Swallow Me Whole novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Lesson One

On Ashton's bed Sadie learns how her own body works and comes in front of someone for the first time.

At eight fifty-eight the next night I stood in his back hallway in a cotton bra and white underwear.

I had pulled a gray hoodie on over them.

I had changed four times.

I had not dared wear anything with lace, because lace felt like trying.

His bedroom door was open a hand's width, and lamplight spilled out onto the hall floor.

I knocked on the frame anyway.

"It's open, Sade."

I went in.

It was a plain room with a big bed under a quilt his grandmother made.

A chair held a stack of folded work shirts, and the window looked out at the woodshop.

The room smelled like him.

Cedar and soap and a little bit of hot metal.

Ashton sat on the bed with his back against the headboard and one boot-sock foot crossed over the other.

He was still dressed in his flannel and jeans, and a paperback lay open and face down on his knee.

"You can leave the hoodie on for now," he said.

"You said to wear something you don't mind me taking off."

"I did. Take it off when you want to, not when you think I want you to."

I stood there with my fingers knotted in the hem.

"Come sit."

I climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged at the foot of it.

It was as far from him as I could get without sitting on the floor.

He looked at me for a second, and the corner of his mouth went up.

"Lesson one," he said. "Tell me what you like."

"I don't know."

"That's the lesson."

"I mean it. I don't know. I never get to the part where I find out."

I said it to the quilt, and I felt my face go hot to the roots of my hair.

He didn't laugh, and he didn't wince.

He just nodded.

"Okay," he said.

"You're not bad at this, Sadie. Nobody ever taught you what your own body does."

"Everybody just does it."

"Everybody just does it badly. Take off the hoodie."

I pulled it over my head.

The air in the room touched my stomach and my arms, and my nipples drew up tight inside the bra.

Ashton's eyes went down me once, slow, from the glasses to my knees and back.

He didn't say anything.

A muscle worked in his jaw.

"Glasses on," he said, and his voice had dropped half an octave. "Lie back. Head on the pillow."

I lay down.

His pillow smelled like his hair.

He stayed where he was, against the headboard, close enough that his knee touched my hip.

"Now put your hand where you'd put it if I weren't here."

"I'm not doing that in front of you."

"Yes you are."

"That's humiliating."

"It's information."

I stared at the ceiling.

Then, because I had walked down those stairs on purpose, I slid my hand into my underwear.

I was already wet.

That surprised me, and I knew he could see it on my face.

"Slow," he said. "You're rushing. Nobody's timing you."

I slowed down.

I touched the way I always touched, two fingers moving in a quick small circle, getting it over with.

"Does that feel good or does it feel fast?"

"Fast."

"So what would feel good?"

I didn't know, and I said so, and my voice cracked.

"Let me show you," Ashton said. "Take your hand out."

I took it out.

My heart was pounding in my ears.

He moved down the bed until he lay on his side next to me, propped on one elbow.

One big warm hand rested on my hip bone.

He spread his fingers across my belly, and the heat of his palm went all the way through me.

"Look at me, not at the ceiling," he said.

I looked at him.

His eyes were so close and so gray.

He hooked a finger in the waistband of my underwear.

"These come off," he said.

"Yes."

"Say it again."

"Yes, Ashton. Take them off."

He drew them down my legs, and I lifted my hips to help him.

Then I lay bare from the waist down in front of a man I had known all my life.

My heart was going.

He looked at me.

His breath went out of him in a rough sound.

"Christ, Sadie. You're beautiful."

"You're only saying that."

"I'm not a liar. Spread your knees a little."

I let them fall open.

His hand came down between them, flat and warm.

He did nothing for a moment, only held it there.

It was so much better than my fast circles that I let out a shaky breath.

"That's it. That's just heat. Now tell me where."

"What?"

"Where do you want my fingers? Tell me."

"I don't know the word you want."

"Use whatever word you've got."

"My clit," I said.

My face flamed.

"Good girl," he said, low, and a bolt of heat went through me from my scalp to my toes. "That's the word."

His middle finger found it.

He touched me so lightly I barely felt it, one slow stroke from top to bottom.

I jerked my hips.

"There you go."

"Ashton."

"I know. Keep your eyes on me."

He stroked again, slow and wet, and it was nothing like what I did to myself.

It was soft and patient and he never lost the rhythm.

Every time I started to tense and chase it, his other hand pressed down on my stomach and held me still.

"Not yet. Let it build. Breathe."

"I can't."

"You can. You're doing so well."

I was gasping.

The pleasure gathered low in my body.

I couldn't believe something so slow could feel so enormous.

He slid one finger down and pushed it inside me, and my back came up off the bed.

"Oh, God."

"Tight," he muttered, as though to himself. "Fuck. Look how you're taking me."

He curled the finger upward, and the heel of his hand rolled against my clit at the same time.

I cried out.

"That's the spot. Feel that? That's yours. Nobody gets to skip it."

"Don't stop."

"I'm not stopping."

"Please don't stop."

"Say what you want."

"I want to come," I said, shaking. "I want you to make me come."

"Then come for me, Sadie."

He pressed once, hard and exact, and the dam broke.

I came with a sound I had never heard myself make, high and broken.

My fingers clawed the quilt and my thighs clamped around his wrist.

The waves rolled through me again and again.

He didn't let up.

He kept his hand moving, gentle and slow, until the last aftershock had left me limp and shaking and gasping his name.

Then he eased his fingers out and rested his palm over me, warm and heavy, while I came back to my body.

I laughed.

I couldn't help it.

It bubbled up out of me, wet and breathless and helpless.

"What?" he said.

"I just came."

"You did."

"With a person. In the room."

"Yeah," Ashton said.

He smiled, a real one.

"You did."

I turned my head on his pillow.

"Is that how it's supposed to be?"

"That's how it's supposed to be."

"Then why didn't anybody tell me?"

"Because most guys want to be the hero instead of the student."

I rolled onto my side to face him, and my knee slid against his thigh, and that was when I felt it.

He was hard.

Thick and hot behind the zipper of his jeans, pressed against my leg.

I looked down, then up.

His whole face had changed.

"Ashton," I said, and my hand was already moving. "Let me."

His fingers closed around my wrist.

He lifted my hand off his belt and set it down on the quilt between us.

"No."

"Why not? That's fair, that's how it works."

"That's lesson three. You don't get to skip ahead."

His voice was rough, and his breathing wasn't even.

He sat up and swung his legs off the bed.

He picked my hoodie off the floor and held it out to me without looking at my body.

"Go upstairs, Sadie."

"You're hard."

"I know exactly what I am."

I took the hoodie.

I put it on slowly, my whole body humming, and stood at his door with my underwear still lying on his floor.

"Same time tomorrow?" I said.

Ashton was staring at the window with his hands on his knees.

"Take your underwear," he said hoarsely. "Go."

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