The Girl He Used to Know(45)

Jonathan was on his knees, rolling on a condom. “Spread your legs.”

I did and he entered me. It was better because I only had to con centrate on one thing, but I couldn’t get the rising sensations back. Jonathan groaned, so it must have felt good to him, but I didn’t know how to find my rhythm again, and everything felt a bit off. I felt like I needed to start again from the beginning, but Jonathan seemed closer to the end.

“I can’t hold off much longer,” he gasped.

I didn’t know what to do. It still felt good with him inside me, but there was no way I was going to have an orgasm.

“Annika, really. I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and I’d barely gotten the words out when he groaned and shook in a way he never had before. He was out of breath and panting into my neck and squeezing me tight, and I could feel him throbbing inside of me.

“Oh my God,” he said, and the last word came out soft, like a whisper. It seemed like it felt extra good for him and I was glad about that because I worried I’d messed it up somehow. He kissed my forehead, my cheek, my mouth. “Didn’t it feel good to you?”

“It did,” I said.

“You didn’t come. Did you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!”

“I can touch you again. I can start over and make you feel good.”

“That’s okay.”

He was silent then. “Oh.”

He got up and went to the bathroom. When he came back, he slid under the covers and put his arms loosely around me. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” I said. I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d done wrong, but I knew I’d done something.

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. It was my fault.”

I had no idea how I was supposed to respond to that, so rather than risk saying the wrong thing, I didn’t say anything at all. Jonathan rolled onto his back. Eventually we fell asleep, although it seemed like it took us both an extra long time.



* * *



I woke up a few hours later, and I couldn’t get back to sleep because I worried that whatever had happened earlier would finally convince Jonathan there was something wrong with me and that I was the worst girlfriend in the world. I replayed what had happened over and over in my mind, right up until the point he’d deviated from our usual routine. A funny thing happened then. The desire I hadn’t been able to hold on to earlier suddenly came roaring back. I didn’t have enough experience to know that it worked like that sometimes—that it could be unpredictably elusive, and return when you least expected it.

Neither one of us was wearing any clothes. Jonathan was lying on his side—not quite spooning me, because although I’d grown to love cuddling after sex, I’d finally admitted it was difficult for me to fall asleep with his arms around me, but close enough that I could feel the presence of another person when I moved. I turned so that I was facing him and pressed my body against his. There was something thrilling about the feel of his nakedness, the warmth of his skin, and the fact that he was unaware of what I was doing. I pressed against him a little harder, and he stirred but still didn’t wake up. I felt him grow hard against me, which I found baffling.

How does that work? What will happen if I touch him?

I fluttered kisses down his neck and, growing bolder, I reached between his legs and wrapped my hand around him, remembering what he’d taught me. He woke up with a groan so loud it startled me.

“Is it okay that I did that?” I yanked my hand away in case the answer was no. He grabbed for it, put it back.

“Yeah, it’s more than okay. It’s great. It just caught me by surprise.” His words came out in fits and starts, as if he were having trouble regu lating his breathing. He kissed me, roughly, and I kissed him back with every bit as much force.

Jonathan always wanted the lights on when we had sex. Janice said that was because men were more visual than women. I never minded, but I did struggle with the face-to-face aspect of being intimate with someone. When Jonathan touched me, he often looked deep into my eyes, but I’d have to squeeze mine shut in order to concentrate. The pitch-black darkness of the hotel room did not allow for eye contact, and it unleashed something in me I’d never experienced before. I felt confident, uninhibited, in control. We were a blur of hands and mouths, each of us trying to give more than we took. He kissed his way down my body and when he put his face between my legs, I didn’t stop him, because I wanted him to do it. It was intense but it wasn’t too much for me after all. As the incredible sensations coursed through me I twisted my fingers in his hair and made so much noise I hoped I never ran into the people in the room next to us.

Jonathan reached for a condom on the nightstand and put it on. “Holy shit, what is happening,” he said when I climbed on top of him. He started laughing, and so did I because, for once, I got it. I understood that I was doing exactly what he’d hoped for earlier. Not necessarily the sex, although that was happening, too, but my willingness to break free from familiar patterns and try something different.

It felt so good that I never wanted it to end. I didn’t think it was possible to feel closer to Jonathan than I already did, but that night in our hotel room, I learned that the closeness of two people had no limits.