Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  Will chuffed almost forcefully. “Nuts, huh?”

  I turned back to face the water. “Certifiably. Sweet, though. He talked to me for a full hour, and at one point, he actually reached around and held my hand until I calmed down.”

  “He sounds like a dick,” Will said emphatically. “Weak and cowardly.”

  “That’s a little harsh, I think. Actually, he promised to find me after the show, until everything went to hell during Gillian’s set. Do you remember that? There was some kind of massive fight involving an actor.” I paused. For some reason, all these memories were causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. I was missing something here. Something important. “Were you—you weren’t a part of that, were you?”

  There was a long pause. Then I felt Will nod on my shoulder. “I got kind of wrapped into it, yeah. Benny was there, remember? And I, um, worked with him.”

  I fingered the length of his forearm, stroking back the springy hair there. “So, what happened?”

  Will sighed heavily and squeezed my arm. “Honestly, Lil, I couldn’t really tell you. I was…I was high, if you want to know the truth. It was probably coke that night, but it could have been anything. I wasn’t picky back then.”

  It was the last thing I had expected him to say. Other than a few sips of beer at the bar and at my mom’s, I hadn’t ever seen Will partake in anything that could be considered an illicit substance. His house was pristine—not even a lighter around. He lived an ascetic existence that was the next thing to being one with nature.

  And yet. Someone who lived like Will was running from something. Addiction made sense. Especially if it had been bad enough to ruin others’ lives.

  I almost asked him then if it was him in the dressing room. That man had been an addict too, I thought. But Will’s response stopped me. Why would he call himself a coward? It didn’t make sense.

  “Do you…do you hate me for it?”

  I watched the water for a long time, still weighing his disclosures. Will waited, patient as ever.

  “Do you still use?” I asked finally. My voice was sharper than I intended, and I twisted around. I needed to see the answer on his face. I didn’t have room for more than one addict in my life. I barely had room for the one I lived with. “Tell me the truth.”

  Will didn’t blink. “Absolutely not.”

  I swallowed. “You promise?”

  “It was an escape,” he said. “I used until the day I actually got out. But once I left that life…Maggie, I didn’t need or want any of that shit anymore. Since I left New York, shortly after that show, actually, I’ve been clean. Completely. I promise you that on my life.”

  We stared at each other for a good long minute. In the back of my head, a voice spouting all of the things I knew from being Ellie Sharp’s daughter started talking on repeat. Addicts do whatever they can to protect their escape. Addicts steal. Addicts hurt. And most of all, addicts lie.

  But there was no trace of a lie on Will’s earnest face. He was a dark person, but he’d never hidden that from me. And part of me, a part that spoke louder than every misgiving, insisted that I knew this man, deep down, on a cellular level that exceeded the limitations of mere words.

  In the end, I relaxed. “Okay,” I said as I settled back into his arms. “Okay.”

  “That was the last night I ever did anything,” Will continued. “Because that night, I was arrested. And the sight of my face on a mug shot put my dad in the hospital. From a heart attack.”

  The gravity of that hit me, and my heart fell with dread. “Oh, Will…”

  “It was the last of many, many fuckups of mine from those days,” he said. “He recovered. But my mother and I…well, we hadn’t gotten along for years, and she never forgave me for that night. And in the end…I had to leave. I had to get out. It took me a few weeks after the arrest to settle with the club and get everything out of the way, but once it was done, I packed up my shit and left. And I haven’t looked back since.”

  “You just…took off?”

  “I haven’t talked to anyone in four years,” he confirmed. “I told you, Maggie. I’m not good for anyone. If you…if you wanted to run a mile, I wouldn’t blame you one bit.”

  I turned around completely, and automatically, Will pulled me onto his lap, wrapping my legs around his waist. I touched my nose to his, and we both closed our eyes.

  “I don’t want to run a mile,” I admitted as our foreheads touched. “I want to stay right here.”

  Here we were, sitting together, eyes wide open. Our breaths mingling. Two separate beings, yet so close to being one.

