Until it wasn’t. Eventually I craved more contact. I wasn’t sure what. It was a tangible desire for something intangible.
Feeling drugged, my body heavy and aching, I started to turn.
I pushed my chest to his. His eyes were on mine as we breathed each other’s air, our lips less than an inch away.
I don’t even know how it happened, but he was suddenly sitting up and I was straddling him, my fingers in his hair, his hands on my hips.
He was panting into my mouth, and I didn’t know what to do with myself I loved it so much.
He’s finally going to kiss me, I thought in wonder.
I’d been waiting for this for what felt like my whole life. And, at last, it was going to happen.
I didn’t move to him. I wanted him to make the move. I held perfectly still as he leaned that last inch toward me.
The doorbell rang, breaking the spell.
I scrambled off him, cursing in my head. My first kiss ruined by the fucking pizza man.
I was sullen as I grabbed the two cleanest plates I could find and laid them out on the coffee table.
We ate in silence, the movie playing on. I had two slices, Dante the rest. There wasn’t so much as a crumb left by the time he was done. He always ate like that, and it was no surprise with the way he was growing.
He got up, threw the box away, and joined me again on the couch, throwing his arm over my shoulder.
I shrugged it off. I felt my temper suddenly brewing. It felt separate from me at times like this, a storm out of my control. I couldn’t have calmed it if I’d wanted to. I only seemed to know how to fuel it. Every bitter pill I’d ever swallowed was lodged somewhere inside of me, just waiting for these moments.
“So that girl you’re going to marry,” I ground out, voice tight and angry. “Is she nice?” I turned my head to watch his reaction.
He shot me a genuinely baffled look. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Tiffany. Fanny. Your mom told me all about her.”
“What? Who?”
“Tiffany Vanderkamp. Ring a bell?”
He looked no less confused as he said, “That’s the daughter of my mom’s best friend. I barely know her. What on earth does she have to do with anything?”
My eyes narrowed on him, looking for any signs of deceit. “Your mom told me you were going to marry her after you graduate from college.”
His mouth twisted, and he glared back at me, his own temper coming out to play.
It seemed to instantly quiet my own. I acknowledged to myself that some perverse part of me loved to rile him.
“You know my mom is crazy. She was fucking with your head. It’s what she does. I can’t believe you let her get to you. You’re smarter than that.”
My head cleared like I’d been lost in a fog and I was suddenly out of it. He was right. His mother was nuts, and this was just the kind of thing she’d pull whether there was truth to it or not.
“So you know this means she’s going to try to get you to marry that girl,” I pointed out to him.
He rolled his eyes. “Good fucking luck to her. She tries every day to get me to do things. Ask me how often she succeeds.”
I didn’t have to ask. I knew. Seldom, and only when he wanted to go along with whatever it was.
“You really thought I was planning to marry that girl?” he asked. There was a world of reproach in his voice.
I shrugged. “It’s not my business.” I turned my face away.
With a hand on my chin he turned it back. “It is your business.”
I shook my head.
“It is your business, but you of all people know that I don’t want to marry some random girl my mother chose. There’s only one girl I want.”
My heart was pounding so hard I thought both of us could hear it.
Without a word he lifted me onto his lap, turning me sideways, bringing our faces close.
“When are you finally going to let me kiss you, Scarlett?” he whispered to me, both hands cupping my face.
“Now,” I whispered back.
With a smile he gave me my first kiss.
I didn’t know what to do, but it was still good. I didn’t know how to be passive, so I imitated him, opening my mouth, and when I felt his tongue I mashed my own against it.
So good, even with our unpracticed mouths and unsteady hands. It wasn’t long before he shifted me, bringing me to straddle him, our bodies making heavy contact.
Even more than my own pleasure in the kiss, I enjoyed what I was doing to him.
He was moaning into my mouth, his hands all over me, touching my neck, my shoulders, my ribs, all along my sides, then down to grab my hips.
It was wonderful.
It escalated too quickly, I later reflected.
I was so drunk on my first taste of him that I let it get out of hand.
He tentatively touched the side of a breast with his palm, the other still on my hip, moving me, urging me to rock against him, and I did, the core of me discovering the hardness of him and exploring it through our clothes. I felt empty, aching, and hot all at once. And I wanted more.
The hand at my chest stayed there for a while, and eventually I realized he was asking for permission.
With a little suck on his tongue, I took my fingers out of his hair and gripped his wrist, pulling his hand over and onto the center of my full breast, right at my nipple.
I gasped and he moaned as he palmed the aching globe. It was quickly not enough, and I found myself lifting my shirt, pulling aside my bra so he could touch skin.