Awaening

They were kissing.

How had they gotten here? she wondered. It was just another night out with her best friend, a movie, but when he drove her home, right before he dropped her off, somehow he had started kissing her. And it was marvelous, and hot-- tiny, nibbly kisses that sipped from her inexperienced, trembling, mouth -- but she was bewildered. Where had this surge of feeling come from? She loved Eric, he was her best friend, but she wasn't interested in dating him. She'd felt for some time that maybe he wanted more, but she'd been careful to pretend that his hints had sailed straight over her head. She didn't want to hurt him.

So they were out, and he pulled into a parking place, and they had hugged their typical friendly hug -- but as they moved apart, he had frozen, looking at her thoughtfully. As she looked back with a question in her eyes, he firmed with purpose and slowly moved in to kiss her. And she hadn't stopped him.

And now his hands were threaded through her hair, cradling her head as his mouth moved, tenderly kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids, moving back to her mouth, sipping lightly. And incredibly, she was kissing him back, her hands on his chest for balance as he pulled her towards him. He drew a shuddering breath, kissed her temple, and half-breathed into her hair, "Oh, Melly. Why aren't we dating?" He moved his mouth back to hers and renewed his gentle assault.

"It would never work, Eric," she gasped between nibbles. "We know each other too well. We'd drive each other crazy." It was a bit of an excuse, but she herself really only half understood why they wouldn't work; they both had bad home situations, they both needed to escape, but they had both started college in different states. They each needed someone to help them heal, not someone who was damaged the same way and who would anchor them back in the town they were trying to get away from. She didn't know how to voice those fears, so she only had her lame excuse.

Melly was ready. He could tell. She was as aroused as he was, unfurling like a sweet rosebud in his hands, and no matter what she said, she was returning his kisses. Kissing her at all had been a wild impulse, a gamble, but he'd be a fool not to press his advantage. If he let this moment pass, it might never come again. But he had to be careful. In a car, right in front of her house, was DEFINITELY not the place. He fed her a flurry of kisses, got her well and truly off-balance, and suddenly pulled back.

"I guess so. Hey, I really don't want to go home yet. You don't need to be in right now, do you?"

She shook her head, still dazed.

"Good. I have some beer in the trunk. Let's go out to the lake and talk, and look at the stars."

She was watching him, uncertainly. She must know what he wanted -- if he were honest, what he had always wanted. But she still wasn't resisting, not really. Slowly, she nodded. "Okay. That... sounds like a good idea."

He smiled at her, and she suddenly blushed and looked straight forward at the road in front of them. He reached across and took her hand, getting her to look at him. "You're my best friend. I would never do anything to hurt that." She smiled back, finally, and visibly relaxed. He grinned, and put the car into gear. Of course, what he had planned for her could only make their friendship deeper.

Deeper, warmer... ah, hell. He'd better concentrate on driving and save his plans for the lake.

She helped him unload the car, carrying the beer while he grabbed a huge armload of soft fleece blankets. They climbed up on the large gently sloping glacial rock that rose to the edge of the lake, and he spread the blankets one atop the other until they made a comfortable thickness, covering almost all of the upper surface of the rock. He rolled up one final blanket to go under their heads. It was a a familiar routine, one they'd done dozens of times. Usually, they'd just lie on their backs, looking up at the stars through the summer heat haze, and talking through their problems. Tonight, he had different plans.

They started out sitting up, drinking a beer. Eric drank his much faster than usual, but in sips, and as he hoped, Melly unconsciously mirrored him. Excellent. She had a much lower tolerance than he did, and the beer should relax her. He took a moment to study her; she was wearing thin jogging shorts and a cream short-sleeved shirt that gathered at the scooped neckline in a bow. He longed to yank the tie free, pull the shirt down and taste her. It was getting harder and harder to hold back. She tilted her head back and drained the rest of the bottle. His mouth dried as he watched her arch her back, the long line of her throat gleaming in the moonlight, working as she swallowed the last of her beer. His cock jumped in his pants.

