Liam thankfully took his time. He made me come before he put on a condom and pushed inside of me so I was as ready as I could be. Still, it hurt. After a while the pain diminished and it felt okay. Liam enjoyed himself. He tried to hold off until I came again but I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking over and over again as he moved inside me that I’d well and truly buggered everything up for myself.
I’d promised myself since I was fourteen years old that the first time I made love I’d be in love.
Instead I was lying in some hotel room while a boy I merely liked casually took the gift I offered, and I casually let him. I felt a heaviness settle on my stomach when Liam was finished.
I stayed awake listening to him snore beside me and cursed myself to hell for letting anger and jealousy get the better of me.
*** I lay there for a couple of hours but eventually decided I couldn’t stand to stay in the hotel room. At the back of four in the morning I snuck out of there and had reception call me a taxi.
The woman on reception took one look at my mad hair and revealing dress and knew exactly what I’d been up to. The smirk she gave me made me feel cheap, and I realized quickly that the only reason I felt cheap was because I thought I’d acted cheap.
I tried not to cry as the taxi took me home, and I definitely tried not to cry as I quietly let myself inside. I was just creeping toward the stair when a head popped out of the kitchen and gave me heart failure. I sucked in a breath, clutching a hand to my chest in fright.
Adam stood in the light from the kitchen doorway. He crooked a finger at me and as I approached him I saw that image again of him and caterer girl, and the anger returned.
I followed him into the kitchen and he closed the door behind me. I studied his face and saw his eyes were bloodshot. The smell of coffee filled the air and I noted cheese toasties sitting on a plate. He was obviously hungover and trying to diminish the affects. I was so busy noting these things that I didn’t notice his anger.
“Where the hell have you been?” he hissed at me.
I glowered at him, momentarily blaming him for the loss of my virginity. “Out.”
“Where?”
“Just out.”
He narrowed his eyes. “With who?”
“Liam.”
Adam’s face instantly darkened and he took a step toward me, his eyes moving over my messy hair and then coming to rest on my mouth. They stuck there until I touched my lips, wondering what was so fascinating about them. “What were you doing?” he finally asked, his voice gruff.
And that was the point in the interrogation I lost my temper. My loss of temper transformed into blasé petulance. “I’m eighteen, Adam. I can have sex with my boyfriend.”
His body jerked, like I’d shot him. “Sex?” he choked out.
I shrugged as if my heart wasn’t hammering against my ribcage. “It was a present to myself.”
He swallowed, his eyes roaming over me again. “Are you telling me… you lost your virginity last night?”
I nodded slowly, hearing an edge in his words I was a little bit afraid of.
Adam’s eyes flared after my confirmation and I stood there squirming as he drank me in from head to foot. I flushed at his appraisal, not quite sure what was happening. And then he made it clearer by turning on his heel and throwing the kitchen door open. Without a care to those sleeping, Adam stormed out of the house, the front door slamming in his wake.
I let out a shaky breath, realizing what the edge was now.
Adam thought of himself like my big brother. No big brother wanted to hear that their little sister had “gotten herself some”. More than that, I wondered if he was as disappointed in me as I was in myself. He knew me. He knew I believed in stars and sunsets and “happily ever afters”. I’d compromised my own beliefs by having casual sex with a boy I barely knew.
The tears came then and I hurried to my room with blurry vision. I grabbed some fresh underwear and pajamas and took them into the bathroom with me. For half an hour I remained in the shower, crying the entire time.
At least, I told myself, I’d learned a huge lesson.
I’d learned there were some things in life you could never take back.
Chapter 4
Adam put down the diary and looked up at me, something like regret in his eyes. I didn’t want him to feel regret, I just wanted him to know that even if my first time hadn’t been with him, I’d always wanted it to be.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” he whispered.