I have on a sundress for perfect access. It’s like fate knew I’d need him this way today. I’m unbuttoning his shorts and tugging them down his legs, releasing the part of him I need right now. He’s amused and his eyes are dark and hooded as I wrap my hand around him.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, reaching between my legs to feel how much I want him. “Damn,” he mouths lifting me up and guiding me against the wall.
He fills me in one thrust and I’m in heaven. Seriously, heaven has opened up and I hear the singing again, the stars shining, the fireworks exploding. His magic. It travels in all directions. Taking me on an exploration of beauty in various colors of love and lust.
My back arches, my head lolling back against the wall in pure ecstasy. This is so not me, so far from something I would ever do, yet I’m doing it, and it’s a complete thrill. I love every second of it. He’s holding me up by my ass. I’m having a moment of déjà vu where he fucked me against the wall in the back room at the bar, where I just knew it was a desperate moment before he left me broken.
Not this time.
This time, it’s me desperately needing him to fuck me against this wall because I’m not broken anymore and I want him so badly. “Josh,” I whisper in his ear biting it gently. He groans and his thrusts become harder, rougher and deeper.
“Fuck, baby!” he growls into my shoulder as I scrape my fingernails along his neck. I grab his head by his hair and kiss him. We kiss and we come together—our mouths swallowing up the intense moans and groans of our release—our sweet, sweet release.
When we both come down from our high, he laughs. “This wasn’t expected at all. Wow! I came in here for a McDouble and got a McGasm instead. Damn good service.” He walks to the sink laughing, wets a paper towel and then he cleans me up.
I kiss his cheek when he’s done taking care of me. “A McGasm? Funny. So much better than what I had planned,” I admit.
His eyebrow lifts. “Is that so? And what did you have planned at McDonalds besides food?”
I laugh nervously and his face becomes even more confused. It’s adorable. “Not a McDouble. Emily wouldn’t shut up about sex and magic mouths and I got…bothered by it thinking about you.”
His mouth falls open. “You stopped here to fix yourself out. Damn, baby, you’re killing me with these images, pretty girl. One of these days you’re going to show it to me.”
I put my panties back on and refuse to meet his eyes. “Ugh…no. I was just going to use the bathroom and splash my face with cool water, or something.” I meet his eyes in the mirror and ask innocently, “Show you what?”
He grabs me by my shoulders and presses his chest to my back. I can feel his breath on my neck and makes me shiver. He glides his hands up my legs and down where he cups me. “How you pleasure yourself thinking of me,” he whispers in my ear, nipping and then licking the spot that always makes me squirm with want.
My mouth opens and shuts, my heart going wild and crazy again. He has me turned inside out, like he’s my water and I’ve been walking miles in the hot desert sun, needing only him to quench my thirst. I’m always so thirsty for more with him.
Someone knocks on the door and the hypnosis is broken. We step apart and break out into a fit of giggles.
“Thank you,” I tell him and have an inward cringe attack at my own word choice. Should I have said that?
He smirks and slaps my ass on the way out the door. “No, thank you.”
We’re met with an older woman on the other side with her toddler. She gasps and covers her child’s eyes with her hand. She frowns and makes a tsk’ing sound as we retreat from her knowing gaze. My cheeks are flaming hot, shame and embarrassment racing to the surface.
Outside in the parking lot Collin is sitting in the passenger seat with Emily perched on his lap. They are talking, but when Josh and I walk over they both zero in on us and climb out of the car.
One look and they know. My hair is a mess. My face is flushed. Josh’s hair is wild from my hands running through the ends. We look thoroughly fucked.
“Dude,” Collin says bumping fists with Josh. Gah.
Emily’s mouth falls open, “You hussy. You totally just screwed him in the bathroom of a McDonalds?” She asks, loud enough for me to be embarrassed.
I run over to her and throw my hand over her mouth. “Do you have to say it so friggen loud? He was there and I… Just get in the damn car,” I tell her waving to the open car door.
