“Fuck,” he moaned.
I pulled out just in time to watch him cum violently. Smiling, I sat down on the edge of his bed as his breathing calmed a little. He wiped himself off and sat down beside me.
“Sorry,” he said. “That probably wasn’t very fun for you.”
“On the contrary, that was extremely fun for me,” I said.
“Are you sure you were a virgin before me?” he checked.
I laughed. “Pretty sure.”
“Well, it’s your turn,” he said, pushing me back onto his bed and positioning my legs apart.
First, he used his fingers and then he used his tongue until I was moaning and writhing and trying to squash my screams by gritting my teeth together. After I had cum, we lay naked in Jake’s bed listening to each other’s breathing. It was bliss to feel so complete with a man. I had never experienced anything like this before.
For a second, I wondered if this was what Mom felt when she was with Ted. Was that why she was so completely blind where he was concerned? Because if I was feeling what she had felt all these years, I realized that I would find it extremely hard to blame her.
“What are you thinking about?” Jake asked me.
“I’m thinking of sex and love and everything in between,” I replied.
He smiled. “You want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Do tell?”
“I’m thinking that I want to fuck you in the shower,” Jake said, pulling me closer into the circle of his arms. “And afterward, I want to bring you back to this bed and fuck you again.”
I smiled. “That’s ambitious of you.”
“Oh trust me, you haven’t seen nothing yet.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Prove it,” I challenged.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jake
Noah was asleep in his room, and Kristen had left a few minutes ago. Usually, she spent the night and left early morning before Noah woke, but she claimed she had been neglecting her apartment and her friend Melody, and she needed to make amends where both were concerned.
It was surprising and even a little annoying how dependent I had become on Kristen. The moment she had left, I had felt a little pang of loneliness, and now I was sitting on my couch in the living room feeling dejected and slightly sorry for myself. I looked towards the picture of Daphne and smiled at her for what felt like the first time in years.
“Hi, hon,” I said softly. “It’s been a while since we spoke, huh?”
I hadn’t been able to think of her in a long time, and now that my heart had been healed slightly, I realized that my memories of Daphne had changed. At least the lens through which I viewed those memories had changed. They were no longer pierced with pain and sadness. Now I could remember her and see the beauty and the love and the happiness in the time we had spent together. Obviously, each memory was tinged with bittersweet notes, but at least I could appreciate certain things now.
“You were my first real best friend, Daphne,” I said to her image. “After Henry, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. And then I met you, and I found my partner in life. I never thought I’d find myself searching again, but here we are. And to be honest… I think it’s happened again. I found a new best friend.”
Daphne looked at me calmly. She was a beautiful woman, just like Kristen, and I wondered for a moment if they would have liked each other had they ever met. Obviously, the circumstances would have been totally different, but somehow it made me feel better to imagine that they might have gotten along had Daphne been alive.
“She’s an amazing woman, Daphne,” I continued. “I think you would have liked her. And she’s great with Noah. You will always be his mother, but maybe Kristen could possibly hold down the fort for you? You would want that, wouldn’t you? You would want Noah to have someone to love him…like you would have.”
I felt my eyes start to water a little, but I kept going. “I know you weren’t yourself before you deployed. I know that if you’d given it time, you would have wanted to be a mother; you would have been excited. I should have educated myself about what you were going through. I should have been there for you. Instead, I made you feel guilty for not feeling what I thought you should have been feeling. It was my mistake, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am.
“We both made mistakes, Daphne… We were both young and unprepared for everything that happened. And there’s no point trying to sort through all of it now. What’s done is done. What’s happened has happened. All I want to say to you now is…I’m sorry, and I forgive you. I hope that wherever you are, you can find it in your heart to forgive me, too.”