I've lived outside my own head for so long, shutting out the world, shutting out emotions, shutting out needs and desires and hormones. I've floated through life over this last while, more a presence than a person.
And now?
I'm fully here, fully present in my mind and heart and body.
And right now, I only want to pay attention to the present.
I don't know how long we stand there, neither of us moving.
I know the moment my tenuous hold on restraint snaps, though.
I peel my dress off, toss it aside. Glide toward him. He groans, a tortured sound. I move closer to him, until there are mere inches between us, and then centimeters, and then our bodies are touching, my breasts against his chest, our hips brushing, his manhood nudging me. I slide my palms over his chest, over his shoulders, down his sides. Cup his taut, hard backside, his trim, narrow hips. Reach between us. Stroke him.
"This doesn't solve anything," he whispers.
"No, it doesn't," I agree.
God, he's so perfect in my hands. Hard as steel, so thick my fingertips don't meet when I wrap my hand around him, skin like velvet. He's breathing hard, hands at his sides, fists clenching and unclenching. Fighting for control. Fighting himself.
His gaze is a maze I can't navigate, a wild, blue-green labyrinth, and I don't have a ball of yarn to find my way. I dive in anyway.
Slide my fist up and down his length until he's grinding involuntarily into my touch.
"Niall, shit..." he murmurs.
And then he's got my wrists in his hand and I'm flying through the air, his arm under my butt carrying me across the room, settling me on my back on the mattress. His mouth is on mine, and this time the kiss isn't the subsuming tsunami of intensity and tenderness and meaning it was before, this time the kiss is furious and hungry and utterly sexual, teeth clashing and lips slamming, devouring and demanding. His hands pin my wrists above my head, and his mouth slides away from mine, descends to my breasts, and I writhe in his touch, fight his grip, needing to touch him, to hold him, to encourage him. But he doesn't let go. He laves at my nipples, flicks them to hypersensitivity, erect and hard and begging for more. My hips lift, my core throbs, screaming for attention. And god, does he give it. Fingers find me wet and waiting, and I moan my relief as he manipulates me to a writhing fervor, whips me into a frenzy with kisses to my lips and licks to my nipples, his fingers moving in quickening circles.
He's levered over me, kissing me, touching me, and his hand is gone for a brief moment. I hear something crackle, and my eyes fly open to see him ripping open a condom with his teeth, rolling the rubber down around his shaft with one hand in a smooth motion. He tosses the wrapper aside, knocks my thighs apart with his knees. He still has my wrists pinned over my head. I fight him, but he's unrelenting. He bites my lower lip, tugs it away with sharp but gentle teeth, and glides his erection against my opening.
"Lock..." I don't know what I'm saying or what I'm asking for.
"You want it?" he whispers into my ear, his breath hot.
"Yes, god yes." I do know what I'm asking for.
"Say it, Niall."
"I want it. Give it to me. Please, Lock. I need you." Wrong thing to say.
He tenses, and his eyes narrow, his chest inflates with an inrush of breath. Jaw tenses, flexes. He searches me with that gaze as turbulent as a storm-tossed sea.
He slams into me, and I whimper as he fills me to stretching. I could cry from the bliss of it, how he feels inside me, and I'm straining against his grip on my wrists, gyrating my hips against his, leaning up to nip at his skin with lips and teeth wherever I can reach. Chin, cheeks, lips, neck, shoulders, kissing and nipping and sipping at his skin. His mouth is begging, pleading silently for more.
"Oh, fuck..." His voice is ragged. As if he's giving in. "God, Niall. You feel--"
I slam my mouth up against his, mash my lips over his. To shut him up the way he shut me up. I move my hips in a silent plea for motion. He pulls away from my kiss, rooted as deep as he can go and stilled, holding there, hips flush, my wrists pinned up over my head. My breath comes in gasps of need, making my tits shake and sway. I arch my back, pushing them into him. Toward him, needing his mouth on them again.
I don't understand why he won't let me touch him. But he won't. He doesn't let go. He holds my gaze, unblinking, and begins to thrust. Slowly. Gently. Sinuously.
I begin to understand, now, as he moves, holding my touch at bay.
If I touch him, he'll be lost.
He thinks he can control this. Stop this.
By making sure I'm not touching him, he's trying to hold off what's building between us--and I'm not talking about orgasms.
Boy, have I got news for him.
I can touch him with so much more than just my hands.
I don't know why I'm doing this, because what's building is every bit as confusing and terrifying for me.
