“That was…” Her words trailed off and I couldn’t help but laugh. Leave it to my 8B to need to fill the silence after an orgasm.

“Special,” I whispered in her ear before placing a kiss on her lips and standing. My cock strained against my pants and pleaded with me to bury myself in her.

I offered her a hand instead and she placed hers in it hesitantly. When she was standing in front of me, I smiled down at her mussed hair and flushed face. She wrapped an arm around herself and I knew the after-glow was fading and she was beginning to become self-conscious again.

“That wasn’t what I meant when I said you deserved something special.”

“I know,” I said as I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “But don’t I get a say in what’s special to me?”

She didn’t respond, and I knew I needed to get out of the small room with her before I changed my mind and said or did something stupid.

“The bathroom is behind you if you want to freshen up, get dressed, or you could stay like this but fair warning I’ll probably just stare at your breasts all day if you choose to eat naked.”

“You’re – we’re…” She bit her lip and I saved her the trouble saying it aloud.

“We’ve got all day together, 8B. Let me feed you then we can go back out and explore the rest of the places on your list, whatever you want. Today is about you.”

She nodded, and I forced myself to leave the room.

The kitchen seemed lonely without her and I tried to go about cutting and preparing like I always did – by myself, but my eyes were constantly moving to the bedroom door where I waited for her to appear.

I had the potatoes and steak in the oven and I was re-filling the wine glasses when she showed. A tentative smile and rosy cheeks made her look like an angel. My angel.

“Smells delicious,” she said as I handed her a glass.

“Twenty minutes ‘til food.” With a tilt of my head, I motioned to the patio and we walked out the sliding door to the outdoor space.

“Oh, God,” she said, and I watched as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “It smells even better out here.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s an insult to my cooking.”

“I miss New York. Even the smell of it.”

Looking out over the balcony, I tried to imagine my life outside of New York. My job gave me the opportunity to travel all over the country, so it wasn’t like I thought New York was the end all be all, but she was right. New York was something special. Like her.

“You look good in New York. You’d look good anywhere, but you smile more in New York.”

She rested her elbows on the balcony and the sight of her, all innocence and sweetness against the backdrop of this tough city was breathtaking.

“Are you really going to give all this up to stay in Connecticut for another couple of years?” I stifled a groan instantly because I swore I wouldn’t go there.

Bianca had made her goal, Todd, very clear from the beginning. And if I were talking as her coach right now instead of a guy who couldn’t bear the thought of being a plane ride away from her, I’d be telling her staying was a good move for their relationship. Christ, was she in a relationship with Todd? I’d been careful to avoid any conversation that might lead to her talking about him, afraid it’d break the spell between us.

The look on her face told me I was right to keep it in and that I was a jackass for bringing it up now.

“I don’t know. JC Engineering is giving me until the end of next week to decide. I’m going to meet with my advisor next week and try and decide what’s best.”

“What’s best for you or…” I didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew.

“There are things you don’t understand,” she started. “My family needs the help. I have two brothers who are going to want to go to college and move out and I’ve seen the starting salary for someone with a master’s degree. It’s a lot more than what I’m being offered now – it more than makes up for an extra few semesters of school if I can continue to keep my scholarship. The boys may have to wait a year to start college, but I can help them this way.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t even know money was a consideration. I wanted to kiss her for being the kind of person who worried about things like taking care of her family and shake her for always putting other people’s happiness in front of her own.

“I told you before. This isn’t just about Todd,” she said quietly.

Just.

Not just about him. Which meant part of the reason was him.

“So,” I plastered on a smile. “Tell me about your brothers.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

Everything. I wanted to know everything about her and her life, which included her brothers.

“Donnie is quiet. Not shy, just reserved and serious. He’s protective and loyal even though I’m the oldest,” she smiled shyly. “Leo is the most outgoing of the three of us. He’s an artist – sketching and painting mostly. He’s practical, too, though, so I have no idea what he’ll end up doing. He’ll be great at whatever he decides,” she said in a proud voice.

“Have they started looking at colleges?”

“No, they’re both adamant about staying in New York and going to NYU. They don’t run in the same circles all the time, but I think they want to stay together as much as possible.”

“Sounds nice. They sound nice,” I added.

“You could meet them for yourself. They are hard to pin down while I’m in town, but we have a standing Sunday morning breakfast at a little diner by our house any time I visit. Nine tomorrow – you could join us.”

“I don’t want to intrude on your family time.”

“It’s no intrusion. The more the merrier.”

The look on my face must have given away my discomfort at the thought of having breakfast with her family. I was sure they were great, really, but sitting around the table with a big, happy family like Bianca’s sounded as torturous as it did tempting.

“Just, don’t answer now. If you show up, you show up. If not, I get it.”