“Well, I’m hungry now, so we need to go through the drive thru. And I’m kind of jealous. I didn’t get bathroom banged,” she whines. “That’s something I would do, not you, little miss innocent.”
Collin laughs. “Awww, baby. My car is right there. I can backseat bang you real quick. It won’t take too long.”
I hide my face in Josh’s side when he walks over. I’m so humiliated. These two always seem to catch me at my most indecent. Josh kisses the side of my face and pulls me to my side of the car. He lifts my chin with his index finger. “Have a safe drive home. If you make any future stops for adjustments call me and I’ll help talk you through it. Better yet, Facetime me.”
I slap his chest and growl in frustration. He laughs at me and pecks my lips. “Enjoy your McDouble.” I say against his lips.
He leans down to my ear, causing my breath to catch. “Thanks, but my appetite’s been fed by this hot girl that just happened to be somewhere unexpected.” He lifts his head. “I’m not hungry anymore after my McGasm,” he winks. He’s never going to let me live this one down I just know it. Who would’ve thought? This definitely goes down in the memory book. I roll my eyes and blush profusely. He smirks. “I love you, Shaw,” he says, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“I love you, Parker.”
We kiss sweetly before saying goodbye again and this time for real. He won’t magically appear anywhere else again today.
I’d love to say Emily didn’t mention the bathroom incident again, but of course she does within the first fifteen minutes of our drive back on the interstate. She wants to know every sordid detail and I keep my lips sealed tight for the most part. That’s personal to me.
I do give her a little bit. “Sex is peculiar, ya know? I’m learning new things…like I’ve realized that sometimes I don’t want to make love sweetly. I just need to—,”
“Be fucked,” Emily, states crass as ever interrupting me. “I totally get it,” she says.
“Uh…” I nod, because yes, she’s right, but I would have chosen different words. “I was going to say be rough and quick, but yes, sometimes I just want to fuck. Thankfully, Josh knows me so well. He knows how to love me and fuck me at the same time. So, I get double the pleasure.”
Emily’s mouth falls open. “Oh, my God. You’re a total fiend for him now.”
I can’t disagree. I am.
Thankfully, we switch the topic and begin singing along to songs on the radio for hours. We talk about how she and Collin are officially together now. She tells me Collin signed another year with LSU for baseball and so she’s considering transferring now that they are committed. I tell her about Josh losing his scholarship and how he might come home for school. Then we have a moment of sadness where we realize that our plan to reunite with our boys might be her and I going separate ways for school.
“Shit, Riley. That sucks. I just figured we’d both move together. We’d be like the hot foursome on campus. Well, not that kind, but you know what I mean, right?” she says.
“I know what you mean, and yes…it sucks.” It wasn’t going to be that for us. Our foursome would be severed in the middle—two and two.
We stop in Dallas at a Sonic for dinner before it gets too late. We’re parked and waiting for our food. Emily is in the driver seat now and I’ve got my bare feet hanging out the window bouncing my toes to the music playing through the speakers.
“You know who that bitch Natalie reminds me of?” Emily asks out of the blue.
“Who?”
“Preslee. Alwa
ys wanting something she can’t have and always starting trouble. God, I’m so glad I’m not like that anymore.”
I hate hearing Preslee’s name and haven’t missed hearing it at all. “You were never like them,” I say.
She snorts. “I totally was. You know that, but it’s nice that you see the best in me.” She looks far away. “Where do you think she’s been?”
“Who?” I ask.
“Preslee,” she says. “Don’t you think it’s odd? She helps Dean kidnap you basically and then she’s just poof. Gone.”
I pull my feet into the window when the lady rolls on her skates to us with our food. We pay and set about eating our very unhealthy dinner. “I assume she’s with Dean. He’s gone. She’s gone. Makes sense, right?”
She takes a bite of her French fry. “Hopefully they drove off a cliff somewhere.”
I don’t tell Emily that I worry about Dean being missing. That I worry about him at all because I shouldn’t. That I’d almost feel safer if he weren’t gone because then I’d know what’s coming next. Him being in the dark makes me uncomfortable.
