He helps me to my feet before zipping himself back into his jeans, and I avoid any eye contact, attempting to straighten my skirt over my bare ass. My panties, my favorite pair with the pretty lace trim, are lost somewhere on the ground.

As I try to focus in the dark, Evan leans down to capture my mouth with his, but I quickly turn my face away, escaping the kiss. My mouth no longer feels like my own. My lips are numb, my tongue tingly, my throat burning.

“I have to go.” My voice shakes as I shiver uncontrollably and step away from him, tripping over my purse as I do so. I don’t even remember dropping it. Nor do I remember the misty rain stopping. I quickly snatch up my purse and throw the strap over my shoulder.

“I-I have to go,” I repeat and sprint through the foggy darkness in the direction I came from, running my hand along the damp stone until I find the end of the bridge, ignoring his voice calling after me.

On my hands and knees I crawl up the hill and let out a sob of relief when I finally reach the asphalt path. My heels clack as I practically run toward the safety of the wrought-iron gates. The shape of my bench appears under one of the lamps, and I’m suddenly overcome with nausea.

Clutching my stomach, I run to the garbage can I’ve thrown my lunch into every day for months and vomit into it, my horrible retching echoing around me. Using the garbage can for balance, I fish in my purse for a mint and suck wildly on it before I continue to walk toward my car. The taste of vomit and sex in my mouth is overpowering, an acrid poison I will never forget.

I drive home like a certified lunatic. An endless stream of tears flow down my cheeks and I’m shocked I don’t crash into something or get pulled over for speeding and driving erratically. When I reach my driveway, I’m relieved to see all the lights in the house are off except for the front porch, signaling they’ve all gone to bed.

Thank God.

Even with the heat in my car blasting, I shivered all the way home, and I’m still shaking when I let myself in the house and quietly go down to my room. Ignoring Archie’s stare from beside his half-empty food dish, I toss my purse onto the couch, kick off my shoes, and make a beeline for the bathroom. I lock the door behind me.

The reflection in the mirror above the sink nearly makes me puke again.

I blink at the girl there as she stares back at me. I have no idea who she is. She’s a mess, breathing heavy with her mouth partially open. Her hair is damp and looks as if she was recently electrocuted or is channeling Cher. The charcoal eyeliner and mascara she spent fifteen minutes perfecting this morning are now smeared under her puffy eyes and across her pale cheeks. Her lips are abnormally red and swollen, the corners of her mouth slightly cracked.

From sucking dick.

Trembling, I take a deep breath and try to get my shit together.

Half an hour ago, two of the most intimate parts of my body were stretched around a huge cock, and now there’s dried cum on my chin and in my hair. My gaze drifts down to the blotchy red marks on my neck as memories of his lips, teeth, and hands biting, sucking, and gripping me sends another wave of odd euphoria through me.

I shouldn’t be turned on by this… should I?

Pulling my clothes off, I decide I’ll worry about that later. Right now, I need a hot shower and a gallon of soothing aloe and lavender body wash. I turn on the hot water and look at my naked body in the full-length mirror on the back of the door while the small room fills with steam. I zero in on the faint black and blue bruises in the shapes of his fingertips marking my waist, thighs, and throat. I lightly run my fingers over them in fascination, until a small stain of dried blood smeared on my inner thigh catches my eye. Frantically, I grab a tissue from the box on the vanity and wipe it across my vagina, and there’s a few spots of bright-red blood. I toss it in the toilet and quickly flush it. I don’t need Exhibit A: Loss of Virginity sitting in my wastebasket for Archie to pull out and drag around my room like a prize.

My heart jumps into my throat when I realize I don’t know if Evan wore a condom. Gripping the edge of the porcelain sink, I play the moments over and over in my head while my pulse races, but I can’t dredge up the sound of the wrapper being ripped open or a lapse when he might have been putting it on. Or taking it off. His stiff cock went directly from my pussy to my mouth in a matter of seconds.

There was no condom.

