Shipwrecked & Horny: A What Could Possibly Go Wrong Bad Boy Romance (Bad Boys After Dark Book 10) by Gabi Moore (38)

On the day I lost my virginity, I also lost my first pair of knickers.

A tired baby blue and white number I had had since High School, it wasn’t exactly a vision of sexiness, but I mourned it all the same. It had an obnoxious Snoopy print on the crotch from the days I thought that kind of thing was cute. But I was sadder to see it go, somehow, than I was to be rid of my virginity. My friends spoke about theirs as though virginity was a tangible thing, a precious, squidgy, lace-and-cotton thing that they were holding onto and waiting for that special day to fling it at a guy on a stage, or wrap up in white lace and deliver to some man wearing an obedient smile and a rented tux.

But me? I just wanted to be done with it already. I wanted to be fucked. I sat in my first year law lectures and zoned out, practicing the words in my mind, trying them on for size. Fuck me I said in my imagination, to an imaginary boyfriend who conveniently had no opinions. I want you to fuck me I would say, which seemed so scandalous on its own that I seldom bothered to flesh out the rest of the fantasy. My idea of sex had been badly pieced together from Cosmo sex articles and my own embellishments on stories I had heard from a handful of friends. In these classroom daydreams, I was a vixen wearing leather, or a Hot Babe in Victoria’s Secret with beach ball boobs and a drum-tight belly.

But on the day I actually lost my virginity …I was neither of these women. I was wearing my blue and white Snoopy knickers, and a cotton dress, and my hair twirled up in a messy bun. Looking back, I can see how this might not have been the crime I thought it was, but at the time I felt myself to be an awkward mix of hormones and inexperience, and that it must be more or less obvious to every male within a 5-mile radius.

“Christy, stop all that studying would you? You’re making me look bad.” My friend Tara had blustered into our dorm room, and was furiously putting on mascara and changing her shoes at the same time, getting ready to go out. I grumbled something back but she stared at me. “I’ve got it! You should come with me. There will be boys there, but I think we can manage without adult supervision, can’t we?” she said, laughing and wiggling her eyebrows at me.

Twenty minutes later we were in a pretty suburban house crammed full with every flavor of teenage rebellion – somehow I had already finished one beer and mysteriously had another in my hand. Perhaps adults were no less awkward than teenagers, but just tipsy more often? I was enjoying myself, I realized, someway through the second (or third?) beer. I wanted to show Tara that I could have fun, too. I wasn’t some predictable nerd who studied too much. In fact I--

“Your life line is like, really long.”

A scruffy boy sat opposite me on the couch, my hand in his hand, examining the lines on it almost as hard as I did my law text books. He was cute, in a scruffy kind of way. Had I seen him around campus? It was hard to tell. There were probably a million scruffy boys just like him enrolled in classes in any one year.

“That means you’re going to have, like, a long life, you know?” he said.

It was getting later, the music was getting louder, our friends were getting drunker. I had read somewhere that pretending to read a girl’s palm was a great excuse to touch her …and hit on her. My head buzzed a little. Why not now? Why not him?

“You also have a really deep love line, which means…”

Here he locked his soft brown eyes with mine, smiling shyly at me. He flicked his eyes back to my palm, smiled and stroked my fingertips with his. I watched a small vein pulse in his neck. I had rehearsed tons of imaginary conversations with imaginary boys in imaginary situations just like these. In my own mind, I was like a female James Bond, unflappable, never more than a few seconds away from a devastatingly witty comeback. It was clear to me all at once, though, that James Bond probably wasn’t ever as drunk as I currently was. Ok, Christy. It was now or never.

I took a deep breath. “I want you to fuck me,” I said. The room buzzed.

Well, there it was. I said it recklessly, easily, but once the words were out there, hanging in the air between us, I realized that I kind of, maybe, might actually mean it. He immediately stopped stroking my hand. My cheeks burned. Oh shit oh shit what have I just said? What if he thinks I’m an idiot? Oh shit. We locked eyes again. It was something even more terrifying: he was grinning.

“Well, that was awkward!” he said, leaning back into his chair and laughing. I felt like I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. I flushed a deep red. He tossed a shaggy brown fringe out of his eyes and stood up tall.

“But yeah, nice and blunt. I uh, I like it.” He extended his hand and helped me up. “Come with me” he said, leading me out of the room and through a tangled clump of people who were standing around, drinking, laughing, being completely oblivious to the fact that I was about to…

There they were, being all civilized, fully clothed and polite, meanwhile all this time there was a secret world underneath everything, and I had accessed it easily with the simple, naughty words: I want you to fuck me. It was like abracadabra, but for sex. Turns out, you didn’t need witty comebacks at all!

