“And biscuits. Homemade biscuits.” Soren held out a basket, opening a checked cloth to reveal a pile of biscuits.
That homesick pang I could never quite seem to shake dispersed. At least for a while. It was such a simple meal, but it had felt like such a big deal every year when Mom made it for me. Meat, even the cheap cuts, was expensive for our budget back then. Casseroles, soups, noodles, that had been our standard fare, so dining on food like this made us all feel like we were royalty or something.
Here I was, in one of the biggest cities in the world, having just signed a modeling contract that would keep me comfortable for years to come, and there wasn’t any other meal I’d rather have.
“If it’s any consolation, Hayden”—Ben settled the beers in front of his seat, Tobin’s, and Michael’s. He mouthed underage at Soren—“we’re only giving you two such a hard time because we’re a bunch of jealous pricks who wished we were the ones bringing home a girl like you.”
Mrs. Decker let out another sigh as she dished some chicken onto my plate.
“Thanks?” I replied.
Michael nodded like we were square as he lifted his beer. “To baby brother. The first of us sorry suckers to get himself good and pussy-whipped.”
Four sighs circled the table as two more beers stabbed into the air. “To baby brother.”
“Are you sure you don’t want the guest bedroom? I can kick Michael out of there. We’ve got plenty of couches,” Mrs. Decker asked as she turned down the blankets in Soren’s bedroom.
The freezing rain had only gotten worse over the course of dinner and the couple hours that followed. Cabs weren’t operating, and the subway station was too far away to make it on foot with the ice skating rink that had developed outside. Especially with Soren’s ankle. Mrs. Decker had insisted all of us spend the night, and we could head out early in the morning when the temperatures were supposed to warm up dramatically.
“No, I’m fine. I wouldn’t know what to do if I slept in anything bigger than a twin-sized bed.” After sliding out of my sweater, I helped her fold the sheet down. Since I hadn’t planned on spending the night, I didn’t have any pajamas. At least the dress I had on was comfortable.
“I bet when you agreed to come to dinner, you didn’t think you’d be spending the night.” She smiled at me as she fluffed the pillows.
“It’s nice of you to let me stay.” Sitting on the bed, I took off my ballet flats, my teeth sinking into my lip.
Because that was when someone else lumbered into the room, carrying a big red sleeping bag and a pillow. The way he appraised me when he saw me on his bed made my stomach drop and my legs squeeze together. Not okay, Hayden. I should not be having those kind of thoughts about the woman’s son when she was five feet away, still fussing over the bed I was about to spend the night in.
I wouldn’t be alone.
Not that the sleeping bag being rolled out onto the floor suggested that.
“Are you sure about this, Hayden? I know you’re both adults and everything, but Soren can take the floor downstairs.” The way she looked between us, it was almost like she knew we’d crossed that line of roommates who were just friends. Moms always had good intuition.
“No, it’s okay. I’m used to Soren sleeping ten feet away.” I glanced at him where he was kneeling above his sleeping bag, adjusting his pillow. When he caught me looking, he tugged his T-shirt over his head.
He wasn’t going out of his way to make this any easier.
“I suppose you are.” She came around the bed and wound her arms around me. I rose so I could hug her back. “Okay then, sweet dreams.”
My mind wasn’t thinking sweet things—it was veering in the opposite direction.
“Sweet dreams, baby,” she said as she moved on to Soren, kissing his forehead after letting him go.
“Night, Mom. Thanks for everything,” he replied before sliding into the sleeping bag, but not before giving me one more look that had my insides jellifying.
“Lights out?” She paused in the doorway, her finger on the light switch.
I scooted onto the bed, tucking my legs under the covers.
“Lights out,” Soren answered for us.
The room went black, the door sealing closed a moment after. Some light came in through the windows from the streetlights outside, but it took my eyes a while to adjust before I could really see anything.
It was almost eleven, but I hadn’t been tired when we’d all finally decided to crawl into our assigned beds for the night. The instant the lights went out, I became even less tired.
The air had the feel of an electric storm coming, making the hair on my arms rise. All of my senses became sharper too. I could hear his even breath, slightly faster than I was used to hearing it at night in the apartment. I could almost make out his heartbeat, pumping only a beat or two slower than mine.
When the sleeping bag rustled as he shifted, I practically jolted in bed.
As my eyes adjusted, I was able to make him out stretched across the middle of the bedroom floor. His arms were crossed behind his head, his bare upper half sticking out of the bag, his eyes wide open, aimed at the ceiling.
It didn’t look like he had sleep on his mind either.
“Soren?”
A sound of acknowledgment rumbled in his throat.
“Where’s your parents’ bedroom?”
“Downstairs.”
“Good.” I didn’t bother to throw off the covers. I just slid out from beneath them and tiptoed toward him.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he threw open the sleeping bag to let me in.
Lowering over him, I wedged myself into the sleeping bag with him. My lips ran up his jaw. “You.”
His body trembled beneath mine, his hands finding their way to my waist. “By that, do you mean . . .?”
