Nothing in my imagination prepared me for the way her body clutched at mine, the way she gave in without losing herself, the way she made me feel like I was finally home.
I waited for her.
Not because I had to. Because Iknew.
Knew if I ever gave myself away, it would be like this—devastating in the best way. No—
Sacred.
Marcella Delgado didn’t steal my virginity. I gave it to her. Deliberately. Without hesitation. Like a vow I never needed to say out loud.
I don’t regret a thing.
She shifts slightly, but she doesn’t roll away. Doesn’t speak.
I keep my hand steady, gearing myself up for…
Ahhh. If she tries to say this meant nothing, I won’t fight her. Not yet.
I’ll prove it. Every day if I have to.
She’s it for me.
Even if she runs—
I’m not letting her go.
twenty-one
Marcella
WhatthehellamI doing?
Lying against Seamus in an abandoned hospital room, his fingers tracing slow patterns over my hip.
This isn’t what I came here for.
This isn’t what people like me get to experience.
Right now, I don’t want to move. Everything’s quiet, save for the hum of overhead lights and the occasional creak of aging pipes. The sterile scent of disinfectant clings to the air—a jarring contrast to the raw, intimate thing we’ve done.
We had sex. Real, actual sex.
Notjustsex—it was Seamus’s first time.
He could have chosen anyone and he gave his virginity to me—a nearly forty-year-old, body-negative, jaded professional who’s been convinced men like him didn’t exist outside of her dreams.
I don’t know what to do with this kind of devotion—if it’s for real—so, for now, I lie here tensely, trying to breathe around it.
Seamus shifts slightly to his side and his hand cups the soft curve of my belly—my most guarded, resented part. With quiet confidence he caresses me there. Stroking. Touching. He’s not repulsed. The knowledge of which nearly undoes me.
Unlike other lovers, there’s no hesitation. Or avoidance. Flinch of disgust. His elegant, precise surgeon’s fingers, which manipulated my body into multiple orgasms, exploring the abundant curves I’ve spent years trying to shrink, flatten, and make disappear.
I tense, instinctively.
He doesn’t move. Or let go. His thumb drags a slow, reverent line over my skin, like he’s mapping a place he has no intention of forgetting.
It’s too much. Too intimate. I’m trying to be comfortable in his arms on the thin mattress.Impossible. I’m naked. He’s naked. We’re in a damn abandoned hospital room like some ill-conceived fantasy. Is this even hygienic? Won’t there be security guards?
