I feel like I need to go for a shower AfuckingSAP, wrap my hand around my cock, and jerk myself off three times in a row before I’m going to be able to calm down.
“Wizard?” I nearly leap out of my skin. My face is a thousand degrees, thinking that Esme is going to point out my very visible erection and tell me totake it down a notch.
Of course she would never say that. But I really don’t want her to be uncomfortable. Jesus, how am I supposed to get up on the ladder with an outline of my hard dick in my jeans, right by her face while she’s holding it?
She releases the ladder and steps into me. I’m frozen. I’m holding the camera, panting,wanting, a total dork with feet lodged in cement, bolted down to the earth. I need her. So fucking badly.
Esme cups my jaw. Her thumb strokes along the rasp of stubble that I haven’t had a chance to shave. She closes her eyes and melts against me, her soft curves meeting my hard ones, the missing piece to a puzzle that’s always been incomplete. I nearly whimper. I just about pitch over. Pass out.A wave of black overtakes my vision before I can even close my eyes.
Shit, this is it. This is going to happen.
Esme’s perfect lips press against mine. Butterflies and heat erupt in my stomach. My cock leaps, so hard that it’s probably purple and soaking my boxers. Can she feel that? The heat of me? The hardness? The wet? I’m all ache, all over. It’s sharp. Her lips are so soft. They press against mine, a chaste kiss, but it’s enough to make my body buck and curl around hers. I hold the camera tightly, white knuckling the damn thing just to keep myself from clutching Esme and folding her in against me. I want to kiss her senseless. I’ve done it a thousand times in my dreams, but this is so much better. It’s perfect.
I start trembling when her lips part. I gasp against her, making a mess of the kiss, sucking in air roughly. My heart pounds out of my chest and my balls tingle like I’m going to blow my load two seconds into this. It’s so much. It’s everything. It’s too much and it’s not enough. I’ve gone from trembling to shaking.
She pulls back long before I’m ready for the kiss to end. It was sweet. The sweetest first kiss ever. Because I’m an overeager, complete and total moron, I blurt out the last thing I should. “That was—is my uh—first kiss.”
She reacts like I just shot off a firecracker between us. Her mouth parts, but no sound comes out. If the guys are watching the cameras and they saw that kiss, they’re definitely cheering. I just hope they’re not good at lip reading. The cameras I’m going to install have sound enabled. The old ones don’t. I’m a little bit surprised that my phone doesn’t start blowing up.
Maybe that moment was private.
Just for me and just for Esme.
It really happened. She truly kissed me. And I really am just standing here like I’ve been properly shellshocked.
“What?” Her brows rocket up. Her hands trace that same upward trajectory then come down hard. “No. No, no.”
Shit, I know exactly where she’s going. “Hey. Don’t think like that. You didn’t fuck me up or ruin me. I only ever wanted you and then I got busy with the military and I came back here and was working twenty hour days at the clubhouse most of the time, or at least doing security for all those hours. I had no interest in going out and finding anyone. It wasn’t because I was so unhappy that I couldn’t function or even think about being with someone else. I didn’twantto. It wasn’t the right time for that in my life. It was full already.” I need to shut up. Stop blurting out words that all run together, on and on, and on.
“So you haven’t… you’re a…” She trails off, unable to say the word.
I’m going to have to do it. My face is hot again. I’m hot all the way down to my toes. “A virgin? I’ve always thought it’s a pretty stupid notion, but yeah. Technically, I guess so.”
“Fuck. Oh my god. Shit.”
“Whoa. What’s wrong?” I set the camera on one of the ladder rungs and reach for her. I hope it’s a good thing that she doesn’t shy away. She lets me take her hand. We’re both shaking. Two thirty-year-olds who just shared a sweet kiss, but we’re unravelling. It’s so much more than that, but I don’t want it to be. I really don’t want this to be over before it starts. So much for trying to be cool. “Why is that such a bad thing?There’s no pressure. This isn’t some made of glass version of me. I’m still the same person. I was busy, and I was able to satisfy myself when I got horny.”
“Your club has… has women who would have slept with you.”
“No doubt, but I didn’t want to. I was usually busy too. Security. Screens. I hardly ever go to the club parties, even though I’m in the clubhouse.”
“That’s what you wanted?”
“I was happy to give something my all and use my full potential. I liked the challenge. To me, that’s what being part of the brotherhood meant. I was never asked or expected to do what I’ve done. Don’t think that anyone used me ill.”
“I don’t think that.”
I lift Esme’s wrist and kiss where her sleeve ends. Her fingers curl like I’ve found a ticklish spot I kiss her palm and then wrap my fingers tight around hers again. Her breath catches, like it’s the most intimate thing anyone has ever done for her.
“It was just me, my own mind, and a challenge. I got to build something from the ground up. I’m proud of that. I felt a little like Grandpa in his garden, I guess. Planting seeds, nurturing, watching it all grow. But with tech. Sort of. It’s a bad analogy.”
“I think I understand.”
I lift her hand because I just can’t stand not having my lips on her. I pepper kisses over her fingers, then draw her in. I might still have a raging hard-on, and yes, she might feel it, andmaybe that’s not slow, but she didn’t pull away the first time. She let me hold her, hug her, be close. I need to be close again. She rests her head on my shoulder after I draw her in. It’s a hug like we’ve shared before, but not at all like we’ve shared. She’s closer. She wriggles against me, curling until her body fits perfectly against mine. She twines her arms around my shoulders until her hands meet at the back of my neck. Her breath tickles the bottom of my earlobe. I can feel her heart beating against my chest. My own is racing. She can probably feel it too.
“I… know you wanted to stay here for a while yet, but now that I’ve thought about going back to Hart and going to speak with my parents, I can’t unthink it. I need to do that. I need to face them and speak my truth and maybe hear theirs.”
I’m surprised at what she’s saying, but not heartbroken. We came out here so that we could talk about us. Our past. Our present, and our future. I know what it’s like to realize something and then not be able to stop thinking about it.
