Chapter 42 42
Kaelen's POV:
Marlen and Lucian left for Lucian's friend's house around one PM. I hadn't encouraged them to go, exactly, but I hadn't tried to stop them either, and that felt like its own kind of betrayal.
Annabeth was coming over. Just to hang out, just to watch a movie and be normal together. That was it. That was all this was going to be.
I kept telling myself that while I cleaned my room, picking up the clothes and textbooks scattered across the floor. While I changed the sheets, which was just basic hygiene and not at all because I was thinking about her in my bed. While I opened a window so it didn't smell like teenage boy.
Normal date. Normal afternoon. Nothing was going to happen because I was the one who kept stopping things, who knew the consequences of going too far. I was in control. I could do this.
Marlen had given me this look as she was putting on her shoes, knowing and slightly amused. "Have fun," she'd said. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
I wasn't going to. I was going to be responsible and keep my hands to myself and not think about the river yesterday, about Annabeth's legs wrapped around me and her mouth on mine and the way the water had literally steamed around us.
Fuck. I was in so much trouble.
When Annabeth knocked I almost jumped off the couch. Pulled myself together, walked to the door like a normal person instead of someone whose heart was trying to break through his ribcage.
She was wearing jeans and a dark green sweater that made her eyes look brighter, her hair down around her shoulders in the way I loved. When she smiled at me I forgot how to breathe for a second.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi. Come in."
The air between us felt electric the moment she stepped inside, that same tension from the river yesterday still crackling and unresolved. She knew it too, I could see it in the way she looked at me, the way her eyes dropped to my mouth and then back up.
"Your siblings gone?" she asked.
"Yeah. They'll be back around five or six."
"So we have the house to ourselves."
"Yeah."
She set her bag down and walked into the living room, sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. "Wanna watch a movie or something?"
Deep down I think we both knew we weren't going to watch any movie. But I sat down next to her anyway and grabbed the remote, scrolling through Netflix without seeing any of the titles. Doing my best to not overpass the limits.
"What do you want to watch?" I asked.
"I don't care. Whatever you want."
I picked something at random, some action movie I'd never heard of, and it started playing. We sat there pretending to watch it, sitting way too close with our thighs touching, neither of us paying attention to the screen at all.
About ten minutes in she turned to look at me. "Kaelen."
"Yeah?"
"I don't want to watch a movie."
Shit...
I kissed her before she could say anything else, my hand coming up to cup her face while her fingers fisted in my shirt and pulled me closer. She made this sound against my mouth that went straight through me, need and want and permission all wrapped up in one noise.
She climbed onto my lap without breaking the kiss, straddling me on the couch, and I had to grip her hips to steady both of us. Her hands were in my hair, on my shoulders, sliding under the edge of my shirt to touch skin, and I was gone, completely lost in her.
"Bedroom," I managed to say between kisses. "We should... if we're doing this..."
"Yes. Okay. Yeah."
I stood up with her legs still wrapped around me and carried her down the hall, her mouth on my neck making it very difficult to walk in a straight line. We made it to my room and I kicked the door closed behind us, setting her down on the edge of my bed.
"Are you sure?" I asked, even though stopping now might actually kill me. "Because we don't have to, if you're not ready—"
She pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it on the floor, leaving her in just a black bra and jeans. "I'm sure."
Fuck.
I pulled my own shirt off and she reached for me immediately, her hands on my chest and then sliding around to my back, pulling me down onto the bed with her. We kissed and it was different here, on my bed with actual privacy and time, no risk of being interrupted or having to stop.
My hands explored places I'd only touched through clothes before, sliding up her sides and around to her back, finding the clasp of her bra and fumbling with it until she laughed against my mouth and reached back to undo it herself.
"Need help?" she teased.
"Shut up."
The bra came off and I forgot how to form words. Just looked at her, really looked at her, and felt my brain short-circuit.
"You're staring," she said, but she was smiling.
"Can't help it. You're..." I didn't have words. Just leaned down and kissed her again, slower this time, worshipping instead of devouring.