  And I wanted to be one. So, so badly.

  So I kissed him. It wasn’t like the other kisses we’d shared. This wasn’t a torrent of passion that had been waiting to be let out—it was slower, more tentative, a slow unfurling of tension and forgiveness. Will moaned, long and low, but opened his mouth willingly to taste me deeper, working from my cues.

  “I know I’m fucked up,” he whispered against my lips. “So, so fucked up. And maybe it’s selfish, but, Maggie, you make me feel like I could be better. I…I’m so sorry. For everything.”

  I just kissed him again as his words washed over me. The difference was striking. When Theo screwed up, apologies would come days, sometimes weeks later, and only after I berated them out of him. Not a few hours later. Not of his own accord. And Theo certainly wouldn’t have swum across a freaking lake at 3 a.m. to get that apology off his chest.

  I couldn’t fight it anymore. And truthfully, I didn’t want to. So I kissed him until we were both breathless, pushing the towel off his shoulders so I could feel the strong lines of his shoulders, his neck, the flat planes of his chest, the thick waves of his hair.

  “Will,” I murmured as his hands slipped up my shirt. “Will, please.”

  I reached between us to the stiff length of him outlined clearly through his still damp boxers. I pushed the fabric aside to pull him out, holding him briefly in my hand before I rocked onto my knees.

  I didn’t care that we shouldn’t. I didn’t care that there were still so many questions left unanswered. But it was like air, he’d said. Like food. Like water. It should have scared me how much I needed this man. But all I felt was instinct.

  “Maggie, I—” Will closed his eyes as if in pain as the tip of him touched my entrance. “I don’t have a condom.”

  I paused, tortured myself. “Have you been with anyone since you left New York?”

  Will shook his head. His chest muscles quivered. “No one,” he said. “I’m clean. There’s been no one.”

  “Neither have I,” I said. “Not—not for a year. It’s okay. I—I have an IUD. I’m covered if you are.”

  Shaking slightly, Will nodded. “Please,” he whispered. “Please, Lil.”

  I shook slightly. I was more nervous about this second coupling than I had been showing up to his house earlier. Because this was a meeting of the hearts as much as our bodies. Whether I was ready for it or not, I couldn’t deny it any longer.

  Slowly, I dropped down, taking him inside me. I was more than ready for him, even with his size. His eyes bulged with the sudden feeling. I shuddered against him. This was how it was meant to be between us. Nothing there. Only us. Nothing had ever felt more right in my life than joining with this man.

  But there was still one more thing I needed to say.

  “I’m not here to save you, Will.” I stilled my movements, tipping his chin forward so he had to look at me. “Do you understand me?”

  His eyes opened, deeper than the waters around us. One hand slipped up my body to cup my face, and then he kissed me with impossible tenderness as the other hand pressed my hips down, forcing me to take him fully. I arched my back as he filled me, all my lonely spaces, in ways that only he could.

  “I know,” he said against my lips, my throat, my cheeks, my eyes. His low voice touched some frequency that spoke to me and only me. “But you make me want to save myself.”

 
21

  I awoke the next morning much like I had the day before: content and bathed in light. But the warmth that spread through me had little to do with the sun that was already warming up my small shack, and more to do with the long, golden limbs wrapped around me like trees roots. For the first time—maybe in my life—I didn’t feel like someone who was drifting. Will was becoming an anchor in my crazy life, and as the realization hit me, I released a long sigh.

  This was what it felt like, I realized. Relief.

  “Everything okay?” His voice rumbled against my cheek. “I can hear you thinking.”

  I hummed as his hand slid down my naked body, coming to rest on my hip. “Just realizing that I’m happy. Here with you. I kind of forgot what that felt like.”

  It was the truth. And maybe I had never really understood what it felt like to be happy with someone. I had spent most of my time in college running from a life I desperately wanted to escape, working to reinvent myself as Maggie Sharp, musician, rather than Ellie Sharp’s poor daughter. Even years after, when I first met Theo, that feeling of running, that tension with myself, had never really disappeared. And in the end it had gotten worse the longer I’d been with him, too.

