“You’re not listening. I asked you something very simple: tell me you don’t want me.”
“I can’t!” I flung my arms in the air, exasperated. “Christ, I can’t say that. Because it’s not true.”
“Then let me do this for you. Let me be at your service, help you get over the uneasiness of getting into bed with a man. We’re a perfect match. It’ll be seasonal, fleeting, and great. Stop letting others dictate your life. Take charge. You earned it.”
Afterwards, Cruz escorted me back to my room, but when we reached my door, he kept sauntering toward the end of the hallway, leading me with him across the burgundy and gold carpet.
I didn’t ask where we were going.
I knew.
And I was game. He was right. It was time I unlocked my sexuality, and what better way to do that than on a ship named the Ecstasy?
This time, when he undressed me, there were no jokes, no banter. He did so meticulously and slowly, keeping his gaze on mine the entire time, his fingers shaking a little.
He kissed my bare shoulders first, then my breasts. My open palms came next—he licked between my fingers, his hot tongue swirling in and out of them—and when he reached between my legs, he licked every inch of me there, sucking and biting.
When I was sprawled in his bed, completely naked, feeling precious and powerful, he circled the mattress like a caged tiger, watching me from all angles. He flipped open his wallet, which was sitting on his nightstand, and yanked out a condom.
“You were going to hook up with someone here, anyway, weren’t you?” I murmured, following him through half-lidded eyes.
“Not one of them would have been half as memorable as you.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“I can’t believe we’ve waited so long,” he replied.
He made a show of rolling the condom over his penis, and I took a ragged, anxiety-filled breath when he poked my entrance.
He kissed my eyelids, then my forehead, then my cheek.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with so much bullshit, but I promise I won’t allow anything you don’t want to happen between us.”
But I already knew it not to be true, because my heart flipped upside down every time he looked at me, and I knew I would never allow myself to have him.
I was too scared.
Too fragile.
He kissed me as he entered me. At first, it hurt like hell, and I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto him for dear life. Even though I should’ve felt pathetic—a twenty-nine-year-old, single mom virgin—he made me feel beautiful, valuable, and rare.
When he began moving inside me, my heart did dangerous, joyous, anxious flips inside my chest, and I was eighty-three percent sure I was having a heart attack.
I rarely thought about it anymore, but what had happened with Rob truly screwed me up. Every time I closed my eyes, flashbacks would zip behind my eyelids.
Rob sticking his hand down my panties and chuckling gruffly as Cruz spotted for us.
Rob sticking it in me while I closed my eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts, because I was his girlfriend, and I wanted to keep him, and Molly Hough told me he would dump me if I didn’t give him the goods before he went off to college.
Rob telling me it’d be okay. That no one got pregnant their first time. And that anyway, I just finished my period, right?
Rob shaking his head when I finally managed to corner him outside his house door, frantic and in hysterics.
“Look, Nessy, it’s nothing personal. I’m just too young, okay? Do what you gotta do, but leave me out of this.”
Tears began to slide down my cheeks.
I was worried Cruz was going to stop, but he didn’t.