by Ace Gray
“Think about the next few days. Think about Seattle. Please?”
“Camilla, I have to. We have to.” I sigh. “We barely survived it the first time.”
“Not today. We can do it tomorrow, or the next day, but not today.” She closes her eyes and pain twists her up. “I just got you back.”
“I can’t lose you again,” I say it a bit more forcefully than I intend and she shoots down further into my shirt. “I can’t…” I sit up and reach for her.
“I know. God, do I know. But I don’t know how to fix it. It’s Christmas. And I love you. Can’t this be our gift? To each other?” Her words speed up as her bottom lip trembles.
“You love me?” I ask as I cave. Completely. She hadn’t said it last night when I did.
“Yes,” she breathes.
I use the buttons of my shirt to pull her closer and start undoing them one by one. “Twenty-four hours.” I breathe in deeply. “But only if I can give you this.” I lean in and kiss the bare skin below her bellybutton.
She wobbles on her feet a little then clings to my shoulders. Her hands curl in but she doesn’t pull me. I have no desire to rush with her either. And the idea of her wanting it, wanting me, enough to yank me between her thighs, is damn near inspirational. So I sit. And wait. Barely brushing my nose against her flesh. She jerks away as if I’ve tickled her but otherwise all Camilla does is whimper.
I pull away from her and reach for my cup of Christmas on the coffee table behind her. I take a big gulp, letting the spices swish around and coat my mouth. I can smell the cinnamon wafting back against her skin when I turn back to her and whisper, “I love you, too, Camilla.” I seal those words with one ardent, open mouth kiss at the apex of her thighs and she groans.
But then I pull back.
And I take my fresh coffee with me as I slump back into the couch. Camilla bites her bottom lip, plumping it where it peeks out behind bright white teeth. Sitting here, even in the stark morning light, her edges blur into the beautiful smoke winding up her side. The tendrils are gorgeous but it’s the way they highlight and accentuate her body that I study.
“Jay…” she says shyly as she stares at me and recaptures that beautiful lip. “You’re staring.” And her hands tentatively move to cover herself.
“No, Camilla, don’t.” I reach for her, but saying her name, her real name, coaxes her hands to drop. I’m emboldened enough to push her toes apart with the tip of my toe. I cock my eyebrow and evaluate every inch of flesh before me. Her hands move again, this time to cover her eyes, once again becoming my girlfriend of all those years ago. Her curves barely hidden are anything but.
What I’m about to do to her isn’t straight out of high school either.
“AJ,” she moans. “Please.”
“I don’t even have to touch you.” I zero my focus in between her legs.
“It would be a lot better if you did.” Her breathing is shallow and she’s hiding, but she hasn’t shut her legs. Arousal glistens on her thighs in the bright light. “Please touch me,” she whines.
I take a sip of the coffee and let it wash through my mouth. The second I swallow, I’m down on my knees and wrapping her little clit in my tongue.
Her hands drop as she gasps. I grasp her wrists and yank them behind her back. I pin them to her backside and use them to leverage her hips further onto my face. When I gently scrape my teeth along her most delicate parts, she screams. It’s the only sound I ever want to hear again, too.
I collect her wrists in one hand and use the other to throw her knee over my shoulder. She loses her balance for a moment but I hold her tight enough that she stays upright. Her perfect little bud of nerves notches back into my mouth.
And I eat her like she’s my death row meal.
I try not to think about my impending execution.
My nose, my tongue, my hands rove wildly over her, and frantically in her. Her knees are quaking against me, adding a small vibration to my movements. Adding vibrations that make my hair stand on end. And hers… goddamn, those goose bumps.
I wrap my arms up around her and carefully lay her back along the coffee table. When I follow her up onto it, I thank God I built it and it’ll support two. Her tattoo is calling my lips, begging me to taste her. I swear I can taste her bourbon lingering on her skin. It’s a taste I hope I remember for the rest of my life.
