Chapter 6
Rex
Ten Years Ago
The cool September evening prickles my skin as I stand in the yard looking up at Gwen’s window. Glancing back around the side of the house, I wonder what the hell I’m thinking standing here at midnight when any second I could get caught by either her parents or her sister.
Belle. That girl hates me for reasons I will never know. But that hasn’t stopped me and Gwen from seeing each other these past few months. Keeping our relationship hidden and low-key is probably the only thing keeping me coming back for more.
If you can call it that, a relationship. Or, at least, that is what I keep telling myself when I know I am a damn liar.
All I can think about is her. All I dream about is her. My morning starts and my day end wrapped up in nothing but the all-consuming thoughts of when I can see her again.
I pick up another pebble and throw it at her window.
Nothing. The breeze picks up, and I shiver wishing I had grabbed my jacket from my truck earlier after I made the stupid decision to try to wake her in the middle of the night.
For what? I’m not quite sure. All I know is I need to see her.
Need to have her next to me after my parents didn’t call, didn’t show, and didn’t give two shits about my 18th birthday.
After waiting for Dad to come home or Mom to show up from wherever her escapades took her this time, I grabbed my keys and stormed out of the house.
Gwen had wanted to get together for my birthday anyway, but like an idiot, I believed my parents might show they loved me for once.
You know, care less about themselves for a change.
I guess I was wrong.
I’m always wrong.
Which leaves me constantly wondering if I am wrong about Gwen. I’m terrified of waking up one day and realizing I was right and I should’ve never trusted anyone but myself.
Fueled by bitterness, I pick up another pebble and toss it harsher.
When that doesn’t work, I throw a small rock.
It hits with a loud bang, and I'm surprised when it doesn’t break the glass.
I’m also relieved when her light turns on.
I quickly look at her sister’s window to the right and around the side of the house to see if I have woken anyone else up.
Nothing.
Gwen pokes her head around the curtain in her room, and I make my way to the side of the house and climb up the gutter. Holding on for dear life, I swing myself up on the roof and crawl across the shingles until I reach her window. She pushes it open and holds a blanket around her tightly.
“Are you crazy?” she giggles. “What are you doing out here? I thought you were going to be with your parents tonight?”
Shrugging, I try to balance myself on the roof. “I needed to see you.” The breeze picks up and I shudder a little as chills sweep across my forearm. “Are you going to let me in? Or should I climb back down the way I came?” I tease.
She smiles and pushes the window open a little further.
Grabbing a hold of the window frame, I climb through, and Gwen quickly pushes it closed.
I rub up and down my biceps, trying to warm myself.
She stands back, watching me with a bashful gaze, and heaven help me if my heart doesn’t leap out of my chest from how adorable she looks in her pink and white PJs and blanket.
I’m not sure why she is being so shy. Sure, we haven’t gone there completely, but there are lots of other ways we’ve satisfied each other over the last several months.
I pull her close and she opens her blanket to snuggle me even closer. Her warm body and the blanket are a welcoming change from the cold evening air. I kiss the top of her head and feel my heart stop breaking for the first time since I left home earlier.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Gwen asks.
“No,” I insist. My body stiffens against hers as the memory of what brought me here to her tonight resurfaces. “Besides, I’m too heated. Don’t want to wake up your parents or sister by sorting through the shit in my head.”
“My parents are gone,” she whispers. “They are staying the night at the hospital with my sister. They have to run more tests.”
Even though I know my heart should bleed for her and what I just heard, the tests that are more than likely pointless with her twin sister’s prognosis, all I can focus on is the fact that we are alone. That it is just her and I - and that isn’t about to change any time soon.
“Really?” I ask, nervously. “They will be gone all night?”
“Mhm,” she purrs, pulling me tighter against her soft frame. “They won’t be back until late tomorrow afternoon.”
If her mind is running to the places mine is, this birthday just got a whole lot better in a very short amount of time.
She runs her hand from around my back, lowers it gently, and tenderly grazes the length of my thigh.
