Free Ravage: Lightning Bolts MC by Zoey Parker Page B

mother used to say when she was completely relaxed. That was how I felt. Like my body was made of water, and I was floating along without a care in the world. So that was what it was all about. That was what I had been missing. I finally understood what the big deal was.
     
    “You okay?” he asked. I noticed for the first time the way he was holding me in his arms. So gently, tenderly. He understood how I felt, I thought. It was a very intimate, raw, vulnerable night. He had been right there with me, guiding me through it. He could have taken advantage. He could have used me. He’d been nothing but amazing. I wished we could go back and do it all again.
     
    “I’m fine. More than fine.”
     
    He chuckled. “I know what you mean.”
     
    “Was it good for you, the first time, I mean?”
     
    He stopped chuckling. “No. Not many first times are very good.”
     
    “That was what my best friend said. Most girls don’t get anything more than a…what did she say? Thanks or was that okay.”
     
    He laughed. “That’s pretty much how it goes. Nobody knows what they’re doing the first time. If you’re with another virgin, forget it.”
     
    “Unless you were in love,” I said. “I think if it was two virgins, but they were very much in love, it would be different. They could sort of…help each other through it.”
     
    He was silent for a long time before talking. “Do you really believe that?”
     
    “You make me feel like the world’s biggest nerd,” I said, wishing I had never spoken at all.
     
    “No, no. I don’t mean to. I actually think it’s kind of nice that you believe that. I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t with a virgin the first time.”
     
    “Who were you with?”
     
    “Ahh, are you gonna make me say it?”
     
    I giggled. “You don’t have to.” I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, so I couldn’t tell if he was blushing. I hoped he was.
     
    “All right. God, you’re gonna laugh.”
     
    “I won’t. I swear.”
     
    “You’re practically laughing now!”
     
    “No, I’m not.” I bit the inside of my mouth. “Okay? No laughter.”
     
    He sighed. “Okay. I was with a prostitute.”
     
    I bit my lip hard. Finally, once the urge to laugh at passed, I murmured, “I hope you didn’t have to pay as much then as you did tonight.”
     
    “See, I knew you would make a joke.”
     
    “I’m not. I’m sorry.” I put my head on his chest. I didn’t know why it mattered to me whether or not his feelings were hurt. Somehow it did.
     
    “Besides, I didn’t pay for it,” he said. “Some of the guys in my club did. It was my sixteenth birthday, and they knew I was still a virgin. So they got a girl for me.”
     
    “Oh. That’s different,” I said. “That’s sort of nice, in a way.” I was trying hard to make up for the way I had laughed.
     
    “Yeah, I guess. Their hearts were in the right place.” He sighed heavily, like he was remembering it all. “But it wasn’t a good idea. At all.”
     
    “Why not?”
     
    “It was awkward and fumbly and I felt like she kept laughing at me. It’s like you see in movies or whatever—what do they call it? The hooker with a heart of gold?”
     
    I smiled. “Yeah. That’s it.”
     
    “There’s no such thing. She wasn’t Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman , if you get what I mean. She was tired and jaded. She wanted to get it over with and get her money and get out. I felt worse after we were finished than I did before we started.”
     
    “I’m sorry.” I knew it had to be tough for him to admit something like that to me. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who shared personal information like that. I thought about the man he was, and then about the boy he used to be. The boy on his sixteenth birthday who was so afraid of a prostitute. He must have been scared and embarrassed—sort of the way I was at first. But I was lucky. Eric had been more than good to me. I wondered if part of it wasn’t because of his