His voice snaps me back to reality. He's just given me the most intense orgasm I've ever had, and I realize that I'm deceiving him. I have to tell him my secret, and I know he will already be upset by what we've done…what I've done in not telling him. I blurt out, "Talon, I'm a virgin."
His body grows very, very still. "What?" His voice sounds stiff, confused.
"I'm a virgin. That's what I was trying to tell you last week in your room. I know that you're not a relationship person, and I'm not looking for that. I just felt like you should know, though, because I think we are friends now, right? And I know…well I know you'd make it…good for me. If we had sex."
I can tell that my rambling is starting to overwhelm him. He runs his fingers through his hair and rubs the stubble on one cheek. "You were just going to let me fuck you on my couch for your first time?"
I cross my arms over my naked chest, feeling exposed now. "I'm 21 years old. I need to have sex eventually. I thought you have sex with everyone who offers."
He brings a hand back to my arm, rubbing slowly and soothingly from my shoulder to elbow. He swallows. "Serena. I'm not going to be anybody's boyfriend."
I shake my head. "I don't want that, either. I just thought…" my voice drifts off. I stare at his face, waiting for him to speak, but he doesn't. "I just really wanted to have sex with you tonight. You turn me on, Talon."
He smiles at that and lets out a half-laugh. "I noticed that," he says. He adjusts me on his lap so I'm sitting sideways and he's cradling me, my head against his shoulder. "I can't be your first, Serena. It should be someone decent, who will call you afterward."
I reach for my shirt, and he helps me slide it over my head, but when I move to stand up, he pulls me back in, keeping his arm around me. I say, "You wouldn't call me? What, like you'd just sit next to me in class and pretend nothing happened?"
I feel him shrug and reach for his beer again. "That's what I usually do I guess. I've never been with the same girl more than once." There's a note of shame in his voice, as if the years of mindless, no commitment sex are seeming less glamorous.
"What was your first time like," I ask him, reaching for his beer since mine is at the other end of the sofa. It feels so intimate to share a drink with him on the couch, maybe even more intimate than what we were doing a few minutes prior.
"Ah, Serena. You know how it goes with football guys. I was the fucking quarterback. It was a cheerleader and I was 15, playing varsity. She was a senior. I think she felt bad for me. I lasted like 3 seconds. I never called her after. Fuck, Serena, I didn't even walk her home."
I start to tuck a curl behind his ear as he talks. "You don't have to be like that, you know," I whisper.
"You're not like the rest of them, lining up outside the locker room ready to flash me their tits," he says. His body stiffens. "You don't just want to get in my pants."
I decide not to remind him that I very much want to get in his pants. He continues. "All they know is I can throw a ball really well, and being seen with me means having a story to tell around campus, around town."
I don't really know what to say, so I kiss his forehead and remind him, "I know you're the kind of guy who gives up his bed a few days after knee surgery when a hopeless drunk girl spills nacho cheese on her pants and passes out at your apartment."
We sit on the couch for the rest of the episode and I tell him I think I should go home. Talon nods and flicks off the TV. He offers to walk me home, but I insist he shouldn't because of his knee. "You're not wearing your brace. I don't want to be the reason your rehab falls behind schedule," I say, shoving my beanie over my ears and zipping up my coat. "I'm a big girl and it's two blocks. I'll be fine. Honest."
Talon limps over to the door and kisses me, lightly, just barely longer than a peck. I make it out of his building before I start to cry.
CHAPTER TWELVE
When I get back to my apartment, I really want to unload on Alissa, just share how utterly embarrassed I feel, but her bedroom door is closed and from the sound of things, she's got company in there.
I walk quietly into my own room and sink into my bed, sobbing into my pillow. Suddenly, I'm sad about everything all at once. Upset about my parents, stressed out about my stats class, embarrassed that I let myself get this old with my virginity in tact, and then acted like a weirdo with Talon.
I feel my phone buzz as I'm pulling myself together and I see a text from Talon. U should b home by now. Make it back ok?