After they set their empties aside, they lay back on the blankets and got comfortable. Eric had his left arm behind her, something he did often enough that she didn't place any extra meaning on it. It held them pretty closely together, and she could feel the warmth of him at her side. They looked up at the cloudless night for a while, silently; Melly truly didn't know what to say to him. She still didn't understand why she had responded that way to his kisses.

Finally, still silently, Eric used the arm under her to push at her left shoulder, turning her to face him as he turned as well. Without a word, they surged together into a kiss, starting with the kind of tiny nibbles they had shared in front of her house. He strongly suspected she didn't know any other kind.

Yet.

He cupped the back of her head with his left hand, and pulled at her left hip with his right hand so their bodies molded together. Then his hand began rubbing her hip in circles, moving lower and farther back on her flimsy cream velour jogging shorts, until his hand was caressing the globe of her ass. He squeezed it and pressed the cradle of her hips more tightly against the now-throbbing erection inside his jeans, and she gasped. He took advantage of the opening to deepen the kiss, thrusting his tongue deep inside, stroking, exploring her moist sweetness. She was shocked into stillness, overwhelmed, but what he was doing felt so good that she couldn't stop him. She could feel his erection burning against her belly, his hand on her ass, pushing her against him, now sliding down her thigh to just behind her knee, and pulling her leg up over his hip. To her horror, she realized this opened up her hips and fitted her clothed pussy snugly over the frighteningly large bulge in his jeans. This was moving too fast. It had been a mistake to let him start kissing her again, but she hadn't dated anyone at all through high school. Remarkably, she'd even remained untouched through her first year at college, and she had to admit that, while unexpected, his kisses had been a revelation. She was getting really turned on, and felt a little more daring under the influence of the beer. Making out with him was amazing, but she was afraid he was ready to go all the way, and she really didn't want that.

Her panic surged when he started gently grinding against her pussy in a slow, sensuous motion that matched the thrust of his tongue into her mouth. Her arms were trapped, the right at her side, the left between them, so she protested, tried to move away from him by arching her back, which turned out to be a complete mistake; all it did was simultaneously wiggle her hips to match his thrust while grinding her chest against his. Oh, God, her nipples were so sensitive. They felt like they were on fire. She felt like she was about to burst into flames from head to foot. He took her squirming as encouragement, and he broke the deep kiss to start nibbling and licking his way over to her ear. She opened her mouth to protest, to stop him, but found she was moaning instead. She hadn't realized that her ear could be so sensitive, so tied to the tingling in her breasts and pussy. He licked, bit, and breathed on the damp areas until she thought she was going to explode with tension, but then everything came crashing down when he whispered, "You're so beautiful. You've gotten me so hard. I can't wait to make love to you."

She froze completely, and then started to cry.

He felt the change in her immediately. "Melly, what's wrong? Don't you like this? Am I hurting you?" Dammit. It had been a mistake to say what he wanted. It had just slipped out.

She sobbed, unable to speak, unable to move.

He pulled back his head to study her face, while continuing to hold her tight and stroke her smooth thigh. "What's wrong, honey? Talk to me."

She sniffed, and tried to find the words. "I... I don't want this to happen, Eric. I don't want to do this."

He never stopped stroking. "What do you mean by 'this?' Do you mean this?" He leaned in quickly and kissed her sweetly, reverently. "You have to tell me what you mean, Melly." He knew very well what she meant, but he was going to make her say it, because words had power. He wanted her to think about giving herself to him. He moved his hand from her thigh up to cup her face and start gently stroking her hair. He didn't say another word. He noticed that she didn't unwind her leg from his hip as she considered.

"I... I love you, Eric..." He didn't wait for her inevitable 'but...', but instead murmured, "Good," and swooped in to invade her mouth again. Once again, she was swept up in the sweetness of the kiss, but she forced herself to pull her treacherous mouth away from his. "But I... I don't want.." She couldn't bring herself to say it. "I don't think I... I'm ready yet."

Her eyes kept sliding away from his face. He had both hands in her hair, and he used them to hold her head steady, to make her meet his gaze. He could swear the temperature rose several degrees when she did. Her breath was coming in gasps, heaving her soft breasts against his chest. "Ready for what? You've been doing wonderfully so far." He grinned. "sort of like you were made for this. So what's the problem?" He was determined to make her say it out loud.

