It was a glass jar about the size of my hand. Inside, there were rose petals, some glitter, a tea light candle, and a few of those tiny fireworks that you set off by throwing them on the ground. A small tag hung from the neck of the jar. It read, in Hudson’s blocky, mathematician’s script:
Break in case of emergency virginity loss.
“You said you weren’t the girl who got roses and candles and all that,” he said, shrugging. “I just think you’re wrong.”
My chest was suddenly very tight. This felt too nice, too personal. I didn’t need him to lie to me, didn’t need him to pretend that I was some great prize. This was just sex. Transactional sex. I didn’t need or want to feel special.
I couldn’t want that. I didn’t need to get addicted to the feeling.
I set aside the jar. Then I looped my fingers through his belt and pulled him back between my legs.
“I’m a sure thing, Hudson,” I reminded him. “You don’t need to butter me up to get me to have sex with you.”
“And you didn’t have to do a damn thing to get me to have sex with you, Scout. You just had to be you. You just had to ask.” He took my face in his hands. One thumb brushed down my lips. I shivered. “Why has a woman as beautiful, as brilliant, as funny and sexy as you never been taken before?”
Because nothing had ever led me to believe that was possible.
“A long time ago, I posited a theory that I was not capable of trusting myself with big decisions. Like whether to have sex. And who to have sex with. And time and time again, my experiments have proven this hypothesis correct.”
“Why did you finally choose me, then?”
“Because the cosmos is impossibly vast. We might as well be two specks of dust when compared against it. Then somehow, an understanding, handsome man with strong hands and a laugh like Christmas morning found me. And against all odds, he wanted me. You are the right man at the right time. And I’m trying to become a Scout who can welcome a gift like that. Who isn’t afraid of it. Even just for one night.”
“And what’s been holding you back?”
“A million things, really. Like my second hypothesis, for example.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m not sexy.”
I was, after all, a twenty-six-year-old virgin who spent her days behind a desk. I wasn’t fielding offers from eligible gentlemen in line at the bagel shop, nor was my last relationship particularly affirming. I worried, deep down, that this experiment of mine with Hudson would fail, and it would be all my fault. Just by virtue of who I was.
Hudson got that look in his eye again. ThatI’m going to fuck youlook. The emptiness between my legs felt unbearable now.
“A good scientist should always be open to the possibility of being proven wrong,” he reminded me. Then his hand traveled up my thigh. Beneath my skirt. And right to my parted legs, where his fingers toyed with the lining of my wet thong. “Are you open, Scout?”
16
Shall We Shag Now, or Shag Later?
If he just said the word, or moved his fingers a little more boldly, I’d be filled by him without hesitation.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I’m open.”
But he withdrew his hand.
“Come on. I’m not going to fuck you on your kitchen island.”
“That just displays a supreme lack of imagination,” I huffed.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be worth the wait. I’ll make sure of that.”
“You’d better.”
Bratty? Yeah, sure. I sounded it. But you have to understand—I was seconds away from breaking a twenty-six-years-long no-sex streak. The impatience coiled in my body, begging to finally be relieved.
Hudson helped me down from the counter, and I almost convulsed when our bodies brushed against each other again. How was I going to survive the walk to my bedroom? I might cum just from the friction of my thighs rubbing.
