Slowly, we stripped off our clothes as the other watched. Up until that point, I'd never experienced anything more erotic than watching Tenleigh bare herself to me, knowing that very soon I was going to be inside her. When she was completely nude, I let my eyes do a slow perusal of her body, although I'd seen her naked before. But that had always been in the dim walls of my room. This, this was under the setting sun, the golden light shining on her skin, the cool air pebbling her rose-colored nipples.

"You're stunning," I whispered.

Her own eyes ran over me, and my erection pulsed when her eyes landed on it. She raised her eyes to mine and said, "You're stunning, too. And I don't want you to be gentle with me. I want to feel you. I want all you have to give me."

I let out a groan and moved in close to her, my cock aching, my blood boiling under my skin.

I laid her down on the ground, feeling the first twinge of regret. She was beautiful and desirable. She deserved to be laid down on something better than old musty blankets under a tree. "Kyland," she whispered, taking my face in her hands and looking into my eyes as if she knew what I was thinking. "This is the best birthday of my life."

I smoothed her hair back. "Mine, too."

She arched her back as my mouth found her nipple. She moaned and pressed her body up into mine, her skin warm, her body soft. Her responsiveness, her wonder, her sweet innocence, was something I had no experience with and it changed me inside in some essential way I couldn't focus on figuring out right then. I simply absorbed it, enjoyed it.

Before long, we were both moaning and writhing and I was so turned on, I was praying I'd last long enough to make the experience at least somewhat noteworthy for her.

I reached down between her legs and felt her slippery liquid, running it up to her clit and circling gently. She gasped out and pressed herself up into my hand. I lowered my head back to her breast and suckled gently. She moaned out my name and after a minute, I felt her pulse and shudder under my hand.

I looked into her lust-fogged eyes and took myself in my hand and gently used my erection to open her. In response she parted her legs. Oh Tenleigh, you're so perfect. I grunted, trying to go as slowly as I could while my body was screaming at me to plunge inside her and rut like an animal. I wanted her so badly.

Tenleigh's hands came to my shoulders and she closed her eyes as I moved more deeply inside, her warmth surrounding the head of me and making me lose another portion of the control I was trying to hold to so tightly.

"Open your eyes, Ten," I gritted out. "Look at me." Look at me what? When I claim you? When I make you mine? Yes, my heart screamed. But I shut it down. No. We were each other's for tonight. But this didn't change anything. It couldn't.

Her eyes opened, gazing into mine as I plunged inside her in one smooth thrust. Her face flinched in pain and I felt my own flesh tear through hers, but she didn't cry out. And it was done. I had been so resistant to taking Tenleigh's virginity, but now I wasn't sorry. Whatever else happened, this part of her would always be mine. It would never belong to another man. Never. I watched her face closely as I began to move inside her, the bliss swirling through my balls, my abdomen, but she didn't flinch again. She ran her hands down my back, over my ass as I stroked inside of her, slowly at first and then with more desperation. She felt so good, so good. "I'm gonna come," I breathed out, taking one last blissful thrust into her as I erupted in pleasure, collapsing, and moaning my orgasm into her neck. I rolled slightly to the side so I wouldn't crush her. We lay like that for several minutes, Tenleigh running her nails up and down my back and me getting control of my breathing. When I rolled off her and looked down to see her virgin's blood on my half-hard cock, pride blasted through me. I tried my best to tamp it down, but the effort was in vain.

I fell back on the blankets in awe.

"That was amazing," I breathed. "God, Tenleigh, that was so amazing."

She smiled sweetly at me and nodded. "Yes." She sighed. "Yes, it was."

We didn't sleep much that night. She was a drug and I couldn't get enough of her. I wanted to live forever planted deep inside her. She must have been sore, but she never said anything. That night was made of damp skin and cries of pleasure that echoed through the hills. And I knew for the rest of my life, wherever I was, whoever I was with, when I thought of Tenleigh, I'd think of warmth and lavender and the wide open sky.

Sometime later when a luminous crescent moon hung suspended above us, I finally untangled myself from her and built a fire. We sat on the fallen tree trunk wrapped in quilts and I fed her burgoo heated over the open flame. An owl hooted incessantly in the background and Tenleigh's laughter rang out over the meadow as I told her story after story of some of the trouble Silas and I had gotten into as kids—stories that up until then, no one knew except my brother and me. And somehow it felt like I had brought another piece of him back to life.

We danced briefly under the starlight, Tenleigh laughing as I dipped her. "I'd take you to the prom if I could," I said softly, regretfully, bringing her back up so her body pressed against mine. "I'd do so many things if I could."

"I know," she answered, cupping my cheek in her palm and kissing my lips sweetly.

So many things were swirling through my mind, emotions I was unfamiliar with, feelings I couldn't organize. But as the embers died and the first rays of daylight rose over the mountains, I looked next to me at a sleeping Tenleigh, her beauty soft and vulnerable under the early morning sky and I knew what I had to do. I knew it was wrong, and I knew it would shatter me to do it. And I knew despite all that, I would do it anyway.