by Anthology
I don’t know how much time has passed when she opens her eyes, locking that vibrant green expanse on mine and grinning with a fierce wickedness so different from the nervous pleasure of the girl I used to know. She thrusts her weight upward so our positions are reversed and presses down on my chest with her hands. India is still for only a moment, and then she begins a slow, tortuous swirl with her hips that has me gripping the comforter with both fists.
“Fuck, India.”
She drops toward me, her lips just brushing against my ear. “You like this?”
I love this.
I want to say it but I can’t—something holds me back, even now. It’s like if I say it, I’ll admit that part of me is still dwelling on her, on what could have been.
She slides up and down on my cock and I reach for her hips, exaggerating her movements, and she throws her head back, her breasts thrust toward me.
It’s the most gorgeous sight I’ve seen in ten years and I’m not going to fucking ruin it by saying something that’s too damn emotional or not enough or whatever else gets between people who finally have another chance.
Another chance…
Electricity spikes from my shoulders to my fingertips, and I can’t help myself. Something unlocks the last barrier between me and animal instinct and I’m moving us, turning her so she’s on her hands and knees, and then plunging back into her with a powerful ferocity.
India’s hands scramble on the comforter, looking for something to fucking hold on to, and I fuck her with total abandon, rising up on my knees behind her, a low growl tearing from my throat.
“Yes,” she whispers, her voice shaken by my thrusts. “Yes.”
She clenches around me—whether it’s on purpose or involuntary, I just don’t fucking care—and I pick up speed. She braces herself however she can, ass up in the air, legs spread wide, taking it and loving it, her hips still moving side to side.
When she comes, it’s an incredible display of force, rocking her forward and back against me, so powerful that I have to take her hips in my hands and pull her back to keep her in place. Her rippling muscles, tight around my cock, pulse and squeeze and push me right over the screaming edge, joining her cries. It’s so fucking good that it hurts, it hurts like I never want it to stop, and I just want this moment to last until the end of time.
For a long few moments, we’re frozen in place, her body trembling with the aftershocks of her orgasm, until I wrap my arms around her waist and tumble us both onto the pillows.
India stretches her body against mine until we’re touching in every possible place, and then she sighs so deeply that I feel all of her relax.
I can’t see her face, but I imagine that her eyes are closed like mine are, sinking into sheer fucking bliss.
I don’t know what time it is, and I don’t bother turning my head to look at the clock. The lamplight burns, but not so brightly that it stops me from falling into a deep sleep.
For once, I don’t dream of her.
I don’t dream of anything.
It’s the first time in several years that my mind is completely satisfied, that my heart isn’t pulsing with an ache I can’t get rid of.
Chapter 9
India
The gray light of morning is competing with the dim yellow glow of Dawson’s lamp when I wake up. Consciousness returns slowly and by increments. At first I don’t know where I am, and I fall back into a shallow dream, but the next time I surface I remember—the car going into the ditch, the horrendous storm, Dawson at the passenger-side window.
My cheeks go hot. There was more, too. The dinner he’d prepared. The fucking—it wasn’t making love, it was wild, passionate fucking.
And Dawson, stretched out beside me, his arms over his head, abs completely on display.
I resist the urge to run my fingers over them and instead reach for the lamp, clicking it off. My eyes are instantly relieved, and I drop back on the pillow and look around the room. It’s early—five, if the alarm clock on the bedside table is right—and I yawn, the sheets soft against my skin.
My heart twists in my chest when I think of what happened last night. Jesus, it was so good—so good. Nobody I’ve been with since high school has ever compared to Dawson, and now I know they never will. Only there’s a fluttering in my gut that makes my face flush even hotter.
It’s not like after one night of mind-blowing sex, we can just pick up where we left off. Not least because where we left off was a pretty shitty place, and I don’t think either one of us wants to revisit that.
Images from last night flicker through my mind, even though I close my eyes and try to rest. Dawson’s smooth, regular breathing is a soothing sound, but after a few minutes my heart starts to pound.
What are my choices now?
We can shake hands and part ways and never talk about this again, or we can actually talk about what happened then and what’s happened now, even if it’s like a knife in my heart. Dawson clearly has some feelings about it, and I can’t say I’ll be shocked if—even after all this—he wants nothing to do with me. It’s not like he asked me to drive my car into the ditch outside his house. And it’s not like he’s ever reached out to me, even once, in the last ten years.
I can’t fault him for taking advantage of a situation like this. I wanted the same thing.
My mind spins in a hundred different directions. What do you want now? I can’t take him back to my parents’ house with me and declare that he’s the one after all these years.
Well—yes, I can.
I just don’t know if I want to face the disappointed looks on Christmas Eve.
But I’m getting way the hell ahead of myself. What does Dawson want? Probably not to go back and face the people who convinced his daughter he was a worthless piece of shit who didn’t deserve five minutes of her time.
