“No I’m not.” I never wanted to hurt her, especially her first time, but admittedly, it turned me on to know I was breaking her in—that we’d spend a lifetime fitting ourselves together. “I’m not too big and you aren’t too small,” I repeated, “because my body was made just for yours.”
“Erase it for me,” she whispered.
It killed me that in that moment, she was thinking about the women—woman—who’d come before her. If I thought ending things with Tiffany now instead of later would make this easier, maybe I would’ve, but I owed Tiffany more than a phone call from her sister’s apartment. All I could offer was to make Lake feel good. I wanted to do that above all else. “I can erase it. I can fuck it all right out of you. Just say the word.”
She nodded. “Do that.”
I twitched inside her just remembering how she’d asked for it earlier to cover up her timidity. Her virginity. Which now belonged to me. It was my own fault she’d waited this long, but I couldn’t say I was sorry about it. Once, I’d wanted her to stay that untouched girl. Not anymore. Now, I wanted those words she’d swallowed and saved, as much as I wanted to be the only man to ever get them. “Do what?” I encouraged.
She lowered her eyes. The flush that crept up her chest turned my rock-hard erection to steel. She wasn’t the same girl I’d met six years ago, but I hated to admit that her innocence still turned me on as much as anything. So many times I’d restricted my fantasies that it had become a sort of game for me. The things I couldn’t have. I’d get so overcome with my need for Lake, that some nights, picturing Lake was the only way I’d get off.
“I can’t say it again,” she said. “I’m too embarrassed.”
“Mmm.” I angled to kiss her neck, her collarbone. “I tried so hard not to corrupt you, and now I don’t plan to do anything but. You don’t have to ask me for anything this morning. We’ll get there.” Reluctantly, I drew back from her. “But first we need a condom.”
Lake chewed her bottom lip. “Maybe we should just . . . I mean, do you really think I’d get pregnant?”
Well, fuck. I hadn’t expected her to say that, and it made my erection rage harder. I’d thought a lot about having kids in a big-picture sense but the primal urge to procreate was specific to Lake. In other words, I wanted to put a baby in her now. I had no desire to put a layer of anything between us. But one urge of mine trumped all others—protect her.
“Until you and I are here and settled, we gotta use a condom,” I said, internally cursing myself. I’d lost control earlier, and as goddamn heavenly as it’d felt, I couldn’t put Lake at risk again. “So I better tear myself away and go find a convenience store.”
Lake scooted to the edge of the counter and used her foot to open a kitchen drawer. Amidst loose batteries, chopsticks, and a laminated Blockbuster card laid a chain of Trojan packets. “Good thing Val likes to have sex,” she said.
“Good fucking thing indeed,” I said, picking them out of the junk pile. I was about to tear one off, but instead, I palmed the whole string of them, picked Lake up off the counter, and carried her to the bedroom. I’d had enough of this cold, soulless kitchen.
“Should we leave any for Val?” she asked with a half-smile.
“Nope.”
I set her down. I wanted to watch her put the condom on me, but not now. I was too eager. “On the bed,” I said.
She slid back on the mattress, watching as I ripped a packet open with my teeth and rolled on the condom. As I secured it, I had to admit I liked the apprehensive yet rapt look on her face.
I crawled over her until she was on her back, noting how her lips were already reddened and roughened from my mouth. I catalogued her freckles as I kissed my way over her right shoulder, down to her elbow. I turned over her forearm, touching the faint crescent scar from a kitten bite, and pressed my mouth to the thin skin of her wrist. Her stomach rose and fell. I inspected the lines of her palm, the downy hair on the backs of her knuckles, the delicate pink of her fingernails. I laced our hands together, turning them over.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.
“I want to know all the ways you fit me.”
“Why?”
I put her right arm back and started on the left. “Does it feel good?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then let me do it.” I was learning her. I’d have the rest of my life to do it, but I was greedy. I wanted to know now. I’d been confined by my imagination all these years. No more. If I touched her and she twitched, or her nipples stood a little taller, or her hips bucked, I’d tuck that information away for later.