He rolled onto his back and pulled me with him, pulled me on top the way we’d been at the beach. This time, though, we weren’t in public and we didn’t need to stop.
I let go of his cock and adjusted my body over his, rocking my hips as his erection nestled in the hollow between my hip bone and pubic bone.
The tip of his cock moistly kissed against my skin as I nudged up and down on his body, our mouths locked together.
No longer nervous, I reached back and untied the top of my bikini. I tossed it aside, then shifted down his body, kissing his neck and Adam’s apple, and then down his smooth chest. I found one nipple with my lips and sucked until it was small and hard, then did the same to the other.
Sawyer’s breathing was shallow, his body tense and still, like a pond with small ripples coming from the life beneath. I moved down further, tasting the salty sweat of his flesh, smelling the musk of his body. His scent intoxicated me, arousing my hunger.
I licked a trail down his stomach, then gripped his hard cock in one hand and plunged the tip into my mouth.
He groaned and clutched the bed covers as I sucked and pulsed him within my mouth.
“Slow down,” he begged.
I eased him out of my mouth and lovingly ran the tip of my tongue up and down the length of him, teasing around the edge of the head before plunging him in and out of my wet mouth.
His cock was hard and responsive, straining.
Gasping, he pushed me away. “Intense,” he said, and as we made eye contact, I felt the intensity, too.
I went limp, falling to the bed, weak with desire. Take me, I pleaded with my eyes.
He climbed on top of me, and old memories bubbled up. I was in my little bed, in that stinking plywood room.
I pulled my knees together and squirmed out to roll sideways. I clenched my eyes shut.
“Aubrey? Is this too fast?”
He rubbed his fingers tenderly along my cheek. I opened my eyes and saw him. Sawyer Jones. He was good, and kind, and being so gentle. I was in my apartment, not the old trailer.
Nodding, I said, “Slower would be better.”
“I agree,” he said, and he stretched out alongside me, relaxed. “You’re so perfect. So beautiful.”
I grabbed his hand in mine and kissed his fingertips.
Sawyer. I was in bed with him, and he was a good guy. I wanted this.
I ran his fingertips down over my breast. He smiled as he traced lines around my nipple.
He whispered, “Does this feel good?”
I nodded, yes, and pushed his hand down further, so his fingers slipped under the edge of my bikini bottoms.
“Still good?” he asked.
I held my hand over my face in embarrassment as I blushed. “Really good.” My body was so warm and sure, and the fear that had crept up on me was completely gone.
Now he was in control, and I nodded after each question. Could he take off my bikini bottoms? Yes. Could he touch me like this? Yes. Deeper? Yes. Harder? Yes.
With his fingers, he took me to the edge of orgasm. Teetering on the brink, I put my hand on top of his to stop him. Take me, I thought as I stared into his eyes.
He understood, and reached for the condoms.
When he plunged into me, I cried out so loud he stopped.
“Did I hurt you?”
No. Not physically. I shook my head. “Feels so good,” I whispered.
He shuddered at my words and pulled back, catching his breath.
I whimpered and angled my hips up, splaying my legs out so he could go deeper.
He kissed my arm and shoulder, then took a deep breath and started moving again.
I didn’t want to startle him and have him stop, so I grabbed onto his buttocks with both hands and helped drive him into me as I cried out for more.
After a few strokes, he got the idea and stopped holding back.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to come with him on top like that, just from his cock, but it felt so good, I didn’t want to stop. Then I didn’t have to worry, because I was coming, multicolored lights flashing behind my eyes as I quivered and shook and cried out beneath his big, muscular body.
He was sweating now, the muscles of his neck bulging out as he kept moving, rocking into me with pleasure.
He swore, gritted his teeth, and moaned as he also came, his cock impossibly hard and shuddering inside me.
My fingertips were digging into his thick back muscles, and I relaxed my hands and arms. I moved my hands down to his firm buttocks and gave them a squeeze. He shook, as though surprised, and then let out a nervous laugh.
I turned my head to the side and kissed his ear, where his head was buried face-down in the blankets next to me.
He pulled back, red-faced, and blinked at me. “So much for hours of riding,” he said.
I smiled up at him, and not just with my mouth, but with my whole body. The entire room—the entire world—was smiling.
“I really don’t need hours,” I said. “That was perfect.”
He reached down and held onto the base of the condom as he carefully withdrew. “We can always go again later. Give me a few minutes.”
I turned to the side and looked at my digital alarm clock.
The readout made no sense. It was two-thirty already? How could that be?
I sat up quickly, heart pounding. “Shit! I have to get Bell at three.” I got up and started hunting around for clothes. “Oh, dammit, how am I going to get there in time?”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Sawyer said calmly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. “You can’t put her on your bike.”
“Aubrey.” His tone was serious.
I looked up, angry that this man was naked, on my bed, chiding me. What if I’d fallen asleep and forgotten to go get her?
“I’ll drop you off,” he said. “The two of you can walk back here like usual. I can even drop you around the corner, so she doesn’t see me.”
I clapped my hand to my forehead. “Of course. I’m sorry. I just… wasn’t thinking.”
