Falling Into Us (22 page)

All things I didn’t entirely feel. Oh, god. Only the very tip of him was inside me, and it was so much
more
than his fingers had been. I refused to think about the stories I’d heard of other girls’ first time. This was all that mattered. I wanted this. I was only partially convincing myself.

I kept my eyes on his, let them close and leaned up to kiss him. He slid forward a tiny bit, and I gasped into his mouth as he filled me slowly. It hurt. I couldn’t stop my eyes from flying open and my body from tensing. It felt like an invasion. I was so,
so
stretched. Jason had frozen stone-still.

“Are you okay?” He sounded worried.

I nodded. “Yeah, just…wait a moment.” He was tense; I felt his muscles knotting and going rock hard under my hands. Slowly, my body became used to his presence, and then I nodded. “I’m okay. A little more.”

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, knowing he’d want the truth. “But it’s okay. It’s not too bad. It’s getting better. Go a little deeper.”

He adjusted his weight and moved his hips toward mine, sliding himself deeper. That’s when I felt the pressure of blockage, and I knew what was coming next. I don’t know if he felt it, but I knew there was nothing for it but to let him push past it. I held onto him, one arm around his neck, the other around his waist, and I pulled him by his buttocks against me. There was a short, sharp pinch, and I couldn’t keep the gasp of pain from escaping. The sense of fullness, of being stretched out, increased as he moved deeper, and now that feeling was moving from discomfort to something like pleasure. The pain was lessening, and his hips were flush against mine. I pressed my lips to his shoulder and focused on my physical feelings. Now that the worst part was over, the fullness wasn’t so alien a sensation. It felt…right, and more so with every passing moment. He was still against me, trembling. I realized this wasn’t going to last much longer, and I wanted it to. I said nothing, but placed my palm on his cheek and rocked my hips against his, meaning just to encourage him, but when I did so, that tiny motion of rolling my body against him…a rocket of heat shot through me, a lightning bolt striking me low in my belly.

“Oh,” I gasped, my mouth going wide. I did it again, rocking my hips against his, but harder this time. “Oh…oh, god.”

Jason’s body was rock-hard, every muscle flexed. He was holding back, trying to last. “This is…amazing,” he said, his voice a ragged murmur.

“Move with me,” I whispered.

He breathed a sigh of relief and drew back, only to plunge forward again, and I whimpered at the way that felt. It sent a different kind of thrill through me than when I’d rolled my core against him, but both felt amazing. He drew back, and this time I moved to meet him, thrusting against him, and we both groaned, almost in unison.

“I’m not gonna—I can’t stop…” Jason’s voice was a low whisper against my ear.

I knew what he was saying. “It’s fine,” I whispered back to him, whispering low as though speaking out loud would break the moment. “Don’t…don’t stop yourself.”

He was moving in a rhythm now, each motion growing more desperate. “I couldn’t if I tried,” he murmured.
 

I was on fire all over, and even though I hadn’t expected to orgasm again, I was close. I moved with him, seeking my own release, knowing he was feeling pleasure and letting myself seek my own. I crushed my body against him, wanting to get closer, needing more, more, more. I remembered something I’d seen on
True Blood
, and lifted my legs to wrap them around his waist.

“Shit…that feels good,” Jason said.

“So good,” was all I could manage.
 

I used my legs to pull him against me, and the pressure built higher, the heat inside me billowing to nearly unbearable proportions. He was moving fast, and I’d have thought it would hurt to have him slam against me like he was, but it didn’t. I liked it. Each thrust sent me higher, and I knew he was about to lose it, and I wanted him to.
 

My fingers clawed into his shoulders, and I gripped him close as if to make sure he didn’t stop.
 

Then the earth fell apart beneath me. My body shuddered, tensed, and exploded. What I’d felt before was barely a tremor in the ground compared to the juddering earthquake shaking through me now. I whimpered, and then he crashed against me, crying out, and I felt the explosion cut loose inside me and heard an actual scream leave my mouth as I came moments after he did.
 

We both moved together in sync, breathing hard and gasping and moaning.

