Losing Hope

all out of firsts by next weekend. Don’t you want to drag our firsts out a little longer?” I pull away from her neck and look down at her, very aware that there is less space between our mouths right now than between our bodies.
    “Firsts?” she says, looking up at me curiously. “How many firsts are there?”
    “There aren’t that many, which is why we need to drag them out. We’ve already passed too many since we met.”
    She tilts her head and her expression grows attractively serious. “What firsts have we already passed?”
    “The easy ones,” I say. “First hug, first date, first fight, first time we slept together, although I wasn’t the one sleeping. Now we barely have any left. First kiss. First time to sleep together when we’re both actually awake . First marriage. First kid. We’re done after that. Our lives will become mundane and boring and I’ll have to divorce you and marry a wife who’s twenty years younger than me so I can have a lot more firsts and you’ll be stuck raising the kids.” I bring my hand to her cheek and smile at her. “So you see, babe? I’m only doing this for your benefit. The longer I wait to kiss you, the longer it’ll be before I’m forced to leave you high and dry.”
    She laughs and the sound is so toxic I’m forced to swallow the huge lump in my throat so I can make room to breathe again.
    “Your logic terrifies me,” she says. “I sort of don’t find you attractive anymore.”
    Challenge accepted.
    I slowly slide on top of her, careful to hold my weight up with my hands. If my body were to touch any part of hers right now, we’d already be moving on to seconds and thirds. “You sort of don’t find me attractive?” I say, staring straight down into her eyes. “That can also mean you sort of do find me attractive.”
    Her eyes grow dark and she shakes her head. I can see the dip in the base of her throat barely move as she gulps before speaking. “I don’t find you attractive at all. You repulse me. In fact, you better not kiss me because I’m pretty sure I just threw up in my mouth.”
    I laugh, then drop onto my elbow so I can move closer to her ear, still careful not to touch any other part of her.
    “You’re a liar,” I whisper. “You’re a whole lot attracted to me and I’m about to prove it.”
    I had every intention of pulling away, but as soon as the scent of her hits me, I can’t pull back. My lips are pressed against her neck before I even have a chance to weigh the decision. But right now it feels a hell of a lot more like a necessity to taste her rather than just a decision . She gasps when I pull back and I can’t help but hope that her gasp was genuine. The thought of her actually feeling what I felt when my lips touched her neck makes me feel ridiculously victorious. It’s too bad I like a challenge, because that gasp just made me want to up my game. I drop my mouth back to her ear and whisper, “Did you feel that?”
    Her eyes are closed and she’s shaking her head no, breathing heavily. I look down at her chest, heaving dangerously close to mine.
    “You want me to do it again?” I whisper.
    I want her to beg me to do it again, but she shakes her head no. She’s breathing twice as fast as she was sixty seconds ago, so I know I’m getting to her. I laugh that she’s so adamantly shaking her head no, while at the same time clenching the sheet next to her with her fist. I move closer to her mouth because I suddenly have an overwhelming need to take in some of the breaths she’s wasting. It feels like I need them more than she does right now, so I inhale at the same time my lips meet her cheek. I don’t stop there, though. I can’t stop there. I continue to trail kisses from her cheek, down to her ear. I pause and catch my breath enough to speak in a steady voice. “How about that?”
    Again, she stubbornly shakes her head, but tilts it back and slightly to the left, allowing me better access. I lift my hand from the bed and bring it to her waist, keeping my eyes trained on her as I slip my hand under her shirt, just far enough to graze her stomach with my thumb. I watch for any kind of reaction from her, but she’s got a stern, tight-lipped expression on her face now, like she’s trying to hold her breath. I don’t want her to hold her breath. I need to hear her breathe.
    When I drop my mouth and nose to her jawline, she releases her pent-up breaths just like I was hoping she would. I trail my nose across