When I wake, it’s dark, and he’s lying in the middle of the bed. I’ve moved away from him in my sleep, and I return my naked body to snuggle against his warmth. His body tenses at my unexpected touch, but as he leans his nose to my hair and inhales deeply, he murmurs quietly, “Adeline.” It’s barely more than a whisper, but he’s awake. Many quiet minutes later after he’s stroked the skin of my arm and nuzzled my neck with his mouth and nose, he speaks again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin the first night we were together?” He’s speaking into the darkness that surrounds us. It’s a comfort knowing he can’t watch my face, my nervousness he seems so intent on seeing.
The first time he asked this question, it was loaded with anger and irritation at my deceit; it was certainly in a very different mood than right now. He was angry, and I was defensive. It was our lunch together the day after I started at Foster’s, and he ended up humiliating me to drive his point home. I hated him in that moment, but this moment is different. His question is genuine and gentle, and my response is honest. “Would you have made love to me if I had?” I’m not sure I want to know the answer to this question.
“Hmm. I was upset when I woke alone the next morning covered in the remnants of your virginity, but not because you were a virgin. It was because you withheld it. I suppose I understand why you didn’t tell me, but I still don’t understand why you did it. You just tossed your virginity away as if it was nothing. You were so cavalier in your approach, and you aren’t a cavalier person. I’ve wondered ever since then what your motivation was.” He trails off in thought.
“I guess I was just tired of waiting, wondering if and when it would happen. I always told myself I had shut myself off from intimacy in exchange for my education, but really, no one wanted me. I was shy. I was out of my element. I was just floundering about telling myself I didn’t care when in truth I thought about it all the time. I wanted to know what it was like just like any other woman, I just … I was out of my depth. Are you upset with me about it still?” He isn’t upset at all, and yet he’s asking the questions.
I’ve just admitted how truly pathetic I am to this man, and it’s humbling. It reminds me I’m a nothing, and he’s a something, but as his hand moves to my cheek in the darkness and he caresses me before leaning to my mouth for one gentle kiss, I’m reassured that though I may feel pathetic, I’m not to him.
“No, I’m not upset. It just seems as though it’s something that would be a big deal to someone like you, and you gave it away so casually.”
“It was a big deal. I just didn’t give it the thought it deserved, and I didn’t realize until later the impact it had on me.” My words are honest, and they expose my weakness for him.
He’s quiet as he contemplates what I’ve said. I’ve just admitted sex wasn’t and couldn’t be all about the physicality of the act for me, and he’s weighing his words. “I would have made love to you regardless, and I would have savored knowing what I was doing to you with every last inch of my invasion on your body.” His words are seductive, just as he intends them to be. They’re also warm and reassuring. He’s definitely not still mad. “I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. I was watching you in the reflection of the glass window, and you couldn’t stop looking at me. You would never have spoken to me, and that’s what I liked the most. Your shyness and insecurity.”
“I see. So, you were just doing me a favor. Throwing the dog a bone as Vera would say?” I’m always so quick to chastise myself.
He chuckles but is quick to correct me, reassure me. “No. You misunderstand my point. I was doing myself a favor. You were beautiful, but you didn’t realize it, and I was very attracted to you. But attractive women are a dime a dozen in this city, and where I wouldn’t normally have wasted my time with someone so obviously shy and nervous as yourself, for some reason I couldn’t not reach out. It was you. I was drawn to you for some reason I still can’t quite understand.”
His words are as reassuring as he means them to be. I can’t imagine what it is someone so completely mesmerizing could see in simple little me. “Well, I was attracted to your money,” I mock.
He chuckles again before speaking. “No you weren’t. Or at least, it wasn’t just that. You were as attracted to me as I was to you.” He doesn’t need me to agree to know he’s right. He saw it that night. He capitalized on it, and as his hands wander over my body he leans to my ear and speaks his exceptionally deliberate words. “Don’t question why. I know you do. Just listen to me when I tell you I just can’t get enough of you. I can’t stop with you.”
But I’m not a good listener. “Why?”
He’s chuckling again, but he’s a good sport and humors me while setting my body afire with desire once more. “Because I want you in a way I can’t understand. I want to be the first thing you think of in the morning when you wake, and I want to be the last thought that passes through your mind … as well as your body … at night before you fall asleep. When I remember the first time we were together, I still see the pain that flashed across your face, and I want to punch myself for not realizing what I was doing to you. I truly would have relished the knowledge I was your first. You may not have realized the impact it would have on you at the time, but I assure you, it impacted me too. I wouldn’t want it to be anyone but me. I just wish I could have appreciated it then in the way I would now.” Every last word is purred in his warm, thick, masculine brogue as his breath tickles my ear. He really is so deliberate in his every word and action with me.
His hand trails to my buttocks and rounds the cheek of my bottom, allowing his fingers to slide gently between the cheeks and graze lightly across my sensitive secret entry. His breath is exhaling against my neck, and it hitches and stalls in his arousal. His thick, rigid length is against my stomach, and I run my palm along the hardness of his shaft. He groans against my skin as I explore his cock with my hand. He’s thrusting against my body, wanting to invade me, fuck me, consume me in some way, and as his arousal mounts he speaks once more. “Ride me. I want to watch you fuck me.” He must know I have no idea how to do this as he speaks once more. “I’ll show you how. Please, I need to watch you.”
“Okay.” There’s little conviction behind my words, but I want to give him this. It’s what he wanted from me the first night we were together. I was too chicken then to give in, but he’s given me every last ounce of confidence I need now. It doesn’t mean I’m not terrified, but now what we do together is done truly together and not done to each other for personal gratification.
He leans to the lamp beside the bed, flooding us in intense but warm light, and he pulls another condom from the drawer. He looks to my eyes to gauge my reaction to his words, and at seeing my nervousness he offers a gentle smile. He leans to my mouth, but before kissing me he holds my eyes and encourages, “Don’t be nervous with me. I accept you just as you are. You don’t have to know how to do this for me to want it. I just want you to trust me enough to try.” And then his lips meet mine, and his tongue gently pushes past my lips. He explores, he tastes, he reassures me with his need.
When he speaks next, it’s to instruct me, and my nervousness sets in full force, but so does my need. “Straddle me on my thighs.”
I move my body into place, looking at his hard and engorged erection. He starts stroking the shaft of his penis. His cock is large and rigid, and his hand stroking over the veined and tight flesh sends waves of moisture to my core. As his precum shows at his entry, he wipes it away with his thumb and reaches for my mouth, leaning to me. He presses his thumb between my lips and speaks. “Taste me.” And as I do, licking my tongue over his seed, I shiver in intimate need. He’s salty and warm against my tongue, and I savor his uniqueness. Pulling his thumb from my mouth, he runs his hand over my chest, raking across my hard and erect nipple as he goes, and once he’s back to his groin he strokes his length once more.