I blushed and shook my head, turning from side to side to see how the dress fit. It was tight, and short, and it pushed my already-in the-way br**sts up so far I was sure they’d spill out if I so much as breathed wrong. “No, he ha-hasn’t. ”
Nell giggled, covering her mouth with her hand, then leaned closer to me. “I wonder what it feels like?”
I bumped my head against hers, laughing with her as I tried to imagine how it would feel. “I don’t nn-n-know. Pretty amazing, though, I’d think. He’s touched me over my bra, and I feel like I’m on fire when he does that. I can’t even imagine what it would be like b-bare. ”
Nell was blushing as hard as me. “I dare you to let him. ” She met my eyes, serious, but stifling laughter.
I shook my head. “No! I’m not gonna do that on a dare. It’s hard enough stopping as it is. ”
The laughter died in her eyes then, and she nodded her understanding. “It is for us, too. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we have to stop, or we never will. ” She met my eyes. “Do you think you’ll go all the way with him?”
I shrugged. “I can’t say I haven’t th-th-thought about it. I want to, but I’m scared, too. ”
Nell nodded, and the conversation switched to other topics as we tried on more dresses. After six stores, we both ended up with the perfect dress. Mine was a deep maroon sleeveless dress, made of soft silk that split between my br**sts and came up over my shoulders as straps, but left my chest bare from navel to neck, with a gauzy material stretched between the split so my skin wasn’t completely bare. The hem ended right above my knees, and I had a pair of black heels to match a coat that I’d wear over it when outside. It was sexy and daring, but not so skanky that Father would freak out. I knew Jason would love it, and that was all that mattered.
Nell’s dress was much like mine, but in dark blue, a shade that accentuated her fair skin. Hers was a bit more revealing, lacking the semi-see-through material that mine had, and the hem was actually two full inches above the knee. I couldn’t imagine Father letting me wear something like that, and I didn’t dare try.
We attended Winter Formal in January as a group of four, with Nell borrowing her dad’s SUV so we could all ride together. Jason was breathtaking in a black suit, cut tight to his impressive muscles. He had a black shirt with a thin maroon tie the perfect shade to match my dress. His hair was freshly cut, spiked and carefully styled, his jaw shaved down a shadow.
After the dance was over, we all four, plus a dozen of our other friends, crashed a Ram’s Horn restaurant a few miles from the banquet center where the dance had been held. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Jason, even as we both mingled with our friends, our entire school having basically taken over the nonsmoking section. Every once in a while I’d feel his gaze on me, and I’d meet his eyes, startled as always by their vivid green hue. I’d gotten a one-time-only extension of my curfew to two in the morning, but when midnight came around most of the other kids had split off into couples.
Jason had left his truck at my house, so Nell dropped us off there, and we slid into the cold seats, shivering and chattering until the heater had the cab warm.
“So where should we go, sexy lady?” Jason asked me, pulling away from my house.
I shrugged. “The hill?” That had had turned into our code for let’s go make out.
He grinned at me in anticipation, and I felt heat begin to boil in my blood before we’d even gotten there. He made it in record time, even with the snow. He cut the lights, left the engine on, turned the radio down low, and then unbuckled his seatbelt, waiting for me.
I was nervous, for some reason. I shrugged out of my coat, and felt exposed as his eyes roamed my body. Then I undid the seatbelt and slid across the cloth seat until my thigh touched his. My dress had hiked up a bit as I slid over, and the hem was now midway up my thigh.
I felt Jason’s eyes on my thighs, and then his fingers touched my knee. So far, our touch exploration had been from the waist up, but now, with this dress leaving so much of my body bare, I realized all bets were off. It hadn’t seemed so revealing in the store, or even at the dance. It was actually a very conservative dress in comparison to some of the barely there things other girls wore. But yet, this close to Jason, knowing how hard it was getting to stop when we reached that line, I felt nearly naked.
“You’re shaking,” Jason whispered. “You cold?”
I shook my head. “No. Just…nervous. ”
“Nervous? Why?”
I shrugged, not sure how to put it into words. I was silent for a long time, planning it out, and Jason just waited patiently, one hand on my knee, a finger tracing distracting circles at the exact place where knee began to seem more like thigh.
