Shark Out of Water (Grab Your Pole, #3) (61 page)

I turned my face so that I could kiss the palm of her hand a few times, tasting the salt of my tears as I did while trying to shut off my brain and deny it permission to picture the reality she was painting for me. A life in a world without her. And suddenly, I found myself sympathizing with a vampire that fucking sparkles…

Then she kissed my lips softly and said, “Now, I’m asking you, please stop trying to control our lives and let me live without fear. I
want
to experience life and
all
it has to offer, good and bad, and I want to experience it with you. Please. We’re not unprotected, we’re just not doubly protected…so, I’m asking you to take a really small risk with me tonight because the cold harsh truth is one of us might not have tomorrow. And what then? What if tomorrow doesn’t come for one of us? Please, Tristan? I’m asking the only person in the world who has the power to give me the
one
thing I don’t wanna die without having experienced. Will you give that to me?
Please
?”

I was fractured. There’s just no two ways about it, but, I couldn’t. I just could
not
stop thinking about what tomorrow would feel like if I didn’t give her what she’s asking for tonight, something that I want just as much, maybe even more, and one of us
didn’t
wake up. So I weighed the two risks against each other and without being willing to take that particular risk, I blinked back my tears and slowly nodded in reply to her deeply heartfelt and truly touching request.

So, that’s how I found myself about to make love to a girl for the first time in both of our lives and for the first time in my life, I wouldn’t be wearing a net; latex, Saran Wrap, or otherwise during sex.

And I would love to say that this momentous, life-altering event was as romantic as we both wanted it to be. I mean we had everything goin’ for us…the stars, the moon, the soft wind rustling the leaves of the trees and fanning the warmth of the fire over us. We had epic music and we had immeasurable passion fueled by deep love, but, it just didn’t happen as smoothly as we thought it should’ve and what had started out as being ridiculously humorous and had then turned into an almost tragedy, morphed back into a comedy of errors of sorts. But, as long as what this night would entail doesn’t culminate into a true Shakespearean tragedy, I’ll be good. I’ll just have to wait about two weeks or so to see if Camie gets her period when it’s scheduled to arrive to find out. I’m not expecting the rest of this month to be fun.

I agreed to make love to her tonight, but I didn’t just jump right in without talking some things through with her. I’m still adamantly opposed to getting her pregnant and having children, and I’m still petrified about the risk we’re gonna take, so I got the specifics from her about how good her pill taking habits are, I used my phone to Google the brand of pills she’s on and read up some about their effectiveness and so on. I also made the obvious statement that I’ll be pulling out. She nodded agreement and understanding here and there but, mostly, she was doin’ her best to get me to not think about the danger I felt like I was putting her in so I could finally just get with the danger she wanted to be in. It didn’t take much effort on her part. I mean, she was naked. That in itself pretty much did the trick. But, she was naked
and
she wouldn’t stop kissing my lips, my neck, my chest, and…well, she wouldn’t stop kissing me. Let’s just leave it at that.

I prepped her all over again and when she was ready, I automatically, out of pure habitual practice, reached for the condoms. She looked at me, still in a little bit of a fog and I stopped, shaking my head as I brought my arm back.

“Sorry. Habit,” I murmured and rested my forehead on hers for a short moment.

“It’s okay, Tristan…it’s gonna be okay,” she whispered.

I nodded and kissed her a little and then staring deeply into her limpid pooling eyes, I found I had to clear my throat so it wouldn’t sound like I was croaking when I asked one last time, “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

She nodded and pulled my head down to hers. And as I kissed her, I tried to not focus too much on what I was about to do, because then doing it would’ve been cut way shamefully short. However, we were forced to stop anyway.

She wasn’t ready.