“Oh, f-fuck,” I said. “I didn’t know it would feel l-like th-that.”

He laughed at my uncharacteristic use of the F-bomb. “Me, neither,” he said, stilling above me.

And then it was over. The whole thing had lasted less than five minutes, but it was a life-changing, earthshaking five minutes.
 

Jason slid off me and went into the bathroom. I giggled at the sight of his naked backside as he walked away. Then he came back to me and slid into the bed beside me. “Did you bleed?”

I pushed the sheets away and sat up. The sight of the bright red spot on the bed brought reality crashing down around me. I wasn’t a virgin anymore. Something about that blood opened the floodgates. I felt my eyes burn, and I didn’t want to cry, but I was just so overwhelmed that I couldn’t stop it.

Jason had me against his chest before the first tear had fallen. “Becca? Why are you crying?” He sounded afraid, and I knew he had to be assuming the worst, but I was in the process of completely losing it and couldn’t speak as shuddering overtook me, tears sluicing down my face. “Oh, god, Becca. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

I shook my head against his naked chest. “No,” I choked out. “I’m just…just over-overwhelmed. N-not upset.”

He sighed in relief. “You’re not mad at me?”

I giggled through my tears. “Mad? Why would I be mad?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You saw the blood and started crying, and I thought…I don’t know. I thought maybe you regretted doing this…with me.”

I wrapped my arms around him, sitting on his lap and still crying. “No, Jason. No. I don’t. I’m overwhelmed is all. It was so much better than I’d ever thought it could be, better than I’d heard some girls talk about their first time having been.”

“Really?” He sounded hopeful.

I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think most girls have an…an orgasm their first time.” I tilted my head back to meet his eyes. “You gave me that.”

He blushed but looked pleased. “I’m glad. Did it hurt bad?”

I shook my head. “A little at first, and then it pinched when…you know. But then it didn’t hurt at all after that, and it started to feel good. Really good.”

There was still so much going on inside me that I couldn’t express. I didn’t regret what we’d just done, but I knew I was different. That was a moment that could never be experienced again.
 
I wasn’t a virgin any longer, I wasn’t a girl anymore; I was a woman now.
 

I came again the second time, even harder than the first, and Jason lasted even longer, bringing us both to rapture and trembling ecstasy. I knew, as I drifted sleepily in his arms after the second time, that I’d never be able to get enough of this. I wanted more even as I felt the aftershocks still shaking me.

Jason brought me home five minutes before my 1 a.m. weekend curfew, and we kissed slowly and tenderly in the warmth of his truck’s cab before I got out. We kissed differently, I realized. We were aware now of what came after kissing.

I waved to him from my front door and went to my room, flopping on my bed with a crazy grin on my face, thoughts floating around my head as I fell asleep. I was a little sore between my legs, and I knew I would be tomorrow, too. It was worth it, even though I wondered, at the bottom of my heart, if it had been too soon, if we were too young, if I’d been totally ready.

NINE: A Tree Falls
 

Jason

August, two years later

I lounged on my couch, expecting a call from Becca. My phone was on my thigh, the TV on, tuned to Sports Center. It was odd to be graduated, at loose ends. I had acceptance letters from the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan, full-ride scholarship offers to both on the merits of football and grades. I needed the scholarships, especially since I’d stopped accepting any money from Dad for anything. I’d broken the national records I had my sights on by the middle of my senior-year season, and Dad had tried to give me something like two thousand dollars for each record broken. I refused it, he got pissed, we fought, and I put him in the hospital. He hadn’t even looked at me since.

Becca was supposed to call me when she was done with her hair appointment, and we were going to go out for a late lunch to discuss university options. She was set on U of M, to the point that she’d only applied to there. Of course, she’d gotten in with a huge grades scholarship on top of all the other grants and scholarships she’d applied for. She was the valedictorian of our graduating class with a 4.26 final GPA. Yeah, she was that kid. Her speech was moving and fluent, not one stutter. She’d even gone down to one ST session a month from twice weekly. She had so many scholarships her entire BS degree was going to be totally paid for, and I wasn’t quite sure how she’d done it. Well, I did, actually. She spent hours every day her entire senior year applying for them, writing essays, mailing them out, hunting for more scholarships. Her parents could afford to pay for her education, I was fairly sure, since they were pretty loaded—although they were quiet about that fact—but Becca refused to accept their help since it came with conditions. Namely, that she and I couldn’t live together. A deal-breaker for my girl, god bless her.