I wipe my nose and respond. Yeah, sorry. Forgot to text. Roommate has a noisy visitor. I add a barf emoji and take off my jeans.
I snap off the light and try to just fall asleep, but Talon writes back. Can I come over & listen to the show?
Is he serious? First he turns me down for sex and now he's flirting about coming over the listen to my roommate get busy? As I'm trying to figure all this out, my phone starts ringing in my hand. It's him. "Hello?" My voice is barely above a whisper, even though there's no way Alissa and her visitor could hear me above the thumps and screams from their side of the wall.
"Let me hear," he says. "I'm bored."
"You can probably hear it right now," I say, lying back down, twirling my hair nervously in one hand. I don't know what to say to him, so we just sit in silence for a bit.
He starts laughing after a few minutes. "They're really going at it in there."
"Yeah." Another long pause.
I hear him inhale before he says, "Look, Serena. I want you to know I feel weird about what happened. I mean, I know I've been hitting on you since the first day of class and then I was the one who put on the breaks tonight."
I grunt in response, not trusting myself to talk to him about it yet without crying. "Things are…things are different with you now. I've told you things, you know? You're not like some random bimbo I'll take home from a frat party."
"Definitely not a bimbo." I laugh a little bit.
"That's what I'm saying. Look, you deserve a nice guy to, like, date you and take you places and talk you down when you're spazzing out about your hot professor." I laugh harder and he chuckles, too.
"What if I'm not looking for that, though?" I ask him. "I have baggage, you know? I can't really deal with a relationship. What if I just want to get laid?"
He waits a beat and says, "You could have had anyone do you dirty, Serena."
I start to explain to him that I also wanted my first time to be good. It feels weird describing the fumbling efforts of the other guys I've made out with, but with the sound of Alissa's headboard pounding off the wall, I just keep on talking. He interrupts me and says, "Wait. So no guy even made you cum before today?"
I shake my head and then remember that he can't see me, so I joke, "I can see why they really call you Claw. You're good at more than football, Talon."
He scoffs and then sighs. The thumps from the other side of the wall have stopped with a final shriek from my roommate and Talon says, "I guess Alissa found someone who knows what he's doing."
I can tell he's trying to change the subject. "Well," I say, "I should probably let you get your rest. You have PT early on, right?"
"I do, yep." There's a pause. "Hey, Serena, we're friends, right?"
"I think so. Yeah."
"Cool. Well I'll see you in class."
After we hang up, I can't stop thinking about him. How earnest he was in preparing for our research project…how good his mouth felt all over my body…how hard I came when he touched me. As I toss and turn I finally admit that I am actually not friends with Talon. I'm falling for him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A few weeks pass pretty uneventfully. Alissa refuses to tell me who she is sleeping with, it's looking like I'll maintain my 4.0 this semester, and I'm starting to feel less embarrassed in stats with Matt Jacobs. Talon and I are scheduled to present the last class before spring break. We signed up for one of the earlier slots so he could get it over with and focus on his game.
Despite my growing attraction to
Talon…or maybe because of it? I'm really starting to look forward to our study sessions together. We meet twice a week to trade notes, working at strange hours to accommodate his hectic schedule. Tonight, he asked me to come over to his place again to study since it's quiet there.
I arrive in the now-familiar apartment and settle in to the table. Talon surprises me by adding guacamole to the nachos, grinning as he slides the plate over to me. I clap my hands and say, "You remembered my weakness!" I immediately dive in, scooping a huge mouthful.
He forces his hand in to scoop a chip and says, "Pretty hard to forget after what I saw you do to the guac when we studied at Patron." We wrap up our work pretty quickly, working cheerfully together, teasing each other in a way that feels warm and comfortable. When we reach a stopping point I sit back in my chair and sigh. Talon puts a hand on my shoulder and asks, "Do you have to take off or do you want to watch TV or something?"
"I can stay a bit," I say, smiling. "What do you do with your other friends when you hang out?" Since he dialed back the sexual tension, things have been friendly and fun between us.
