M

y heart had never thumped harder in my chest than after hearing Aiden invite me back to his condo. I was trying to figure out a way to prolong our time together, but I knew asking him in was cliché and, not to mention, I was too nervous to even form words correctly. I also didn’t want to endure being rejected again. My heart likely couldn’t take it two nights in a row.

I said a silent thank you to whichever deity granted me the grace to be able to vocalize my agreement to go back to his place.

He dropped my hand to fish keys out of his pocket and I instantly missed his warmth wrapped around my palm.

He opened the door and then let it swing open, motioning for me to enter before him. I walked through and he flipped the light on.

He hadn’t been kidding about the condo.

It was sparse.

But it was also tidy.

I immediately felt guilty that I’d expected empty pizza boxes, dirty dishes, and laundry to be strewn about. It did still look a little like a bachelor pad, but clearly a bachelor pad belonging to a grown man.

The door clicked shut behind me and I heard his voice.

“Would you like some wine?”

God, I love his voice.

Not only did I love his voice, but I loved when he was close and spoke softly, the timbre rumbling over the surface of my skin, causing all kinds of goosebumps to appear.

“I’d actually just really like some water.”

I couldn’t help the blush that started creeping across my face. He’d invited me in for a drink and I asked for water. Was I as transparent as I thought? Could he totally see that I would take any excuse just to be with him? I didn’t want any more wine, but I did want to spend time with him. I’d had two glasses at Riley’s and at one point had been a tad bit tipsy. Just enough to feel a little relaxed. But by the time Aiden had shown up, the buzz was gone and instead I was very much aware of every single feeling I was experiencing.

“Coming right up. Ice?”

“Sure.”

He moved past me, his hand brushing my elbow as he walked toward the kitchen.

His condo looked nothing like mine. The layout was completely different and I found myself looking around, trying to glean any information I could about him from his space.

“Like I said, this place isn’t really me. I just sleep and eat here sometimes.”

“I can see that,” I said with a laugh. There was nothing in the living room except a couch and a TV hanging on the wall. No coffee table. Not even a throw pillow.

“I swear I’m not sterile and boring.”

My eyes widened at his choice of words.

“Well, I mean, I’m definitely not sterile. Or, at least I don’t think I am. I’ve never been tested...” He mumbled something else, but I didn’t hear it because I was laughing too hard.

All the anxious energy and nervousness seemed to explode out of me in laughter. The tension left my body in waves and by the time I’d calmed down, I had tears running down my face.

Aiden appeared at my side with a smile on his face and a glass of water in his hand.

“I’m glad you find this amusing.”

“Well, just so we’re on even ground, I’m not sterile either.”

He let out a bark of a laugh, his eyes sparkling, and I took a drink of water, trying not to be totally and completely obvious about how attracted I was to him. One look at his smiling face and I had the irrational urge to jump into his arms and rub up against him.

“Glad we covered that important information,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re so beautiful when you laugh.”

His words caught me off guard and I couldn’t stop the small gasp that came with the compliment.

“I mean, you’re beautiful all the time. You should know that. But when you laugh, it’s breathtaking.”

“I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Without taking his gaze off mine, his hand came up and took the glass from me, setting it down on the counter of the island next to us.

“I swear I didn’t ask you to come in with an agenda, but I’d like to kiss you now, if that’s all right.” His eyes were darting back and forth between mine, asking for permission, waiting for me to say something, but his feet brought him closer inch by inch. It was as if he’d already known what my answer would be when he asked, and was just biding his time until I gave him my inevitable answer.

We both knew what it would be.

“Yes,” I whispered just before his lips captured mine. My hands found their way to his neck and his came to my waist, pulling me close, almost lifting me off my feet, just my toes touching the ground.

At first the kisses were frantic, like he’d been unleashed and couldn’t wait to feel me against him, but once there was no space between us, he slowed the kiss down, taking wide sweeps through my mouth with his tongue. One of his hands slid to my ass, the other up to cup the back of my neck, and I couldn’t have escaped him if I tried for how he was holding me.

Like I was precious.

“Couch,” he said against my mouth, walking me backward toward it.

“Bed,” I argued, my lips never leaving his.

The suggestion must have unlocked something in him because the kiss, which was already the best I’d ever had, skyrocketed from hot and sexy to mind-blowing and earth-shattering.

