Novel Palace
3
Now, wasn’t that an interesting question?
And description.
“I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” I told her.
“My last boyfriend, Trevor, he recently ended things for the stupidest of reasons.” Her hand moved to her hair, running her fingers through a curl. When she reached the end, she started over, this time going much slower. “At least, I think it’s stupid.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“It’s because …” She looked away, her skin turning even more flushed, her teeth grinding across her lip before she continued, “I wouldn’t sleep with him.” She locked our stares. “Lame of him, right?”
“You mean, you didn’t want to do it every day? Or weekly? I … don’t understand. It’s not like you’re a virgin.”
The corner of the couch hugged her so tightly that she looked half-swallowed, and so did her face while she stayed completely silent. Blinking. Looking at me like a deer in fucking headlights.
“Wait, you’re a virgin? Oaklyn, how is that even possible?”
Her chest rose, staying high as she said, “Oh, it’s possible.”
A fucking … virgin?
That response vibrated across my throat as I repeated it silently in my head.
How the hell can this woman, one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, still be a virgin?
“I don’t believe it,” I replied.
We’d gone to the same private school. Many of my friends had tried to hit it, and I knew she’d graduated without sleeping with any of them. But the fact that she’d held out through college and beyond was fucking mind-blowing.
She gazed at me through her long, thick lashes. “Camden, I am.”
That confirmation took my brain on a journey. One that began with re-breaking rule number two-imagining peeling those jeans off her legs and dipping my tip into that snug, untapped pussy.
What that would feel like.
What that would sound like.
Shit.
My cock wasn’t just throbbing. It was dying to burst through my zipper and soak into that wetness-wetness no one had ever felt before.
Still, I didn’t get it.
“Are you saving yourself for marriage?”
“No.” She tucked the curl behind her ear. “I’m saving myself for someone worth having sex with.”
“And the ex wasn’t worth it?”
“When we first got together, I hoped he would be. I mean, I wanted him to be.” She drained the rest of her wine. “But it quickly turned into one disappointment after another, and then he dumped me after he didn’t get what he wanted.”
She glanced at her empty glass. “I’m not looking for Prince Charming. I’m just looking for a man who isn’t going to constantly fib to me. Or when he invites me away, he doesn’t get his credit card declined, so I have to pay for the weekend he planned for me. Who follows through with the things he promises.”
She refilled her glass and snuggled back into the couch. “I’m not looking for a man who’s rich or model hot. Looks and money, honestly, don’t really mean much to me. I just want a guy who’s going to treat me with respect and kindness.”
She sipped from her full glass and then continued, “That’s part one. Now, for part two.” Her face winced. “I’m terrified I’ve hyped up losing my virginity to the point where I’m worried I won’t be good at it. Camden”-her eyes widened-“I can’t be bad in bed. That would be the biggest tragedy ever.”
A woman who cared about her performance.
God, she was fucking adorable.
“Oaklyn, you’re good at everything you do. Sex won’t be any different.”
“Says the expert.” She wiggled even deeper into the corner. “Neither of us knows if that’ll be true or not.”
My mind couldn’t stop reeling from this news.
Twenty-four years old, drop-dead stunning, and she’d never had her cherry popped.
Never experienced mind-bending sex.
Never dug her nails so hard into a man’s back that she struck blood.
I swished some vodka around in my mouth before I said, “You want me to read the verdict?”
She nodded. “Please.”
“Sounds to me like you haven’t picked a dude who’s even worthy of dating you, never mind being your first.”
“But, Camden, I want to experience that first.” As she sighed, her head tilted back to stare at the ceiling. “I want to feel intimacy. Pleasure. All the things that are exchanged when you share something like that with a man.”This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.
“You will. I fucking promise you that.”
“But when?” Her head straightened, and she twisted the stem of her wineglass, the dark burgundy liquid sloshing against the sides of the glass. “I’ve waited this long, and it hasn’t happened. At this point, it feels like it never will.” She held up her hand. “I don’t expect you to have an answer for that.” She moved those same fingers to her mouth. “I can’t even believe I told you all this.”
“Listen, if this were an NFL game and the spread was a year, I’d take the under.”
Her stare intensified. “You really think it’s going to happen within the next twelve months?”
“Yes.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
I sucked an ice cube into my mouth, smashing it between my molars. “I’d be shocked.”
Silence ticked, and then, “I’m going to put something out into the universe, and I’ll possibly regret it later, but the wine has certainly taken over everything I’m saying now.”
“You have my full attention.”
“Good, because I have a proposition for you, Camden Dalton.”
The way she’d said my last name made my dick clutch hard.
I kicked my feet onto the table and set my tumbler on my lap. “Just what I’m good at. Hit me with it.”