Her wild moans as I finally latch onto her big, beautiful breast sears into my brain. My body moves on autopilot to take her. I can’t stop, even if I wanted to. Being with Camilla is too important, my need is too urgent, consuming her is more vital than food or water.
And when I slide into her, I no longer breathe air, I exist because I breathe Camilla.
“It Will Rain” Bruno Mars
If AJ had a flavor, it would be pine, smoke, sage and something else absolutely indescribable. Tasting him, reveling in the tang of him, is better than smelling fresh cut grass, or rain spattering on the ground. It’s one of the few magical things left in this world.
I can’t stop.
After he damn near devoured me on the coffee table this morning, all I want is more. More kisses, more caresses, more of him, of how he rolls his hips against mine… And more time. Forever doesn’t even seem like long enough.
“What?” He’s caught me looking at him again. Well, not so much looking at him, as much as I’m looking at the future I could build wooden slat by wooden slat with him.
“What do you mean what?” I look away with a tiny smile, instead watching the lights along the highway pass by.
“You were staring.” He squeezes my thigh. “Again.”
“Was not.” I bite my lip.
“You were. And you have been.” The smile is evident in his voice.
“What can I say? You’re nice to look at.”
The truck swerves as AJ pulls dramatically to the side of the road. “Nice?” He wiggles his eyebrows as he drags out the word.
“Yeah, nice,” I say shyly, unable to take his teasing as easily as his expert sexing.
“Well, you look pretty nice yourself. You look nice in the front seat of my truck.” He leans over and kisses my neck, a furious blush rising in my cheeks. “You look nice in my house.” He moves up and presses his lips right below my ear. My breathing catches. “You looked very nice on my coffee table.” His lips brush along my cheek. “And you look really fucking nice in my life, Camilla.”
I gasp just before his lips lock on mine. His strong, callused hands wrap behind my neck and hold my face to his as he kisses me. All I can think about is how he can read me like a book, how he’s picturing a future too, and he still kisses me as if it might be the last one he ever gets.
“Why were you staring?” His words dance on my lips, he’s barely pulled back.
“You look really nice in my life too,” I whisper the confession then press my lips back to his and take as much as he’ll give me.
“Champagne, AJ?” my mom offers him a glass.
“Thanks, Mrs. Collins, but I can’t, I’m on call.” He grabs me instead.
“Sarah?” She hands one to AJ’s mom and Sarah accepts and smiles weakly.
At first, I’m worried that I should grab her a beer rather than bubbles, but then I notice her look of disapproval is aimed at us. She’s studying how our bodies fold into one another, how our hands don’t leave the other. Each of AJ’s caresses makes her face pinch further.
I can’t quite swallow the lump that forms in my throat.
My mom starts talking about town gossip and asking about the ranch, but Sarah is still staring at me. Well, at Jay’s arm around me. I automatically shrink back into him. The way he rubs my arm says he’s noticed. He nuzzles against me like he’s going to whisper something encouraging, but he’s cut short.
“Are we really all going to pretend this isn’t happening?” Sarah asks, her voice even, if not a little frigid.
“Mom,” AJ warns.
“Don’t Mom me.” She shoots a glare over my s
houlder to where AJ is pulling my back closer to his front. “She wrecked you. This town barely rebuilt you. And we’re all signing up for round two.” She adds a flippant gesture toward us.
“That’s not fair,” AJ spits out as he steps out from behind me.
“Not at all,” my mom adds as the rest of my family goes quiet. “And if we want to talk wrecked, just look at what your son did to my daughter. To my family. I haven’t had her home for thirteen years.”
I want to stand up for AJ, for Sarah too, but the words won’t come out.
“Not coming home is simply selfish.” Sarah sets down her champagne and steps closer to my mom, AJ angles himself in between.
“And blaming Camilla for this is petty. I know what AJ said. What he did. We never held it against him.” I’ve never seen my Mom with this much venom before.
“My words got twisted up. Everything got twisted up.” AJ’s booming voice adds to the cacophony.
“I don’t blame Cam for then. I’m grateful to her. AJ stayed here, he grew into a good man, dedicated to his community and the lives of others.” Sarah steps closer to my mom.
