6. Sunny
I had sex with Oliver Dexter last night.
It’s the first thought in my head when I wake up the next morning. I rub the sleep from my eyes and sit up, my entire body still buzzing with excitement—so much so that I hop out of bed and run to my full-length mirror to see if I look any different.
I touch my smiling lips, which are still swollen pink from kissing him. I tilt my head and spot the faintest hint of a mark on my neck where he sucked on my skin.
This really happened. It wasn’t a dream.
He made me come. I’m no stranger to self-love and have enjoyed many orgasms by myself before last night, but this was on another level.
Feeling the warmth of his skin on mine, inhaling his clean, soapy scent mixed with the salty taste of his sweat, and hearing the pleasure in his sighs—and that look of unfettered desire in his eyes—all my senses heightened as I surrendered myself completely.
Like the sun-kissed ocean surrenders to a summer breeze.
Warm waves of ecstasy rippling inside me.
It was extraordinary. And I can’t wait to do it again .
While I’m still admiring my post-sex-with-Dex glow in the mirror, my phone line rings. It’s him.
“Hey,” I say, not even trying to hide how happy I am that he’s calling me.
“What are you up to?” he asks with a sexy rasp in his voice that causes my heart to pound as wildly as if he’d been talking dirty to me.
I grin at my flushed reflection in the mirror and start fanning my face with my hand. “Nothing really…I just woke up.”
“Me too. Want me to pick you up? My parents are at work. We can hang out here.”
“Yeah,” I say with a smile so wide my cheeks hurt. “That sounds good.”
But it feels different being with him in the daytime, with the bright summer sun streaming in through his window, completely exposing me to him.
And I find myself worrying that Dex—with his perfect abs, and pecs, and delts, and, hell, even his traps are amazing—will really see me now, in the light of day, and whatever spell he was under last night will break.
And that fear becomes more and more real with each passing second, as his mouth travels from my lips to my neck, then around my nipples and past my bellybutton, his body shifting further down the bed, where he starts kissing my inner thighs, then looks up to me for permission.
My heart is hammering. “No one’s ever done that before,” I admit.
“Do you want me to?” he asks.
My mind is going a mile a minute. I do want him to. So much. But I’m scared. We’ve already had sex but, somehow, this particular act seems even more intimate.
Dex can read the ambivalence on my face. He smiles. “Well, I like doing it. And I’m good at it,” he adds, not so humbly.
I already know this because I overheard Jenna talking about it in the locker room, post-prom. But of course I don’t tell Dex that. Instead, I allow my curiosity to take the lead, lean back, and say, “Okay. Show me.”
And— holy shit —he does.
“Wow,” I say breathlessly afterward, a blissful smile emerging on my face. “You weren’t lying. You are really good at that.” I let out a little laugh and stretch out on Dex’s bed, my skin still warm, my heart still fluttering. He lies on his side and kisses my shoulder.
“Well, you can thank Ben the next time you see him,” he says with a laugh.
“Your cousin?” I ask, confused.
“Yeah. He always wanted a little brother, so he kinda took me under his wing,” Dex explains. “I used to call him up for advice before dates. He taught me everything I know.”
“Well, thank you, Ben,” I say with a giggle. Then the thought of Dex with other girls enters my head, and my smile starts to fade. I wonder how many he’s had in his bed. How many he’s made feel this way. But I quickly push the images out of my mind. The past doesn’t matter. He’s with me now.
“Okay, lie down,” I playfully demand. “Time for me to show you what I know.”
I don’t know much at all. With Chris, things progressed quickly from kissing to sex, no foreplay, which I now understand is the reason I never enjoyed it.
And I don’t have an older cousin to call up for sex advice, but I do have a friend at school who told me about a technique she’d learned from a book called Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man .
So I reciprocate. And it turns out I’m pretty damn good at it too.
So good that Dex has to stop me.
“Sunny, wait. This feels amazing, but I want to make you come again,” he says. “I love watching you let go like that.”
My cheeks are red hot as he reaches into his nightstand for a condom. “Actually…I’m on the pill,” I tell him. “So we don’t need to use a condom if you don’t want to.”
I got on birth control as an added measure of protection when Chris and I started sleeping together, but we still used condoms every time. It’s different with Dex, though.