I trace up his calf with my toes, a light, tickling touch, and I move in sync with him, finding the perfect, slow, sensual rhythm, slow as taking deep breaths, in....and....out, unhurried. He's setting the pace, and I'm going with it. But this is perfect. It's so perfect. I trace his calf. Up to his knee, flatten the arch of my foot against the back of his leg and caress downward, curling my foot in around his so our legs are tangled. Glide my other foot up his leg, hook it around the back of his knee, and now, both of my legs are snaked sinuously, intimately, around his. I pull him closer to me. Arch my back, pushing up against him, rubbing my breasts against his chest, turning each motion into a thrust of my hips against his and a brush of my nipples against his body all at once. I lean close and murmur in his ear, let the raw ecstasy of feeling him like this escape my lips. Give voice to the pleasure I'm feeling. I moan in his ear. Soft breaths, whimpers, whispering his name as he slides in and out, and in and out, so slowly we're both made wild and crazed with it.
He knows my game, and his expression becomes ever more tortured as he feels the intimacy wrapping us up together, closer and closer and closer.
"Fuck..." he groans, and lets his forehead rest between my breasts. His hand releases my wrists, and I'm quick to cling to him, to stroke the broad cliff of his rippling, undulating back, to cup the bubble of his ass, to pull at him.
"Niall...god, Niall."
I don't have any words for him. I only have moans against his neck, whimpered gasps against the shell of his ear. My hands sliding all over him, wherever I can reach, tracing the bulges of every muscle, every vein. He's above me, but he's not in control anymore.
I am.
I move us faster. Writhe my hips against his and cling to him and breathe faster and moan louder, and bring him with me.
"Niall--" He's losing it, now. Back arching, hips slamming, breath coming in ragged, rushing gasps, hands scouring my skin, hands on my hips, pulling hard at me. Face buried in my breasts.
I palm his cheeks and bring his face up to mine. "Kiss me, Lock."
"Goddamn it, Niall." He tries to pull away, tries to fight it.
"Kiss me when you come, Lock." I snare his beard and demand his lips.
He gives over to me, kisses me, shivering and shuddering as he comes.
I reach between us and touch myself, bringing myself to shuddering orgasm with him, writhe with him, cling to him, kiss him as I come.
We tremble together in silence.
"Goddamn it, Niall," he gasps, his voice ragged and broken. "What the fuck are you doing to me?"
I wish I knew.
A burned out star in a galaxy
Holy shit. Holy motherfucking shit.
Niall James just rocked my world. Knocked me off my axis. She's left me breathless and dizzy and overwhelmed and panicking. That, what we just did together? That wasn't sex. It wasn't fucking.
It was...
God, I don't even know.
I felt her.
I felt her soul.
She just gave me a gift, a precious glimpse at the depths of who she is. She
left herself vulnerable, showed me the inside of her heart. She's as scared of this as I am, but she's willing to go for it anyway. She sees what I'm feeling, and I think she understands it better than I do. She's had it, had something greater than I could ever fathom. And she lost it. The reminder of what she had and lost is thumping so hard in my chest I feel it in my throat and against my ribcage. She surely must hear it, right now. Feel it, under her cheek.
I'm lying on my back, holding her. Her face is on my chest, her hand on my stomach, her knee across my thigh. This intimacy, it's so powerful it leaves me unable to draw a breath. This feeling of tenderness, this sensation of belonging, right here, in this moment, with this woman, it's so goddamned all-consuming and so heady I can't see straight. I could be drunk, I'm so off-kilter and dizzy. But my heart--my metaphysical heart, I mean--is a shredded, raw, bloody mess. Calcified. Ossified. So long unused, so long accustomed to emptiness, nothingness. And now I'm feeling things, and my poor heart can't take it.
I've never held anyone this way.
Never. Not once.
All the sex I've had, and yet I've never held a woman this way. It never occurred to me, nor to the women I was with, I don't think. Even Leanne, the only woman I've ever fucked more than a handful of times, we never stayed in bed together afterward. She'd get out of my bed, go clean up, and would return to her cabin. We would meet in the saloon afterward sometimes, for drinks, and conversation.
I never even thought about doing something like that with Niall. We finished, and I rolled to my back and she went with me, pressed her cheek to my chest, resting in the cradle of my arm. And it feels so fucking right to hold her this way, so utterly perfect. Better than catching a long wind and feeling the lines tauten and the sail belly out, better than lying in the bow at midnight and staring up at an endless sky full of stars. It's a rush, too, a jolt of pure adrenaline rocketing through me, stronger than any rush I've ever gotten from all the crazy, dangerous shit I've ever done. Skydiving? Got nothing on this. Racing a motorcycle around winding Italian two-lane roads? No comparison. Free-climbing a sheer cliff face, hundreds of feet up, nothing but churning surf below? Not even in the same league.
