FOURTEEN
DEREK
She was beneath me. And all I could think about was how much I wanted this—how I’d been wanting it from the moment I met her. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her, watched her beautiful blue eyes widen as I pushed inside of her for the first time, watched her gasp as she stretched to accommodate all of me. And there was a lot of me.
She gripped my back, sinking her nails into me as she moaned loudly. And the sounds she made were like music to my ears. I closed my eyes so I could fully focus on the way she sounded, the way she felt. It was almost as if my sight was doing me a disservice because looking at her was taking center stage, not allowing me to focus the rest of my senses.
She felt exactly how I knew she would—like heaven. She was heaven. And I told her as much, something I usually never would have done. But she was different. She’d been different from all the others and would continue to be. I opened my mouth and expressed how amazing she felt, how I’d wanted her for so long and how, now that I had her, I wouldn’t be able to stop having her. And she smiled back up at me, her expression warm, but there was something else in her eyes. Was it relief, I couldn’t be sure.
I had to wonder if she’d been worrying silently to herself that this was going to be a one-time thing—that she’d finally given into her sexual attraction for me but as soon as our tryst culminated in orgasm, I’d be done with her. I hated the thought, because the truth couldn’t be further away.
I pushed inside of her again with long, determined strokes, thrusting so deeply that I could feel myself hitting the end of her. And she moaned in that deep, soft way of hers that was making it increasingly difficult for me not to give in to my urges and release myself. But somehow I managed to continue fighting my urges, somehow I managed to focus on something else because that something else was important.
I heard myself telling her that she was different, that I would never treat her the way I’d treated some of the others. I heard the words spilling out of my mouth then as if someone else were speaking them. I told her that I wanted to continue having her, but not just her body. I wanted to have her laughter, her teasing, her wit, her sadness and even her anger. I wanted to continue having her. She responded by looking up at me in surprise, as if she’d never expected to hear this from me, as if she were completely floored by it. But she also didn’t say anything. She remained silent.
And I didn’t understand why. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to hear the words I’d just said to her repeated back to me, but they weren’t coming. Instead, she was quiet, pensive and seemed lost in her thoughts. I asked why, but she couldn’t answer right away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around me and pushed her pelvis upward, trying to bury me farther inside of her, trying to pull my attention away from what it was I needed to hear. But her attempt to encourage the sexual, animalistic side of me was for naught. Instead, I pulled myself out of her and then held her head between my hands, forcing her to look me in the eyes.
I asked her why she wouldn’t speak, why she was avoiding it. I couldn’t control the flow of the words that emptied from my mouth like spaghetti falling onto a plate. I told her that I not only wanted her but I needed her, that she was meant to be mine. But she never said anything, just continued to stare up at me with those empty eyes.
When finally she spoke, I couldn’t say I really heard her words. It almost sounded as if she were suddenly speaking underwater, the sounds jumbled and strange. My brain didn’t need to hear them, though, because my body was already translating. My stomach flip-flopped and then dropped all the way down to my toes as feelings of nausea began to bubble up from within me, the taste in my mouth suddenly turning sour.
I heard myself telling her this wasn’t supposed to be like this, that we weren’t supposed to be like this. I heard myself say we were supposed to be together, but she just continued to look up at me blankly, an almost pitying expression in her beautiful blue eyes. I didn’t understand, and I said as much. I pulled away from her and stood up, suddenly needing my space. I didn’t understand how her feelings for me were purely sexual, how she had never wanted anything more than just sex. Impersonal, meaningless and crude sex.
Her words suddenly began to echo inside me, repeating themselves and growing louder with each repetition, leaving more and more shock in their wake. Whereas before it had been near impossible to get her to open up and speak to me, suddenly she began speaking as if she couldn’t stop herself, as if she were unable to hold herself back. The things that came out of her mouth beat against me, slicing me with their acidic blades. She’d never felt this way about me and she didn’t understand why or how I could feel this way about her. Why didn’t I recognize this for what it was, no-strings-attached sex? We were never meant to be together, and I was foolish for thinking otherwise. I was foolish for dropping my card and caring. I was just plain foolish.
I clasped my hands over my ears and shook my head, begging her to stop, begging her to have mercy on me, but she wouldn’t stop, her voice only growing louder as her words continued to thrash me, taunting me, ridiculing me.
“Nikki!” I yelled at the same time that I sat bolt upright.
I found myself in my bed, inside my bedroom, and it was pitch black except for the green illumination from the alarm clock which sat on my dresser across the room. Even though I could recognize that I’d just awoken from a bad dream, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
I stood up and trudged into the kitchen to get a glass of water as I rubbed the back of my head and wondered what the hell had gotten into me that my subconscious was plaguing me with dreams about Nikki. I also couldn’t get the sour aftertaste out of my mouth as I thought about the things the dream version of her had said to me.
I shook my head, suddenly angry with myself. It had only been a dream and I needed to recognize it as such. Furthermore, there was no way I was going to have sex with Nikki, no matter how badly I wanted to. And I was more than sure that if I ever did, the last thing I would do would be to beg her for a relationship afterward. That would never happen, not in a million years. I just wasn’t a relationship kind of guy. I took what I wanted from women, which was usually just sex, and then I moved on. I wasn’t about to get locked down by anyone. Especially not a silly undergraduate student, no matter how hot she was.
So keep telling yourself that, I thought.
But reminding myself of my true nature wasn’t enough, I suddenly decided. If I had to face facts, I had to admit to myself that Nikki had gotten under my skin. I wanted her and I wanted her in a way that I couldn’t remember having wanted another woman in a very long time. But that didn’t mean I wanted her for anything more than a good romp. And I was also convinced that if I ever did have sex with her, afterwards I’d be over it. Of that, I had no doubt.
But it’s never going to get to that level, I reminded myself. So stop even considering it.
Yes, there was no way my relationship with Nikki would ever become sexual, because I didn’t want it to. The last thing I wanted was to be thrust underneath the watchful eye of the dean again. So, yes, I needed to do myself a favor and snap the hell out of it.