“You’re here now,” I tell her. “Want anything to drink?” I pop open my fridge.
Only Lightning Bolt!, Fizz Life, a bottle of vodka and a couple six packs on the shelves. I do have a tub of hummus.
Willow notices the contents—or lack thereof. Her brows furrow. “What have you been eating?”
“The food of gods.” I swing open my freezer, packed with five frozen pizzas.
She laughs.
“Also Cobalt Inc. has a pretty awesome cafeteria. They have everything: prime rib, sushi, and a thousand different vegan options.” I nod to the fridge. “Pick your poison.”
“The vodka, definitely,” she says, which causes a chill to rake my skin. That would have been the very last thing I would have thought she’d choose. How much has she changed in four months?
My hand solidifies on the top of the fridge door.
Willow’s lips slowly rise. “Garrison, that was a joke.” She points to the soda. “I’ll take the Fizz Life…or the beer. Either is good.” That’s what I thought she’d say but…
“Are you sure?” I question. I don’t want her to feel like she can’t change or grow. Like I’m stifling her. “If you want vodka—”
She puts her hands to my chest and electricity practically shoots through my veins. “Garrison.” Her eyes fill mine, and whatever she was going to say, it just gets lost from her gaze to mine.
The air stills.
She curls her fingers over my jeans’ waistband. I hold her cheek and lean down, our lips connecting. I kiss her strongly, pulling her closer. Heating my blood. We stumble out of the kitchen, never breaking apart.
Willow fumbles with the button to my pants, her chest rising and falling in quickened breath. I run my hand up underneath her shirt. Bare skin warm under my touch, but she still shivers.
Like this is the first time all over again.
“Willow,” I breathe.
She slowly unzips my pants, so fucking slowly. Like it’s a metaphor for how slow we’ve always been physically together. It almost makes me smile, but I nod her on like it’s okay.
She inhales, trying to rid anxiety, I think. While we’re lip-locked again, my hands roaming up her shirt, the backs of her calves hit my couch. I spin her towards my bed, and I walk her backwards and meet her eyes.
“You sure you want to do this tonight?” I whisper, cupping her cheek. “You can say no—”
“I really want to,” she says and then stops unzipping me. “Don’t you?” Fear springs in her eyes. Like maybe I wouldn’t want to touch her.
Like maybe I’ve grown less interested.
Never. Impossible.
“No question. Of course I do.” I kiss her again, fully and deeply. Reminding Willow that she’s all I want. Her limbs seem to slacken in relief.
And I back my girlfriend up to my mattress. She plops on the edge just as she tugs my pants down, also slowly. I can practically hear her thoughts: is this the right thing to do right now? Should I be taking off my shirt first or…
I help her tug down my pants, showing that there’s not a right or wrong way. There’s just our way.
Willow smiles up at me, but as soon as my jeans bunch to my knees, her breath catches in shock.
She gawks at my thigh, then reaches out to trace the new ink. “When did you get this?” she asks softly.
I step out of my jeans. “Two months ago.” I couldn’t muster the nerve to tell Willow about it, so I figured she’d see the tattoo in person. It’d be better that way.
Willow seems to hold her breath. Unblinking, her gaze bears on the tattoo. An inked skeleton hand brushes fingers with a smaller hand like they’re trying to hold on. Hang on. I didn’t really plan on getting a tattoo, but I walked into a shop and sat down and came out with this.
“You don’t like it,” I assume.
She shakes her head. “It’s beautiful but…also really sad.” Her brown eyes rise to mine. “You’re not dead yet, you know that, right?”
Do I?
How many skeletons will I tattoo on my body before I agree with her? Don’t know.
I hold my wrist out to her, palm up. We’ve done this enough that she gets it. She places two fingers to my pulse.
Our eyes don’t break. “Garrison Abbey, you are definitely alive.”
Only around you.
“It’s a miracle,” I say into a bigger smile. “Fire off the cannons. Light the torches. Let’s celebrate.” I lean close to kiss Willow.
Her mouth soft against mine.
