Chapter 20
ONE GIANT LEAP FOR VIRGIN-KIND
STATEN
Iwas not about to get it on in a funhouse probably teeming with asbestos, which is what I told Knox.
And then he, ever the problem solver, scooped me up in his arms bridal-style, shoved Mr. Cuddles into my arms, and quite literally sprinted out of the funhouse and all the way back to the parking lot.
No word to his teammates. No stopping. Surprisingly not as breathless as I thought he would be.
The drive to his place was similarly chaotic.
Knee bouncing, thumbs tapping against the steering wheel, a continuous interrogation to make sure this was what I really wanted.
When I said yes with no hesitation, he ran a red stoplight.
We’d successfully turned a twenty-minute trip into ten, and then he was back to carrying me like I’d sprained my ankle, sans Mr. Cuddles.
The minute we stepped foot over the threshold, all rules went out the goddamn window. I’ve always been used to keeping others at bay, but I have to relearn my habits and let Knox in if this is going to work.
I’m already so hot, and the firestorm hurtling through my bloodstream has no intention of slowing down.
We stand in the walkway of his apartment, my back against the wall, him in all his six-foot-three glory towering over me.
Our bodies are so close that one calculated adjustment of my hips would have my cunt rolling over his not-so-little erection.
Honestly, I have no idea how he drove with that thing sticking out like a second gear stick.
One of Knox’s brawny arms shoots out to frame the side of my head, and his other hand occupies itself with caressing my cheek, the stygian darkness from outside budding between slivers in his slightly ajar curtains.
“Can I kiss you, Ace?” he whispers under his breath, his eyes wide and imploring and nearly iris-less given the size of his pupils.
The calloused pad of his thumb trails sideways to brush over my bottom lip. He parts it from the top with a pop, and a responding shiver accordions through my body.
Our world is reduced to a fuzzy dreamscape, my periphery condensed as if I’m looking out a porthole. There’s a reason humans are petrified by the unknown, and right now, the inner workings of sex is where my expertise ends.
Sure, maybe I did have my first kiss with Bernard Shernanberg behind the middle school bleachers midday when the air was too muggy and he tasted of potato salad, but that’s not a memory I tend to revisit.
Besides that, I haven’t been with another guy.
I haven’t touched another guy. I’m as virginal as they come.
I feel like a sacrificial lamb being led to slaughter, but the only thing getting slaughtered tonight is my poor, inexperienced pussy.
However, I don’t let the fear gore me with its thick, curved claws. I shed my nerves and follow Knox headfirst into the fray without worrying about how I’ll find my way back. Because, for the first time in Staten history, I’m not afraid of getting lost.
It only takes five words to change the trajectory of my life.
“Yes, you can kiss me.”
Nothing about Knox’s movements is slow or wary. He doesn’t savor this moment. No, he rushes to taste it in the understandable fear that it may never happen again.
He bends his head before smashing his lips onto mine, and my brain cuts out like bad cell service in the bowels of a dense forest. It’s impressive how much he’s able to accomplish without aid from his tongue, and the kiss alone has me mewling in my throat, my heart rattling against my ribs, and my vision reminiscent of light pillars extending into the eternal night, reflected by a formation of ice crystals that sweep low against a frost-covered ground.
A rare phenomenon fit for an equally rare midnight make-out session.
Knox’s chest presses against my front in the hormonal flurry, the tip of his tongue prodding along the seam of my lips for backstage access.
His palm is still glued to the side of my face—more out of respect than anything—and I welcome him deeper with undying obedience, marrying our tongues together so I can feel every inch of him.
It’s sloppy and wet and obscene in all the right ways.
My hands seek purchase on his upper back, digging into the muscles that have been laced into a knot from a double whammy of both literal and figurative tension.
A foreign and carnal need awakens inside of me—a need that won’t be satisfied until he’s bearing the crescent marks of my untreated territorialism.
I arch my back, yanking him closer than we’ve ever been before, a sick part of me loving the way his distended cock bulges into my belly.
Fuck, this feels so good. This is what I’ve been depriving myself of? Am I crazy?
Even for a second kiss, there’s no awkwardness, no clumsiness. I anticipate his next moves and know exactly where to be to maximize the outcome. I slide my tongue over his with a groan, feeling his physique begin to shake from the bombardment of stimulation.
He lightly dents my lower lip with his teeth and pulls just the slightest bit, a smear of saliva glistening on collagen.
