I was done.
When Gia finished speaking, we were both silent for a long time. I could feel her tension, her worry that I was going to be disgusted or angry with her. I needed to dispel that fear right away.
Cupping her chin in my hand, I gently nudged her face up to mine and kissed her, hoping that she could feel every bit of reassurance I was pouring into it.
“Gia. None of what you just told me was your fault. Matt was a sick fuck.” I tried not to swear too often in front of her—I’d been raised that there were words that shouldn’t be said in the presence of a lady—but extreme situations called for extreme measures. “You did the best you could under the circumstances he forced onto you.”
She gave me a slight smile. “I don’t think letting a bunch of football players have sex with me qualifies as doing the best I could. Another woman would’ve called Matt and told him we were through. I went in a different direction.”
“You did it because you were crying out for his attention. You can’t take the blame for this, Gia. He raped you.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t, though. I was willing to have sex with him. I gave consent.”
“You didn’t consent to unprotected sex.” I wished again that Matt hadn’t taken the cowardly route of suicide, because I’d have cheerfully torn him limb from limb. “Were you tested afterward? You were okay?”
She nodded, her head rubbing against my shoulder. “I went to the health clinic at school and was tested several times. And I didn’t get pregnant, either, in case you were wondering. But I did have an IUD put in, because I never wanted to be in that position again. I never wanted anyone to have that much power over me.”
I had worried, and I was relieved to hear it. “What happened with Matt afterwards? Did he have the balls to be ashamed?”
Gia closed her eyes, sagging into me. “I didn’t talk to him or communicate with him at all for two weeks. I needed that time to make sure I was healthy and to work out how to best handle things. I finally decided I had to break it off in person, so I flew down there when I knew Leo would be around. I told Matt exactly what I’d practiced saying: that we were toxic for each other. I told him that I couldn’t do it anymore, and that as much as I loved him, I couldn’t save him. He . . . he begged me not to leave him. He promised wild things, he apologized for everything, and he shouted at me. I got out of there fast. Again. Two weeks later, he was gone.”
I heard the self-condemnation in her voice, and I remembered Leo telling me that Gia blamed herself for Matt’s suicide. “No, babe. That is not on you. Matt was sick, and he didn’t take the help that was offered to him. You said it yourself: you couldn’t save him. Not if he didn’t want to be saved. You understand that, right?”
“On some level, I guess I do,” she said slowly. “But I can’t stop hearing him pleading with me not to leave him. And the night he did it, he tried to call me. I’d left my phone in Quinn’s car by mistake when we’d run to the grocery store earlier in the day, and I didn’t realize it until late that night. When I saw all the calls the next morning, I called Leo. I was on the line when their coach came to tell Leo that they’d found Matt.”
Gia’s voice was flat, and I remembered again the nearly expressionless shell she’d been at Matt’s funeral. Leo had told me quietly that she’d had to be medicated when she couldn’t stop screaming, and her mother, Quinn and Zelda had thought it best to keep her sedated through the services.
“Gia, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hate it, and I wish I could take all of it away from you. I wish I could undo everything that happened to you.”
“Do you hate me? Do you wish that you were with anyone but me?” She lifted worried eyes to mine.
“Never.” I didn’t have to stop and think about it. “Gia, what happened in your past is just that—the past. It’s not the present or the future. I want to be both your present and your future, and I hope you’ll be mine. I’m glad you told me everything, because now you can let it go. We don’t have to think about it anymore.”
Doubt clouded her eyes. “I’m not sure how much I have left to offer you, Tate, but with what I have—I’m willing to try.”
“That’s all I ask.” I ran my hand down her back. “Do you think you could eat now? And then I suggest we turn on some old Friends eps and just curl up to go to sleep. This has been an emotional night for you.”
“But I thought we were going to—” She hesitated over the words, swiping her tongue over her lips. “Make love.”
“We will. But tonight, babe, you’re exhausted. I want to be with you when we’re both ready. Don’t worry. For now, I just want to hold you close all night.”
