“That is something we will remedy soon,” said Priscilla gently. “But I think it deserves a conversation first, don’t you?”

She’d suspected that he might be a virgin—not because he wasn’t adept at arousing her. He was. He always had been. He was beautiful and challenging, and she had wanted him for a long time…wanted to see what happened when he unbuttoned. Completely.

He’d admitted to her that his experience with women was lean, and she knew that despite the fact that he’d dated Margaret for months, their relationship hadn’t been very sexual. He very well could have lost his virginity to some woman in college or during a business trip at some anonymous corporate hotel, but for all his aloofness, Shane was sensitive. He wasn’t the type to fuck for fun. He was the type to put a premium on the experience and wait until he genuinely cared for someone.

All these thoughts added up to a suspicion that Shane Olson might have slipped through the cracks of availability and possibility. It happened. Not often, of course. But movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin weren’t a hit if they didn’t make sense to somebody.

The thing was, however, Priscilla felt strongly that taking someone’s virginity was a serious business, especially since hers had literally been taken…without her permission.

He was an older and extremely hot European exchange student staying with her neighbors, the Amblers, one year. He spoke with a sexy accent and watched her with dark, fascinated eyes. She was fifteen. He was eighteen. He bought them tequila one night with a fake ID, licking salt off her stomach and plucking the lime from between her teeth. He was exotic and exciting, but no amount of “No, no, no!” or “I’m not ready!” or “Please stop! Please! It hurts!” had made him stop. Even worse, when it was over, he told her that he loved her, which made her so confused, it had taken years of therapy and journaling to unravel the layers of her feelings.

At the time, she’d left the boy in the Amblers’ backyard and raced home to her mother, smelling of liquor and limes, her mascara running, her bikini bottoms and thighs smeared with her virginal blood. When she blurted out what had happened, her mother had smacked her face so hard, it had snapped back Priscilla’s neck and left a bruise on her cheek. Informing her daughter that “girls who looked like whores were apt to be treated like whores,” she had essentially told Priscilla that she got what she deserved, then demanded she “clean herself up” and warned her never to mention the incident again.

She hadn’t.

Not to anyone.

Not for years.

Until a woman at the commune in Taos had shared the experience of her own date rape, finally giving Priscilla permission to talk about it, a shoulder to cry on, and—seven years after it happened—the help that led her down the road to recovery.

Several things had happened to Priscilla as a result of being date-raped: She had never forgiven her mother for her reaction, leading Priscilla to stay away from Forrester for long stretches of time, traveling, wandering, and never wanting to see the same shame and derision in her mother’s eyes. Losing her virginity without consent had also devalued sex for Priscilla; she had, for years, allowed herself to be used by men because “whores were treated like whores,” and only after seeking professional help in Taos did she begin to understand that it didn’t matter if she was drinking alone in the dark with a man—it still didn’t give him the right to touch her without her permission.

She was still a work in progress, and maybe she always would be. At this point in her life? She liked being touched. She liked teasing. She liked sex. On her own terms. And she felt strongly—so very deeply—that someone’s virginity was a sacred thing, whether it belonged to a man or a woman. And it should only be given away soberly, safely, and with express permission.

She looked at Shane’s deep-blue eyes, which were roiling with different emotions: worry, shame, desire. Her first experience had been all wrong. She wanted his first to be as right as possible.

“Can we just talk about it?” she asked.

He turned slightly, bending one knee onto the bed and half-facing her so they could speak. Priscilla scooted back a little, sitting Indian style, pulling up her blouse before looking up at him.

“It’s beyond embarrassing. It’s absurd,” he muttered, his cheeks pink.

“That you waited?”

“That I’m twenty-six and I haven’t—”

“I disagree. I don’t see anything embarrassing or absurd about it, frankly.”

He rolled his eyes. “I should go.”

“Stop saying that!” she said.

“There’s no recovering from this!” he protested. “You can’t possibly see me the way I want you to!”

“You’re a virgin, not an ax murderer!” she yelled back. “And I see you exactly the same way I saw you five minutes ago, Shane…as someone I am desperate to fuck as soon as we talk about this for one goddamned minute! Okay?”

He blinked at her in surprise, but his posture was still cautious.

“Fine,” she said, shaking her head at him in consternation. “You need proof I still want you? I’ll prove it!”

