The Virgin Gift

by Lauren Blakely

  19

  Nina

  And so I was there. I’d reached number nine.

  Goodbye, V card, hello other side.

  I was walking down the Jetway to a plane that would whisk me to another hemisphere. One foot in front of the other.

  I sat up in bed, lifted my arms over my head. “Will you take my shirt off?”

  “Yes.” He rose too, reaching for the thin fabric and whisking it off me in a flurry. He groaned when he stared at my breasts.

  He brushed his fingers between them, running them along the curves. “I didn’t spend nearly enough time worshipping these beauties last night,” he said, shaking his head like that was a damn shame.

  As he cupped them, it seemed like a shame to me too. My nipples hardened under his touch, and I arched into his palms. “Maybe my list needs addendums,” I said softly, playing with that idea. I hated the thought of completing the to-do list.

  “Maybe it does,” he said, then he drew me in for another kiss.

  His tongue skated inside my mouth, and his lips felt hot and desperate. Like he was taking this kiss for the road.

  Like it would be our last kiss.

  My shoulders sank at that prospect, and already my chest panged with missing this.

  This connection.

  This kind of touch.

  Now that I’d had it, how was I to go without it?

  I didn’t want to return to the land of nothing. I wanted to stay here, tangled up in hot, sweaty, mind-altering bliss.

  But the list wasn’t about my future. It was about my present, and that was where I needed to live, and to live fully.

  I shoved all thoughts of tomorrow out of my head and surrendered to the power of his kiss. To his passion. To his need. My back bowed as he kissed the breath out of me, just the way I wanted.

  When he broke the kiss, his hazel eyes were rimmed with longing.

  But it didn’t feel sexual, strangely enough.

  And he didn’t gaze at me like the dirty after-dark man I’d discovered he was over these last two nights.

  He looked at me as my friend, as the man I trusted, the man who cooked for me and needled me over fun facts. The man who had a key to my home.

  But in a flash, the familiarity of the last few years vanished.

  His irises shone darker now, with a look that was becoming familiar too, in its own way.

  His bedroom eyes.

  He shifted behind me, sliding a hand from the small of my back up my spine, sending shivers through me. When he reached my neck, he scooped my hair away, brushing kisses along my skin, then nipping. “As much as I want to spread you out on your back and have you wrap your legs around me, that’s not what I’m going to do. Know why?”

  “Why?” I asked, knowing the answer, but loving the game, savoring the questions.

  “Because that’s not what your list is about. You’re not a missionary girl, and I am going to take you the way you want. Fuck me hard, fuck me good, fuck me for the first time,” he gritted out, reciting the words from my list.

  “Oh God, yes,” I said, sinking deeper into the moment.

  “And you know how you want it. You scripted it. You wrote it down.” His hand curled around my neck, gripping me tighter.

  I gasped, knowing what was coming. “I want it that way. I want number nine.”

  His mouth found my ear, and his voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it before. More demanding. “Then say it. Say it out loud. Tell me how you want me to take you for the first time.”

  I shuddered, drawing a deep breath, needing fuel to say the words. But when you’ve spent all your sex life in your head, detailing your fantasies, building them, crafting them, and creating worlds around them, it turns out it’s not that hard to give voice to them at last. “Push me down on the bed. Pin me in place so I can’t move. Do it hard. And do it now. Please, Adam, do it now.”

  The sound that rumbled up his chest was animalistic. It was obscene, and it thrilled me. His desire rocketed mine to another level.

  The pulse beating between my legs turned into a needy throb, an insistent ache to be filled.

  “Say it again. Beg me,” he ordered, pushing my face into the pillows.

  My knees were tucked beneath me, my stomach arched, my breasts flat against the bed, my cheek against the pillow. I was under his control, and I was outrageously wet.

  I wanted him to know how much. To see my desire. “Please, Adam. I’m begging you. I want you so much. I’m so turned on. I’m so wet I can’t take it.” I craned my neck to look at him, no easy feat since his hand was curled around me, pinning me in place. “Please.”

  His eyes turned feral. “One more time, dirty girl. Give it to me one more time.”

  My body shook with desire. I ached everywhere, desperate for him to slide inside me.

  “Please, Adam. Please!” I cried out.

  And that was enough for him.

  With his hand still wrapped around my neck, he moved between my legs, pushing my knees wider so they were tucked alongside my body. I was his. His to enter, his to have.

  I was giving him myself, and he was going to take me to the other side of desire.

  He rubbed the head against my wetness, and I ignited. A moan fell from my lips.

  “You’re so wet, dirty girl. So soft,” he said, praising me.

  I’d miss that too when it was gone—his praise. Because his bedroom compliments sent me to another world, and I was already living on an erotic cloud nine.

  Maybe this was cloud nine thousand.

  He pushed farther, breaching me, the head inside me. I tensed. This was it. My God, this was happening. I wasn’t working a vibrator; I wasn’t sliding the rabbit inside me. The real thing was different, so damn different.

  And wonderful.

  “You okay, baby?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” I said, then willed myself to relax again. I wanted this more than anything. “Don’t stop, Adam. Please don’t stop.”

  “Never.”