But she didn’t get it. Not really. I wasn’t even sure I understood why I was hardwired the way I was. I had abandonment issues, blah blah. I heard the diagnosis the therapist said so blandly to my then foster parents and I wanted to roll my eyes exactly like I’d done then. I’d wanted to argue then that just because my shitty birth parents bailed didn’t mean I had to carry around their mistakes like some sort of illness. Yet, here I was all sorts of fucked up about having breakfast with Bianca’s family.

I wondered if I’d been any better off if I’d actually listened to the therapists who’d tried to help. Was that kind of early betrayal something you could really move on from? The timer from the kitchen saved me from having to delve too deep in that dark corner of my mind.

“Ready to eat?”

She nodded. “Ready.”

It was beautiful outside, a clear sunny spring day that deserved to be soaked up, but I steered Bianca to the living room with our plates.

“We’re eating in the living room?”

“Rectifying a gaping hole in your education,” I said as I turned the TV on and navigated to 10 Things I Hate About You.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so excited.” She practically bounced onto the couch and her unbridled excitement made me feel like a fucking hero. While I worked to get the movie started she bit into the potatoes and the moan that escaped her lips made her cover her mouth in embarrassment and her face turn a lovely shade of red.

“Good?”

“So good,” she mumbled around the food.

We ate and watched the movie in silence, save the occasional moan of appreciation that came from Bianca. Each little moan made me more acutely aware that I hadn’t gotten laid in… shit, weeks? Since before I’d met Bianca. That thought caused me to pause and I took a long drink of wine lost in that realization and trying to figure out what it meant.

Bianca’s laugh brought me to the present and I forced myself to relax into the couch and enjoy this time with her, knowing it might be the last time we’d do this. If she went back to school and things with Todd progressed, she wasn’t going to need me and even with the best of intentions to stay in touch, we were bound to drift apart without something linking us together.

When she finished her food, she grabbed her wine glass and tucked her feet under her on the couch and nuzzled into me. I stiffened without meaning to.

“Oh, sorry did I elbow you in the side or something?” she asked leaning away from me.

I missed the way her body felt pressed up against me immediately – more than I hated the way I was falling for a girl I couldn’t have and didn’t deserve. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her back into me. “You’re dangerous, 8B.”

And she was, but not the way she thought.

After the movie, Bianca dove right back into her quest to find out everything about me. I’d just confessed my first kiss was on the playground behind the art building sometime during third grade.

“Nine, seriously? I don’t think I would have let a boy anywhere close enough to kiss me when I was that age.”

We were still on the couch, TV off, wine glasses re-filled.

“How old were you when you had your first kiss?” I asked as I played with a piece of her blonde hair watching the way it coiled around my finger.

“No, it’s too embarrassing.” She covered her face with an arm.

“Come on. Tell me.” I tugged on the piece of hair I was holding.

She let out a sigh and moved her arm. “I was seventeen. It was at a party and I think the guy that kissed me was so drunk he thought I was someone else.”

“Always selling yourself short, 8B.”

“Seriously, about an hour later he was passed out on the bathroom floor.”

“Maybe it just took a little liquid courage for him to work up the nerve to kiss you. Ever think of that?”

“No,” she laughed. “I never thought of that.”

“And was this cowboy your first everything or just kiss?”

She took a sip of wine and when she finally comprehended my question, the look of horror and shyness played equal parts on her expression. “No, definitely not. I – he – no, he wasn’t my first.”

“No need to be shy. You’ve already admitted the men you were with failed to get you off, so whenever and whoever they were hardly matters.”

“Not men. Man.”

My hand stilled around the lock of hair.

“I’ve only slept with one person. My first semester of college. I met a nice guy during freshmen orientation. We hung out, dated I guess – although mostly it was hanging out on campus and dorm rooms. Anyway, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere but I was tired of being a virgin. I wanted to know what the big deal was. Ironic, huh, since he failed to show me what the big deal was.”

My throat was so thick, the fact that I managed to speak was no small miracle. A mixture of jealousy, rage, sadness, lust – to name a few, cycled through me. I was all over the fucking place and she was looking at me like my response, my reaction, meant something to her.

“Have to say, I’m sad you thought it was something you needed to throw away just because. And I’m pissed as hell that it went down like that for you - orgasm or no, your first time should have been something worth remembering.”

“Was yours?” she asked.

“Sure. I was young and wild and so was she. There was a lot of sneaking around to be together, which of course made it that much better somehow to my twisted teenage mind.”

Bianca looked down at her wine glass as she asked the next question. “Did you love her?”

“I loved the escape she gave me. I loved how I was able to forget about everything else and just feel when I was with her, but no, Bianca, I didn’t love her.”

The air had become charged and I just kept getting myself in this situation where my self-control was pulled so tight I felt like I would break.

