“Tillie,” Zev rasped.
Hearing him call my name like that nearly undid me. And considering I was on the verge of another orgasm, I was surprised it hadn’t.
“Zev,” I returned. “I think I’m going to—”
“Come with me,” Zev pleaded, cutting me off.
So I did.
And it was the best thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
Zev collapsed on top of me briefly after his orgasm. But he quickly shifted his weight off my body. I stayed there for a bit, but eventually moved to get up. Zev reached out to me and begged, “Don’t leave me, Tillie.”
His voice. I couldn’t.
Hearing that, I laid back down beside him. Zev slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him.
Feeling sated, it didn’t take long for me to drift. But when I did, I did it thinking that I’d made the best decision of my life by never giving myself to anyone else before him all these years.
Tillie
My eyes fluttered open.
Within seconds, it all came rushing back to me.
Liam’s funeral, the gathering at the Petersen residence, and coming back to Zev’s house where he made love to me.
I was on my side in Zev’s bed, and I took a moment to recall what happened between us last night. My heart hurt thinking that it took something so horrible happening for Zev and me to come together the way we had last night. But now that we’d been intimate with one another, I knew we were meant to be together.
There was a lingering ache between my legs, soreness from my first time having sex. Leading up to last night, I often found myself feeling frustrated that I hadn’t yet experienced it. I was twenty-eight years old and wanted to have that experience. It wasn’t that I had planned to save myself for Zev; I had simply just been picky. For whatever reason, I never felt any desire to go that far with any man before him. Not even when I’d had boyfriends.
So, now that I’d given Zev my virginity, I no longer felt frustrated by the fact that I’d waited all these years. Because it had been the most special night of my life.
Excited to see the man who meant so much to me, I dropped my shoulder back behind me and flipped my body to the other side. I was surprised to see the bed was empty.
Initially, I had assumed he was in the bathroom, but movement out of the corner of my eye caused me to turn my head toward the chair sitting in the front corner of the room. What I saw absolutely broke my heart.
Zev was sitting there, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. The bases of his palms were pressing hard into his eyes as the tips of his fingers were hidden beneath his hair. Perhaps what happened between us last night was enough to take away his pain for a little while, but it was clear that pain was back.
My heart ached for him. And even though I didn’t believe I’d allowed myself the time to properly grieve the loss of Liam just yet, I was going to beat that back for just a little while longer. Zev clearly needed me to help him through this. I had every intention of helping him do that.
Sitting up in the bed, I held the blanket to my chest to cover my naked body.
“Zev?” I called softly.
With the exception of his head, which he lifted in my direction, the rest of his body froze. When his eyes were on mine, I asked, “Are you okay?”
What I saw in his eyes at my question was not pain. There was still some lingering there, but there was something much bigger at the forefront. I just didn’t quite know what it was.
“Tillie, what happened here last night?” he asked.
Oh God.
Oh no.
His voice was strangled and filled with despair. Maybe regret. No, definitely regret. But most of all, guilt.
What had been the best night of my life turned out to be something Zev didn’t remember. He wasn’t a fool, so the fact that I was naked in his bed was probably indication enough to him that we’d slept together.
He didn’t remember me.
He didn’t remember all that we shared last night.
I knew he had had a few drinks last night at his parents’ place, but I didn’t think he was that far gone.
How could we have had all that we did last night and Zev not even remember it? Every single thing about it is burned in my brain in a way I know it’ll be there for the rest of my life.
I needed to get out of here so I could go home and freak out by myself. But there was no way I could get up out of his bed and parade around his room naked when he looked the way he did about what he assumed happened between us.
I had to pretend.
“You don’t remember?” I asked.
His head gave me the slightest twitch. But his eyes were haunted.
On one hand, I hated that he didn’t remember because it made me wonder how awful it must have been for him. On the other, I felt bad for him. He looked like he hated himself. I didn’t want him beating himself up about something he couldn’t even remember doing, even if it meant that what we had wasn’t as special for him as it had been for me. Zev already had enough on his mind surrounding Liam’s death. I did not need to add to his emotional turmoil.
Time to suck it up, Tillie.
Taking a deep swallow, I claimed, “We were comforting each other last night, Zev.”
“Fuck,” he hissed. “Tillie, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
He couldn’t apologize. That would break me faster than this already was. I didn’t want him to be sorry. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to remember.
“No harm done,” I insisted, even though my heart was breaking with each word that passed my lips.
I did my best to try to appear unaffected by the whole exchange and went about pulling the sheet up around my body. When I freed it from the confines of the mattress, I wrapped it around me and got out of the bed, careful not to expose myself.
I brought my attention to Zev and explained, “I’m going to just run into the bathroom and get my clothes on.”
He didn’t respond. He just held my gaze.
Unable to stand the intensity in his stare, I looked away and gathered my dress, my bra, and my panties off the floor before shuffling off to the bathroom. I cleaned myself up, put on my bra, and pulled my dress up my legs. I wanted nothing to do with my panties, so I tossed them in the trash.
Moving to the mirror, I took in my appearance. I looked awful. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t that I’d wake up the morning after I’d made love for the first time to a man I had been in love with nearly my whole life and feel the way I did.
I turned on the faucet, splashed some water on my face, brushed my teeth using my finger, and ran a brush through my hair. It was clear Zev and I weren’t going to have the relationship I woke up thinking we would, but I wasn’t going to go back out there without at least making myself look like I was put together. If that meant I had to use his hairbrush, so be it.
After taking in a deep clearing breath to get my mind right, I turned and walked out.
When I stepped into Zev’s bedroom again, I found that it was empty. He’d clearly run away from the whole situation.
That’s okay.
I just needed to stay focused on my mission to get out.
Looking around the room, I confirmed I didn’t have anything else there before walking out and leaving my heart behind with him.