When the tether snaps, I fiend after my next dose with a desire that refuses to be satiated.
A continual hunger rippling in the pit of my belly, feeding off my sensibility while it waits for something of substance to fill its bottomless hole.
“I need more. Please,” I beg, the warmth in my cunt forewarning a painful kind of pressure. I can feel it leak in obedience, a glob of slick lining the gusset of my panties.
Knox grins against my mouth. “You don’t have to beg, Ace. I’ll do whatever the hell you want me to do. You want me on my knees?”
I nod, gritting my teeth so hard that they could crack a wishbone. I’m too afraid to speak. Everything hurts. I’ve felt lust in short spurts, sure, but I wasn’t prepared for ruination to personally show up on my doorstep. And Knox, well, he knows his way around some mutually assured destruction.
He lowers the neckline of my dress, peppering kisses against my clavicle, just barely skirting the tops of my breasts. “Do you want my mouth…on your cunt?” He looks up at me while he asks it, this large, hulking hockey player clinging to my waist with the desperation of a man starved.
Eye contact. Fuck, Knox was right about eye contact.
My legs begin to tremble, and my thoughts hydroplane. If I wasn’t so aroused, embarrassment would tie my tongue. “I—nobody’s ever…gone down there.”
The growly drawl of his voice pitches with surprise. “Nobody?”
I shake my head.
“Fuck,” Knox mutters, the tendons in his neck drawn tauter than a bowstring, the curve of his canines glinting in the all-encompassing darkness. “Do you want me to be the first, baby?”
Baby. I nearly come right on the spot.
I move Knox’s hands up and under my dress, guiding them to the frilly hem of my underwear and letting his knuckles brush against the flat plane of my stomach.
A rumble shimmies up his throat—a man warring with his baser instincts, trying to balance the scales of restraint and losing against a rigged game.
I squeeze my thighs together in hopes of shunting the pain. “Yes. I want, I need…”
“You don’t have to say another word. Just let me take care of my girl.”
Effortlessly, he picks me up yet again—a position we’re both too comfortable with—and carries me to his bedroom, setting me on the bed with a gentleness that blares respect rather than caution. An arctic cold flowers inside of me the same way it runs through crystalline ice and compacted sediment.
I help him slip out of his jacket and shirt, running my hands over his defined abs that I’ve seen on far too many occasions with a DO NOT TOUCH sign splayed on the front. Except this time, I no longer defer from the invisible line that was once drawn in the sand.
There’s a drum beating in my ears, and it spells sin with each drawn-out note, prophesizing the demise of my virginity as I know it.
“God, you’re freakishly fit,” I blurt out, dragging my finger through the divide in his stomach, all the way down to the happy trail that takes on an exceedingly darker color than the brown of his hair.
“That’s all for you. Gotta keep my stamina up if I’m going to last through the night.”
I give him a once-over. “I, uh, don’t think you’ll have that problem.”
“With you? I’ll be lucky if I last three minutes.”
Is he serious?
“Yes, I’m serious,” he insists, a paroxysm of heavy-lidded devotion flitting over his face.
Shit. Was that not an inside thought?
“No, it wasn’t.”
Oh, my poor, poor vagina. She doesn’t stand a chance.
Knox grabs my hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “We don’t have to go any further, Staten. You—we fucking kissed tonight. Do you know how long I’ve been dreaming of this moment? I don’t care if a kiss is all that happens. It’s enough for me. I just want you to be as comfortable as possible.”
“I am comfortable!” I exclaim a little too enthusiastically. “It’s just—my body isn’t used to this much…”
His chuckle—the one dipped in gravel—is so deep it could rend bone. “Stimulation?”
Ironically enough, his voice is just proving my point. I trust Knox. I know that he’s going to take care of me no matter what happens.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s take it slow then. You tell me exactly how you want me to touch you, okay? What feels good, what doesn’t. You run the ship, and I’m just the lucky bastard that gets to hitch a ride.”
I hook my fingers through his belt loop—situating us closer to the headboard so I have a place to rest my head on the pillows—and Knox Mulligan fucking crawls after me.
On all fours, want lurking in the near-black depths of his eyes, the front of his crotch saturated with an abundant spurt of pre-cum.
Knox’s prowess needs to be studied—the way he switches between dominant and submissive is seamless, and he knows when to lean into which to pet the ill-contented beast inside of me.
“Can you spread your legs for me, baby?”