Too Late

He wraps my legs around him and he slides his hands up my thighs until he’s gripping me beneath my dress, making sure I’m stable against the wall. When his lips meet my neck again, I let my head fall back against the building. “Asa,” I whisper. “We probably need to eat at some point.”

I feel him laugh against my neck. “I know,” he mutters. “I can’t help it. Knowing you’re...that you...fuck, Sloan. I can’t stop kissing you. I’m trying.” His mouth is against my neck again and then my focus is no longer on the food or the kiss. It’s on the way my legs are wrapped around him, the way our bodies are fused together, the way I just started moving against him to feel things I’ve never felt before.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper, wrapping myself around him even tighter.

“I thought it wasn’t a religious thing.”

His comment makes me laugh against his kiss. My laugh makes him groan and then he’s lifting me off the wall, placing me on my feet. He kisses me on the forehead and then pulls back and presses his forehead to mine, staring down at me. He laces his hand through mine, and without saying anything else, he pulls me out of the alley and toward the restaurant.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s so late at night or if the restaurant isn’t very good, but when we walk through the door, we’re the only ones here. The host comes out of a back room and grabs two menus. He’s older than us, about mid-thirties. “Thought you’d never make it,” he says to Asa.

Asa shrugs. “We got held up.”

The guy nods and points to a room leading off the main dining area. “Right this way.”

We’re led into another empty room, all the way to the left. There’s a circular booth tucked privately in the corner, complete with a bottle of wine already on ice and two wine glasses. I want to point out that I’m not old enough to drink, but I get the feeling that it wouldn’t make a difference.

Asa lets me slide in first and then he’s right next to me, his hand on my knee. The guy sets our menus in front of us and then proceeds to open the bottle of wine and pours us both a glass.

I hardly ever drink, but tonight seems like a good enough occasion. Especially if no one is going to card me. Asa picks up his glass like he wants to toast me, so I pick up mine when he says, “To first kisses. First dates. And first...whatever the hell else you allow me to have.”

I laugh. “Dessert, at least.” We clink our glasses together and then I taste the wine. It’s not sweet like I expected it to be, but I like it. When I set my glass down, Asa leans in and kisses me on the corner of the mouth.

“Maybe I should have waited until the end of the date to kiss you.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s all I can think about now. But there’s so much I don’t know about you and I should be a good date and ask you a million questions.”

I feel like there’s not much about my life worth talking about. At all.

“I’m eighteen,” I say. “My birthday is next month. I have a mom that should have been required to pass a test before birthing children. I have a brother I love dearly. Now you already know more about me than any other guy in existence. How’s that?”

He watches me a moment, his gaze locked on mine. “I like you.” And then we’re back to kissing.

Slow kissing this time as his fingers explore my outer thigh. Through all the kissing, we’ve somehow completely turned toward each other in the booth. The only thing that tears us apart is the presence of the waiter clearing his throat.

“Do you know what you’d like to eat?” he asks.

Asa laughs before pulling away from me. “Fuck yes,” he says. “In the meantime we’ll both take the special.”

The waiter nods and walks away.

I take a few more sips of my wine while Asa does the same. “You just ordered for me? What if I don’t like the special?”

He smiles. “Then I’ll order you something else.” His mouth returns to mine and we start kissing again. This time, his hands get braver. Or maybe the wine makes me less resistant.

We kiss for so long, I don’t even notice his hand moved to the inside of my thigh. His fingers are slowly stroking up and down, in circles, getting more and more daring. I think he’s doing it because I gasp every time he gets to the top of my thigh, near my panties.

“Asa,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “I know. I know what you’re about to say. I’ll slow down.”

And he does for a while, but that may only be because our food comes.

It’s Indian. Lucky for him, Indian is my favorite. We try to eat without interruption, but he leans in every now and then to brush his lips against my jaw or my ear. Every time he does it, I have to drink more wine.

I’m on my third glass when we’re finished eating and he orders a dessert. He requests it not to come for at least fifteen minutes, though. I could be on my fourth glass of wine now. I’m not sure.

All I know is that kissing feels good. Great. So much more than I imagined it would feel, especially being my first experience with it.

I freeze with that thought. What if I’m letting him do too much? I don’t know. I have no idea what eighteen-year-olds do at this age in restaurants with guys who seem to know exactly the right words and the right way to move their mouth against yours.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, pulling back. I try to focus on his eyes, but my focus is on his hand that’s on my thigh again, still inching up.

“I...” I blow out a quick breath. “I don’t know. I think maybe we should slow down.”

His fingers trail a slow circle over my thigh and I feel so much, I have no idea how I can possibly be asking him to slow down right now. But I should. I shouldn’t be allowing him to touch me like this yet.

Should I?

“Sloan,” he says, brushing his thumb over my cheek with his other hand. “Do you not like the way you feel right now? Does this not feel good to you?”

I nod. “Yes, but...we just kissed for the first time an hour ago. I feel like I’m letting it get too far.”

His nose brushes mine and then he pulls back again. “Funny, because I feel like I’m not taking it far enough.”

“But...” I close my eyes. “I feel stupid for having to ask this.” I open them again. “Is this normal? Like...am I being too...slutty?”

I can feel the laughter in his chest. He presses his mouth to mine and then pulls back. His eyes are playful and the look on his face is endearing. “You’re a grown woman, Sloan. If it feels good to you, that’s all that matters. This date is our date, not anyone else’s.” He kisses my jaw. “Do you want me to stop kissing you?”

I shake my head. “Not really. No.”

His mouth reaches my ear. “Good. I don’t want to stop. And that doesn’t make you slutty, Sloan. It’s kind of hard to be a whore when you’ve only ever kissed one guy, right?”

His logic makes sense. Kind of. I think. I feel woozy.

His fingers begin moving on my thigh again. He pulls back and he’s biting his bottom lip. My eyes focus on his mouth. His teeth release the pressure against his lip and he smiles at me.

“The only thing you need to worry about is if the way I touch you feels good. Okay?”

I exhale and nod, just as his fingers begin to crawl the rest of the way up my thigh. “Do you feel good right now?” he whispers.

I let my head fall back against the booth. “Yes,” I whisper, my breaths heavy. My whole body jerks when his fingers meet my panties. He’s not kissing me. He’s watching me, his eyes focused on my mouth as he drags a finger up my center, outside my panties. It causes me to shudder.

“How about that?” he whispers. “Does that make you feel good?”

I try to say yes, but I can only whimper instead.

I think about the fact that we’re in public. I think about the fact that our waiter is bringing us dessert in a few minutes. I think about the fact that I shouldn’t be acting like this, right here, right now.

But then I think why not?

His lips barely touch mine when he says, “I need you to reaffirm this for me. No guy has ever touched you like this?” His fingers meet the edge of my panties and he hooks his fingers inside and pulls at the fabric. I gasp when he says, “No one knows what you feel like?”

My heart is beating in every part of me, but my pulse is throbbing between my legs, wanting him to be the first to touch me, but fighting my conscience as it tells me that shouldn’t happen here. But I’m so relieved that he’s not turned off by my inexperience. If anything, he might even be turned on by it. That’s not something I expected.

“No one, Asa,” I whisper. “No one has ever touched me like this. You’re the only one.”

He exhales heavily, and I realize I’m right. He likes that he’s the first. He might even love it.

His tongue dives into my mouth the same moment I feel the pressure between my legs. His finger slides into me unexpectedly, but I do nothing to stop it. His mouth swallows my moans and gasps as I try to relax against his hand. I try to become familiar with it—the way it moves against me.

“That’s it,” he says, whispering against my lips. “Relax. Let me make you feel good.”