent is an important thing,” she said wisely.
While I was sure he hadn’t minded the kiss, I made a mental note to apologize. If nothing else, he’d get a good laugh out of it.
“Have a good sleep, Nana. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. “Good night, my love.”
My heart pounded in pain as I looked down at her. She was so ill. There wasn’t much that could be done at this point but medicine to prolong her time with us and to make her comfortable. I spent as much time as I could with her. If I wasn’t working or with Stefan, I was with my Nana.
I considered canceling girls’ night, but it would be while she slept anyway, so I went on after thanking Claire again for spending the night.
“Hey,” she said. “It’s overtime for me.” She winked and walked into the kitchen in a pair of fuzzy pajamas. “And I get to sleep!”
I chuckled and walked out to my car. I didn’t mind paying it once in a while. It wasn’t included in the insurance payout for Nana’s care, but since I wasn’t having to pay it out of pocket, I could afford the occasional treat.
When I got to Ava’s and we were settled in the living room, I opened up to her and Charlotte. Ava and I sipped wine while Charlotte sipped chocolate milk, but the point of girls’ night wasn’t about getting drunk. It was about friendship and having a break from regular life.
“I think my boundaries are changing,” I admitted.
Ava and Charlotte’s faces lit up. “Does that mean you’re thinking about having sex with Stefan?” Charlotte asked.
I nodded and took a long gulp from my glass. “I am.”
They squealed and clapped their hands. “Oh, you’re going to love sex,” Ava said. “I didn’t want to pressure you into having sex with the wrong man for the sake of doing it, but I’m telling you, Stefan and you are perfect for each other. I don’t feel one bit guilty about saying go for it, girl!”
Charlotte crowed with laughter and kicked her feet in the recliner. “I agree completely! With the right man, especially if he knows what he’s doing, sex is amazing. The best.”
I wasn’t sure if they were hyping it up just for me, but I wasn’t sure I was quite as exuberant as they were. “You two are silly,” I said. “I’m sure it’s great, but what if he doesn’t know what he’s doing?” I asked. “He’s young. I know he’s had flings, but are flings enough to learn?”
Ava and Charlotte exchanged a glance. “Tell you what,” Charlotte said. “If you don’t have an orgasm the first time, well, that’s a possibility. But the second time...”
Ava nodded and sat up on her knees on the couch to fill her wine glass from the bottle on the coffee table. I held mine out for a top-off. “Yes. The second time, if you don’t have an orgasm, tell us. We’ll find some articles for you that will teach you what to teach him.”
Charlotte nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, that sounds like a good plan.”
Okay. That settled it. I decided to go for it. “When the time is right then, I’m going to do it.”
“You’re not going to plan it?” Ava asked.
I shook my head. “No. From now on when we go on a date, I’m going to go prepared that it might happen. Shaved, trimmed, plucked, and my place clean as a pin with fresh sheets and condoms in the drawer.”
They tittered with laughter and giggles again. “I think you’ll find most guys don’t care about the shaving and trimming as much as society leads us to believe,” Charlotte said. I knew she had a pretty racy past, so she must’ve known what she was talking about.
“What do you mean?”
We settled in to talk about what men preferred and how varied their tastes ran, and I was shocked to hear that in Charlotte’s experience, many men dislike a woman to be completely shaved. We ended up looking up articles and polls online and the more we talked about sex, the less nervous and more excited I becam
e.
Until the next night when the nerves set in again. Since I had the weekend off, Stefan and I went to a movie after dinner, and I got home just in time to let Claire go home for the night. “Can you wait here just a second?” I asked Stefan. He’d just begun to give me a goodnight kiss, another of those out-of-body experiences. But the kiss, as good as he was at it, was no longer enough. Especially after hearing Charlotte’s and Ava’s candid stories of orgasms and positions. They’d given me quite the lesson about sex.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” I said. After unlocking the door to my garage apartment, I realized when Claire left, she’d see him standing outside. There was no help for her seeing his truck there, but at least I could invite him in. “Actually, come in.”