She gulped, an action that made his cock twitch as he watched her throat work. She felt the movement against her pussy and she gasped audibly. She stared helplessly into his eyes as she tried to find the words. "This is all too fast. I've never thought about... making love with you, Eric." As she said the words, she blushed deeply, the flush spreading from her cheeks, down her neck, disappearing under the neckline of her shirt. He suddenly longed to see how far it went, but it was far too important not to drift too far from eye contact with her at this moment. "Okay," he breathed. "I can accept that.

"After what we've just experienced together, are you willing to think about it now?" She blinked, blankly. She hadn't thought that far ahead. She thought that all she had to do was ask and that he would stop, ending her confusion. Eric was her best friend, her confidante, her shoulder to cry on, her rock on the phone through the ups and downs of her freshman college year, her biggest cheerleader, not -- her lover? Until today she had honestly thought she simply wasn't attracted to him that way.

"What if this is just hormones? I'm alone, you're alone..." He interrupted her with a quick brush of a kiss, spending more time caressing her face with his than with actually touching her lips. "Mmmm. Have you ever wondered why we're alone, Melly? We've been waiting for the right person, haven't we? And what if the right person was here, at home, all along?" Every few words, he stopped to kiss her again, unable to stop himself from tasting her, leaving them both breathless. "And let me tell you something. We could be the horniest college kids in the world, and if we didn't genuinely want each other, didn't feel a real attraction, you'd be home right now, and we'd both be wondering why the hell we'd tried that disgusting kiss. THAT'S simple hormones. What's happening here is different." His next kiss surged farther, deeper, and they both strained as if they were trying to join in one skin. His rod was threatening to burst his jeans, and she was so wet that he could already feel her hot dampness through both their clothes. He had to make her realize what her body was telling her.

"And in our case, it isn't just some passing attraction for a stranger -- we also have respect." Another kiss. "And... love." There was nothing quick or unexpected about what happened next, only a slow, inevitable meeting of soft, welcoming lips, but somehow the kiss was infused with more meaning than the ones before it. She felt shaken to her core. Did Eric love her? Not just lover her as a treasured, trusted friend, but really, well... LOVE her?

God help her, did she love him?!

"This is still too fast. It's too new. I don't know what I feel, Eric. I'm so confused. And horny!" she ended on a plaintive, tiny wail. He chuckled, and slowly ground his hips in a circle against hers as he smiled into her eyes.

"It doesn't have to be hard, Melly." He gave a shout of laughter, joining her as she gasped, then laughed for the first time that evening. "Let me rephrase that. This doesn't have to be difficult. Why don't we just let this happen? I would never hurt you. I know you'd never hurt me. And you wouldn't have to worry about the first time being with somebody who was just trying to use you." She took a breath to speak, but he kept going, laying a finger across lips swollen with kisses, then gently tracing their outline with his thumb as he spoke.

"Ah. How do I know it's the first time? After all, this has always been our one taboo subject, hasn't it?" He stopped the movement of his thumb, and quirked an eyebrow at her. "Give me a little bit of credit for perception, hmm? You haven't dated, not even away at school. A one-night stand would be impossible for you. And your reactions tonight show me that this is all new to you." She flushed again. "Please don't think I mean that in any bad way -- I'm honored that you've let me experience a part of you, a beautiful part, that no one else has.

"Please let me show you how beautiful the rest can be."

Her resolve wavered. "I don't want to stop. But I don't want to go all the way."

"Okay." he said thoughtfully. "How about this? We'll just go bit by bit, step by step, and you can stop me anytime you think I'm going too far, and we'll talk about it."

She smiled shyly. "That sounds good."

