14. Colton
fourteen
Colton
I ’m proud of myself. She needed an orgasm—badly—and I gave her one.
She doesn’t want to be my girlfriend, so I didn’t try to take advantage.
God knows I could have. It wouldn’t have been taking advantage at this point. It would have been giving her what her body was screaming for.
I’d never really understood the meaning of the expression “hungry eyes”. I do now, having seen how she looked at my cock that was threatening to break free of my briefs.
Thinking back to what happened minutes ago, I grip the remote so hard I might break it. Spending four hours in the truck with her is going to be pure torture. I tried to scrub her scent off me in the shower, but the memory is stronger. It won’t let go. I knew it wouldn’t, but I’m a glutton for punishment, so I dove right into her sweetness and fed on it, drank from it, inhaled it, studied it. I can map her from memory if I need to, from her perfect perky tits to her hipbones to her center. From the way she shivered when I kissed her earlobe and the way the shake went straight to her spine when I licked my way down the side of her neck. From the way her fingers clasped on my head when she finally let go—let all her troubles disappear and gave in to me.
It’s going to be hard not to beg her to give into us. We would be so good together. I could make her so… happy. I know I would. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can make someone’s life better. Fuller. I’d worship her. She’d never have to call these people family again. I’d be her family. We’d be a family.
Maybe she’ll change her mind.
I rub my face in my hands. I can’t go down that path. It’s not what she wants, or she would have said so.
None of this friends with benefits bullshit.
The bathroom door opens, and I feel her stop inside the room. I give her three seconds to say whatever’s on her mind. Then three more.
When she doesn’t speak but still I feel no movement, I mute the TV. “Ready?” I say.
“So…” she starts.
This is a good start. She’s shy. It rips me apart, but in a good way. I always knew Kiara’s bravado was a front. A wall. A protection.
I’d just never really seen Kiara shy. Uncertain. Vulnerable.
I turn the TV off to show her she has my full attention. Then I stand to face her. She’s a little flush, but that could be from the shower. Her towel-dried hair falls in free curls around her face, something I’d never seen before. It gives her an angelic air that I’m sure she’d hate if she only knew.
Kiara works so hard on being a devil.
“Yeah?” I ask, trying hard not to stare at her nipples pebbling under her tight sweater. Instead, I check my phone, pretending to look at the time.
“I was thinking…”
Oh this is good. This is very good. I pocket my phone back and look at her. I don’t know what to do with my hands. It’s too soon to draw her to me and kiss her and tell her how long I’ve been waiting for this moment. So I shove them in my jeans pockets and tilt my head to the side. “Yeah?” I can’t help the smile that spreads to my whole face. She’s so fucking adorable.
It’s pretty simple, really. I love her. I’m not going to tell her—I’m not an idiot. But I’m going to savor every moment of her coming slowly into herself as she sees how good I am for her.
This is the story I’ll be telling our grandchildren. The way she shyly lifts her eyes to me, ready to ask me to take the next step, will be seared in my memory until I take my last breath. So yeah, when I’m old and wrinkly, I’ll be telling our grandkids how stubborn their grandma was, and the merits of my patience.
It’s going to be a fun story, one I’ll perfect over the decades.
For now, I watch it unfold, remembering how upset she was when I wanted to be her boyfriend. How she avoided me for weeks. How she didn’t even want me to come here with her. We know how that went.
“You were thinking?” I prompt her. I’m patient, but come on.
She sits on the bed, one leg folded under her. “Here’s the deal.” She licks her lips and frowns. “We’re friends, right?”
I nod.
“And well… you just proved what a good friend you are.”
I’m not sure where she is going with that, or that I like the usage of the word friend back-to-back, but I can’t help but smile at the memory of how I proved my friendship .
“You’re welcome,” I say, maybe a little too smugly.
She doesn’t acknowledge me. She picks at something on her lap, probably nothing at all. “I’m in a pickle,” she finally says.
“Okay.”
“And I think you can help me.”
I shrug. “Sure, anything.”
She takes a deep, shaky breath, then lifts her gaze at me. “I’m a virgin.”
Holy shit, that explains a lot. Thank god I held it together, earlier. For a moment there, when I went down on her, I thought she was going to pull me to her, and I wouldn’t have resisted if she asked me to fuck her.
I sit on the bed and lift my fingers to her curls. Their texture astounds me. Without the product she puts on to make her hair stick up like shards, they’re soft as silk. “I’m glad you’re telling me,” I say, not recognizing my own voice. Kiara’s vulnerability is hitting me hard, in the best way.
And then I realize: she’s had no other men. Although none of this will make it in the story I’ll tell the grandkids, my heart swells. If she’s ready to give herself to me (which I think is what she’s getting at), it confirms that she wants to build something with me.
I take her hand in mine and rub my thumb on her palm. A little bit of pink tints her cheeks. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I tell her.
“I’m not ashamed,” she answers a little defensively, slipping from my grasp to pick at her cuticle. “I just… thought I could ask for your help.”
I’m not sure what help she’s talking about. Does she need explanations? She knew exactly where her relevant body parts were, and how they factored into the whole experience, earlier. “Sure… what-what do you mean? What kind of help?”
She takes a deep breath. “I thought maybe, with us being friends… like… intimate friends…”
I’m getting irritated at her usage of the word friends , but I give her the space she needs to tell me what it is that’s bothering her so much. “Yeah?” I say softly to encourage her.
Another deep breath and she lifts her beautiful eyes to me. “I thought we could, like, you know…” She takes a deep breath and the rest comes out super fast, “sleep together just once so you could get it out of your system and I could get it over with.”
Years ago, Owen Parker dared me to jump into the Emerald Creek right after the ice had broken. It must have been March. The edges of the river were still frozen, the ice hanging onto the banks. The middle was raging with spring melt. I was at that age when my brain wasn’t fully formed—far from it. When I hit the water, I didn’t feel anything other than a huge weight constricting my chest, and a force so powerful I could barely move my limbs.
Today, sitting on that bed with Kiara asking me to get it out of my system—so she could get it over with— I feel worse.
Way more stupid. Way more blind. And maybe really this time, dying.
I bolt from the bed and go to the window. Big fat snowflakes are twirling to the ground. Maybe we should skip brunch and make it home before it gets worse.
“Colt?” Kiara asks, her voice small.
I can’t bring myself to be angry at her. Staring at the window, I say, “You should be in love with the man who takes your virginity.”
I hear her huff behind my back.
Turning to look at her, I add, “It’s… it’s too intimate for a friend to do, Kiara.”
She stands, runs her hand in her hair, and goes into the bathroom, leaving the door open. “And what you did earlier wasn’t intimate?” she shouts.
The whole place doesn’t need to know what’s happening here. I leave the window to stand at the bathroom door. She tilts a bottle of hair product, fills her palm with foam, then spreads it all over her soft curls. “What’s the difference?” she asks, her voice lower now that our gazes are meeting in the mirror.
The difference is I thought something was happening, earlier. When she took comfort in my embrace when her sister was being bitchy. The way her body relaxed into mine, like I was all she needed. The way she didn’t swat my hand away once Maya was gone but instead leaned on me.
The difference is from the tender and passionate way she played with my hair when I made her come, I thought we were really going somewhere, the two of us, without saying the words.
The difference is I didn’t think I was being used—not to that extent. Just a tool to pop her cherry.
The difference is I hadn’t fully admitted to myself the depth of my feelings for her.
“It’s just not the same,” I end up saying.
“They say you never forget your first time,” she says with a playful smile. “This way I’ll never forget you.”
At least the river wasn’t twisting a dagger in my heart.