LANA
“Ithought it was probably best to tell you I’m a virgin,” I say in a rush — because I can literally see the color draining from his face. I suspect he’s already cracked the code of my shorthand on that note.
“I don’t want it to change anything,” I add quickly, not wanting him to back out now when he’s absolutely the most perfect guy for the task of de-virginating me.
“But it does directly apply to the concerns I have. With your endowment. I’m glad I put it on the list. We should definitely talk about it. Expectations and such…”
He’s not talking, and he’s still pretty pale. It’s also never a good sign if you can literally see the difficulty a person’s having with something as automatic as swallowing.
“I don’t want you to think you have to be conservative with me or anything.
The thing is, I actually want you to get really into it and stuff.
You know? Like, just get in there and nail me real good — I want that — except I feel like maybe I should have been more prepared for all these actualities.
” I marvel at his very large… everything and imagine all the wonderful moves he must have in his repertoire after forty-two years on this earth.
Except he’s not making any moves.
He’s still. Why is he so still?
I rush to explain myself better.
“I should have gone through the list with you sooner,” I say, acknowledging his imploring gaze.
“I don’t usually jump the gun like this, but the opportunity presented itself, and you’re really hot, so I got all excited by the idea of being a gun-jumper.
But you’re massive — and I like it — I just…
I don’t know if it would have been better if I’d had some practice on a learner dick before I stepped up to the big leagues.
You know? You’re a big-league guy, and I’m me, and I…
I don’t want to give you an inadequate performance.
” I search his face, but I don’t know what to make of his latest expression.
“You’re looking at me funny. Should I shut up? ”
When Bates doesn’t answer, I sense I should probably be quiet too, so I nod. “I’ll shut up.”
He holds up my notepad and taps at the shorthand at the bottom of the list. His voice cracks when he speaks, and he clears his throat before trying again in a deep, demanding tone. “What’s this last one?”
“Do the thing,” I squeak, shrinking a little. “Are you angry? Is it bad that I’m a twenty-two-year-old virgin? I know some people have sex a lot younger; it’s just that I was really busy and most people don’t like me—”
Bates flinches and rears back even more. “Most people are idiots,” he says with a gruff rumble. He gets off the bed and walks into the bathroom.
I wait for several minutes, then I follow him in there and find him with his hands braced on either side of the sink as he’s staring at himself in the mirror.
For a moment I can’t decide if I should address the real Bates, or the one in the reflection. Both of them seem a little haunted. I meet his eyes in the mirror. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that when I’m naked in a hotel room with a gorgeous, twenty-two-year-old virgin, hating myself for how badly I want to do all the things she’s asking of me.”
His voice is low and sort of thick-sounding.
“I don’t want to be a reason you’d hate yourself.” I glance at the door before returning my attention to him. “Do you want me to leave?”
He blinks at me. His gaze follows my curves in the mirror, and he groans softly. His finger taps at my notepad that’s lying at his fingertips with all the lines crossed out, bar one. Doing the thing.
His finger taps the list again. Higher up. He points at the one I crossed out when he said that he would have sex with me. It’s what I would’ve done had he declined. The thing I didn’t want to do, but seems I might have to.
“What does this one mean?” he asks softly.
I fold my arms over my breasts, drop my gaze, and sigh at my feet.
“Lana.”
His scolding tone brings my eyes back to meet his in a heartbeat, and I have the strongest desire to make things better and secure his approval again so he’ll… Fucking dammit — I do have fucking daddy issues.
“Tell me,” he says, tapping the paper again. “What’s arrow, box, FS, dot-dot, squiggle-dee-blah-de-blah?”
I keep my tone as level as my stare. “Escape to my room. Fuck myself, cry, and try to have sex for the first time again in December.” I step back into his room and start collecting my clothes.
Bates watches me from the bathroom doorway. “Lana, it’s March.”
“I know that.” I throw my shirt over my shoulder and reach for my underwear. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I’ll rephrase,” he says carefully. “If you want to lose your virginity now, why would you wait until December?”
“It’s complicated.”
Bates folds his delicious arms over his chest and leans against the doorframe as if he’s got all night to hear me out. “I’m smarter than I look.”
I squint at him. “You look smart… Shit.” My shirt slips from my shoulder, and I pick it up again — twice — too flustered to be more careful and efficient. I stop and take a deep breath. “Should I put my clothes on first?”
“Up to you,” he says, looking me over. “I like you both ways.”
I scowl at him. “You’re confusing.”
“Right back at ya.”
I pull on my panties, but they’re all wet and cold where my arousal soaked them.
I shuck them off again and then look at my jeans.
I don’t want to put them on. It seems too final.
I pull on my shirt instead, securing one button in the middle, so as not to reveal too much or too little of my body beneath. Very noncommittal.
Not wanting to sit bare-assed on his bed, I rest against the desk and then move to lean against the wall next to the window instead.
“Why December?” Bates repeats.
I shrug. “People are more generous around the holidays.”
“You want to lose your virginity with a pity fuck?”
“Of course I don’t want to, Bates. I want to lose it now. With you. I can’t make it any clearer than that. We’re two consenting adults.” I study his face and count again. “Well, one consenting adult, and… you.”
