Free Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner

pillows plumped and smooth; the laundry and toys were stacked and folded in their baskets, and I was wearing a tight red Phillies nightshirt that ended about eight inches past my panties. I thought it made me look like a link of chorizo, but it was, I knew, his favorite.
    Frank stuffed his hands into the pockets of his work pants and looked me over. “Did you get in another accident?”
    “No, silly. I just missed you,” I said, not wanting to bring up that I’d only ever been in one accident, and it had happened because someone had parked too close to me at the supermarket. I knelt on the bed, resting my hands on his shoulders, so close that my shirt brushed against his chest. He untied his heavy black shoes, then took me in his arms, nuzzling my neck with his stubbly cheek as I giggled and squirmed against him.
    “Well, hello there,” he said, brushing his palm against my stiff nipples.
    “Hello,” I said, and kissed him, first lightly, then more deeply, opening my mouth and feeling his tongue slip inside like it was part of me, like it belonged there. “Hello.”
    Frank had been a virgin when we’d started going out. I hadn’t learned that until later, of course. I’d slept with my first boyfriend, Brian Blundell, when I was fourteen, and then, after Brian dumped me for my friend Laurie Zimmer, I’d slept with Brian’s best friend, Fritz, although “slept with” wasn’t exactly right, because we’d had sex just once on the basement stairs and I wasn’t even sure it counted because I didn’t think he’d actually gotten himself inside of me before he finished.
    Frank had wanted to wait. He was religious—he and his family were Baptists, and he went to church every Sunday morning and to Youth Fellowship meetings on Wednesday nights, and he’d taken a pledge to stay pure until he got married. His resolve lasted until our fifth date, when we were lying together on the long backseat of his father’s car, after forty-five minutes of kissing and grinding, after my bra and his shirt lay in a tangle on the floor and I was too turned on to feel self-conscious about my jiggly thighs or the stretch marks on my breasts. I’d pushed myself upright and straddled him, unzipping his jeans as he tried (not very hard) to push my hands away, and pulled his penis out of his boxer shorts, stroking it gently. Penises were so strange, in my limited experience, ugly, odd-looking, veiny things, but Frank’swas smooth and brown, hot-skinned and silky, and it felt just right in my hand, like Goldilocks’s bowl of porridge, or the bed she’d eventually settled on: not too hot and not too cold, not too big and not too small. I rubbed it up and down experimentally, tugging the loose skin over the cap. “Oh, Annie,” he groaned. “We shouldn’t . . .” Then his arms were on my shoulders, and I was on my back, one hand in my purse, groping for the condoms I’d bought that afternoon at the drugstore, just in case.
    Seven years later, in our bedroom in the house we’d bought, a room with high ceilings and bare floors and no furniture besides a mattress and the Tupperware bins where we kept our clothes, it was just as thrilling, just as sweet. I knew the place on the small of his back where he liked me to brush my fingertips, and he knew to put his mouth right up against my ear so I could hear his breathing change as his hips sped up, then stuttered to a stop. His sounds, his taste, the feel of his forearms in my hands, his head tucked into the hollow between my neck and shoulders, every inch of him was so familiar and so dear.
    When we were done, he fell asleep almost instantly, sprawled facedown, naked on the bed. He had a better body than any of the movie stars in People, a muscular back that narrowed to a slender waist, a gorgeously curved bottom. Curled against him, breathing in the scent of his sweat and skin. I let myself doze for a few minutes. Then I settled the comforter over his back and collected my panties and