I realised I was drawing only once I was halfway done. That happened sometimes with my art. It dragged me under. It had its way with me. Sometimes the most I could do was just hang on and gasp for air when it finally let me up.
I saw the piece come to life on the paper and my breath quickened. I certainly didn’t have all the answers. Hell, I didn’t have even half of them. I didn’t understand where this sadness in Conor came from. I didn’t know what made him feel this emptiness, this hopelessness. I didn’t know how to heal him. How to help him.
But I believed I knew how to love him. If he would only let me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I dropped my pencil, it clattering to the floor and rolling somewhere. My fingers went to the hem of my turtleneck, pulling, pulling up, an extra tug to get it over my chin until it was off, my hair falling back down in a mess around my flushed cheeks.
I let go of it, too, the material crumpling to the floor as I lifted my gaze to Conor. His eyes were wide, like always, a mix of fear and fire.
“W-what are you doing?” His voice came out in a breath, gasping and raspy.
I answered by reaching down to undo my jean button with shaking fingers. His gaze followed my hands as the button popped, as I dragged the zipper down. The look on his face was like a starving man. His chest shook as he sucked in heavy breaths.
“Aurnia, wait…”
His words said wait but his eyes said keep going. His knuckles white on the arms of the chair told me he was holding himself back by the last thread of his willpower.
He wanted me. He wanted me, bad. Any hesitation I had disappeared to dust.
One push was all it took to force my jeans down off my hips, to send them crumpling around my ankles. One step had me freed from the pool of material. One shuddering inhale as I watched him watching me.
“Aurnia,” he hissed, “y-you have to stop.”
“No,” I said, my fingers no longer shaking as I unclasped my bra, “you let me see you. Now you get to see me.”
I let the straps slide off my shoulders, let the cups fall off my breasts. My nipples hardened as he stared at me, half naked, his gaze like hands on my skin, spray-painting goosebumps all over me. He and I took a matching shuddering breath.
I stepped toward him, drawn to him like a magnet. I needed his hands on me. His mouth on me like a brush on canvas.
He stumbled to his feet, kicking back the chair with an awful scrap. “Stop. Please, Aurnia.”
I didn’t stop. Because he and I both knew that he didn’t really want me to. The painful looking bulge in his pants told the truth.
I slid my hands over myself, over my swollen breasts, my aching nipples, following my need down my stomach toward the centre of it, just under the waistband of my panties.
“I need you,” I admitted. “Right here.”
He let out a groan. “Jesus, Aurnia.” His voice sounded torn and ragged. “You’re only seventeen.”
“Almost eighteen.”
“You’re seventeen.”
I shrugged. “That’s legal in Ireland.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“So?”
Conor squeezed his eyes shut and mumbled something like a prayer.
“I promise you I feel like a woman,” I dipped my finger into my pussy lips, finding them already wet, “am soaking wet like a woman.”
His eyes snapped open.
I swallowed hard, pushed down my panties and stood up straight. “I’m not a virgin.”
He froze, his every muscle tense. “Aurnia, we can’t—”