Not a Chance(30)

She clutched at the front of his shirt. He grabbed one of her hands and lowered it down...down to where he was so hard he couldn't breathe for the intensity of it. "Oh, God, Emma," he moaned. He was kissing her throat, now, and then her chest, knowing her breasts were just a thin layer of fabric away from his lips. He pressed her hand against him and then reached up to cup her right breast. He squeezed it and gasped as another surge of desire shot through him. He pressed forward, burying his face in her breasts. She was backed all the way against the door of the car. He felt her trace the outline of his erection between her fingers and he groaned against her chest.

He wanted her to feel it too. He wanted to hear her cry out his name. So he let go of her breast and slid his hand up her skirt between her legs. He had barely touched her when she suddenly jerked beneath him and started shoving him away.

"Stop!" she gasped. "Stop. We have to stop!"

He stopped immediately despite every impulse in his body that told him to keep going. He was breathing like he'd run a marathon. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head and then lowered it. Her shoulders started shaking.

Up until then, he'd been frantically thinking of ways to get back to the moment they'd been in just then. But now he stopped and put his hand kindly on her back, rubbing it gently. "What's wrong, Emma?" he asked.

She sniffed and shook her head again. She put her face in her hands and then sobbed all out.

"Jesus, Emma," he said. "Please tell me what's wrong. If I hurt you, I'm so sorry."

She shook her head again and waved him away. But she was still crying too hard to answer him.

He kept his hand on her back and watched, worried out of his mind that he'd just forced her into something she didn't want. He'd been too aggressive, that was it. He'd missed her signals and gone on ahead with his own selfish desires. "I'm sorry, Emma. I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world. Please calm down."

She seemed to start settling down. After a few more minutes, she pressed her palms into her eyes to dash away the last of the tears. She sat back and stared out the window. Her breath shook when she inhaled. He kept his arm along the back of her seat and watched her intently.

"I'm sorry, Dustin," she said. "It was just a kiss and then all of a sudden it was so much more." She turned and smiled at him, her eyes sparkling from the tears. "That was my first kiss," she said.

He lifted his brows in surprise. "Oh." He thought about it for a moment. If that was her first kiss...,"Then you've never...with anyone else, you've never..." he looked at her.

She shook her head. "Never." Then she turned back to the view. "And I want to wait until I'm married."

Dustin felt his heart sink. It was the dreaded announcement he'd hoped she would never make.

"This, just now...it all happened so fast," she said. "And the feelings were overwhelming. I've never been swept away like that. I'm really sorry, Dustin."

He nodded, still absorbing the fact that he wouldn't be having sex with Emma anytime soon.

"If this is the end of things for us, I'll understand. I just need you to know up front...this won't happen again. I wish I'd had the foresight to keep it from happening this time."

Dustin stared at her. She was so beautiful and pure. Like her tears had just baptized away the sins of moments ago. He didn't care about the purity part, though. He cared about the way she made him feel...the way he knew in that moment that he would wait as long as it took if it meant getting to have her in his life. "Okay," he said.

She looked at him. "Okay, what?"

"Okay. If you want to wait, I'll wait."

She stared at him for a long time. "Really? You'd do that for me?"

He nodded. "I might occasionally beg you to have mercy and change your mind. Because that, just now, was pretty damn amazing. For me, anyway."

She nodded. "For me, too."

He smiled. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He took her hand and kissed it. Then he sighed and leaned back in his seat. "Okay, then. I guess we just hold hands and talk."

She giggled. "Yep."

He smiled at her. "Will you be my date to the party Friday night?"

She sat up straight and smiled brightly, clearly excited. "Yes! I'd love to be your date Friday night." She practically squealed in delight.

He held her hand a while longer and they enjoyed the view in a companionable silence. Then he drove her to her house and headed home, elated at his new relationship and somewhat down about the prospect of an indefinite term of sexual frustration to come. By the time he got back to his street the reality of it sank in.