  He pulled back, and I was empty for a second, but that second ended when he thrusted deeper, filling me a few more inches.

  I felt my body stretching, adjusting.

  Welcoming him.

  Because that was what I wanted. To welcome him inside my body. All the way.

  “More,” I whispered, so eager, even if it hurt the slightest bit.

  “You want it all, dirty girl? You ready for all of me now?”

  “Yes,” I said, breathless, trembling, my whole body brimming with need.

  He lowered his body, covering me, then brought his lips to my cheek. “Then take it, baby. Take all of me.”

  And he thrust all the way in.

  I cried out. From the momentary slice of pain. From the sensation of being stretched to the limit. But before he could even ask if I was okay, and I knew deep in my bones that he would, I cut in. “I’m good. So good.”

  And I could feel him smile against my skin, his voice soft as he whispered, “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  Then he moved in me, pulling back, pushing in, finding a pace, following my cues.

  They weren’t hard to read. I was an open book, moaning and groaning and panting out yeses and just like thats and oh my Gods.

  At one point, he pulled out so far that only the tip was still in me, and I squirmed, begging for more of him. “Please,” I cried.

  And he delivered the most devastating thrust, filling me to the hilt, bottoming out inside me. He was so deep in me that it was as if we’d always been doing this, always been coming together. “Oh God, Nina,” he groaned, sending a new wave of pleasure crashing over me.

  It was the first time he’d said my name when we were naked. And I heard so much in it. Wishes and wants. Needs and desires. Or maybe I just wanted to hear that.

  That had to be it.

  I wanted to believe he felt the same things I did. That wild horses were running away with his heart too.

  Maybe I needed to feel it in this
moment.

  And because I did, I needed something else entirely.

  As my body sparked, I whispered his name against the pillow then asked a question. “Can you flip me over? I want to be on my back.”

  He stilled inside me.

  He didn’t answer at first. Only breathed hard, his cheek against mine.

  He relinquished his hold on my neck, freeing me to move my face closer to his. I offered him my lips, believing in a new fantasy.

  Believing in the possibility of us.

  He drew a gasping breath, then he crushed my lips in a fierce, passionate kiss that felt so out of this world I wanted to cry. From the ecstasy of a kiss like that.

  Seconds later, he broke the kiss, sliding out of me smoothly, then shifting me to my back.

  In that position, I parted my legs for him. Wide, open, ready.

  Yes, this was my new dream. To have him like this, where I could let myself fall deeper into the make-believe. Into the fantasy that we were coming together on another level.

  I reached for him, lifting my arms to his shoulders, around his neck, bringing him closer.

  I never thought I’d want sex like this.

  This ordinary, normal, everyday position.

  But it wasn’t a want. It was an aching need.

  And he filled it as he filled me, gliding back inside seamlessly, stretching my body to the limits.

  He met my gaze, and the look in his eyes staggered me. The intensity, the passion written in them matched everything I felt inside.

  Or maybe I was imagining it. Maybe I was writing that for him. Yes, that had to be it. I was creating a new fantasy and weaving it around us. I’d do well to remember it was only in my head.

  I had to listen to my body, so I did.

  As instinct took over, I wrapped my legs around him, and he swiveled his hips, rocking deeper. Our bodies melted together; our sounds mirrored each other. As we moved like this, in perfect harmony, I ran my fingers up the taut muscles of his back, over his toned biceps, and across his neck. I was committing the feel of him under my fingertips to memory.

  I’d want to recall this moment forever, I was sure.

  My hands became my camera, snapping shot after shot of him through the lens of touch.

  And as pleasure radiated through my cells, sweeping across every molecule, the enormity of my choice flashed before me like a neon sign.

  The sheer magnitude of the real choice I’d made echoed relentlessly inside me. Not the one to give up something I’d held on to dearly for twenty-four years.

  But the choice to have sex with my friend.

  Because it wasn’t just sex anymore.

  It wasn’t a list now.

  I was no longer ticking boxes, because as he lowered his body to me, his elbows at my sides, his chest slick and hot against my breasts, his lips inches from mine, I knew.

  That to me—this was making love.

  Awareness flipped a switch in me, and my body tightened as impending bliss coiled inside me.

  “Adam, I’m . . .”

  I couldn’t finish.

  There were no words.

  I was there, flying over the cliff.

  “Yes. Come for me, baby. Come for me now, Nina,” he urged, and I fell apart beneath him, shattering into a million beautiful pieces as pleasure, radiant pleasure, flooded my veins.

  And he chased me there, thrusting and pounding, losing himself too. Calling my name, endlessly over and over, until he was quiet and all I heard was the pounding of our hearts, beating together wildly.

  Dangerously.

  I had fallen in love with him. I’d broken the rules of engagement, and I’d have to fix that and fix it fast.

  The list.

  Focus on the list.

  20

  Adam

  I’d like to say that was unexpected.

  The intensity. The passion. The soul-shattering intimacy.

  But that’d be a lie.

  I knew when I walked in here tonight that sex with Nina would be the most spectacular thing I’d ever experienced, and the hardest too.

  Because how was I supposed to return to the way we were?

