“Are you begging for sex?”

“Not yet. Should I?”

“Worth a try. Maybe it would work.”

“No guy has ever made me beg for it before.”

“Maybe I know it’s worth begging for.”

“You’re a little cocky, Chris. How did I not know that about you?”

“A little cocky?”

She smiled.

He rose up off her body, knelt over her hips and unzipped his jeans. He lowered them and his black boxer briefs to his thighs. With one hand he stroked himself over her.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly. “You’re a lot cocky.” When he started to raise his jeans up again—more teasing—she reached out and grabbed his wrists.

“Don’t,” she said. He said nothing, only looked at her. “Please don’t? Pretty please?”

“You’re not bad at begging.”

“How much begging would I have to do to get you naked?”

“Am I naked yet?”

“Not completely.”

“Then obviously you need to beg more.” Chris took her naked breasts in both of his hands and held them, squeezing them lightly and massaging them. “Don’t you?”

She couldn’t quite believe it. This was Chris Steffensen? The Chris Steffensen who only worked up the courage to kiss her after they’d gotten into the parental whiskey stash that night? The Chris who’d barely spoken in school except to his closest friends and even then never said more than necessary? He’d walked down the halls, face half-hidden by long blond hair, didn’t talk in class, didn’t put himself in anyone’s way and only really expressed himself with his fists when someone went after Dillon. How had that shy, quiet, intense teenage boy turned into this strong, confident, beautiful man? Ten years had been very kind to Chris. She could get used to being with a man like him.

“Please take your clothes off,” she said. “All of them. I want to see your body, because if the rest of it is as good as what I’ve already seen, I’m going to be the luckiest woman on earth tonight. And I’ve never been the luckiest woman on earth, and after the past couple of days, I think I’ve earned it. And even if I haven’t, I want it, anyway. Also...your cock is sexy as hell and I want to feel it on me and in me. If I need to earn it some way, just say the word.”

“The word.”

“You aren’t cocky. You’re arrogant.”

“Why is my cock not in your mouth? I could have sworn it was cocksucking time.”

“What time is it?” she asked.

He looked up at the clock on the wall over the woodstove.

“Ten fourteen.”

“It’s after cocksucking time,” she said. “Allow me to apologize for my tardiness.”

“Actions speak louder than words.”

Joey didn’t say another word. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen a man do in her life—pull down his pants to show her his cock after she’d made a “little cocky” remark. Sexy and smug and smoldering. He hadn’t said a word. He didn’t need to. He was big enough to impress her, and he’d known it. Quiet Chris. Shy Chris. Sweet, sensitive Chris. Had he always had this side to him even in high school? If she’d seen past the chain wallet, the long hair, the brooding silences, the drugs, maybe he would have been her first time instead of just her first kiss.

“You want to lie down?” she asked.

He shook his head no.

“No?”

“Didn’t your friend tell you the best way to get over one guy was to get under another?”

“I don’t know if she meant it that literally.”

“I’m taking it that literally. Stay on your back. I’ll come to you.”

“And on me?”

“Not yet. But maybe later.”

“If I’m good?”

“Now you’re learning.”

She stretched out on her back again. Chris stood up off the bed but only long enough to finishing undressing. Jeans off. Boxer briefs off. Wearing nothing but the slightest smile, he crawled back over her, took her wrists in his hands and pushed them over her head onto the bed. She lay there, panting, aroused, scared in all the best ways to be scared, the ways people courted danger by skydiving and having sex with near-strangers. But this felt safe, too, safe as a roller coaster. Controlled fear. Chris wasn’t a stranger even if he seemed like it when he acted like this. She’d known him since she was twelve and although years had passed since she and he had been friends, it didn’t matter. He was one of the good guys. Dillon made it out of high school alive and well thanks to Chris. Now she’d thank him personally.

“You can tell me no to anything,” he said as he straddled her chest with his knees. “You shouldn’t. But you can.”

“I don’t want to tell you no. I don’t want to tell you anything.”

“Why not?”

“I want you to put my mouth to better use.”

