This was definitely not awkward, or weird, or difficult. It was amazing.
Andrew moved his hand up under my hair, gently gripping the back of my head. “Tessa, I want to throw you down and fuck you,” he said. “You know I do. I want to fuck you until you can’t move.”
Now he was the one talking dirty. “I don’t care,” I said. “Just make me feel good.”
His hand slid between us, his finger stroking my clit as I moved, and I gasped as a shock of pleasure moved through me. I rocked my hips, hitting his finger again and again, and every time the pleasure built higher. I kept my eyes closed and let it happen.
The orgasm was the most natural thing in the world, pulsing through me and making me cry out. I bit my lip and buried my face in Andrew’s neck as his hands gripped my hips again and his own hips flexed up into me. And I felt every muscle as he came, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, as if he hadn’t felt pleasure like this for seven long years.
TWENTY-SIX
Andrew
“It was a bad year, I guess,”Tessa said.
It was night. I was sitting up in bed, relaxed against the pillows propped against the headboard, the blanket pulled up to my waist. Tessa was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, wearing my T-shirt. She’d found ice cream in my freezer and sprinkled it with nuts, and she was digging in.
She’d offered me a bowl, but I wasn’t hungry. I was happy just to watch her, the way her eyes went unfocused with pleasure as she took a spoonful. I was starting to get the idea that in her life outside my house, her life as a model, Tessa didn’t eat very much. Here, she was happy to clean out my fridge and my cupboards, which was fine with me.
“A bad year?” I said.
She took another spoonful. “Okay, fine, all of my teenage years were bad. And before that, so was my childhood.” She looked thoughtful. “I always told myself it wasn’t bad, because I wasn’t abused or anything. But do you know why I wasn’t abused? Because I got into scary situations all alone early in life, and I lucked my way out of them. By thirteen I knew how to spot a creepy guy or a bad situation. Those aren’t things a thirteen-year-old should know.”
“They aren’t,” I said.
“My father left when I was six,” Tessa said. “His entire method of parenting was ‘everyone should do their own thing.’ Which is stupid when you’re dealing with a little kid. But of course, when he left and picked up with another girl, he got to say it was because he was doing his own thing. My mom went on to other boyfriends after him. You know how some single parents really worry about dating, about how the person they’re seeing will affect their kid? That wasn’t her.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Terrible things could have happened to you.”
“I know. A few of her boyfriends were creepy, but none of them lasted very long. I figured out how not to be alone with any of them, ever—even the nice ones. Because you never knew. As you may have gathered, I don’t trust people.” She glanced at me. “Am I talking too much?”
“Tessa,” I said, “literally the only thing I want to fucking do right now is listen to you talk.”
She lowered her bowl and spoon for a second. “Sometimes you say the nicest things,” she said. “I don’t even think you know you do it.”
“Just keep talking, okay?”
She paused, then nodded. “I went off the rails as a teenager,” she said. “I was the textbook definition of running with the wrong crowd. I hung out with people who partied and did all kinds of drugs. I tried all of them sooner or later. I blacked out more times than I could count. I lost my virginity in the backseat of a smelly truck to a guy who was twenty-five. I was so drunk I only half remember it. I had no curfew, and my mother never asked when I was going to be home. I thought I didn’t matter. I hated myself.”
My hands were clenched in the sheets, my heart pounding. I may be a mess now, but my teenage years had been fucking great. Sure, our parents pretty much ignored Nick and me, but otherwise we were rich, good-looking guys who liked to have fun. I’d lost my virginity to my first girlfriend; we’d planned it for weeks. We were sober, and we tried to make it great for both of us. We both failed, but that was nobody’s fault.
Before the accident, my life had been so, so fucking good. I had that.
“What happened?” I managed to ask.
Tessa shrugged. She stirred the ice cream in her bowl. “I got drunk and high more and more. I realized it was because I never wanted to be inside my own head, just me and my thoughts. I was spiraling. The people I hung out with weren’t really my friends; the guys I slept with barely knew my name. My mother didn’t care. I started to fixate on the idea that if I disappeared, it wouldn’t matter. That people would be better off. And it sounded really good.”
I closed my eyes for a second. I knew that feeling. But I stayed quiet and let her talk.
“Part of me, though, got scared,” Tessa said. “Part of me didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t feel in control. So one night when I was seventeen I went to the emergency room of the closest hospital and told them I needed help or I was going to kill myself. I saw one doctor, then another. They recommended I spend some time in a rehab center. They tried to call my mother because I was a minor, but she was at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica and couldn’t be reached. They let me go in anyway.”
“Did it help?” I asked.
She nodded. “I was in for three weeks. It was mostly group therapy, and of course there were no drugs or alcohol. If we had more money, I could have gone somewhere nicer. But at least I learned that I wasn’t alone, that there were people like me out there who were getting help. That the drugs and alcohol weren’t helping. That if other people could get through it, then maybe I could, too.” She took the last, melted bite, her mood seeming to cheer up again. “When I left, I packed my bags and moved to L.A. I got away from those people, from the girl I was. I got jobs and made my own money, and I tried to make something of myself as a model. I didn’t really succeed, but at least I tried. And then my grandmother died. And here I am.”
Something clicked. “What you went through—that’s part of why you want to be a nurse.”
“Yes, it is.” She put her empty bowl on the bedside table. “It’s stupid, right? Thinking you might be able to help someone someday, the way you were helped. I should be more cynical.”