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

Had I always been this close to it all along, nothing but these words between me and …”it”? I followed him up some dimly lit stairs, realizing with half-panic that there seemed to be something hot and warm moving down my inner thigh.

In an instant we were in a quiet, dark room, the thumping music of the party below seeming to become more indistinct and fuzzy. He leant against the now closed door, and pulled me closer to him. I was tipsy and fell into the pillow of his scent, nestling into his scruffy brown hair. He was so soft and yielding in some places, so taut and firm in others. Drunk, my mouth easily found his, and without really noticing, he had transformed from a shy, nervous boy into someone more forceful, each of his big hands firmly around waist. I relaxed into him, overcome by the distant memory of soap on his skin and the warmth my hands found underneath his shirt. His body felt so lean and tight under my hands; he seemed strong and animal, like the kind of thing you’d find on an ancient Grecian urn in a museum titled “youth.”

“You remind me of a horse,” I said. He burst out laughing.

Oh God, oh shit, I’m such an idiot, do I have to be such an idiot all the time?

“Um, ok? Christy, you’re a fucking weirdo. But I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, smiling cheekily, pulling me firm against his crotch. The ache between my legs was so strong I couldn’t help but instinctively move my hips forward to answer his.

“Say it again” he said.

“You’re a horse?”

He giggled. “No, stupid. What you said before.”

He said this pleadingly, and so quietly it was though he only wanted the nape of my neck to hear. This time it was easier. I rolled my body against the growing bulge in his jeans, pressing my waist against his chest.

“I want you to fuck me,” I said again. I seemed to mean it more every time I said it.

And the words were magic. The instant I uttered them his entire demeanor shifted. With a surprising urgency, he unzipped and dropped his trousers. His cock sprung out at me, hot, silkier to touch than I had imagined. His mouth was again on mine, swallowing any chance of me saying something else idiotic. He was kissing me deeper now, cradling the base of my neck in hands that started to seem so much bigger, so much manlier than they had a moment before, on the couch.

He stroked his hand down, under my dress and into the cotton of my soon-to-be-gone-forever knickers.

A single finger hesitated there.

“You’re so wet,” he said, and before I could respond his fingers were inside me.

I wanted to scream. The entire room faded away, leaving nothing in the universe besides us standing there, his hot breath against my neck and the feeling of my wet body responding to his fingers. My head was spinning. He stroked gently in, gently out again. His breath was growing more urgent. His cock pressed warmly against my belly, waiting; were all of them that big? How on earth was all of that going to fit in?

“Say it again” he said, thrusting his fingers deeper still, pinning me hard against his body.

Something delicious was radiating out from his fingertips, sending shuddering ripples through me. I felt incredibly, almost painfully hot. I leaned further into it, into him.

“Fuck me” I said, and this time it was me that sounded desperate. Pleading even. I wanted it. In my hazy mind, one thing was clear: I needed his dick, all of it, in me. Now. I squirmed closer to him, asking with my body.

“What’s that?” he said playfully.

“Fuck me” I said again, adding, “please” realizing for the first time how truly hungry my body could be for something.

And he did. Slowly, the head of his cock pressed me open, and as the length of him slid in, I threw my head back with a gasp, overcome with the sheer weight of it, with how limp and yielding my entire body became around him. He plunged slowly in, till the skin of our bellies met. He held me firmly like this for a moment, still, and I swear I could feel his heart beating through his cock, through me. The dull thudding of the music went on below us, my own heartbeat was pounding in my ears, and I felt my whole world swell and grow with each inhale of his, each exhale of mine. He moved slightly inside me, and I felt my pussy respond.

He was big.

It stung, but with a pain that grew and fanned gently out into my body, becoming a delicious, syrupy thick sensation of heat and pleasure. He moved again inside me, like something beckoning me to play. I moaned and grasped him tightly, rolling my hips and pulling him even deeper in. It was a revelation. I loved this. I wanted more. I wanted to worship this cock. I wanted to go the rest of my life with this glorious thing wedged deep inside me, I wanted this blissful haze to never--

“Christy? Christy, where the fuck are you?”

Tara. A sharp, cold voice coming from downstairs, breaking the spell. I dimly saw the outline of a smile curl across his lips. My skin prickled. Laughing, he gripped my hips hard and began thrusting swiftly into me. I was completely overcome by this change in pace, still unbelieving that my body could accommodate him at all. I cried out, my heart threatening to burst free of my chest. What if Tara found us? Something hot and wet was gathering right in the core of me; he was moving rhythmically now, unrelenting, and a giant quivering bubble was swelling and growing deep inside me, threatening to burst all over him any second.

“I’m …I’m coming,” I squeaked and heard him growl in response; he rammed once more into me, nearly lifting me off the floor, and shooting a hot stream inside me. His entire body seemed to curl around mine, enveloping me. I felt his every shudder and twitch as he sent spurt after spurt of warm cum into me. A hot wash of goosebumps flashed across my skin, and I followed by coming myself, hard, scarcely maintaining my balance, gasping against his chest, now slick with sweat.