She nodded. “Okay. I don’t want to eat anything, but I think I could go for snuggling and Friends.”
“Excellent.” I climbed out of the bed and gathered up the food, closing the containers and depositing them in the fridge before I turned off the lights, stripped down to my boxers and slid under the covers with my girl. She had the television on and the episodes queued up.
“Come here, sweetheart. Let me hold you.” I settled her close to me, smiling as I felt her sigh over my chest.
“Tate?”
“Hmmmm?”
“Thank you.” Gia turned her head to drop a kiss onto my shoulder. “Thank you for being so wonderful. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve a man like you.”
“I’m the lucky one, babe.” I relaxed against the pillows, my fingers toying with the ends of her hair, feathering through the silky strands. “Now sleep. I’ll be here in the morning.”
I was dreaming. This wasn’t a new dream; I’d been enjoying it and frustrated by it in equal parts for a long time, though in the last month or so, it had become more detailed and nuanced.
It started slowly and sweetly, with teasing lips against mine and a soft hand on my cock, stroking me gently and yet insistently, never slowing the rhythm. I groaned, moving restlessly in that foggy state between sleep and awakening.
“Gia . . .” I heard my own voice, hoarse with longing. “Gia . . .”
“Mmmmhmmm.” She purred, the sound close to my ear, and then caught the lobe between her teeth. “Who else would be here in bed with you? Who else would be kissing you awake?”
I reached out my hand as I almost always did in my dream, but instead of hitting empty space or a cool sheet, my fingers landed on a warm body. I became aware of a couple of things quickly.
The body I was touching was naked.
The expanse of smooth skin under my fingertips belonged to Gia.
I wasn’t dreaming.
“What’re you doing?” I managed to grind out the words.
She laughed quietly. “What do you think I’m doing?” Her hand tightened a little around me and moved up and down a bit faster. She ran her thumb over the head as a surge of desire pulsed through me.
“I think—I think you’re about to drive me insane.” I curled my fingers around the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to me. “Oh, my God, babe. This is the best way I’ve ever woken up.”
“Oh, darlin’, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” As I opened my eyes a little wider, Gia pushed against my chest to sit up and slung her leg over my hips so that she straddled me. I nearly blew my load right there and then. We’d been engaging in some pretty heavy and intense make-out sessions, but Gia had never done this—she’d never been on top of me. I was painfully aware of the heat of her pussy against the top of my legs as well as of the gleam in her eye as she took hold of my dick again.
My hands skimmed over her hips and stomach to cup her boobs, almost without me planning to do it. I brushed her taut nipples with my thumbs, and Gia arched her back to bring herself closer to me.
“Feels so good,” she murmured. “Do you know how much I love it when you touch me like that? And you look at me like you can’t believe I’m letting you do it.”
“It’s because that’s exactly what I’m thinking,” I confessed. “Why is this beau
tiful, sexy and strong woman letting me fondle her tits? I don’t even know what I’m doing, but if it makes you feel good, I’ll keep right on doing it.”
“It does.” She held my gaze and slid the hand that wasn’t gripping my dick down to stroke between her own legs. “It makes me wet. It makes me ache.”
“Ache?” I couldn’t look away from her hand, moving with languid intention as she pleasured herself.
“Yes . . . I ache to feel you touch me. I ache to feel you inside me. I ache to hear you say my name when my hands are on you. I ache for you, Tate.”
Even as she spoke, Gia rose up on her knees and shifted so that she hovered over my erection. Still staring into my eyes, she ran her tongue over her lips and rubbed the head of my cock over her slick folds.
It was the first time my poor disadvantaged dick had been this close to paradise, and I was pretty sure my eyes rolled into the back of my head. Gia made a noise of satisfaction.
“I want you inside me, Tate. If you have any objections, you should tell me now.”
If I’d had enough mental or breathing capacity, I’d have laughed. Objections? Not hardly. But thinking of something Gia had said last night, I laid a hand against her thigh and gasped out a single word.
