Page 102
It’s slow, careful; despite how large and intensely intimidating he is, he’s always been this with me. Careful. Gentle. His body is stretched over mine, so close that my nipples press against the sparse hair of his chest. His hands grasp the curves of my waist. Everything about him is manly, seeming older than his eighteen years—even his soul.
I want to be here, intertwined with him, forever.
The pace at which he makes love to me feels like he’s searing himself into my marrow, unescapable and permanent. I’ve never been touched like this, taken care of like this, loved like this—if that’s what it is. Maybe what it could be.
“Bennett,” I breathe, eyes fluttering as an orgasm sneaks up over me—not so intense, but prolonged and filled with light.
“Oh god, Paloma—” he stutters out. “I can feel you squeezing me—fuck.”
My entire body only tightens further around him, my orgasm rolling into a second one because he’s panting and thrusting and losing his careful control. He curses so rarely; it works like a shot to my adrenals to hear it now. To know I make him feel that way.
I think I could get off on his reactions to me alone.
“Please, Bennett—”
“You feel so perfect,” he breathes.
“Are you going to come?” The question is half stuttered, half moan.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Can I? Can I come inside you?” A growl bursts from his lips against my ear. “I need to come inside you, love.”
I know he’s wearing a condom, but the words are intense and heady. I nod, fingers gripping the muscles of his shoulders, feeling the softness of his stomach against mine as his hips stutter before his abs contract and his mouth turns from my neck.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever cared about,” I whisper, a broken confession spilling unwanted from my lips. I blink back tears, and he slows down. “Ever.”
He bites into my shoulder.
It makes me come again, fingers fluttering to the back of his head like I can hold him there. Like I can keep the mark of him on me forever.
• • •
We lie across rumpled sheets under the glow of moonlight, his body stretched out beneath me. His music plays softly from the speaker on the sill, Iron and Wine soothing and lulling filtering through my ears, competing with the thump of his heartbeat. Yet I feel energized while he looks sleepy and sated, beautiful. So handsome and so far above me, there’s a piece of me forever shocked that he’s here, underneath my fingers.
“How old were you? When you had your first kiss?”
He blushes at the question, despite being naked and entangled in my arms. “Sixteen. It was a girl who had a crush on my best friend. I think she was trying to get him to notice her or make him jealous.”
I smirk, shaking my head and tracing my fingers over his brow. “Impossible. You’re perfect. And way better than him.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“I don’t care,” I whisper into his mouth. “I only want you.”
I feel almost high on him. My heart pushes at my ribs, beating like it might reach from my chest and into his.
There’s a giddy feeling in my chest, like butterflies. It like something from a fairy tale, and not the usual anxious sickness I’m more used to in the aftermath of sex.
“What about you?” he asks, hand brushing my hair back from my face softly as I nuzzle into his biceps where his arm is wrapped around me.
“What about me?”
“I want to know everything.” He punctuates the word with a heady kiss. “When was your first kiss? Have you ever fallen in love with someone? How old were you when you first made love to someone?”
My stomach hollows, anxiety ripping through me like a whip. I jerk away from him, scrambling back slightly. He sits up, following me like he wants to grab for me, keep me close, but is fighting the impulse.
“Why—why would you ask me that?”
Stop. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.