  My chest ached for her. My mind wanted to engage with hers all the time. My arms longed to pull her into an embrace, and my mouth yearned to pepper sweet kisses over her cheeks, her eyelids, her hair.

  That was the risk.

  The risk we were supposed to avoid.

  Hell, a mere twenty-four hours ago, we’d established the rules of engagement. They were crystal clear. The list. Os. Friendship.

  Done.

  That was it. That was all. We’d mutually agreed on the endpoint, and now we’d arrived at the moment when we were supposed to walk away.

  In two nights, we’d worked through her whole list. My God, we were voracious, and the thought made me laugh unexpectedly.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, and it occurred to me this was the first thing either one of us had said post-sex.

  And I was still inside her.

  Yeah. Time to deal with that issue.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said, easing out of her, then heading to her bathroom for a washcloth. After warming it up under the water, I returned and cleaned her up, then myself. I set the cloth in the hamper and returned to my gorgeous beauty, who radiated bliss.

  She glowed from head to toe, and I wanted to kiss her all over, from her toes with their emerald-green polish to her thighs, all smooth and lovely, to the hollow of her throat.

  I ran my fingers over that spot, the divot in her neck. Such a vulnerable place on the body. Pressing a gentle kiss there, I answered her, “What made me laugh is how big our appetites are.”

  She chuckled beneath me. “Come to think of it, I haven’t had dinner.”

  I raised my face, set a hand on her stomach. “My fault. I’ll need to rectify that soon with paninis, melting cheese, and fresh mushrooms.”

  She let her tongue loll out like a dog.

  “But what I meant was—we raced through your list, Nina.”

  “My God, we were ravenous creatures, weren’t we?” she asked, and seemed to fix on a smile, her voice turning more chipper than I’d expected in this moment. “I was just thinking about the list too. How we plowed through it.”

  “We get gold stars for speed of execution,” I said, wishing we weren’t talking about the list but rather what comes after it. Or what could come after.

  She tapped my nose. “No, Adam. I should give you gold stars all around. You made my dirty dreams come true.”

  The moment turned surreal.

  Seconds ago, she’d been keening beneath me, breaking apart, calling my name.

  And now that was all it had been.

  A dirty dream.

  A filthy fantasy.

  Her list was a bucket list, a project to shed her virginity so she could focus again.

  And here on the other side of her innocence, we’d resorted to what we’d always been.

  Pals.

  Joking.

  Talking.

  Having fun.

  We weren’t sharing sweet nothings or whispering confessions of unexpected emotions.

  Get it together, man.

  Besides, how the hell was I going to tell her what I wanted? Did I even know? This Mack truck of feelings had slammed into me from out of nowhere, and I honestly wasn’t sure how to sort them out.

  Or, at this point, if I should.

  Maybe we were well and truly done, with number nine under our belt.

  Best to focus on that.

  “You were a model student,” I said with a grin, because now wasn’t the time to let on that I wanted more than her list.

  Or the moment to tell her that tonight never felt like a checklist item for me.

  Yes, sure, technically we’d achieved her mission.

  But, in doing so, something else had unfolded for me.

  Something that wasn’t on my list, or hers.

  That was the trouble.
Falling wasn’t on the agenda.

  And I didn’t have a detailed plan for how to deal with it, how to broach it, or what the hell it would mean for us.

  I focused on number nine instead, because it was easier. Running my fingers down her arm, I asked, “What did you think of number nine, sweet girl?”

  Her lips curved up. “I’m ‘sweet girl’ now?”

  I dotted a kiss on her nose. “You’re always sweet to me.” There, that was honest.

  She ran her fingers through my hair, nibbled on her lip, then said, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For doing that for me.”

  My brow creased. She was thanking me? I didn’t want thanks. I wanted her. Moreover, I wanted her to want me the same damn way.

  Not in a thank you for your service kind of way.

  I needed to devise a plan, to figure this out.

  But how was I going to figure it out this close to her, when I was inhaling her sweet smell, drinking in her intoxicating scent?

  “You don’t have to thank me,” I said, and I didn’t know where I was going next, but I was going somewhere. “I wanted to do everything with you.”

  “You did?” Her tone pitched up, rising with hope like it had earlier when she’d asked if I’d liked going down on her.

  Rap, rap, rap.

  I blinked.

  What was that?

  The knocking sounded again.

  She jolted out of bed, scrambling to her bureau, grabbing a T-shirt. “My door. Someone is here.”

  “Just ignore it.” But as soon as I said that, the knocker called out.

  “Mr. Larkin, it’s David from City Painters. Just need a tiny minute of your time.”

  I groaned, my head falling back on the pillow for a long few seconds of frustration. I swung my feet over the bed, left the bedroom, and found my briefs, jeans, and T-shirt. In seconds, I was dressed, my phone in my pocket, and I answered the door.

  David smiled proudly at me, his craggy face pleased. “We finished. Come see it. It looks fantastic.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Appreciate that. I can see it tomorrow.”

  “No. You have to see it tonight. My men can’t clock out till the client gives approval.”

  I gritted my teeth, sighed heavily. “I’ve no doubt I’ll approve it.”