My hand slipping beneath the waistband of his sweats seemed to answer his question. A breath hissed past his teeth when my fingers circled him. He grew even harder as I let myself touch him, taking the time to revel in the size and strength every part of his body possessed. One of his hands slid up my waist before settling around my breast. When he palmed the sensitive area, a gasp escaped from me, making his dick kick in my hand.
“Are you sure?” He lowered his head back onto the pillow so he could look up at me, his hands freezing where they were. “I don’t have any expectations. We don’t have to rush if you’re not ready.”
His throat moved when my hand circled down him again. “I’m not rushing,” I said, leaning back so I could gather my dress in my hands. “I’ve been waiting months to be with you like this.”
After I finished pulling my dress over my head, I tossed it behind Soren’s head. He was staring at me, his eyes wide, his mouth parting from how hard he was breathing. Taking one of my hands, he guided it to his chest and flattened it over his breastplate.
“Feel that?” he whispered, his eyes returning to mine after they finished their long journey over my body. “That’s what you do to me.”
My mouth moved. His heartbeat was so fast I couldn’t count the beats. “This is what I do to you when I strip out of my clothes while I’ve got you pinned to the floor?”
His head shook slowly, keeping my hand where it was. “This was what you did to me the first time I saw you. This is what you do to me anytime you’re around.” His fingers circled tighter around my wrist. “This is what you do to me anytime I think of you.”
I leaned down to leave a trail of kisses along his jawline. “Are you saying that because you’re about to get laid?”
He finally let go of my hand, letting it roam other parts of his body. “I’m saying that because I need you to know before I get laid.”
“You need me to know what?”
His head turned toward mine as I lowered my chest over his. “That I love you.”
The world stopped.
His words rolled over me, entering me until I was swimming in them.
My lips responded—n
ot in word but in action. Finding his, they kissed him frantically, until I felt so oxygen-deprived, my head felt fuzzy and my legs numb.
His body moved below mine, twisting until I found myself on my back below him. His chest and hips rolled over mine, pinning me to the floor as he ground into me, his kiss never breaking. His arms came around my legs, tying them behind his back. When he ground into me again, he drew a whimper from me that made my mouth sever from his.
He grunted against my neck, his hips pitching into mine again. “Make that for me again.”
When I did, not from his request but from reflex, his body calmed as he took a deep breath. Soren went back to kissing me, his hips sliding off of mine as his hands brushed up and down the sides of my arms.
This man could kiss. Good god almighty, the combination of his lips and tongue could drive a girl up a wall, but I’d had his mouth several times already. I wanted something else.
“Soren?” I pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes. “What are you doing?” When he gave me a funny look, his hand gliding down my side, I added, “Why are you slowing down?”
His lips touched mine. “Foreplay,” he breathed as his hand made the return journey up my back. “It’s a thing, right?”
My hand moved beneath the sleeping bag to find his. Guiding his hand down my body, I slid our joined hands beneath my underwear, skimming down, down, down . . .
When he felt me, his body went rigid.
“I don’t need foreplay.” My fingers tangled with his as they explored my body together. “We’ve had three months of foreplay.”
One of his fingers moved just barely inside me as his other hand gripped around the side of my underwear, working it down my body. As soon as they were off, he settled back over me, his hips working mine open.
“Good point,” he rasped. “Me either.”
His wet fingers trailed along the ridge of my hip bone, curling around it as he slowly pushed himself inside me. Soren’s head moved above mine so he could watch me as he claimed my body. I struggled to stay still as he moved deeper, his eyes bore as deep inside of me as his manhood was. The look on his face as he made love to me mirrored the look on my face, I imagined.
A ragged exhale poured from his lips when he could go no deeper, and the same came from mine right after. My body trembled, triggering his arms to form around me.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against my skin. “I won’t let go.”
My arms circled his back, my fingers curling into his skin as he started to move inside me. When my leg wound around his, my foot twisting against his, Soren flinched.
“Ankle. Sorry.” My foot untwisted instantly. “Do you want a pain reliever or something?” I knew better than to offer him more ice bags when he was under the same roof as his brothers.
He pushed inside me, his head falling. “Or something.”
My chest moved against him. “Men. It’s like a girl could cure cancer with what resides between her legs.”
“What? Sex is the best kind of pain reliever there is.” Like he was making his point, he pushed back inside me. “All of those positive endorphins. Best drug around.”
Trying to laugh silently, I made another sound I tried to keep silent when his hips circled against mine, somehow managing to find something inside me I hadn’t even known existed until that moment.
When he heard my gasp, combined with whatever he saw on my face, he tied my legs around his back again and threw the sleeping bag open. “Yeah, me too.”
Lifting me, his arms cradled my body as he carried me over to his bed. His uneven steps reminded me again . . .
“Soren. Your ankle. Take it easy.”
“I don’t want to take it easy.” He lowered me onto his bed, his body still connected with mine.
“You’re not in peak shape. Just take it down a few notches.”
He gave me an obstinate look, staring at my body spread out below him. “It’s my ankle that’s busted.” His hips pitched into mine, driving deeper. My head lolled back from the erotic pleasure of having a man so deep inside me. “My dick’s working just fine.”