A swarm of anxiety sucks the air out of my lungs. How could I be so stupid and irresponsible to let a stranger screw my brains out under a bridge without protection? Me… who won’t even use a public restroom unless it’s a last resort. Me… who’s been waiting for my first time to be some kind of off-the-charts romantic experience with a man I’d want to marry. Did I suffer temporary insanity tonight? It’s like someone else just took over my body and my brain, and now I could have just lost my virginity, acquired five STDs, and gotten pregnant all at once.

With a homeless man.

My body sways with a dizzying freak-out, and I suck in another grounding, deep breath as I step into the shower stall, still trembling despite the scalding water. The tears don’t stop. They mingle with the water dripping down my face as I scrub my flesh with a washcloth soaked in soap.

I’m going to make you dirty, too. And it’s never going to wash off.

He’s right. I can’t scrub away the memories of how he kissed, rammed, and tasted. And I already know I’ll lust over the bruises long after they’ve faded.

God help me, I don’t want to wash any of it away.

I stay in the shower until the hot water turns icy cold, then wrap a thick towel around myself and go straight to bed, crawling naked under my blankets and falling instantly into a mentally and physically exhausted sleep.

I wake up groggy the next morning with a dull pain between my legs, an immediate reminder of what happened last night with Evan.

What exactly did happen last night?

I don’t even know how to describe any of it. Was that a one-night stand? A quick down-and-dirty screw? I can only imagine what he must think of me now. Not that his opinion should matter, really. I mean, he’s the homeless one. Not me. I have a job and a car and a bank account and a cat.

I also have blue, purple, and red bruises scattered all over my body from sex with him because the gift of speech completely took a hike out of my life last night when I should have been saying no.

He told you to leave, Piper. Remember? You said you didn’t want to. Your ability to speak was working just fine when you said that. And speaking of your mouth, it was also functioning perfectly fine when you sucked and swallowed him as though he were your last meal.

Shit.

I’m lying to myself. His opinion matters to me very much.

The digital alarm clock on my night table beeps me out of my daydream, and I slam the rectangular button until it turns off. There’s no way I’m going to work today with all the madness shuffling through my brain. I’ll never be able to focus on documents or deal with the endless ringing of the phone, and lunch hour is a stressy dilemma I’m not ready to face. I’m too unsettled and embarrassed to go to the park today. What if Evan’s not there? Or what if he is and he ignores me? What if he comes over to my bench to talk? What would we say to each other now? What if he kisses me, there in the park, on my bench, out in the daylight in public and not hidden away under a bridge in the dark?

My heartbeats quicken at the thought of his lips on mine again, warm and possessive, and the throaty rasp of his voice.

As petrified as I am about my actions and the possible ramifications, it doesn’t diminish the other emotions fighting like hell to come to the surface. I like Evan. A lot. I’m undeniably attracted to him in ways I’ve never felt before. Whether I want it or not, he’s ignited a spark of intrigue in me, and I don’t think it’s going to extinguish anytime soon.

If anything, I feel it’s going to turn into a raging inferno that will burn ‘til the day I die.

I crawl out of bed, use the bathroom, and pull on my robe before I call the human resources manager at my office and leave a message that I have the flu and won’t be coming in to work.

With that out of the way, I heat water for tea in a mug in the microwave and pull out the yellow pages to search for a gynecologist in town. I then embark on the most awkward conversation of my life with a nurse about my “unexpected high-risk sexual experience.” Fifteen minutes later I end the call with shaking hands and an appointment two weeks from today for a full examination and testing.

The next two weeks are going to be torturous.

How does Ditra do this with multiple people and not go insane?

I’m never having sex again.

Not until I’m married, at least.

Never did I think my first time would be like this. But when I peel back the layers of fear, I’m left with a pretty wild experience with an amazingly talented and sexy man who tore through my shyness like a dagger slicing silk. I’m just not sure how I feel about myself or him or any of it and continue to see-saw between being completely appalled one minute and daydreaming about him the next.

There’s a knock on my door, and my mother enters my space before I can answer, which she has promised a hundred times she won’t do anymore to respect my privacy. Someday I’ll remember to lock the door that separates my living space from theirs.