Author: Tiffany Reisz

She waited for Wesley to speak but instead he grazed her bare back with his fingertips. His touch was so tenuous that it almost tickled.

“Okay,” he said. “I believe you.”

Nora pulled her shirt back on and buttoned it. She turned off the lamp and lay down again. For a few minutes they lay in silence together.

“You stopped him because Zach was there?”

Nora opened her eyes. Wesley was looking at her. She ran her hands through his tousled blond hair.

“No. I stopped him because I promised you I would.”

Wesley took her hand from his hair and held it.

“You did?”

Nora squeezed his hand and met his eyes. “Yeah, I did. Wes, I can’t lose you.” Reaching out, she laid her hand on Wesley’s chest over his heart. She leaned forward and kissed Wesley on the forehead. She wanted so desperately to lower her head and kiss his lips. But she remembered Søren’s warnings. She wanted to believe she could be trusted around Wesley.

Wesley rolled over on his side so she could no longer see his face. She tried to settle in and let herself fall asleep. But Wesley’s body was so close, so warm and so inviting. Just to tease him, she reached out and ran a finger down the center of his back from his neck to his hip.

“Nora, did you already forget the ‘behave yourself’ rule?”

“Just returning the favor,” she said. “You touched my back. I get to touch yours.” Nora ran her finger up his back to his neck again. She delighted in the little shivers she instigated with every pass. “Why are you still a virgin, Wes?”

He’s waiting for you to grow up. Nora heard Søren’s voice in her head and pushed it away.

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Wesley grabbed a pillow and pulled it tight to his chest.

“I’m very seriously asking you that. I want to know.”

“Well, I’m a Christian and—”

“I’m a Christian, too. And I’m not a virgin. Then again, I’m a bad Christian.”

“You’re not a bad Christian,” Wesley said. “You’re just doing the best you can.”

“That’s very gracious of you.” Nora grinned at the back of his head. “But you’re avoiding the question. Are you really waiting until your wedding night?”

“Not necessarily.”

Nora flicked him on his back.

“What do you mean ‘not necessarily’? That’s not very devout of you.”

“I’m not a fundamentalist, you know. I’m a biochemistry major. I do believe that evolution and global warming are real. I just think God’s real, too, and He wants us to be, I don’t know, honorable with each other.”

“Honorable…that’s a very good word. So when do you plan on honoring some lucky girl with your virginity?”

“Nora, this isn’t a very comfortable topic of conversation.”

“Wes, we talk about sex all the time.”

“No, you talk about sex all the time. I live with you and am forced to listen to it.”

Nora flicked him again. “Come on. Tell me. I want to know.”

“All right, fine. If you’ll stop flicking me.”

Nora started lightly massaging Wesley’s neck and shoulders. She thought it would help with his tension but his muscles seemed to get more rigid the more she touched him.

Wesley exhaled slowly.

“I just want to wait until I know it’ll mean as much to her as it does to me. As much as it means to me, this might take a while.”

Nora stopped rubbing Wesley’s neck and instead began slowly caressing his back with her fingertips.

“Remember, I was still a virgin when I was your age. I was twenty before Søren and I made love the first time.”

“Were you glad you waited so long?”

“It wasn’t my choice to wait. It was his. I was ready and willing much younger than that. But I’m glad that it mattered as much to him as it did to me. I think you’ll make some girl very happy one of these days. For your sake I hope she’s waited for you, too.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t want to be with another virgin?” she asked, utterly shocked.

“No way. I’d like at least one of us to know what we’re doing.”

“It’s not that hard to figure out, I promise. You just kiss her,” she said, dropping a kiss on the center of Wesley’s back, “anywhere and everywhere you want to kiss her and touch her anywhere and everywhere you want to touch her. And when she’s wet and ready you spread her legs open wide and slowly push inside her and—”

“Stop, Nor.” She could hear the strain in his voice.

“I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget I’m not in one of my own books.”

“It’s okay,” he said a little breathlessly. He curled up around the pillow and pulled his legs into his chest. “It’s just…you’re… I’m…”

“Turned on? I know you are. Your accent gets thicker when you get—”

“Nora, please.”

“You can tell me, Wes.”

“Yes,” he confessed. “Very. I’m sorry. Just give me a few minutes to think about my dead grandmother and I’ll be okay.”

“Can I help you?”

“I don’t think so. You never met my dead grandmother.”

Nora laughed. “That’s not what I was thinking. Here, just relax. Best thing to do is just get it out of your system.” She put her hand on his side.

“I’m not going to have sex with you,” Wesley said with vehemence.

“I know. I’ve met my virgin deflowering quota for the day anyway. Just think of it as a tension-relieving massage.” Nora slipped her hand under his pajama pants and caressed his hip. She tapped him where she knew his tattoo was. “Or I could blow your bugle.”

Wesley laughed and groaned at the same time.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said, although she could hear the need in his voice.