Looking defeated, he got up, grabbed his clothes from the floor, and shuffled off to the bathroom.
This wasn’t at all how I expected today to go.
Or was it?
Maybe I hadn’t expected this, but I’d foreseen disaster of some sort. Since I ran away with Bell, not many guys had been interested in dating me, but with the ones who did, something like this always happened.
The worst part wasn’t them ending the relationship. Not at all. The worst part was that in order to make themselves feel better, they made me out to be the bad person. The crazy, emotional woman with all the unreasonable demands. Never mind that I hardly ever asked for anything.
They couldn’t see themselves as the users they were, taking what they wanted and then moving on to the next girl. They were in denial of their dark hearts, that they would “pump and dump” a young single mother. So, there’d be some small incident that would be inflated to something bigger than it was. I’d lose my temper, just for a moment, and they’d seize their opportunity. They’d tip their heads and give me that smug look. Aubrey, you’re giving me no choice but to break it off with you.
This had happened twice over the last three years. I’d deluded myself into thinking I could have a casual relationship without Bell knowing, but both times had been a disaster.
The problem wasn’t her. It was me.
First Damion, and then the next two guys.
The common factor in all those wrecks was me.
***
The first night Damion came by the trailer while my mother and Derek were out, we just kissed at first, then he put his hand down my pants. I was only fifteen, and I wasn’t close to any girls at school, so I had no idea about sex in real life. To my surprise, I liked how Damion made me feel.
After that, he’d come by once or twice a week, usually when my mother and Derek were out, but even if they were home, he’d casually ask if he could watch our
television, since his satellite wasn’t working properly.
As soon as we were alone together, he’d have his hands down my pants in a hot minute.
“Almost sweet sixteen,” he’d moan as he kissed my neck and made me feel like my head was going to explode.
He was twenty, and at the time I thought I was pretty hot shit to have a twenty-year-old interested in me. Damion got me hooked on him. With his tongue in my mouth and his hand down my pants, he made me come, so many times.
I resisted letting him go “all the way,” but then he started showing less interest, coming around less often. So, one night, it just happened. I mean, I let it happen. I had on my best underwear, so I had to live with knowing some part of me had planned it.
When he put it in, the pain really surprised me. Touching had felt so good up to that point, and despite what I’d heard about losing your virginity, I thought it would be different for us. I asked him to stop, but he shushed me. I asked again, and he glared down at me.
We were in my bed, in my little unheated bedroom. Summer was almost there, but the room still had that damp chill that never really went away. My bed was narrow—a child’s bed—and it made a terrible squeaking I was afraid might wake up Bell.
Damion glared down at me, with his dark brown eyes that looked almost black at night like this. He had the same dark, straight hair as his father. Red-faced and frustrated like this, he looked exactly like Derek, which made me feel terrified in that moment.
“I’ll slow down,” he said. “But I ain’t stoppin’. Just hang in there, it’ll get better in a minute, trust me.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me you love me.”
I forced myself to say it. “I love you.”
He kept going, and it didn’t get better, but it didn’t get worse, either.
A girl who knew better, and wasn’t so desperate to be loved by someone would have stopped fooling around with Damion as of that night. I could have said no to him, and I could have put the deadbolt across the door so he couldn’t let himself in.
But I didn’t know any better, or maybe I just didn’t care. I was ready for the world and whatever it had in store for me, even if it meant getting hurt. I was ready to hurl myself into that pain, just to see what happened.
Chapter Eighteen
Sawyer gave me a ride on his bike to Bell’s elementary school. I would have walked, but then I’d have been late for sure. Time had passed too quickly when I was in his arms.
As discussed, Sawyer dropped me off around the corner from the school’s entrance, so Bell wouldn’t see me on a motorbike. Thanks to the ride, we were actually a few minutes early. Sawyer pulled into a shady spot, underneath a big tree, and killed the engine.
We took off our helmets, and I said, “You can just dump me and go.”
“Dump you?”
“Whatever.” I started to walk toward the school, but he jumped in front of me.
I pushed him aside and started to run.
He caught me, his arms around my waist.
“Aubrey, what’s wrong? Why does it seem like you’re always running away from me?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned me to face him. “Do I scare you?” His green eyes looked so sad as he asked the question, like he was the one afraid, not me.
“Relationships scare me. Not sure if you noticed, but I suck at them.”
He grinned, which made me able to start breathing again. “I suck at relationships, too. The last time I cared about a girl was over a year ago. She was my girlfriend. I think she was trying to get something from me that I wasn’t able to give.”
“Sounds about right.”
“She’s engaged now, or maybe married. So I guess that thing she wanted did exist in the universe, just not in me. I wasn’t good enough.”
The look on his face, plus his words, crushed me. How could Sawyer think he wasn’t good enough? The world was a really messed-up place if he believed that.
He continued, “She got the fat all sucked out of her ass and then threw me out with all the ass fat.”
Was he joking? What the fuck was he talking about? He rambled on about ass fat.
The bell above the school rang, which meant the kids would be streaming out the doors any moment.