  Here with Will, the tension was gone. Mama, Theo, everything about the world that hurt so consistently, seemed to disappear when I was with him. With him, I was simply Lil. And I had never felt more like myself.

  Will’s big body relaxed into mine. “Me too, Lil. Me too.”

  I turned onto my side to face him. “How did you sleep?”

  He stretched, his mouth spreading into a lazy grin that made my toes tingle. He really needed to smile more. He had no idea the kind of effect it had on me.

  “Probably better than I have in a really, really long time,” he said as he pulled me close again. “Maybe I need to sell the house and live in a shack by the water too.”

  I giggled as his nose burrowed under my hair. The soft kisses he pressed into my neck caused goose bumps all over my body, and the hand on my thigh slid inward, brushing against the soft hair there, broad fingers teasing.

  I arched against his light touch, but even as I did, my body reminded me that I was in absolutely no condition for a fourth round of Will-style loving. I was right: Will did not sleep very soundly at all, but it seemed that he had found a remedy for it. Twice more in the night, he had woken me up with deceptively soft kisses, teasing shapes from my body that I didn’t know I could form, sounds I didn’t know I could make. He was insatiable, and so, apparently, was I, meeting him kiss for kiss, yank for yank, until we collapsed each time in a glowing mess of sweat and satisfaction, only to do it again mere hours later.

  “Ohhhh, no,” I told him, pushing his hand as I rolled away. “I am way too sore for that this morning.”

  He popped up on his forearms, caging me against the bed. “Is that so?” he asked mischievously as he pressed himself between my legs.

  His warm body fit to mine, reminding me once more of just how good it felt to have this man inside me. We matched like jigsaw pieces, my subtle curves to his hardened lines. I welcomed where he demanded, like our bodies were cut to match. At the feel of him, long, ready, and seeking entry, my thighs opened of their own accord. But while Will captured my mouth with another one of his kisses that made it hard to think, I pushed him away regretfully. I wasn’t interested in living on ibuprofen for the rest of the day.

  “Yes, that’s so, Baker,” I said, then gave him a quick peck and rolled out from underneath him. “A girl needs a little time to recuperate, unless you want me out of commission for more than a few hours.”

  Will lay on his side, letting the sheets fall down his body, tenting over the part of him that apparently did not need a rest at all. He caught me staring at it, and gave a crooked little grin that almost had me ready to jump him all over again, sore lady parts be damned.

  So instead, I focused on the parts of him that were a little less tempting.

  “You need a haircut, do you know that?” I said as I turned around to pull a swimsuit out of my dresser. “You look like the Abominable Snowman.”

  Going to sleep with wet hair had caused Will’s locks to matt and stick out at hilariously bad angles all around his face. He was still disgustingly handsome, but this wasn’t a good look.

  Will snorted. “From the Claymation movies?” He watched appreciatively as I pulled on the spandex.

  I nodded. “Minus the blue skin, pretty much. You scared the hell out of me when I first met you, you know.”

  He stroked his beard, which had been trimmed again. “I cleaned up since then.”

  “Not that hair. Babe, you’re practically sporting dreadlocks back there. And not the kind that anyone should ever have.”

  Will pulled at one of the tangled strands on his shoulder. “Who’s going to cut it? I don’t want strangers touching my head, Maggie.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t realize you were such a snob. But you know, I am the daughter of a hairdresser, dude. I’ll do it. If you dare let me.”

  Will eyed me suspiciously. It made me want to smack him with a pillow and cover his face with kisses.

  “I don’t know…” he said. “I’m very protective of my look, you see.” He mimed like he was fluffing his hair in the same way you might expect from an old-time movie actress. It was so antithetical to his unkempt looks I couldn’t help but giggle.

  “Yeah, you are a total prima donna,” I replied. “It’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”

  Will grinned. It lit up the room so bright, I stumbled, even though I was currently standing still.

