The Way We Were : A second chance romance (Take Me Home Series Book 2)

by SJ Cavaletti

  And it made me feel like passing out.

  “Liz?” El swallowed as if trying to get a stone to go down.

  “Sorry,” I gathered oxygen back into my system and taking both his hands, I pulled them to my heart. “Yes.”

  Tears cascaded, a relief to my hot, parched cheeks. El rubbed his wet eyes and sucked in, to stop himself falling apart. They were happy tears. Grateful tears. Purposeful tears… ones that allowed a new beginning.

  El teetered himself close, real close and placed his palms gently on my cheeks and then with his two thumbs, wiped away some of the wetness on them only for it to be immediately replaced by more. Years of pent up grief escaped all at once.

  “Don’t cry,” he said, putting his forehead on mine but the surge of energy and closeness I hadn’t felt in years just tapped into a new source.

  My body shuddered. I’d never had so little control over it, and that was saying a lot. El pulled me closer, my face back in that manly neck of his, the smell of all too familiar vanilla and sharp, clean cologne. Wrapping my arms around him, I embraced him. Forcefully. Intentionally. Like I never wanted to let go.

  He rubbed my back and tickled it with his fingers, seducing my cortisol levels down.

  But my wanting went up.

  His neck was wet with my tears, brown and glistening. Calm now, I focused on the wetness on his shoulder, neck and collarbone… I traced a finger along the shallow puddles, drawing a moist trail from his shoulder, along his olive skin, upward until my finger met that dark, sensual nook between his ear and his jaw.

  He stopped rubbing my back, his body pausing to observe. To delight. To question. Then he stiffened the way he used to whenever I used to trail kisses down his stomach and he wasn’t sure how far I would go.

  My head still buried, I lifted it until my lips touched his earlobe and my whisper, quiet but impossible to miss, said, “Will you kiss me?”

  As if all this time he only waited for an invitation, he pulled back only enough for his lips to meet mine.

  Fucking hell.

  The feeling of lips I waited five years to taste again. Puffy, warm, wet… he kneaded my lips and pulled one into his mouth, running his tongue from end to end. He tasted like sweet, unsmoked cigars and sex. I didn’t just want a kiss.

  I moaned into his mouth and he pulled at my lips harder, faster. Forcing his tongue deeper into my mouth, like he wanted to lick my soul. Blood raced to my groin.

  Pulling my hands around front I pushed them up his shirt and squeezed his pec, still firm and manly, I ran them down along those perfect abs with each ridge my fingers felt my pussy tingled more and more.

  He kissed me but didn’t move his hand from my back, letting me make the first move. And I did. I shoved and wriggled my hand into his pants to find his dick hard. He filled my hand with his throbbing cock and I pumped it up and down the best I could before taking both my hands and unbuckling his pants.

  And that gave him total permission, his hand came around from my back and one of them caressing my hip bone, a finger along the crease and tempting my pussy, he circled his finger inside my bikini bottom and found the slit wet, waiting and wanting him inside. Any part of him. His finger. His tongue. But especially the dick I had in my hand.

  I groaned as his finger found my clit and circled it, the sensation overwhelming me I stopped pumping his cock and leaned back, giving a moan. He let his finger glide from my clit downward and slid two of his fingers inside, getting them more wet and ready to slide back up to my clit.

  My eyes had been closed but finally, I opened them and met his which no longer had the gentle look I was used to but aimed desire, ownership and years of wanting in my direction.

  There was only one thing to say. “I’m on the pill.”

  A coy and slightly wicked smile played on his lips. He pushed me back until I hit the carriage wall. He pulled my bikini bottoms off, then edged his pants downward, his cock full with blood almost to bursting, standing with intention. Hard and shiny.

  My bottoms off his off, he spread my legs wide open and the cool air hit my sex. He grabbed me by my ass and pulled me onto his lap, legs straddling either side of him. He manipulated my body like I was some sex doll. This is what I could have had all those years. This manly control. My body placed exactly where he wanted it as he lifted me up by one ass cheek and his dick shoved inside me, filling me up, giving me what I yearned for.

