Page 10 of Otto: The Hawthornes

“Can I put it back up now?” I asked, tilting my head in question.

“Not yet, yeah?” he murmured, shaking his head. “I’m gonna kiss you.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, jerking back. For some reason, I had not anticipated where this entire scenario was heading.

“You don’t want me to?”

I gaped at him like a fish. Did I want him to? Yes. A thousand times yes. He was the most attractive man I’d ever seen and he was staring at me like he was starving. What I couldn’t understand is why he’dwantto.

“No worries,” he said easily, his hands untangling from my hair.

“I do,” I stuttered quickly. “I do want you to kiss me.”

“You sure?” he asked calmly.

Was I? No.

“I’m sure.”

“Alright.” His hands tunneled into the hair behind my ears as he tilted my face toward him, and I held my breath as he leaned closer.

It wasn’t anything like I’d imagined it would be. His lips didn’t even make contact at first. As his nose slid along the side of mine, nuzzling me, I let out the shaky breath I’d been holding. His thumbs rubbed my cheeks gently as he paused just centimeters away, and then his lips were on mine and I short-circuited completely.

He moved slowly, his lips barely touching mine, nipping gently and rubbing his tongue along the seam and I felt it everywhere, from my scalp to my toes. As I relaxed into the kiss, reaching out to rest my hands on his stomach, he tilted my head, his tongue slipping into my mouth.

I was stunned.Thiswas what kissing was like? I’d known the logistics of kissing since seventh grade, but I’d never been tempted to let someone put their tongue anywhere near me. It was probably a good thing that I hadn’t known what I was missing.

As his hands left my head and smoothed over my back and down over my butt, I shivered, but I didn’t even consider stopping him. Every move, every touch, was a revelation. I hadn’t had any idea what the big deal was. Sex was clearly fun, lots of people did it even when they weren’t trying to have kids, but I’d just never felt the urge to try it. I was feeling that urge now and I didn’t pause to question it.

He lifted me onto the hood of his car, shoving my skirt up so he could step in between my knees, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, worried that he would stop kissing me and it would all be over. I wasn’t ready to go back to real life, not when he was touching me and making every inch of my skin tingle with awareness.

Maybe it was because I was the middle child in a family that lived by the rule that children were seen and not heard, or maybe it was because I’d spent thirteen years of my life walking school hallways like a ghost—overlooked by everyone, or maybe it was just the fact that I was nineteen and I’d lived a sheltered life and now suddenly the world felt like it had broken wide open… but at no point did I think that we should stop. For once in my life, consequences felt as distant as the moon.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, running his mouth down my neck, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. “Can I—”

When he started unbuttoning my shirt, I must have completely lost all sense of reality, because I helped him. There was skin under my shirt and I needed his mouth on it.

I didn’t think about what would happen when it was all over. I didn’t worry about the fact that my parents were definitely looking for me by then or that I was getting in way over my head. This insanely attractive man was solely focused on me and I never wanted it to end. Every step of the process happened so gradually that I was dying for the next step and by the time it happened I was ready.

I was completely topless by the time he laid me down across the front seat of his car, my feet dangling out of the open door. As he sucked on my nipples and his hands swept my skirt to my waist I felt drunk on him, drunk on the feeling of his body pressing against mine and his mouth on my skin. My mom had warned me that the first time was terrible, but this was the opposite. My skin was on fire. My heart was racing.

I didn’t even flinch when his fingers trailed up my legs and began to slide delicately over the slippery skin between my thighs. I was so frantic for him by then, stopping was the very last thing on my mind.

I should’ve been nervous. Scared, even.

I wasn’t. For once, I wasn’t afraid of anything. I felt invincible. Beautiful.Wanted.

“Otto,” I breathed, pulling on his shirt.

He leaned back and whipped it over his head and I stared at the muscular chest above me, dimly lit by the bonfire outside. I hadn’t known that people were actually built like that in real life. His muscles had muscles.

I slid my hands down his torso, marveling at the definition and he shuddered as I reached his waistband.

“You sure?” he asked, his hands covering mine.

It was dark, he’d turned off the overhead light when he’d opened the door so we wouldn’t be illuminated for everyone to see, but I could still just barely make out the bulge in the front of his jeans.

I didn’t want to stop. It was the only chance I would ever have and I knew it. What we were doing, the desperation and the need and the overwhelming sensations would never come again. I wanted to see him. I wanted to feel him. I wanted him to be as vulnerable as I was.

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