Adjusting our bodies so my head was on the pillows, he layered the blankets over our bodies as he slid over me. My mouth pulled as I noticed the baseball print sheets fall around his shoulders.
“What are you doing?”
His brows moved. “Boyhood fantasy.” His hips found a gentle rhythm, mine rising to meet him with each pulse. It wasn’t long before his body stilled, his hands holding my hips in place as he looked like he was trying to catch his breath.
“You’re stopping.” My head lifted, my body still charging forward. “Why are you stopping?”
“Not stopping.” His head shook once as he wiped the beads of sweat dotting his forehead. “Slowing. Pacing.”
My head tilted as I ran my fingers through his hair. It was damp with sweat. “Reason?”
His hand cupped one of my breasts, his thumb caressing my nipple until it formed into a bud. My body tightened around him, pulling him deeper into my body. His eyes squeezed shut at the same time he blew out a loud breath.
“Because I’m really, really enjoying myself. I’d like to prolong that sensation. And I’d like to make sure you really, really enjoy yourself because I’d really, really, really like to do this again with you. In, I don’t know”—his eyes moved to the alarm clock shaped like a baseball hat on the nightstand—“say five minutes?”
My fingers kept combing through his hair, wondering what I’d done to deserve the man above me, making love to my body and mind at the same time. “That’s a lot of reallys.”
He kissed my breast, his tongue taking the place of his finger circling my nipple. I felt myself clamp down on him again. His hand braced at my hip tightened.
“Doesn’t even begin to describe how this feels,” he rasped.
My hips rocked against his, then away, setting the pace since watching him take his pleasure from me, feeling it as it happened, was more stimulating than experiencing my own right then. Soren’s fist balled into the pillow beside my ear as his head fell beside mine. His breaths were labored, every exhale a grunt as I moved my body against his.
“Okay, so about how much longer are you hoping I can hold out?” he asked, his voice strained. “Ten seconds? Maybe twenty?”
My head turned toward his, waiting for his eyes to find mine. I was trying to hold myself back, to wait until I felt his body give up the fight, but I couldn’t. The moment his eyes connected with mine, I lost control of whatever measure I’d been clinging to. I lost myself.
“Soren,” I cried, my back lifting off the bed as a surge of pleasure drove through my body.
“Holy fuck,” he exclaimed when he felt my body pulse around him.
My mouth lifted to meet his in an effort to quiet the sounds our shared release was drawing from us. His tongue shoved into my mouth as he sheathed himself so deeply in me, the headboard banged against the wall. He held himself there, unmoving, as his body quivered around mine, our mouths moving as we swallowed each other’s cries of pleasure.
We stayed like that for a while after, our mouths slowing, our bodies still joined. I could feel the result of our lovemaking rolling down my body, and the feel of it turned me on all over again.
When Soren’s mouth separated from mine, his eyes opened to meet mine. His thumb brushed down the slope of my neck. “That was so much better than I ever thought it would be.” His voice was a bit hoarse, his back quivering when I touched it. “Even hearing all the locker room talk, knowing how good it felt when I gave it to myself . . . so much better than I imagined.” Soren rolled off to the side, gathering me in his arms as he did.
I lifted my head, looking down at him. “Than you imagined?”
One of his shoulders moved. “You were my first.” A grin stretched into place as everything seemed to catch up to him all at once. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”
My whole face went flat. Did that mean . . . ? Was he . . . ? H
ad he been . . . a few minutes ago? “Actually, it wasn’t.”
“Really?” The skin between his brows creased.
I went with the Soren approach to confessing one’s sexual history. A shrug. “I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
That grin flattened.
“You were my first,” I said, in case he needed it spelled out.
His face stayed frozen for a minute, then he sat up, his eyes widening. “Shit. Did I hurt you?” His gaze swept down my body, a wince pulling at his expression. “I never thought to ask. I never would have thought . . .”
My hand settled against his cheek, waiting for him to look at me. “That there was a nineteen-year-old virgin left out there?”
His hand slid behind my neck. “Aren’t we just a couple of late bloomers?”
When I gave a soft laugh, his smile rose back to the surface. He pulled me to him, and I found a comfy spot on his chest and closed my eyes. My body ached where he’d just been, but it was a kind of pain I’d never felt before. A kind that made me hungry for more.
“Soren?”
“Hmm?” He sounded as tired as I felt.
“Thank you for being my first.”
His hand dropped over mine resting on his stomach. His fingers tied through mine. “Hayden?”
My body curled closer. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for being my only.”
The storm from last night had passed by five the next morning. The sky was blue and it was pushing fifty by the time I crawled into the cab waiting outside of the Deckers’ house after breakfast. Soren slid in behind me, refusing to limp as all of his brothers were perched on the porch, jeering at us as we left. Michael was waving an old pair of crutches, and Ben had what looked like a yellowed box of Power Ranger Band-Aids.
Soren was about to give the one-finger salute back when his mom stepped onto the porch. He went with a wave instead as the taxi pulled away from the curb. I thought about how we’d arrived only a little less than twelve hours ago, and it felt like the whole world had changed.