Page 6 of Use Me Up

“Oh,” I say. “Well, I need to get you blankets, I guess.” I start to get up off the bed.

He’s there, stopping me, pushing me back down. “No, you don’t have to do anything like that. You don’t need to inconvenience yourself anymore.”

“It’s fine,” I say.

He hesitates, looking down at me. He reaches out and cups my face with one of his big, big hands. “You’re okay,” he says again.

It’s not a question, and yet it is, so, I say, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He rubs his thumb over my cheekbone, almost affectionate.

I swallow. “You can sleep here.”

“You don’t mind?”

“No,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. He straightens up. “Uh… my pants are wet.”

“Yeah, it’s okay, take them off.”

He thinks this over, nods, and does it.

I scoot over and he climbs in next to me. He pulls the covers up over both of us.

We lie facing each other, on our sides.

“It’s not personal, you know. It’s just… Callie and me…”

“Yeah,” I say. But she’s married, I think. But she’s bitten and claimed. But she’s an omega and you’re an omega, and you two have always known that doesn’t work, and that’s why you left, and now you’re back, and what the fuck did I just get myself in the middle of?

This doesn’t end well, and I know that.

I wake up and the storm is over. The sun is streaming brightly in around the blinds in my room. He’s asleep, sprawled out, taking up too much room on my bed. He’s the prettiest man in the history of the universe, especially asleep.

He looks so innocent and boyish, his dark curls splayed out against his finely drawn features. He has a face that looks somehow ruggedly masculine and also delicate and fey.

I sit up, bringing the covers with me, and I lean against the headboard of the bed. I hug my knees to my chest, and I decide I don’t care how absolutely screwed up that whole experience was, I feel glad to have lost my virginity to him.

Worth it, I think.

Let’s be honest, there’s no other way I could have ever had him, or anyone like him. This was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that never happen to girls like me, and I would have been an idiot not to take him up on it.

Sure, I’ve fantasized about something better, something perfect, some wonderful man actually wanting me. But I’m twenty-four years old, and I’m old enough to realize that’s a fantasy that’s never going to come true.

This is real.

Maybe I can dream up something better, but real is always realer than a dream, and he is really in my bed right now, and he is really not wearing anything except his boxers, and he really put his actual cock in my body last night.

I sit there, looking down on him with this ridiculous smile spreading across my face, because, okay, holy shit, it happened! I lost my virginity. I am no longer the oldest and most pathetic virgin in the universe.

My phone beeps, and I feel over on my bedside table to grab it without taking my gaze away from him.

It’s a text from Calliope. Sorry to bother you, but I just want to make sure that Ellis isn’t there.

I blink at the phone. What do I say?

Little dots come up at the bottom of the screen. She’s typing.