Chapter 14 Sexual Differentiation and Development
SEXUAL DIFFERENTIATION AND DEVELOPMENT
*Samantha*
Andreas stared at me as though he waited for me to continue, as though friends with benefits couldn’t be the entirety of my proposal. The way his eyes roved over my face, my neck, my chest—where my heart was hammering—left no ambiguity as to what he was thinking. Or, rather, what he wanted.
Say yes.
The air between us felt thick with tension, the silence heavy. It elongated, pulling the moment taut, stretching it until my nerves began to singe with anticipation. And, honestly, lots of lust. LOTS OF LUST!
Andreas was so sexy, so epically attractive in every possible way.
I wanted him, all of him, so badly. I recognized my suggestion had been a tad reckless.
Feelings—clearly, on both sides—were already involved.
But he didn’t think he deserved me and I was afraid of commitment.
Thus, other than a no-strings, friends-with-benefits situationship, what was left?
Walk away from each other? Call the whole thing off?
I was about to say something—anything, a joke, a question, a dumb comment about snow—when Andreas swallowed hard and rasped out, “I have never done that before.”
He said it like a confession, every word precise and heavy.
“You mean friends with benefits?” I kept my voice gentle, like I was talking to a nervous undergrad on their first day of lab.
He nodded, very slowly.
“What about a one-night stand? Or hookups?”
He shook his head. I felt a jolt of affection for him. He looked both vulnerable and a little resentful. The admission about his lack of experience with noncommitted relationships had obviously cost him something.
Since he’d been vulnerable, I figured the least I could do was meet him halfway. Tilting my head, I studied him and asked, “Are you interested? With me?”
His answer came so fast, so automatically, that it had to be true. “Yes. Of course.”
I smiled, I couldn’t help it, the tension breaking for just a second. I genuinely hadn’t expected that level of urgency or conviction, not from him. Perhaps he’d been restraining himself even more than I had.
Andreas watched me, and I thought I detected—no, I was sure I detected—a note of disbelief as he asked, “Are you interested? In me?”
Instinct, or maybe bad habits, wanted me to tease him.
To drag it out, say something about how he was obviously the sexiest thing in a thousand-mile radius and he knew it.
But if he currently felt even a tenth as brittle as I had moments ago in the living room, I didn’t want to contribute to prolonging his suffering.
So instead, I stepped close and dropped my voice to just above a whisper.
“Absolutely. So, why don’t we give it a try?
Hmm?” Unable to help myself, I pressed a light, teasing kiss to his lips, aware that this was our very first kiss without an audience.
My stomach filled with rainbows and unicorns when Andreas swayed forward upon my retreat, as though his mouth were magnetized to mine.
“We’re both adults,” I continued, whispering, wanting this to be the real secret between us. “I want you. You want me. We already live together.”
He remained silent. But in his defense, he looked entirely overwhelmed. I got the sense he half expected me to take back the offer, or say, “Kidding, this is a joke.” Or maybe he thought this moment might be a dream and he was doing his best to stay asleep a little longer.
I reached up and cupped his face, pulling him gently into another kiss—just a brush, a soft invitation, nothing more. But when my lips caught his, he gasped, and then he took my hand in his, squeezing and pressing it to his jaw as though to anchor himself.
When I broke the kiss, his eyes were wide and raw with emotion and such visceral longing, my heart stuttered. He wanted this. Clearly, he did. So why was he still hesitating?
“Do you want me?” I asked. Perhaps he needed to say it out loud.
“Yes.” It was a whisper, but it might as well have been a roar. “Very much,” he added, as though he couldn’t help himself.
The thrill that shot through me was electric.
I wanted to laugh, to leap into his arms, to do every stupid thing I’d always made fun of in romantic movies and TV shows.
Instead, I withdrew my hand from his face and brought it to the first button of my shirt.
I unbuttoned the first button, then the second, then the third.
He watched my hands with a predator’s focus. Abruptly, with a shake of his head—like he was physically shaking off restraint—he caught my wrists and stilled them. “May we—do you mind if we go slow?” he said, voice rough and uncertain.
My fingers went still on the fourth button. I looked up at him, searching his face. “Not at all.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth again. “May I kiss you?”
