Virgin 4 Life

Chapter 18

I lock the door with hands that aren't shaking anymore. This is it—my last night before St. Catherine's, maybe my last night with him ever. Tomorrow doesn't exist. There's only now.

I turn to face him, and for once, I'm not the girl who follows rules or seeks approval. I'm not V4L or Caleb's whore or daddy's perfect daughter. I'm just Evie, and I know exactly what I want.

"I know what you've been waiting for," I say, my voice steady despite my racing heart. "You want me to beg like I mean it. Not because I'm upset or desperate or broken, but because I choose you."

I move closer, each step deliberate. "I choose you, Caleb. Even knowing you're scared. Even knowing you might run. Even knowing this might destroy us both."

"Evie—" he starts, but I press my finger to his lips.

"No more games. No more waiting for the perfect moment that never comes." I take his face in my hands, feeling the tension in his jaw. "I'm done being afraid. Done being the girl things happen to instead of the girl who makes them happen."

I pull his mouth to mine, kissing him with intention for the first time. Not desperate, not begging, but claiming. My hands move to his shirt, pulling it over his head, revealing all those tattoos I've only glimpsed. My fingers trace the ink like I'm reading braille, learning the stories his skin tells.

"You're shaking," he says against my mouth.

"Not from fear." I pull back to look at him. "From wanting. From finally letting myself have what I've needed since that first day on the roof."

I push him toward the bed, and he lets me—this boy who's always been in control, letting me lead. When he sits on the edge, I stand between his legs, my hands in his hair.

"Tell me you want this," I demand. "Not the game, not the power. This. Us."

His hands grip my waist, pulling me closer. "I've wanted this since you dropped to your knees that first time and I had to say no. It almost killed me."

"Then why—"

"Because I knew once I had you, I'd never let you go." His voice breaks. "And everyone I don't let go of leaves anyway."

I tilt his chin up, making him look at me. "I'm not everyone. I'm the girl who climbed out a window for you. Who failed calculus for you. Who chose you over everything that used to matter."

The kiss that follows is different from every one before. Slow, deep, honest. No pretense, no performance, just truth. His hands travel my body like he's memorizing me, like he knows this might be our only night.

When I pull my dress over my head, standing before him in only moonlight and want, he looks at me like I'm something holy he's about to desecrate.

"You're beautiful," he says, and I believe him because his voice shakes when he says it.

What happens next rewrites everything that came before. Every teasing touch, every denial, every game was just preparation for this—for the moment when all the walls come down and we're just two people who need each other more than air.

He touches me like I'm precious and breakable. I show him I'm neither. His hands map every inch of skin like he's trying to memorize me by touch alone.

I trace his tattoos with my tongue, tasting salt and desire and something uniquely him. We're a tangle of limbs and whispered promises, of gasped names and breathless pleas that have nothing to do with begging and everything to do with worship.

"You're shaking," he murmurs against my collarbone, his mouth leaving marks I'll wear like jewelry.

"So are you," I breathe back, my nails dragging down his spine, feeling him shudder.

We move together like we've done this a thousand times, like our bodies were made to fit together this way, every curve and angle designed for this exact moment. The sounds we make would have horrified the girl I was four months ago—desperate, primal, honest.

When he tries to be gentle, I demand more, my teeth finding his shoulder, marking him as mine. When I try to be quiet, he finds that spot that makes me forget my own name, making me cry out confessions I didn't know I was keeping.

"Look at me," he commands when I close my eyes, overwhelmed by the sensation of finally, finally having what I've craved for months. "I want to see you. All of you."

So I do. I let him see everything—the want that's consumed me, the need that's rewritten my DNA, the complete surrender to this moment. And he shows me the same, all his walls destroyed, just Caleb without armor or attitude or protection. His eyes are wet, and I realize mine are too.

Every denied touch, every moment he pulled back, every time I begged—it all crashes together in a symphony of finally. We're clumsy with need, graceless with want, both of us trembling like this is our first time being truly seen. When it's over, we lie there stunned, like survivors of a hurricane we created.

"That was..." I can't finish the sentence.

"Yeah," he breathes against my shoulder. "Yeah, it was."

"I wanted this for so long," he admits in the space between, his fingers tracing patterns on my spine. "Every time I said no, it killed me a little."

"Then why?" I have to know.

"Because you deserved better than quick and meaningless. You deserved to be sure. To choose it, not just fall into it."

Afterward, we lie tangled in his sheets, both breathing hard, my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat slow. Everything has changed between us. The games are over. The pretense is dead. We're just us now, raw and real and terrifyingly honest.

"I'll still get into Yale," I say suddenly. "I'll retake the SATs, do summer courses for the failed classes. That's the only reason they might reject me now."

He tenses beneath me. "You're still going?"

I turn to face him, tracing the tattoo over his heart. "Come with me. Not to Yale, but to Connecticut. Get a job, take community college classes, whatever. Just... come with me."

The silence stretches so long I count his heartbeats—forty-seven before he speaks.

"You're asking me to leave everything."

"I'm asking you to stop being afraid." I prop myself up on an elbow, my hair falling like a curtain around us. "We could have a real relationship. No more games, no more pretending we don't care. Just us, figuring it out together."

"What about your father? Military school? They're picking you up in—" he checks his phone "—three hours."

"I'll be nineteen next week. Legally, he can't force me." I trace patterns on his chest, feeling brave and insane and absolutely certain. "I have money saved. Enough to get an apartment, to get started. The question is whether you're brave enough to try."

He looks at me—really looks at me—this girl who walked into his life as a virgin everyone mocked and transformed into someone who takes what she wants, who chose him over everything safe and certain.

"You're insane," he says softly. "You're talking about throwing away your entire life plan for someone your father calls a delinquent."

"Maybe." I kiss him softly, tasting the possibility of a future I never imagined. "But I'm yours. Completely, irrevocably yours. The question is: are you mine?"

The silence stretches between them, heavy with the weight of the choice. Outside, Monday morning traffic is starting. In three hours, a van from St. Catherine's will arrive at my father's house. He has to decide—stay in his safe, broken patterns, or risk everything for the girl who sees through all his armor.

"Ask me again," he says finally, his voice rough with emotion.

"Come with me, Caleb."

"Okay."

It's just one word, but it rewrites our entire future.

"Really?" I can barely breathe.

He pulls me down for a kiss that tastes like promise. "You jumped off the edge for me. Least I can do is jump with you."

We have three hours to pack our lives, to leave notes for the people we're leaving, to disappear before my father realizes I'm never coming back. Three hours to end one story and begin another.

But right now, in this bed that smells like us, with his arms around me and our future uncertain but ours, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

"I love you," I say, the words escaping without permission.

He's quiet for a moment, then: "I've loved you since you threatened to blackmail me on that roof."