sun all day, then mixed with t he
heat of David’s kiss as he drank the rain from the curve of my waist.
I rolled my spine, letting him cup his hands under my hips while his lips searched the rim of
my underwear, just below my belly button. “David?”
“Yes, my love?”
“I want to feel you against me .” Hooking my fingers just under his elbows, I tugge d him
toward me; his bare chest and arms slipped across my body. I l et out a little gasp as he rested his
weight on top of me for the first time.
With his lips caressing the skin beneath my ear, and his hands s moothing the balmy rain
down my thigh, his hips collided gently with mine as if the unwelcome intrusion of our remaining
clothes were no longer there.
The pattering rain on the trees above us became heavier then, and beads of water blinded me,
while his fingers fell into the crease of my leg under my knee, pulling it up over his hips.
“It’s raining.” David broke our kiss and looked up.
“I know—we’re saturated. I feel like we tel eported into a warm shower by mis take.” I
grinned and wrapped my legs tighter around him—nudging my hip- joins against him. “My undies
are wet.”
David laughed. “Don’t make me think about that.”
But I want you to think about that. I smiled up at him; his hair, like a painted cloth over his
brow, looked darker when wet—almost black. Beads of rain dripped off the ends, over his nose and
lashes. The rain was cool, but I felt warm—tucked against him like I was under the roof of a small
cubby house.
With an aching gaze of desire chasing away the iciness of restraint, he spread his fingers out
over my spine and pulled my pelvis into his.
I gasped; I’ve never felt something press against me there before; I want to di scard the
meagre remains of the separation between our near-naked bodies and let David inside of me…
He stopped suddenly and looked down into my eyes; “It’s time to go—”
“What?” I blurted, dropping my arms to my sides.
David nodded to the now dark sky. Though it was hard to make out the time of day through
the obscurity of the canopy, I could tell from the shadows that it was late, and the rain was going to
get heavier at any minute.
“Please? Not yet. I—I want you to make love to me, David. ” I reached up and stroked t he
gristly stubble along his jaw.
A roll of thunder stole the words from David’s lips; he placed his hand over mine, still on his
face, and his eyes softened at the corners. He shook his head. “No, Ara, my sweet, beautiful girl. I
can’t do that to you. It would be wrong of me.”
“Wrong of you? Why, I don’t understand?” With the cold conclusiveness of reason, the small
split in my wrist started to sting.
“I can’t marry you, Ar a. I can’t take your innocence and then leave you—it would be very
dishonourable of me.”
“But I want you to take it, David. I want to give it to you.”
He breathed out through his nose, closi ng his lips into a thin smile. “No, my love. One day
you will fall in love with someone, and you’ll want to be pure—untainted—for him. If I take you
now, you can never go back. I would hate for you to regret any of our interactions one day.”
“David. This is the new world. It doesn’t work like that now.”
“That may be so, but it st ill works that way for me.” His wide, sincere eyes looked right into
mine, his voice intense wi th conviction. “In my soci ety, virginity is something very sacred. It is a
rare virtue to be praised and cherished, not something girls should give away without refl ection or
care.”
“But—”
“Ara, please? It’s what I want for you.” His hars h tone forced me into silence. “Sometimes
you can think too much with your heart and not enough with your head. I have to be the adult here. I
have to protect you from yourself—from your human nature.”
“But, David—I can take care of myself. I’m a big—”
“It’s my job
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