“Are you insinuating that Camilla isn’t?”
The whole conversation is speeding up, drawing everyone in, chewing us up, and I’m not sure we can handle being spit out. Shrill tones are obliterating the Christmas music in the background and the warmth that had been wrapped around my heart all day.
I try and burrow down into my shirt but I’m wearing a scoop neck T-shirt and have nowhere to go.
“She makes booze,” Sarah scoffs.
“Mom!” AJ shouts as he looks panicked over to me.
“And seeing you two today… after all that heartache,” Sarah narrows her gaze at her son, “you’d give up everything, give up on everyone that matters, to go get drunk with her.”
Pain flashes across AJ’s face, and as frozen and mute as I’ve been, I can’t stay rooted anymore. I take the two steps to him and dive into his chest, winding my arms around him. He clasps around me, cradling my head and the curve of my back tightly to his body. His hold is so tight, I know he’s trying to not only protect me, but he’s desperate to give me a place to hide.
“Casper would be so disappointed to hear you say that.” My Mom bringing up AJ’s dad finally breaks through the hurt balling up inside me.
“Stop it!” I finally yell, AJ’s chest barely muffles it. “Stop fighting, stop screaming. Whatever happened all those years ago, we’re family.” AJ squeezes me tighter. “That’s what Casper would remind us.” A tender kiss presses to my forehead where it’s tucked beneath AJ’s chin.
For a moment, the room is silent and I will myself to focus on the heartbeats beneath my ear. But then the whole room is shattered by the grating blare of AJ’s walkie-talkie. A crackly dispatcher starts rattling codes and locations. I don’t really catch what they are but I feel the way AJ tenses in my arms.
When his radio goes quiet the void it leaves is deafening and the weight of the room is crushing.
“Be careful.” Sarah’s voice has completely changed, it’s soft and scared as she pats AJ’s arm and turns to walk out of the house. I get the sense she’s not just talking about the dispatch call.
He kisses the top of my head again, then nods, and follows her, leaving me standing in the middle of my family. My heart shudders, aching worse than it did for the past thirteen years as I watch him go. For the first time in a really long time, I feel alone. Even in the crowded room.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” my mom murmurs from behind me.
I swallow roughly, trying to find my footing after what just happened. I can’t. I can’t at all. So I whisper back.
“Too late.”
“Skinny Love” Bon Iver
That wreck will stick with me for a while. The mangled cars, wielding the Jaws of Life, the blood… Chills keep shooting up and down my spine that have nothing to do with being in the knee-deep snow on the pass for over three hours. I almost lost a little boy out there tonight, but at the very last minute, he pulled through.
Then there’s the other wreck to deal with. I swear I left Camilla bleeding out onto her mom’s hardwood floor. My mom’s words swirl with grotesque images and my stomach heaves as I pull into my driveway. Her biting, cutting assessment of the past, of the future, just might make me puke.
They leave me wondering if I lost a life all the same tonight.
My legs ache and wobble like I’ve pressed weights and run a marathon. The ache inside me is a lot harder to describe. When a dark, empty house greets me, that second one threatens to splinter me.
I should have kept Gretzky’s twin, rather than take him to the shelter. The clack of his nails and the yip of his bark would be a small comfort against the dark and lonely night. As I shuffle to the kitchen to grab a beer, I decide to pick him up tomorrow. Whatever painful memories he pulls up pale in comparison to the crushing silence.
And tonight is just the first of many. The quiet and loneliness that’s going to blanket every facet of my life when Camilla leaves is already suffocating me. I can’t even think about it besides to abandon my trip to the kitchen in favor of finding the bottle of scotch I’m saving under my bed for a rainy day.
Somehow I sense her before I actually lay eyes on her. Maybe it’s her homey smell or her whisper soft, soothing breaths. Maybe it’s just the magnetic pulse that lives between us, but it makes me dizzy. And when I can make out her beautiful body outlined by my sheets, where she’s asleep in my bed, it’s everything I can do to stay standing.