I hold her face and gently urge apart her lips, my tongue slowly meeting hers while we both crawl onto the bed. Carefully, I rest my knee between her legs, and I grip the hem of her shirt, pulling the fabric off her head.
Her light brown hair messy around her face. Flush staining her cheeks.
After I shed my hoodie and tee, I dip my head back down. Returning to her lips. Willow hangs onto my shoulders, and I feel her heart quickening against my chest.
I know the more assertive I am, the more she sinks into the moment, and I easily take charge and unbutton her jeans, snap off her bra—desire and craving coats her eyes.
I yank her pants off her ankles and toss the clothes to the floor. Gray sheets beneath our bodies, our legs thread again. My waist aligned with her hips as I hover over her frame.
“Garrison,” she whispers, wanting. Her fingers skate down my biceps like they skim the surface of a lake. Light touch that annihilates my senses and fists my dick.
Fuck. I knead her small breast, nipples hard beneath my thumb.
Her hips instinctively rise into me.
A guttural noise rumbles in my lungs. Holy fuck. My knees push apart her legs so I fit between them, and I suck the nape of her neck, finding a sensitive spot that shakes her limbs.
She quakes and lets out an aroused cry.
Blood pumps in my veins. I want inside her. Closer. We both claw at each other for closer. Her fingertips gripping my ribs, and my hand descending to her panties.
I cup her warm heat, the fabric already soaked.
She trembles. “Garrison.”
My dick throbs.
Her palm travels down. She lightly touches the outline of my erection that presses against my black boxer-briefs.
I groan against her lips, “Fuck.”
She smiles, and with a heavy breath, I smile back. We stare at one another for a second, and very gently, I slip off her fogged glasses.
Willow breathes in, watching me reach over and place them on the nightstand. She holds onto me, and I lean back and whisper what I feel balled up in me. “I love you, Willow.”
Tears well up in her eyes. “I love you too.”
I brush the wet corners of her eyes, and then I pull off my boxer-briefs. Her hand goes back to my erection, and I slip aside the cotton fabric of her panties. Not removing them, just pushing them out of the way.
While we look at one another, I slide two fingers into her tight warmth.
Her smile vanishes to make room for a pleasured O. She half-gasps, half-moans, like she can’t figure out how to inhale.
I soak up her arousal, my muscles tightening. Sweat already building. Her hand is still on my length. Not moving.
It brings me back to the past. To us together—how her hands always freeze in place—it’s still the same. It hasn’t changed. She focuses more on where my hands roam, the pleasure that wraps around her, and she forgets to move altogether.
It’s the cutest thing, but I know it’s also what makes her nervous. Thinking she’s not getting me off, but whenever she remembers to shift her hands, she moves her palms in tiny increments. So light and teasing—the start-stop-start-stop drives my body to a fucking edge.
The best kind.
I pulse my fingers in Willow and rub her clit. My other hand gliding down her leg to her ass. Soft noises eject between her parted lips, sweat glistening on her bare body. She drinks in my naked form, the way my muscles flex above her—I’m not grinding my dick into Willow.
>
Not yet.
I’m not sure if she wants to go there tonight. I don’t want to assume, even if I’d love nothing more than to thrust into her. But I’ve only had sex one time with Willow.
A cry breaches her, and she turns her head into the pillow. “Garrison. Garrison, oh my God,” she cries, as I hit a point and I pulse faster. Her legs twitch, and she clenches around my fingers.
God.
Her hand reanimates, rubbing my dick again. Fuuuck. I grit my teeth, arousal spinning my head. The blistering, soul-affirming feeling mounts pleasure upon pleasure.
I force myself not to rock against her heat.
She turns her head, her hand paused again, and her eyes find mine. “Can we…can you…will you…” Her breath staggers like she’s been on a ten-mile race. Sheepishly, she glances down at my rock-solid erection.
She contracts around my fingers again. Fuuck.
I tense with desire. “You want me inside you?”
Willow nods strongly, cheeks flushed. “Right now.”