“What do you say we get out of the apartment for a while, see some more of New York before you have to head back.”

She nodded, but she looked as reluctant to move as I felt. With a groan, I stood and pulled her to her feet.

“Last night in New York, where do you want to go? Anywhere you want in the whole damn city.”

She worried at her bottom lip and I ran my thumb over it until she released it and I slid the pad over her full, wet mouth.

“Here. I want to stay right here,” she said quietly.

The implication of those words hit hard, and my chest tightened. “You’re sure?”

Staying here could only end one way. I knew it. She knew it.

“Yes.” Her voice was more assured this time and she moved a hand to the waist of my jeans.

I grasped her hand and kicked myself before I even spoke the words, but I needed her decision to be her own. I might not be a knight in shining armor but taking advantage of women had no appeal.

“Bianca, we don’t have to do anything. Today, this,” I motioned between us and the TV. “This was great. It doesn’t have to go any further. Earlier was –” but I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, so I backtracked. “I didn’t ask you to spend the day with me so I could get you into bed.”

“If you remember, I was the one who asked to come back to your apartment,” she said with a shy grin.

“Yes, I know. But –”

“I want to.” The soft tone was back, but she continued confidently. The look on her face was vulnerable but undeterred. “I want to know what it’s supposed to feel like. What it feels like with you.”

I let out a breath and stared at her beautiful face because what the hell was I supposed to say to that? It was more of an invitation than I’d ever been given. Yet still I hesitated. And hated myself every time I opened my mouth to protest. Why was I trying to convince her not to?

Because you know it’s not a good idea for either of you. A niggling voice mocked in the back of my mind.

Mostly I thought it wasn’t a good idea for me. Bianca wasn’t just some woman I’d brought home. Sleeping with her would end us and I didn’t want to give her up.

I made a decision and pushed every red flag waving manically in my brain to one of the many dark corners. 8B had asked very little of me. She’d let me call the shots, even when it was her life we’d been playing with. I’d give her this - give her me. For tonight.

Before I could make my limbs work, she reached out a small hand to me. I never imagined little Bianca would be the one seducing me. Let me be clear, I never planned to seduce her, either. Sure, I’d thought about it. Wanted it. Kissed her with promises of more, but if I’d really thought we were going to come to this I would have played the whole thing differently. That annoying voice in my brain said, You would never have let her get this close.

Sad, but true. I’d always drawn a very thick line between women I was fucking and any personal or emotional connection. That may have made me sound like an asshole, but I didn’t think I had been. I didn’t exactly have women banging down the door or lighting up my phone asking me to meet their friends or to go away for a weekend. I suppose I’d done a good job of picking women who were looking for the same thing that I was.

Not Bianca. She’d skidded so far past that line I usually drew. Everything about our time together had been personal and emotional.

I moved quickly, using her hand as leverage as I swooped her up and placed her over my shoulder. She let out a shriek of surprise and excitement.

“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into,” I said as I walked into the bedroom and set her down in front of me.

Her eyes widened and I watched her swallow down the trepidation. I crouched down in front of her and her hands found my shoulder. Running both hands up the back of her legs, I trailed kisses as I went, and she swayed into me. I leaned back to watch her face as my hands disappeared under her dress and pulled her panties down. Her lip quivered as she stepped out of them. I stood, pulling the hem of her skirt up.

“Raise your arms, 8B.”

She did, and her body was uncovered as the material lifted and discarded with her panties. I bit one breast through the lace of her bra and I was rewarded with a sharp inhale of breath. I gave the other the same treatment before I slipped my hands behind her and unhooked the clasp. It was almost painful to step back from her, but I did and let the bra fall away from her perfect breasts.

“So perfect,” I muttered. “Just like the rest of you.”

A slow blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “Take my shirt off.”

She nodded, and I worked to steady my own uneven breathing while she fumbled with my shirt. She moved closer and went up on her tiptoes as she pushed the fabric over my shoulders and down my arms. The smell of her want invaded my nostrils as her breasts brushed up against my now bare chest. It was almost too much, the connection – the spark that jolted through me as our naked bodies joined. Fuck, we’d barely started and I was already in danger of losing it.

With my shirt in her hands, she brought it up to her nose and inhaled – her eyes fluttered closed as she did. It was so adorably Bianca.

“You smell good,” she said after she tossed the shirt to join her clothes on the floor.

I couldn’t help but grin.

“Can I –” her words trailed off and her eyes went to my pants. Or more specifically the rather obvious bulge in said pants.

I gave her a slight nod and tried to focus on anything but the slow and unsteady way her fingers unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans before hooking her hands under the waist and pushing down. Her inexperience shouldn’t have been so hot, but it was because she was giving me something – a piece of herself she hadn’t felt comfortable enough to give anyone else. Maybe her reasons were selfish – maybe I was just practice so she could get it right with fucking Todd. Right now, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Right now, she was mine.