He laughed a genuine laugh, not sexy, just honest. Just a laugh.

With his hands still on her wrists and holding her lightly down on the bed, he bent down and kissed her on the lips.

Against them, he said, “I used to dream about being your first in high school. I didn’t tell Dillon that part of my crush.”

“You don’t get to be my first time. But maybe you can be the best time?”

“That’s a lot of pressure.”

“I don’t know. So far so good.”

“Your ex wasn’t that good in bed?”

“He was fantastic in bed.”

He got the compliment. She could tell from the way he inhaled, like he felt the words as much as heard them. Chris released her wrist. He cupped the back of her neck to lift her so he could unhook her bra and remove it completely. It ended up with his clothes on the floor. She hoped she wouldn’t be seeing it again for many, many hours. Or ever.

Chris unbuttoned the top button of her jeans and he paused for a split second as if waiting for her to object. She had no objections. None. Instead of raising an objection, she raised her hips, allowing him to slide her jeans down her legs and off her. She was glad she’d taken the time to shave her legs in the shower. Once Kira planted that “jump him” seed in her brain, it had taken root. When he started to peel her underwear off, she knew it was going to happen and she was happy about it. She wanted this. No fear, no nervousness, no guilt. Only pleasure. As it should be.

Chris pressed a kiss onto her stomach. She dug her hands in his hair—such soft hair—and sighed as his lips left a burning trail from hip to hip and then down and down a little more.

“I thought it was your turn first,” she said as he kissed her upper thighs. He pushed her legs open.

“It’s our turn.”

“Our turn?”

In one impressively smooth movement, Chris turned around, straddled her shoulders and dropped his head between her legs. She lifted her head and took his cock into her mouth as he ran his tongue lightly up and down the seam of her vulva. Moaning, she opened her legs even wider for him and took more of him into her mouth. She gripped the back of his thighs and found them hard as steel in her hands. And he was hard as steel between her lips. The only thing soft was the kiss he placed on her clitoris. A gentle kiss followed by a lick and another lick. He spread her wider with his fingertips and licked her deeper inside. It felt so good she moaned, and since Chris’s cock was deep in her mouth he moaned, too. More of a groan than a moan. Whatever it was, Joey was pretty sure she’d never heard a man make a sound that sexy and sensual.

As she sucked him, she ran her hands up and down the backs of his legs, grabbing his ass a few times to playfully distract him and to drag him down closer to her. He got the hint and started pushing his hips in and out, fucking her mouth. He didn’t go too hard or too fast, didn’t choke her with his cock, which she appreciated. He was careful even as he went down on her, taking his time, teasing her with kisses and making her work for more by spreading wider for him and pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Beautiful,” Chris said as he caressed her wet open body with his fingertips. She could feel it as he massaged her inner labia, opening them up, and circling her vagina over and over again.

“In, please,” she said.

“What did you say?”

“You know what I said.”

“Say it again.”

“I said, ‘In, please.’ Go inside me. Please.”

“Well...since you said please.”

He pushed one finger into her and her hips came off the bed in embarrassing eagerness for more. He pushed in a second finger and licked her clitoris again.

“I can’t...” she panted.

“What?”

“I can’t suck your cock when you’re doing that. It feels too good. We can either six or nine but we can’t sixty-nine.”

“Weak,” he said. “Your game is weak.”

“I’m sorry!” She dissolved into laughter as Chris climbed off her and stretched out along the side of her body. He fondled her breasts, shaking his head the whole time.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “You made me feel too good, and I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing anymore. And your cock deserves my full concentration.”

“That it does.”

“Then again, so does my pussy.”

“Truer words.”

“So what do we do?”

“Flip for it?”

“Flip a coin?” Joey asked.

“I got a quarter.”

“Okay, so who’s heads and who’s tails?”

“Heads I go down on you. Tails you go down on me.”

“Or.”

“Or what?”

“Or you could fuck me, and we could both enjoy it at the same time?” Seemed like a reasonable suggestion to her.

“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked.

“Tell me anything.”

“I only have one condom on me. And I’m in no hurry to get this over with.”

