I'm in a frenzy. He slides his fingers out and I feel him moving around. I shiver when I feel the warmth of his mouth hovering over my nipple. He rubs his erection up and down my slit.

As he delicately pushes himself inside of me, his mouth crashes onto my nipple. He sucks and pushes and I'm lost. It's slow and intense. Everything he does is like he's paying homage to my body. Worshipping at the temple that is me. His hands caress my arms, his kisses land on my neck and chest. When his mouth meets my face I'm hungry for his kisses. His strokes inside of me are still slow and methodical. He makes complete strokes, fully in and out. I'm moving against him, trying to make the pace quicken. Deep down, I know it's that I want him to take me. Fuck me. I want him wild and out of control. I want to feel the freedom I get from the loss of everything.

But he isn’t. He's in control.

I'm opening my legs, wrapping them around him, but he maintains his control. I don’t look at him. I can't. He's seeing me exposed. He's seeing the need I am exposing myself to.

His body is fully sliding against mine. His hands are gripping me, holding me. It's sweet and soft.

"Fuck me." I whisper. It's desperate. I have a need.

"I am." He says softly.

I open my eyes, "Hard."

He sits up and lifts my legs in the air and pounds me.

"Like this? You want this? Goddamn. You feel so good." I like it when he talks.

His body slamming into mine is ecstasy. I get lost in the thrusts and the pressure. He bends forward, pushing my legs almost to my head. His thrusts are slapping his body against mine. I orgasm a second time forcing his orgasm. He cries out into my legs and finishes. He unravels my legs and collapses onto me. I grunt with the exhale as he does.

"Am I squishing you?" He asks.

I lick my lips, "In a good way."

"Holy shit, Sarah." He's breathing in my hair.

I laugh, "Yeah."

"I think I almost had a heart attack."

I laugh again. He pulls out and climbs off of me. "I'm not even kidding. That was maniacal and I feel like I used you."

I grin at him, "I used you back. Don’t worry."

He shakes his head, "You're different than I ever imagined you would be. In every way." He tosses the condom in the garbage and pulls on his boxers and collapses next to me, bouncing on the bed slightly. "From the girl I met in the gym, to the girl who had the attack at Chicken Lou's, to the girl who threw up in my garbage can, to this. You have come so far. That therapy really worked."

I shiver and crawl under the blankets. "I don’t want to talk about it."

He blushes, "Sorry. You're just surprising me. In a good way." He traces his fingers up and down my arm. "What should we do now birthday girl? God you're so beautiful."

I shrug. Mostly out of discomfort. Why is he talking and touching so much.

He makes a face, like he's inspired and stands up, "Be right back."

He leaves the bedroom. I wrap the blankets tightly around me and fight the feelings away. I have no one to talk to. I have to swallow the feelings and forget them. I tell myself they're just leftovers.

He comes back in after a minute and crawls into the blankets with me.

"You know I was thinking, why don’t we go somewhere this week?"

I frown, "What?"

"Well, I have a job going on in Los Angeles. I need to go there this weekend. You could come with me."

I look at him and hate myself, "No. I need to train and I have school."

He kisses my cheek, "Okay. I won't push it. It took almost the whole damned year to get you to here. We can take it slowly." I press my face into his cheek.

He strokes my hair out of my face, "How's the whole semester looking?"

I grimace, "Bad. I think I'm failing creative writing. Not good for a journalism wanna be."

He laughs, "How the hell do you fail creative writing?"

I move my head to look at him with daggers in my eyes, "It's harder than you think smarty pants. The prof hates me. She wants us to rewrite everything a minimum of fifty times. Which I think is insane. It's poetry. It's the fruit of the moment. You know?"

His eyes sparkle and look greener than I've ever seen them, "I do not."

I laugh and shove him, "A poem is based on the emotions you have at that moment. If you rewrite them then you're taking away the raw emotion you were having and replace it with something that’s not authentic to that moment."

His eyes widen, "Well, well. Look who is deeper than a puddle."

I open my mouth in offense, "Hurtful."

He rolls his eyes, "You never let me in."

A buzzer interrupts my pout. He jumps up, dragging on his pants and running from the room.

