A. Jackson - When We Met

Before I could catch my breath, Darryn was on his knees, pushing his underwear down his thighs and kicking them aside.

What little air I could find was knocked free. Gaping, I couldn’t look away. I was struck dumb . . . silenced when all that was Darryn was revealed to me.

This boy-man-god was so beautiful that he left me in an almost terrified state of awe, because every part of Darryn had been masterfully created. My mouth ran dry as I tentatively reached out, my fingers trembling along the underside of his massive erection.

I watched in fascination as Darryn jerked, and his face twisted up in an almost tortured pleasure-pain.

“Careful,” he warned.

Redness lit on my face, and I bit at my lip, maybe feeling a little too proud that I caused this kind of reaction in him.

Darryn leaned over and dug through the little drawer beside his bed. His expression was all earnest and fierce. He kept his eyes trained on mine as he rolled on a condom. I shook as he settled his perfect body over mine.

I was pinned beneath him, though much of his weight rested on his elbows, our chests touching as the beat of our hearts worked to catch up with one another, each pulse racing faster than the last.

Darryn ran his fingers through my hair. He smiled the softest smile. “You’re shaking,” he murmured in quiet understanding, a question almost hitched at the end.

Are you okay?

I shifted so our bodies were aligned.

“I’m nervous,” I admitted quietly, licking my lips to rid myself of some of the nerves that were stampeding out of control. “My first time wasn’t exactly the best experience of my life . . . and I want . . . I—I—I want this to be different.”

Darryn shifted to take my hand, threading his fingers through my mine and tucking our hands up between us. He kissed across my knuckles, his breath like a soft breeze of reassurance that was pumped directly into my spirit.

“This is different.” He kissed my wrist, running his nose along the underside as if to draw me in, to bring me closer than we already were. “It’s different because when I look at you, I don’t see some girl who is a weak victim. What I see is a girl who is so strong that she overcomes every cruel and unfair obstacle placed in her way. It’s different because I see someone to be cherished rather than someone to be used.”

Affection played through his eyes. “It’s different because I’m in love with you . . . desperately.” He trailed his fingers down my face, and hooked his finger under my chin, tilting my mouth up to his. “And I see it when you look at me, that you feel the same. That you’re loving me as much as I’m loving you. That means everything is different.”

Slowly he pressed himself into me. All the air left me in one sharp gasp as my body accepted all of him, stretching me, filling me so full it would almost have hurt if it didn’t feel so unbelievably good.

“This is me giving you all of me. Forever.” He pulled away, before he rocked back into me with one firm thrust.

This time when Darryn pulled back, I lifted my hips to meet the force of his as he drove himself deep into me.

“I want to mean everything,” he said.

I wrapped my legs around his hips and gave him my all, whimpered and moaned as he wound that feeling back into the deepest, most secret place inside me.

“Everything,” I promised through my ragged pants as Darryn worked his body over mine. All those darts of energy sparked, a live charge shot straight into my heart. It spiraled down to my core, and I felt it building with every surge of his body.

“I love you,” I whispered just before he tilted his hips and took me hard. Another wave of ecstasy swallowed me whole, stealing my breath and mind.

Darryn pushed and strained, groaning loud as his body tensed, his own pleasure rolling in tremors through all his brimming strength, his muscles bunched and coiled in his release.

For a few moments, Darryn remained still, gathering his breath, before he pushed up with his hands on either side of my head, his nose an inch from mine. His eyes were almost wild as he stared down at me with a look of pure possession.

I’d become his.

My avenging angel.

The one who’d been sent not to destroy but to expose something vital that had been so difficult for me to see.

To show me it was okay to be me.

Indy

Swiping at my wet cheeks, I drove past the house I shared with three girls not far from campus during the school year, and kept going until I pulled up outside Dean’s frat house. I wasn’t supposed to be coming back to Ann Arbor for a couple more days. But Dean was already here, and, well, there was apparently nothing left for me in Chicago anymore.

My parents had made that all too clear when I’d come home from the gym this morning to find my suitcases on the driveway. A note pinned to one of them had said We can’t keep pretending everything’s okay, and the locks on the door had been changed.

Gone for an hour at the gym—and they changed the locks and packed all my stuff. They’d obviously been busy carrying out plans they’d had for who knew how long.

Through my tears and depressed-to-angry mood swings, I’d made the drive to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in only three hours, and remembered maybe five minutes of that. But none of that mattered now. As I let myself in the stale, funky-smelling frat house, I was already breathing easier knowing I was seconds away from being in Dean’s arms. He would make everything better—he always had over the last two years.

Jogging up the stairs, I worried for a second about looking like a disaster when I was about to see Dean for the first time in months, but I knew he’d already seen me at my lowest. A red, blotchy face and workout clothes weren’t going to faze him right now.

As I opened the door to his room at the end of the hall, my already shaky smile immediately fell, and I froze with one foot inside his bedroom. After the day I’d had, I wasn’t comprehending what I was seeing. I wasn’t getting the memo that I needed to do something. Like leave. Or scream. Or cry some more. Something. Anything. I just stood there staring—Dean not even noticing me through the music blasting in his room as he repeatedly drove into some girl I’d never seen before.

When everything seemed to snap back into reality, I grabbed at the docking station on the dresser near the door and launched it across the room—the music immediately stopped and was replaced by my voice.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed.

The girl shrieked and shoved Dean back before trying to cover herself. “Get out of here!”

“Indy!” Dean yelled, and looked around wildly for a few seconds before coming toward me. “Indy, oh my God!”

“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare fucking touch— You’re not even wearing a condom!” I didn’t know why that was the important issue right then, and I didn’t know why my gaze had flashed down. But that stupid, simple fact was what had the tears falling. He always wore a condom; he was obsessive about being safe.

“Get her out of here!” the girl demanded.

Dean stopped his advance for a second to snap, “Babe, shut up!”

“Babe?” I choked out, and looked away, holding my hands out in front of me to block my view of his junk just in case I turned around again. I’d seen him naked too many times to count. I knew that area of him intimately. But right now it was like a stranger was standing in front of me.

“Indy,” he crooned, his voice much closer.

“Tell me this isn’t happening. Tell me this isn’t fucking happening, Dean!”

“Just listen—”