My panties were my only protection. Suddenly shy, I plopped back on the bed and crossed my arms over my breasts as my most pressing issue came up once again. And I didn’t mean the pink torpedo shooting out from between Christos’ legs.

“You know, Christos,” I said, my sexy bedroom voice replaced by a trembling one. “I’m still a virgin.”

“I know,” he whispered, still kneeling at my feet. He rested a comforting hand on my knee.

“And you’re not.” I winced when I said it, dropping my head onto the bed and staring at the ceiling. I teared instantly. Why did this bother me so much? I had no explanation. But I was tremendously sad, as if I’d lost something before ever finding it.

Christos crawled onto the bed and laid beside me. He propped himself on one elbow and gazed at me.

He stroked my hair out of my face and smiled at me in a small, private, intimate way. There was a sudden softness to his face that was new to me. It was perhaps the most beautiful expression I’d ever seen on another human being. I took several deep breaths, and really took in the look of loving compassion in his eyes. It was tremendously comforting. He was completely vulnerable and open to me in that moment.

As he opened his mouth to speak, my heart raced out of control. I think I feared what came next, simply because it was the unknown.

“I’ve never given my heart to anyone, agápi mou. You are my first. And you will be my last. You are my forever.”

My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe my ears.

The universe collapsed in on itself.

Somehow, on an atomic level, I knew his words were the truth. He was truth.

Oh my god.

I knew then that he could take my virginity. I was ready to let him.

I reached up to caress his cheek. My hand trembled. I could barely speak as my tears flowed freely. I whispered, “Christos, I, I love you, so much, I…”

He gazed into my soul, his eyes alight with brilliant, abundant love. His lips curled into a dimpled smile, but the customary cockiness was not there. Only warmth, acceptance, certainty, and love.

Love.

My heart slowed and my breath returned. I realized that I was not about to let Christos take my virginity. I was willingly giving it to him, giving my gift to the one man to whom it truly belonged, for him to treasure and protect forever.

I was filled with a warm, soothing confidence that this gift I was about to give to Christos was unique, and this moment would never be repeated in my entire life. Or his. It only happened once. For either of us.

This was it.

This was true love.

Christos lowered his lips to mine and began kissing me.

Interlude

SAMANTHA

We kissed passionately for a long time. Our lips were joined, our tongues entwined, our hearts united. His hands stroked my face, his murmurs caressed my soul. We kissed increasingly deeply, our passion growing and expanding to encircle both of us, blocking out the outside world.

All that existed was Christos and myself.

I was scared, but I had never felt safer. Worried, but confident that Christos was the only man on Earth who could protect my tender heart. I was fearful, but the connection I felt with Christos gave me courage. My heart had been empty for so long, but now I felt it filled to completion. With Christos.

At last.

His hand slid down my naked chest and his fingers brushed across my nipples, stopping on one, gently plucking and twisting. My nipple ached with succulent hardness. I moaned softly, our lips still together, and he swallowed my passion.

His powerful hand kneaded the entirety of my full breast. Swirls of pleasure whirlpooled around it before dissolving throughout my body.

It felt so incredibly good.

Without breaking our kiss, he slid his knee over my legs and was hovering above me, sitting astride his heels. He massaged both my breasts simultaneously. I was consumed by his mouth. His tongue fought with mine, filling me.

I felt my other nipple pinched. I gave into electric sensation as another maelstrom of energy erupted out from the center of this breast, and the two currents of energy now swirling in each co-mingled and pulsed down to my core. My sudden awareness of my own heat between my legs alerted me to a foreign, throbbing presence. His immense length was laying across my panties, a thin filament of cotton between his manhood and my womanhood.

I wanted it. I needed it.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He reached over to the nightstand and opened the box of condoms. He pulled one out, tore the package, and squeezed the tip while rolling it onto the length of his erection.

His smile curled up mischievously as he hooked his fingers through the waistband of my panties. “It’s your last chance to abandon ship before this submarine submerges.”

I blurted laughter. It rolled out long and loud. Soon, Christos was laughing with me. He hovered over me on all fours, his arms two stout columns on either side of my face. I inhaled the scent of him on the breeze of his laughter. He was so sweet, in every way, to all of my senses. Sight, sound, taste…touch. I was finally ready for the ultimate touch. Christos was the perfect man, perfectly erect, right between my legs.

“Dive, Captain, Dive! Pull those panties off!” I said in my version of a soldier’s voice, “before they catch fire!” I giggled again.

He made “Wee-Ooh, wee-ooh” noises as he slid my panties down.

As corny as the moment was, I honestly didn’t think I could possibly have crossed that final line of allowing myself to be exposed so fully to him if I hadn’t been laughing the entire time. Wasn’t humor supposed to be an aphrodisiac? I could testify to its seductive effects.

Christos sat up and dangled my panties over the side of the bed and gave me a questioning look, my final opportunity for reprieve.

I nodded.

He dropped my panties to the floor. I half expected them to explode like a bomb when they hit the carpet, but they merely shushed into a heap on top of our other castoff clothes.

Christos looked into my eyes for a long time. His were so infinitely blue, endless, limitless. They slowly darkened, all lightness gone as naked desire lowered his lashes over their smoky, shadowy depths.

He inhaled and exhaled heavily.

“I want you more than I have ever wanted anything, Samantha. You are the woman I have dreamed about all my life, but never found. You are the peace I have longed for. You are the home I’ve never had. You are the reassurance that life is beautiful, that life has purpose, that my time on this earth with you is the most precious gift in existence.”

My heart exploded with love.

I held my arms out to him and he lowered himself on top of me. I opened my heart to him completely. My legs parted freely. He lay back down at my side, his knee draped over my thigh. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next until his hand reached over and began caressing my wet cleft. His index finger slid up and down my entrance, teasing it open, spreading my slickness around as his finger pushed and explored.

We weren’t kissing, but we stared into each other’s eyes while his finger probed deeper and deeper. I wasn’t aware of how deeply he’d gone until I felt his knuckles brush against my wetness. Then he withdrew his finger slowly. No! I wanted his finger back!

Then two fingers slid inside me and I shuddered and moaned, “Oh, it’s so good, Christos…”

He began an easy rhythm with his hand. Pleasure wound up inside my pelvis at an alarming speed. I was going to come. There was no stopping it. I tried to hold his gaze, but my body bucked as my head lifted from the pillow and my eyelids fluttered. I couldn’t, it was so, the pleasure, so intense, oh god, it was…

I moaned. “Cah, cah, cah, Christos…”

“Let it out, agápi mou. Let it all out.”