Page 44 of Petals and Strings
“Matches,” he corrected. “What’s the point in denying it?”
We were silent again, our hands tracing over each other, gentle touches grounding us in the moment.
“I was taken when I was seventeen,” I admitted. “Ten years in and a year out now.”
“You’re older than me,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips as I pulled away to look up at him instead of speaking into his shirt. “By four years.”
Something sparked between us as he looked down at me. My body reacted, as did our scents. We were so intertwined that I could feel his body wake up. His eyes widened and nostrils flared, our scents swelling in the air. Our breathing went from even to ragged, though not from fear.
“That hasn’t happened on its own since I came into my scent,” he admitted, almost terrified as it swelled around us.
“I get it,” I told him as I felt heat burning between my thighs, begging for a touch I wasn’t sure I would get. I’d never push it, but I was dying for someone to give me back that control. To have a moment that I chose.
“What if I’m bad at this? What if I can’t give you what you need?” he croaked out, worry lining his features.
“I could ask those same things. I’d never want to contribute to your torment,” I whispered. The thought had my stomach churning with nerves. “But you would be my real first time. OneI choose. I would be just as satisfied having you without this aspect, Ansel.”
“I want it, Audrey. I want you.”
His hips canted forward and we both groaned, a soft, low whisper of the longing we both had.
“I want you, too, Ansel,” I said as I met his blue-green eyes. They were shining with heat, echoing the depths of need and desperation I felt burning in my own body. I wanted to trust, to try, but I was terrified.
“Can I touch you?” he asked. The hand resting on my hip clenching just enough to ground me.
I nodded slowly.
“Guide me?”
I had touched myself before, though never back then, but I wasn’t sure I’d guide him well. However, didn’t that give me the control I craved? And him the submission?
“Take my shirt off, sweetheart,” I said as I leaned forward. His eyes fluttered closed as my lips brushed over his.
He didn’t move until I’d leaned back again. I didn’t rush him, I simply waited.
With trembling fingers, Ansel lifted my shirt. His eyes slowly slid over my exposed skin. The uniform bra was a sports bra, but I had enough cleavage that his tongue was darting out to wet his lips.
His gaze rested on my scars but he didn’t shy away or flinch, he just took them in like the rest of me, gentle fingers grazing over them and down to the top of my breasts.
“The bra, too, Ansel. Then you’re going to touch me. Do what feels right,” I guided him. “There’s no bad touch with you.”
I meant it, too. The touch he had, his scent, couldn’t be compared with the awful, cloying scents I’d endured before.
He was different. This was so vastly different it didn’t trigger a single awful memory in my mind. He seemed to chase them away and keep me grounded.
We needed this to be our moment together. A chance to reclaim and own what was stolen. To create something new and untarnished.
Ansel’s touch was featherlight as he swept the straps down then lowered the cups so my breasts were freed. His breath hitched at the sight of me and the scent of both of our slick bloomed again, a sweet, enticing scent that was rounded out by the citrus and florals.
“You’re beautiful,” he said to me, eyes meeting mine as his fingers teased over my shoulders and down my collar bone. I let out a sigh as he finally wrapped his hands around my breasts.
I could feel the tremor running through him and when he froze, I took over, pressing my lips against his.
Ansel’s eyes fluttered closed as he melted into me. I led the kiss, teasing my tongue over his lips, asking for entrance.
Those sweet lips parted on a sigh and I swept in, tasting his sweetness and a hint of the hot chocolate he had with breakfast.
His weakness. Something I wanted to perfect one day when we started a new life. A real one that we controlled.