I sit up and wait. He comes back after a couple minutes with two trays. He places them down. They are silver trays with steaming pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs and fruit and coffee in to go cups. I smile. On one plate the pancakes have "Happy Birthday Sarah" written on them. I sit back on the bed and pull the covers up to cover myself. He places the tray down, "I figured since you didn’t want to go to breakfast, we could just have it here."

I smile at him, "Thank you. You're so sweet."

He grins and climbs on the bed to eat his, "I don’t feel sweet after earlier." I roll my eyes. He gets my hint that I don’t want to discuss it…ever.

"Can we do dinner tonight though?"

I shake my head, "I can't. I have to go meet my real parents tonight. It was my goal for my twentieth birthday. I need this."

He looks worried, "Who's going with you?"

I eat my bite and fight the fact my appetite is going quickly, "Shell. I just want her there."

He nods but I can see the look in his eyes. "She's like my security blanket from childhood, you know?"

"How did you two meet?"

I shove the memory down and shake my head. I push away the food and give myself a minute.

"You okay?"

I take a breath, "Just a sec." Sometimes memories make me feel dirty.

I lower my heart rate with breaths and being grateful.

I open my eyes and look at the breakfast again. "We were at the pool. The orphans were allowed to go swimming. These means girls from the town bullied me. They were making fun of me for my haircut and my old faded bathing suit. So I ran away and hid in a corner. I had a thing for corners."

I could cry from the shame that's still there, but I don’t. I just talk quietly, "Shell just came up and sat beside me. She was so pretty. Her bathing suit was new, bright green with black polka dots. She looked like a dark-haired Barbie. She asked me random questions and didn’t care that I didn’t want to answer them. She forced me to be her friend. Then this girl came over and was making fun of me, calling me a lesbian. I sat there, calm and quiet. I wouldn’t cry for anyone. Shell stood up and punched her in the face. The girl ran off crying and told the nuns that I hit her."

"Oh my god."

I nod once, "They came to get mad at me and make me go back to the bus. But Shell went and got her mom who went all crazy Italian on the nuns. She said, if her daughter said she hit the little bitches, then she did it and not me. Then she yelled that they deserved it for calling me a lesbian. The nuns were pissed. The other girls got thrown out of the pool. She was the first person who ever stood up for me." But my brain points out the lie in the statement. "Besides Eli."

He grabs my hands, "I'm sorry I made you remember that."

I shake my head, "No. It's not a bad memory. It's good. I need to focus on the good part of it. A girl, who was popular and well liked, picked me. She has always picked me."

He tries to make himself smile but he can't. "It was all so hard wasn’t it? Every minute?"

I look at him, "No. Nothing is ever all bad. I had amazing moments."

He looks confused, "Between the bullying and beatings and mean nuns and hand washing and OCD and anxiety?"

I see myself in his eyes for a second and feel a little bit sorry for myself, but my brain shuts it down fast. "I could have died like Emalyn."

He nods once and pushes his breakfast away, "That’s very true."

Chapter Twenty-Four

I cross the grounds holding her hand.

You slept with him?"

I nod, "I feel horrible. Like a slut. I actually thought about Eli, which is so gross."

She nudges me, "He's not the kind of guy you forget easily. Dirty talking, bum spanking, panty stealing, bad boys are hard to come by."

I laugh, it's nervous. Seeing the SUV is making me nervous."

"Did you blow the crazies off?"

I shake my head, "I think they're worse. I feel sick and gross and I miss Eli, but I'm terrified he's going to know I did it."

She snorts, "Girl, please. That man probably already knows. I swear he has you GPS'd."

I smile but nothing takes away from the nerves and sickness inside of me, "And I feel bad for Sebastian. He was giving me his whole heart and I left there not wanting it. I am so fucked up. They' aren't going to want me, Shell. I'm such a mess." I say it as we get to the SUV.

"They will love you. Trust me. It's impossible to not love you." She nudges me again.

Stuart opens the door. "You okay, Sarah?"

I shake my head.

"We'll be there for you the entire time." His voice is steady. He doesn’t even steal a glance at Shell. He is there for me. He always was.

Shell pushes me inside the SUV. I sit inside and try not to feel like vomiting.

I don’t know how I feel about the fact Eli had them fly here. He will be part of the whole thing. He is the whole thing. He's organized it all and made it happen.

Stuart speaks in the rearview, "They're staying at the Hotel Commonwealth. It's nice. They have the suite, so we can sit in private and meet them."