“Talk to me. Tell me if I hurt you,” he whispered, and his movement became a little faster, a little more desperate.
As much as I wanted to touch him, explore him, feel the smoothness of his skin, the best I could do was hold on.
“You’re not hurting me. Keep…keep going,” I breathed. “Don’t stop.”
He bit my jawline, kissed every inch of my skin he could reach. “I’m not going to last long,” he said, except I was alreadythisclose to falling again, and I had my arms spread out wide, waiting to see how much more pleasure my body was capable of handling. “I want to come inside you so badly…”
My eyes squeezed shut, fingernails dug deeper into his skin, and I didn’t know why the idea gave even more color to everything I was already feeling. The thought of him actually coming while we did this…
“Yes,” I breathed, practically begged. “Yes, March…”
“Have you taken the?—”
“Yes!” I cut him off. Mother had put me on the yearly medication to prevent unwanted pregnancy since the day I turned sixteen.
March moaned and thrust himself so deep inside me I felt him all the way to my core. My legs were locked around his hips and he could barely move out of me halfway. As strange as it was to feel him inside me like that, it also got better and better with each thrust. The pressure, the heat, the way he slid in and out of me so easily—it was magic. Our bodies were made for this, and the deeper inside me he came, the louder he moaned, the higher he took me.
Until he came.
I felt it, felt the way hethrewhimself into that last thrust, the way he held himself inside me, the way he whispered myname and held onto my shoulders, pulling me down on his cock. To see his face, his eyes squeezed shut, his bloody lips swollen and parted, and to feel him pulsating like that against me was the last push I needed. I came screaming his name, moving frantically against him, my body trying to take him in deeper while he pressed his hips down on me harder.
I’d never once pictured losing my virginity or being with a boy like this, but it was perfect. So muchmorethan anything I could have imagined, and I knew it was because of March. Not just because of the way he felt, but the way he handled me, the way he kissed me, the way he made every touch and every thrust aboutmefirst.
I sank into the bed again like falling on clouds, and we were still wrapped in each other’s arms, still breathing heavily, still whispering each other’s names every now and again.
I was right—itwasthe best night of my life already, because of the pleasure, but more so because of the connection I felt, like a click, like a lock turning somewhere inside my chest. No matter what happened the next day or the next year, I was never going to be the same.
33
He took me to his bathroom and put me in his bath, and when I reminded him that I could do this myself, he looked at me. Only looked at me, and my mouth closed. I didn’t remind him again.
March looked…different. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but he said nothing, only kissed me after pretty much every movement he made while he filled up the tub for me, put in soap, and brought a fresh towel close. He kissed me again on the head when he sat me down in the tub and went back to the bedroom.
By the time I cleaned myself up and was ready to get out of the tub, he was already back, wearing only a pair of dark red underwear. He wrapped me up in his towel without a word still, then grabbed me in his arms and carried me out into the bedroom again.
I laughed. “What are you doing, Heartling?”
But he didn’t even want to hear it. And when he took me back to the bed I realized he wasn’t gone from the bathroom to give me privacy like I thought, but he’d come out here to change the sheets.
Maybe I’d bled. Maybe I’d made a mess out of them, but the old ones were folded near the door, and these ones were identical, and they smelled like March, too. Rain and roses.Perfect.
“Stay here.”Kiss-kiss-kissall over my face. “Don’t go anywhere.”
He left me on the bed, wrapped up in the towel still, and he walked backward to the bathroom, probably to clean himself up, too. I smiled and shook my head and tried toknowmyself—who is this Ora?—but failed. He only took a couple minutes, like he really thought I might get up and leave. Like he really believed I wanted to be anywhere else in the world but in his bed. In his arms.
He even lookedrelievedwhen he walked out the bathroom and found me exactly as he’d left me.
He was wrapped up in a towel, too, from the hips down. It looked good on him, that towel, but he looked better without.
A moment later, he lay behind me, wrapped his arms around my body, his chest pressed to my back. He rested his cheek against mine and kissed me while we breathed. Came back to ourselves. Still the same people, but thoroughly changed, too.
“How are you feeling?” he whispered in my ear eventually.
“I’m feeling…new,” I said, because I knew he would appreciate a truth. I believed him when he said he’d know if I lied—I knew if he lied, too.
There was no need to lie right now, though. Whatever tomorrow brought, tonight was ours.
A long, lingering kiss on my cheek. “You’re amazing, Ora. Do you know that?”
