Page 9 of Mine Again
I lick my lips, remembering the rush of it, how my whole world shifted with that one touch.
I had dreamed of Luca being my first kiss, and when it finally happened, it was everything I had hoped for.
Soft, warm, and perfect. The way only something deeply wanted can be.
“I did,” he says, his smile curling gently. “I could never have given that first to anyone else. Do you know how hard it was to wait for that moment? It nearly drove me crazy.”
Being two years older than me, he was seventeen, and already a gentleman. Always holding back… for me.
He once told me anything sooner would have felt wrong, like taking something I wasn’t fully ready for.
So we waited.
We flirted, we brushed hands in passing, and for a long time, a lingering touch was the highlight of my year. Until that birthday, when everything changed.
“Not as crazy as kissing you whenever I could and having to stop there,” I say with a quiet laugh.
I remember trying to tempt him, testing how far his self-control could stretch. But Luca always had an iron will, despite his relentless desire for me.
So we waited… again. For another birthday, another milestone.
“You made love to me exactly one year ago,” I whisper.
I was supposed to wait until marriage. That was… is the expectation.
But I don’t think anyone really expects us to last until I’m eighteen. Our parents must suspect we crossed that line and just turned a blind eye.
Maybe because they see the love between us and remember what it’s like to be young and in love and utterly consumed by it. Well, at least our mothers. Our fathers? It’s hard to believe they have any feelings at all.
That night one year ago, the night of our official engagement, we might have broken a golden rule. But it didn’t feel like it.
It was like finally coming home.
Since then, we’ve made love more times than I can count in our little secret hideaway. The way Luca looks at me when he peels back my clothes, when he kisses every inch of my skin like a promise, when he whispers my name like a prayer. It’s always like it’s meant to be, like we’re meant to be.
But I hate the secrecy. I hate the waiting. And most of all, I hate pretending to be the perfect virginal daughter when my heart is elsewhere, when my body is still sore from his touch and all I want is to go back. To him.
Another year of this. But then we’ll be free to be together… always.
Just three hundred and sixty-five more days and we won’t have to sneak around anymore.
But none of that matters right now.
I’m alone with my love, and I burn to touch him.
Turning abruptly, I launch myself into his arms, and he catches me effortlessly, supporting my backside so I can wind my legs around him. With my arms around his neck, I press my lips to his, peppering his face with endless kisses.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is perfect.Youare perfect.”
His hand slides into my hair, holding me in place as he crushes my lips to his, turning us and pushing me against the wall for balance.
His lips devour mine, hungry, claiming, his body flush against me. There’s nothing gentle in the way he kisses me now. It’s all heat and desperation, an unspoken apology for every second we had to spendapart.
I grind down against him, and he groans into my mouth, low and needy, the sound vibrating through me. His hands shift under my thighs, squeezing, anchoring me to him like he’s terrified I might slip away.
“God, I needed this,” he breathes, kissing a trail along my jaw, down to that spot just beneath my ear. “I thought I’d lose my mind.”
My head falls back against the wall, and I gasp as his mouth finds my neck.