Well, she
was…
she just didn’t expect the searing pain that came along with this much anticipated and very much wanted invasion of her heretofore innocent body. Actually, neither of us did…

I’m gonna use an analogy here and it’s crude so I’ll apologize for using it, but when either a girl is unusually loose or the chairman of the board of a guy’s body is on the inadequate side, the fit during intercourse can be likened to parking a motorcycle in an airplane hanger. Now, I’m not hung like my horse but I’m pretty happy with what God’s seen fit to equip me with and I’ve never heard any complaints, plus, having been with Samantha who was just this side of being a virgin and even though everyone is built differently, I’ve gotten myself acquainted with Camie’s body in other ways, so I knew I would be a pretty tight fit and it might be a little uncomfortable for both of us in the beginning. That’s also why I took extra time and care to prep her well and good beforehand, and I did a damned excellent job of doin’ it if I do say so myself, but the second Camie felt the sting of stretching, her muscles tensed up and clamped down around me. And let’s keep in mind that she’s a dancer so those muscles of hers? Pretty goddamned strong. So, goin’ back to the analogy, her body’s automatic response made this like trying to park the fucking Spruce Goose and its 97. 5 meter wingspan inside something that was built for a child’s moped. And it fucking hurt.

Then, she made it worse.

Before I could unclench my teeth to talk her down, she began trying to escape out from under me. But here’s the thing, it’s called nailing someone for a reason and I’m a big guy so all she did, being pinned under me the way she was, was cause me to suck in a tight breath through gritted teeth and wince in acute physical distress while her eyes began tearing as she no doubt experienced another piercing shot of pain herself.

“Okay, rain, butterfly, stop, I’m not ready, we can’t do this…ever. I’ll just die a virgin, no biggie…ouch…
shit
…” she breathed out in a rush, sounding like she might be on the verge of hyperventilating.

She’d stopped moving though so I took a couple deep breaths, trying to keep from moving myself as I did, and when I felt I could speak in a more reassuring tone of voice, I captured her eyes with mine and tried to put as much confidence in my words as I could. “One, technically, you’re not a virgin anymore, Baby, so yay you. And uh, thank you for letting it be me,” I said and gave her a gentle kiss before continuing, “Two, you are ready. Believe me. You couldn’t get any more ready, seriously. And three, we
can
do this.”

“No no…we ca—”

“
Yes.
We can. Camie, Baby, we were made for this…”

“But you’re too bi—”

“No, Camie, no…that’s not what I mean…I’m not talking about men’s and women’s bodies being designed to accommodate one another. I’m talking about you and me. Specifically. You and I were made to love each other in
every
way, Baby, we are, and this is just the physical way to do that. Y—”

“But it hurts, Tristan, and I’m kinda scared now and Kate actually tore when she was only
nervous
…and I know I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, but I know it isn’t supposed to hurt as much as this does and it d—”

Fuckin’ Jeff and Kate…talk about ineptness. Neither of them bothered to ask anyone
any
questions whatsoever and they didn’t know diddley squat about what they were doing. I mean Jeff hadn’t done jack to get Kate’s body physically ready to receive him, she didn’t say a peep about it to him, and they kept going when they should’ve stopped, so yeah, of course Kate tore. I’ll tell you something else too, I was fucking pissed at him when I found out what they put each other through because it was completely unnecessary and it didn’t have to be that way at all. And, I’ll be goddamned to Hell and back again if Camie’s first time reflects their miserable experience in any way. Period. I’ll admit I originally thought Camie’s physical reaction was an automatic thing, like a defense mechanism, but listening to what she was saying, I’m now thinking because of what she learned of Kate and Jeff’s experience, Camie had set us up. Like on the first twinge she felt, she’d tricked her body into reacting in a negative way, which, happily I might add, means there’s a good chance that with my help, she can undo the trick and we can get this done.

“Shhh—shh, I know…” I whispered in comfort because for one, I get it. She’s hurting and she’s scared. Two, she needs to chill or we’ll both die like this and after everything we’ve been through, I for one would like to actually make love tonight! “Yes, Kate tore…I know. But you won’t. I promise. I promise, Camie, I won’t let that happen to you, but you have to help me out. If you can relax enough to give me some ah…wiggle room, it won’t hurt like it does right now, but until you relax, I can’t do anything for either of us, so I really need you to try to relax. All of you. Your body
and
your brain. I’m not gonna move until I know you’re relaxed and it’s safe, okay? So don’t worry about me, just…breathe and let me do what I do, alright?”