I wander in and out of this kind of circular bullshit for another forty-five minutes, and then I can’t take it anymore. I put my legs carefully over the side of the bed, listening for any change in Dawson’s breathing. I don’t want to wake him up if I don’t have to.
I’m halfway through the door when he rustles under the comforter, but he just turns over onto his side, not waking up.
I pad out into the living room. One wall is taken up with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase—God, all of my books would look fantastic here—and in the filtered light through the picture window I stop to see what he’s got.
It’s a motley collection of books. I recognize some dog-eared copies from way back in high school. When I spot the photo album, I can’t stop myself.
I listen hard for him, but in the silence I pull it down from the shelf and crack it open, the plastic pages separating with a tiny snap.
And there we are.
It’s the first picture in the album, all alone on its own page. My arms are around his waist. It looks like it was taken in the spring, somewhere outside, and by one of those crappy disposable cameras. It’s slightly off center, but I’m grinning at the camera like it’s the best day of my life.
Dawson is looking down at me, his face illuminated with a broad grin. Back then, there was no hardness in his expression. Sure, he was a bad boy who had a foul mouth and stayed out all night doing God knows what, but it was all in fun.
The expression on Dawson’s face in the picture makes my heart ache.
I flip through a few more pages. There are some pictures of Dawson and his friends flipping off the camera, a few awkward snapshots of what looks like a high school dance, Dawson’s sister Cassie—but no other girls, no one except me.
At the very back of the book is a picture I’ve never seen before. In it, I’m sitting in the grass several feet away from whoever took the picture—Dawson, I imagine, looking down at one of my favorite books, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The sun is shining from behind me, reflecting off my hair, and I look absolutely at peace.
I haven’t felt like that in years.
Not since last night,
when I fell asleep with Dawson’s arm curled around me.
I put the album back and make my way to the guest bathroom. There’s an unopened toothbrush and toothpaste in the cupboard where the towels are, and after I brush, I turn on the shower, strip off my clothes, and step in, images of Dawson filling my head.
Chapter 10
Dawson
I wake up because there’s a sudden lack of body heat on the other side of the bed, and my hand automatically reaches out for India, only to hit the bare sheets.
I sit up, blinking in the dim-ass morning light. Where the hell is she? She couldn’t have gone home because her car, for all I know, is still in the ditch. I have no idea if she called someone to tow her out, and if they even showed up. If she wasn’t there to pay, I seriously doubt it.
I run a hand through my hair. It’s just after six in the morning, and my thudding heart tells me that I won’t be going back to sleep. Not if India is somewhere in my house, waiting for me.
My muscles are still warm and relaxed from last night, and a strange feeling of contentment fills my chest as I go into the bathroom to take a piss, splash some water on my face, brush my teeth.
Then I go looking.
It takes no time at all to figure out that she’s in the shower in the guest bathroom. The hiss of the water, at this time of day, travels through the entire house.
If the door is closed, I won’t bother her, but with every step I take, my heart beats faster, my cock gets harder. The thought of her naked body underneath the stream of hot water makes it seem like there’s not enough air in the room.
The bathroom door is open.
Wide open.
The steam curls out in little tendrils from the doorway, but it looks like she hasn’t been in here long enough to be anywhere close to done. Women love to take those long showers, and I’m damn glad for it.
I rap my knuckles against the doorframe. “Hey,” I call into the steam.
“Hey,” she says, and there’s something in her voice that brings a smile to my face.
“You all right? You need anything? Towel?”
“I’ve got a towel…”
“But?”
“Well, this is a pretty huge shower. Really nice, though.”
“You think it’s too big?”
“I think it’s a little empty.”
Now my smile becomes a full-on grin, and I drop my boxers to the floor.
“I can help you with that.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to bother you. You might have a busy day planned.”
“On Christmas Eve? Doubt it. I’m not opening the bar.”
I move toward the shower and open the glass door. India has her hands in her hair, working the last of the shampoo out of the dark ends. When she smiles at me, it shifts everything in my fucking body, cracking open the thick walls of denial I’ve kept built up for ten years.
Yeah. I love her. That’s the pathetic, killing thing about this. I love India Patrick. I’ve loved her since high school, and it’s been eating me alive for the past ten years.
Except for now.
I step into the shower with her and pull the door shut behind us. She drops her hands from her hair and runs her fingertips down my chest, pulling me closer so that we’re both under the water.
“I could get used to this.”
My voice sounds almost gruff, and something flickers across India’s eyes. “You could?”
“Hell yes.” I look down at the water droplets streaming down over her skin and my cock twitches against the flat of her stomach.
“Having me in your shower?” Her smile is half wicked, but it’s got a weird vulnerability that I almost have no fucking idea how to interpret.