“That’s not a bad secret.”

“You don’t have any on you, do you?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t plan this ‘jump on the first guy who offers’ thing very well.”

“Nothing for it, then. We’ll just have to keep foreplaying for at least another hour.”

“Oh. Darn.”

“Real shame, isn’t it?” Chris said.

“A damn shame.”

“Keep telling me how much of a shame it is while I eat your pussy.”

“What happened to the coin flip?”

“I won it.”

“I don’t remember—”

Before she could finish telling him she had no memory at all of this supposed coin flip of his, it was too late. He had already slid between her legs again and opened her up for him. Once more he pushed two fingers inside of her, easing them in and out and around the warm, wet interior of her body as he licked her and sucked her and kissed her and finger-fucked her. She was awash in pleasure, in that sort of soft liquid pleasure that suffuses the stomach and back and hips all at once and makes the thighs tense and quiver and fingers clutch at the sheets. That sort of pleasure.

She was going to come and soon and hard and on his mouth. Joey’s head fell back and her shoulders came off the bed again. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she dug her heels into the mattress as Chris brought her to the pinnacle of pleasure and left her there as he slowed down, eased up the pressure to draw it out a little longer...a little longer...

“Please, Chris,” she said between labored breaths.

“Not yet.”

He stopped licking her and just used his fingers inside her. She’d been close to coming and now the urge faded, but only slightly. He hadn’t been kidding about wanting to drag the sex out as long as possible. He brought her almost to coming again and she could have screamed and would have if it didn’t feel so good getting there and back again.

“I’m dying,” she whispered. Her lips were dry and her lungs burned.

“I’ll let you come this time. Maybe.”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“You think I’m in any hurry to be done here? Do you have any idea how good you taste and how sexy you are like this?”

“Like this” was sweaty, flushed, writhing on the bed with her legs open as wide as possible and his head between her thighs and his fingers deep inside her. Maybe he was right. She did feel sexy like this. The only person in the room sexier was Chris, who seemed to have fallen madly in love with her vulva and couldn’t seem to stop kissing it. His beard tickled her inner thighs and she wondered if Kira was right about the beard burn. Was that really a thing? Well, she’d probably find out before morning. Even if it was a thing and even if it hurt like hell tomorrow...oh, it was worth it. So worth it.

“Chris,” she said.

“Joey.”

“Please give me an orgasm. I don’t ask for much. But I do ask for that. I beg for it.”

“Will you say my name when you come?”

“If that’s the price I have to pay.”

“It is.”

“Then yes. I was planning on doing that, anyway.”

“My name. Not your ex’s.”

“I have an ex? Weird. I can’t remember any ex. I thought it was just you and me in the world.”

Chris chuckled. “Your game isn’t as weak as I thought.”

“Chris,” she said. “Chris.”

“What?”

“Just practicing.”

“You’re amazing,” he said. “And so is your body. And so is your pussy. I’m so glad to finally meet it.”

He wrapped his lips around her clitoris and sucked it and licked it as once more he brought her to the edge of climaxing. She lifted her head off the bed and watched him as he kissed her. His eyes were closed and he looked intent on his work and yet...sublime. This was not a man who went down on her begrudgingly or only to get a blow job out of her. This was a man who loved doing what he was doing and it showed.

“You’re gorgeous,” she said.

He opened his eyes—blue eyes—and raised his chin.

“Lie down and come,” he said. “You can tell me how pretty I am later.”

She lay down. These were orders she could get used to following.

With both hands, Chris spread her wet folds open and with the flat of his tongue lapped at her clitoris in long slow licks that turned into short fast licks until she was frozen on the bed, paralyzed but with the sharpest, most intense sensation of pleasure she could remember feeling in all her life. And it went on and on, waves of it hitting her like ocean waves. Not gently, but hard, knocking her under, slamming the breath out of her. Her hips bucked and her vagina contracted on Chris’s fingers. She didn’t scream his name. She didn’t have the breath or energy to scream. But she sighed it, moaned it, and when her orgasm subsided and Chris climbed up to lie at her side, she said it again.