Kylie blanches. "A girl who knows what's up, huh?" She sounds bitter, hurt. "What's that mean?"
"That it ain't gonna be more than what it is. That I ain't gonna stick around or talk about feelings. No complications. Just a quick fuck."
She flinches at my words, keeps her eyes cast down. "So sex has never meant anything to you?"
"Nope."
"Have you ever...been in love?"
I laugh. "Yeah, actually. Once. Senior year of high school in Atlanta. Amy Peretti. Upper-middle-class white girl, not popular, not a loner. Pretty, but not gorgeous. But she was...nice. Really nice. We were chemistry lab partners, and we ended up hanging out here and there. Never sat with her for lunch or hung out with her friends, but she'd talk to me in the hallways. We met at the mall once. Just walked around and talked. She was the first person who ever...saw me for me, I guess. Saw past the fact that I was the new guy, saw past the fact that I was always in detention and getting suspended for fighting and all that. I liked her. By the end of the year, I was convinced I was in love with her. Started making excuses to see her. Finally got up the nerve to ask her out on a date. Had fucking roses and shit." I swallow hard, trying to tell the story without reliving it. "I got her alone in the hall after school, by my locker. Handed her the roses, and asked her if she'd go out with me. She just stared at me, surprised, panicked, even. I can hear her, remember every word. "Oh, god, Oz. I'm sorry. I thought you understood that we're just friends. You're nicer than most people realize, but...no, I couldn't ever date you. Sorry.' And then she walked away, and that was that. It was two weeks before the end of the year. I skipped the rest. Had to take summer classes, but there was no way I could go back and see her. It hurt, Kylie. The look in her eyes. The surprise. The pity. Like...how could someone like me ever even think I'd be good enough for someone like her? The worst part was...she wasn't mean about it. She didn't laugh or make fun of me, and I don't think she ever told anyone I'd asked her out. But she just...seemed so surprised that I'd even think of it. Like it was obvious all we'd ever be was friends. She gave the roses back." I laugh again, bitterly, angrily. "Thirty bucks, wasted. I gave 'em to the secretary in the main office."
Kylie takes my cigarette from me, which I've held without smoking while I talked, so the ash is long and dangling. She holds it over the ashtray, taps the filter gently, and we both watch the quarter-inch of gray ash topple down and lose shape. "That's...shitty. And sad." She puts the filter to her lips and inhales, and I hate the fact that she doesn't cough as she pulls the smoke into her lungs, holds it briefly, and blows it out through her nose. She doesn't smoke without me, and never smokes a whole one, just a hit or two, but it's enough. I haven't touched pot when I'm around her since that one time, and I'm determined to keep to that. "Oz, I'm not her. I'm not like her."
I shake my head and take the cigarette from her. "I know, sweetness. That's not what it's about."
"Then what is it?" She pivots on her ass and crosses her legs to sit Indian-style facing me. "I really don't understand. I mean, do you really think you're not good enough for me?"
I sigh. "God, you make it sound like I have self-esteem issues. I don't. I know who I am, and I'm good with it." I gesture at my room. "This is my life, Kylie. It's probably all I'll ever have. Shitty apartments in the shitty, ghetto end of town. I can't give you...anything. Not for a long time, if ever. I mean, let's say I am as talented as y'all seem to think, and I manage to get a record deal or something. It would be years and years of work to get there, to get noticed. And in the meantime, my life would be beans and rice and Ramen noodles and one-room shitholes in neighborhoods that sound like war zones. Maybe I will amount to something in my life. I do want more than this, Kylie. I do. But I can't give you more than this. And I'm not a stupid kid, okay? I know just...being hot for each other, even being in love isn't enough to take care of someone. It won't pay the bills. It won't provide food and rent, much less the kind of life you're used to, the kind of life you deserve." I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the cherry on the cigarette nearing my fingertips. I welcome the burgeoning heat. "So, no, Ky. It's not about me not being good enough. It's about you. You being worth more."
My skin is being singed by the cigarette, and I let it happen. It doesn't count as burning, because I'm not doing it intentionally. It's just a side benefit of not caring if I get a little burnt.