She grabbed his face and kissed him, hard and angrily. Her fingers curled into his face, and she pressed her lips to his until he softened, until he leaned closer, until he kissed her back.

His tongue slid between her lips, and his arms wrapped around her body. She scooted closer to him on the bed, and he pulled her roughly and urgently onto his lap, kissing her senselessly first, then gently and lovingly. Finally, she leaned away from him, running her knuckles along his jawline tenderly, smiling up at him.

“I care for you,” she murmured passionately, as he had before. “I want you. I just want to be sure that this is what you want too, because once we do this, we can’t go back.”

“How can you doubt that I want you?” he asked her, his face incredulous.

“Your body might want me, but I want you to think with your head for a minute here. Let’s just be honest: I’m not an optimum candidate for your first time. I’m pregnant. We’re really different. Give me another month or two and I’ll be fat as a house. I’m already hormonal. I’ve got a baby coming. I’m going to be a handful, Shane. You sure you want to start something serious with me?”

His lips, which had been stern, softened a little. “Something serious has already been started, P. In case you missed it, we’re married. You’re my wife.”

You’re my wife.

Her breath caught at the beauty of those three simple words said so earnestly, and without the usual accompanying qualifier of “for a year,” she thought her heart might explode. It took effort for her to stay focused on their conversation.

“Only for convenience,” she reminded him.

“There is nothing convenient about it,” he answered, rubbing her lower back, his hands kneading her aching muscles. “And for the record, you won’t be fat; you’ll be pregnant…you’re already a handful, P, and yes—yes, baby, I want something serious with you.”

Needy places deep inside her body clenched hard as her heart skipped a beat.

“Shane Olson…did you just call me…‘baby’?”

He pulled her closer, a little cocky as he nodded. “Any objections?”

“None.”

She searched his eyes, realizing—perhaps for the first time—that she’d started this conversation for his sake, but it was a dialogue she needed too. Priscilla was sexually experienced, yes, but she was a jealous, selfish lover—she didn’t share, and she required exclusivity. She didn’t set herself up in situations that could break her heart; she was smarter than that. And something about Shane Olson felt simultaneously safe and dangerous.

Safe because she sensed that he didn’t hide much—that when he said he cared for her and wanted her, he meant it. Safe because Shane wasn’t the type to love her and leave her. Safe because she had a feeling that no matter how different they appeared to be, they completed each other in a way that both desperately needed.

And dangerous because the more she fell in love with Shane, the less she wanted to picture her life without him. The more she craved the sort of stable, loving future he dreamed of for himself. And for a woman who had spent the better part of her life running away from Haverford, staying indefinitely felt…daunting. Even if she stayed for him.

“If we do this,” she whispered, “it means we’re together. Exclusive.”

“Of course,” he said. “I only want you.”

All the danger she’d felt a moment before flitted away, and she leaned forward to kiss him tenderly, to thank him for his reassurance at the moment she needed it most.

When she leaned away, he tilted his head to the side. “You’re certain it doesn’t bother you, P? That I’m a—”

“Virgin? No. Not at all.” She paused, cradling his face in her hands, loving him, even though she didn’t have permission yet. “Last chance…is this what you want?”

“I want you to be my first.” He stopped himself, looking down at the space between their bodies for a moment before meeting her brown eyes with his dark blue. “Please, P…be my first.”

***

This was the magic of Priscilla.

That somehow—someway—he’d gone from about to leave to remaining indefinitely over the course of one short conversation.

He thought back to several weeks ago when she’d said to him, You say whatever you want to say…You don’t have to censor yourself or worry about my reaction. It’s okay with me. All of it. Anything. The magic of it, the miracle of her—the essence of the sweet, original woman in his arms—was that for the first time in his life, he was truly and completely himself when he was with her. And in a lightning burst of sudden self-awareness, he also realized that he’d inadvertently happened upon the very essence of love: someone that saw you for exactly who you were…and loved you anyway, in spite of, because of, even though, and for real.

That was his Priscilla. His P. His wife.

Real.

Wild hair and gorgeous tits, saying whatever popped into her head and meaning every word. Complicated and messy and gloriously genuine. His girl, his woman, was a hundred percent real.

And he loved her for it.

Loved her.