“And in my bed.”
She bites her lips, then pulls my head down so she can run her hands through my hair, and then she adds shampoo. I can’t get enough of her touch, but I don’t want to say anything to make her think I’ve been fucking obsessed with her for ten years.
Even if it’s true.
She rinses my hair, then rubs body wash between her hands, lathering it up.
The silence between us gets heavy as she works her way down every inch of me, soaping my cock as thoroughly as anyone ever has. When she steps aside to let the water rinse the suds away, I keep my hands firmly on her shoulders, closing my eyes as the heat washes the tension out of me.
The next thing I know, she’s moving, and holy hell, going to her knees in front of me, taking me in her mouth, and swirling her tongue around like nobody has before and nobody ever will again.
She works me expertly while the water hisses around us. The bathroom has to be clouded over with steam by this point, but I don’t give a shit. I’ve given myself over to her, and there’s no coming back.
India is so damn efficient with that sweet mouth of hers that it’s not long before I lose control, coming hard into her mouth. I have to rest my hands on her shoulders to keep my balance for several moments afterward.
She stands up with a smile and plants a kiss on my chest.
“I could get used to this, too.”
I don’t have anything to add. It all seems so right, yet there’s something in her face when she pulls away from me and steps out of the shower that sends a cold prickle of fear down to the center of my gut.
She’s been back in my life for twelve hours, and I’m already afraid of losing her again.
I turn off the shower and follow her out, kissing the side of her neck while I go past to get a towel.
Fuck, let this not be a disaster.
Chapter 11
India
I slip out of the bathroom while Dawson is still toweling off, threading my way through the house. Off the kitchen I find it—the laundry room—and my clothes folded in a tidy stack on top of the dryer.
I dress slowly, and with each item of clothing I pull on, I feel farther and farther away from last night with Dawson.
I mean—I can’t stay here indefinitely, as much as I want to. And if he’s just interested in sex—
That’s not what he said, I remind myself as sternly as I can. It was a flirty, sexy moment in the shower, for God’s sake, not a serious discussion about where we’re going to go from here.
If we’re going to go anywhere at all.
“You found your stuff.”
His voice startles me, and I turn to see him leaning against the doorway of the laundry room, dressed in a t-shirt and a navy hoodie that hugs every line of him.
I try to smile at him, but my spine trembles. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, every moment so precarious, so charged.
“What’s wrong?”
His face is serious, the glow from the shower gone completely.
“Nothing.”
Dawson shakes his head. “I know you better than that.”
“Do you? It’s been ten years.” There’s an edge to my voice that I didn’t intend, and Dawson’s eyes narrow.
“Yeah, I do, India. Just remember—” He cuts himself off with another shake of his head. “Never mind.”
“No. Tell me.”
He turns his back to me, moving back into the kitchen, and I follow on his heels.
“Remember what?”
Dawson whirls around, and his eyes are glittering with pain. “Just remember that the reason we haven’t spoken in ten years is because of what you did.”
It’s a knife straight into my heart.
“Dawson, I didn’t mean—”
He raises both hands in front of him. “Don’t start with that. You meant to do what you did. We both know that.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be devastating, okay? I thought—I thought we would both get over it.”
“You did get over it.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No!” His voice is thundering, and the moment the word is out of his mouth, he claps his hand over his lips, looking away. When he looks back at me, his eyes are narrowed. “No, India,” he sa
ys, his tone chillingly level. “I didn’t get over it. I’ve thought of you every day for the past ten years, wondering how you could set aside what we had like that. How you could fucking…” It’s like he can’t find a strong enough word. “How you could humiliate me like that. On your fucking front porch.”
No. He can’t possibly believe—
“That wasn’t me.”
“Oh? It wasn’t you who agreed to go to whatever that goddamn dance was with him?”
“My dad was friends with his dad at the country club. They arranged it somehow. I didn’t know he was going to come until—”
“Until he showed up?”
“Until he showed up.”
His jaw works, considering it. “You didn’t seem to give a shit for a decade. Not until I was the one who showed up to get you out of the ditch.”
“That’s not true.” My voice quivers, and I hate it. “I told you. I thought about you every day.”
“You never said anything. You never called. You never stopped in.”
“Stopped in where?”
“At the bar I’ve owned for the last five years. Jesus, India. Did you forget me that completely?”
“I already told you, I thought about you every damn day. I didn’t come back often, okay? I was—I was ashamed.”
The heat flies to my cheeks again, and damn it, there are tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
“I was embarrassed because of what happened. You avoided me for the rest of senior year, or did you conveniently forget that? It wasn’t just me.”
Dawson takes in a huge breath and lets it out, running a hand through his hair. “What the hell is the point of all this?”
“I guess there isn’t one,” I spit back at him. “I guess all of this is just pointless.”