His eyes lit up and he followed me in. I pointed to the couch. “Sit, please. I’ll be right back.”
I hurried through the house to say goodnight to Claire. “Your Nana is out for the night. She had a good night. We played a few rounds of rummy and she stayed up a little late.” Claire put her coat on and waved. “Have a good night.”
I held the door open for her so I could lock it behind her. She turned and looked out the storm door and spotted Stefan’s truck. I couldn’t stop the blush that spread across my cheeks as she turned and gave me a sly smile. “Have a very good night.”
“Oh, stop it.” I laughed and pushed at her shoulder. “Go home.”
She finger-waved over her shoulder and walked out the door. Once I’d locked it and tiptoed into Nana’s room to check her monitor, I returned to my garage.
“Now,” I said. The receiver for Nana’s monitor sat on my bedside table. I switched it on and then turned it away from the bed so the red light on it wouldn’t be a distraction. I hated to have it on, but if she needed me in the night, I’d go to her.
“Now,” Stefan repeated. “You’ve never invited me in before.”
This was the point that I had no clue what to do.
14
Stefan
After I found out Harley was a virgin, I’d read every article on the internet about the best ways to take a woman’s virginity and give them the most pleasure. I wanted her first time to be perfect, and as the weeks had gone by, it seemed more and more likely it would be me.
No pressure.
After I heard Claire teasing her as she left, Harley walked back into her garage apartment. I heard her coming and sat back down on the sofa. I hadn’t snooped while she was saying goodnight to her Nana, but I had looked around. The apartment had everything she needed to live on her own, including a small kitchen, and was as clean as it could be. I didn’t smell her as much as I would’ve expected. Mostly cleaner and laundry detergent.
I tended to stick to unscented detergents and cleaners when I could find them.
She walked over to the nightstand and fiddled with what looked like a baby monitor. I figured it was for her grandmother. “You’ve never invited in before,” I commented to gauge her mood.
She blushed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
Her discomfort shot across the room to me. I couldn’t help but read her mood. The more I’d gotten to know her, the easier it was to do. We weren’t bonded, nowhere close, but spending time with her made Eros more and more fond of her. He was the one able to read her emotions and mood, but it felt like me. We were the same, after all.
Standing, I crossed the room and took her hand. “You need to be open about what you expect out of tonight,” I said. “After all, we’re both big on consent, right?”
She laughed and allowed me to lead her over to the couch. All the articles had advised to go slow and give the person experiencing their first sexual experience plenty of opportunities to back out if they wanted. I would’ve done that anyway, but it was good to know.
I turned sideways on the couch with my knee between us to give her space.
A few dates in, she’d apologized to me for not asking my permission to kiss me. After that, we asked permission to do silly things like hold hands or open doors. The joke hadn’t gotten old yet, and I had a plan to use it to make the night more comfortable for her.
She stared at me, still at a loss for words. It would be up to me. “Do you want to have sex tonight?” I asked without preamble.
Her blush deepened until I wanted to caress her cheeks and make her blush for an entirely different reason. Then, she nodded.
“I’m going to need you to verbalize what you want,” I said. “I will not do more than you want me to.”
“I want to lose my virginity to you,” she said in a soft, nervous voice.
Eros’s exuberance made me smile, but I managed to keep it soft and affectionate. I didn’t want her to think I was just interested in taking her virginity. I wanted to love her as well.
Leaning forward, I whispered in her ear. “May I kiss you?”
She sucked in a breath and nodded, but she was still so nervous, it made me hesitate. “Are you afraid?” I asked, then pressed a slow, soft kiss to her lips.
When I moved away, she looked at me as if ashamed. “Maybe a little,” she admitted.
To Eros’s intense disappointment, my next words relaxed her. “Maybe we don’t have sex tonight,” I suggested. “How about I show you how much I care about you, but we take sex off the table?”
Her face brightened up a little. “Show me?”