His breath caught, and he dropped her eyes, turning his head slightly so he could kiss her wrist. He drew her wrist back and looked at the tattoo there: a heart shot through with a bolt of lightning and the swirling words Coup de Foudre.

“Coo day foo-druh,” he said, fully aware that his accent was crap but positive she wouldn’t care. “What does it mean?”

“Coup de Foudre,” she said in low-toned, sexy, perfectly accented French. “Literally, it means ‘thunderbolt.’”

He nodded, pressing his lips to the heart before looking up at her again.

“Figuratively,” she whispered, “it means love at first sight. A thunderbolt through the heart. A shock to the system that fries the motherboard. Breaks it. Makes it useless for anyone else.”

“You got it in France?” he asked, trying to be brave when she said yes, when she admitted that her love for Pernaud trumped any other love she’d ever know thereafter. “When you were with Pernaud?”

She shook her head. “No. I actually got it last fall…before I met him. I wasn’t with anyone when I got it.”

“Last fall…” He blinked at her. “You were temping at Story Imports.”

“I was,” she murmured.

“Teasing me.”

“Every chance I got.”

“Does it—” He looked at it again—at the heart and thunderbolt—remembering how fascinated and flummoxed he’d been by her last year, living for the moments she discomposed him. “Does it have anything to do with me?”

She clenched her jaw, drawing away just enough to twist her wrist and look at it thoughtfully. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe?” he whispered.

She looked up, staring at him with wide eyes for a long moment, then nodded. “Maybe.”

Reaching for her cheeks, he pulled her face to his and groaned into her mouth as he pressed his lips hungrily to hers. Her fingers grappled for his shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his suit pants and shoving it up his chest. He slid his fingers from her face to his tie and loosened it, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt, then reaching behind his neck to jerk the shirt, tie, and undershirt off his body.

Still straddling his lap, Priscilla’s eyes dropped to his bare chest, and he watched as her eyes flared open, her lips parting as a soft gasping sound escaped her throat. Her fingers touched his chiseled abs, tracing the swells of muscle that he’d starting cultivating as a young teen on his parents’ farm.

“Shane,” she murmured, her fingers trailing over the six-pack of muscle and landing on his belt buckle, “why are you hiding this?”

“Should I go shirtless to the office?” he joked, his voice husky and breathless.

“Fuck yes,” she panted, pulling on the slack end of his belt to release the loop and tug it back through the buckle. She whipped it from his waist, and with a faint jingly sound, she threw the leather to the floor with his discarded shirt. Her fingers slid lower, opening the button on his pants and unzipping the fly. “You’re sure?”

Barely able to breathe, he nodded. “Positive.”

Her hand slipped under his plaid boxers, and he flinched, groaning softly as her fingers brushed over the sensitive tip of his penis.

“You’re hard,” she said, looking up at him.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he answered, realizing that she was still fully clothed.

Reaching for the hem of her blouse, he urged it up and over her breasts. She slid her hand from his pants and pulled her shirt over her head, then, watching his face, she quickly unfastened her bra in the back and let the straps slide down her arms.

He trailed his index fingers from her shoulders to the satin straps of her bra, sliding them down the warm, soft skin of her arms, over her elbows, over her wrists, away from her body. Her naked breasts were lush and full, the nipples dark, peaked, and tight. Sliding closer to him so that her nipples grazed the wiry blond hairs on his chest, she chuckled softly.

“Is this new?” she asked him.

“Sort of,” he said, then laughed. “With you, yes.”

“But you’ve gone this far before.”

He nodded.

“Hmm.” She slid off his lap and climbed off the bed, slipping her fingers into the waistband of her skirt and panties and pulling both over her hips, letting them fall to the floor in a whisper and leaving her body entirely naked.

“Is this new?” she asked, her voice soft, her eyes tender.

His eyes slid to her toes, then up her legs, resting briefly on the tidy triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs and stopping at the swell of her stomach. In the moonlight, he could finally see it—the soft way her belly curved the line of her body outward, the miraculous secret hidden every day under her billowy clothes. He felt a bottomless gratitude for the gift she was giving him tonight—for trusting him with her nakedness, for sharing her most intimate self with him, and for the extraordinary honor of seeing her body ripening with child.

Reaching for her hips, he pulled her to the edge of the bed, between his legs, and lowered his lips to her belly, needing her to know that it didn’t matter to him that the baby was, biologically, someone else’s child. He was falling deeply in love with her, all of her, which meant loving her baby too.

