Bullet(30)

After I extricated myself from his arms, I looked back at him. God, he was cute, especially sleeping. He looked like he had no worries in the world. And then I took a deep breath. What was I thinking?

Time to take that shower.

When I returned to my room, I was wearing a robe and slipper socks, and while I was covering more than I would have if I were wearing jeans, I suppose it could have been construed as suggestive, but I hated forcing clothes on my damp body. It took longer and was a bigger pain, so I liked to wait a few minutes before getting dressed. So I sat at my desk and opened my makeup drawer, pulling out the mirror and turning on the desk light to put on my makeup. Once done, I pulled off the towel and combed out my hair and then I was ready to get dressed.

As I stood up, I heard Brad say, “Morning.”

I looked over at him. He was sitting up in bed, stretching his shoulders. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He took me in, realizing I’d been up for a while. “Did I make it hard for you to sleep?”

No way would I tell him that yes, he did, because it wouldn’t be for the reasons he was asking. So I told him I slept fine. He rubbed his face and then slid his legs off the bed. He didn’t see his shoes so he looked on the other side before I could tell him that was where they were. Then he stood up. He looked sleepy, but he still looked like the kind of guy I should keep my eyes off of.

I think we were both feeling a little awkward by that point.

He said, “If you can just point me in the right direction, I think I can find Ethan’s place. I need to see what the guys are up to—I’m not sure when we’re hitting the road.”

So I took him to the door and pointed down the hall. “Go through that door to the stairs. When you get to the ground floor, go out the door. Then there’s a long hallway. Follow it all the way to the end. There you’ll see a door just like this one. Those are the stairs to Ethan’s dorm. He’s on the second floor.”

“Yeah…I remembered that much.” He paused. “Hey…thanks.”

“For what?”

He smiled and shook his head. What was he thinking? “For everything.” He started walking in the direction I’d pointed him, but he turned around. “I’ll be back in a while.”

I nodded my head. “Okay.” At first, I’d thought that odd, but then I realized they’d want to say goodbye before they left. And then I wondered how poor Nick was doing. Last night, he’d been in even worse shape than Brad had been.

After he left, I got dressed, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and made my bed. Then I sat at my desk and started reading through the next chapter in the textbook for my poetry class.

It wasn’t long, though, before I heard a knock at my door. Surely they weren’t leaving already, but I still wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Jennifer needing in. It wasn’t, though. It was Brad…looking more awake and in clean clothes. “What’s going on?”

I stepped back to let him in. “You think I was f*cked up…you have no idea. Zane let me in. All I can figure is they were still partying when Ethan came over here this morning. Nick isn’t even there. Zane said he’s pretty sure he went to that girl’s dorm room sometime after we left. He and Jennifer were crashed on his bed, decided to lay down till morning. Ethan was crashed on his bed too. But…looks like I’m gonna be here a while. I could text Nick, but I’d rather give him a little while longer to sleep.” He shrugged.

“You can hang with me if you want.” I wondered if he’d want to watch television while I was studying or maybe we could get some breakfast somewhere.

But he got close to me. “That’s not the main reason why I came back here, though.” And whatever words had been on my tongue went scurrying to the floor. “We have a little unfinished business.”

I was finally able to swallow, but my voice sounded weak and tiny. “We do?”

He leaned over and cupped my face in his hands to bring my lips to his. My breath was shallow as he touched his lips to mine. But although his hands on my face were gentle, his kiss was not. His lips were firm and demanding, and I parted mine, inviting his tongue into my mouth. I felt lightheaded in the presence of this man and just allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of finally kissing him. When he let go of my lips, he said, “Unfinished, right?”

All I could do was give him a thin smile and let out the rest of the air in my lungs. I didn’t notice until then that I’d put my hands on his pecs. And, since I wasn’t pushing him away, he took that as a signal to move forward. He moved his hands to my waist and pulled me as close to him as I could possibly be. And his next kiss transported me. I no longer felt like silly little Valerie Quinn, college freshman, living in a tiny dorm room without a clue of what she wanted to do with her life. Instead, I got my first taste of womanhood, for inside me he opened up a Pandora’s Box of emotions and desires I hadn’t known existed. Yes, I’d thought I knew, but Brad was a whole other level when it came to arousing me. Maybe it was because we already had some flirty sexual thing going. And while I was confused, I wanted to venture a little further.

I felt the hair on my arms standing on end while I slid my hands up to his neck to hold his face from his jaw to his temple while his tongue danced with mine, performing some wicked magic inside me. And then, when I moved my hands into his soft hair, I couldn’t help but notice yet didn’t object to his hands moving to cup my ass and push me into him.

And, oh, was that a delicious sensation. I might have known, in the logical, cold sense, how my body was supposed to work but being a late bloomer hadn’t experienced what those things I knew about actually felt like. My entire body felt like it had been plugged into an outlet, and I could have lit up a Christmas tree. My senses were heightened, and there was nothing he could have done in that moment that would have felt wrong.

But that stupid little niggling voice in the back of my head. I could hear it. It might have been muffled, but I could still hear it telling me I didn’t want to lose my virginity in the heat of the moment just because I couldn’t control myself. It told me I didn’t love Brad, and that was, of course, my cardinal rule.

Oh, in those few seconds, I think I tried to convince myself I did. I certainly loved the way he knew how to handle my body. And that time, when he released my lips, he moved to kiss my neck, and I heard a low moan escape my lips. So who could blame him when he took that as a signal to go? One of his hands released my ass and slid up underneath my shirt. Again, I was surprised at my body’s response to him. His warm hand on my side felt delightful and electric, but that little voice tried one more time, urging me to stop. If I didn’t put on the brakes now, it was all over, because that little voice was getting buried deeper and deeper, and the sensations of Brad’s touch were feeling better by the second.

And so I listened.

One of my hands released the hair in its grip and brought itself back down to his pec to aid me in stopping the proceedings. And good thing too, because I detected that I might be feeling his piston revving up.

“Brad…please stop.”

He opened his eyes and moved his head to look at me. “Stop?”

“Yeah.”

He kissed me again, knocking the wind out of me once more. “Stop that?”

I took a moment and blinked. “Yes.”

“You don’t seem so sure…” He pressed his forehead on mine and gazed in my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

By now, I had both hands on his chest as though they could push him away…as though my hands wanted to push him away, but we were still in a tight embrace, and I wasn’t pushing against him. “I…It’s not you, Brad. Oh, God, it’s not you. I swear. I want you bad.”

He was trying to understand. “So why not? If you’re worried about birth control…”

That got my attention. Yeah, I should have been, but it had been the last thing from my mind. “No. I’m…um…” I swallowed hard. “I’m a…”

“Virgin?” I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Oh.” I could see his mind struggling with this new knowledge. He nodded and said it again. “Oh. Yeah. Uh…your first time should be…special, right? At least, for girls. I didn’t give much of a shit.”

In spite of the overwhelming and heady mix of emotions, I couldn’t help but giggle, and I think that was partly from the relief that I wouldn’t have to explain to Brad how f*cked up my mind really was. I didn’t think I loved him, and I had that stupid idea that I have to love the first guy I gave myself to. That’s what would make it special, I thought.

But his eyes kept scanning mine. “That’s not it, though. It’s Ethan, isn’t it? You still care about him.”

Did I? I’d been so angry with him, and then that’s when I realized Brad was right. I was only so furious with him because I’d cared so much to begin with. But I didn’t say a word.