It takes a lot of energy to remove my hand and not get her off again. But I want my length inside her, too. I want everything with my girlfriend.
I reach for the nightstand drawer. For a condom, and she cranes her neck, feeling my movements.
“You don’t need to…” she tells me.
She isn’t wearing glasses, so she can’t see much. “I’m getting a condom,” I explain.
“We don’t need one.” Her voice is so soft that I dip my head closer to hear her next words. “I’m on birth control.”
I frown. Okay, she wasn’t on birth control when she boarded a plane to London. I’m trying not to think dumbass things. Like why she’d take birth control once we were split apart.
Lots of girls take birth control for more reasons than just to prevent pregnancy. Like acne and stuff, right? Maybe to help with cramps, I don’t know.
Willow can’t see my complete confusion. But maybe she can feel my body tense, because she rushes to clarify, “I asked Daisy if it was a good idea since you and I had sex before we left and it would probably happen again, and she said, totally. So I thought…I thought it’d be good to prepare for next time.”
I’m an idiot.
I let out a breath. Easing a lot more. “That makes sense.” I come back fully to Willow. “It is good.” My hand encases her cheek. “No condom then?”
She nods.
I place another kiss against her lips and spread her legs wider around my waist. My pelvis aligned with hers.
She pants some and clutches my biceps.
I have her in my grasp. “Tell me if it hurts,” I say, my voice low.
This is only the second time she’s had sex.
The second time a man has been inside her.
Me.
“I will,” she murmurs, instinctively touching her nose. To push up glasses that aren’t there.
I peel a sweaty piece of hair off her forehead, tucking the strand behind her ear. And then I grip my shaft, and slowly, I press the head near her entry. Watching her reaction.
She clasps my arms tighter.
I slide inside Willow—fucking…she’s so tight and wet, the pressure and warmth sending a rush through me. Head spinning. Nerves firing.
Willow shudders a little, but she hangs onto me. I hold her hip and sink deeper and deeper.
She lets out a strangled moan, head tilting back. “God,” she cries softly.
I fill her completely, and I rock between her legs, slowly at first. Long movements, until the friction flames, and my body blisters for more. Ravenous, hungry—ready to eke out every ounce of pleasure from her and drive it into me. Months apart. Months without a single touch.
I thrust deeper, my ass flexing. Gasps escape her parted lips that can’t close, struggling for breath, and my muscles contract—fuck.
Fuck.
I fuck Willow. Veins igniting, muscles on fire. My hands on her hips, I sit up some on my knees and pound into her—and her palms fall off my shoulders and find my wrists, clutching me for support.
“Garrison,” she cries in a sharp moan, her eyelids fluttering.
I lower back, our mouths meeting. I kiss her as deeply as I rock in, and she pulls at my hair. I lift her leg higher on my waist.
Every thrust is filled with an emotional current that ravishes both of us. Like we’ve both been asleep and we’re slowly recharging, coming back to life.
My forehead presses to hers. “I love you.” I breathe it out a few more times. Rocking, rocking, and her love swims inside her eyes.
I lose time. I lose sense of space. It’s just her and me. The world around us is gone until we both ride into pure bliss.
“Ahhh,” she cries into my shoulder, and I hold her while her toes curl, her back arches. A groan barrels through me, and I milk out a climax that seizes my tendons in a vice.
We kiss and kiss, my lips stinging against hers—it’s going to take heaven and Earth to pull me away from Willow.
I just want this to last. Longer.
Much longer.
How much time is left?
* * *
Sitting side-by-side in bed, naked, wrapped up in the sheets, and eating semi-warm pizza, I stroke her head while she picks off the mushrooms and puts them on my plate.
“I could have made the cheese,” I tell her.
“Supreme is better.” She licks her finger. “I like the olives.”
This, right here, feels normal. Pizza in bed, like the degenerate I am. Can’t even eat at a table. Being together at night should be happening all the time, not just once every four months.
Okay, so maybe it’s not normal, I guess.
This, right here, is rare. I hate that.
“How do you think we’re doing?” She hands me the plate with the mushrooms. “With this whole long distance thing?”