I glanced at my phone: 3:52 p.m. She was supposed to call me at 3:30. I wasn’t worried or mad, just curious. She was punctual to a fault, so her being this late was unusual.

I flicked off the TV and went to the dining room table, where the bills and mail were piled up. I lifted the two acceptance letters and stared at them, unsure of what to do. I really liked Nebraska’s football team, plus they had a great architecture program that I was interested in. Nebraska was Dad’s first choice for me, which sort of worked against it, in my book. The big issue with the University of Nebraska, of course, was the fact that it was in Nebraska. Fucking Nebraska. Six hundred and ninety-five miles from Ann Arbor, where Becca would be.

Hell, no.

U of M, of course, meant living with Becca. It had a couple of academic programs I was interested in besides their football team, which had improved over the last few years. Their starting quarterback was promising, and I was pretty sure his style would mesh with mine. Kyle and I had talked about going to the same college just so we could play together, but we had different careers in mind, and it just wouldn’t work. He didn’t really plan on trying to go pro, I didn’t think. He liked football, and he was damn good, but…it wasn’t his focus. He wanted to be a trainer, I think. I wasn’t sure. Me? I wanted to go pro, but I also wanted to have a degree to fall back on, a secondary career in mind. I’d learned something from Dad after all. He’d never planned on anything but playing ball. He’d floated through school, had a degree in English that wasn’t good for shit when it came down to jobs, since all his life was focused on ball.
 

I didn’t want that for myself. I knew I was smart; I knew I had potential beyond football. I hadn’t spoken to another living person about this, yet, not even Becca, but I’d been browsing degree programs on the U of M website, and the one that had jumped out to me was their art and design department. Photography.
 

I had a huge portfolio of photographs put together. Becca had helped me with it, claiming it was for herself so she could leaf through my photos in physical form. I knew better. She loved my photography. She was always encouraging me to pursue it. She’d be over the moon if she knew I was even considering a degree in photography.
 

As stupid as it seemed, the biggest reason keeping me from it was my father. He’d disown me. Photography was art, and art was for sissies. I’d play ball, and that was it. As much as I hated my dad, deep down I knew I still wanted his approval.
 

An engine in my driveway had my attention immediately. It wasn’t my dad’s diesel F-350, that was for sure. I went to the window and nearly passed out when I saw Becca getting out of a sleek, black, brand-new VW Jetta. Her parents had refused to buy her a car, especially since I was always driving her everywhere, and they also refused to let her get a job to buy her own. That had been a point of contention in her relationship with her parents, which had improved over the last two years somewhat.
 

I pushed through the screen door to greet her. She jumped up into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, a huge grin on her beautiful face.
 

“They bought me a car!” She kissed me hard, holding the back of my head with both hands; I loved when she did that. “Isn’t it gorgeous? They said I needed a car to get back and forth from school.” She wiggled out of my arms and ran to her car, running her hands over the hood.
 

I laughed at her excitement, happy for her. “It’s awesome, baby. I’m so happy for you!”

She straightened, bouncing up and down on her toes and clapping, acting more girly than I’d ever seen her. “I c-can’t believe it! I have a car!”
 
I couldn’t keep myself from watching her boobs jiggle as she bounced on her feet. She caught me staring and gave me a wry glare. “Eyes on me, hon.”

I grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. I can’t help it if you’ve got a rack I can’t take my eyes off.”

She slid into my arms. “Haven’t you gotten enough of my
rack
by now?” She grimaced at the term I’d used. “Our two-year anniversary is next month. You’d think you’d be used to them by now.” She smiled up at me, knowing the truth.

I shook my head. “That’s impossible. I’m a guy. You can never get too much of a good thing. And, baby, your boobs are a
great
thing.”