“I’m nervous about us,” I said. “I’m nervous about how kissing you seems to be so hard to stop. ”
“We can go, if you want. ”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to. I suggested we come here because I wanted to. I’m just…nervous about where it’s going. ”
Jason nodded. “We’ll stop whenever you want. ”
“What if…what if…sometimes I don’t w-want to stop? But other times I’m afraid of what w-w-will happen if we don’t?”
“I know what you mean. I don’t ever want to stop, to be honest. But I also don’t want to pressure you. ”
I finally was able to meet his eyes. “Are you ever nervous about…going all the way?”
“I want it to be right. I want it to be perfect. ” He took my hand but left his other on my leg. “I’m nervous about that, yeah. But we don’t have to talk about it now, right?”
I shrugged. “Maybe we should? We can’t keep…ignoring the subject. ” I held his gaze and said the words I’d been scripting in my head. “I don’t want being with you like that to be an accident. I want it to be on purpose. ”
He nodded. “Me, too. Are you ready for that?”
“Are you?”
“I asked you first. ” He grinned.
I shrugged. “Yeah? But no. I don’t know how to explain it. I love kissing you. I love touching you and letting you touch me. I want more. But that…going all way is…it’s a big deal, isn’t it?”
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He nodded. “Yeah, it is, I suppose. And that’s pretty much how I feel. ” He smirked slyly at me. “Maybe we should just…push the boundaries a little, and see how we feel?”
I snorted, and then giggled. “That is such a guy thing to suggest. ”
“Well, I am a guy. ” He glanced at his hand, which had inched up my thigh. “Am I wrong, though?”
Damn him, he knew me. That was exactly what I wanted, to ease into the idea. Get used to it, some. Part of me was full of warning, however, insinuating that just maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.
I ignored the voice and waited for Jason to kiss me. Oh, boy, did he kiss me. His tongue assaulted me, and I loved it. I pulled him closer, and he complied, crushing me perfectly against him, and I wanted to be closer still. Usually I ended up straddling his lap in the driver’s seat, but this time, that didn’t happen. I felt myself falling backward until my back was pressed into the cloth of the seat and Jason’s hot hard huge body was above me, and god…I wanted more. His mouth was on mine, but his hands…god, his hands. They teased and tantalized me. One played on my thighs, touching, tracing, carving, sliding up and down my thighs, but never pushing up under my dress. His other was on my face, at my cheek, curving down my neck to my side, arcing along the outside swell of my breast.
I let go, just a little at first. I pushed his blazer off, and then his tie, tugging down on the knot until it was loose. And then his shirt…yes, I unbuttoned his shirt. That felt so adult, so daring. So like the movies I’d watched with Nell. That, unbuttoning his shirt, I think that was my undoing. It seemed like such a…such a seductive act. His breathing was ragged as we kissed, as I bared his torso, as I played with the now-familiar fields of his pectorals and h
is abs.
More. I wanted more from him.
I spread my thighs apart a little and scooted down closer to the driver’s side so the hem of my dress hiked up. It was a cowardly move, manipulative, rather than just boldly asking him to touch me. He broke apart from my lips and gazed down at me.
“You are so…so beautiful, Becca. ” His breath caught, and, licked his lips. “I…I love you. ”
My breath left me in a whoosh. I hadn’t expected that. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, repeated the words in my head, so they’d come out smoothly. “I l-ll-love you…t-t-t-too. ” I closed my eyes in mortification, because even scripting it out hadn’t been enough. I’d never been so embarrassed. The one time in my life I wanted to not stutter, and I’d ruined the moment.
I felt something hot run down my cheek.
“Hey, why are you crying?” Jason’s voice was soft, and his weight shifted off me slightly. I felt his hand move, and the radio cut off.
I opened my eyes, and his form was blurred by tears. “I…I just wanted to be able to say that back to you without messing it up. But I couldn’t. ” I breathed deeply and tried to will away the tears, but they wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m—I’m so-sss-sorry. ”
I felt his lips on my cheek, kissing away my tears, literally, and my heart squeezed with emotion for him. With love for him.
“Hey, Becca, look at me. ” He kissed my chin, the side of my nose, my lips. “Look at me. ”
I forced my eyes open and wiped them with one hand, knowing I was smudging and smearing my makeup and not caring.
