Rhythm Read online

  She was grinning. “Well, I can’t say you’re the first girl I’ve ever been attracted to, but I may have developed a little crush on you, too.”

  I tried to hide my elation. “You have?”

  “Yeah, I have. I was really regretting the fact that I didn’t grab your number the other day. You’ve been on my mind ever since. Which I thank you for, because when you’re on my mind, that means Julia isn’t.”

  So I was filling her head space instead of her ex… that felt nice.

  “I’m happy to help,” I said, trying to match her same cocky nature when she flirted, though I wasn’t nearly as confident as she was.

  I’d gotten what I’d wanted off my chest. She knew that I liked her, so now I was trying to think of a way to turn the conversation to something less awkward. Thankfully, she did it for me.

  “You said you used to babysit your cousins. Are you close to your family?”

  “Ha!” I laughed sarcastically. “No, not at all. I mean, I see them for holidays, but we have a very… odd relationship.”

  “Yeah?” she asked. “How so?”

  God, where to even begin…

  “Let’s just say, my parents are very unemotional. They took a weird approach to child-rearing. They expected a lot of perfection from me but didn’t give a lot of affection. They aren’t the kind of parents you can go to and talk about how you feel. So, I kind of always just… did what they wanted of me, and that’s about it. They were proud of me when I did well. At least, they said the words ‘we’re proud,’ but there wasn’t a lot of emotion behind it. And when I didn’t do well, I’d be reprimanded. I think that’s the extent of our relationship.”

  She frowned. “God, that sounds awful.”

  I shrugged. “I do think they were emotionally neglectful, but there are worse situations to grow up in, right? It’s not as if they were ever very volatile or anything. They were… nothing, really. We just aren’t close. I guess I can thank them for my impeccable academic record.”

  “Up until earlier this week, you mean,” she joked, letting me off the hook with talking about my family more. Which I appreciated, because I really didn’t care to.

  “Ugh, yeah, I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about that. Got my grade back; I got a D. It’s really going to screw with my average in the class.”

  “I’m sure being as good as you are at school, it won’t be a problem for you to make up for it.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. Lately, things are getting harder. Back in high school, I could get As in everything so easily, you know? I studied, I knew the material, and I passed with flying colors. Now things are complicated, and it’s like, the more complicated they get, the quicker I lose interest.”

  “Lose interest?” she asked. “Shouldn’t this be the time in your education when you’re most interested, since you have all these classes focused on your major rather than boring gen-eds?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, you would think. But, I don’t know, I’m starting to wonder if engineering was the right decision for me at all. I just don’t feel passionate about it lately. I’m really jealous of people like you.”

  She laughed. “People like me? What could you possibly be jealous of?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Your free spirit, your ability to pick a job path you’re passionate about, regardless of the amount of money it may or not make.”

  “You could do that, too,” she said. “ Literally anyone can do that. I’m more jealous of people like you for being able to be disciplined about your education and ensure you have a secure future ahead of you. I'd love to be someone who could focus on my goals like that, but… I don’t know. I just can’t make myself care about security. I wish I could, but every time I feel inhibited by life, I just rebel.”

  “Well, then, it seems like we could both get something out of spending time together, huh?”

  She smiled. “I guess so.”

  We continued to talk as we ate, dragging the meal on over the course of the next hour. She was so damn easy to talk to. And when we’d obviously finished all our food, I found it very hard to say goodbye.

  “I guess we should probably get up and free up the table, huh?” Kaitlyn asked. “It seems like it's getting a fair amount busier in here."

  “Yeah… yeah, you're right. We should probably go. I was just having so much fun talking to you.”

  She smiled. “Me too. This has been nice. Don’t worry, I don’t want it to end either, I just don’t want to be rude.”

  I was almost never bold in this way, but I decided to take a chance for once. “Maybe it doesn’t have to end, then?” I asked her.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean… you can come back to my place?" God, I couldn’t believe the words were even coming out of my mouth. I had never asked a girl that wasn’t a friend to come back to my place before! This was all new territory for me. “You don’t have to, of course, just if you're not busy…"

  “I’m not!” she said quickly. “Yeah… yeah, let’s do that.”

  I had butterflies in my stomach.

  7

  Kaitlyn

  I’d been wanting to have a mindless hook-up ever since I’d broken up with Julia. You know what they say, to get over one person, get under another. It was usually how I dealt with my sadness when a relationship ended. At least temporarily.

  But hooking up with Emily would be anything but mindless, and I was starting to doubt that it was a good decision.

  Not that I didn’t like her or anything, I absolutely did! Which really was part of the problem.

  Because I liked her, I found myself worrying about her. I was the first girl she’d ever had a crush on, and we’d just hung out for the first time ever, if you didn’t count the bar. Should I really be going back to her place?

  I didn’t want to be the girl that took her virginity. At least not yet, not like this. I wanted it to be special and sweet because… I liked her. I actually really, really liked her. I couldn’t mindlessly hook up with her. I couldn’t have sex and not feel romantic about it.

