Dead Flowers | H.S.

Chapter Ten

I knew very little about men-they had always been an enigma to me, especially whenever it came to relationships. It was difficult for me to understand how they could be so careless with feelings and unable to comprehend any message that they received without it being spelled out for them. I had spent an ample amount of time lying on my bed, staring at my ceiling, wondering what Ryder was thinking about, wondering if there was any density to his feelings or thoughts.

So many times had my heart been damaged or pinched by him that I started to believe that men had a cycle that they all followed-a girl's father would love her until she became a woman, and then he would allow someone else to love her-just enough to keep her, yet not enough to fulfill her. My father had grown distant whenever my body began to take shape beneath frilly skirts and blouses. That was when I had met Ryder-whenever I was young, but old enough.

At nineteen, I felt like a different woman. I lied beside Harry, nude, staring up at the ceiling I had stared at many times before. My mind was not cluttered with the unlucky memory of Ryder, but instead the memory of Harry's electric touch.

His lips, pink and plump, had left a trail of rose petals everywhere they touched. The fibers that made up my being were tingling and shocked by the time he had started closing in around my panties, the soft lace ones with a pretty bow on the front.

Chest heaving and cheeks maroon, I quivered beneath him. Ryder had never been that close to me-I wasn't sure if it was because of me or because of him.

"Beautiful, beautiful Jane," Harry whispered just before tucking his fingers inside of my panties.

I was aroused-more aroused than ever before, and the feeling of his fingers was enough to make my hips buckle. For only a moment, I was sure that I could feel the grains of sand beneath me, rubbing into my skin. But I grabbed then felt that the sheets were still beneath me.

Quiet, squirming, I focused on the warmth growing in my stomach and spreading up, up through my heart and my breasts and my chest and my neck, throat, cheek, ears. Just as I was beginning to see the marvelous bursts of colors against onyx eyelids, I was left alone for a moment, squeezing my thighs together.

"Let me lie down," Harry suggested, coming up to give me a wet kiss.

We parted and I obliged to his needs, moving over on my too-small bed and letting him lie on the pillows I had been resting on. I was nude before him, showing him every part of me I couldn't change even if I wanted to. The mole beneath my right breast that was mere inches away from a cluster of freckles. The birth mark spreading over the top of my right hip, olive and heart shaped. The extra pounds sitting at the bottom of my stomach. My thighs that touched, my breasts that sagged, my hair that tangled. It was there before him and still he looked at me as if I was a tall glass of water and he was dehydrated.

He sat up, slowly now that I wasn't on the brink of an orgasm, and kissed me again, hand disappearing between my legs. I froze between kisses and rested my head against his shoulder, panting into his warm skin.

Much like every other time I was close to the edge, he paused and moved under me, arms secured under my thighs as he pushed me towards his face.

"You're going to taste so good," Harry whispered, peppering allusive kisses along my inner thighs.

I waited above him, quivering, shaking. My hands were unsteady as they disappeared in Harry's short curls. Then another part of him was inside a part of me-we were closer, skin against skin, sharing wetness and growing warm against each other.