He growled into my mouth, the hand on my ass gripping me harder, hauling me up until I was off the floor and wrapping my legs around his waist.

My hands were on the move as well, threading through his hair, sliding down his arms, enjoying every curve and valley built by the muscles that I couldn’t wait to see when they weren’t covered in cotton or flannel.

We were moving through the condo, but he was doing all the maneuvering. I simply continued kissing him as he carried me to what I assumed would be his bedroom. Sure enough, a few seconds later he laid me gingerly on a mattress.

Still kissing, I reached up and unbuttoned his shirt, my fingers fumbling multiple times before finally releasing each button then pushing it over his massive shoulders and down his arms. I pulled at his undershirt, ripping the hem from the waist of his jeans, lifting it as I ripped my lips away from his just in time to see the contours of his abdomen revealed.

He took over, ripping the shirt over his head, and I stilled, looking at a shirtless Aiden before me.

There were no words.

Absolutely nothing I could say described what looking at him did to me. How just the sight of his skin affected me.

“This isn’t what I intended,” he rasped, breaths panting out, his lungs working overtime from our kissing.

“What?” I’d heard him, but his abs made it hard to process thoughts correctly.

“When I asked you in. I know it’s cliché, but I really didn’t plan for this. I swear.”

“That’s a shame,” I said before I could think better of it. “This is exactly what I was hoping for.”

The side of his mouth tipped up into a smile, but it fell away quickly.

“We don’t have to do this right now, Rose.”

“Yes, Aiden, we do. Please.”

He looked as though he was contemplating his options for a moment, but I saw the moment when I knew he’d decided I was right. He leaned back over me, close enough that I could finally let my fingertips graze over the warm flesh covering all the muscles I’d spent hours imagining.

He kissed my lips softly, then moved over my cheek and down my jaw, placing light kisses as he went. His mouth moved over my throat and every part of me lit up when his warm tongue brushed the sensitive skin there.

He continued down until his face hovered over my belly button. He pushed the hem of my shirt up, splaying kisses on my stomach as he slowly inched it up my body. He stopped just before he got to my bra. “Is this okay?” The words brushed against my skin.

“Yes,” I managed. A mixture of emotions were swirling around inside of me: anxious, excited, and terrified. It was overwhelming in the most wonderful way, to feel so much already.

With one smooth movement my shirt was removed altogether and suddenly Aiden was seeing more of me than he ever had before.

I watched him, hoping his face would give something away. That I’d be able to figure out what he was thinking by the way he looked at me, but his face dropped back to my body, his forehead resting between my breasts.

Instinctively, my hands came to his head, fingers threading through his hair.

We stayed like that for a moment, a position so much more intimate than anything I thought being with a man for the first time would bring.

Finally, he moved, his lips coming back to my skin, tenderly kissing me. His mouth moved over the swell of my breast and at the same time his fingers pulled down on the cup of my bra, exposing me to him. He wasted no time taking me into his mouth, and we both groaned at the contact.

It was just his mouth on my breast, but it was the most arousing thing I’d ever experienced. My lungs gasped for air as every nerve ending in my core lit up like lightning bugs at dusk. We hadn’t even gotten to the sex part and I was already in over my head, already at the threshold of ecstasy.

His hand disappeared behind my back and I arched to accommodate it. Within seconds my bra was unhooked and we both worked in tandem to rid me of it. We fumbled together, tossing it somewhere, and I heard it hit the floor in a soft thud, but all I could concentrate on was his skin pressed up against mine.

Our bare torsos with nothing between us.

His chest and mine, finally meeting. My arms slid around his back, my hands finding the wide expanse of his shoulder blades, holding him to me, as he kissed me like I’d never been kissed before.

This was lovemaking.

This was emotions told through the art of lips and tongues. This was the delicate dance between people who didn’t know each other’s bodies, but longed for that connection.

My legs wrapped around his waist and my center found his, pressing into him to ease the ache that was growing there.

Suddenly, we were frantic. I couldn’t get enough of him, and he couldn’t touch enough of me. His hands roamed, sliding between the fabric of my pants and underwear, grasping the fleshiest part of my ass in his hand, holding my core against his erection as he ground into me, pressing me into the mattress.

