Page 36 of Heartbeat

I smiled, mid-kiss, making fists with both hands, grabbing his shirt, and pulling him closer. He lifted me up and slowly laid me back onto the mattress, pressing two open palms on my waist and closing his fingers as if grabbing hold.

There was something about the way it felt to have his eyes on me; I’d never experienced it before. There was such intensity in them, almost as if he could see behind mine, truly see, or maybe as if he wished to pierce through. It was the kind of gaze that, in any other situation, might very well have been disconcerting. But at that moment, it felt different, special, like this tangible connection, an invisible thread connecting us that, for a quick moment, had materialized and made itself known. It was a flicker of a second but enough to take my breath away.

We stood there in silence, admiring each other.

I was so gone.

He took a deep breath, lifting my left leg and only briefly breaking eye contact, just long enough to kiss my knee. Then I was the one who took a deep, long breath as his whole weight slowly fell on top of me. It took all I had not to cry out. I bit my lower lip and tried to keep my eyes open so I could see him. It was the hottest moment of my life, how he unknowingly smiled as he did.

“Fuck!” I whimpered, digging my nails into his chest as hard and as deep as I could before running both hands over his skin all the way to his lower back, pulling him closer—as much as I was possibly able to.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Never,” I ordered, and he smiled again, this time proudly.

Whenever we weren’t kissing, he didn’t break eye contact once.

“This feels so good,” he said, sounding amazed.

A single drop of sweat clung to the tip of his thin nose, as still as he was.

“You feel so good,” he amended.

I ran my hands slowly up his back, and just as I did, he put his left hand on the right side of my face, gently caressing it before running his thumb over my lips.

“Can I move?” he quietly asked, still cupping my face.

I bit the tip of his thumb and nodded, slowly. The way he looked made it impossible for me not to stare. As much as I wanted to spend every possible second I could kissing him, he just demanded being admired. The way he moved, the way his skin started to glow as he sweat, and how it made his muscles seem even more defined when he flexed was pretty hypnotic. This first time was slow, gentle, and extremely intense.

I still had my nails carved deep into Ethan’s back as he held me so tightly it felt there was nothing I wasn’t shielded from.

“I think I left my phone downstairs,” he commented, still breathing heavily on my neck.

“Are you honestly thinking about your phone while still inside me?” I asked, insulted as fuck.

He chuckled. “It’s not like that.” He gave me a quick kiss on my right clavicle. “It’s just…what if your brother finds it and comes in asking you about it and catches us?”

“None of that will happen. And even if it did—this? This is worth the risk.”

He all but beamed. “It was pretty awesome.”

“Yes, it was,” I absolutely agreed.

“Can we go again?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and looking so fucking hot.

*

Ethan lay on his back while I was on my stomach, drawing an infinity symbol with my finger on his chest, over and over again.

“How old were you?” he quietly asked, looking up at the ceiling. “Your first time?”

“Fifteen,” I said, looking at him. “You?”

“Seventeen.”

“Recent.”

“Yeah. Were you in love?”

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