I pull the sheet off my head and see Ben lying on his back with his arm over his face, covering his eyes. “Fuck, Em. That was close. Too close.” His voice is trembling.
“It’s okay. He didn’t realize it was me.”
He takes his arm from his face and looks at me. “I don’t have a clue how he got in here. I got up during the night and locked the door so that wouldn’t happen.”
I immediately know the explanation. “I didn’t lock it when I came back from the bathroom. I’m sorry. I thought he’d be passed out till lunch.”
He grabs my forearm, pulls me down, and wraps his arms tightly around me. “It’s okay, baby. But we’re sort of screwed with Ryan now.”
We’re really not. Why is he unable to see that? “It’s fine. He didn’t know it’s me in here.”
“True, but he thinks I’m in here eating somebody else’s pussy. Come on, Em. Think about that for a minute. Do you really think he’ll go along with us announcing we’re in love a week after he thinks he walked in on something like that?”
Ben just said we’re in love. Not dating. Not seeing each other. Not having a fling.
In. Love.
I forget all the complications our relationship creates and only focus on those two words. “You said we’re in love.”
“Yeah. I did.”
He rolls us so we’re lying on our sides, facing one another. “I am so fucking in love with you, Em.”
“I’m in love with you too. I always have been. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love you with all my heart. Even when I was six and you wouldn’t let me in the boys-only fort.”
“We were always up to no good. I kept you out to protect you. Exactly like I’m going to do now.” I don’t like the sound of that—just like I didn’t when I was six.
He rises to sit and releases a big sigh. “You can’t stay. You have to go to Ryan’s bed before he gets up again. He won’t still be drunk next time and we won’t get off so lucky.”
Logic tells me he is right but the thoughts of leaving him after we’ve just experienced this revelation together feels wrong.
I sit behind him, wrap my legs around his waist and press my face to his back. “We just admitted we’re in love with each other. The last thing I want to do is leave you.”
He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the top. “Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind because my thoughts are so unreasonable when it comes to you.”
My heart is pounding in my chest. Pulsating in my face. Thumping in my ears. “Unreasonable could mean a lot of different things.”
“Em, I want to tell you to stay with me instead of moving to campus. I want to tell you my place is big enough for both of us. I want to tell you to marry me and let me put a baby inside you.”
My breath hitches and he kisses my hand again.
“Trust me when I say I know how irrational I sound. You’re so young and there’s so much you haven’t done yet. But you could still do anything you want…but with me.”
“What about college?” I’m already enrolled but I have no idea how I’m supposed to leave Ben in eight weeks and live nearly a hundred miles away. It’s like we’re swapping places. He’s finally back in Lynchburg after six years and now I’m the one leaving for college.
“I make good money, Em, and my parents gave me what was left over in my college savings. It’s a good start. I can take care of you if you want to go to college. But I also wouldn’t be disappointed if you told me you wanted to stay home and raise our babies.”
Our babies. I think my ovaries just exploded.
I move to face Ben, straddling him, my arms wrapped around his shoulders. “Let’s do both. Get married and put a baby inside me. Not necessarily in that order.”
He cradles my face. “Are you serious, Em? You want that with me?”
“Yes.” I rise on my knees and position his cock at my entrance. “Put a baby inside me right now.”
Ben smiles and shakes his head. “Not right now. I want our first time to be uninterrupted and very special. Not ruined because your brother bursts into the room to kill me.” He tucks my hair behind my ears just like he used to do when I was little. “And you need to be eighteen so it’s legal.”
“Next week then? As planned?”
“Yeah. It’s a date.”
Today is my Em’s birthday. She’s finally eighteen. Despite two-dozen attempts to convince me into taking her, she’s still a virgin. But not for much longer.
I’m popping her cherry tonight.