I moaned, unable to hold back the cry as every cell in my body woke up for the first time. I was alive, everywhere. From the depths of my belly to the tips of my fingers, to the pulsing ache between my legs—I was alive.

“Tell me this is okay,” he rasped between thrusts. The bulge behind the zipper of his jeans was hard, making me curious, wanting to be bare with him, to see all of him and all of me and watch as we melded into one.

My brain was off and instinct was taking over.

“Everything is okay. All of it. No more questions,” I begged, taking his mouth again.

In a tangle of arms and legs we both helped each other remove what was left of our clothing and suddenly everything was perfect.

It was dark in the light. I had the answers to the questions I’d never asked. I knew everything and nothing. Magic sparked the air around us.

Not ever, in a million years, did I think finally giving my body to someone else would actually unlock a part of me I hadn’t met yet. It was almost as if Aiden had carried a piece of me with him all this time, and he was just now returning me to myself. I saw myself in him. The way he looked at me, the way he cherished me, it was astounding. Surprising. Wonderful.

“Please,” I begged him, for what, I wasn’t sure of. I just knew he was the only one who could give me what I was looking for.

I could see he wanted to ask again, to make sure I was ready, that this was really what I truly wanted, but instead of letting him second-guess himself, I answered for him anyway.

I reached between us, lining him up with the most private part of me, and raised my hips until he was inside.

Just barely.

“Please,” I repeated, wanting him to complete the act. “I need you.”

He kissed me gently—the softest, slowest kiss in the history of kissing—and pushed in even slower. Pushed until there was nowhere left to go, until one part of me was gone and another was born.

And as altering as it was, as important as the moment felt, it also wasn’t.

The enormity of it was overshadowed by how inexplicably normal it was.

It was just right.

He buried his face in my neck as our connection grew more frantic, more base. There were no more questions, just answers.

Minutes passed. Mouths met. Bodies connected.

It was a new sensation, to be full with someone else, but it was incredible. I couldn’t have ever anticipated all the different things I was experiencing.

My orgasm—the first I’d ever experienced with a man—came as a surprise. I wasn’t expecting it and frankly, didn’t think it was possible. I’d heard all about women who couldn’t climax during penetrative sex and had been prepared to simply enjoy it for what it was and what it could give me.

So, when the familiar sensation began to crest, when I felt the wave curling in my core, it was astonishing. And then, when I’d just wrapped my mind around the fact that I was, in fact, going to come—that I was going to have an orgasm with Aiden inside of me—the wave peaked higher than it ever had before.

The most devastating orgasm rolled through my entire body as Aiden plunged into me, deeper and deeper. My shoulders were braced on the mattress, my hips in his hands where he’d lifted me off the bed, taking me at just the right angle to set me off. Fingers curled into the sheets, head turned, mouth open. A long moan poured out of me as the orgasm rocketed through my body.

My body shuddered. Every part of me vibrated with sensation I’d never imagined possible.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Aiden came.

Every moment was sexier than the last, more memorable, more impossibly perfect.

Nothing, ever, would sound as good as hearing Aiden whisper, “Oh, God,” the first time he came with me.

We were both hot, sweaty, and panting. The sheet below me were sticky, the room musty and warm. But I held him to me regardless, loving the way his weight pressed on me, the way his breaths huffed out against my neck, the way my legs fit so perfectly around his thighs. The backs of his knees just perfect for my heels. Like we were two pieces of the same sculpture.

“Jesus, Rose,” he finally said after a long, quiet moment of both of us trying to catch our breaths. “That was...” His words trailed off as he rubbed his lips against my temple. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” I asked, suddenly filled with panic. “For what?” Had the most wonderful and beautiful moment of my entire life been sub-par? Was I so naive and inexperienced that I’d mistaken bad sex for a life-altering connection? “Did I do something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, sweetheart. Nothing about that was wrong.” He kissed me gently, one of his hands pushing back the hair that was sticking to my face from the sweat. “I just meant for it to be so much more than that. I’d hoped, if we ever got to the stage where we were in bed, I’d take a little more care. Put in a little more effort.” He looked around his room, causing me to look around as well. “I didn’t even have out candles. Or music. These aren’t even clean sheets.”