I helped her get my jeans and boxers down my legs and when the material was free she finally looked at me. All of me.

“Wow,” she said breathlessly, and I swear I grew bigger and harder everywhere, ego included. “You’re kind of beautiful, Court.”

I quirked an eyebrow.

“You know what I mean. I never thought of a man being beautiful, but you are.” She finally reached a hand out and touched me – lightly, not sexual exactly, more exploring.

“I’d like to be offended,” I gritted out. “But my penis doesn’t care what you say as long as you stand there naked touching me.”

Her touch became bolder and I ground my teeth and squeezed my hands into fists in an attempt to force some feeling anywhere but my dick. When I couldn’t take it any longer, which was an embarrassingly short amount of time, I wrapped an arm around her waist and tumbled back onto the bed with her. I circled a nipple with my thumb and dropped my mouth to the other. I felt her body stiffen under me.

“Relax, sweetheart. Let me make you feel good. Let me show you what it can be like.”

I wanted this to live up to every single ridiculous, unrealistic expectation she had. I wanted to worship her body in a way that ruined her. I wanted to set the bar so high that no man, least of all fucking Todd, could compare.

I moved up, taking her mouth and caressing her face. I reminded myself that she needed the personal connection to hand over her body. I couldn’t check out emotionally, and I couldn’t let her either, if I wanted her to let go.

I kept kissing her as I allowed my hands to roam down her body. She arched off the mattress and ran her fingernails lightly down my back. It wasn’t an ‘I want to mark you because I’ve seen it done in movies’ way, it was tender with just enough pressure that I knew she was exploring me – my body, my muscles. She was cataloging every inch of me the same way I was memorizing her.

We stayed like that for a while, hands roaming, and lips fused together until Bianca began to move beneath me. Small motions, wriggling to force my attention to where she wanted me most. I didn’t deny her. Wouldn’t have dreamt of it.

I pressed one finger inside, curling it and feeling her clench around me. She was so tight and wet, and my dick was jumping to get inside of her. Not yet. I wanted her so close to the edge that she couldn’t see straight. She made the tiniest of bucks into my hand, fucking herself with my finger when I inserted another. And then another because I wanted to see how far I could push her. Her eyes opened and widened, locking into mine. She looked at me with lust and frantic energy. Wild. My little 8B looked wild but somehow, I knew this was how she’d be. So perfect and tentative on the outside, but just waiting to be set free.

“I’m gonna… I’m close,” she said in a husky voice that I wanted to record and play back every time I touched myself.

I rolled on top of her, holding my weight off her but letting her feel how our bodies molded together. I bent my head down to kiss her neck and while she was busy reeling in the sensation, I opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a condom.

The sounds coming from her were breathy and loud, moans that shook my body with a carnal desire so strong I quivered when I pulled back and slid the condom down over me.

“You’re sure this is what you want?”

I was half afraid she’d say no – that she’d been waiting for an out and now that I’d given her one was about to flee from my apartment and my life. She was quiet for a moment and I searched her eyes for any hint of what was going on inside her pretty little head.

“I’m positive. I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Thank fuck for that.

I nudged at her entrance, locking my eyes with hers. She smiled as if giving me the go ahead and when I moved in an inch her smile disappeared. I stilled, letting her adjust to the intrusion before I moved farther in. She was like a vise around my dick and I was sweating to keep my shit together.

“You’re so fucking tight,” I muttered as I buried myself completely.

“I think you’re just so fucking big,” she breathed out.

I certainly wasn’t going to correct her there because, hell, those words made me feel like a king. Our bodies joined like this was perfection in a way I didn’t know existed. Maybe it was just her – because her body was perfection all on its own. She was perfection.

I moved slowly. Carefully. I never took my eyes off hers.

I knew when she started to acclimate, and the sensation turned to pure pleasure because she met my thrusts, lifting her hips off the bed. I let her dictate the pace and I returned to worshipping her body – licking each breast, teasing her clit, and kissing that sweet mouth.

When her orgasm was close she began to say my name quietly. Almost a chant. “Court, Court, ooooh Court.”

I watched as she came undone, clenching me so tightly I followed in an instant.

I wanted to set the bar to an unobtainable level for her. Destroy every other experience -past and future. The way she looked at me, I thought I’d succeeded. A lazy smile on her face spread across her face, like I’d hung the moon and all the stars.

Maybe I’d given her exactly what I aimed for, but she gave it right back and looking down at my sweet, perfect 8B I was pretty sure I’d stumbled over a line where no one else could compare to her. I was a mother fucking idiot.