“Then I’ll stop. Or I’ll continue. Just tell me what you want.”

“I want to be able to sleep on my stomach at some point tonight.”

“I’ll take that as a yes then. Okay?” Nora waited, certain he would say no and send her back to her room.

Wesley took a hard breath.

“Okay.”

“Really?” she asked.

“You really told Søren no because of me?” he asked.

Nora didn’t have to lie when she answered a quiet, “Yes.”

“Then yes. But no bugle blowing.”

“Spoilsport.” Suddenly Nora found herself feeling something she hadn’t felt in months, maybe even years—nervous. She let her hand slip over the hard plane of Wesley’s flat stomach, and she could feel the outline of all his muscles. She moved lower and found him. Wrapping her hand around him, she stroked upward.

“God,” he whispered as his whole body shivered.

“You’ve never even let anyone touch you before?” She ran her fingers slowly up and down his hard length.

He shook his head.

“No.”

She took him with her whole hand and smiled as he flinched with pleasure. Pressing her body into his back, she kissed only his neck although she ached to kiss all of him.

“You’re insanely hard,” she said, almost laughing. “You were working on the world’s worst case of blueballs.”

“Tell me about it.” She could hear Wesley trying to be flippant but his voice sounded bated and breathy. She ran her hand from the base to the tip of him; it took a very long time to get there. Not only did she have a gorgeous virgin in her house, but she had an extremely well-endowed one. Yet another thing Wesley and Søren had in common. She closed her eyes and imagined she could hear God laughing at her from on high.

“Wes, forgive the reference to your family’s favorite animal, but you’re hung like a horse.”

“Really?” He sounded pleasantly surprised.

“Definitely.” Still stunned by this incredible intimacy Wesley was allowing, Nora tried to keep her voice calm. “Probably a good thing if you never try sex with a virgin. You’d kill the poor girl.”

“I think you’re about to kill me,” he breathed. She loved hearing his voice so hoarse and desperate.

Nora turned her hand again and ran just her fingertips up and down him, grinning as Wesley’s breath caught in his throat and his shoulders heaved. She wanted to pretend it was only a massage, but she couldn’t stop herself from imagining him inside her, filling her body with his, coming inside her, being his first lover. She forced the image away and focused on Wesley again.

“Wesley, I can do this all night. That doesn’t mean you have to. You can come whenever you want.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“It’s just me. We’re best friends. You don’t have to be ashamed or embarrassed, I promise. Just relax. Come for me,” she said, unable to stop giving orders even with Wesley.

Nora tightened her grip slightly and moved her hand faster. Wesley started breathing even harder. His back arched and she heard him inhale sharply. His whole body shuddered for a long time. Nora nearly gasped aloud at the intensity of his orgasm as her own inner muscles contracted with frustrated desire. While he breathed through the climax she held him before reluctantly letting him go. Grabbing a pair of his abandoned boxer shorts off the floor, she handed them to him. He said nothing as he cleaned himself off and tossed the wet boxers aside.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yeah, better,” he said, still panting a little. “Humiliated but better.”

Nora laughed and draped her arm over his chest.

“Wes, turn over.” Nora could sense Wesley’s unwillingness to obey. But he finally gave in and flipped back over. He lay on his side again face-to-face with her. She was relieved to see his eyes were as wide and innocent and unsullied as ever.

She placed her hand on his bare chest right over his heart.

“I’m going to tell you something that is completely true,” she said. “And you’re going to believe it’s true. And then we’re both going to go to sleep.”

“I’m listening.”

“It meant as much to me as it did to you,” she said and she did mean it.

Wesley nodded. “Okay, I believe you.”

Nora smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“Now go to sleep. On your stomach now if you’d like.”

“Good night, Nora,” he said and pushed her still damp hair off her face.

“Good night, John-Boy.”

Nora kissed him quick on the cheek and rolled over onto her side away from him. She tensed as Wesley reached out and pulled her back against his chest. It took her a moment to even believe he lay so close, that their bodies were shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. She settled in against him and let him hold her.

After a few minutes his breathing settled, slowing down until his breaths matched hers. He lay quiet for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep.

“I thought you’d be with Zach tonight,” Wesley said.

Nora found his hand and wrapped her fingers around his.

“No. I’m with you tonight.”

24

Zach spent the entire morning on the phone discussing the details of contracts and upcoming projects at Royal’s West Coast office. The meetings would normally have been rather enjoyable and interesting, but with Nora and last night’s events on his mind, he couldn’t concentrate. He rattled off information by rote, all the while thinking about how a few hours ago, he’d been wandering around New York’s most infamous underground S&M club with a Catholic priest and the son of John Fiske, the city’s most powerful financier. And then afterward in the car with Nora… He could still remember what she felt like on his fingers and how close he’d been to sliding inside her. Now in the Tuesday afternoon daylight, Zach had trouble believing it was real. He only had Nora as proof—Nora who seemed to pass from his world and into her world and back with frightening ease.