“Please do,” I replied, and this time it was me who leaned in, arms going around his neck. He responded instantly, his hands slipping to my hips, then my lower back, and then he pulled me to him, tight enough that I could feel the heat of his body everywhere we touched.
The kiss was different than the ones we’d performed in public.
Softer, but also somehow more desperate.
Desperate in the way one is desperate for air after being underwater for too long.
He cradled my face in both hands, thumbs brushing my cheekbones as though trying to memorize the shape of me.
And I realized there was nothing, absolutely nothing, fake about the way his mouth moved over mine, or how he shivered when I pressed up against his chest. Nor, I further realized, had there been anything fake in our previous kisses.
He’d wanted me just as much then, and my heart cracked a little at how he must’ve suffered, waiting for me, pretending it was all pretend.
I felt his cock grow and lengthen, hard and insistent against my stomach, and couldn’t help but smile into the kiss. When he pulled away for air, his breathing was ragged, his eyes glassy.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” he stammered, as though his body’s response was something to apologize for.
“Don’t be,” I said, and with one smooth movement, I reached down and slid my palm against the front of his pants.
Andreas’s mouth felt open in obvious and silent shock and his entire body shook. His eyes fluttered closed, and for a second, I thought he might actually pass out.
“Do you want me to take care of this for you?” I murmured, grinning at the honesty and intensity of his response, fingers pressing lightly against the ridge beneath his zipper.
His eyebrows pulled together in something close to pain, and he nodded once, dazed.
He was so hot, so wound up, I wondered if it would take nothing at all for him to reach climax. I felt a rush of heady power at the thought, at the evidence of his desire for me. But I didn’t want to overwhelm him; if anything, I wanted to see just how slowly I could make him unravel.
Dropping to my knees was not a move I’d ever considered especially romantic, but for some reason, doing it for him, in this context, felt like doing it for us.
A particular kind of intimacy, one I’d never experienced, where giving meant receiving.
Slowly, I unbuckled his belt, looking up at him as I did, and when I popped the button of his slacks, he flinched, like the sound was a gunshot.
“Wait,” he said, voice strangled, eyes the size of quarters. “What—what are you doing?”
I grinned. “Taking care of this,” I said, echoing my earlier words.
“You don’t need to—you shouldn’t—” he started, but I cut him off with a gentle tug at the waistband of his boxer briefs.
“Give you a blow job? What if I want to?” I teased, stroking my hands up and down his thighs. The fabric was expensive and soft, but the muscle beneath was hard as stone.
He said something then—something I didn’t understand, a series of rapid syllables that sounded distinctly not English. Italian, maybe. I liked the way it sounded, dark and desperate.
Andreas bent down and forced me to stand, pulling me gently by the elbows until I was back on my feet. His face was red, his jaw clenched tight, and he covered his face with both hands again.
This was not the reaction I’d been expecting. This was beyond shy, beyond bashful. This looked like shame.
Holding my hands close to my chest, I asked haltingly, “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but didn’t move his hands. “I have never done that before, either,” he admitted, voice muffled.
I stared at him, stunned. “What? You’ve never received a blow job?” It came out louder than intended, but I couldn’t help it. I was genuinely shocked.
Andreas shook his head, still not looking at me.
Who were these women who weren’t giving Andreas blow jobs? I mean, maybe one or two of his previous relationships would’ve deferred, sure. No shade, no judgment. But all of them? Every single one? How was that possible?
I frowned, unable to let the question go, and was about to ask how many girlfriends he’d had, when another thought occurred to me.
I stiffened, suspicion smacking me across the face like a brick to the brain. “Andreas,” I said, feeling unaccountably breathless. “Andreas, are you a virgin?”
His fingers speared violently through his hair, then laced together behind his neck. He dipped his chin, hiding his face. Silence.
I didn’t know what to say. But now I understood what he’d meant by going slow. He didn’t mean no intercourse. He meant kissing. Making out. Over the clothes. Eventually rounding bases, taking our time like we were new to this.
Because he was.
“I get it now,” I said, softly, stepping closer. “I am sorry. I will go slow. Actually slow this time. Not, Mustang slow, but Cadillac-Fleetwood-75-driven-by-my-grandma-in-the-left-hand-lane slow.”
He didn’t answer but he did huff a laugh. It held humor, but it also held a fair amount of bitterness. He was so tense, so plainly mortified, that I felt a pang of protectiveness.