"Goddamn it, Oz." I feel the cigarette being taken away. I don't open my eyes, but I can feel her gaze on me. So blue, so hot, so conflicted and angry and needy. "My worth isn't for you to determine. My future isn't for you to decide. I don't care about any of that. What if I told you I'd be willing to live in one-room shitholes? That I'd learn to live in neighborhoods that sound like war zones and eat Ramen and Kraft mac and cheese and whatever. That I'd be willing to live that way if it meant I could be with you. What if I said all that would be worth it? Does it sound fun? No. Do I want that? No, not really. But I do want you."
I feel her hand on my thigh. I wince at the twinge of the still-healing wound, and then I feel the mattress dip as she leans forward, slides one leg over mine. Feel her straddle me. The slight ache of her weight on my thigh isn't enough to make me move her off me. Her palms cup my cheeks, and I hate how much I cherish the feel of her tender touch, how right it feels. I hate it, because it makes it so much harder to pretend I don't desperately want her. Need her. Yearn for her. That I wouldn't give everything to have her in my life, every day, every way. That I wouldn't tell her all my secrets, and show her all my scars, and share all my sins and shadows. She already knows more about me than anyone. She's seen me burn myself, and seen me smoke pot and seen me break bones. The only secret she doesn't know is how desperately I need to know who my father was, and what happened to him and if I'm like him, if he was a good person or a fuck-up or a thug or a loser or a rich yuppie or just an average guy. Why he left me. Why he couldn't stick around long enough for me to know him. Why he couldn't be my father and why Mom is so fucked up about him. No one knows how deeply into my psyche and into my soul that need is tangled.
She's sitting on me, holding my face. Waiting. I open my eyes, and I'm seared by the vulnerability in her blueblueblue eyes. She's begging me and pleading with me, silently, and with razor-sharp precision. Her knees are at my hips, her thighs strong and tight in her skinny jeans. Her breathing is harsh and ragged, her hands trembling on my skin. Her hair is a fall of sunset-copper rivulets and loose spirals, and her skin is pale as porcelain and dotted with freckles across her nose and on her cleavage, and I want to kiss each freckle, count each one across every inch of her flesh. I suddenly understand how sex can mean something. Before it just felt good. It's given me a bit of distraction from my life and my pain and poverty and questions. The girls have been hot and willing, but our time together has always been momentary, fleeting. Despite being naked, there's never been vulnerability. We both knew we'd never see each other again, and so any imperfections could be ignored, any flaws could be glossed over. I'd be gone within the hour, or she was. With Kylie, it wouldn't be that. It couldn't be that. We've exchanged too many truths. Seen too much of each other's soft and easily damaged inner selves. I've shown her who I am, beneath the metal shirts and the tattoos and the cursing and violence.
She's seen that I'm just a guy, nothing special.
Yet here she is, wanting me, and refusing to let me protect her from me. Acting like I am something special.
Kylie's eyes burn into mine, and my mind and heart and soul are all giving in, telling me that she's right. Who am I to decide what's best for her, what's wrong for her? If she wants me, wants who I am, why should I deny her myself? I lick my lips and prepare to say this, but she beats me to it.
"Oz, I've thrown myself at you. I want you. I care about you. I feel things for you that are powerful and confusing and scary, and I'm not holding them back. I'm here, and I'm telling you I want you for you, for who you are, as you are. But I can't keep getting rejected. So I'll put myself out there one m
ore time." Her eyes are scared, her breathing coming in long, deep swells. Her hands shake, and her eyes waver as they search me. "Don't deny me again, Oz. Don't tell me I'm not old enough, or that you're not good enough. Because...if you don't want me, then I'll go. If you're too scared to be with me, to be with me for real, no matter what anyone thinks, I'll leave you alone. I can't just be friends with you anymore. I want too much more than that. So tell me what you want, Oz."
She takes her hands off of my face, sits back so she's on her haunches and my legs. Shakes her hair back, out of the way. I'm frozen, speechless, mesmerized. Her beauty is too much for me. Sculpted features and fiery hair to match her personality and skin, fair and perfect and soft, a body to kill for, to die for. Talent to rule the world, passionate, and here with me. With me. Wanting me. God, she's demanding all of me. And I don't know how to deny her.