“I don’t mind. I don’t care. ” His gaze was serious and compassionate and so, so tender. “Hear me? I mean it. You don’t ever have to apologize. You stutter sometimes. So what? I’ve known you since we were little kids, and it’s never bothered me. Remember when I punched Danny for making fun of you? I’ll do that to anyone else who gives you a hard time. ”
I breathed hard, trying for composure and not quite succeeding. “Jason…I just…” Another deep breath, and I started again. “I just know that it was a big moment, you telling me you love me. I just—I wanted to be able to say it back without ruining it with my stupid, embarrassing sss-stutter. ”
Jason brushed his fingers into my hair next to my ear and kissed me, soft and sweet. “It’s not embarrassing. Not to me. You didn’t ruin anything. ” He brushed a thumb over my cheekbone. “Did you mean it less because you stuttered a little bit?”
I shook my head adamantly. “No! I mean it, so much. ” I hesitated, forming the words mentally. “I love you, Jason. ”
He smiled at me, and then kissed my worries away. His hand moved back to my thigh and I lifted my leg into his touch, tacitly encouraging him. Now his hand dared up more, to mid-thigh, stopping at the edge of my dress. With one hand, I pushed his face away from mine so he’d look at me. While he gazed down at me, I covered his hand with mine and guided him higher. His eyes widened, and he licked his lips. I put my hands on his arm, his nape, and watched him as he dared farther. Oh…he was nearly to my hip, inches away from my most private center. My entire body was humming, thrumming with anticipation and desire. I could communicate what I felt for him without speaking—I could tell him with my hands, with my lips, with my legs and hips.
“M-more. ” I didn’t even care about the slight block in my voice. “Please. ”
I pushed and tugged at his shirt sleeves until his upper body was naked, and I let my hands roam his skin, barely breathing as he familiarized himself with my thighs, my bare hips. His mouth touched mine, backed away, then dipped to kiss me again. I didn’t know how far this was going to go, but I knew I didn’t want it to stop. I was afraid, yes, I felt that in me coiled around the desire. We couldn’t take back this pushing of lines. Now that I knew how his naked skin felt beneath my hands, I’d never be able to go without it. Kissing would lead here now. It was like falling over an edge; once you lost your balance and began the tumble, you couldn’t stop your descent.
I knew this, yet still I reached up with one hand and, as Jason watched with wide eyes, slid one sleeve off my arm, and then the other. One slight tug would be all it took for me to bare my br**sts to him. He swallowed, and my eyes followed the bobbing of his adam’s apple. I caressed the hard line of his jaw with one hand, and with the other I bared myself to his gaze.
Oh god, I wanted to cover myself. My skin tightened, my heart galloped, and I blinked hard against the nerves and embarrassment. His nostrils flared and his eyes went saucer-wide, and his fingers clawed into my hipbones. I could only lie there and wait for his reaction, for what he’d do, what he’d say.
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“God… Becca. ” His voice was thick, low, rough. “How am I supposed to be able to breathe when you’re so beautiful?” He claimed to be bad with words, but for all that he could be poetic when he wanted.
I could have wept with relief. I wanted to be beautiful for him. I wanted him to like how I looked, to love my body, even if I didn’t all the time.
His hand retreated from my hips and skimmed up my stomach, over my ribs, and paused at the bunched fabric of my dress beneath my br**sts. His eyes swept over my body and then met mine, searching me for visible hesitation or regrets. I arched my back and scratched my fingers over the back of his head, tugging him down to my lips. I needed to kiss him. His kisses took away my fear, my worry that this was too much, too soon. His palm rose up the underside of my breast, and my breath stopped mid-exhale. Then…oh, god, oh, god. His thumb brushed across my nipple, and I felt it tighten, swell, harden, and I could have sworn I felt each individual molecule of air, each cell of his skin as it passed over my breast. His palm cupped my breast, and my flesh spilled out over his hand, the heel of his hand scraping over and pressing in against my nipple. I moaned, electrified, and sucked his tongue into my mouth.
