An hour and a half or so into the drive, she started to fidget. And I don’t mean a little movement here or there. I’m talking, for a few seconds, I feared she was having a seizure.
“What’s up, Benny?”
“What?” Her gaze jerked toward me in surprise.
I glanced from the road to her and back again. “You literally look like your skin is in the process of attacking you. What’s up?”
“I just… I have to tell you something.”
Her tone was serious, and her nerves were beginning to eat her alive. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I had a feeling I knew what was coming. Our intimacy had been on a steady advance from the moment we’d collided, melding together and racing for the finish line like one entity. We were on our way to a weekend alone, and the relevance of her sexual inexperience had to be beating her over the head with a bat at this point.
“So tell me, baby,” I coaxed gently, trying to walk the line of someone who didn’t know what was coming and someone who absolutely did, having heard it twice already, and was prepared to answer in a calm, respectful manner. If it hadn’t been for the blunt conversation Ruck had had with Rose, Kline would have never realized that Georgie had already told him in a Benadryl-fueled rant.
Christopher Columbus her * prideland.
God, I’d laughed so hard about that when I realized how brilliant it had been.
“I’m…like…a…” incoherent mumbling “…virgin!”
I bit my lip and considered her words. I knew what she was trying to say, but a little figurative ice breaking never hurt anyone. Literal ice breaking—well, that hurt a lot of people.
“You want to listen to Madonna?”
I reached for my phone like I was going to search for the song.
“No,” she huffed, adorably frustrated at having to gather the nerve to say it again. I didn’t blame her. This was the fourth time in about twice as many days that she was admitting it to someone. That I knew of, anyway.
Turning in her seat, she forced herself to face me head-on. Her eyes sought mine, and I hated that because I was driving, I couldn’t fully give them to her. I had no right to it, but that didn’t stop me from being proud of her confidence.
When I found a straight stretch of road and glanced her way for more than a quick, passing beat, she spoke. “I’m a virgin.” Crisp and calm, her voice managed to be matter-of-fact and silky all at once.
Did I mention I was proud of her?
Was that fucked up? I didn’t mean for it to be. I was just happy to see her owning it—being proud of herself and her own choices instead of feeling like she had to answer for them. I wanted to yell out some kind of cry for all of the empowered females, but I thought that might seem suspicious.
So, I went with the only other thing I could think of.
“Okay. Cool.”
Eloquent, right?
“Okayyyy,” she repeated, adorably confused by my non-response. “Cool.”
I’m sure she’d been expecting the usual questions.
How’d you manage that?
or
Are you, like, super religious?
or
What the hell are you waiting for?
As her lover, I had a right to know she’d never taken a sexual encounter to that level before, a warning of sorts to make sure I didn’t make an assumption that affected both of us. But really, the rest of it was her business and hers alone. Sharing was a staple of every healthy relationship, but she got to be the creator of the terms and conditions under which said sharing happened.
“Kline?” she called, pulling out of my thoughts.
“Yeah, baby?”
“You don’t have any questions? Or…I don’t know. You’re so quiet.”
I was being quiet. Obviously, it was doing nothing but torturing her.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but it’s not what you think.”
“What do I think?” She raised a brow and I laughed.
“Okay, fair enough. I don’t know what you’re thinking. But I’m thinking you’re a fucking brilliant, beautiful woman with the most delicious * I’ve ever tasted. I’ll be lucky as fuck if you decide you wanna share more of it with me. But I don’t fucking expect it, and I’ve done nothing to earn it. I’m guessing none of the other fuckers in New York ever did, and I don’t mind one fucking bit.”
“That was a lot of ‘fucks,’ Mr. Brooks.”
I laughed and forced the tension in my shoulders to release. “I know. You got me all worked up. Thatch is usually the only one that can get me to utilize that many fucks in one thought process.”
Her laughter rolled through me like a wave.
“God, Thatch. I hear all sorts of lore about that guy, but the only actual interaction I’ve had with him was when you called me on the plane.”
“There’s Thatch lore?” I asked, mystified and horrified all at once.
“Oh yeahhh.” She laughed. “But most of it is from Dean, so I’ve taken any and all information with a very large grain of salt.”
I laughed.
“Like, rock salt.”