  Then again, maybe she wasn’t a virgin at all. She’d said that I was the first person she’d had a crush on, but that didn’t mean she’d never had a hook-up before. It was possible she’d had sex.

  No, I just felt like that wasn’t true. That was wishful thinking. Just the way she’d talked about not liking other people before… she was inexperienced, I knew it.

  It truly didn’t bother me. I didn’t care at all. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t rushing into anything with me. And I didn’t want her to feel like she had to do anything with me, just because I was experienced. I could wait for however long. It didn’t matter to me.

  Maybe she didn’t want to wait. I mean, if I was her age and still a virgin, then I finally found a girl I was attracted to, wouldn’t I jump on the chance to lose my virginity immediately?

  Or maybe all of this overthinking was pointless, because really she had no plans to sleep with me at all, and she was just inviting me over as a friend. That was always a definite possibility that I was refusing to consider.

  We’d been driving quietly for a few minutes, and she’d said her place wasn’t far away. I decided to venture outside my head and stop over-analyzing the situation. We’d been very honest up until this point, and I didn’t want to be the one to break that streak. If I had questions about what she wanted, I would just ask her. I liked the dynamic we had played out so far.

  But not yet, not when we were still in the car. It was too awkward of a conversation to have in advance. What was I supposed to say? Are you hoping to sleep with me once we arrive at your apartment? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I had to let things progress naturally, to a degree.

  “Here we are!” she said eagerly as she pulled into a carport. “Sorry if it’s a little messy. Between my studying and Abby’s stress about her car, things haven’t been getting done like they should be.”

  “Oh, trust me, it’s no problem,” I told h
er. “I’m a total slob. By the way, is your roommate home?”

  I was actually hoping for a yes, because that would mean I’d be able to avoid the awkward sex question. If she was home, we definitely wouldn’t be sleeping together. I mean, not that people didn’t sleep together with roommates around… but not the first time. The first time you’re with someone, you want to be loud and enthusiastic, not holding back anything.

  “Nope! She should still be in class.”

  Well, there went that easy out. But maybe it helped to answer the question the other way. Maybe she’d invited me because she wasn’t home.

  Ugh, why was I continuing to guess? Hadn’t I already decided I’d just bring this up with her when it became appropriate to ask?

  As we walked inside, Emily gestured around the room. “Welcome to my humble abode. It isn’t much, but, you know, I’m a college kid.”

  “You won’t get any judgment out of me,” I told her. “Besides, the place looks nice.”

  “If it does, you can thank my roommate for that. She’s the one that does all the decorating. I’ve got a blind eye for that kind of thing. You should see my bedroom.”

  “Maybe I should,” I said flirtily, trying to gauge her reaction.

  She smiled at me and took my hand. “Come on.”

  I followed her down the hall and into her bedroom. She wasn’t lying… not that her room looked bad or anything, it was perfectly neat and tidy, but the walls were completely bare, and she didn’t have a single picture on her desk.

  “You weren’t kidding,” I told her.

  She flopped down on her bed. “Nope! Seriously, any decorating in our home is thanks to Abby.” She patted the bed with her hand. “Here, sit.”

  “Okay…” I said hesitantly as I sat next to her.

  Except, I wasn’t hesitant to sit next to her. Because on the contrary, that was exactly what I wanted. But I knew now was the time to ask her how she wanted to go about this, and I still felt a little awkward doing so.

  I didn’t have time to ask, though. As soon as I sat down, Emily reached over and put her hand on my cheek, pulling me in for a kiss.

  Our lips touched, and I swear, sparks flew across the room. Never had touching someone’s lips felt so damn electric before. I sat there for a moment after, feeling simply stunned by her.

  For a while, my mind was completely off sex. I couldn’t think about anything but her lips. I would have been content to kiss her like this all night and nothing more.

  Evidently, she did not feel the same. Because, only a few minutes later, I felt her slipping a hand up my shirt.

  I pulled my mouth away from her. Her facial expression immediately sank.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, should I not…?”

  “No, no, it’s not that. I just want to take a minute to ask… are you sure this is fine? I mean, you haven’t had sex before, right…?”

  “Ah, you’re worried about this being my first time and all, and us barely knowing each other…” she said as she processed my concerns.

  “Right, exactly.”

  She then gave me a cheeky smile I hadn’t been expecting. “Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be my first time.”

  It took me a second to process what she meant but as she began to tug at my shorts, I slowly started to understand.

  This was going to be all about me.

  She hooked her finger around my panties so that as she pulled my shorts own, they came down too. Exposing my bare, shaven pussy for her.

  She stared at it for a second, admiring me, letting one finger reach out as she traced down my lines and contemplated what she was about to do…

  Then, all of a sudden, the contemplating stopped and she wasted no more time.

  She pushed me back so I was laying down and immediately rushed her head down to my pussy. I first felt the cool touch of her tongue on my inner thigh, sliding up toward my pussy. It made my leg tremble, the tension of knowing her mouth was slowly nearing my pussy. But I loved every second of the build up.

