CHAPTER 13 PART 1

C H A P T E R - - - - T H I R T E E N - - - - R E I D A N

Reidan didn’t know how long he stayed there, pressing her down onto the desk with his not-inconsiderable muscles, breathing into the back of her hair as he tried desperately to return to himself. This was the one moment where he wasn’t in control, where he wasn’t dominating every last detail of their encounter.

For now, his body was king, not his mind, not his meticulously thought-out plans. He could only lean against Selena, pray that she was strong enough to bear his weight, and breathe as slowly and methodically as he could until he could regain control. For the moment, however, he didn’t mind being a useless hunk of meat with Selena, letting their bodies glue themselves together with their shared sweat. It felt… almost nice, feeling the sweet ache of his bones while his mind was consumed by the gentle chaotic static of his post-orgasm haze.

Minutes passed, and eventually, Selena stirred underneath him. Maybe she had actually dozed off and was only now coming to, but still, she barely moved, only adjusting her head to turn and look Reidan in the eyes. It was overwhelming, watching her watch him, feeling totally vulnerable and bare under her penetrating gaze.

Reidan almost shivered, just from the nervousness he felt at being watched, but he held himself back, meeting Selena’s gaze as confidently as he could. This was the moment of truth: when she told him what she felt about what had just happened. She was going to make him or break him, and she probably had no idea how much power she really had.

Selena cleared her throat, her eyes darting between each of his for several seconds before she finally opened her mouth to speak. It took all of Reidan’s strength not to close his eyes, his heartbeat thudding in his ears as his anxiety spiked, waiting for her judgment.

“Thank you,” she whispered, lifting one hand from under Reidan’s stomach to brush against the side of his face, sending small sparks of tingling pleasure down Reidan’s spine in the process.

“What?” Reidan didn’t comprehend her meaning at first. His brain was still waking up, still forcing itself back to life. He couldn’t understand what she could possibly be thanking him for. If anything, it should have been the other way around.

“Thank you,” Selena repeated, petting the side of Reidan’s face some more with her lovely, long fingers. “I’ve never felt that way before. I didn’t even know I could feel that way. Thank you so much.”

Selena’s words finally cracked into Reidan’s skull, dancing around on top of his brain until all of his nerve endings finally sprang up back to life, jumping for joy as soon as her meaning sunk in. Reidan had to fight to keep himself from trembling, just from the force of the happy feeling that popped up in the base of his stomach like a bomb going off, sending aftershocks throughout his entire body.

He finally nodded slowly, more to himself than to Selena, and forced out two words, the only answer he could muster up at the moment: “You’re welcome.”

Selena smiled, her face practically cracking open as her wonderfully white teeth appeared, lighting up her eyes like the sky on the Fourth of July. She looked beautiful, more beautiful than Reidan had ever seen her before, even though she was red-faced and covered with slick sweat. He never wanted this moment to end. He never wanted to forget any single detail of the gorgeous thing that was lying against him, her legs tangled up with his.

“I never really… liked sex,” Selena said after a long pause where they just stared at each other. She broke the silence easily, comfortably, like she’d known him forever. It was amazing—seeing how much looser and lighter and freer she seemed after their fucking than before. “I thought it was kind of gross and nasty.”

“Isn’t it?” Reidan asked, smirking a little even as Selena rolled her eyes and playfully smacked the side of his body.

“You know what I mean.” Selena’s stubborn smile never slipped away. “I just didn’t see the appeal. I thought it was unnecessarily dirty and messy and…” She trailed off, shrugging a little like she couldn’t come up with the words to describe exactly how she used to feel.

“Uncontrollable?” Reidan suggested. “Chaotic?”

“I guess so.” Selena nodded a little. “Yeah, I guess that’s how I felt. It was just a mess—something else that I’d have to take care of, you know? Something else to worry about. My life was always easier when sex wasn’t involved. I just did it to make the men in my life happy, you know, to make sure that they were satisfied. I barely even masturbate, for God’s sake!” she said with a laugh.

“But tonight…?” Reidan said, his voice going up at the end of the second word like he was asking a question. He supposed that he was, in fact, asking if she enjoyed herself, even though he knew that he already had the answer to that question, just from the way his muscles recalled the trembling vibrations that Selena’s body transferred to his in the midst of her orgasm.

“Tonight was different,” Selena said, her voice firm and confident. She smiled, her eyes rolling up in the back of her head as she squirmed next to Reidan, stretching her muscles out until they popped. “Tonight was so different.” She fell into a fit of giggles that made Reidan feel like his heart was getting warmer in his chest, like a fire slowly growing larger with each passing second.

Reidan let his hand travel over to the other side of Selena’s body, tracing lines up and down her back with his fingertips and fingernails, making her shut her eyes and breathe more shallowly as he rubbed her overworked body. “You did well,” he said softly, pressing down harder on her spine until she moaned under her breath, still consumed with pleasure. “You did really well.”

“Thank you,” Selena whispered back, sighing and rolling her shoulders back to let Reidan rub them, carrying away whatever remnants of tension remained in her muscles and bones. “Thank you so much. I was really worried, you know, before I came here. I thought I’d fuck it all up.”

“You didn’t. You did everything right,” Reidan said. He wondered if Selena was aware that she was letting him perform aftercare right now, taking care of her body as well as reassuring her emotionally. If she noticed, she didn’t seem to mind, practically grinning even with her eyes closed as his hand traveled down to her ass to pet over the places he’d smacked before—during foreplay as well as during sex.

They laid like that for several more minutes—Selena letting Reidan take care of her, rubbing all the tight spots he found with his fingertips until he finally gave in to temptation and pulled away from her. Selena didn’t protest the way he expected her to. Instead, she just smiled lazily up at him and reached down clumsily with one hand to find his and lightly squeezed his fingers.