Free My Darrling by Krystal McLean

now.
    “Thank you for believing that,” he said, pulling me toward
him, kissing a trail from my forehead down to my lips.
    It seemed as though I could kiss Isaac a million times, and
every time would feel like the very first. My lips thirsted insatiably for his,
which plunged regret through me. You’re not supposed to want to kiss a man who
desires killing people above all else, above his own life.
    I snuffed out the regret almost as soon as it came.
    I wrapped my hands around the back of Isaac’s neck and
pulled him closer; I could never seem to feel close enough to him. I wanted to
crawl inside of his body, become a stowaway to his soul. I knew that each day
was a day closer to when he would be taken away. Isaac deserved everything that
was coming to him, I will never deny that, but I also knew that his absence
would leave a void in my life, a void that no one would ever be able to fill.
    I felt something different in the way Isaac kissed me
tonight; an unraveling of a certain passion I’d never felt from him before. He
was somehow so gentle and so dominant at the same time. He knew what he wanted.
He hungered for me.
    In one effortless movement, he swung me up and laid me down
on the bed. “I still can’t understand you,” he said through a series of tender
kisses, “and not a lot scares me, but your dauntlessness and passion come
closer than anything.”
    “I’m glad I scare you,” I breathed, pulling him down on me.
“Someone has to.”
    He hesitated then pulled back to look at me. His eyes
examined my face carefully, thoroughly, as someone would inspect a diamond.
Just the sound of our shallow breathing filled the room.
    “I’m a virgin.” The words seemed to explode from his lips,
like air bursting from a balloon. He looked embarrassed.
    “Uh, y–you are?” I instantly regretted asking with such
surprise. Just because Isaac was beautiful didn’t mean he slept around. “I mean—”
    “Sophie?” he interrupted with certain urgency in his voice.
    “Yeah?”
    “Sorry for interrupting you, but I need to get this out.” He
kissed the tip of my nose, then skated his finger along the curves of my lips
and smiled. He sat up and I mirrored him. “I’m not sure, exactly, what love is.
I don’t believe I’ve ever felt it before, but when you and I are together, I
feel something I’ve never felt before. And I think—I’m certain it’s love.” He
paused, and I gulped. “Sophie, I love you.”
    I felt weightless, like I could float up and away. I felt
like I was outside of my body looking in. This couldn’t be me; this couldn’t be
my life. I couldn’t be head over heels in love with a serial killer.
    But I was.
    “I love you, too.” I spoke with potent certainty. There was
no question about it and, if I’m honest, I believe I fell in love with Isaac at
first sight. To say the words—those three simple, yet complex words—felt like a
ton of bricks being eased off my chest.
    Isaac lit up as the words tumbled from my lips.
    “The reason I’m a virgin,” he began, “is because I’ve always
believed that it would be better to make love once to the right girl, than to
have sex hundreds of times with all the wrong girls—as cheesy as that sounds.”
    “I don’t think that’s cheesy.” In fact, it made me even more
attracted to him. “Isaac?”
    “Yes?” He kissed the tip of my nose.
    “I’m a virgin, too,” I confessed.
    He smiled shyly. “Sophie?”
    “Yes?”
    “I would love nothing more than to lose my virginity to
you.”
    I felt like I could float away. Love does that, makes you
feel separated from yourself, because it’s so good that we don’t think it could
possibly be happening to us. Feeling this good doesn’t just happen all the
time. It’s rare, and it’s overwhelming—but in the best way imaginable.
    “Isaac?”
    “Mmm?”
    “I would love nothing more than for you to be my first.”
    In that moment I pushed everything but Isaac Darrling and
Sophie Lenon out