  It made it that much better when I finally felt her tongue at the outer edge of my lips. She sent a chill up my spine. She had her hands pressed hard against my thighs, because she had to, if she didn’t hold me down I’d be squirming too much for her to have access to my pussy. She was barely getting started and I was already writhing around.

  She slid her tongue up the outer layer of my slit until she reached the top, and then she wriggled her tongue past my lips and into my clit.

  And, oh my God, sparks were flying in my mind. As soon as her tongue was on my clit it was pleasure like I never even imagined was possible. I had never felt like this before. I wanted this to last forever but based on how much I was enjoying myself I already knew that wasn’t going to be possible. My orgasm was going to come quick no matter how hard I fought it.

  And did I fight like hell. Every circle her tongue did around my clit, I fought to stay focused enough not to cum. I didn’t even need to orgasm, honestly, I wasn’t craving it because what she was already doing felt so good that I didn’t need anything else. This was the best I’d ever had and I would have been satisfied with that alone.

  She let go of my thighs, her fingernails had left marks where she had forced my legs to stay down. She reached up for my breasts and I moaned as I felt her fingers on my bare breasts for the first time. One hand groped at the firmness of my breast while the other was rolling a nipple around in it’s fingers.

  It was too much. I no longer could focus on not having an orgasm. With her hands at my breasts and her mouth on my pussy, I was too stimulated to do anything but cum. I couldn't even think, all I could do was feel the intense pleasure that was bestowed upon me.

  I screamed out as my legs began to tremble. The orgasm ripped through me, sending jolts of pleasure into my clit.

  I couldn’t believe I thought just a few minutes ago I didn’t need an orgasm. It was exactly what I fucking needed. This orgasm completed me. It was completely indescribable.

  I laughed awkwardly. “Are you sure this is the first time you’ve ever gone down on someone?” I asked.

  “Positive.” She smiled at me.

  “If you hadn’t told me, I would have never known. I’d have assumed hook-ups were a regular weekend thing for you.”

  She gave a soft smile as she sat on the bed next to me. I could tell she liked that. I really wasn’t saying that for her benefit. She’d truly, genuinely surprised me. That was the best sexual experience I’d had in a long time. I hated to bring it back to Julia, but damn, our sex had never come close to that. And we hadn’t even officially had mutual sex yet.

  She lay down next to me, her face inches away from mine, able to do nothing but smile at me. And I could only smile back at her.

  “This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” I asked her.

  “I think it is,” she answered. “I really think it is.”

  8

  Emily

  I came out into the living room to find Abby eating a bowl of cereal on the couch in her pink and green striped pajamas. She looked me up and down curiously as I stepped out of the room.

  “What?” I asked, unsure of why she was staring at me like that.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said innocently, “I was just wondering if it would be one or two of you coming out of the bedroom this morning.”

  I laughed. “Just the one today.”

  Kaitlyn and I had been dating about a month now, and I had to say, it’d been fantastic. I knew a month wasn’t that long, but I already felt like I’d known her forever.

  She spent most nights at my place, which was great, not just because of the obvious sex factor (though we hadn’t had penetrative sex yet, we'd done other things) but because we spent a lot of late nights staying up and talking. We’d learned so much about each other so quickly. I didn’t want to say I was falling in love, but…

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Abby. “Has her being over all the time been a nuisance? I mean, we could go to her place, but she’s
not paying rent there yet, so she feels awkward having me over too much.”

  “Oh, no, no!” Abby said quickly. “I was totally teasing you. I think it’s great you’ve got someone in your life finally!”

  I sat on the couch next to her and took the open cereal box that was on the table. I grabbed a handful and munched on the dry, fruity flakes.

  “Really? You don’t think I’m maybe diving a little too fast into things?” I asked her.

  “I mean, you two are spending a lot of time together, but I can’t see a problem with it. You’ve never dated anyone before, and now you’re all excited and looking forward to seeing her… it’s cute! And Lord knows I’ve brought enough guys back to the house that I couldn’t complain about it.”

  I leaned back on the couch. “I really am enjoying myself. I like her so much. Maybe way too much…”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with that,” she told me. “You need some fun in your life. You’ve needed some for a long time. For you, your whole life has just been… school.”

  Ah, yes, and of course she had to remind me of the problem.

  Unfortunately, the more time I spent with Kaitlyn, the less studying I got done. So much for recommitting myself to school and studying. With her, it just didn’t work. There was nothing else I wanted to focus on besides her.

  Which was actually the reason I’d asked her not to stay over last night and not to come over today, though not spending time with her when I knew I could be was absolute torture for me. I had a test in the evening, and I really had to spend my time studying.

  The worst part was, I hadn’t even been getting that much of it done. I’d spent way too much time last night texting her, telling myself that it wasn’t too distracting, because I had time in between texts to work… when really I’d found myself zoning out of my textbooks often because I’d been thinking about what she was going to say in response.

  It was really bad timing, because I had already been finding myself more and more uninterested in my schoolwork, and then I’d met Kaitlyn, who was the most interesting person I’d ever met. Of course my mind wanted to focus on her more than anything else.