Terrible.
I shrug. “I miss you, but I think that’s supposed to happen. Right?”
Her knees knock into mine. “Is it supposed to hurt this badly?” Her voice cracks.
I kiss the top of her head. “I don’t know.”
She leans her cheek against my shoulder. “Maybe I should…should I just…I could transfer to Pe—”
“No.” I stop her before she says Penn. “You’ll be harassed every day by paparazzi.”
“Then NYU, it’s not too far a commute from Cobalt Inc.,” she mutters.
“No,” I say, my chest on fire. I’d love to agree with her. To say sure. Yes. Please fucking come home. But I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t wake up with her in my bed, knowing she’s sacrificed something for my shitty existence.
I’m not meant to be fully happy. I’ve known that since I was little and my brothers were shoving me to the ground.
I’m cursed. It’s just the way it is. She doesn’t need to share in this damn thing.
Willow pushes her glasses up with her wrist.
“Wakefield is your dream,” I say. “You have friends there. You have a life. Don’t start over for me. That’s the last thing I want, Willow.”
“Okay.” She breathes heavily. “But you’ll come out next semester like you promised? I want you to meet my friends and see my dorm and the campus.”
“I promise. I’m there.”
She exhales and takes a small bite from her pizza. “Something cool kind of happened.”
“That’s perfect because I’m in need of some cool. Working at Cobalt Inc. is literally the antithesis of cool. Most of those guys are pencil-pushing pricks.”
Her lips rise. “Well, it’s probably not that cool. Your expectations should lower a smidge.”
“Lowered.” I wave her on.
“Okay, so you know how second-year students usually room off-campus?” Willow sits up a bit more to meet my gaze. “I didn’t think anyone would ever ask me to be their roommate. But Sheetal, Tess, and Salvatore asked.” She smiles, almost blushing. “They’re getting this four-bedroom flat in the city and needed to find a f
ourth. Pretty cool, right?”
Happiness radiates off her. She has real friends in London, and that’s big for Willow. I want to be the kind of person that’s happy for her happiness.
But I hear the name Salvatore and my blood turns to tar. She’s going to be living with him next year. The guy with the awesome accent and Vampire-Diaries-adjacent name and stylish haircut. The one who could’ve raided my brothers’ closet.
He’s going to be living with my girlfriend while I’m thousands of miles away.
Great.
Awesome.
So fucking happy about it.
I want to mention my feelings, but they’re insignificant. Because Salvatore is just her friend, and she’s going to say that to me. And I’m not about to ruin this good, happy thing in her life because I’m the paranoid motherfucker.
So I layer on a smile. “That sounds awesome. A lot of fun.”
I must do a shit job because she’s shaking her head like she can hear the sarcasm that I seriously can’t control.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sorry.” She sets her plate on her lap and winces, her head hanging. “I wasn’t thinking. It’s anything but cool. You’re living alone, and I didn’t mean to rub it in that I’m…”
Shit.
“Hey.” I lift her chin, so she’ll look at me. “I’m not upset that you have friends and I don’t. I’m happy you feel included in London and not ostracized or whatever.”
“You have friends,” she argues with tears in her eyes.
I’m saying all the wrong things.
“You’re right. I have you,” I say quickly. She is my only friend.
My words don’t help. She’s shaking her head.
I cup her cheek in my hand. “You can’t worry about me. You have to just live your life in London, Willow.” Am I pushing her away? I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. My insides twist, and speaking is starting to hurt.
Her tears spill over my fingers, but I don’t stop holding her. She says, “You know what I learned in the four months we’ve been apart?”
A lump lodges in my throat.
“I’m unable to not worry about you,” she says in a tight breath.
Something sits on my chest. Heavy. I want it off. Off. “I love you,” I say. “But you have to, Willow. Because you’re not going to be happy if you’re just constantly worried that I’m not having a good time here in Philly.” I want to say that I’ll make friends, but I’m not planning on reaching out to random people and accidentally grabbing a fame-leeching parasite.
Whatever It Takes Page 21