  “I thought you liked my hair,” he argued. “You grab it whenever I kiss you. Or, you know, do other things to you.”

  I rolled my eyes, but laughed when he caught my hand and pulled me back on the bed with him, trapping me once more against a pillow.

  “Mmmm,” I moaned as his lips covered mine. “Will…Will!”

  He tugged aside my suit and kissed down my neck.

  “Don’t make me stop,” he said, the tip of him just barely sliding inside. Honestly, it was kind of hard not to take him once he was down there. That’s how big he was. “Please, baby. You have no idea. No fucking clue how much I need you right now.”

  My mouth fell open as he pushed a little further, and my thighs opened without a thought. And of course my body, the traitorous thing, was totally ready for him, welcomed him deep in spite of the slight ache. He seated himself, setting his teeth on my neck as he did.

  “Touch yourself,” he said against my skin as he began. “Please, baby. I’m—shit—I’m not going to last long.”

  I had no choice but to obey, sliding a hand between us to feel that junction where our bodies met, where his skin slipped and skidded over my own. My fingers settled over the sensitive bundle of nerves that, together with Will’s movements, would set me alight in no time. At the feel of my fingers finding their rhythm, Will moaned into my neck.

  “That’s it,” he whispered, his voice hot and heavy. “Fuck, baby, I can feel you squeezing me. Lil, you’re so…uhhh…you’re so damn tight!”

  “Please,” I begged, though for what, I didn’t know. My body arched up, already knowing its path, knowing the direction it was going. A warmth, a glow was already emanating directly from our joining. We were a star, about to reach its supernova. A few more thrusts, a few more pulls, and together we’d explode.

  “I want to feel you come,” Will said as he pushed slightly up to drive in harder. “I want to feel you squeeze my dick, baby.”

  He bent his head down to take one of my nipples between his teeth. But instead of licking or sucking lightly, with a gentle touch the way most men would, he bit, just a little harder than was strictly necessary. The shock of pain was exactly what I needed. My fingers doubled their speed. My body tightened, clenched. And then it burst open.

  “WILL!” I cried out, my hands falling to the side as my body seized up.

  “Fuck, yes, baby,�
�� Will shouted as he drilled further in. “That’s it, beautiful. Oh my God, that feels good!”

  His shoulders shook as he let go himself, shaking out the long release that seemed to take him several seconds, even a minute to complete. It allowed me to stretch mine out as long as I could until slowly, eventually, we both fell back to Earth together, safe once more in each other’s arms.

  “Goddamn,” Will mumbled, his voice muffled in my hair. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that?”

  His body flattened atop mine, fully relaxed despite the mess I knew I’d need to clean up when he moved.

  But now the morning sun was streaming inside in hot rays. And the unopened windows seemed that much more stifling than last night.

  “Off,” I said, shoving at his side. “Hot.”

  “Spoilsport.” Will sighed with regret, but finally rolled the other way off the bed and let the sheets drop from his naked body as he stood up. I practically had to wipe my chin.

  “All right,” he said, making no attempt to cover himself as he searched the room for his now dry briefs.

  He located them, and spoke as he pulled them on. I curled into myself while I enjoyed the show.

  “How’s this for a plan: I swim with you across the lake, then you can maim me—I mean, cut my hair. But only in your suit, so I have something nice to look at. After that, we can come back and work on the property. If you think Lucas can handle it.”

  I nodded happily. I didn’t really give a fig what Lucas would say about any of this. I was just thrilled that Will wanted to spend the day together as badly as I did.

  When I said so, he stopped and grinned again, shining light through the cabin that was ten times brighter than any ray of sun.

  “Haven’t you figured it out, yet?” he asked as he rubbed his nose against mine. “I’ll pretty much do whatever you want, Lily pad.”

  I smiled into his lips. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  One hour, one swim and a fairly naughty shower later (apparently I didn’t care that much about my sore parts), Will was sitting on a chair in the middle of his kitchen with an adorable frown on his face while I draped a towel around his shoulders.