She was surprised at how easy it was to be with anyone like this. She was… touching him. Quite intimately. Shouldn’t she be more nervous? More self-conscious? But she wasn’t. It didn’t matter to her that she hadn’t exactly been doing crunches and lunges all year in preparation for Matt seeing her naked because they were about more than that.
Later, in bed, Julie knew that no one had ever been so grateful to have the hot water run out. Not that she had anything to compare it to, but whatever Matt was doing with his tongue to her under the sheets right now was pretty unbelievable. Technically, what he was doing to her for the second time, but she wasn’t about to bring numbers and math and geekiness into this. Although the thought occurred to her that, considering Matt took every conceivable thing to an outrageously academic level, there was an extremely good chance that he’d extensively researched female anatomy and become some sort of expert on the subject.
But since he was the first person to make her body tremble in a way that only she had made happen before…. Well, from now on, she would never complain when he got so engrossed in his laptop that he failed to hear anything that she was saying.
God, he was thorough and attentive in a way she couldn’t have dreamed of. Julie moved her hand down, stroking his shoulder. She was nearly delirious.
But it wasn’t just what he was doing to her physically that was making her so euphoric. It was him, being close with him. Trading touch, and sound, and taste with the person she cared so much for. How, even though she didn’t know exactly what to do, Matt relaxed her, guided her, responded to her. Julie knew that for so much of their time together over this past year, she had been the one in control, steering him in different directions with Celeste, trying to bring him out of his own shell, and helping him find himself again in the craziness of his family. Now it was his turn to lead her, to be in charge, and she needed that from him. She liked that he was taking care of her. He would do what he was doing to her right now for the rest of the night if she let him.
And that one thought did interrupt her absolute bliss.
Julie reached her hand down and lured Matt up to her. She kissed him deeply, showing him how much she wanted him. “Matt?”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Matthew Watkins, are you stalling?”
“Am I what?”
“Are you stalling?”
“What…? Why are…? Do you want me to stop? Julie, we can stop anytime you want to. You know that, right?”
He sounded so cute and worried that it just confirmed her thought. “You are stalling.”
Matt slid his arms underneath her shoulders and held her. He didn’t say anything for a minute, but she had learned to wait him out. “Maybe a little,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Julie, until this morning, I thought that I’d lost you. That maybe I’d never even had you to lose at all. And now you’re here, and….”
“Matt.” Julie kissed him again, reassuring him.
He dropped his head, nuzzling into her neck. “I don’t want to lose you. Not again.”
“You won’t.”
“What if this changes things? What if we’re moving too fast, and you flip out tomorrow, and that’s the end? I don’t want that to happen.”
She lifted his face and made him look at her. The light from the hallway was enough that she could see how genuinely scared he was. Trusting—after being failed by so many, including her—must be incredibly hard for him. “This is not happening too fast. How could it be? We’ve been together in one way or another for a year now. I want this. I want you. I know without any doubt that I’m here right now for all the right reasons. And I know that you are, too.”
“I love you, Julie.”
“God, I love you, too. I do. I’m sorry about everything I said to you last spring. About not being able to love you. It took me a stupid amount of time to… to reconcile you and… Finn… as being all you.”
“I know what a complete idiot I was.”
“Stop. I’m not mad anymore in the least. I’m here now because I choose to be, not because I’m confused. I’m not going anywhere. Really. Tell me you believe me.” He didn’t say anything. “Matt, tell me that you believe me.”
“I’m considering whether or not to believe you. I need to run an algorithm on this.”
“That’s not funny.”
“You might be trying to trick me into sleeping with you.”
“Is it working? Because I am desperate to sleep with you.”
He was shaking. Not dramatically so, but enough. He was always so confident, preferring to change the subject than deal with what he didn’t want to discuss, and it was so unlike Matt to ever be nervous. To react in a way that he couldn’t control. She knew that he didn’t like it, that it made him uncomfortable, and yet it was a side of him that she absolutely adored when he let her see it.
“Matt? Matty?” She curled her hips up into him. “I want to feel you.”
He smiled now. “That’s it. I don’t care if you’re tricking me or not, you just killed any willpower that I had left.”
Julie sighed with relief. “Oh, thank God.” She stretched out an arm and groped toward the floor by the bed. “There’s a bag there. Can you get it?”
Matt propped himself up on one elbow and reached out, pulling a plastic bag onto the bed. He rustled with the plastic for a minute. “Look, Julie, I’m happy that you’re an advocate for safe sex and all, but—”
“Oh, no. I didn’t get the right ones?”
“Um, it’s not that. You must have seventy? Eighty condoms here? I don’t know what you’ve heard, but even the best of us have certain limitations.”
“I know that. I just wasn’t sure which kind you… liked. So I got an assortment.”
Matt leaned in. He kissed her, then ran the tip of his tongue over her bottom lip. “Then I say we test out as many as we can.” He pulled a box from the bag and lifted his body from hers.
Julie’s hands were in her hair as she struggled to control herself while she waited out the excruciating seconds it took him. She couldn’t stand having him away from her. There was nothing she wanted more than to be as close to him as possible, and these few moments were torturous. She could feel herself squirming on the bed, unable to control how nearly frantic she was for this. For him. Maybe she was supposed to be acting more… virginal… or something, but as she had said to Matt, they had already been having a relationship for many months. She was going to be as frantic as she wanted.
Then his body was above hers, his chest barely touching her as he held himself up on his elbows, keeping his full weight just off of her. Matt kissed her mouth, her cheek, her neck. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For letting me be your first.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He started to move inside her. Ever so slowly. Just a small movement at a time.
Julie arched her back and tightened her grip on his back. He stopped.
“Julie?” he asked softly.
“Yes. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not. Don’t stop,” she told him. She moved her hands to his lower back, pressing on him gently. She could feel her breathing pick up. It wasn’t entirely true that it wasn’t hurting her at all, but it didn’t matter. He was perfect.
He eased further inside her and groaned, then pulled back a bit before sliding in even deeper.
She forced herself not to tense up, keeping her body relaxed so that she could take him in, because the small part of this that hurt was getting lost in everything that felt so right. She pressed her cheek against his. The touch she had on his back lightened, her hands starting to stray as she sought out more from him. He pulled out gently and started to find a rhythm, gliding in and out at just the pace she could take. Julie turned her head, slipping her tongue into his mouth. God, he was an amazing kisser. She flashed back to that night in his room, the first time that he ever held her in his arms and the first time that they had kissed. Both of them had had so many defenses up then, but it was hard to look back and not wonder how she could have let things between them stop that night. How had she not totally melted and made him continue to kiss her then? How had she not wrapped her body around his, taking everything that he could give?