Finally she asked, voice tight, “You want to stop?”
“No. It’s why I’m asking you to tell me when we do.” He swiped his tongue over her ribs, slid a hand up under the hem of her skirt, over her soft thighs.
“We don’t.”
“I’m not exactly sure what to do,” he whispered, hovering above her. “With you, I mean.”
“With me specifically?” she said, smiling.
Gavin felt himself blush to the tips of his ears, but he refused to look away. “A little. I’ve never done this before.”
“Me either. But. . . I’ve thought about it a lot.”
Gavin groaned and let his head fall to her shoulder. “Delilah.”
“What? Am I not supposed to say that?”
“You’re not if you want me to last at all.”
“I think. . . ,” she said, running her hands down his bare back. “I think it’s okay if you don’t? Like, maybe. . . I like the idea of you losing yourself for a few minutes.”
“Let’s hope it’s longer than a few minutes,” he said, laughing into her skin. It felt so right to laugh with her about something like this, when everything else was so big and dark and looming over them. Delilah was his sun, and he’d smiled more because of her in the last few months than he had in his entire life.
He pushed himself up and looked down at her again as she worked his jeans down his hips. “You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. You have. . . something?”
He gulped. He knew she meant a condom, and the question made this seem more real than anything else could have. “I do.”
Sex was and wasn’t what he expected. Of course he expected it would hurt her, and he expected it to feel unlike anything he’d ever known. But he didn’t expect the calm confidence that took root in his thoughts when he felt her relax beneath him, heard her gasp, “I’m okay; I’m okay,” and beg him to start, to move, to do something because, she said, she felt like she was losing her mind.
He didn’t expect them to move together so easily, as if they shared a heartbeat.
He didn’t expect to be able to slow and stop in the middle of everything just to kiss her and feel her laugh when she said, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” And then she stretched to kiss him, adding, “Do you like it?”
“Like” was such a strange word. Gavin liked peaches and the color black. This was a bliss he didn’t think he could go a day without now.
Afterward, it felt like he had no bones, like every bit of strength in his nearly eighteen-year-old body had been drained from him.
The room was too hot for them to stay pressed together like this, but Gavin didn’t care. With his head resting on her stomach, Delilah played with his hair and his eyes grew heavier and heavier. He wished they could stay here forever.
“So we’ll go to the bank tomorrow.” It was the first thing she’d said since she made those broken little sounds of relief, and goose bumps broke out along his arms at the memory, only a few minutes old.
Gavin pressed a kiss next to her navel, another just above it. “I’ll go get everything from the safe-deposit box and meet you outside at eleven,” he said. “Get what you need from your house and then walk there, using a route where people can see you.” He pulled away to look up at her.
“I don’t have much left to take with me,” she reminded him.
“Just get whatever you can. And, Lilah, if I’m not at the bank, leave town without me. I’ll find you.”
Delilah balked. “Why wouldn’t you be there? You’re not going back to the house, are you?” she asked.
“I want to get the car, but I don’t think. . .” He hated to say what came next: “I don’t think House would let me out. I’ll go to the safe-deposit box. You’re just going to have to get whatever money you can from your house and meet me at the bank.”