Page 40 of Dance of the Phoenix
Even back then, despite my naivety and lack of knowledge, I knew there was something amiss in what she was saying. I didn’t know about her past at that point in time. I didn’t understand where she was really coming from. All I knew was that something about it did not sit right with me.
Taking in a deep breath, I said, “Maybe we can just like ... fool around.” I swallowed hard, feeling a bit sick. “You know, like touch each other—”
For the first time since I’d met her, I saw fury filling up her beautiful face. “Everyone else is doing it. Everyone’s having sex!” she snapped, leaning back and glaring at me. “We’re not babies! Besides, don’t you want to have sex with me? Isn’t that what boys want?”
Suddenly, I knew I had to tread carefully, or this conversation could sour very fast. Narrowing my eyes, I struggled to choose my words. “I ... yes, but ... but I feel like maybe we are going too fast—”
“Too fast?” she cut me off, her eyes flashing dangerously. “We’re thirteen, Logan! I know girls who have already had sex and who are way younger than we are!” She grabbed my shirt in anger. “Don’t you think about doing it? Don’t you want to know how it feels? What’s it like? If you love me, you’ll want to do it with me.”
My breath got stuck in my throat. I’d never said those words before. I’d never told her I loved her. But she felt it nonetheless. She knew it before I even did.
I loved Aileen Henderson.
I loved her so much that all the alarms in my head became background noise I paid no attention to.
All I wanted was to see her smile. This angry Aileen was beautiful in her own way, but I wanted the Aileen I knew back. I did not want to argue with her—it was our first disagreement, and I hated it. I just wanted her to be ... happy. To love me as I loved her.
So I grabbed her hands, locked her gaze with mine, and asked, “Will it make you happy if we do it?”
She squeezed my hands back and resolutely answered, “Yes.”
I let out a sigh of defeat, cupped her cheek, and kissed her before I said, “Then let’s do it.”
The night before I turned fourteen, Aileen and I lost our virginity to one another in the quiet darkness of my room.
It was the first time in my life I’d gone against my instincts for another person. Because the truth was, I wasn’t ready. I had barely realized my feelings for Aileen, barely managed to understand my body’s reaction and how to deal with it, and sex should’ve come much later, when I was more emotionally ready.
But I loved Aileen. I fell in love with her at the tender age of thirteen, and that love blinded me to everything else—even to my own feelings.
So I let her take the lead in our relationship. I let her have her way with me every night after that first one we spent together.
We had sex every day until, before I knew it, I couldn’t go a day without her in my bed.
And as my desperation and need for her grew, my love for her turned more twisted and obsessive with every touch and every word we exchanged.
Chapter 18
Logan
For three years, Aileen stayed with my family.
During those three years, we started dating in public once we turned fifteen. It was partly because I hated hiding our relationship from my parents but mostly because my possessiveness of her reached new heights, and I wanted the entire world to know she wasmine.
Because when Aileen turned fifteen, she started attracting much more attention than she had before. I caught our classmates, and even juniors and seniors, staring at her when she passed through the high school corridors, their eyes scanning her from head to toe. I even heard some of my soccer team members talking about her while they rated the level of fuckability of all the girls in our grade. They rated her too high.
It drove me up a wall, having to keep our relationship a secret. I didn’t want to anymore. I wanted to snarl and growl like a fucking animal at everyone who dared look at her. I wanted to show her off.
So to do that, I had to let my parents know.
Unfortunately, that conversation didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.
“Aileen’s yoursister!” Mom said after I sat her and Dad down to tell them the news. I wanted to do it alone, without Aileen, because I feared something like this might happen, and thank goodness I did that.
“Fostersister, Mom,” I countered, folding my arms. “It’s not like you adopted her. She’s not legally my sister.”
Dad looked at me with concern. “You know we adore Aileen,” he told me in his calm way, “but I believe what your mother’s afraid of is that a relationship between you two at such a young age is bound to end badly.”
“I know we’re only fifteen,” I said, getting angry. “But Aileen is the one for me. I’m going to marry her when we’re old enough.”
