Halfway Girl (Girl 2.5)

“I’m yours.”

The sweetest words I’ve ever known are muffled by my shoulder, but I hear them. They pass through me like a bolt of lightning and make a bonfire out of my heart. The love inside me and the pleasure riding me into the ground combine forces—and something breaks loose inside me. My lower body jolts, stomach shuddering. A bellow gathers in my throat as pleasure I didn’t even know was possible takes me over in cresting waves. It hurts. It hurts the way my balls wrench up before emptying and I lose vision, my arms wrapping around Birdie to keep me grounded. Violent, blissful ripples travel through the deepest parts of my manhood and Birdie rides me through every one, whispering in my ear praise I never expected but needed. Yeah, I think I needed it.

“You big, gorgeous man. So good inside me. So deep. Come so hard for me, Jerimiah.”

That roar I’ve been trying to trap inside me busts loose and I tip my head back to let it out, yanking Birdie forward on my cock, needing to give her body that final spurt of pleasure/pain. And then I collapse back against the wall, rain falling on my face as Birdie snuggles close on my chest, our bodies still joined until I remember to exercise safety and shift my hips, sucking in a breath as my still-at-half-mast dick slips free. My arms close around her automatically, she sighs my name and I can’t believe I have the privilege of holding her.

It takes a good few minutes for her to tense up and I sense maybe Birdie is still fighting a battle to keep her distance from me. But I’m not going anywhere. I let her know that by rubbing circles into her back, massaging her scalp…until she falls fast asleep on top of me.

Hating the idea of waking her up, I do realize we can’t stay here forever.

“Birdie. Beautiful,” I murmur in her ear. “Which building are you in? I want to take you home to sleep.”

When she sighs back her dorm location and room number amongst mutterings about beauty pageant costumes, I ease my guilt by swearing I won’t show up at her dorm uninvited.

Starting tomorrow.

I pick Birdie up in my arms and tuck her face into my chest, using my body as a shield from the rain as I carry her back to her dorm. When I knock on her door, her roommate slaps a hand over her mouth to trap a shriek.

“Is she dead?” the roommate whispers.

Those words alone make my heart plummet, but I manage a tight head shake. “Sleeping.” Ignoring the girl’s obvious trepidation, I step into the room and place Birdie on the bed covered in rumpled black sheets, knowing without confirmation that it’s hers. There’s a picture perched on her small nightstand depicting Birdie and two adults—one bearded man and a petite blonde woman—in scuba gear. Another photo sits beside the first, of Birdie and a girl who looks a lot like her, save some major differences. Birdie’s eyes are quiet with a thousand thoughts behind them and her sister is throwing herself in front of the camera like a sacrifice. For all their differences, it’s obvious they love each other very much.

In front of the picture, there’s some loose change, some round-rimmed sunglasses and a notebook…with my name doodled in the margins.

At least forty times.

It’s a wonder the pounding of my heart doesn’t wake her up.

She might be scared of what’s happening between us, but not too scared to consider me. To think of me. I leave her sleeping to go to finish the mural, then I head to my football game with a chest filled with hope. And not a small amount of fear that Birdie is stubborn enough to let her fear win.

Chapter Five

Birdie

It’s dark when I wake up.

My hands fly to my boobs because the last thing I remember is having them plastered against Jerimiah’s chest and mooning over how good it felt. As far as I can tell, he is not in this pitch-black room with me, but I turn on the lamp and search anyway, as if my six-foot-a-thousand lover might have accomplished the impossible feat of hiding himself.

Nope, though. Not here.

My hands drop to the sheets bunched in my lap, unable to tell if I’m relieved or disappointed. Oh yeah, right, Birdie. Stop lying.

Fine. If he were here, I’d be cuddling him like a giant teddy bear. I’ve never fallen asleep so easily in my life and I must have slumbered through being carried back to my dorm and put to bed like a toddler. And I know why, too. During that stolen time with Jerimiah behind the mural, I escaped my own head. Thoroughly and completely. My usual insecurities didn’t exist. I was absorbed in Jerimiah and the way our bodies moved like they’d been crafted from the same mold. Designed to please the other. My sore muscles and the still-sensitive flesh between my legs is proof of that. While Jerimiah was inside me, I was lost to everything but him. Us.