His smile could have lit up the night. "Excellent. Ready to try something new?" At her nod, he carefully untwined himself from her and moved back a few inches, propping himself up on his left arm. She remained on her right side, facing him. His face grew serious, and he put his right hand on her shoulder. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, his fingers traced the neckline of her shirt, barely brushing her cleavage. She shuddered and threw her head back. Every part of her body, it seemed, was extra sensitized. His fingers slowed as he reached the ribbon bow at the center. He tugged it loose, and then began to run his fingers underneath the edge of the shirt, loosening it. He stroked the edges off her shoulders, pulling the cream cotton down until it puddled around her elbows. All that remained between him and her breasts was a white bra with satin straps and white lace edging. The sight of her tits almost overflowing the delicate cups was nearly enough to finish him off right there. She was watching him with desire mixed with apprehension. It was time to take charge.

He pushed at her left shoulder, rolling her onto her back. Then he raised himself further on his left arm, trailed his right fingertips down from her shoulder, over the lace, and then cupped her satin-clad breast in his hand. His thumb started slowly circling the lace over the nipple, feeling it harden instantly under his ministrations. She gasped, and arched her back, pressing herself against his hand. He took that opportunity to lean down and begin to suckle the point through her bra, pulling strongly. She was so shocked, so aroused that she actually let out a tiny scream. Her hands flew up, hampered by the fabric stretched around her arms, and cradled his head against her, fingers threading through his hair. He lifted his head enough to switch breasts, moving his hand to continue to torment the nipple he had just released, teasing and stroking it through the wet fabric. After working the second one in a similar fashion, making her writhe under him, he raised his head slightly and blew gently on her sensitized skin. She shuddered.

"Do you want more?"

"Yes," she hissed.

"Do you want me to take off your bra?" She shuddered again.

"Please," she moaned.

He deftly undid the clasp in the shadow between her breasts, then gently slid the straps off her shoulders. He slid his fingers under the edges of the cups, caressing her as he released her from the cups, then he slid the whole thing down her arms until it rested on top of her pushed down blouse. Her torso rose naked, beautiful from the soft tumble of fabric that trapped her arms at her sides. He stared in heated wonder at the tits he had dreamt about for so long, soft, round and perfect, each topped with an erect nipple, swollen and dusky pink from his ministrations, bouncing with each excited breath. He couldn't move for a moment. "You're so beautiful," he whispered. "Eric?" she gasped. "Please don't stop right now. Please?" She trembled, and arched her back, offering herself to him, and his stillness broke. He surged forward, fell upon her, and feasted, nuzzling and licking and nipping, then suckling deep and hard as if he was trying to pull the entire breast into his mouth. He switched back and forth, making sure he stroked and cupped and tickled each sweet peak when his mouth was on the other. Her groans grew louder, and she squirmed almost continually underneath him. He was completely on top of her now, on his knees between hers, and it took all his willpower not to just whip out his cock, shove her damp panties and shorts aside and just claim her for once and for all.

Time to start moving towards the goal.

He gave one last sharp suck to her right nipple, then worked his way to the center of her chest, and began to kiss and lick his way down her taut belly. He paused to swirl his tongue in her navel, and she giggled -- a good sign. He only paused for a second before resuming his determined progress southward.

He reached the edge of her shorts, and deliberately sat back on his heels. This needed to be a conscious decision on her part. She looked at him, a question in her slumbrous, passion-dazed eyes. "May I take these off?" he asked, gently stroking his hands over her squirming hips as he spoke. She bit her lip, doubt clouding her gaze. "I promise not to do anything you don't want to do."

Passion won. "Okay," she whispered. He slid his fingers under the waistbands of both her shorts and her panties; he wasn't going to ask permission twice, and if he gave her more time to think about it she might view the panties as one final inviolable wall. He slid his hands down and backward, cupping her ass as he pulled off the garments, distracting her with more sweet kisses down her abdomen until he reached... Good Lord. He grinned, and looked a question at her.

As naked as she was already to his view, she had the grace to blush. "Swim team," she murmured. "They make us shave."

God bless swim team, then. He renewed his tender assault with even greater enthusiasm, if that was possible, tasting his way down across her shaved mound as he pulled her damp clothes away from his ultimate destination. He quickly pulled back, picked up both her legs and pushed them together and up until they were draped over his left shoulder, and stared into her eyes with a wicked grin as he smoothed the pants off her legs, removing her delicate sandals at the same time.