My mood changed from hopeful and excited to predatory. I wanted to jump on her and show her exactly how I could claim her, but if she wasn’t ready for sex, she sure as hell wasn’t ready for that. Still, I channeled that feeling into a desire to give her the best orgasm she’d ever had. “Show you.”
She’d worn that same dress from our first date. “May I have the lady’s permission to give her an orgasm?” I arched an eyebrow at her in challenge and put my hands on her knees.
Her mouth fell open and I smelled the moment her nerves turned to desire. Her sex dampened with the aroma I’d been trying and failing to ignore for three weeks. I’d taken that smell home with me, stuck in my nose, and jacked off more times than I could’ve counted.
Not tonight. Tonight, I was determined to taste.
“You may,” she whispered.
I let my predatory feelings show on my face as I smiled at her. She had the uncanny ability to read my face, anyway, something nobody had ever been able to do in my life. I’d gotten in trouble as a child for not responding appropriately because my father had thought I was giving him attitude for having a stony face.
Not Harley. She knew me, after knowing me for mere weeks, she was more attuned to my feelings and needs than anyone I’d ever met.
Sliding off the couch, I grabbed her knees and pulled her forward, so her ass hung half-off the couch. Reaching over, I pulled a pillow to her. “Get comfortable.”
She shifted it behind her, and I watched her war with her emotions. I read her face as easily as she read mine. Desire fought embarrassment and nerves. I’d make sure the desire won.
Sliding my hands up her calves, I put them between her legs and applied gentle pressure. “Never be embarrassed,” I whispered, then pressed kisses to her kneecaps. “Nerves I understand, but you’re gorgeous. Perfect. You have nothing to ever be embarrassed about.”
She breathed in deep and relaxed, allowing me to spread her legs. I got sight of her mound tucked behind a pair of lacy black panties. There was no stopping the growl low in my throat, but I tried to keep it quiet enough she’d mistake it for a moan or groan.
Moving my hands upward, she tensed again, but I massaged her thighs, soft and fleshy. I never would’ve considered her overweight, but she wasn’t hard and muscular like me. I wanted to bury my face in her legs, then her stomach, then her core.
I moaned and pressed a kiss to her knee again, then trailed kisses upward as I rubbed my hands all over the outside of her legs.
As I pressed forward, she relaxed again, and her legs spread a little at a time. Soon I was close to the lace of her panties and my h
and was fully up her skirt.
Sliding my hands further upward, I felt for the waistband but realized they weren’t panties. It was a black lace teddy. I dropped my forehead onto her leg with a moan. “You wore a negligee?”
“Yes,” Harley replied softly. “I wanted to look sexy for you.”
Raising my head, I gazed at her beautiful face. “You always look sexy.” I pulled back and rocked onto my heels. “Are you comfortable being naked?”
She nodded her head, but her face said no. That was okay. It just made my challenge harder. I stood, holding out my hand. She took it, and I pulled her to her feet. Her black dress buttoned up the front, so I put my fingers on the top button.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s false.”
What did that mean? I waited for her to explain. She turned in my arms and moved her hair out of the way, exposing a short zipper at her neck. “Unzip me?”
Oh, how I loved hearing those words from her mouth. I pulled the short zipper down, then watched in awe as she turned around, then leaned down to grab the hem of the dress. She drew it over her head, exposing the black lace teddy inch by delectable inch.
When her nipples came into view, the black dress sliding up her breasts to reveal them, clearly outlined by a lace flower over each one, I moaned and couldn’t keep my hands off of her.
I did manage to keep them on her waist, even though I wanted to touch those pale pink buds and make them ache for my touch.
When she had the dress off, I looked into her eyes and smiled. “You’re more beautiful than I imagined.”
Score. That was the perfect thing to say, judging by her reaction. She threw her arms around me and pressed her lips to mine, plunging her tongue into my mouth while she pressed her body against me.
I put everything I had into the kiss. She had to know I wanted her whether it was with a kiss or more—Or less.