“No promises.” I kiss his shoulder and close my eyes.
27
Ethan
The next morning, I wake up with Abigail wrapped around me. I tip my chin so I can look down, and I see that her head is on my chest and her arm wrapped around me, her hand tucked into the waistband of my boxers. Wilbur pecks my elbow from his side of the bed, and I look over at him.
“What?” I hiss. I really don’t want to move. I want to stay wrapped in this cocoon of comfort. It has been a long time since I’ve been cuddled, and I am absolutely loathing the idea of moving.
“Does he need to go out?” Abigail asks, her voice sleepy and quiet. Her breath moves across my chin as she lifts her head to look up at me. Abigail’s hair is curly and all over the place on a normal day. But now, it’s sticking up in wayward strands of curls at odd angles. She frowns when she sees my smile. “What?” She sits back a few inches and furrows her brow. “Why are you smiling?”
I pull her back to me, because two inches is suddenly too far away. “Your hand is in my shorts.” I whisper. I flex my abs so that her hand wiggles. She jerks her hand back.
“It was not,” she cries out indignantly. Her voice is hoarse, and her nose is stuffy from sleep.
“I beg to differ. Your hand has been in my boxers for at least the last three hours.” I remember because I was going to get up to go pee, but I didn’t want to move her. Instead, I just went back to sleep. “You’ve been molesting me all night long.” I certainly wasn’t complaining. “First it was my abs, and then you stuffed your hand up my shirt because you said your hand was cold.” She’d rested her hand directly below my nipple. Then it had taken that final dip into my pants. And there it had stayed. “Then you went straight for the D.” I pull her closer and roll to face her, holding her against my chest. I grab handfuls of her curls and brush them back from her face, settling them behind her. “This hair has a mind of its own,” I say with a laugh.
“I need a haircut,” she murmurs as she tries to flatten some of the fly-aways with the palm of her hand.
“Don’t get one on my account. I love your curls.”
“I’ll straighten them out a little later today, after I wake up.”
“I love your hair.” Seriously, if she didn’t have her curls, I’m not sure she would be Abigail. “Are you feeling better?”
“Much,” she replies, her mouth so close to my chest that I can feel the heat of her breath. “My skin doesn’t hurt anymore. And my throat’s not hurting.”
I press a kiss to her forehead, lingering there longer than I should with my lips pressed against her skin. “Good.”
“Sorry I violated you in your sleep,” she says. She wraps her arm around my waist, hugging me tightly. Her hand slips into the back waistband of my shorts and stays there, just hanging out.
“Are you grabbing my ass while you apologize for grabbing my dick?”
“I did not grab your dick,” she says, but she giggles.
At this very moment, the head of my dick is pressing toward her, trying to slide past that waistband. “It’s my story. I can tell it however I want.”
She leans up on one elbow. “Can I ask you something?” She stares at me, watching my face.
“You can ask me anything.” And I mean it. She can ask me anything.
“How long has it been since you’ve had sex?”
I choke on my own spit all of a sudden. I gasp, trying to catch my breath. “You went straight for it, huh?”
“Did I offend you?” Her brow furrows with worry as she sits up on her bottom and looks down at me. “I didn’t mean to. It’s not really any of my business. I never should have asked.” She waves her hands in front of herself like she’s frantically trying to stop me from answering, all of a sudden. “Forget I asked.”
I grin, completely charmed by her reaction. Her cheeks are bright pink, and her eyes are wide open as they dart around, looking everywhere but at me. And I know, in that pure moment of chaos, that I am head over heels for this woman. I am gone. So far gone that I’ll never get back.
I grab her hands so she’ll stop flapping them. “It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t mind.”
“I really don’t even want to know,” she rushes to say. Then her voice gets quieter, and she says, “It was just in my head and then it came out of my mouth and I’m so sorry.”
I grin again. “It’s okay.” I was being honest when I said I didn’t mind. “I don’t mind. I promise.” I take a deep breath, preparing myself so I can spit out the answer. “It’s been since before jail. So, more than five years.” I scratch my nose, suddenly uncomfortable with my answer. I don’t know why.
“That long,” she says, her voice solemn. She nods slowly. “That’s a long time.” She gets a little wrinkle on her forehead. “So, when you got out, you didn’t go looking for…you know…you didn’t want to go find…someone…?”
“Someone to fuck?”