“Riley, wake up. We’re here.” Emily tugs on my arm. “C’mon, I really have to pee,” she says rushing me.
I climb out of the car and to the trunk where I grab my duffle bag. We shut the trunk and walk around the side of the car where I freeze. A car is parked next to ours. Not just any car, though. This car seems to have some memory attached to it—a memory I can’t grab. It’s like when you have a word on the tip of your tongue and you try to spit it out but can’t because you can’t remember it. I am having this moment standing by this vehicle right now. This car that I don’t remember seeing parked here before we left and is now.
“What are you doing? I really have to pee, Riley.”
I wave to the car. “I’m sorry. It’s this car. Do you recognize it?” I ask.
She stares at the car and shrugs. “No, I don’t. Can we go inside now? It’s late. I’m tired and my bladder is going to burst. Please?” she does a little dance with her legs.
“Yeah, okay.” I take another look at the car and try to shake the feeling that I should recognize it. Something about it is pulling at me like a magnet, telling me to remember, but I can’t.
We get to the door and I look down the walkway to Dean’s apartment. “The box is gone,” I say more to myself than to Emily.
She looks at me like I’m losing it. “What box?”
I point to his door. “The delivery box that had been sitting in front of his door for a week. It’s gone.” My heart free falls, the color draining from my face. “You don’t think that means he’s back. Do you?” I turn back to her with wide eyes.
She shakes her head. “The light is off. His bike wasn’t out there.” She opens the door and basically tugs me inside. “Seriously, Riley. Someone probably stole the box. I’m going to the bathroom, shower and sleeping till noon tomorrow.” She hugs me, and retreats down the hallway.
My insides are quivering and something doesn’t feel right, but I shake it off and make my way to my room where I call Josh to let him know I’m home safe and sound. His voice will soothe and calm me. Then I can sleep.
CHAPTER 24
The aftermath of an unexpected weekend is both beautiful and scary as hell. Like if I blink or breathe wrong, I might lose this beautiful feeling.
I keep fighting the feeling that if I breathe wrong, if I blink too fast, if I misstep then all of this will be gone. I will lose this moment, this consuming feeling that finally things are aligning just right with Riley and me. Something always happens to send our hearts skittering to the brink of no return. I just keep reminding myself that this is different; we are different now. She came to me. She made the move. She put the cards on the table, all hearts and I wasn’t folding. No fucking way. I was all in. I was taking a chance, gambling on forever and I just had to believe that we would both win.
“Damn, dude. It really sucks that the girls don’t have a Mardi Gras break like we do. We could have had more time with them,” Collin says, as I help him carry the keg into the frat house for tonight’s party. A party I don’t really want to attend, but will because this is what we do. “Side note, how fucking crazy that we got our girls back and we didn’t even expect it?”
I frown because it could have been the end to Riley and me completely if she hadn’t heard me out and believed me. I smile because we’ve grown. We’ve changed. She’s grown. She’s changed. She wants to believe in me and I believe in her. In us.
“Shit, I’m still in shock, I think. Two days was just a tease,” I admit forlornly. Two days that I didn’t even expect to have in the first place—two amazing, mind blowing days with Riley—the sweetest of surprises, sweetest of moments that I want more of…badly. She wanted us to have our first Mardi Gras together so that we wouldn’t miss a first time. She knew I didn’t want to have a first without her, that she has always been my first. Now, she’s all mine again and even our lasts will be together.
Thinking about Riley makes me even less in the partying mood tonight only because I want to immerse myself in her, not this. I just want to talk to her, be with her, hold her, but I am here, and she is there. We can’t change this distance, yet. No matter how much we wish we could just skip ahead to the moment we are back together completely. So it’s phone calls, texts, video chats.
I’m also irritated with my roommate who will be at the party. The dude is pissing me off and he and I are bumping heads. We’re like oil and water. I’m counting down months, days and hours until I’m not his roommate any longer. I went to my dorm room earlier tonight to get changed for the party after working out and as usual the sock was on the door. The sock is always on the fucking door. I get it—he has a girlfriend—one he likes to bang a lot, apparently, but still it’s a constant thorn in my side.