  What I thought about every time I masturbated.

  Every vein in his dick was filled, he was hard as steel and with his hands on either side of my hips, he pumped me up and down like I was light as a feather. The edges of my pussy screamed with heat, searing and sizzling, wetness gushed and the sound of it. We could both hear the pleasure he gave me.

  “My God, I’ve wanted you for so long. I never stopped wanting you,” he said, his muscles flexing as they forced my body up and down his dick.

  “Every time I touched myself since the day I met you. Your cock was all I could see. Just give it to me. Don’t be careful with me…”

  My words gave him strength and his biceps swelled as they worked to move my body up and down, and then something inside me gave way.

  “I’m coming,” I said as hot, warm come poured out of me and onto his groin, spreading everywhere I could even feel it right up the back of my ass.

  He lied down, I braced myself as he kept my hips as steady as possible and at the same time thrusted upward, inward, his dick reaching the very last end of my insides, and finally, I felt the burn, the hot release of his cock coming inside me.

  28

  Elias

  Present Day

  Uyu

  * * *

  My God, what just happened?

  I lied there, on the platform of this chariot, and looked up at the pale blue sky, Liz still on my dick, sitting on top of me. She leaned back and braced herself, hands on the chariot platform. I closed my eyes and wondered if, when I opened them, it would all be a dream.

  In five years, I had had a handful of them. The dreams where Liz and I got back together. Or just fucked.

  When I opened my eyes, she still sat on me, smiling, looking down with satisfaction but also that look of apologetic apprehension that people didn’t mean, but feigned when they knew they’d just been naughty.

  I gave her the same fake apology and swiped my palm up my forehead, smoothing my hair.

  Then, for the first time since before the God phone rang, I realized we were in public. We were both naked from the waist down so I sat up, helped Liz off and into the slightly private crescent on the chariot where she found her bikini bottoms and jiggled them on. I pulled my pants back up, come soaking the inside of my boxer briefs but not giving a damn. They’d dry in this heat faster than I’d even want the evidence of this to disappear.

  Liz pushed herself backward. Sitting against the carriage, she patted the platform next to her. I took the seat she offered, and we both looked out. A great gray expanse of nothingness apart from a bright red phone booth.

  “Liz?” I asked, taking her hand in mind. “What did God say?”

  She gave one of those throwaway chuckles. “Well, I asked what I could do to enjoy my first time at Uyu.”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “And she asked if I brought gifts and knew the importance of gifting here.” Liz took my hand in both of hers. “And I said yes and then she said well, find your most important gift and give it away. If you want to enjoy your time here, give your most precious gift.”

  I’m not sure God had any idea just how deep that message was.

  For Liz.

  For me.

  For us.

  Liz put her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickled my cheek. “She was right. I haven’t started having any fun till now,” she sighed.

  “So now you’re having fun?”

  “Something like that.”

  I wanted to. But stopped myself. I wanted to ask, ‘What now? What next?’ But the sun was setting, and the tempera
ture hinted it was time to head back for warmer clothes, some food. I had given everything to this last hour, and though my heart was full, my body was completely depleted.

  Her head still resting on my shoulder, she said, “El, I used to want to go back to the way we were. Undo the set of actions that set Sedona in motion. Before the accident. But… this is… I can’t describe it exactly, but it’s something I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.”

  I kissed the top of her head and let my lips stay there in her sweet smelling locks. I knew exactly what she meant.

  “My Mom used to have this saying,” I said. “She said tragedy kills everything in its path. Apart from the golden truth.”

  “I miss your Mom,” Liz said.

  “She’d love to see you.” I wished.

  My arm around Liz, I stroked her forearm and felt goosebumps. “Let’s get you back. You’re barely wearing anything and the temperature drops quickly here, as you know. Don’t want you catching cold.”

