Free Learning-to-Feel by N.R. Walker Page B

not the smiling Trent he normally was. But I couldn’t face him, so I stepped back under the water and put my head in the spray, closing my eyes.
    He got out of the shower and asked, "Are we still on for Boston tomorrow?"
    I cleared my throat and took a breath. "Yeah."
    "Better go pack then. See ya bright and early," he said a little too cheerfully and left the bathroom. And I knew tonight I was sleeping alone.
    Fuck.
    By the time I got out of the shower, I was determined to be in this, whatever the fuck it was , for the fun of it, just like him. It was only physical for him. He practically just said so. I felt kind of stupid for thinking it was ever something different...
    When I first decided to allow myself into this " sexual learning ," as Trent just called it, I'd told myself to just feel .
    I just wasn't expecting the feeling part to be a heavy ache in my chest.
     

 
    CHAPTER 10
     
    I lay in bed but sleep wouldn't come. My mind was replaying everything that had happened since I got here. When I met him, my reaction to him – my first real reaction to anyone, and to a man, no less. My decision to allow myself to feel, whatever the hell he made me feel, and his decision to join me.
    I recalled how he'd repeated my words, "I’m in this too, whatever the hell it is."
    But at no point, not once, did he ever say his heart was in it.
    To be honest and fair, neither had I.
    But there I was at one in the morning, staring at the wall. My heart felt kind of strangled. I’d never felt the sting of rejection before. He hadn't even really rejected me… just said that whatever the hell this was, was just meaningless sex.
    And it fucking stung.
    I could have kicked myself for being so stupid. Trent had never said he felt anything for me, so maybe I'd misread the times when he'd held my hand, or the way he'd looked at me sometimes. He was only ever in this for sexual gratification.
    He'd not lied about it, he'd not misled me. I knew what I was doing when I went into this. And now I was about to spend the weekend with him in Boston.
    But it didn't mean anything to him.
    So, I told myself it didn't mean anything to me. I could convince myself it was just physical. And that was exactly what I'd do. Just sex, just physical, nothing more. He was so much more experienced than me, in this – whatever the hell it was – and he told me I wasn’t ready to take the next step. Oral sex, hand jobs, yes, but sexual intercourse, no. I felt like I was ready. I wanted that with him. I wanted to feel that with him, to give myself to him – even if it meant nothing to him - and I wondered what it would take for me to be ready.
    Then I heard footsteps down the hall, the wooden floorboards squeaking softly told me he was having trouble sleeping too. I waited and listened for him to walk past my room, but he didn't. I looked up and found him standing at my door.
    "Can’t sleep?" I asked.
    "Mm mm," he murmured softly with a shake of his head.
    I took a deep breath, and before I realized what I’d done, I’d thrown the covers back, inviting him into my bed.
    I could see his face in the moonlight, and his lips twitched into a smile before he crossed the room to climb into my bed. He snuggled down with his back to me and pulled the covers back up over us both. My arm slid around his waist, and I was spooning him, just how we'd slept all week, and he sighed at the contact of my skin on his.
    His breathing evened out almost immediately, and I knew he was sleeping already. I rubbed my nose into the back of his head, smiling at how his hair tickled my nose, and how relaxed and sleepy I was with him in my arms.
    My last thought before sleep claimed me, was how this – whatever the fuck it was – apparently didn't mean a thing.
    ****
    I woke up to the feeling of my fingers being licked. It was kind of startling but not too unpleasant... until I realized my hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Peeling back my eyelids, I found the four legged