“You’re not making any sense,” I said.
He blinked rapidly. “Her name was Janine, and she got liposuction done. She didn’t need it done, but then she did, and I think it was a test for me, and I failed. I kept saying the wrong thing. I say a lot of things, and some of them are bound to come out wrong.” He looked down, shaking his head, then looked back up at me, a wry smile on his face. “You know, some people have real problems. Janine couldn’t understand that. She’d talk about her hips like they were an atrocity.”
I didn’t say anything, but I wondered, how bad were the hips, exactly?
Sawyer continued, “Never mind about Janine and all that. It’s in the past. I know I have a big mouth, and I ramble a lot, but I swear there’s a point in here somewhere.” He fixed me with his gaze, his green eyes looking almost emerald in the dappled light beneath the leafy tree. “My point is I really like you, and I want to spend more time with you, and if it means I have to wear a muzzle so I don’t talk and ruin everything, then I will.” He grinned. “Wait. Your face. I think your face is broken, around your mouth area. Is that a smile?”
I widened my smile with a sigh. “We can hang out again, soon.”
“Tomorrow?”
I wriggled out of his grasp and started walking backward toward the school, in the direction of children’s laughter. “I have tomorrow off work, but you probably know that.”
He pumped his fist in the air, like he’d won a prize. “I have most of tomorrow free.”
I kept walking. “Call me, or text me.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pretended he was texting me that moment, which had the desired effect of making me laugh.
I turned around and sped up to a light jog, toward the school entrance to get Bell.
My face was still light from the smile. Sawyer had a strong effect on me, but at least it was a good one. My jeans were chafing, so I adjusted them, noting that my parts felt a little swollen within my panties. Was I already turned on again, just thinking about him, or was that the lingering effect of this afternoon?
The smile crept back up as I remembered, and I had to hold my hand up over my mouth before everyone saw and knew I’d had insanely hot, toe-curling sex not an hour earlier.
I looked around at the other mothers. There were white moms and Asian moms and plenty of Indian moms, with their lustrous black hair and broods of kids. Many of these dark-haired women were pregnant with the next one. So many kids for one mother, but I knew they managed because they had their mothers and maybe their grandmothers at home, living in multi-family houses with several generations.
As I stared at one raven-haired lady with twins in a double stroller, an elderly woman with silver hair trailing behind her, I realized she and I weren’t so different after all. I didn’t live with my grandmother, but she had been helping out with Bell so much over the last few months—so much that now I could breathe. I had a new life, thanks to my family.
And to think, my mother told me they were dead. Why would she do that? They were such good people, undeserving of being shut out that way. I noticed the tension creeping up in my body as I felt the anger at my mother, so I shook my head and tried to think of better things.
Like Sawyer.
I pulled my phone out to see if he’d texted me. He hadn’t, but I stood there and typed a quick message to him.
Me: Thank you for the nice day in the sun. I had a lot of fun. ;-D
I thought he would enjoy the smiley face.
He didn’t text back, but that was a good thing, as he was probably on his bike. I got a tremor of fear in my belly, worrying he might feel his phone vibrate and try to answer while he was riding, and end up getting hurt. It was an awfu
l, sick feeling, and I hated my imagination for being so good at picturing his crumpled body bleeding on the pavement.
“Hi.”
I looked up from my phone at a little face—Bell, with her blue eyes rimmed in red from tears.
Dropping to a squat to be eye-level, I said, “What’s wrong? Were you crying?”
“No.” Her little lips puffed out stubbornly.
“Just in a bad mood? What made you sad?” I looked around for a sign, but nobody was looking our way, and I couldn’t spot her friend Taylor.
She grabbed the zipper of my hoodie and zipped it up and down like a toy.
“Not talking?”
Her mouth moved from side to side, like the truth was trying to come out, but she was fighting it the way she fought sleep when she wanted to stay up late instead of going to bed.
I took her hand and started us toward home, hoping the rhythm of walking would draw her story from her.
Like her, I’d also been a sensitive little kid, but not to the extreme that she was sensitive. My mother hadn’t put up with much of what she called my “fussing,” so I learned to keep quiet while she washed my hair with the shampoo that burned my scalp and stung my eyes. That was when I learned that everything ended—every moment was temporary, and pain was like the train passing by on the railroad tracks. If you waited long enough, soon you’d be back to looking at the trees.
We got all the way home, and Bell still hadn’t said anything, despite my attempts to coax a few words from her. Feeling defeated, I let us in the front door of the building. If she wasn’t going to talk to me, maybe it was about time she found that cold comfort within herself.
She turned and looked up at me, her big, blue eyes brighter and more blue from the recent tears. “Taylor is mean,” she said. There was a trace of something blue at the corner of her mouth. I hadn’t sent her to school with candy, so I figured she must have gotten a sucker or gum from another kid.
“Your friend, Taylor?” I fought the urge to argue with her, to say that Taylor wasn’t mean, that she was nice.
It was my and everyone else’s instinct to argue with the truth—to insist that some person we didn’t even know had to be nice, because how could we keep going in a world where even our friends were mean to us?
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