  “Okay.”

  We went through the motions of getting the driver's seat up and Liz back in it. I grabbed the wheelchair where we abandoned it and threw it on the chariot, then took a spot standing next to Liz.

  “So,” I said, “Not sure what you’re doing later… but I think you should hang out with me.”

  She smiled and turned the ignition; the engine rumbled with pleasure. “Are you asking me on a date?”

  “If you want it to be.”

  And that’s when I saw it. The smile from way back at Miami General.

  “Only if you promise to be gentle with me, Doc.”

  After getting some warm clothes and food, Liz and I were back out in the desert night, cruising around on her chariot.

  There was a reason people from Uyu called themselves Gypsies. None of us had a fixed home here. None of us would stay. But unlike Gypsies, who tried to make camp, and lived their actual lives at each campsite, we all aimed to have a life uniquely different from the one we had back home. We weren’t Gypsies at all.

  I would have called Uyu goers pilgrims if it were up to me. It didn’t sound as fashionable but was much more the case. We wanted epiphanies. We wanted change. We wanted our souls to decompress. We didn’t just want to eat, clean and do dishes at a new location.

  The art, more than the music, facilitated this experience. Though there were many brazen and just plain audacious installations, there were also many that made you contemplate the beauty of its message, and therefore look for the beauty within.

  Liz and I had visited two installations already. Neither of the latter. One had the setup of a park with paths and benches. Only the trees in the park were giant mushrooms, illuminated in layers of rainbow colors. The second was a nucleus of sorts, with lights that changed colors and spindles coming off it, illuminating as an optical illusion, appearing as if the spikes weren’t attached but floating in space. Many would have thought about outer space, but Liz and I agreed it looked like a lit up virus.

  The ground had become difficult in many places, potholes and other damage having been done to the surface of the Plain, especially around the major and popular art. Liz’s wheelchair was close to useless and even when I tried to push it was totally uncomfortable so we mostly drove around and I took her in my arms or on my back around exhibitions.

  I preferred this, of course, because since we’d bared our souls and solidified the truth with sex, I just wanted to touch her every second. Not only touch her, but rip off her clothes, throw her down and wet my dick with her nectar, getting back to where we both belonged. Maybe I was a total sicko but having the excuse of helping her see the art allowed me to have her skin on mine more on this “date.”

  A date. Were we actually on a date? It felt like it And a first one at that. Liz looked down a lot and pushed her hair behind her ear. But thank God the art served as talking pointed rather than trying to catch up on the last five years. Now that we were here, I didn’t want to re-visit one goddamn second of the past.

  Saying that. It was the future that now haunted me.

  Liz pulled the chariot up to our third stop. A piece I was sure would make us talk. Force the conversation. What happened after Uyu? Did the sex just consummate the forgiveness? Was it a sign of a desire for a future? Was Liz just overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment?

  I sure as hell had been.

  Liz turned off the engine and looked up, a soft glow of amber light from the installation warming her face, making her seem like just an apparition. “My God,” she said, “That…”

  Her words trailed off because, like me, the intensity of the message seemed to steal gravity from under our feet. And not only did our bodies feel floaty, our minds, too.

  Before us was a sculpture made of wire, roughly two stories high. It was a wire man and a woman, sitting with their backs to one another, hunched over, faces on their knees as if just having had an argument or both contemplated something sad. And on the inside of these adults, unable to face each other and the pain between them, were two illuminated children, the woman’s child and the man’s child, who faced each other, trying to touch hands through the wire frame and connect with one another.

  It was quite dark now, and it wasn’t easy to make out the black wire frames of the adults, but the children inside gave off the soft glow of a gentle light bulb.

  Mesmerized, Liz sat staring at the art while I set to taking a duvet off the chariot and placing it on the ground. Along with our picnic blanket, Pika and Joey spared one of their bottles of champagne for this date and they even brought real flutes this time. All was packed in my backpack, which I left on the blanket, then walked back to the chariot and looked up at Liz, who still hadn’t seemed to notice I’d even left her side. This art had that level of awe.