Talon thinks for a minute and says, "Watch football commentary and talk about football." We both laugh at this, but I grab the remote from him and flick over to ESPN. We settle in to the couch, animatedly arguing with each other and the announcer as they discuss playoff scenarios.
The show cuts to commercial and Talon puts the TV on mute. He tugs on one of my braids and says, "I thought you hated talking about football."
This makes me think for a minute, but I decide to just go with my gut and say, "I like talking with you about football. I still feel really resentful about the way the sport consumed my dad."
Talon drops my hair but keeps his arm on my shoulder. I feel the heat from his strong hand and lean my head to the side against his hand. His voice is almost a whisper as he says, "Football is life for me, too." I look into his blue eyes and see that they've gone dark with intensity. He opens up to me about the pressure he feels to overcome his injury and confesses that he's working harder on school this semester because he doesn't even know if the NFL is an option for him anymore.
His ice blue eyes pierce my heart as he says, "Football is all I've ever known, Serena. It's all I ever saw myself doing."
Not sure what to say to him, I rub his arm. I slide across the couch and draw him into my arms, hugging him close. I run my fingers through his hair and remind him 12/13 NFL quarterbacks have come back from ACL tears. "The stats are with you, Talon," I say. "Just read your own excellent research notes."
I feel him nod against my chest, and I keep my arms around him. A few minutes later, he turns the sound back on the TV, snuggles me tight against his chest, and leans back on the couch. I wake up what must be hours later, my limbs gone numb, entwined in Talon's arms.
I struggle a bit to sit up and my heart swells looking at Talon's sleeping face. His jaw is relaxed, a rasp of stubble growing in along the strong lines of his face. His curls drape across his forehead. Sensing my movement, he wakes up and rubs his eyes for a minute. "What time is it?" he asks.
I squint to see the clock on the TV and tell him, "4am. Shit. I have to go."
Talon shakes his head. "You're not walking home at 4am. Just stay with me." He groans and sits up, taking my hand and beginning to walk down the hall. "I'll be a perfect gentleman, I swear."
I bite my lower lip, certain I'll never be able to fall asleep once I'm lying in Talon's bed with him in it beside me, but my body is heavy with sleepiness and I follow him down the hall. He tosses me a pair of mesh shorts and climbs into bed, turning off the light. "I won't look," he says, lying on his stomach facing the wall.
I giggle, but slide out of my jeans, pull my bra off without taking off my shirt, and tug on the huge shorts. I climb into Talon's bed, thinking I'll just sort of teeter on the edge, but he rolls toward me and pulls me in. I feel his chin on my shoulder, the firm strength of his long body pressed against the entire length of mine. In a few minutes, his breathing slows and I know he's fallen asleep.
My body burns with desire for him. I feel moist heat seeping from my core and it's all I can do not to rock my hips against his groin, adjust his hand on my waist so that it instead cups the eager weight of my breasts. I think about his face when he was opening up about his fears for his future and I know that I am hopelessly in love with Talon Kelly, and there's not a thing I can do about it. Eventually I drift off into the gray light of dawn.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An alarm jolts me awake and I forget where I am. I try to sit up and feel the solid bar of Talon's arm clamping me in place. It's really real, I think. I just spent the night with Talon. It feels so intimate to wake up beside him, to have watched him sleep. I hear him grumble and his long arm reaches past me to slap the snooze bar on his alarm.
The beeping stops and my heart begins to slow. I'm so exhausted I start drifting off again. The rumble of Talon's deep voice wakes me again as he says into my hair, "I have to get up and head to the football building."
"Ungh," is all I can muster as a response. He rubs my arm and I melt into him. "Mmmm, I just need a few more minutes."
I feel the mattress shift as he climbs out of bed. I immediately notice the absence of his heat and I curl into a ball beneath the covers. He says, "You don't have to get up. I don't think we have any food that works for breakfast, 'cause they feed us. But you can sleep as long as you want."
I open one eye and stare at him. "Really? You don't care? Because your bed is twice the size of mine and 80 times more comfortable."