“Christy? Christy! We’re leaving now with or without you.”

I heard Tara’s voice coming closer. She sounded belligerent. His cock flopped smoothly out of me, and he tucked it back into his jeans, still wet. I had never been so petrified in my life, yet he looked at me with laughing eyes. “Looks like you’d better get a move on!” he whispered, hurriedly pulling my cotton dress back down around my hips.

“I’m coming, Tara, just a second!” I yelled through the door and kissed him again, fully and deliciously, my body still pulsing from my orgasm.

He jokingly waved me goodbye as I clambered down the stairs, my bun even messier than before. I hitched a ride back to the dorms with Tara and a few others, hoping nobody noticed my flushed cheeks. I sat in the back seat, quiet, my body still aching with a new and exquisite throb between my legs. Like a horse indeed.

Tara was ranting about something or other, and she turned back to me. “Why are you so quiet? You know, there were so many hot guys at that party and I bet you were just hiding off somewhere reading their Reader’s Digests or something!”

I felt the slow trickle of still-warm cum ooze out of me. Oops. I had left my blue and white Snoopy knickers somewhere. In the room? Did he have them? Had I left them on the stairs like some kind of skanky Cinderella, only to be found again when my prince came looking for me, crumpled panties in hand? I smiled secretly. Oh well.

Tara shook her head. “Christy, I swear, what you really need is to get laid.”

Quite some time passed before I lost my next pair of knickers, but boy did I lose them.

Despite my raucous introduction to it, sex seemed to fizzle out for me for the next year or so. Tara was still desperately trying to claw me away from my books, and I still clung to them desperately. Some days I would indulge in a little quiet rebellion - not a single soul knew that I had started wearing elaborate, sexy lingerie under my comic book t-shirts and jeans. Tramp-red basques with suspender clips. Thongs with expensive French lace ruffles on the bum. These silky, frilly pieces were pushed far to the back of my drawer, and I guess I thought that I would get around to wearing them more seriously one day …just not yet. I fancied myself packed tightly into a chrysalis made of law school and dumpy clothes, but inside, a devastatingly frilly butterfly was busy brewing. They’d all see, just wait.

It was the summer of my second year when a friend invited me out on a four-day camping trip through the Welsh countryside. At the time, I had been dating a guy who was more or less the male version of me. Translation: it was a disaster of a relationship. Andrew was sweet, and conscientious, and worked hard. But he was also the kind of guy who made me wistful for some passion, even if it was just the kind that made people smash plates on the floor during arguments and have make-up sex afterwards. I didn’t know how we’d make it through four whole days of being in each other’s faces, but I agreed and so me, him, my friend and her boyfriend started making plans for the trip.

Sometimes, I imagine myself in a courtroom, trying to explain (defend?) my actions to a jury of my peers. Was I guilty? When did I go from innocent bystander to pre-meditated instigator? Was it when I willingly packed four of my sluttiest sets of knickers into my backpack? Was it when I sort of decided to pick a fight with Andrew on the morning we left for the hike? It’s hard to say.

But I packed them. And then, in that strange way that life sometimes unfolds, events gradually led to me losing more and more things, until the final evening of our camping trip, when I lost my favourite pair of black and lacy knickers. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

First, I lost Andrew.

“Lost” is stretching it a bit. By now I can’t really remember how, but we got into an argument while packing our bags. One thing led to another, he said, “you think you’re better than me, don’t you?” and I didn’t say yes …but the truth is, I didn’t say no either, and by then things were sour enough that I told him to take a hike, although not literally, because I wanted to do that on my own now. Fine.

The next thing I lost was my tent.

This was more of a problem. My friend Elise, her boyfriend Joel and I set off, spirits high and backpacks full of way more stuff than we honestly needed. I had met Elise in my politics lectures. She was a wiry girl, like a compressed spring covered in velvety tanned skin that made you think of holidays. She was idealistic, fond of getting into arguments with our lecturers, and had dusty freckles, hair and eyes all of the same soft caramel brown.

Joel was – well, kind of the opposite. In fact, the deeper we walked into the idyllic Welsh landscape, the more I was struck by how he seemed to be a walking embodiment of the mossy hills we walked over, the ragged rocks cut in two by silvery streams, the morning mists. He had slate coloured, blue-black hair and dreamy, half asleep looking eyes, eyes that seemed always focused on something in the distance. She was all California girl, smooth as a beach ball, while he seemed like he had been born in a grey woolen jumper. He shared none of Elise’s high-strung energy, but he had his own gentle charm, and the two seemed to get on really well.