I’m in love with him.
Dex smiles and pulls me on top of him. “I’ve never done this before,” he says. “Without a condom, I mean.”
“Me neither,” I say, smiling back.
We may not have been each other’s firsts, but sharing this particular first with Dex feels significant. I guide him inside me and move my hips, the mid-afternoon sun casting its glow on me like a spotlight.
“You’re a goddess,” he says to me—and I feel like one too, with my long hair draped over my shoulders, framing my breasts, and my lover’s admiring eyes soaking in every bare inch of me.
I don’t feel self-conscious at all anymore. In fact, I’ve never felt more beautiful.
When we’re done, Dex pulls me close and we lie on his bed together, catching our breath and staring at the ceiling.
I’ve been in this space nearly as much as my own bedroom, but never like this.
Naked in Dex’s arms. It feels surreal. To think of the hours I spent here, hoping against all odds that he would look up from whatever play he was reading and kiss me—a mere kiss would have been enough back then—but now, here I am, my wildest dreams come true.
He takes my hand and holds it over his heart. “I feel like I died and went to heaven,” he says.
“La petite mort,” I answer, a smile blooming across my face. “It’s what the French call an orgasm, but the literal translation is little death . I’ve always liked that idea. I just never knew what it felt like until now.”
Dex turns to face me and props himself on his elbow. He coils a strand of my hair around his fingertip and looks into my eyes. “I want to die a thousand deaths with you,” he says.
Later that night, when I’m back home and getting ready for bed, Mia calls me. I can tell right away that it’s not the first time she’s tried to reach me today.
“Sunny! Oh my god, woman!” she exclaims.
I smile, but what else is new. I haven’t stopped smiling all day. “I know,” I answer sheepishly. “I was supposed to call you, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. As long as you have a good excuse,” she says more calmly.
“I have the best excuse,” I tell her. “I was with Dex. ”
“Oh my god, I freakin’ knew it!” she screams. I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “What happened last night? Tell me everything! Only if you want to, of course.”
I giggle and lie back on my bed. I close my eyes, my grin still wide. “Mia…he kissed me,” I nearly whisper.
I hear a high-pitched squeal followed by a clattering sound and some static.
“Sorry, I dropped the phone,” Mia says so fast, it almost sounds like one word.
“So he made the first move, right? I told you he’s in love with you!
Did you guys talk? Did you tell him how you feel about him? How did this happen?”
I start answering her questions before she hyperventilates.
“He told me he was giving me space because I had a boyfriend. And I told him it was over between me and Chris, and then…we just talked. Not about feelings, specifically. We caught up. But things felt different between us. The way he was looking at me…I knew he wanted to kiss me.”
Rip off my clothes and ravage me. It was like a scene out of one of my favorite romance novels.
Mia heaves an enormous sigh. “This is so exciting. So you guys are, like, together now? Dating?”
I shrug. “I mean, it’s only been a day. I don’t think we need to put a label on it yet.” My heart rate picks up.
Mia giggles. “No, of course not. I’m getting ahead of myself. You know me! So, was it just a kiss? Or more? You don’t have to tell me. Unless you want to!”
“We…made out,” I say. “A lot.”
I’m proud of myself for confiding in Mia, but I also don’t feel the need to give her every detail .
Mia inhales like she’s trying very hard not to spontaneously combust. “Okay,” she says as she breathes out. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Not even Evan. Not until you’re ready. But when you are, let me know. We can plan a double date! Can you imagine? Oh my god, so fun! Okay, I’ll stop now.”
She’s getting ahead of herself again, but the idea of me and Dex hanging out with Mia and Evan as a pair of couples makes me giddy. I used to daydream about that in high school. And now, just maybe, my dreams are coming true.
“Goodnight, Mia,” I say, still grinning.
It’s the best summer of my life. Me and Dex, and lazy afternoons on the beach, the smell of Banana Boat sunscreen baked into our skin.
Air-conditioned matinées on scorching hot days, followed by long walks with ice cream.
In the evenings we have dinner with his parents, just like we always did.
And it’s even sweeter this time, because I’d been so afraid of losing them too—when I thought that I’d lost him.
But all is right with the world. I’m part of their family again.