I stiffen from her touch, knowing we just might be going there, and I’m not quite sure how to stop us if we do.
Her hand rubs higher, making contact with my crotch, and if I was only semi-ready before, her small hand stroking my hard length has me now completely rock hard.
Her innocent eyes look up at me and I drown in them, drinking her in and letting her own me.
Unable to help myself, I grab the back of her neck and kiss her. My tongue dives into her mouth like a man needing a fix. A fix only she gives me. She grabs me closer as she strokes my stiff shaft through my jeans, and she pushes me to a point I’m not sure I can return from.
Fear takes over—the guilt of making a wrong decision when none has been made yet. I need a distraction. She does, too. But that doesn’t mean this is right. The way I feel about her, though, and the three little words I am scared to tell her, let me know it isn’t wrong either.
I slow our kiss and back away from her. Stilling her hand, I take it in my own. “Gwen, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I tell her, even though every cell in my body kicks me right now for having to do the chivalrous thing.
She shakes her head. “I want to, Rex. I want you to be my first. I’ve always wanted you to be.
Since the first time I saw you waiting for me and leaning against my car after practice.
” Her beautiful smile takes my breath away, and reaches to a place deep inside me that I want so badly to let her into.
Well, hell, if it’s confession time, might as well man up and tell her a truth I bet she never thought she’d hear. “I want you to be my first, too, Gwen.”
Her eyes grow wide. “You’re a virgin?”
I grin. “I’m not such the player they make me out to be.
” I laugh, but deep inside I’m not joking.
I could never use a woman like the whole football team thinks I do.
But it’s hard to run from that image when you’re the team captain, and when the entire town knows the truth about your mother, who’s always warming the stool at the local bar.
I take her face in my hands and slowly lower my lips to hers.
I kiss her slowly at first, like I don’t want to hurt her.
And if we are being honest, we both know what we are about to do will hurt her more than it will hurt me.
She fists her hands in my shirt and pulls me forward a step until I feel her legs bump against the edge of the bed.
Grabbing her ass, I pull her against my throbbing erection. Her soft moan fills the room, and it only fuels me. The blanket drops to the floor, and I lift her shirt in between kisses. Her breasts fall free, and I have to remind myself to breathe as I step back and take her in.
God, she’s stunning.
Her hands run across her bare stomach before her fingers dip into her pajama pants and she shimmies them to the floor. Her bareness. Her beauty. The way her red hair cascades across her nipples and falls effortlessly around her face. It’s fucking breathtaking.
Unbuckling my jeans, I grab the condom from my wallet, kick out of my shoes, and drop my pants to the floor before quickly ridding myself of my shirt. Standing before her in my boxers, her eyes meet my hard cock and fear flashes in her eyes.
I close the distance between us and whisper, “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”
She lays back on the bed and pulls me on top of her.
Never taking my eyes off hers, I grind against her wetness and feel it dampen my briefs with each riveting slide up and down her tempting center.
She moans, and hell if that doesn’t almost send me over the edge without even having entered her yet.
I have never been this close to losing my virginity to any girl.
And if I’m being honest, I am glad I waited for Gwen.
I kiss her slowly, and she nervously kisses me back.
I pull her hips closer as her wetness grows, and my cock strains, needing its release.
She scratches her nails down my back as her whimpers fill the room.
God, if that isn’t the sexiest fucking thing.
Pulling back, I look her in the eyes and still my movements.
“We don’t have to go further, Gwen,” I say, trying to make sure she wants this as much as I do. “We can stop.”
Her eyes cloud with a scared desire as she thrusts up her hips and pushes her wet center down against me. I hiss out in response and hope I don’t fucking climax prematurely.
“No, Rex,” she whimpers. “I want to give myself to you. I want you to take me. I want to always know that you were my first. That this, that us, that it was real.”
My lips capture hers before she can say anymore. Because fuck, what she just said took my damn breath away. This is real, isn’t it? No bullshit, no pretending. Just her and me. For the first time, I feel safe feeling the way I do about her. About anyone.