We spent hours picking our way through the countryside on the first day; conversation disappeared and we all three fell into a comfortable, silent rhythm. It was on the second day, though, when I was walking upfront, that I heard Elise yelling, “Your tent! It’s going to fall!” I felt a weight shift on my back and spun around just in time to see that my rolled up tent had worked free of its straps and had fallen to the ground. Elise made a swipe at it but it bounced once and then proceeded to roll down the steep edge of the path. Quick as a rabbit, Elise bounded after it, but it fell steeply into the brush and she had to stop, tangled in the bushes. She looked back up at me as the tent disappeared.

“Damn it!” I said, reaching down to lift her up. Joel did the same, and our joint efforts hoisted her up to within just a few inches of my face. She smiled broadly. Joel laughed, and started to pick some twigs off her, saying to me, “Christy, you didn’t say what a camping noob you were. Anyway, if you wanted to sleep in our tent with us you could have just asked, no need to throw away your own, yeah?”

He had on a naughty, sideways smile and a twinkle in his eye.

My cheeks flushed and we all laughed, but it was that moment, ladies and gentleman of the jury, that I knew it: I was going to fuck Joel that night. And I was going to fuck his beautiful girlfriend, too.

We eventually set up camp, and whiled away the hours it took for day to turn into dusk, and then into night. I watched Joel build an impressive fire, admiring his skillful, almost meditative calm. Maybe a person didn’t have to be thinking all the time, and maybe there was something sexy about just doing. Elise and I had a loud, ridiculous discussion about the relative pros and cons of being a lesbian. We were playful, somehow more comfortable with each other after our long, silent hike together, taking turns to say things we thought might break Joel out of his fire making focus and get a rise out of him.

“You know, I can totally see the benefits of getting it on with a woman. Really I can. But I don’t think I could ever give up on men entirely, you know? Joel has such an amazing dick. I don’t know if I could ever live without it,” she said, flicking her sandy hair in Joel’s direction.

My face prickled.

Joel stood up slowly, dusted the soot from his hands and stared hard at Elise from out underneath slightly crinkled black eyebrows. He glanced briefly at me. “You’ll have to forgive this one, Christy,” he said in a laughing voice. “She is indeed addicted to my dick, and it appears she’s forgotten her manners.” He plonked himself down next to her, and planted a deep, slow kiss on her open and waiting mouth.

I was taken aback. But it all felt so right. The clean air, the elemental landscape quiet and primordial all around us, a strong man building a strong fire and beautiful, perky Elise, giggling at my lame jokes. All the sweaty walking and climbing had lead us to this perfect moment.

“Yes! I’m a dick addict,” she said, kissing him all over in return. “It’s true. The government should look into setting up safe injection sites for me in town so I don’t ever have to relapse.”

It was properly night now, and the fire was robust. I wanted them both. I moved my chair closer to the fire and made a show of rubbing my hands to warm them. “Well, I don’t know, as lovely as I’m sure your dick is, there’s just some things that only a girl can give another girl, I think.”

I said this sweetly, instinctively feeling Joel’s warm dark eyes moving all over my body. Elise’s face glowed. We were probably the only people around for miles.

“Oh yeah?” He said.

“Definitely. A dick’s nice and all. But can it compare to another girl’s soft lips? Women just have that special touch, you have to admit.” I met his eyes, and, still holding his gaze, I rose and went over to Elise, dropped to my knees and gently took her face in my hands. She stared in wonder at me, her freckled face open and defenseless. Her lips were parted and already wet, and there was something so exquisitely feminine in the way she looked up at me, expecting. I leaned forward and kissed her lower lip, tasting her with the very tip of my tongue. She kissed back greedily, and my fingers fanned out over the back of her head. I pulled back, leaving her lips still wanting, quivering half open, eyes still closed. I looked at Joel, who seemed to be in deep contemplation of all of this.

“See? Now a big rough boy could never kiss a girl quite like that, could he?”

It might have been a few seconds or an eon that passed in that moment, but eventually Joel, who had been sitting in stony silence, allowed something like a flicker of recognition to pass over his face. It was something dark and elemental. Was it a smile? Before I knew it, he was in front of Elise too, who was now seated like some goddess on a chair with two devotees kneeled before her. He kissed her, savagely. It was a challenge, and when she gasped loudly, his hand yanking back her head, I understood the game we were playing. His other hand gripped mercilessly round her wrist, pinning it to her tanned thigh. He took her chin in his hands and kissed her deeply, and as he drew back, he trailed one of his fingers in her open mouth, staring at her like he owned her.

“I think Elise likes big rough boys, though, don’t you?” he said in a dark, almost inaudible voice.

Elise listened closely, almost bewitched. She caught my eye again. Regaining herself, she shook her head back, laughing. “Now don’t fight, guys. There’s only one way to resolve this, fair and square.”

