Page 37 of Holding Out

She bit her lip.“When you’re twenty-four and you haven’t—I know it’s not true, but it just starts to seem like—maybe—it’s you?You know?Anyway, it’s just good to be over that hump, literally.So, at least now I know that all those times I wasn’t that into it, it was just because I wasn’t with the right guys.Now I’ll know to be pickier.And maybe a little more—I’ll have higher standards.”

“Good,” he said, pondering that.Her going after the right guys, having higher standards.Getting what she wanted.Getting off with a long cry like she had a couple of minutes ago.With the right guys.Who weren’t him.“That’s what you deserve, Becca—for it to feel amazing.Every time.”

She blushed deeper, but she looked incredibly pleased with herself, which was at least as much reward as the rest of it for Griff.“One of New Becca’s resolutions is to stop dating assholes,” she said.“I decided it would be easier to do that if I wasn’t constantly dealing with the virginity thing.”

“Glad to help,” he said.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how’d you lose your virginity?”

He grinned.“It’s such a teenage guy story.Are you sure you want to hear?It doesn’t necessarily paint me in the best light.”

“Go for it.”

“I was fifteen.”

“Fifteen!”

“Yeah.That wasn’t actually that young in the town where I grew up.It was just the way it was.We didn’t have anything else to do.By the time I lost mine, I already felt like I was behind the curve.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Well, I know different now,” he said.“Anyway, I was at summer camp.And there was this girl there.She was my age, and pretty, with—” he paused, trying to be truthful but not crude.“—she was well-endowed.All the guys were interested.”

“You guys,” Becca said darkly.“All alike.”

“At fifteen, hell yeah.”He eyed her admiringly.“Not so different now, maybe, either.Just able to see a few more good traits without tunnel vision.”He smoothed her hair back and kissed her nose.

“So this girl?The curvy one?”

“Everyone said that she’d come to camp with a box of condoms.Like, her parents had put it into her luggage, just in case.And that, as you might imagine, made her the object of a lot of curiosity.Mine included.I made friends with her, and then I kissed her one night next to the lake, and a few nights after that, we used up the condoms.In the woods, on her sleeping bag.”

“Did you takehervirginity, too?”Becca asked, big-eyed.

He kind of wanted to say yes, just for the first rites cred, but the truth was, he’d been third in line.He shook his head.“Nope.Just mine.”

“Was it good?”

“Not the first time,” he said.“I mean, it was fine for me, but it was just like you’d expect.Over in a blink of an eye.The second and third times, though, I managed to do a little better.”

“Just the small pack, then?”she teased.

“Yeah, that was what I said, too,” he said, grinning.He hesitated, wanting to ask a question that had been on his mind, but not sure how to word it.“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Howdoessomeone as hot as you end up a virgin at twenty-four?”

She smiled, a cat-who-swallowed-the-canary smile.“I had a slow start.When I was seventeen, I started dating this guy, Todd.He came from a conservative Christian family, and he wanted us to save ourselves for marriage.I would have been fine with—” She bit her lip.“But he was adamant.Nothing below the waist.So that’s how it was, and—you’d be surprised how hot that could be.”

Her cheeks pinked up.

“I wouldn’t,” he said, thinking about the way Becca kissed and how she’d responded to his mouth on her nipples.His dick stirred back to life.

“We were together three years.After high school, he went to community college and I was working, and we were seeing each other a few times a week.He’d hinted a proposal was on the horizon.I thought maybe he’d even bought a ring.But then he—”

She bit her lip again, and he realized he was braced, anger tightening up his chest.Someone had hurt Becca, and he so, so wasn’t okay with that.

“He quit waiting.He’d been having sex with someone else for several months.While I kept holding out for him.The worst part was, when I found out—” Her voice broke, but she sailed on through it and steadied out.“He said he still wanted to marry me, and he thankedmefor staying pure even though he hadn’t been able to resist temptation.”

---