He looked at me as though he was waiting for me to explode at him in anger.

Instead, I started laughing.

He pulled his head back, face screwed up in confusion, which only made me laugh harder.

“You can do more than that?” I said all while laughing impossibly hard.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, chuckling, still staring down at me.

“I think I’m done. Once was enough for me.” I brought my hands up to my face, wiping away the tears that came with the laughter. “I don’t think I can handle anything better than that.”

I was smiling by default. It’s impossible to laugh without smiling. Aiden wasn’t laughing anymore, but he was smiling.

Looking down at me with sparkling eyes, he said quietly, “It doesn’t get any better than that, sweetheart. But it can be different.”

“Different?” I parroted, my voice a whisper, curiosity getting the better of me.

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’m just afraid I didn’t show you—that it wasn’t everything it could have been.”

I placed my hand on his cheek. “It was perfect.”

He kissed me sweetly, then mumbled against my lips, “I’ll be right back.” He pulled back and I flinched as I experienced something brand-new. The sensation of Aiden pulling out of me was unpleasant. I was suddenly empty.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered, a terrified look on his face. “Oh, shit.” It was more frantic the second time he said it.

“What?” I asked, horrified, wondering what in the world could make him change from sweet and caring one moment to scared and worried the next.

“I didn’t use a condom,” he said quickly, his eyes coming up to meet mine. “Rose, I’m so sorry. That’s never happened. I’ve never not used a condom. I just...”

He was right. We hadn’t. And I felt like a fool.

“This is my fault,” I pleaded. “I kept asking you to... and I shouldn’t have...”

“No, Rose, it’s my responsibility.” He ran a hand over his face, letting out a harsh breath. I reached for a blanket we’d pushed to the side of the bed unknowingly, trying to cover myself while Aiden sorted through his thoughts. I couldn’t help but notice the blanket smelled like him. I hid a smile in the fabric as I took a sniff, but then schooled my expression when I reminded myself that we were in the middle of a crisis.

“Rose,” he finally said, looking directly at me. “I need you to know I’ve never—never—been with someone without a condom. And I had no intention of doing that with you. As stupid as it sounds, I was caught up in the moment.”

“It’s okay,” I muttered. “I didn’t think about it either.”

“I’m clean,” he promised. “I was tested a few months ago, regularly, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”

“Okay,” I replied, not really knowing what else to say. “I’m clean too.”

Luckily, a small laugh huffed out of him at my joke.

He sighed again, though. Clearly not done thinking about the mistake we’d made.

“I think the pharmacy down the street is open twenty-four hours. I can go get the morning after pill.”

Suddenly, it dawned on me why he was still worried.

“Oh, Aiden, no. It’s fine. You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I mean, whatever you want, obviously. But I don’t mind paying for it. It’s my responsibility.”

“No, I mean, I don’t need to take the morning after pill. I’ve been on birth control since I was seventeen. I take it every day, like clockwork. I took it just this morning. I promise.”

“You’re on birth control?” He was clearly puzzled.

“Um, yeah. I started a long time ago to, um, regulate my cycle. Not to, you know, prevent pregnancy. I was taking care of that by not having sex.”

It was a night for a lot of firsts, apparently. Not only had I had sex for the first time, I’d also explained to a man for the first time that my cycle was a raging bitch if she wasn’t medicated. But even though I was mortified to have to tell him that, he seemed relieved by my admission.

“Okay. Wow. That was a moment.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“No, it’s not your fault. I just don’t have any condoms here and I wasn’t expecting this. And if I’m being completely honest, I couldn’t think about anything besides just being inside you. It was an overwhelming compulsion. It still kind of is.”

My cheeks were suddenly hot again.

He winked and got out of the bed, walking toward what I assumed was the bathroom attached to his bedroom. I watched his naked form the entire way, enjoying the view very much.

After he’d disappeared, I took the moment of solitude to flop back on the bed, cover my face, and have a moment of Oh my God.

How in the world did I get here?

Not only here as in Aiden’s bed, but here as in a woman who’d finally had an amazing sexual experience with a man. I had convinced myself it was an impossibility. In fact, I’d safeguarded against it, focusing solely on work, eliminating dating from my life. I’d been so tired of disappointment, I’d stopped setting myself up for it.