In a moment we were in the tent, the light of the fire outside casting a magical golden haze over everything inside. It was warmer inside, and we were soon all naked, our three bodies creating one unified, glowing mass of warm limbs. Joel was somehow in charge, something almost primitive in his grunts, the way he handled Elise, pinning her this way and that way, kneading her body and sucking each of her small breasts hard while pawing the rest of her with big, rough hands. Elise, on the other hand, seemed to melt. No more was she the plucky, in-your-face girl with opinions she just had to share. No, somehow in Joel’s presence she became a kitten, girlishly purring under his firm touch.

I kiss her, taking my time, enjoying every soft fold of her lips and tongue. She was a gentle kisser, and thorough. Out the corner of my eye I see Joel’s hand working rhythmically between her legs. I find myself amazingly turned on by her scent, which seems to rapidly fill the tent, and when Joel lifts one glistening hand to stroke her belly, I see just how turned on and wet she really is. She’s writhing between the both of us now, me kissing her slowly and sweetly on one end, Joel slipping his fingers roughly back into her wet slit, his other hand on his own cock. It was that evening in the tent that I uncovered the existence of unusually thick, heavy cocks – and Joel’s was the perfect specimen.

We paused at some point, briefly kissing one another before looking down at Elise again, deciding how to divide her lovely body up between us.

“My turn,” he said, moving to her lips and kissing her. Her legs were splayed, slick pussy lips opened, inviting me closer.

I had never done this to a girl before. I knelt down between her legs and pushed her legs further apart. I was intoxicated by her scent, barely noticing how dripping wet I myself had become. I was fascinated to discover a sparse patch of blonde hair above soft pink folds that seemed instantly familiar. I gently parted her lips, and began sucking on her clit, which seemed to pulsate in response. Her entire body throbbed and bucked, even the tiniest blonde hairs on her abdomen prickling with ecstasy, despite the rising temperature in the tent. She was beautiful. And I wanted more than anything to make her come.

In my mouth.

Her legs had closed softly around my head and were drawing me in; she rocked her hips gently, riding against my lips and tongue, wetness streaming down over her thighs and ass. She seemed to swell and open the more I sucked and licked.

Joel now had the full length of his cock in her throat, and she murmured quietly, hands on the small of his back, pulling him further in. Flicking my tongue over her clit made her murmur loudly and arch her back. She closed her lips more tightly around him, and he let his head drop back in bliss, his eyes closed. I licked again, she moaned, Joel moaned. We were all connected through one long, delicious thread of pleasure.

My pussy was aching badly by now, and the thought that I was pleasuring both her and him at the same time nearly made me explode right there.

“Hmm, she likes that,” he said to me, his black eyes mysteriously making me feel even more naked than I already was. “But it looks like you need some help. Look, this is how you make her come.”

His fat cock slipped out of her mouth and he moved over to my side, hoisting her by both of her legs. She squealed in delight. He thrust into her easily, her pussy already desperately wet. They had an easy familiarity with each other …he’d probably fucked her millions of times, I thought. In that moment, Joel kneeling tall and strong over Elise, whimpering and pliant, and the light so warm and yellow, and me mesmerized by the sight of Joel’s cock easily and happily swallowed by her little pink lips.

I must have been staring dumbfounded, lips still wet.

“Well, don’t just stand there” he said.

I leaned in and kissed him. Oh, he certainly was a big rough boy, all right. His kiss was forceful, confident. He seemed to be savoring the taste of her on my lips. He pushed my head down towards her again. “Keep going,” he mumbled. And so I did. I gently planted my lips again on her tender clit, while he began to thrust firmly in and out of her. All the tension from her lower body seemed to pool up in one spot as she clenched tightly, then released, a wave of pleasure forcing her lips open into the sweetest, most vulnerable shuddering cry. I heard Joel mumble his approval.

He fucked her, and I kissed her beautiful clit while he did. I saw his cock jump a little and he paused, closing his eyes and breathing hard. He was close to coming. He entered her again, this time fucking her roughly, so hard that I could only draw back and watch as she tossed her head back and screamed, clutching at both of us and jerking with each wave of her orgasm. I leaned in again and immediately took his cock in my mouth, sensing that he was going to follow her soon. He orgasmed with just a husky groan, but I felt the full force of a load of his cum burst into the back of my throat, his dick pumping and pulsing on my curled tongue. I swallowed it all down, sucking out every last drop, feeling his body loosen and relax. I couldn’t tell where the sharp, creamy taste of his cum ended and the salted-honey sweetness of his girlfriend’s beautiful pussy began.

To my surprise, just the thought of this sent me over the edge, and I found myself coming all at once, the ache releasing into full, easy waves of pleasure. My entire body shook. I almost laughed out loud. Shuddering, I opened my eyes to find Joel holding me on one side, and Elise the other. We held each other like that for a while, slick with heat and sweat.