“Condom?”
She shook her head. “If you trust me, we don’t need one. I promise you, I have birth control covered, and I haven’t been with anyone since Matt. I’ve had a clean bill of health with every check-up since that night with him. And since you’ve never had sex before, you’re not a risk for me.” One side of her mouth curled up. “Not in that way, at least.”
Fleetingly, I wondered what she meant by that, but then the ability for rational thought fled as she teased her entrance with the yearning crown of my cock and lowered herself a fraction of an inch onto me.
“Say yes, Tate. Say yes, and let me take you.”
“Yes.” The single syllable was strangled as I wrenched it from my lips. With a moan of approval, Gia bent forward, balancing herself over me with her hands on my shoulders and slid me inside of her.
If I’d been able to freeze that moment so that I could describe it to someone else later, I might have said that nothing in my previous experience had prepared me for being inside Gia. My dick was sheathed in her tight channel, and I could feel her surrounding me. She had taken me into her own body, and there was something so incredible about that.
But the truth was that it felt too good to be inside Gia to stop and consider and wonder. She wriggled a little, grinding against me, finding the pace that would bring us what we both craved. I wanted to put my hands and my mouth everywhere at once, but I contented myself with lifting my head to capture the rosy peak of one breast, sucking hard, as I’d learned she liked.
“That’s . . . perfect,” she panted. “Can you touch me? Rub my clit. Oh, God, Tate, you feel so good. You make me feel so amazing.”
I insinuated my hand between our bodies and found the spot that needed my attention. The second I pressed the small bundle of nerves, Gia moaned and sat up a little, giving me space to work my magic and intensifying the friction as she rode me.
“I want to feel you come.” I watched her face, the way her lips fell apart and her eyes drifted closed. “I want to feel you come from the inside. Come on my cock, babe. Let me feel that.”
As though she’d been waiting for me to ask her, Gia bowed back her body and cried out, the orgasm rocking her from the inside out. The spasms within her gripped me, and I couldn’t stop myself from losing control, too, climaxing in an endless crescendo of pure ecstasy.
She collapsed onto me, her breath hot on my neck and her fingers still moving restlessly against my arms, as though the energy we’d just expended hadn’t quite escaped yet. She nuzzled against my chest, and I wrapped her in my arms with the last bit of strength I still had.
“Gia.” I whispered her name like a prayer. “Babe, that was the most incredible—” I swallowed hard over the lump rising in my throat. I wasn’t going to be a total wuss and break down into tears after having sex for the first time, but I could feel emotions close to the surface. It wasn’t just the insanely intense orgasm or the fact that my body was still linked with Gia’s in this intimate way. It was that this morning was the culmination of everything that had been building and growing since the first time I’d seen her almost five years before, and more recently, since I’d found her on the floor in the grocery store aisle. It was us, the two of us, finding our way to each other and to the happy ending I’d been afraid to think we could have.
I wanted to tell her then that I loved her. The words danced on my lips, but something held me back; maybe the fear that she wasn’t ready yet or that she’d rationalize I was only saying it in the afterglow of sex. I had to pick the right time to tell her, but now wasn’t it. Not yet. As far as Gia had come over the past months, she was still healing, and when I told her how I felt, I wanted her to believe me with her whole heart and soul.
Until then, I’d be content to show her my love with every action, every kiss and every glance that passed between us, so that when the time came, she’d have to know that what I said was true.
She lifted her head to look at me, a lazy and satisfied smile playing on her lips. “Look at you, not a virgin anymore. Was it everything you hoped?” She was teasing, but I knew that underneath that, she was looking for reassurance.
“It was all that and more.” I kissed the end of her nose. “Beyond anything I ever dreamed, and I promise you, I’ve had some vivid dreams. You’re . . .” Words failed me. I didn’t have the vocabulary to express how she made me feel. “You’re mine, and I belong to you. That’s something I always wanted and never expected to happen.” I framed her face with my hands, staring deep into her eyes and hoping she felt the depth of what I said. “My Gia, I’m yours. Nothing in the world could change how I feel about you.”