She nodded, took a deep breath and adjusted her shoulders a little, which was a little uncomfortable for me but not unbearable, so with that, I went back to basics so to speak. As best I could while being where I was and without moving my lower extremities like my body’s instincts wanted me to do anyway. Yeah, it was awkward and not all that easy because the chairman of
my
board usually does most of the driving in these situations, but since I took his license away and Camie still doesn’t quite have hers, he hasn’t been in a real race in almost six months and, well, he was having a devil of a time understanding why the caution flag was on the track. He’s been seriously revving his engine for
well
over an hour so now finally bein’ on the racetrack, he thought we should be running laps. I kept trying to tell him that we would do just that, eventually, but he needed to be patient and understanding, and that he would thank me later for not letting him speed and be reckless. Well, even more reckless that is…he
is
without a helmet after all.

I’d been feeling the tension in Camie’s body lessen degree by degree and I was pretty sure we were good to go, but I held off just a little longer to be sure. However, when I chanced a mini test drive, I got absolutely zero resistance from her so thinking we were golden, I went to step on the gas a bit more and stalled out so fast I almost didn’t know what happened.

“
Ughh,
Camieeee…
” I winced and kinda growled at her—not in anger or anything, just frustration, “Why, Baby?”

“I don’t know! It’s like I have no control...all I know is when you move, it hurts so I stop you!”

I was whimpering into her neck again and my arms were shaking like mad and starting to ache from holding my weight over her for so long, not having been able to alleviate the continual tension in them by moving or changing posi—position. Changing position to alleviate tension. Changing position to control movement. And that, folks, is what a lightbulb moment looks like.

“I have an idea…do you trust me?”

“Oh holy hell…I wanna know what your idea is before I answer that.”

“You’re gonna drive…er, ride.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re gonna ride. You’re gonna be on top and you’re gonna have complete control. Trust me, it’ll work. It’ll probably still hurt a little initially, but it’ll stop once you relax and let your muscles stretch. You know, like before I swim or workout, or for you before you dance, you have to stretch and it’s easier if you’re relaxed. So I’m thinking if you have control over every aspect of the stretching, you’ll be able to relax and do it without feeling like it’s bein’ forced on you or the fear of bein’ hurt by an outside force, which is what I think the problem is, you know? You said it yourself, I move, you hurt, you stop me from moving. But I bet if
you’re
the one doing the moving…?”

“Ohhh, I don’t know, Tristan…I don’t know if I can. I mean, how do we even change positions without it hurting or me tearing?”

“That’s why I asked if you trust me.”

“Well, yeah I do, but how—”

“Hold on,” I told her without giving her time to freakout or obsess about it anymore and carefully, but quickly, I wrapped my arms around her and rolled onto my back.

Victory!

Okay, so it wasn’t a complete victory because it honestly did hurt me to do my sneaky rollover maneuver, however, it could’ve been a lot worse and I’d accomplished what I wanted to and it was done.

“Well?” I asked her in excitement for my plan to be a good one.

Scrunching her face up a bit as she tried to adjust to the different feeling of having me buried to the hilt inside her, she shifted her weight a little and then said, “I guess that’s kinda better, bu—”

“I knew it!”
I was so proud of my problem solving skills at that moment, you have no idea…

“Okay, okay,” she said and giggled a little at my exuberance. “But, I have a few questions…”

“Question one! Fire away! Wait! Do I get a prize if I get ‘em all right?” Yeah, I freely admit the adrenaline has kicked in and I’m feeling a little hyper now…

“Oh my God,” she muttered and grinned down at me and then shook her head, “Okay, obviously I’m just plain stupid about all this and I’ve kinda wanted to know for a while but didn’t know how to ask because, well, you know…I’m inflicted with the stupid, but being where I am and all, I gotta ask, why don’t you like being on the bottom?”

I barked out a laugh, which I really should’ve thought about before I did because she kinda winced with my movement, but after all this time and how well she knows me, she should’ve figured it out by now. However, I guess that just goes to show where her inexperience makes her insecure in this arena, which I’ve actually come to find rather endearing. Don’t ask why, I don’t know the answer. But I did know the answer to her question so I gave it to her with a little bit—okay, a lot bit of sarcasm to lighten what she and I have successfully created to be a very dramatic and not so enjoyable mood.