Elise was completely spent, but she was the first to break our reverie. “So I’m glad you lost your stupid tent after all, Christy.”

I beamed. So was I.

“I knew she was up to something,” Joel said, tracing his fingers round the curve of my bellybutton. “Honestly, when I saw that ridiculous pair of knickers she was wearing. I mean, who wears black lace panties on a camping trip?”

I laughed. He had a point.

“So, who’s better, boy or girl?” I asked Elise playfully. She teased and twirled a lock of her hair in her fingers. “Oh jeez, I really couldn’t say. I’m pretty sure Joel cheated anyways, so it’s hard to decide. I think we’ll need a rematch.”

I fell in love with both of them, I think, sometime during that trip. That blissful moment after our first fuck might have been the exact time it happened, although it could have also been the next night …or the night after that. On that trip I discovered my love for eating pussy, for moody, husky boys and for the taste of cum. I discovered the beautiful Welsh countryside and two new friends. But, you know, I lost my boyfriend. And a tent.

And I never saw that damn pair of lacy knickers again, either.

The first thing I’ll say about this particular pair of knickers is that I wasn’t at all sad to see them go.

By the time I was finishing up my third year at university, I became aware my nerdy image had somehow transformed into a sexy nerdy image. Truth be told I wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, it just seemed that one day heavy black glasses and boots with dresses were edgy, rather than awkward and unintentional …which they were when I last checked. I rolled with it. If I was going to be hot by accident, why not?

My over-the-top lingerie collection grew steadily and quietly, but this specific pair of satiny white briefs was a case in point: I very often had no idea what the hell I was doing or how to go about being “sexy.” I had seen them on sale, hideous things with a fat glossy bow at the back, and bought them, thinking they would make a sophisticated addition to my stash. Once I got home, though, and tried them on, I realized all the quilting and fuss on the front made my crotch look something like my granny might embroider on a Christmas cushion. I was disgusted, and sent them to the very back of the drawer.

But of course, by now I was getting used to the fact that sometimes, the most well-hidden secrets are the first to be exposed, and the things you think least likely to even happen usually do. And then they may even happen a lot.

Enter Liam, a man who turned out to love convincing me to do new things almost as much as I loved doing them. I had had a blissful summer with Joel and Elise, but they had since emigrated to Australia, leaving me with a bunch of overpriced camping equipment and a half-hearted promise that they’d both fuck my brains out if I ever found myself in Melbourne. I was sad to see them go. They were sad too. The camping equipment went up for sale on eBay. I bought a relationship self help book. Life went on.

When Liam and I first met, it was a blustery day. The night before, the wind had started to pick up pretty seriously, so I ran outside and quickly picked off the laundry I had hung up to dry, in case it decided to rain. I was stuffing it all into a wicker basket when I heard my phone ring. I rushed inside and forgot all about the washing. In the morning, I woke to find the wicker basket suspended in a tree, all of my clothes missing, except for one sock strewn on the patio. It was like the scene of a crime. The wind had come in the night, and made off with my laundry. Peaking into my neighbour’s garden, my suspicions were confirmed: a pair of pink pajamas lay like a dead body on his lawn. How embarrassing.

That same morning, I went around knocking on the doors of everyone in the complex to rescue my wind-stolen washing. People laughed and good-naturedly handed over an old t-shirt, a crumpled dress crusty with leaves, the other sock. I knocked on the last door of the complex, just to be thorough. I had never met the occupant, but when a good-looking guy answered, I realized he must have only recently moved in. I told my sob story about the wind and the flying laundry, like some kind of reverse travelling salesman, and he laughed. He was a good 10 years my senior, stockily built but with quick hands and light, intelligent eyes.

“Actually, I did think it was a bit strange, I found something in my flower box this morning, but …I don’t think it’s yours…?” He ducked back into the house and in a moment he was back, smiling strangely, holding something in his hands between thumb and forefinger, as though too scared to touch it.

Of course. What else were they but the very same hideous, satiny white nightmare knickers I had tried to forget about? How did they even get in the laundry pile anyway?

I turned deep red (probably) and he looked at the pair, limp like the carcass of an old fashioned angel or a strange butterfly that had died in his zinnia bushes. I snatched them from him, laughing nervously. He was obviously amused.

“Oh, so they are yours. I just …they don’t look like …I mean, no offense but they don’t seem like something a girl like you would wear…”

It was his turn to go red.

“I’m sorry, that’s stupid, I have no idea about…” he gestured to the knickers, shrugging.

We stood, staring at each other, the offending knickers hanging limply between us. I heard the wind stirring up again.

“Hey, I’ve actually just moved in here, do you want to …come in for some tea or something?”