My mouth moved from her lips to her jaw, then her neck, down to her collarbone. She arched up into me and her hands were working at my belt, getting it undone and pushing my jeans down my hips. I kicked them off and we were skin against skin, just thin fabric between us, and the heat was overwhelming.
I touched her everywhere I could reach, learning what made her gasp and what made her moan, filing away every reaction for later. She did the same, her hands mapping my body like she was trying to memorize it, fingers trailing over my stomach and chest and arms.
When I slid my hand into her jeans she made this sound that drove me absolutely insane, her hips lifting to give me better access. I touched her through her underwear first, feeling the heat and dampness there, and she was saying my name like a prayer, over and over.
"Off," she breathed. "Get them off."
I helped her out of her jeans and underwear, both of us fumbling and awkward but not caring. Then she was naked under me and I took a moment just to look, to appreciate that this was real, that she was here and wanted this.
My jeans came off next and we were pressed together with nothing between us, her legs wrapped around my hips and her hands clutching my shoulders. I could feel how ready she was, how easy it would be to just...
"Kaelen," she said quietly, her hand coming up to touch my face. "Wait."
I froze immediately. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I just... I want to wait. Before we go all the way. I want to be completely sure about the bond before we cross that line."
Disappointment and relief hit me in equal measure. Disappointment because God I wanted her, wanted this, wanted to be connected to her in every possible way. Relief because she was being smart, thinking clearly when I was ready to forget everything except how good she felt against me.
"Okay," I said, even though it took everything I had to stop. "Okay, we'll wait."
"But we can still..." She moved her hips against me and I groaned as her wet heat slid against my hardness. "Everything else?"
"Yeah. Definitely. Everything else."
I shifted to the side and she came with me, both of us lying on our sides facing each other. My hand slid down her body, over the soft curve of her breast, across her stomach that trembled under my touch, and between her legs. I found her slick and swollen, and when I circled my fingers against her most sensitive spot, she gasped and pressed closer.
I learned what she liked, how she preferred firm, steady pressure that gradually increased, how she arched when I slipped two fingers inside her while my thumb continued its circles. Her inner walls clenched around me as she said my name in that breathy voice that was going to haunt my dreams forever. She touched me too, her hand wrapping around my length, stroking from base to tip with a twist of her wrist that made me thrust involuntarily into her grip.
We brought each other over the edge like that, tangled together on my bed in the afternoon light, her body tensing and shuddering against mine as she came with a cry she muffled against my shoulder. I followed moments later, spilling hot across her fingers and our stomachs, whispering each other's names and holding on like we were afraid to let go.
Afterward we just lay there breathing hard, her head on my chest and my arms around her, both of us sticky and satisfied and not wanting to move.
"I love you," I said without meaning to, the words just coming out before I could stop them. And now it was totally for real, not just the usual, sweet way we had to say goodbye by text when going to sleep at night.
She went still against me and my heart stopped. Too soon. Fuck, it was too soon, I shouldn't have said it, shouldn't have—
"I love you too," she said quietly. "I think I've loved you since that night when you were bleeding on the sidewalk and looked at me like I was saving your life instead of just helping a stranger."
Relief flooded through me so intense I had to close my eyes. "I did think you were saving my life. Just not in the way I originally thought."
She tilted her head up to look at me, smiling. "How cheesy are we right now? Lying naked in bed confessing our love like something out of a romance novel?"
"Extremely cheesy. Embarrassingly cheesy."
"I like it."
"Me too."
I wasn't sure if what we'd just done counted as losing our virginity or not. Technically we hadn't gone all the way, but it sure as hell felt like something had shifted between us, something that couldn't be undone.
We stayed like that until we had to get up and get dressed before my siblings came home, both of us moving slowly and stealing kisses between putting on clothes. Normal couple things, easy and comfortable and perfect.
And the whole time the guilt sat in my chest like a stone, because she loved me and I loved her and I was lying to her about something that was going to destroy this when she found out.
But I had five more days. Five more days of this before I had to tell her the truth and watch it all fall apart.