Feeling uncharacteristically emotional, a lump gathered in his throat, making it difficult to speak. He looked up into her eyes, which were glistening with unshed tears, and somehow managed to murmur, “Yes. All new.”

Cradling his cheeks with her hands, she leaned down and kissed him, dropping to her knees between his legs. Her fingers skated down his throat, over his shoulders, down his back, and into the back of his pants, pushing down on his waistband and boxers. He leaned up so that she could tug them over his hips, then helped her shuck them down his legs. Still on her knees, she sat back on her heels, peeling off his dress socks and pulling his pants and underwear from his ankles. As naked as she, he took a deep breath, watching as she leaned forward, braced her hands on his thighs, and took his erection between her lips.

“Fuuuuuck,” he groaned, shocked and so fiercely aroused, he worried he’d climax in her mouth. She rolled her tongue over the head of his thickness, then took him so deeply into her mouth, he felt his penis hit the back of her throat, which was so divinely filthy and powerfully erotic, he made a sound—a growl-cry-groan that he was sure he’d never made before. Primitive. Raw.

“Fuck,” he murmured again, dropping his hands to her shoulders, not sure if he was trying to push her away or keep her exactly where she was. He was going to come any second, but he didn’t want to offend her by coming in her mouth without permission. His breath hitched, and he flinched as she bobbed her head back and forth, her slick lips sliding up and down his penis, the sensation of her warm mouth and swirling tongue so good, so unbelievably good, he was starting to lose control. He felt the gathering, felt the tightening of his balls, the contraction of every muscle near her face. “P…P…I can’t…I’m going to…Please…”

With his erection still throat-deep in her mouth, she pulled his hands from her shoulders and laced their fingers together, then looked up at him and winked. Winked. Because his wife was a fucking goddess in every possible way.

Throwing back his head, he cried out her name and came in lightning-fast convulsions of pleasure, one faster and tighter than the other. Her fingers squeezed his in reassurance, and gradually, as the waves of orgasm slowed, he leaned forward and opened his eyes to find her sliding her lips over the jutting, still-throbbing veins of his erection. Finally opening her lips, she swirled her tongue around the tip of his still semierect penis, then backhanded her mouth and grinned up at him with satisfaction.

“New?”

“Fuck. Yes,” he sighed, his lips splitting into a smile as he fell back onto the bed and grinned up at the ceiling.

She climbed back up on the bed, pressing herself against his side, resting her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Surges of intense pleasure mixed with intense love for her washed over him, and he pressed his lips to her temple.

“Thank you,” he breathed.

He felt the gentle rumbled of her chest as she chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

“That was…amazing.”

“I saw,” she said, her voice laced with humor.

“You didn’t have to do that, P,” he said, kissing her again.

“Well,” she said, slowly circling his nipple with her finger, “and I hope you won’t take offense to this—but it served a dual purpose. First, I wanted to watch you orgasm. I wanted to be the first to see you lose control like that. I’ve been wondering about it for a long time.”

“I’m definitely not offended yet,” he said.

She laughed softly again, kissing his chest before leaning up on her elbow to look down into his eyes. “And second, I wasn’t sure how long you’d have lasted if we’d just launched into sex . . . this should help you pace a little better.”

Though he’d never shared what had happened to him at college, somehow she’d known that he needed this extra reassurance, and it made his heart explode with love for her. “You’re amazing.”

She grinned. “Yeah, well…don’t tell anyone.”

“I want to see you come,” he said. “I want to see you lose control like that too.”

She reached down to palm his slick, pulsing, already growing erection. Sitting up and straddling his chest, she arched her back. He stared up at the bounty of her full breasts and the way her hair fell over her shoulders. She was, without question, the most beautiful, most unbelievably arousing woman in the world.

“Should I wear a condom?” he asked.

“Afraid you’ll get me pregnant?” she deadpanned. She grinned down at him and shook her head. “No. It’ll feel better if you don’t. Plus, I’m clean. They ran a full blood test in France when I found out I was pregnant.”

Reaching for her hips, he nodded. “I want this, P. I want you bad.”

She scooted down a little, lifting her backside and reaching for his erection, which she lined up at the entrance of her sex. “Me too.”

