Chapter Four
Sophia
Twenty-four hours had gone by, and my mind was still spinning from that kiss. The electric, awe-inspiring kiss that had tilted my world on its axis and confirmed what I’d already known to be true. Brett Kelly was my dirty dream come true.
Mondays always sucked, but this one sucked harder than all the rest combined. I was getting nothing done. With an inbox full of leads to follow, I was remarkably unproductive. The newsroom chatter filled my ears, but it wasn’t interesting enough to distract me.
For the first time ever.
The clamoring of keyboards didn’t have me wanting to rush over and find out what my colleagues were so diligently working on. Another first.
I was the first to admit that I suffered from a serious case of FOMO, fear of missing out on something interesting going on around me. But what I was missing out on in the real world was nothing compared to missing out on the memories of Brett’s lips against mine.
I’d finally gotten one small taste of him. Bacon and syrup and a hint of lingering mint. It was heaven. And hell. Because he still hadn’t called. Or texted. Or even come back to the apartment with Mark when they finished up with whatever it was that they’d done yesterday.
I checked my phone for what had to be the millionth time since they’d left the day before, but there was still nothing. Texting Brett was tempting, to say the least. But I didn’t do it.
I was dying to know what he thought about our kiss, to know if it had affected him as much as it did me. I was even more eager to find out if he had been able to stop thinking about it, because I hadn’t. Not for a single minute.
A big part of me, though, didn’t actually want to know. I was sure that even though he’d been the one to close those precious few inches between our lips, that he’d thought the kiss was gross. That he felt like he was kissing his own little sister instead of Mark’s. The risk of finding out he was thinking that was more than enough to keep me from giving in and sending him a text. Regardless of how much I wanted to know where his head was at about everything.
It was one of the best kisses of my life. I couldn’t bear to think that it might not have been the same to him. Okay, no. That was a lie. And I wasn’t in the business of lying to myself. It was the best kiss of my life, and it cemented my belief that Brett was the perfect man for me.
I wasn’t proud of it, but I’d somehow managed to make it to twenty-six and still be a virgin. It wasn’t a conscious choice or anything. It just kind of happened. All of my sexual encounters had ended in disappointment, and I always left shortly after. Way before there was a chance of anything more.
I kept telling myself that I deserved more, and my first time should mean something. I should be with someone who would put my pleasure above his own and introduce me to the wild and wonderful world of sex in a way that wouldn’t leave me never wanting to try it again.
And so, I’d become the only virgin still among my group of friends, and I’d vowed to only give it up when I met a man that I felt could live up to my possibly impossible expectations.
I’d read up about it enough to know that climaxing on your first time was highly unlikely. Yet I held onto the dream that I could be one of those girls who got it all.
I wanted to find a guy who was kind and caring enough to take it slow, one who would be attuned to me enough to know when I was ready for him to start really moving. I wanted to find the guy who wouldn’t stop before he made it good for me. Like really, really good.
I knew it was the stuff dreams were made of, but it was my dream, and I wasn’t ready to let go of it. It wasn’t going to happen that way with the kind of guy you met in a club and let into your vagina on a moment’s notice. That scenario held no appeal to me.
I didn’t need to marry the guy that punched my V-card, either before or after the main event. That wasn’t what I was after. I didn’t need romance and chocolates and love songs.
All that I needed was someone who would know my name after, someone who wouldn’t blow his load and leave me sore and wanting like some of my friends’ first times had been. I didn’t want to have to worry about being insecure or vulnerable with a stranger.
That was all. It wasn’t that big an ask. I just wanted my first time to be in a safe environment with someone that I was comfortable with.
Some might have said to wait for marriage then, but I had needs and no damn boyfriend or even a date that had the prospect of becoming one. As a result, marriage wasn’t in the cards for me for a long time, and I was running out of patience.
I was tired of being the only one with no idea what sex felt like, the one who pulled away when a cute guy made advances because I didn’t want him to have to find out that I was an inexperienced virgin.
Brett was the answer to my problem. The guy who could give me what I needed and walk away without any hard feelings. Because that was what he did.
