“Really?” she demanded.
“Yes. I’m too busy enjoying being lost in the scent and bliss of you.”
“Willa…”
She sounded serious.
I sighed.
So it was time to pay the piper, then.
“Yeah?” I breathed. I shifted back, opened my eyes, met her gaze.
“Are… was… was this…good?”
I stared at her for a moment, nonplussed.
“Are you really, seriously and unironically asking me that, Sam?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I loved this. It was… it was so good, so special. I… it was… look, I understand it’s a sudden thing to spring on you given I jumped you, but…”
“You jumped me, is it?”
She managed a small smile. “Didn’t I?”
“I did at least half the jumping. Probably more than half, given my tendencies…”
“Oh. Really?”
I grinned. “Are you asking me if I want to… have sex again, sometime? Specifically with you? Very specifically with you?”
She flushed.
“Kind of, yes,” she confessed. “It… it was really, really special. And nice. Um. For me.”
“For me too, you know,” I said, suddenly serious. I sighed. “I… look, I know I talk a good fight, but… I don’t do this, Sam. I don’t jump into bed with everyone. With anyone, really. This… this was different for me. I need you to know how different. I’m not a… a casual, discardable girl. This was… this was a big leap of faith for me.”
She seemed to relax a bit as she let out a shaky breath.
“Good. I’m… I’m glad to hear that. I’d… I’d really hate to think this was a once off. I’d be devastated. I don’t want it to be. A once off, I mean,” she said, almost babbling the words in her rush to get them out.
I stared at her for a heartbeat, loving her for her innocence.
“Oh, you’re far too good at this for it to be a once off”, I breathed. “Now that I know how good you are I don’t want anything else but to be like this with you. But… on a slightly more awkward note though… what now? You’re… a married women. Well, allegedly, anyway. I can’t say I’ve seen much evidence…”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered. “And that’s the problem in a nutshell. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I mean… it’s not like I can waltz up to you in the street and snog you, is it.”
“I wouldn’t complain. But… yes.”
I watched her.
I somehow knew what she was going to ask.
There was nobody else on Earth I would ever consider doing it for. There was nobody else I would let ask me this.
But… I knew she had no choice.
Not yet, anyway.
I would need to agree to it to be able to… be with her like this. Like I needed to.
I wouldn’t let it hurt me.
“It’s hard being an adult, isn’t it,” I said, partly to myself.
“Yes,” she whispered. “So hard.”
“Well. Sam… if you need… this… to be a secret, then… I guess… I can do that. For you. Only for you. I’ll always be here for you if you want me. “
“When I want you,” she corrected me. “Because that’s going to be constantly. Constantly, Willa.”
She stared at me, and it seemed she was almost… sad.
“So does that make you my firm and pert young piece on the side?” she said.
I smiled at that, remembering my description and enjoying the changes she’d made to it.
“I’ll do my very best,” I said.
She moved closer, touched her forehead to mine.
“I feel so filthy that I’m asking you to be my dirty little secret. I know how… sordid that is. I’m… I’m sorry, Willa. I wish… “
“Sex is complicated. Wanting people is even more so,” I breathed.
“I want…” she whispered.
“What?” I gently asked her, after she’d been silent for a while.
“This. This tenderness. This closeness to you. Your skin, your breath, your scent. Your heartbeat. I want this in my every day. I don’t want to be without this. I don’t want to have to hide how much I… care for you. I want to be able to kiss you and be damned to everyone else and their… their fucking judgement.”
Her words warmed me through and through. So I bit down the threatening sob and kissed her, kissed her cheeks, listened with an aching heart to the little shuddering sigh she let out.
“Do… do you want to stay the night?” she whispered. “I’d… I’d really like to have you here. Tonight, I mean. But I’ll drive you home if you’d prefer…”
“I’ll stay,” I breathed. “But only because you asked me so nicely.”
She shifted, glanced up at me, saw the smile.
“You’re terrible.”
“Oh, babe, you’ve barely even scratched the surface.”
“I look forward to getting deeper, then,” she said, with a coy little smile of her own. “Willa?”
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Could you… spoon me for a bit? It’s… it’s been so very long since I was held. And… and I’d really like it. To be held like that again, I mean. By you. Um. Very specifically by you.”
She was so tongue-tied, so sweet.
I loved her for it.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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