He groaned and pushed in just the barest amount, the very tip of him invading me.

But he stopped himself, and with a curse, rolled off me.

I stayed where I was, flat on my back.  The ache inside of me had become so powerful that I couldn’t stop shifting my hips.

“Try your fingers on me again,” I told him.

He sat up and started petting me with his hand, different now, focusing on the area around my entrance instead of just invading.

I showed him the spot I’d discovered.  “There,” I told him, pressing his finger to it.

He bit his lip and applied himself to the task with utmost concentration.  “Softer,” I panted at him.  He changed his touch, lightened it.

“Mmm, that,” I sighed, closing my eyes.

Before long, I had both heels on the bed as I moved against his hand.

He pushed the finger of his other hand inside of me, and this time it was better.  This time I wanted it to move.

“Can I go deeper?” he asked hoarsely.

“No,” I gasped.  “Just keep doing that.  Move it.  Just like that.”

I felt I was getting close to something when he seemed to lose it again.

I glanced down at his lap.  I hadn’t even realized he could, but he was coming again, jerking into the air.

I hadn’t even had to touch him.  He was coming just from touching me.  I reached a hand out, stroking him, feeling it with him, as though with touch I could own his orgasm for myself.

And as he came, and came, he got careless with his hands, jerking his finger harder and deeper inside of me.  With a stifled cry, he shoved it in to his knuckle.

I jerked, my eyes shutting tight in pain.  “Dante!” My voice was an embarrassing yelp.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” he panted, and he sounded it.  “I didn’t even know I could do that.  My fingers are too big.  Jesus.  I’m sorry.”

I glanced down as he pulled his finger out of me.  It was bloody.

I closed my legs and turned away.  “I’m not supposed to start my period,” I told him, mortified.  “I don’t know what happened.”

He started kissing my back and stroking me like a cat.  “That wasn’t your period.  Jesus.  I’m sorry.  I broke your barrier.  Your hymen.  I didn’t mean to, I swear.  I thought it would only break when we had sex.  Did I hurt you?”

“A little bit.  Nothing major.  It just surprised me.”

His breath was getting heavier near my ear.  “Can I look?  Are you too sore for me to keep trying?  I want to look at you.  I want to get you off.”

I let him cajole me onto my back again, let him push my legs apart and look at me, because it seemed to be driving him wild again, and I was absolutely addicted to driving him wild.

And just as strong of a motivation; I wanted him to get me off.  I wanted to know what it felt like; the thing that put that madness in his eyes.

It took a long time, it was unfamiliar ground for both of us, but he was patient and curious, and he worked me with his hands until he wrung my very first orgasm out of me.

He kept his fingers in me as I clenched on them, a look of wonder on his face.

“Does the hymen thing mean I’m not a virgin anymore?” I asked him later.

“It means that you’re mine,” he said intensely, kissing me.

I had the most ridiculous, impossible thought then:  I’ve just planted the seeds of my lifetime obsession.

I’d never need more than him.  He fed all of my needs.  He was just difficult enough to challenge me, but tender enough to make me feel safe.

Dante and I fit together perfectly.  I’d been made for him and him alone.  The idea of even looking at someone else in that way was intolerable to me.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

“I can resist anything except temptation.”

~Oscar Wilde

PRESENT

I lay very still in my old room, but I wasn’t sleeping.

I was battling with myself, beating back all the memories this house, this town, and particularly this room brought back.

I was especially vulnerable to distraction just then, because I needed it.  Anything was better than the old memories, even if it meant making new ones to torture myself with.

And so when a quiet Dante came creeping into my room, I did the foolish thing.

I should have turned him away.

I did not do that.  I did the other thing.  The foolish one.  I let him have me again.

And again.

In my defense, I was unutterably weak at that moment, too desperately in need of not just distraction but comfort.

And Dante came in the form of both.

So what if it came with a price?

A heavy price.  Of torment.  Regret.  Bitter nostalgia.

I just chalked it up to my self-destructive streak taking its obligatory pound of flesh.  My flesh was so weak; it always paid the price with little to no hesitation.

Just the opposite.  My weak flesh paid it eagerly.

This wretched night was no different.

He was a large man, but he’d always had an uncanny ability to move with quiet grace, and so the sound of the door shutting and locking behind him was louder than the quiet shuffle of his feet.

My first reaction was fury.  Of course it was.  He was such a presumptuous bastard.  The sheer, brazen nerve of him coming to me, here, like this?

But he knew me so well.  This entire day had been an ordeal for me.  Perhaps he sensed my weakness, the lengths I would go to just then for a powerful diversion.  For a few guaranteed moments of blessed oblivion.