In hindsight, this was the first thing Liam tried to convince me of. I laughed, saying, “yes, of course” and truthfully, everything from that moment got the same answer from me.

I went inside.

There was nowhere to sit. He turned his back to me and started to make some tea, his back and shoulder muscles moving visibly under the thin cotton of his shirt. Nervous as hell, I began chattering, staring at the empty space and unpacked boxes strewn everywhere. “So you’re new here? I never really spoke to the lady that lived here before you, although she looked nice. It’s two bedrooms, right? Nice. I don’t have this balcony thing in my place. I mean, I’m kind of offended now that I think about it – what’s wrong with my knickers anyway?”

I said this last bit a little too quickly, and when his eyes flashed to meet mine, I smiled back a little too awkwardly. I laughed, to show I was only joking, but this also came out awkwardly, and I looked away again. Typical. This ugly pair of panties couldn’t just exist. Oh no, it had to lead me here, to this strange guy’s apartment, where he’d probably murder me and chop me into bits or something. Or discover what a completely awkward idiot I am, which is worse.

There was nothing left in the room for me to pretend I was casually looking at. He handed me a cup of chamomile tea, fumbling for something to say, but as I reached for the cup, the tips of his fingers grazed mine and my eyes caught the flicker of a gold wedding band. All in the space of one giddy heartbeat, I knocked the tea from his hands, where it flew up, dumping its contents directly onto me. The pain was unbearable. A dark, chamomile scented wet patch was spreading down over the front of my jeans and legs, searing the skin underneath it.

“Shit!” I screamed, and began doing a little dance from one leg to the other. His eyes were wide and he stared slack jawed at my crotch.

“Oh god, oh god, I’m so sorry!” he said, panicking and looking around for a cloth to mop up the mess. By this point, I’m sure I could feel the top layers of my epidermis peeling off. I was nearly bent double – the pain didn’t seem to be stopping. My eyes prickled with hot tears.

He was dabbing helplessly now at me with a tea towel, which did precisely nothing, and I was sobbing, mentally running through a future in which I didn’t have the use of my legs anymore, when he snapped his fingers and said, “Aha! I have some ice in the freezer…”

He turned his back to me again and then, possessed by God-knows-what and unable to bear the torture anymore, I unbuttoned my jeans and tore them off my body, flinging them away. A rush of cold air came to the rescue. He turned around again, staring straight at my now pink, parboiled thighs.

“Oh,” he said.

We both stared at the pink blotch, while he nervously tried to find a place to put down the ice cubes and then figure out what to do with himself.

“Is this where I make a joke about making you wet?” he said, followed with a look of instant regret on his face.

Thank God, someone slightly more awkward than myself.

“You’re married,” I blurted out. Nope, turns out I was still the reigning queen of awkward.

He looked at his ring as though he was surprised to see it there and shrugged.

“Divorced,” he said.

I slowly took my knickers off, the rapidly cooling chamomile tea on them giving me goose bumps all over my belly. I had no idea what I was doing.

“So what do you think of these knickers then, do they meet your exacting standards?”

Where the hell did that come from? What was I thinking?

He was quiet, not looking at me or the pile of clothes I had tossed to the floor. Was I really doing this? Was I really standing half naked in some stranger’s house at 10 in the morning? Something in his face darkened. My eyes focused on a single quivering water droplet on the pad of one of his fingertips. For a moment everything was silent except for my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

“So, you’re just a little slut who goes to people’s houses and strips down?” His face was hard, serious. A flutter of panic rose in my chest. I suddenly started visualizing a future where I was cut into bits and stored in Tupperware containers, my family searching for my missing body, my ugly school photo flashing on the evening news.

“I …think I’ll just go,” I muttered, feeling as though all the air had just left the room.

“No you won’t,” he said immediately.

Silence.

Was I scared? To my alarm, I felt a desperate twinging between my legs. Did he really used to be married? Did that change anything? I had never slept with an older guy before. They had always seemed so …intimidating.

“Turn around,” he said. The words seemed to be coming from deep inside his throat.

“But …I …”

“Do it.”

I turned around immediately, placing my shaking hands on a taped up box propped against the wall. The cardboard felt so rough against my fingertips. Was my body going into shock? Did I need to go to a hospital to get burn treatment? My mind fluttered furiously. I closed my eyes, and heard him moving around behind me. I heard a ruffle and the unmistakable clink of his metal belt buckle falling to the floor.

I shuddered.

He came close, and his hands, almost as rough as the cardboard, reached around and delicately touched the tender red skin on my thighs.

“Does it hurt?” he whispered into my ear.

I exhaled, my head spinning.

Before I knew it, something immensely cold slipped over the skin there, and I yelped out. The ice. He was gliding a cube over my burnt flesh, the hot skin melting it easily, making prickling drops that slid all the way down my bare legs and puddled onto the floor. An excruciating throb radiated out from between my legs. My skin smarted, but with each stroke of the ice cube, soothing waves washed over me. The entire surface of my body seemed to tighten up, every last hair standing on edge.

