Page 93 of Finally Mine
It suddenly became imperative—the most important thing in the universe—that he, Aldo Moretta, give Gloria her first orgasm. And her last. And every single one in between.
He didn’t know what to say. A gauntlet had been thrown. One his competitive side couldn’t ignore. But the wounded, damaged side was terrified he couldn’t deliver. He would have to fight through this fear of failure, vanquish the beast, and give Gloria the satisfying sex life she deserved.
Oh, God. The pressure was going to kill him.
“That’s a whole lot of inner monologue you’ve got going on in that pretty head of yours,” Gloria teased.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Just relax. Okay. Now that I know you’re not physically repulsed by me, I can be patient,” Gloria told him.
He looked at her, shocked. “You seriously thought that?”
“Uh, hello.” She waved. “Damaged goods here. Don’t you know that everything is because of me? Textbook battered woman trauma. We believe everything everyone does is because of us.”
“You have a very healthy sense of humor, you know that?” he pointed out.
“That’s what my therapist tells me. You could talk to her, you know. I mean, we already have matching tattoos. It probably wouldn’t be any weirder if we saw the same therapist.”
“It took me this long to work up the guts to tell you. You want me to turn around and tell a complete stranger?”
Gloria held up her hand. “It’s only a suggestion. I’ll remind you I spilled my guts to a complete stranger, and it maybe kind of helped.”
Aldo dropped his forehead to the steering wheel. “Can we forget the last five minutes, please?” He knew how fucked up this was. Knew it was asinine of him to pursue her when he wasn’t sure he could give her everything she needed, be everything she needed. But, God, he didn’t want to miss his shot again. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The idea that, after all this time, he might disappoint Gloria was too much. But dammit, to be the first man to give her an orgasm? That was an honor he wasn’t letting any other man attempt.
“Already forgotten,” she promised.
They sat in awkward silence in the dark in front of Gloria’s apartment building. Each pretending everything was peachy keen.
“So you know you still get…hard,” Gloria ventured.
He gripped the wheel again, waiting to die from embarrassment. He was hard as fucking steel right now. He had no problems getting hard around Gloria…it was the rest of the process he wasn’t sure about.
“I mean, obviously you get…excited…at certain romantic moments,” she soldiered on to his dismay. “And when you slept over on my couch that first time you had some amazing action happening in your briefs…or boxers. Is it weird that I don’t know what you wear?”
“Jesus, Gloria. Please stop,” he pleaded.
“So you get hard,” she reiterated. “But you haven’t…you know…since before?”
“Oh, my God. Are you trying to kill me? No. No, I haven’t.” But he would. He would find a way. Some way to give Gloria what she’d never had. “Can we please talk about something else? Anything. Anything at all?” he begged.
“You know, I could help you test it out,” Gloria suggested. He could hear the smile in her voice and chanced a look at her.
She wasn’t joking. She looked…enthusiastic as she stared at his raging hard-on that was fighting the confines of his pants.
“Gloria, the first orgasm between the two of us sure as hell isn’t going to be mine.”
51
It was Friday night, and Gloria was in her pajamas, loose shorts and a t-shirt, in Harper’s kitchen pawing through take-out menus and debating which face mask she was going to try. It was Sleepover Night. Harper had invited Gloria, Sophie, and her friend from college, Hannah, for a night of full-frontal male nudity movies and pizza.
It was the perfect way to take her mind off of everything else. And quite honestly, Gloria needed the break. On top of orders, deliveries, payroll, and twenty-two centerpieces for a wedding tomorrow, there had been nearly a dozen hang-up calls at the shop.
Either it was a rogue fax machine or someone with a lame sense of humor. But every time she answered to silence on the other end, Gloria’s skin crawled. She couldn’t help but think this had something to do with her.
Hannah, a tall, lovely woman with wide eyes and hair the color of pennies, was recounting an embarrassing college story involving Harper and a bio lab mix-up.
Gloria couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something like this. The last time she’d had friends like this. High school? Pre-Glenn. She’d deprived herself of so many things with that one choice.