I'm going to hurt her, someday, somehow. I know it. And yet I can't seem to refuse her.
She wipes her hands on her thighs, and then crosses her arms around her middle. Grasps the hem of her sweater. "Tell me to leave, Oz. Tell me you don't want this. Tell me again you don't deserve this." Then, slowly, she lifts her sweater, revealing a sliver of white skin and the round dip of her navel. God, my heart is pounding at that tiny glimpse of flesh. "Stop me, Oz. If you're not in this with me for real, stop me. I'm not going to give this to you if you're not all the way in with me. But I want you. And I believe you want me. You're scared of yourself, but I'm not. So this is your last chance, Oz. Grab my hands and stop me, because if you don't, you're mine. And I'm yours, and whatever else happens, we'll have something beautiful and perfect, and it'll mean something, for as long as it lasts."
My ability to speak is shattered, ruined. She's drawing her sweater off slowly. It's just beneath her bra now, her ribs showing with each deep breath. I can't speak, but I can't deny her. I can't tell her to stop. I can't send her away. Because I do feel things. And, yeah, I'm scared of myself. I'm scared that I'll never get out of shitty apartments, that I'll be like Mom, living paycheck to paycheck, never aspiring to anything, traveling a thousand miles and never going anywhere. I'm scared I'll do something stupid and end up in jail, or dead. Grow up living in a dozen different ghettos, you learn to fear that. You watch the ambulances show up and cop cars skid to a stop and watch guys disappear into the system, or into the morgue, and you wonder if that's gonna be you. And I don't want that. Not for me, and sure as shit not for Kylie. Can I be more? Maybe. Hopefully.
But now, none of that matters. All that matters is the girl sitting on my lap, straddling me, lifting her sweater up slowly in a deliberate striptease, daring me to reject her yet again, knowing I can't.
My throat is dry, shut tight. My heart is a double-kick drum in my chest, and my hands are curling around her thighs, sliding up to her waist, to the pale skin. Her eyes widen, and her nostrils flare and the fear in her eyes ratchets to something approaching panic, but she doesn't stop. My palms slide over her skin and up, thumbs tracing her ribs and the hint of black underwire.
"Oz?" Now she's stopped, the sweater lodged on her chest, at the threshold of following through or covering up. "What do you want?"
I have to speak. She deserves to hear it. "You." It's whispered, rasped, but she hears it.
Her arms lift, her back straightens, and now the pale purple sweater is up and off and her hair is streaming through the opening, falling to sway against her back. I'm blinking, barely breathing. My hands skate up her sides, roam around to trace her spine. Her head is bowed, her eyes closed, her nerves taking over. She's trembling. She needs reassurance.
"You're beautiful, Kylie." The words barely make it past my lips, but she hunches her shoulders as they pelt her. "So beautiful. The kind of gorgeous that needs words we don't have."
She forces her eyes open, and I can see unshed tears glistening. "I'm scared, Oz. Now that I'm here, with my shirt off, I'm scared."
"Then put your shirt back on, sweetness. There's no rush. I'm not going anywhere."
She sniffs, shakes her head, and wipes beneath her eyes with her two middle fingers. "No. I'm not scared because I'm topless. I'm scared because...what if we do this, and it's not what I think it is? What if you're just...playing me? What if you get what you want from me, and then you leave? What if...what if...so many what-ifs, Oz. I don't believe any of them, but they're still there, and they're scaring me."
"If I was going to take what I wanted from you and leave, I would've done it a long time ago."
"I know," she says. "I believe you. It's just...all these things are in my head suddenly, now that being with you is on the verge of becoming a reality."
"What else is in your head?"
She lifts one shoulder, a tiny, unsure shrug. "So much. What if I'm no good? What if I don't know what to do? What if I'm too scared to go through with it? What if you don't like it with me? I've never done any of this before, and you have. With girls who knew what they were doing. I don't. They probably weren't so scared they're shaking, but I am."
"If you're that scared, Kylie, then let's wait. Just...wait." Wait till you're eighteen, I think, but don't say it.
"No. I don't want to. I'm scared of disappointing you, that's all."