With his hot breath against my ear, and the rapidly disappearing ice cube licking all over my body, each of my senses seemed blissfully overwhelmed. I couldn’t tell what was pain or pleasure anymore, whether the icy hot thrills running up and down my body were too much for me, or whether I very much wanted more. I whimpered. His fingers moved closer, and as he gently touched the ice cube against my clit, I cried out again.

The ice cube moved deeper down, and he pressed it firmly between my lips. I was streaming wet now, melting along with the ice cube and sending sticky rivers of my own all down my legs. The ice cube gone, he seamlessly slid two fingers into me, and I swear I almost felt my entire body move and pull him in deeper.

It was electric.

His other hand was resting on my clit, tracing tiny circles, while his fingers slipped silently in and out. I squirmed all around him, shuddering from cold and heat and some far more delicious feeling swirling in the centre of my belly. It was a new sensation, one that scared me a little, one that I hadn’t felt ever before.

“I have to go,” I said weakly, not meaning it for a second.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he said in the same growling voice as before, and as he did, he plunged a little deeper, pressing me open. It felt as though my entire lower body had melted into hot goo, and that I was pouring all over his hands, unable to contain myself.

The wind outside had grown stronger and was rattling at the windows.

His fingers pumped more aggressively now, and he anchored my body with his other hand. I couldn’t speak, even if I had had something to say, but I mumbled some vague protest to the wall, not really believing that his fingers could do what they were clearly doing to me.

“I’ve never done this before…” I sputtered, and it was true. I had never felt so hot, so wet and so completely at someone’s mercy.

To my surprise he spoke softly and firmly into my ear in a new voice; a gentle, caring voice, “Just relax. It’s OK. Trust me. You’re going to come soon. And when you do, I’m going to make you squirt. But you’re not going to do that just yet, ok? Not until I say.” I was so delirious with pleasure I could only nod mutely at his instruction. I relaxed deeper into the sensation. Something wet and full and luscious was growing inside me, sending shivering twitches all up and down my legs. I badly wanted to come, right there and then all over this stranger’s fingers, but I held back, and he patiently edged me closer and closer, holding my quaking body with one hand and ratcheting up my pleasure with the other.

“I want to come now,” I begged, my body about to burst.

“No. Not yet. Stay here with me. Don’t come yet.”

“Please,” I said and felt my body shuddering with the effort.

Before the word was completely out my mouth I felt his fingers pull out of me and in a split second he rammed his cock where they had been. It was so astonishingly quick, that I gasped silently and arched my back. My body clenched around him, and the growing ache reached fever pitch. A cascade of pleasure rushed over me. I felt as though I was unimaginably high on the apex of a roller coaster, pausing there for a second to gaze down at the long, long way I was going to fall… my heart stopped and stars twinkled and buzzed behind my eyelids. He breathed hard into my neck.

“Come for me,” he said.

I didn’t need any more encouragement.

With a single, very deep thrust he plunged me over the abyss, and everything that I had been holding onto slipped away in one rushing, blissful flood. He yanked his cock out and gripped my body firmly as I shook. To my amazement, torrents of liquid were gushing out from me, spraying him, my legs, the floor… I held onto him tightly, all of my body convulsing from its very core, the liquid never seeming to end. Every muscle cried out and pulsed, and my body rocked with an orgasm that threatened to break me apart.

I stood with his arms wrapped around me, panting. I felt emptied out; my entire body limp with the release of the most thrilling tension. He held me there, still pinned to the wall. I glanced behind me and saw his stiff cock, doused in a thick sheen of the same liquid, the flat of his belly glistening.

“Good girl” he said playfully, and slapped my ass.

I nearly laughed out loud. We both collapsed onto the floor, me more exhausted than I had ever been in my life.

“Wow …I’ve never …I didn’t know …I …” I stammered, trying to compose myself, to make sense of what had just happened.

“Shh!” he said, kissing me sweetly and smiling. “I bet you’ve forgotten about your burn, haven’t you?”

I lay back and closed my eyes, body still buzzing. It was though some new corridor of pleasure had opened up inside me, and I had come with every last atom of my body, hard, from the top of my head to my now wet toes. Floods of peaceful bliss washed over me. The wind outside sounded rough and dangerous, but inside I was warm and gooey and happy. I giggled.

“Looks like we’ll need another towel” I said.

He jumped up, looking for one, careful to avoid the previous puddle of chamomile tea.

“This place is a mess. Can I, uh, make you a proper cup of tea now? And where are those horrible knickers of yours?” he said.

“That’s weird. I swear I just saw them over here …it seems we’ve lost them…”