Page 53 of Meant to Be

I nodded.

“That’s how you met?”

I nodded again.

“And what about Wendy? What does she do?”

“She’s a stay-at-home mom,” I said, thinking that I could neverquite decide whether Wendy’s life sounded boring or pleasant. It depended on the day.

“Do you like her husband?”

I shrugged and said he was fine. “He’s a lawyer like her dad. Sort of vanilla. Nice enough.”

He smiled and said, “Am I vanilla?”

I thought for a second, then said, “No. You’resweet…but not vanilla.”

He smiled, then pulled me into his arms and gave me a verynonvanillakiss.

—

A couple hourslater, after we’d snacked on Joe’s cheese board, polished off the bottle of wine, and made out on the sofa, he took me back to his dimly lit bedroom and laid me across his bed and kissed me some more. I had a good buzz going but was still perfectly clear-eyed and very certain of how I wanted the night to end. Having sex with Joe felt inevitable—a foregone conclusion. It was going to be now or later, so it might as well be now.

With that decision made, I took charge, standing up, reaching back to unfasten the hook-and-eye closure of my dress, then shimmying out of it. The streetlights softly illuminated his room, and I could feel him watching me in my matching lace underwear as I pulled back the covers and crawled into his bed between the crispest, coolest sheets.

When I finally met his gaze, I saw a look on his face that went beyond lust and approached awe. It had the effect of making me feel more brazen.

“My God, Cate. You’re gorgeous,” he said, yet he didn’t make a move. He just lay there on top of the covers, frozen on his side, restrained and respectful.

“Come here,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Hmm?”

“Take your clothes off and come here,” I said more explicitly, lifting the covers, showing him my body, tempting him.

“Are you sure I should do that?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Very sure.”

Joe took a few deep breaths, then sat up and did what I asked. Now it was my turn to watch as he undressed. As a model, I’d been around plenty of good-looking men with beautiful bodies—and Arlo’s was as rock hard and chiseled as any of them—but something about Joe’s body was different. Better. Maybe it was the hair on his chest—which I loved. Maybe it was the knowledge that it was Joe. I thought of that poster on my wall, suddenly remembering a moment that I’d either forgotten or repressed. My first orgasm happened while I stared up at it, fantasizing that it was Joe who was touching me. I had no idea what I was doing—and had only read about sex in Judy Blume’s novelForever,which didn’t cover the nitty-gritty of orgasms. But I figured it out that night. For a second, the memory embarrassed me. But then, a switch flipped in the other direction, and I felt even more turned on. Powerful, even.

A moment later, wearing only boxers, Joe had found me under the covers. He lay beside me, kissing me even more hungrily than he had in Paris or on his sofa earlier, pausing only to reach around and unhook my bra, pulling it off me, then tossing it to the side of the bed. I wrapped my arms back around him and sighed, as we lay skin to skin for the first time. It crossed my mind that this might be enough for now—it felt that good—but the thought didn’t last long, as his hands started moving all over my body, everywhere he could reach. That went on for a while until he rolled me over and kissed my breasts and stomach. He tried to move his face lower, but I stopped him, grabbing his shoulders,telling him to come back to me. When he did, I slid my hands down his back, dipping them past the elastic waistband of his boxers. “Take these off, too,” I whispered. “Please.”

He groaned a little in response but obliged my request. When his boxers were off, I laid my cheek on his chest, gazing down at him—allof him—then touched him for the first time. As I listened to his breathing, I stroked him as softly as I could, watching him grow even harder.

“God, Cate,” he said with a low moan.

I slid my thong off, then took his hand and guided it down between my legs.

“Damn,” he said, his breathing now heavy. “You’resowet.”

“You made me this way,” I whispered as his fingers moved in circles in the exact right place, which only I had ever been able to find.

Then I pulled him back on top of me, kissing his neck, arching my back, and spreading my legs. “I want you,” I said.

“Oh, my God, I know,” he groaned.

“I mean it. Right now. I want you—”

“Are you sure—” he said, staring into my eyes.

“Very sure,” I said, my heart pounding.

Looking as nervous as I felt, he nodded, then reached over to open the drawer of his nightstand, pulling out a condom. He quickly put it on, his hands trembling.

I spread my legs a little more, then reached down to slowly guide him inside me. Like our first kiss, everything felt like slow motion. His touch was light and lingering and impossibly good. He teased me for a long time. Then, when I couldn’t stand it another second, I wrapped my legs around him and dug my fingers into his back and pulled him all the way inside me. And then I knew that there was absolutely, positively no turning back.

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