I almost lost my virginity.

Ha! Lost is a funny way of putting it. More like threw it like a hot potato.

Dex was seriously hot. I mean, there was this way about him that stole my breath.

Made my knees weak and my panties wet.

Eww. How cliche.

I liked to pride myself on being anything but mainstream but my hormones were playing a wicked game of Let’s Procreate and Make Beautiful Babies! So much so, that it was a struggle to remember why it was a bad idea to lose my virginity to the man hired to kill me.

Yeah, let that sink in for a minute.

The. Man. Hired. To. Kill. You.

Right. Bad form.

Actually, Dex had the most amazing male form I’d ever seen.

Drool-worthy.

And I wasn’t typically a drooler when it came to men. I didn’t go bananas over hot firemen or body builders.

To be honest, too much muscle on a man made me nervous.

I preferred an intellectual man.

I think.

I chewed my lip as I searched my database for past attractions.

Let’s see, there was...Eddie — super smart, legs and arms like matchsticks, and a terrible complexion — but man, he’d had charisma off the charts.

He hadn’t liked me the way I’d liked him (story of my life) but he had kissed me once.

Then there was Miguel, also mega smart but quite possibly borderline on the spectrum because his social skills had been nearly as blunt as a plastic knife.

And that was about it.

Not a lot to choose from.

Neither of those guys had ever made me feel breathless.

Or wet.

My cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the mere thought of how easily I turned into a sexual faucet around Dex.

Would it be so bad to lose my virginity to someone like Dex?

I mean, aside from the obvious stigma of losing it to a man who killed people for a living, of course.

Let’s just put that point aside for a minute...

Sex with Dex.

I giggled at the silly rhyme but only to cover the nervousness rattling my spine.

But what if...he didn’t want to be with a virgin?

He was probably used to sleeping with women who swung around on stripper poles installed in their bedroom or swinging like a monkey in heat from a sex trapeze.

I could only imagine how disappointed he’d end up being with someone like me who’d never even watched much porn.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew the mechanics of sex (huge Game of Thrones fan) but I was a little hazy on the details.

Where was my G-spot? Would he know how to find it? What if I didn’t have one?

Wait, all women had a G-spot, right?

Maybe I was overthinking things. I knew how to give myself an orgasm and while I liked them well enough, the pleasant tingles that drifted across my nerve endings, leaving me relaxed and mildly sleepy, were hardly anything to go to war over.

Maybe I just wasn’t very sexual.

Even if I could talk myself into believing that theory, the evidence was pretty damning. With Dex, the wild feelings driving me were unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

And the way he looked at me — as if he were barely holding himself back from nailing me to the wall — I couldn’t lie, left me hot and aching.

What would happen if we went all the way?

Another nervous giggle.

All. The. Way.

The latent teenager in me — the one who never got to experience backseat gropes and passionate kisses behind the school bleachers — was itching to make up for lost time.

Wait.

Are you forgetting an important detail?

I frowned at the querulous tone in my brain.

Such as?

Whether or not Dex wanted to screw me or not, did not negate the fact that someone wanted me dead.

Oh, that. Talk about a mood-killer.

Dex was right in that if I didn’t find out who was after me, I was as good as buried because eventually they would catch up to me.

And, by proxy, Dex.

What if Dex got hurt because of me?

I’m sure Dex could take care of himself but at some point, even the most skilled let their guard down and I couldn’t live with myself if Dex got killed over me.

The world needed Dex’s DNA out there.

Ack. There go my procreating hormones again...

Back on topic...my gaze drifted to my jeans, knowing that a pair of hairy legs were hiding beneath that denim.

And a bushy bush.

Why hadn’t I been more interested in girlie stuff like waxes and stuff like that before now?

Because the idea of paying someone to rip my hair out by the root in the most sensitive spot on my body wasn’t high on my priority list.

Another thought came to me. What if he didn’t like my vagina!

I read that there are all different kinds and shapes.

I had no idea what mine was but what if it was the kind he was grossed out by?

I considered unzipping my jeans so I could examine my nether regions but what if Dex returned and found me, pants around my ankles and me trying to ogle my lady parts?

Dread at all the horrifying scenarios that could possibly happen pre-coitus crowded my thoughts.

This was why I was still a virgin — the details were overwhelming.

It was a wonder the human species had survived this long.

If it were up to me, given how riddled with anxiety I was, I would be the end of life as we knew it.

Maybe this was the sort of thing a girl talked to her mom about.

Or not.

I didn’t know.

My mom died when I was a teenager.

She hadn’t been the most communicative — definitely an artsy type.

What I remembered most about my mom was her penchant for staring off into space, paintbrush hanging idly from her fingertips, forgotten, and a Sarah Mclachlan CD playing.

In case it wasn’t clear, my mom had suffered from depression.

So, not really sure that sex questions would’ve been in her wheelhouse.

I often thought my mom had been born in the wrong era.

She was much more suited for the Victorian age, where she could be pampered and petted and basically treated like an expensive China doll on display.

I frowned, wondering, not for the first time, how my mother had paid our bills.

An artist by nature but certainly not a businesswoman, my mom had treated the necessities of life — grocery shopping, paying the electric bill — tiresome.

Which was why I did those things as soon as I was old enough.

Could it be that my mom had pissed someone off in her art circles?

I suppose anything was possible but the idea was truly far-fetched.

Frankly, I think my mother orbited another planet...or dimension.

So unless she’d pissed someone off in Narnia, I couldn’t imagine my mom interacted with another human being in a way that would warrant killing me in revenge.

And, even if it were some kooky revenge plot, they were way late.

My mom had died quite some time ago and was likely some really distracted angel up in heaven, dreaming about things I’ll never understand.

Much like she had on Earth.

My sinuses tingled.

Oh, crap. I knew better than to think about my mom.

#Unresolvedissues

I shook off the melancholy and dragged my thoughts back to Dex and the issue at hand, even if it was maddeningly impossible to figure out.

I climbed from the bed and walked into the single bathroom. The cracked tile was in the same poor shape as the rest of the house and a layer of dust covered everything.

Let’s see what Dex considers completely stocked...

Opening cupboards, I noted extra toilet paper (good call), towels, and (aha!) toiletries.

Travel size soaps and toothpaste, extra toothbrushes, and, lucky me, disposable razors and shaving cream.

I’d hit the Motherlode.

I could weed whack my legs and trim down the unruly bush to some semblance of chic and then, maybe I could greet Dex on the bed, all sexy-like, saying something along the lines, “Take me, big boy!” and let him plow my virginity into oblivion.

Yeah. So sexy.

Okay, so I think I already admitted I knew nothing of seduction.

But even as I bantered back and forth with myself on the best way to attempt at being sexy, the sound of Dex coming through the front door had me dashing from the bathroom in a panic.

With the razor still clutched in my hand.