Free Loud is How I Love You by Mercy Brown Page B

sex with,” he reminds me. “So I guess I’m in competition with myself. Now I really am worried.”
    “Shut
up
, you dork.”
    “Lay down,” he says, pulling his T-shirt off over his head.
    I lie down on the bed, propped up on my elbows, and stare—no, no, I ogle him as he undoes his pants and pushes them with his boxers to the floor. This is the first time I have ever looked at him totally naked in front of me in broad daylight, and Christ in a Kinko’s, he is something to look at naked. To study. His shoulders are strong and broad like a swimmer’s, his chest is defined but not bulky. His arms flex as he leans over me. That sleek expanse of taut skin between his hip and his navel is where I plan to spend eternity after I die. And I’m not even going to describe the finely crafted specimen of male anatomy otherwise known as his cock, because fuck you, hands off, that’s why. But it’s gorgeous. Thick and straight and cut in a way that makes it a real standout. I’ve had just enough experience with dicks to know they all look a little different, and no dick I’ve ever seen in person or in print makes me salivate just looking at it. But his does.
    I go to pull my tank off over my head but he tells me to leave it on. And the socks. But he slides my panties down and off and I never see them again, so I don’t even know what he does with them. Inhales them, probably. He’s a beast right now. A beautiful, starving beast who feeds on sex.
    “Turn over,” he says. “So I can appreciate my handiwork.”
    “Where’s the Sharpie?” I say. “You’re not appreciating anything back there until I’m safely in possession of it.”
    He smirks but otherwise ignores this demand. He flips me over to my belly and pulls my hips up so I’m on my handsand knees and there’s something about needing my arms to support my weight that gives him this total-access pass to my body, and he’s enjoying the hell out of it as he feels me all over. He bites me on the shoulder as he reaches up and slides his hand up under my tank. He cups my breast in his hand, his fingers teasing, and then he spreads my legs apart with his knee and now I can’t talk because I’m breathing like it’s my job as he starts to stroke between my legs. He slides two fingers into me and my legs are shaking as I feel him hard against my thigh.
    “Do you know how fucking sexy you are?” he breathes in my ear as he touches me. “Do you have any clue at all what you do to me?”
    I really don’t until he puts me in this headspace with him and makes me feel this way, that’s the truth. And from him saying these sweet, sexy things and touching me, I am now begging him again, to please, please give it to me. Let me have it.
    He’s on his knees behind me, I hear the condom package rip open, and I’m nothing but eager anticipation as I hear him roll the latex on. He leans over me again, I feel him against my back, his breath against my ear, his cock against the inside of my thigh and he pauses.
    “Just promise you’re not going to freak out on me this time, Emmy,” he whispers. “I want this too, but I don’t want to freak you out again.”
    “If you don’t put it in me now, you’re really going to see me freak out,” I say through clenched teeth.
    “Pinky swear it,” he says, and hooks his pinky around mine and it feels silly yet is somehow the most intimate thing I’ve ever done. With anyone. It’s a gorgeous dissonant-chord harmony, two things that don’t necessarily feel like they would go together until they do and then they’re perfect. Like we’re these grown people about to get down in the secret treehouse where I played as a girl.
    I don’t understand it yet, but this is exactly what love feels like.
    “Okay, I swear,” I whisper.
    Travis exhales into my neck and kisses behind my ear as he slides himself into me slowly from behind, gripping me around the waist and I am crying out, “Oh fuck, oh my God!” as he slides it all