Which was completely and utterly unreasonable. Up until tonight, or right this second, I had been proud that I didn’t give in to society’s pressures of ‘losing it’ like some sort of race where there were no winners but a small number of losers who would take home an STI or an unplanned pregnancy as their prize.
My whole identity was about being me in spite of what the world told me to be. But now, I had a vague sense of regret that I hadn’t gotten the messy, awkward—I had no such romantic notions about the first time being ‘magical’—act out of the way so it wouldn’t be messy with Heath. It was awkward already because I was being awkward. Which was not something I was familiar with. Because I liked this man. Really liked him. I felt like there was a lot riding on this.
On us.
I wanted to not be an awkward virgin.
So then I would know about sex, and not seem like the little girl in the bar he’d rescued, and she was now offering up her virtue as thanks.
I supposed it was a modern-day fairy tale if I wanted to look at it that way.
Because I had retreated into my head, as I often did, it took me a long moment to realize that Heath hadn’t replied to my admission.
I blinked him into focus.
Then I blinked away my response at hot freaking hot he was.
He hadn’t moved since I spoke.
Crap.
His eyes locked on mine as if he sensed I was now mentally present and not thinking about fairy tales.
“You’re a virgin?”
Though there was an inflection at the end, it was obvious it wasn’t a question.
But I answered it anyway, just so I could fill up the silence that was no longer comfortable between us.
I couldn’t read anything from his voice or his tight expression. And I was guessing his lack of expression was a bad thing.
“Is that a problem?”
“Yeah, Sunshine, it’s a problem,” he replied, voice clipped.
I cringed.
Of course it was a problem. He was a man. A real one. One who was only here temporarily. He didn’t need to be tangled up with a girl still in high school, and a virgin at that.
His hands moved so they were on either side of my neck.
His expression was no longer blank.
“It’s a problem because it’s not a gift you should be giving to a man who you met in a bar,” he rasped. “A man like me. It’s a problem because a man like me knows that gift isn’t meant for him. Maybe if I was a different version of the same man, I might be able to make sure you give it to the right person.” His grip tightened, toying with the idea of pain, but stopping short. “But I’m this version. So even though it’s yours to give, and not mine to take. I’m going to take it anyway.”
I didn’t even have time to let his words sink in, let them chase away all feelings of awkwardness with pure need because he was kissing me.
Kissing me.
Brutal. Hard. Soul destroying.
“But we’re at the point of no return, I’m at the point of no return. So I’m gonna take it,” he murmured against my mouth. “And I’m going to give you fuckin’ everything that a boy couldn’t give you.”
And then he kissed me again.
Every time he kissed me it was different than the last. Because it was more than a kiss. We were getting more tangled up in each other with every second spent together. Tangled in a way that my insides—my heart—would stay that way even when he left me, never to be seen again.
He was taking something from me, but it was a connection that I’d never lose. And he’d told me I was going to lose him, this, from the start, I found myself desperate for something to hold onto when he became nothing but a memory.
I blinked when he was no longer kissing me. His body was no longer tangled in mine.
He was almost pressed up against his dresser, the space between us obvious but somehow more erotic than the way he’d been kissing me moments ago. And if you’d asked me moments ago if there could be something more erotic than the way he was kissing me I would’ve told you, you were straight up crazy.
But his stare turned my body to flames, my knees to jelly.
I was breathing heavily, audibly.
He was a statue.
“Take off your clothes,” he demanded, voice hoarse.
“Do you not want to do that?” I asked, my voice once more being back to shy and uneasy.
Virginal.
He shook his head violently once. “No fucking way. This is an image that I’m gonna be searing into my brain. I need to watch. Need to be able to drink in every inch of you, naked before me, right before I touch every single part of you that hasn’t been anyone’s but yours. Before I take it for myself.”
My knees trembled again, threatening to give way completely. I had never been spoken to like this. With a voice dripping in sex. In desire.
My hand shook as I directed it to the top button of my dress. Not from fear. Despite the way his face had changed, turn almost feral, I wasn’t afraid of him. No, I was afraid of myself. Of what the romantic in me would turn this into. Of what I’d torture myself with.
But thoughts of the future didn’t have a place in the present. I never thought of the consequences. A character fault, a lot of people, including my guidance counselor, would tell me. I wasn’t about to start being a better person right now, especially if it meant I had to do anything but undress in front of the man in front of me.
I had three buttons undone before I even realized what I was doing.
The fabric slipped off my shoulders and down so my already hard nipples were exposed to the air.
Heath let out a sound that was a merge between a hiss and a growl when my breasts were totally exposed to him.
My heart bounced against my now naked chest with a force that threatened to shatter through my entire ribcage.
Boys had seen my boobs before. I wasn’t exactly shy. Plus, I had good boobs. Not overly large, but not small either. Round, perky, with average sized nipples.
And of course, my virginity was completely technical, so my boobs had had attention before.
Or I thought they had.
But Heath’s gaze was more than any fumbling set of hands could ever have been.
His hands were fisted at his sides and his knuckles were turning white with the force his was obviously exerting to keep them there.
My nipples ached for a touch that I knew would not be fumbling or awkward. But I also ached for more of this, of this distance that was more intimate than anything I’d ever experienced.
“Keep going,” he growled.
I’d just been standing there, half-naked, my hands poised on the button above my bellybutton, staring at his fists and imagining them on me.
I did as he asked. Immediately.
My dress pooled around my ankles a moment later.
I was still wearing my shoes. That and a white pair of panties.
Nothing else.
But Heath’s stare, of course. And that covered me in a way clothes never would.
His jaw was iron.
My fingers went to the edges of my panties.
“No,” he snapped.
I paused immediately.
He was in front of me in a slice of a moment.
He wasn’t touching me.
“Lie down,” he ordered.
I ached to touch him, to press my naked body to his clothed one, to wrap myself up in him and kiss him since it felt like an eternity since I’d done that.