"Yeah," he says. "It makes me feel like I could be your protector. Like I could be the one to make sure you're okay."
"You feel all those things, even though you just met me?"
"It doesn't seem that way though, does it?"
I shake my head. "No," I say. "It doesn't. I want my first time to be with you."
A low growl comes from his chest. Reuben may be tender as a lamb, but underneath that heart of his, he's as fierce as a bear; I can feel it. Protective and all alpha and looking at me with a desire, a hunger that my body matches.
"I want to have sex with you," I tell him plainly. "I'm not saying that to be crass or to be..."
He presses a finger to my lips. "You don't have to explain yourself, Meadow. I want that too. I want to undress you slowly. I want to take you in. I want to make you mine."
I swallow. "You mean all that?"
"With all my heart," he says.
He takes my hand, pressing my palm to his chest. "You feel that? That thump, thump, thump? It's fucking pounding. In your presence, I'm alive in a way I haven't been in years. Damn. It makes me feel like I could be a better man than I already am. Like I could be your man."
"Reuben," I say. "Those are a lot of words for someone you haven't known too long."
"Does it matter?" he asks. "Whether you’ve known another person for a lifetime, for a year, for a month, for an hour, when you know something is real right in front of you, isn't that all that matters?"
I explore him, running my hands over his chest, his neck, drawing my mouth to his. "Make love to me then," I say. "Please."
He picks me up and he carries me down the hall to his bedroom. There's a large bed with a hand-sewn quilt. There's a picture of Plum over his dresser. But the rest of it, the room, it's pretty bare. It's missing a woman's touch.
"I'll give you that," he says, literally reading my mind.
"I'm guessing your mom gave you this quilt?"
He nods. "Yeah. But I'm really not a mama's boy."
I smile. "I don't think I care if you are. I like the fact that your daughter makes you a soft teddy bear."
"You like that?" he says.
I nod. "I like you."
He grins. "Good, because I have a feeling in the next few minutes, we're going to get pretty fucking close."
"Don't tease me," I say, grabbing his shirt and drawing him to the bed. He sits down next to me.
"Is your foot okay?"
"It hurts, but as long as I don't stand, I think I'll be all right."
“You don't have to stand for this. In fact, Meadow, you can lie down on your back and let me take care of you."
My eyes lift, taking in his meaning. "Okay," I say as he kisses me again deeply. I begin to unbutton his shirt, wanting to feel the warmth of his skin, wanting to feel him. All of him. His chest is hard and chiseled like a rock, a piece of granite, an unmovable stone. And that makes me hot in a way I've never been before. I pull back, lifting my dress up over my head. I let it fall to the floor beside us.
And then I'm sitting there on his bed, in panties and a bra. I bite my bottom lip.
"Damn," he says. "You're beautiful."
I close my eyes, letting his words wash over me. Words I was not anticipating when I woke up this morning, but I was a different person then. And when he says he was a different man when he was 19 years old than the person he is today, I understand that. How sometimes life changes us faster than we're ready for.
But this, this moment—I'm prepared. As Reuben lays me down on my back, my head rests against the pillows on his bed, and I begin to memorize every detail. His fingertips caress my skin, unhooking my bra from the center clasp.
I exhale as he does, my breasts exposed. He massages them gently, kissing my nipples. Plucking them as if they're petals. His tongue twirls around the hardened areola. His eyes flick up to meet mine. "Fuck, you're incredible."
I smile, loving the warmth of the room. The way it feels when his hands touch mine. I try to take big, deep breaths so I don't pass out from pleasure as his mouth kisses my stomach, over my belly button. His fingertips hook around the waistband of my white panties and he teases them off past my knees, my ankles, until they're on the floor. I'm naked before this man whose heart is so damn big, whose eyes make me melt, whose body makes me wet. His fingertips run between my legs, easing my knees apart. I let them fall. As he begins to touch me, stroking my pussy so gently, the tenderness takes my breath away.