For a moment, I thought she was going to answer me or argue with me, but she didn’t. In the end, she only tilted her head to kiss me before she sighed and laid her head back down, resting over my heart, which was where, whether she knew it or not, she’d been all along.
Now
“Babe, your mom is calling. Again.”
Tate was stretched out on my bed, reading, while I worked on the final draft of a paper for my ethics of journalism class. I’d left my phone on the table next to my bed, and its vibrating had caught Tate’s attention.
“Ignore it.” I scrolled down on my computer screen, checking for a reference I wasn’t certain I’d cited correctly. “You can turn off the vibration so it doesn’t bother you.”
“Why don’t you just answer it? Or call her back?” He marked the page in his book and set it down on the mattress. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“From one point of view, maybe. From mine, no.” I found the citation, added the page number I’d needed and hit save. “If I call her back, I’ll have to explain why I haven’t done it before now, and then I’d have to listen to her gripe about how I’d probably call my dad if it were him trying to get in touch with me. And then she’ll repeat the story about running into a mutual friend of theirs who described my father’s girlfriend’s outrageous behavior and how can I even think about condoning what they’re doing. Which is ridiculous, because aside from both Dad and Isobel being insanely materialistic and elitist, they haven’t done anything wrong. And when I don’t take that bait, she’ll have to tell me in excruciating detail about what’s happening in the lives of my sisters. Finally, when I don’t make enough of a fuss over them, she’ll ask me what’s going on in my life that’s so important I can’t return a phone call.” I stopped for a breath. “By which time I’ll be ready to claw out my own eyes.”
Tate stood up, stretching. “Isn’t that going to happen no matter when you call? You should just get it out of the way. Bite the bullet and get it done.” He set my cell phone on the table next to my computer. Picking it up, I slid it into my back pocket so neither of us had to see if my mothe
r decided to call again.
“You’d think, but no, that’s not how it works. If I ignore her long enough, she’ll have one of my sisters call. Probably Lu, since she’s the one who’s usually given the job. I’ll tell Lu that Mom is making me crazy and that if she doesn’t back off, I’m going to join the Peace Corps and stop shaving my legs and arm pits. Then I call Mom a few days later, and she’s surprisingly well-behaved.” I spread my hands. “And that’s how it’s done.” I pushed my chair back from the table and rose to my feet. “How about we have some of that hummus that’s left over from last night?”
“That sounds good.” Tate came over to me and circled his arms around my waist. “How’s the paper coming? If you want to take a break in a little while, I thought we could go for a walk. It’s a beautiful day.”
I glanced out the window. “Paper is done. All I need to do is submit it to the anti-plagiarism site and print it out. I think I could manage a walk. Want to go over to Fairmount Park?”
He drew circles just below my breasts with his thumbs, the teasing touch making me shiver. “We could. Or we could go check out this neighborhood I was just reading about. Do you know where Point Breeze is?”
I frowned. “I’m not sure. Isn’t it off Washington? Not far from the Italian Market?” Though I hadn’t been raised in Philadelphia, like most others who grew up in South Jersey, I considered it my city, the same way people in North Jersey thought of New York as theirs. I knew it nearly as well as if I’d been born here.
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s bordered by Passyunk on the other side.” Tate bent his head to kiss the side of my neck.
“Why do you want to go over there?” I struggled to keep my mind on what Tate was saying and not what his lips were making me feel. For a guy who’d been a virgin up until a month ago, he sure learned fast. He loved to find new ways to give me pleasure, and like just about everything else he set his mind to, he excelled at it. Although I’d noticed he was careful not to let the physical side of our relationship dominate us—we still went out fairly often, and we still had long and deep conversations on all manner of topics—there was no denying that the spark between us flamed bright and hot.
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