I wanted to touch him, to push the boundaries further. I’d never been so daring, so bold in all my life. I slid my hand down his back—my spine still arched up into his hand as he explored my br**sts with increasing confidence—and traced the horizontal boundary of his suit pants waistband. He had a belt on, a thin, shiny black strip of leather, but it was loosely buckled. My hand slipped easily under the pants, beneath the soft cotton of underwear, and I cupped the cool, hard swell of his ass. His breathing hitched in my ear as he kissed my jaw and then resumed in a quick, shallow pant when I crossed the gap to caress the other cheek.
I couldn’t stop a smile from spreading over my face as I touched him so daringly, my lips curving against the stubble of his jaw and the soft skin of his neck.
“What?” he asked, his voice a low murmur against my clavicle.
“I like your butt. ” I giggled as I said it.
I felt him smile. “Good. I like yours, too. ”
“You haven’t even really touched it yet,” I pointed out.
He nodded seriously. “Very true. How am I supposed to be able to when you’re lying down, though?”
I shrugged, pretending insouciance. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. ” My voice cracked as his lips dared down my chest, hot and moist on my flesh, nearing the swell of my left breast, stealing my thoughts and my breath. “God…keep doing that. ”
His mouth drew nearer and nearer my nipple, and the closer he got, the deeper I drew in my breath, until his lips were a hair’s breadth away from the taut peak and I was holding a lungful of air. I waited, he hesitated, and I caressed the back of his head with my fingers, subtly urging him to continue. His lips closed around my nipple, and my breath rushed out in a long moan. I felt a tugging deep inside me, low in my belly, a tightness, a kind of heated, urgent longing, both physical and emotional.
I withdrew my hand from his backside and carved a line up his spine, clutching the back of his head with both hands as he moved his mouth to my right breast. My awareness of our bodies burgeoned, and I felt his arm like an iron bar next to my face, h
olding his weight with one hand as his other traced along the outside of my thigh and hip. Then I felt it. A hard length against my thigh. I knew what it was. I’d watched True Blood with Jill and Nell. I knew, mentally, how things worked and what was what. Knowing intellectually didn’t prepare you for the reality of it against your leg.
Should I touch him there? Could I? Dare I? I knew, again as an intellectual fact, what happened when you touched a guy there in the right way.
I pushed gently on Jason’s chest, and he lifted up, kneeling over me with one foot on the floor of the cab, the other knee between my thighs. I felt my br**sts tugged to each side by gravity as I lay mostly naked to his gaze. My dress was bunched up above my hips and down beneath my ribs, my red boy-short panties exposed. I felt an embarrassing dampness down there, and I knew the cotton of my panties was soaking it up. I wondered, with a slight sense of mortification, if he could see that wetness, and what he thought of it.
Then I saw the front of his pants, a thick bulge at the zipper. Jason was blushing as I looked at him, and I realized he probably felt the same way about that obvious bulge. It was easy to tell myself that this was natural and normal, but it wasn’t so easy to erase the sense of embarrassment at another person seeing you like that. I felt vulnerable, so nearly naked in front of another person. Suddenly, the reality of what we were doing crashed down around me.
Should we stop?
But still, the part of me that was caught up in the daring, exhilarating rush didn’t want to. The part of me that liked Jason’s body, liked seeing his naked skin, liked touching his body and feeling him react—that part of me didn’t want to stop. I wanted to unbuckle his belt, like I’d seen on TV, and unzip his pants, flick open the button. I wanted to see all of him. I even wanted to touch him there. I wanted to. I wanted to see what it looked like when I kept touching him.
I wanted to go all the way with him.
But then my vulnerability kicked in, and the knowledge of what my parents would do if they knew what I was doing. Desire fought with vulnerability and a tortured sense of right and wrong. Was this wrong? How could it be? I knew I loved Jason. I was sure people would tell me I couldn’t understand what love really was since I was only sixteen, but I knew the feelings in my heart. I was attracted to the person inside Jason’s mind and heart, not just his body. I was in love with who he was. I wanted to be with him all the time. I wanted to help him, I hurt when he hurt, I was happy when he was happy.
Wasn’t that love?
And then, almost accidentally, Jason’s fingers brushed over my thigh and across the joining of my thighs, over my core, over my privates. I felt a bolt of lightning strike me at that grazing touch, and my breath caught, a thick lump in my throat and fire in my veins.
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