Slowly, so very, very slowly, holding his eyes all the while, she lowered her body onto him. And inch by blessed inch, he felt himself enter her—felt the slick, satiny heat of her sex, the ridged walls that flexed around him like a tight glove, embracing, clinging, loving. A moment ago he would have sworn to every saint who ever lived that there was nothing better than having oral sex with the woman of your dreams, but in a matter of seconds, he learned different. Staring into her eyes as her breathing changed, listening to the tiny sounds of her pleasure as he filled her, feeling her fingers curl into his chest, and watching her eyes roll back in her head…he knew that he was giving her the same sort of pleasure that she’d just given him, and that knowledge was heaven.

He panted from the intensity of the sensation, lifting his hips from the bed to thrust up into her and gasping as her body tightened around him, sucking him forward into her wet heat, then releasing him as he lowered his hips back to the bed. “I…P, I want this…I want you…”

“I’m yours,” she panted, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as he thrust into her again.

She leaned down, her breasts rubbing against his chest as she sought his lips frantically, moving her hips to a new rhythm they were building together. He pushed up into her, faster and smoother, holding tightly to her hips to guide her movements, to keep them in sync as she kissed him.

One of her hands slipped down his chest, between their bodies, rubbing between them as they rocked into each other. Throwing back her head, her moans grew into cries, louder, more guttural, and so fucking erotic, he could barely hold back the increasingly fast, fierce pulses that demanded satisfaction.

Unable to resist any longer when the walls of her sex clenched tightly around him, he let his eyes roll back in his head. His penis tightened to a painful, almost-unbearable hardness, rigid within her, his every muscle in his body tensed in readiness to explode.

His fingers curled into the skin of her hips as he cried her name, cresting a wave of sheer ecstasy, his body shuddering and shaking as every muscle released at once, and he came in powerful, relentless surges of bliss.

Priscilla had collapsed onto his chest as she climaxed, her hair soft against his neck, and when he could finally move again, he lifted a limp hand to the soft tangles.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

She slid off his chest, rolling to her side beside him, saying nothing.

“Was that okay?” he asked, rolling to his side to face her, gently placing a hand on her hip. Why isn’t she saying anything? he wondered a little frantically, sliding his hand around her, grateful when she didn’t pull away. He pulled her closer until her body was flush with his. “P? Please…say something.”

She looked up, her face shattered, tears glistening on her cheeks.

His heart clenched, and he froze, desperately searching her face for answers. “Oh, my God. Are you—did I hurt you?”

She shook her head and sniffled, more tears flooding from her eyes. “No.”

“P…P, baby,” he said. “Talk to me. What did I—why are you—?”

“Because it was beautiful,” she sobbed, resting her forehead on his chest, just under his chin, her breath, still coming in pants, kissing his damp skin. “Because it was so fucking beautiful with you.”

Dizzying relief swept through him, and he clasped her tighter against him, closing his eyes and resting his lips on her hair. “It was. It was beautiful.”

“I didn’t expect it to feel like that the first time.”

He smiled, kissing the top of her head, feeling the rise and fall of her breaths against his chest and reveling in the sensation of this closeness, this intimacy. He held her for so long in the quiet darkness of her bedroom, he was almost asleep when she spoke again.

“I love you,” she said softly, her voice dreamy, her lips brushing against his skin as she spoke. “I’m sorry I love you, because I’m inconvenient, but I couldn’t help it. I just”—she yawned, her words heavy and slow as they tapered off—“couldn’t…help…it.”

Flinching with the unbelievable, unexpected goodness of it, he held her naked body as close as possible to his, skin to skin, heart to heart. Maybe life is like this sometimes for some lucky people, he thought: After years and years of nothing special, someone miraculous walks into your life, and in the space of a few weeks, everything changes. You get married. You have sex for the first time. You fall in love. Quickly. All at once. Without any warning. And the thing is, if you longed for it but never saw it coming, the depth of your gratitude leaves you speechless, humbles you, changes you from the inside out. Because in one perfect flash of grace, everything you ever wanted is suddenly yours, even though you doubted something this good would ever happen to you.

The sound of his wife’s soft snores told him that she was asleep.

“Me too,” he whispered close to her ear. “I love you too, P.”

She made a small sound deep in her throat and snuggled against him. Closing his eyes, with a full and thankful heart, he fell asleep beside her.