Adjusting our bodies so my head was on the pillows, he layered the blankets over our bodies as he slid over me. My mouth pulled as I noticed the baseball print sheets fall around his shoulders.
“What are you doing?”
His brows moved. “Boyhood fantasy.” His hips found a gentle rhythm, mine rising to meet him with each pulse. It wasn’t long before his body stilled, his hands holding my hips in place as he looked like he was trying to catch his breath.
“You’re stopping.” My head lifted, my body still charging forward. “Why are you stopping?”
“Not stopping.” His head shook once as he wiped the beads of sweat dotting his forehead. “Slowing. Pacing.”
My head tilted as I ran my fingers through his hair. It was damp with sweat. “Reason?”
His hand cupped one of my breasts, his thumb caressing my nipple until it formed into a bud. My body tightened around him, pulling him deeper into my body. His eyes squeezed shut at the same time he blew out a loud breath.
“Because I’m really, really enjoying myself. I’d like to prolong that sensation. And I’d like to make sure you really, really enjoy yourself because I’d really, really, really like to do this again with you. In, I don’t know”—his eyes moved to the alarm clock shaped like a baseball hat on the nightstand—“say five minutes?”
My fingers kept combing through his hair, wondering what I’d done to deserve the man above me, making love to my body and mind at the same time. “That’s a lot of reallys.”
He kissed my breast, his tongue taking the place of his finger circling my nipple. I felt myself clamp down on him again. His hand braced at my hip tightened.
“Doesn’t even begin to describe how this feels,” he rasped.
My hips rocked against his, then away, setting the pace since watching him take his pleasure from me, feeling it as it happened, was more stimulating than experiencing my own right then. Soren’s fist balled into the pillow beside my ear as his head fell beside mine. His breaths were labored, every exhale a grunt as I moved my body against his.
“Okay, so about how much longer are you hoping I can hold out?” he asked, his voice strained. “Ten seconds? Maybe twenty?”
My head turned toward his, waiting for his eyes to find mine. I was trying to hold myself back, to wait until I felt his body give up the fight, but I couldn’t. The moment his eyes connected with mine, I lost control of whatever measure I’d been clinging to. I lost myself.
“Soren,” I cried, my back lifting off the bed as a surge of pleasure drove through my body.
“Holy fuck,” he exclaimed when he felt my body pulse around him.
My mouth lifted to meet his in an effort to quiet the sounds our shared release was drawing from us. His tongue shoved into my mouth as he sheathed himself so deeply in me, the headboard banged against the wall. He held himself there, unmoving, as his body quivered around mine, our mouths moving as we swallowed each other’s cries of pleasure.
We stayed like that for a while after, our mouths slowing, our bodies still joined. I could feel the result of our lovemaking rolling down my body, and the feel of it turned me on all over again.
When Soren’s mouth separated from mine, his eyes opened to meet mine. His thumb brushed down the slope of my neck. “That was so much better than I ever thought it would be.” His voice was a bit hoarse, his back quivering when I touched it. “Even hearing all the locker room talk, knowing how good it felt when I gave it to myself . . . so much better than I imagined.” Soren rolled off to the side, gathering me in his arms as he did.
I lifted my head, looking down at him. “Than you imagined?”
One of his shoulders moved. “You were my first.” A grin stretched into place as everything seemed to catch up to him all at once. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”
My whole face went flat. Did that mean . . . ? Was he . . . ? Had he been . . . a few minutes ago? “Actually, it wasn’t.”
“Really?” The skin between his brows creased.
I went with the Soren approach to confessing one’s sexual history. A shrug. “I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
That grin flattened.
“You were my first,” I said, in case he needed it spelled out.
His face stayed frozen for a minute, then he sat up, his eyes widening. “Shit. Did I hurt you?” His gaze swept down my body, a wince pulling at his expression. “I never thought to ask. I never would have thought . . .”
My hand settled against his cheek, waiting for him to look at me. “That there was a nineteen-year-old virgin left out there?”
His hand slid behind my neck. “Aren’t we just a couple of late bloomers?”
When I gave a soft laugh, his smile rose back to the surface. He pulled me to him, and I found a comfy spot on his chest and closed my eyes. My body ached where he’d just been, but it was a kind of pain I’d never felt before. A kind that made me hungry for more.
“Soren?”
“Hmm?” He sounded as tired as I felt.
“Thank you for being my first.”
His hand dropped over mine resting on his stomach. His fingers tied through mine. “Hayden?”
My body curled closer. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for being my only.”
The storm from last night had passed by five the next morning. The sky was blue and it was pushing fifty by the time I crawled into the cab waiting outside of the Deckers’ house after breakfast. Soren slid in behind me, refusing to limp as all of his brothers were perched on the porch, jeering at us as we left. Michael was waving an old pair of crutches, and Ben had what looked like a yellowed box of Power Ranger Band-Aids.
Soren was about to give the one-finger salute back when his mom stepped onto the porch. He went with a wave instead as the taxi pulled away from the curb. I thought about how we’d arrived only a little less than twelve hours ago, and it felt like the whole world had changed.
“Do you have time to head back to the apartment to change, or do you need to get to the agency?” Soren asked as he settled his bags at our feet. I smiled when I saw he’d left the wrap I’d taped around his ankle in place. The swelling had gone down, but half of his foot was blue and purple from the bruising he’d woken up to.
“The agency. I don’t want to chance it and be late.”
Soren leaned forward to give the address to the driver, then he settled back into his seat. When he glanced at me, my stomach twisted into a million knots. We’d barely woken up in time to shower, get dressed, and throw down a few bites of breakfast before the cab Soren’s dad had called for us arrived. There had been no time to recap or replay any of what had happened last night, but with the way he was looking at me right now, I could practically feel him moving inside me all over again.
“Glad you could finally make it to dinner with the family.” One side of his mouth twitched.
“Now I understand why you were so eager to get me there.”