He hit it, and he quit it. Probably with a few very pleasurable hours in between. That was exactly what I wanted.
Add the fact that I’d known and trusted him for most of my life, and it seemed like the easiest solution on the planet. Even so, I pulled my phone from the pocket of my jeans to run the idea past Beth. My raven-haired best friend had a wealth of experience when it came to men, and she was always waiting in the wings to give me advice.
Sometimes, it was great. Other times, it sucked. But it was always honest and from a good place. I had no doubt that her ears were burning and that she was waiting at the phone.
A couple of seconds later, my suspicions were confirmed when her chirpy voice answered. “I was just thinking about you. What’s going on, girlfriend?”
“It’s about my pesky little problem,” I started.
Beth’s laughter on the other end of the line warmed my heart. “Most women wouldn’t think of having their hymens intact as a pesky problem, but okay. What can I do for you?”
“I think I’ve reached a decision about who might be best to help me out with it.”
Beth sighed and groaned at the same time. “Please don’t say Brett.”
“Brett.”
“We’ve been through this. He sees you as nothing but Mark’s baby sister, Soph. What makes you think that you’ll be able to change his mind now?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said coyly. “Maybe because he kissed me yesterday.”
Beth was quiet for a few seconds, then she shrieked so loudly that I ripped the phone away from my ear. It was a good thing that Beth worked from home as a copywriter, or her coworkers might’ve been calling an ambulance.
“He did what?”
“He kissed me,” I repeated, trying, and failing, to keep the smile out of my voice.
“Wait, this happened yesterday, and I’m only hearing about it now?” While she wasn’t quite shrieking anymore, her voice was several decibels higher than it should’ve been, causing a few of my colleagues to look over at me curiously.
I lowered my voice, avoiding their stares. “I’ve been trying to convince myself that it really happened, but it did.”
“How?” she breathed, having seemingly controlled herself. “Tell me everything.”
“There’s not so much to tell, actually,” I admitted, though it sounded like a lie even to my own ears. “He came over for breakfast yesterday, and we got to talking while I was cleaning up.”
“And then?” Beth prompted. “Where was Mark?”
“He went to shower before they went off to do whatever it is that they do without me. Brett and I kept talking. I went to collect his plate, but we did this weird reach for it at the same time thing, and his fork fell.”
“Ooh, and then there was just, like, sexual tension when you went to pick it up?”
“Something like that.” It was the best I could do, since I didn’t even really know what had happened to make him close that damn gap. “Anyway, next thing I knew, we were kissing.”
“Was it everything you ever wanted it to be?” Beth babbled excitedly. “Like did angels serenade you and unicorns rain down from the sky?”
“Something like that,” I said again.
Beth breathed out on an exasperated sigh. “Stop saying that. How was it? For real.”
I hesitated, trying to find the words to describe it. “It was magical. Electric. Inevitable. I don’t know. Take your pick, but it was unreal.”
“So, what’re you going to do about it?” Beth asked. “Please tell me there’s a plan?”
“There might be,” I said hesitantly. “Like I said, I want him to be the one. I just have to figure out how to make that happen.”
“What’s to figure out?” Beth asked. “If he kissed you, he must be into you, too.”
“It wasn’t that kind of kiss. It was more of a spur of the moment lips and tongues pressing against each other so quickly that I would’ve thought I’d imagined it if I hadn’t been so tingly afterward.” I felt disappointed in the knowledge that it was true.
“There’s no such thing,” Beth assured me. “Even if he just caved in the spur of the moment, it has to mean that he’s at least thought about it before.”
“You think?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” she said. “Kissing isn’t something that just happens, no matter how close your lips come to someone else’s.”
Taking a moment to think about her words, I let a little surge of hope run through me. It was true. You didn’t just go around kissing anyone who came close to you. “So, you think I should go for it, then?”
“Yes. Of course, you should go for it. That man is yummy, and I bet he is a ten in bed. Maybe even an eleven. Go for it hard, girl. Every pun intended. Let me know how it goes.”