He sighs. “Lana, you’re a beautiful woman with a mission. If you want sex, you could walk into any bar in any part of the world and get it. Why does it have to be tonight? Did the blind date failure hurt your feelings? It wasn’t your fault. Am I meant to be your rebound fuck?”
I miss my notebook. Bates seems to have names for every kind of fuck there is, and while “pity fuck” is pretty self-explanatory, and I know all about rebound relationships from observing my parents, it feels as if sex has a wealth of language I don’t know about, and I might need to start a glossary of terms.
“Well?” he growls.
“If you must know, I’d like to have sex because all my calculations suggest I need to get laid pronto if I’m going to have any chance of achieving my desired milestones and life goals.
If I’m delayed much longer, I might miss out completely on ever being the kind of normal human my family appreciates, and I’d really like to prove that even though none of us can quite believe it, I do, in fact, belong to them.
I also genuinely want to have sex. Contrary to popular belief, I have an active sex drive just like everyone else.
Mentally, anyway.” I rub at the lines etching into my forehead, because that last part doesn’t ring true in my body.
“Maybe even over-active,” I add after another glance at his pretty eyes and invested expression.
He’s hanging on my every word, his attention undivided in a way that makes me feel like the most important thing in his world right now. What better behavior could I ask of a one-night stand? And he’s so… enticing. I hate being on the other side of the room from him, and I want him to know it.
“Since I met you, my libido has sky-rocketed, and I want sex so much more than before. With you, I mean. That part of the equation is critical at this point. The thought of doing it with anyone else feels repellent now that I’ve been in your arms,” I admit, keeping my gaze low so he won’t mistake the desire in my eyes for begging, because I’m not doing that.
I’m just telling him my truth. “The window of opportunity is shrinking with every hour, and it’s unsettling my insides to think that I might board my plane tomorrow still a virgin. ”
I try to get more comfortable against the wall, but it’s too uncomfortable a situation to do that.
“I’m spending the rest of the year working for my dad in a very remote and male-dense work environment, where most of the guys will hate me and the changes I’ll suggest — which is my sole purpose for being there, since that’s what I’ve been employed to do.
The minuscule percentage of available men who might see past that frustration and all my other weird, awkward shit still won’t come near me, because they need the work and their boss is my dad.
It’ll be a miracle if one of them is even brave enough to throw me a fucking wolf whistle.
“And I’ll remind you that you can’t be a rebound fuck when we haven’t actually fucked — but if we do knock boots, it wouldn’t be a rebound situation.
It’ll be because I like you. And I want to share that information with you.
Using my body. So we both feel it — my liking you, that is.
Is that too romantic a notion?” I ask boldly, before rethinking my confidence.
“A lot of my current emotional knowledge on the subject comes from reading smut, which is… fiction. Obviously. Is that not how it works?”
Breathing hard, I search his face and wonder if I should have kept all that to myself.
The hard line of his jaw suggests he’s grinding his teeth, and his eyes are boring into mine so deeply they’re going to pierce right through me.
I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I hope with all my heart that I didn’t just hammer home the last nail in the coffin of furthering my sex education.
Bates runs a hand over his hair in a very slow, deliberate maneuver and continues to stare at me.
I don’t know how to interpret the look in his eyes. It seems somehow both adorable and dangerous, and those two things make strange bedfellows.
Kind of like us.
I may be young and smart, but he’s older and more laid-back intellectually, because time has already turned his knowledge into wisdom.
He’s also rugged, and covered in tattoos I want to trace with my fingers or tongue, and I…
I iron my jeans and make meticulous notes to shave seconds off my every activity so that I can compile those spare moments at the end of the day to go to bed early.
I can’t possibly be his type. I’m not sure I’m anyone’s type.
“I’m not seeking revenge or a rebound. How could I rebound without first having been bound?
Not that I’m asking to be tied up, I just…
Ugh. Can’t I please behave less like my stupid self for a second?
” I ask the heavens before I return my gaze to Bates with a sigh.
“Socially speaking, I have two left feet and a third foot in my mouth, so I know I’m not the ideal partner for a horizontal tango, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting a spin on the dance floor.
It’s obvious I don’t know how to do this, Bates,” I say in all honesty. “What kind of fuck do you want to be?”
“The best you’ll ever have,” he growls, stalking toward me with determined strides on powerful, muscular legs. His thick cock bobs up and down with each step, looking bigger than ever.
Bates picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder like a sack of flour, and an excited and very nervous squeal escapes me. He slaps my ass, spurring another yelp, then he sets me on my feet on top of the bed so I can look down at him.
I meet his dark eyes as he undoes my one button and slips my shirt down off my shoulders. He drops it to the floor and gazes up at me.
“I don’t want to hurt you or scare you. If you want me to stop, or go slower, or get the fuck away from you, then you tell me. You understand?”
I press my lips together and nod.
Bates swears under his breath and looks me up and down. He strokes his cock slowly, as if absently rather than for pleasure. “What gets you wet, Lana? We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
My face bursts into flames. “I… um…”
How do I explain how little I know about my body when I had no idea before tonight that big, bearded, older men with tattoos are my favorite?