“Still okay?” he whispered, kissing me softly as he rocked into me again.
I cracked an eyelid open. “Mmm.”
“Are you in pain?”
He rocked in slowly again, and I squeezed my eyes tighter.
“A little, but I’m okay.”
And I was. I was more than okay. I understood why he kept asking, and in a way, it made me want him more. He was so gentle, so reverent, like being the first man to touch me was the highest privilege he’d had his entire life.
Just like with his fingers, every new thrust opened me more, the pain fading slowly until it was just the sensation of being full. More than anything, I felt overwhelmed with pleasure — like there truly was just too much of it. It was everywhere — on his lips when they kissed me, flowing from his hands where they touched me, in the air around us. I’d never experienced anything like it, and I never wanted it to end. It was all consuming, the indulgence that came from him being inside me. I never understood before, I never could have comprehended it until I’d experienced it for myself.
I would never be the same again.
Emery’s lips fused with mine again as he found a rhythm between my thighs, and I tried desperately to hold onto every sensation, every memory of my first time. I listened to the song playing, the roughness of the artist’s voice, the sultry notes from his guitar. I tasted Emery’s lips, his tongue, felt the weight of him on top of me, inside of me. I cataloged each and every moment, saving them for later, forever.
“You have no idea how hard it is for me to take this easy,” he groaned in my ear, another thrust hitting even deeper as I gasped from the feel of it.
His words sent another zing of pleasure jolting through me, and I kissed him harder, pulling him closer. “It’s okay, if you want to… if you need to go harder. I can take it.”
Emery kissed my collarbone with another growl, his eyes lifting to meet mine. “I have no doubt, but tonight I’m taking it slow. Tonight,” he repeated, his eyes dark. “I want to give you part of the fairytale, even if it’s just this.”
His words almost hurt, they were tinged with such sadness, such a lack of faith in himself. I wrapped my arms around his neck again, pulling him into me, my lips seeking his.
And in my heart, I knew the odds were against us — that we might be able to start a happy ever after, but our chances of finishing it were slim.
I turned the page, anyway.
The wetter I became, the easier it was for him to slide in and out, and he picked up speed. It was just enough, my moans mixing with his, our skin slick as we touched and felt and burned. Every time he rocked inside, he’d brush me where his mouth was before, on that sensitive space above my opening, and I’d cry out his name. It was such an incredible feeling, such a pleasurable sensation, and before I could stop myself, I came again, this orgasm a little duller but still enough to make me gasp his name over and over as my body shook beneath his.
“Fuck,” Emery cried as the last waves washed over me, and with another groan of his own, he came right behind me, his fingers leaving bruises on my hips as he rocked into me one last time. He held me there, his body pulsing above mine as my orgasm receded, and as soon as it passed, my legs fell to the side again and he collapsed, both of us spent.
He wrapped his arms all the way around me and rolled until I was lying on him, his breaths hot in my ear as our slick chests rose and fell together. He kissed my lips, my cheeks, my forehead before pulling me flush against him. My legs ached as he softened inside me, my entire body feeling like it just survived a car wreck and a baptism at the same time.
When our breaths evened out, Emery gently rolled me until I was at his side, discarding the condom in the trashcan beside the bed before pulling me into him again. I rested my head on his chest, fingers grazing the skin where his ribs were, evoking chills with every touch.
“Is it always like that?” I finally asked, my voice a raw, sated whisper.
Finally, Emery laughed, the sound of it loud and booming against my ear on his chest.
“Never,” he answered, fingers brushing through the tangled strands of my curls.
He swallowed then, as if that answer scared him as much as it excited me, and then he repeated it. Softer. Slower.
“Never.”
In my dreams, I replayed the night over and over again. I lived inside that moment, frozen in time, suspended on that unstoppable linear trajectory for as long as time would allow me to be. When the sun finally warmed my cheeks through the sheer curtain hanging over the sliding glass door, I squinted against it before blinking a few times, finally ready to let go, to move forward.
It was quiet, save for the soft music that still flowed from the speaker on the bedside table, and I stretched as a yawn broke through the sleepy haze I was still in. My toes reached for the edge of the bed while my hands hit the headboard, my mind taking note of my body.
I was sore in all the right places, aching in a new way as I rolled toward the wall. Emery was still there, his head on the pillow, eyes cast up toward the ceiling, and Kalo sleeping in a little ball by his feet. I leaned up on one elbow to get a better view.
“Good morning.”
Emery shifted, his head rolling just a little to the side as he met my gaze. “Morning.”
Another yawn took me under as I nodded toward my sleeping ball of fluff. “I need to take her out, she hasn’t been since before I left last night.”
“Already done.”
As if Kalo sensed me talking about her, she popped her head up, looking back at me as I reached for her. She licked my hand once, letting me rub behind her ear before she laid down again and I turned my attention back to Emery.
“Thank you.”
A lazy smirk curled on his lips, one arm reaching up and over my head until it rested on my pillow behind me.
“Come here.”
I scooted closer, head finding his chest as I wrapped one arm around his middle. He tucked me into him, pulling the comforter over us again before his hand rested on my waist.
“I have to tell you something.”
“Okay,” I whispered as confidently as I could, but the blood drained from my face. Those words set me on high alert as soon as they left his lips, my heart already beating overtime, brain shouting every anxious thought I’d ever had about us loud in my ears.
This is where it ends.
He thinks it was a mistake.
You were awful, he’ll never touch you again.
He doesn’t care about you.
Emery didn’t speak right away, just held me there, his fingers brushing against my skin. I watched the breaths enter and leave his chest, waiting, letting his gentle touches soothe me as much as they could in that moment.
“It’s hard for me to say this out loud, because other than my family and my therapist, no one really knows.”
My heart jumped into my throat at the mention of his therapist. Marni. I knew her name when I shouldn’t have, and I swallowed down the guilt.
“I battle with depression,” he finally said, and his chest deflated with the words. “God, I hate calling it that. I hate admitting this to you, because it sounds pathetic and weak, but I think it’s important.”
“It doesn’t sound weak,” I said, my voice low, guilt still churning low in my gut. If I hadn’t pried into his private thoughts, this would be a big moment for him — this admission — and maybe an even bigger one for me. But I’d cheapened it.