I shrug out of my clothes as if each piece of fabric weighs a thousand pounds. I buckle under the sheer heaviness of my heart and all but tumble into bed. Her body moves to cradle mine as I slip beneath the sheets, and when we mold together, I can’t help the single sob that shakes my shoulders.
Camilla wordlessly snakes her hands up to my face and gently pulls. Her sweet little lips press first to one eyelid then the other, and in that moment, I’m sure she’ll swallow up all my tears if I let her. That alone is a salve for my aching heart. But then she gently pulls me down to her chest and lets me cuddle in between her breasts.
It’s the single most soothing moment of my life.
Her breathing evens out but her grip on me stays tight as she falls back to sleep. I stay up listening to her for as long as my body will let me. When I eventually fall asleep, pink tinges the snow outside my window and I dream about how it matches the color of her most intimate bits.
The dream morphs eventually to how it feels when we’re together. My skin buzzes and melts all at once. I can’t feel anything but the sensation of our bodies and the jackhammer of my heart. It’s that wild heartbeat that wakes me from the perfect dream.
Well, that and the way our bodies are moving together. Or rather, how her body is moving against mine. I groan as she rolls against me and shoves her mouth down along my dick. My hands itch to grab ahold of her and dominate her rhythm but something about the peace of the morning, the peace of this moment, keeps them at my side.
Camilla moves up and down on me, adding tricks with her tongue she never knew before. Her hands move to other spots between my legs, tickling and massaging in a way that has my thighs bunching and my abs jerking.
“Lamb, I’m gonna come,” I say roughly but she just keeps on sucking. “Lamb,” I repeat and her bright eyes simply look up and silently agree.
My orgasm almost splits me in two. Soft, sucking lips just keep working on me and the rippling waves of Camilla swallowing make me think I can see heaven. I can’t help but swear. And when I stop shooting against the back of her throat, when I’m nothing but a pile of ragged, gasping breaths, I grab her shoulders and pull her up my body, desperate to kiss her.
I couldn’t give a fuck that I taste myself because it’s the flavor of us, and that’s a recipe not even Camilla can replicate.
Our kiss is long and passionate and I let my hands give in to their urges. They explore every inch of her and I even pl
ayfully smack her ass when she nibbles on my bottom lip. She yelps as she pulls away then leans her forehead against mine, gently pressing her lips to the tip of my nose.
“God, I needed that,” I murmur.
“A morning hummer? I doubt you needed that.” She smiles brightly and the corners of her eyes crinkle into beautifully lined shapes.
“No, I needed to come home to you. To be held by you.” I let my arms slide up her body and pull on her shoulders so she nestles into my chest.
“I needed you too.” She sighs and the warmth of her breath makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “We need to talk.”
Her eyes are bright and breathtakingly beautiful, I can convince myself that there’s hope lingering behind them. But I can convince myself that what she’s just done is trying to soften the blow she’s about to hand out, too. That’s a reality I can’t face yet. The images and the pain that she’s keeping at bay will devour me today.
“Not today.” The words just slip out. “Please, not today. You begged me for yesterday, let me beg you for today.”
She pushes up and studies me for a while, then that gorgeous smile splits her face.
“Can we have huevos for breakfast?”
I know what she’s asking and I’m not particularly fond of the idea. The diner on Main Street serves her favorite breakfast, and since I left her with only bourbon as her companion last night, I’m not surprised at the craving. She’s wanted huevos every morning after since the first time we stole beer. I want to stay in my house, better yet in my bed, and alone with her.
But I can’t deny her. Fuck me because I never could.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Sure. ‘Course.” I manage a smile when I sit up, her still attached to my chest. “Huevos for my Lamb.”
Watching her get ready in my home is so right, like the house was built for us, not me. We move in an artful dance through the bathroom, then the kitchen, and I can’t help but compare us to long married couples. To how we’d look if we were a married couple. Heaven, I’m sure, is waking up to her, with or without the blow jobs, every damn day.