Maybe, it’s jealousy. Maybe, it’s because he doesn’t deserve to be so happy all of the damn time while I’m miserable without my girl here to hang a sock on the door for. I feel like a dick for thinking it in the first place because I am no more deserving of that happiness. I promised things to Riley that I broke all too quickly. I hurt the girl I love. I betrayed her trust and broke her heart. I said things to her I never meant to say, never meant at all. And she forgave me. She came to me. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I didn’t want to pretend to just be friends when we were so much more. I expected to beg, to grovel. To be punished a little longer. I had already punished myself. Living without her was misery. Who am I, though, to hate someone for what they have to enjoy daily? Yet, I do. I see him with his girlfriend naïve to how he is when she isn’t around. Kristen’s a senior in high school locally and comes to visit him on the weekends, but after dark when she’s home studying, preparing for ACT’s or some shit for graduation, he’s someone else. Not her high school boyfriend, not the one she thinks hung the moon and is waiting for their reunion. No, he’s just like Dean. Playing behind her back, being an ass and she’s oblivious.
I tell Collin I’m leaving to go shower and change and that I will be back later. I head out feeling both happy and sad. I already miss her, my chest is tight from the ache I always have for her. Are guys supposed to miss girls this much? Be this attached? Am I wired different that I only think of her, want her, need her? All I hear about from my friends is the different asses they tapped among other niceties that come from playing the field. None of it appeals to me. The only ass I want is hers. Even Collin was like that until recently. Maybe it’s love. Love that changes the way we think, the things we want and need. He loves Em and now he’s whipped and she’s tamed.
I’ve always loved Riley. Will always love her. So much so that I lived a façade for years, never doing what others thought I did because she was the one. She is always the one.
I’m walking the distance back to the dorm when my phone begins singing to me in Riley’s voice, wrapping all around me. Her ears must have been ringing from me thinking about her. I reach my phone out of my back pocket, smiling
as I slide my finger across the screen to answer.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I greet.
“Hey, Josh.” I love how she says my name. It sounds so sweet coming out of her mouth. Like poetry. Like my favorite song or line in a movie.
“You make it home without any horny pit stops?” I ask stifling my laughter, snickering only a little. I can’t help but joke with her about it.
She groans into the phone. “Gah, Josh. For real? No, I didn’t make a horny pit stop. And seriously! That was a one-time thing. Don’t expect bathroom booty like that again. I don’t know what got into me.”
I can’t hold it in any longer, my laughter. “Well, Tink. I’d say I got into you. I love being inside of, but you already know this, baby.”
I picture her hiding her face, blushing profusely, yet thinking about it—wanting it. “JOSH!” She says my name in a singsong voice, all high pitched and double syllables.
My side is in stitches from chuckling. “Okay, I’ll stop,” I say composing myself. “So, what are you doing?”
I hear shuffling and then she sighs. “I’m getting ready for bed. What about you?”
“Well, I’m walking to my dorm to change then heading to Collin’s for a party. Now, though…now I’m picturing you in bed. I wish I were there with you.”
She gets quiet. “Me, too. I miss you already,” she says in a sweet soft voice.
“I miss you, pretty girl. I’m always missing you,” I say in an almost whisper.
I hear her deep breath, “Josh, I want to tell you that,” she pauses and I wait for whatever she wants to say to me. I’ve noticed she takes beats and moments to put together words when she has something profound to say. She rambles when she’s nervous, when she speaks without thinking. But big things…things she really wants me to hear, she pauses to gather them. “That the past few days have been amazing for me. I don’t want us to fight anymore, to be anything less than what we should be. Apart we are a mess. I’m a mess. I want us to start fresh, to find our beautiful again, even if it’s occasionally ugly. It’s beautiful to me because it’s you and me. You know what I’m saying?”
Emerge into Forever Page 25