I have to laugh at that. "Jesus, Kylie. You couldn't. And...what we're doing? It's not like anything I've ever done before. I care about you, and I want to be everything you think I am. And I want...if we're going to do this, then I want it to be everything you've hoped it could be, and I'm not sure how to give you that. So...I'm just as nervous as you."
"How are you nervous? You know what comes next."
I shake my head. "No, I don't. Caring about you, caring how you feel, that's new for me. I've always been...selfish. And so was whoever I was with. It was just...taking. I want to...to give something to you. Give everything to you." I blink hard and suck in the truth with a deep breath. "I don't have much to give, but what I do have, I want to give to you."
This brings a smile to her lips and to her eyes. "That's all I need, Oz." She reaches forward and tugs the hem of my shirt up. "That, and to see more of you."
"I could probably manage that much." I lift my arms, and my shirt flies across the room.
Her eyes rake over me, as if she can't get enough of what she sees. I know the feeling. I let my hands slide up her spine, hover over the strap of her bra. I hesitate there, questioning with my expression. Her chin lifts, the corner of her mouth curls up in a smile, and she takes the button of my jeans in her fingers, flicks it open, and then pinches the tab of my zipper between thumb and forefinger. She waits then, and I know this game. I pull the ends of her bra strap together, feel the clasps loosen, and she pulls the zipper down. I feel my cock going rigid, pressing up against the elastic of my boxers. Her eyes lock on the fabric of my boxers, visibly tented. I swallow hard, and free the first eyelet on her bra. Tug, free the second. Meet her eyes, and let the third and final clasp fall open. The strap hangs at her sides, dangles from her shoulders, and I reach up, brush it off and down her arms. She lets it fall, sets it aside. I can tell she's fighting the instinct to cross her arms over her chest, but she doesn't. My cock goes from rock-hard to painfully hard.
It's hard to swallow, hard to breathe. So beautiful, so perfect. Round and high and firm, big, Jesus, so big. Dark pink areolae, thick nipples, begging to be touched. I can't help but reach up and gingerly, reverently, cup one of her breasts, drag my thumb across her nipple and feel the way she twitches as the pad of my thumb brushes her sensitive skin. She blinks hard, bites her lip, and then arches her back. Pushing into my touch. Wanting more. I'm leaning against the wall, a pillow scrunched behind my back, and she's sitting on me, tall and nervous and the sexiest thing I've ever seen. I run my hand over her diaphragm, the "V" between thumb and forefinger sliding under the heavy weight of one of her boobs. I lift it, holding the soft perfect globe in my hand, kneading, pinching her nipple gently.
"God, Oz. I really like that." She's barely breathing, eyes
closed, lip caught between her teeth.
"Not as much as I do, I can guarantee you that," I say.
I lean forward, totally giving in now, and I vow to make her feel so good, so free, so perfect, that she'll never forget this night as long as she lives, that she'll never forget how good I made her feel. I don't care if I get nothing out of it, if she goes limp and falls asleep, sated, before she touches me. My lips touch the upper swell of her cleavage, and then I press a series of small, hot kisses to her warm satin flesh. Her hand rests on my shoulder, and her nails dig gently into the muscle as my lips near the peak of her breast. She's not breathing at all now, and my tongue slides and slips around the circumference of her areola. I can't make myself wait any longer. I suck her nipple into my mouth and groan at the taste of her, and she's gasping, clawing at me.
"Shit, Oz. Holy shit."
I move to the other tit and give it the same attention, hot wet kisses down the slope, tongue flicking out, and draw her erect, diamond-hard nipple into my mouth and taste her perfection.
She abruptly remembers that she too has hands, and that I'm still mostly clothed. Her fingers fumble at my belly, finding the partly open fly, and she lowers the zipper the rest of the way. I struggle with my boots, toe them off, and then she's pulling down on my pants while trying to keep upright with her tits in my face. She wants to be everywhere at once. I do, too. I want to strip her jeans off and see the rest of her, caress the marvelous glory that is her ass. But I'm not there yet. I'm still paying homage to the perfection of her tits, kissing and holding and fondling and lifting and running my tongue all over her flesh.
Falling Under Page 11