  “Liz?”

  She snapped out of her thought and looked down at me and over at the duvet.

  “Join me?” I gestured toward our blanket, perfectly poised in the light cast by the children. “I have champagne.”

  “Oh, wow. I’d love to.”

  I jumped up, scooped her off the seat and tried not to imagine I carried her through the threshold. I didn’t know what kind of timeline Liz had on her mind. Tomorrow? Week end? A month? A year?

  The only guarantee I had was today.

  Fuck. I never thought that when Liz and I finally closed the door on the Sedona chapter, we’d open the door on another. Life has a way of resolving one problem and giving you a new one.

  I placed Liz down on the blanket, took a seat next to her, and took the champagne out of my backpack.

  “This is fancy,” she said with a childish, delighted smile.

  “Well, it felt fitting.” I said, taking off the foil and popping the cork. “Pika and Joey always have anything a man needs to impress a woman.”

  “You think I’m impressed by champagne?” An eyebrow lifted.

  “No. But I know you like it. And that’s a start.” I poured into one flute and handed it to her.

  “That’s true.”

  I poured the other, and we toasted, but to nothing in particular, only the sound of our clinking glasses making some tinkling wish into the fresh nighttime air.

  We drank and sat in a moment of silence, both looking at the poignant artwork.

  “This could be about us,” she said, still looking at the art, and not me. “But today, you know, we let those children out.”

  She took another huge sip of champagne, then looked at me. “It feels good to be honest.”

  Yes, earlier today, we had been. But now, I harbored a new secret. Forgiveness wasn’t enough. I wanted her back.

  She continued, “You know, I haven’t had champagne since our engagement.”

  “That’s crazy. In five years? No champagne receptions at your talks?”

  “Always prosecco.”

  “None at New Year’s Eve?”

  “I don’t drink much but I’m a cocktails girl now.” She looked down at the duvet and smoothed her hand along the white fa
bric. “I lost interest in lots of things after you.”

  Oh no. We were going to regurgitate.

  “I even stopped eating dessert. Just didn’t want it anymore. Always made me think of you.”

  Not that I wanted her to. But some sadistic part of me appreciated she had hurt, too.

  “Maybe you’ll get your appetite back now,” I said.

  She blew an uncommitted laugh out of her nose. “Maybe.”

  I downed the rest of my flute, and she followed suit. I refilled them. We both needed it not only to soothe the frayed ends of an emotional day, but to ease the knots out of those to come. Her face was stiff, and her eyes met every direction but mine. She wanted to know the same things I did.

  What happens next?

  And yet, neither of us wanted to ask because to create a fresh problem so close to the last felt sacrificial. And frankly, I wanted one night to pretend she was mine again.

  The sun’s wake was gone now, and the night was dark and cold. I pushed myself closer to Liz and put my arm around her. Touching her soft shoulder helped my brain shift, and my dick, too. I caressed my fingers along it, then placed my palm against it to shelter her from the cold.

  “Chilly?” I asked.

  “A little.”

  I pulled the duvet up around her shoulders while she pushed herself closer into me and put her head on my shoulder. Under the warmth of the blanket my arm around her small waist, my hand sat on her hip near her thigh on the leather chaps she wore and my fingers just barely behaved, knowing how close that bare opening was with only a defenseless little piece of lacy fabric to defend her pussy from me mauling it.

  And suddenly, I wasn’t so worried about the future anymore.

  Maybe she wasn’t either. She wiggled her bottom a bit and maybe it was to get comfortable, maybe it was to help my hand even closer. I let my index finger fall into the crease between her pussy and her thigh, knowing that was near enough the beginning of sensation for her. I wanted to inch my way in. There were only two more days here on the Plain and yet… there were two whole days. I would have given a fortune for just one not so long ago.