“Fuck,” he said.

“See, it is a song. Just one only we’re ever going to listen to.”

He chuckled, and pulled her against him. He kissed her neck, down her collarbone, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking hard. And it was better than just putting her fingertips on his cheek so that she could feel his stubble; his whiskers burned all over the tender skin of her chest.

It was intimate. Real and intense in a way she had never imagined this could be.

She felt like all her desires were somewhat childish. Or something she didn’t quite understand. She got it now. She didn’t know why the Tansey before this moment had been afraid. That girl hadn’t understood. How right it would feel. How perfect.

She hadn’t known just how wonderful it could be. She hadn’t understood.

How easy, how right it was, when it was the person. The one.

But he knew her. The dark and ugly things. Her petty little heart and how much she wanted revenge on her father, how profoundly she’d been hurt by him.

How afraid she was. He knew those things. He knew those things and he seemed to just like her anyway. The way that she was.

And when he took the rest of her clothes off, and put his hand between her thighs, she cried out, not just because of the pleasure, but because of the overwhelming sensation of the emotion that was flooding her body.

Because it was deeper than desire. More than arousal.

He pushed a finger inside of her and she flexed her hips, trying to acclimate to the unfamiliar sensation. She liked it; it was just not...not something she’d experienced before.

He put a second finger in and began to thrust in and out of her gently, allowing her body to get used to him.

And then, very suddenly, she felt pleasure break over her like a wave, her internal muscles pulsing around him. She cried out, and he withdrew from her, then put his fingers in his mouth, sucking on them, slow and leisurely, like he was savoring the taste of her. And she shivered. “I have been waiting for this,” he said.

He moved down her body and grabbed hold of her thighs, then he pushed them out wide, lowering his head to her center and tasting her deep. Long. She clung to him, forking her fingers through his hair and holding him there. Arching her body against him as she writhed with need. He pushed his fingers back inside her again as he teased her with his lips, his tongue. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do a damn thing but submit to the onslaught of pleasure.

She lost herself. In the absolute wave of need. In the wildness of her desire. And as she lay there spent, he moved away from her, going into the adjoining bathroom for a moment and returning with a box of condoms.

She was torn between...indignation, a lot of questions and relief.

“I’m an optimist,” he said, by way of explanation. “And anyway, it’s better safe than sorry.”

“Well. I guess that is true.”

He chuckled, tearing the box open, and then taking a strip out, tearing an individual condom from the strip. And then opening it quickly. He took care of the necessities, and then joined her back on the bed. He pressed his forehead to hers, and kissed her, deep and long. “Ready?”

She nodded, words deserting her entirely. He pressed himself inside of her, inch by inch, filling her. And the emotion that swamped her was almost too much to bear. It was beautiful. Wonderful. And so much more. This wasn’t just about pleasure. Not just about satisfaction. Flint was inside of her. And she felt like something more than she’d ever been before. Complete in a way. In touch with parts of herself that she had never given a whole lot of thought to.

She had been right to be afraid of this. It was too much. It was transformative. She had been right to be afraid of it, but now, she embraced it. Wholly. Completely. With all that she was.

He began to move, deep, decisive thrusts, and she clung to him, until she began to feel the rhythm, find it. Arching her hips against his each and every time he moved against her.

She surrendered to it. To him. And when her climax hit, she could scarcely breathe. It was too much. And not enough all at once. Overwhelming, leaving her storm-tossed and just right where she needed to be.

With him. She was wild, and fractured, but safe all at once, because she was in his arms, and she knew that she could trust him.

And when his own climax hit, when his control fractured, his movements becoming hard and erratic, a growl rising up inside of him, she thought it might almost be better than her own pleasure. This man’s pleasure. This man coming apart because of her.

Because he might be her first, but he’d had any number of women. And that he could still fall apart over her mattered.

And she didn’t think of her mother’s dire warnings then. Because it was different. He was different.

And they were different together. Maybe different than anyone had ever been.

The euphoria of it all carried her off to sleep. And she just let him hold her.

And she felt...like she was home.

She was still in a euphoric haze the next day when her manager called and said that a major radio station had picked her song up for airplay as part of an indie artist showcase. She wasn’t really going for being an indie artist, but if it got her radio airplay... Well, it was more than anything else had ever done.

It felt exposing, that song. And yet... It was what she wanted her dad to hear, wasn’t it? What he had done to her.

“It’s going to be on a radio station,” she said to Flint.

“That’s amazing,” he said. “And fast.”

“I guess... When they know, they know. I just kind of can’t believe that... Something I just kind of threw together like that...”

“The song was from your heart. It didn’t need anything other than your voice.”

And she held that close. That confidence. That simple belief in her.

Her manager decided to distribute the song online, which she hadn’t done before, mostly because she didn’t see why anybody would want to hear the song if none of the radio stations wanted to play it, but he was adamant that they get it out there before it played so that people could look it up after. Which was a good idea.

So within two days, the song was published onto various streaming platforms. And then something very unexpected happened.

The song got picked up on a popular app when a viral “daddy issues” challenge happened, and people played the song in the background while listing terrible things their fathers had done. Making light of it, and using dark humor, but it pushed the sound around, which pushed it up various streaming charts in a way that no one expected.

Least of all Tansey.

“It’s number one on the country streaming chart now,” she said, shaking as she walked down the stairs into the living room.

Flint stood up and picked her up and swung her in a circle. “Does that mean I get to buy you a truck now?”

“You can’t buy me a truck.”

“Well, you won something, surely.”

“You did,” she said. “You’re the one that told me I had to record that song.”

“I think you gotta go with your feelings.”

That was when she got a call that a morning show wanted to interview her, because she had gone from unknown to number one streaming thanks to the viral nature of the hit.

And she really had no idea how to process the fact that all of this had happened in a couple of weeks. The nature of the internet, she guessed, but it was just so far outside her comfort zone, and she was dealing with the fact that she was in love for the first time in her life, and having sex.