I was fourteen when my mother gave me 'the talk'. I still remember it as clearly as the pimple that has now engulfed my chin. She sat me down at the kitchen table and explained the importance of knowing all the facts, in every gruesome detail. She even had pictures. I tried to tell her that I had already been taught this at school, but according to my mother this was a conversation best had between a mother and her daughter. Some kind of rite of passage for young ladies, I suppose.

Now don't get me wrong, ever since I caught a glimpse of my neighbour, Nate Everett, naked through my bedroom window my interest in boys had peaked to molten lava, but I knew I wasn't ready to erupt just yet. I was only fourteen, for crying out loud. But it was important to my mother. So I sat and listened, and didn't even cringe or smirk when she pulled out a banana and began to unravel a condom down the proverbial shaft. Her words, not mine.

She let me practice. She taught me to hold the tip of the condom between two fingers while I rolled it on. A buffer, she called it.

It was embarrassing at first but I quickly got the hang of it. There was a look of adulation on my mother's face, like I had just taken my very first steps. It was a little unnerving. That she was so eager to see me succeed. It seemed to me like she had been planning my first time before I even knew what the term meant.

I hope she realised that it wouldn't be like my fist day of school where the parents stayed for a while until their children were settled. My mother and I are close, but not that close.

After, she took me out for ice-cream. I ordered a banana split laden with hot fudge sauce, nuts and whipped cream. I was trying to be ironic. She ordered the same.

Three years later and the time has finally come to the take the plunge. Do the dirty, pop the cherry or whatever you want to call it. And three years on, I'm still not sure if I'm ready. The pimple doesn't help. I feel it is laughing at me.

I know that it is not going to perfect like the love making in my mother's romance novels, and it will be awkward and most likely hurt like hell, but it would have been nice to have a zit-free face when I saunter sexily into the bedroom across the hall.

It's strange, you know. Puberty had been relatively kind to me. I am well proportioned, my periods aren't all sorts of crazy and I very rarely get pimples. Today being an exception. I can only put it down to a cruel joke, descended from whichever god takes pleasure in making this monumental occasion that little bit scarier, for I am sure there is one. Thanks for that.

Maybe I'm being over-dramatic. Maybe he won't notice. Maybe pigs fly.

I sighed. There was one other problem. Having checked through my underwear drawer, and apart from a bra and thong set that my friend Isabelle bought me I had absolutely nothing decent (or indecent) to wear.

I had made straight for the town centre and bought a gorgeous strawberry-pink silk bra with matching lacy pants. I had showed Isabelle what I had bought and she seemed a little doubtful about my purchase. She said that guys (the heterosexual ones anyway) weren't really into the pretty pastel underwear and preferred black or scarlet push-up bras, possibly made from nylon or leather, with matching butterfly thongs. She didn't help my cause.

For my first time I'm sticking with the pretty in pink. If Jace prefers leather and butterflies, well, that's what fantasies are for, right?

I surveyed myself in the mirror. I had put my new underwear on, and dare I say it, I actually looked kind of sexy, in a nervous knee-trembling kind of way. Did I mention I was nervous?

I closed my eyes, calmly took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. 'This is Jace,' I reminded myself. 'Not some random stranger off the sidewalk. You can do this. You can do this.' Repeated ten times.

I opened my eyes and new girl stared back at me. One with a renewed confidence, a sexy looking body, and a hunger like no other. Positive thinking definitely works wonders. I slipped my arms into my nightgown and snuck out of my room.

Jace's door was less than six feet away, and behind it my angel boy was waiting, patiently.

I reached for the door handle, paused, and took one last breath, for I was sure he would take my breath away. He always does.

I laughed to myself. This was finally going to happen. Goose bumps broke out on my skin as the nervousness resurfaced.

'Come on, Fray. Suck it up.'

I turned the cold handle and pushed the door open.

Jace stood silently, staring out the window as the rain pounded against the glass. I closed the door behind me and walked over to him. Before I could speak, he spun around and yanked me to him, pressing my body to his and capturing my mouth. The kiss was hot and fierce, unquenchable even by the rain that cascaded down.

A growl sounded deep in his throat as I streaked my hands over his chest, down his sides to rest on his lower back, and pulled him closer.

Pressing kisses to my chin and neck, Jace edged me onto his bed and gently lay me down.

He suddenly moved a little closer and kissed me hard. I kissed him back, possibly even harder. It was so fresh. Gradually his kisses changed from hard and savage to soft and teasing, making little light contacts with my lips in one spot after another. It was exciting. We did that for quite a time, then lay our heads on each others shoulders. I felt the smooth hollow under his collarbone, his skin warm and alive. I nudged it with my lips, making little murmuring noises to it, and rubbed my hands up his arms.

I found his pulse under his skin and concentrated in kissing that. He was humming quietly, I thought, but I wasn't sure if it was his skin or his voice. He played with my hair and the back of my neck. With his long fine fingers he teased my hair out, unravelling a few knots and letting the strands slide across his hands.

'Nice hair,' he said at last.

'Thanks.' I laughed.

He must have taken that for encouragement, because he moved his hand down under my night gown for the first time, feeling for my shoulder blades.

My night gown was still wrapped around my front as Jace's hands kept roaming. I lay still for a while, feeling guilty that I wasn't doing more but enjoying his touch too much.

My skin had become so heated that I thought his hands would catch fire.

'Oh God, Jace…' I said, but I couldn't think of how to finish that sentence. My own hands went further than they should have, down his waist and beyond. It was as though they had a life of their own.

'Have you got a…?' I asked, turning my head away a little.

'A what?' he asked.

'You know, a condom.'

'How many do you think I'll need?' he asked seriously.

'Ha, ha, very funny. Just one.'

I could feel his smile as he kissed me on the lips before disappearing out the door. I lay there smiling. I couldn't believe I was actually going to do it. I hoped I wouldn't muck it up and that it wouldn't hurt too much and that it would feel fantastic. I was nervous, but I was still aching all over with the need for him, longing to feel him against me again. His warm hands had felt fantastic.

It seemed ages before he came back, but at last he came in and flung himself on top of me, clutching a little packet in his hand.

With a shy grin, trying to do it as modestly as possible, I slipped from my night gown and removed my underwear. Jace did the same.

To feel our two naked bodies together, skin to skin, was the wildest feeling of my life. I thought I had been fired up before, but now it was like sparks were shooting off me.

Jace had cooled down with the walk to the bathroom, but I warmed him by rubbing against him, and felt him quickly react.

'Put it on,' I said at last, nodding at his clenched fist. He peeled it open and lifted himself off me looking down so he could see what he was doing. I watched curiously.

'Don't look,' he said blushing and trying to put his forearm over my eyes.

'Oh,' I said, 'you're so cute when you're shy.'

When he was ready I hugged him to me and nibbled his ear for a minute, before wrapping my legs around him.

I relished Jace. Every touch, every sensation, every incredible, mind-bending orgasm. Three times. I didn't think that was possible for a first time.

I lay there then, in his arms, and he held me as if I were the most cherished thing in the universe.

All in all, I felt pretty good. A bit sore occasionally, when I moved the wrong way, but pretty good. Scratch that. Pretty good doesn't even come close to how I am feeling right now. Floating on clouds, maybe. Yeah, that's it.