Claimed for one last night

Chapter 2

Amelia POV

"Tell me if it's too much," he says, and there's real concern in his voice. Like my wellbeing actually matters more to him than his own needs. It's another lie though, isn't it? Because if my wellbeing mattered, he wouldn't be here. If my wellbeing mattered, we wouldn't be doing this.

The initial intrusion is strange and uncomfortable and nothing like the magazines suggested it would be. There's pressure and a surprising amount of discomfort and a burning sensation that makes me want to both scream and cry and laugh at the sheer absurdity of this moment. Our parents are sleeping less than fifty feet away and here I am, losing my virginity to a boy I've known for fourteen days who's going to leave in two weeks and probably never think of me again.

Except he is thinking of me. His whole body is shaking with the effort of being gentle, of moving slowly, of giving me time to adjust. His face is buried in my neck and he's breathing like he's run a marathon and whispering things into my skin that I can barely hear over the hammering of my own heart.

"You're incredible," he murmurs. "You're so incredibly brave."

I'm not brave. I'm terrified. I'm already calculating how to make this end before it becomes something that will destroy me. I'm already building walls against the moment when he realizes I'm not worth the complications, when the risk stops being thrilling and starts being just exhausting.

But I don't say that. Instead, I let him believe I'm present in this moment with him. Instead, I wrap my arms around him and pretend that I'm not already half-gone.

The rhythm builds slowly, and the discomfort transforms into something else—not quite pleasure, but not pain either. Something in between that I don't have a word for. His voice in my ear is a constant stream of affection and wonder, like he's never felt anything like this before. Like I'm the only girl who's ever let him in like this.

"I love you," he says, and the words come out rough and raw and completely unpracticed. Like they've been living in his chest for longer than these fourteen days.

Something inside me cracks open at the sound of those words. Not because I don't love him back—I do, probably more than is wise or healthy or practical—but because I know how this ends. I know that in a few weeks or months or years, he's going to be different. He's going to want things I can't give him. He's going to realize that what we had was beautiful but temporary, a summer romance that didn't survive the return to regular life.

And when that happens, I'm going to have to tell him something that isn't true. I'm going to have to make him believe that I stopped loving him, that I found someone else, that this meant less to me than it actually does. Because that's kinder than admitting that I'm leaving him before he leaves me.

The thought is poison, mixing into what should be one of the most meaningful moments of my life, turning it into something bittersweet and dangerous.

He finishes with a sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp, his whole body going rigid against me, and I hold him like he's the only real thing in the world. My body is aching and confused and already starting to process what just happened, what this means, what I've set in motion.

"I've got you," he whispers, and that's when I realize he's not talking physically. He's making some kind of promise about the future, about being there, about not disappearing the way everyone eventually does.

"I know," I whisper back, and I feel like I'm already betraying him with the lie embedded in those two words.

---

The transition is so jarring that for a moment I don't understand where I am. One second I'm wrapped up in canvas and darkness and the smell of someone else's skin, and the next I'm in my office under fluorescent lighting, my heart pounding against my ribs like it's trying to escape my body.

Daniel is in my doorway. My boss. A man who's been waiting for a response to a question I didn't hear because I was trapped in a memory that's been eating me alive for seven and a half years.

"Sorry, what?" I manage, blinking rapidly to bring the present moment into focus. My hands are shaking, so I hide them under my desk.

"I said it's been a big week." Daniel's concern is written all over his face, and I hate that I'm giving him reason to worry. I'm supposed to be the professional here. I'm supposed to be the one holding everyone else's emotional infrastructure together while I quietly fall apart.

"Yeah, it has," I admit, not bothering with the excuse this time. What's the point? We both know I'm a mess. "But I can still drink. Give me five minutes?"

He nods, but he lingers in the doorway for just a moment too long, like he's deciding whether to push the issue. Whether to ask me what's actually going on behind these professional walls I've built.

"You're allowed to have bad weeks, you know," he finally says. "You're allowed to be not okay sometimes."

The irony of having someone tell you that you're allowed to struggle while you're actively struggling is not lost on me. I give him a tight smile that doesn't reach my eyes and promise that I'm fine. I promise that it's just been a lot of patient sessions and not enough sleep.

I don't tell him that I'm drowning. I don't tell him that I've spent the last seven years pining after someone who probably couldn't pick me out of a lineup anymore. I don't tell him that I've been putting a Google alert on a man's name like some kind of obsessed stalker, tracking his movements through the internet the way other people might stalk ex-boyfriends.