He laughs. "I can only sleep in a king size. My feet hang off the end of the mattress otherwise." Stooping to plant a kiss on the top of my head, he says, "I'll see you in class later."
Talon closes the bedroom door behind him and I hear his voice low in the hall, talking to CJ. The front door clicks shut. I toss and turn a few times and realize I'm not going to be able to fall back asleep. All the pent up sexual desire I felt last night simmers back to the surface of my skin as I lie in the bed that smells like Talon. I run my hand along the pillow where his head rested a few minutes before, inhaling the soapy, minty, musky scent of him and remembering the feel of his body when I'd been half naked with him a few weeks before.
I listen carefully to make sure he and CJ have truly gone, and close my eyes. I remember the feel of his mouth and hands on my breasts and I roll my fingers along my nipples, sliding one hand down the waist of Talon's shorts into my panties. I'm so wet I worry I'll leave a mark on his sheets. The folds of my skin are slippery and yearning and I work my fingers along my clit furiously, wishing it were Talon's thick fingers and hard cock bringing me pleasure right now.
I cum quickly and intensely, the force of my orgasm causing me to cry out. I gasp for breath and my heart races. Only then am I able to drift back to sleep, fully spent.
A few hours later, I climb out of bed and tidy the covers, looking for a hamper to toss the shorts. Not finding one, I decide to stick them in my bag. I grab my phone to discover about a hundred texts and missed calls from Alissa. Before I leave the apartment, I shoot off a text to Talon: U didn't even put on fresh underwear before you left. Gross. Thanks for letting me sleep in!
Then I call Alissa. She answers after one ring, shouting, "Where the hell have you been? You better be calling to tell me you gave Talon your flower."
"No, nothing like that. But I did spend the night with him." I fill her in on the pertinent details while I walk to class.
"Well that sounds confusing as hell," she says, indignantly. "He's making you special guacamole and cuddling all night but he won't get you off? Screw that, Serena."
"You're right. It's kind of overwhelming," I tell her. Just then my call waiting beeps and I see that it's Talon. "Hey--it's him on the other line. Can I call you back?"
"If you're hanging up with your best friend for this guy, you tell him he at least needs to go down on you," she says.
"Yes, yes, I'll tell him. See you aft
er class?"
"Definitely. I need to tell you something, too."
I click over to Talon's call. "Hello?"
"You made my bed. I don't think that bed has ever been made up before."
I smile and my whole body tingles at the sound of his voice. "It seemed like the least I could do after lying in there all morning. What's up?"
I hear him close a door and wonder what he's trying to hide from CJ. He says, "Hey, what are you doing during the Super Bowl this weekend?"
"Um, not watching it? Why, what are you doing?"
"Some guys from the team usually come over. We actually watch the game, though. I know some people say that and it's really a crazy party or something. Anyway, do you want to come watch with us?"
Alissa is definitely right. This guy is sending me confusing signals. Before I can respond, he says, "I wanted to invite you because we're friends, right?"
My heart sinks at his reminder that I'm "just" a friend, but I swallow and say, "Yes. Of course I'm your friend, Talon. I'll come over."
"Awesome," he says. "I'll see you in class."
I'm not able to focus very well for the rest of the day, caught between the warm memories of the sense of peace I felt lying in Talon's arms and wondering what it all means when The Claw, notorious womanizer, has me in his bed all night but won't even touch me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It turns out Alissa's big secret is that she's been sleeping with CJ Smith, Talon's roommate. Center for the Otters football team. Once she finally tells me, she can't seem to stop talking about it.
I giggle with her for hours in the student union, while she tells me how she went into the relationship thinking it would be a quick fling, but how CJ kept calling her until he finally asked her if they could be exclusive. "Does Talon know," I ask, trying to sound casual.
She shakes her head, "CJ is supposed to be telling him soon. But we're going to their place for the Super Bowl, right?" I nod. "So everyone will find out then if they don't know already." Alissa grins. "Now. You have like three days to tell me everything there is to know about football so I don't sound like an idiot on Sunday."
Stone Creek Page 4