Dying, and being brought back to life? Not even that.
Several minutes have passed, and neither of us has spoken a word. After an experience like that, what do you say?
I feel it when she falls asleep. Her breathing shifts, slows, softens. Her fingers twitch on my stomach. She nuzzles closer. My heart cracks. Bleeds. I breathe in her scent, tighten my arms around her.
Tighten them, because I'm this close to running.
I need a drink.
I need to leave.
She deserves better than me.
I don't deserve her.
I don't know how to do this.
I've never wept in my life, but I'm close to it now. Thinking about her. Trying to understand what I'm feeling. How can one person engender so much inside me? How can I talk myself into staying, talk myself out of bolting into the night like the coward I am?
I try to simply breathe, and hold her through the night. I know I can't sleep so I don't even try.
I just stare at her in the moonlight, watching her sleep, and feel everything coming apart inside me.
I don't know how to do this.
I don't know how to love someone.
Especially not someone who's been through so much. She's so strong, so beautiful.
At some point in the early hours of the morning, she rolls away from me, shows me the curve of her back and the bell of her hip, curly brown hair falling around her face and spilling onto the pillow. Her fingers are curled under her chin, and her lips are pouted slightly. And god, god, god, she's snoring ever so softly. That sound is what does it. It's the straw that breaks me. Her snoring, a sound so slight and sweet and cute it makes my heart thump and thunder and twist in my chest. A sound so sweet I want to kiss her while she sleeps.
I slide off the bed, unable to catch a decent breath, unable to swallow. I dress quietly. I don't have anything to pack, I just need to grab my backpack and Utah's food and her bowls.
Like Lot's wife, I make the deadly mistake of turning to look back. She's a goddess at rest, the blanket and sheet at her waist. Fuck. Fuck. How can I walk away from a woman like her?
Because it's what I do. I can't do this. I thought I could but I can't. I'm not what she needs. I just don't know how to be that man.
There's a desk near the window with a pad of paper and some hotel pens. I scribble her a note.
Niall,
I'm so sorry. For everything. For showing up. For so many things, I guess. I'm not the kind of man that's ever been there in the morning, and I don't know how to do it now. You deserve better.
I wish I were better with this sort of thing. I wish I knew the words to express to you how incredible it was to know you. The time I had with you was...the best thing I've ever known. Ever will know, probably. And you? You're the most beautiful woman I've ever known, and ever will know.
Goodbye.
And I'm sorry.
Lock.
I hustle Utah quietly out the door. We're in the truck and out of Ardmore before dawn breaks over the horizon.
Just lost in the sky wondering why
Goddamn it, Lock.
I promised myself I wasn't going to cry about this, but I know I'm going to. Just as soon as I get home.
But, apparently, life or fate or whatever has other plans.
It's early morning. Six, maybe? I shower before I leave the hotel room, wash my hair and scour my skin clean, trying vainly to scrub away so much more than just a night of lovemaking. I slip my dress on, regretting the decision to come here commando. No bra, no panties, not a damn thing but the dress, which is a whole lot of not much. It felt sexy on the way here last night, but now? Not so much.
God, I feel like such an idiot for thinking a guy like Lock could change his ways.
I wanted him to. I dared to hope he could.
And that note? What the fuck, Lock? That's the best you can do? If you're going to leave a note, at least make it a good one. That shit you wrote sucks. A complete cop-out.
I make it home, slip on some clean clothes. I realize I'm in no shape to work, so I call in sick and decide to just drive. I need time to sort myself out. I pick a direction, and just drive. And think. About Ollie. About Lock. About loss, about death, about myself. My thoughts are a maelstrom, whirling a million miles an hour, going haywire like an Oklahoma tornado: unstoppable.
I roll the windows down and crank up the radio. I turn the dial until I find anything but country. Modern pop, something new and peppy and upbeat.
God, Ollie. Why'd you have to die? Why couldn't I have saved you?
Why'd Lock have to come crashing into my life? Why did I give in? Because now I want more. I want him back. I want him to be the man I think he could be, if he'd dare to try.
I drive so long, so far, I lose myself. I have no idea where I am. I'm so lost in my thoughts that when I finally shake out of my trance I realize the weather has taken a rather dramatic turn. It dawned clear and promised to be sunny, but as I drove it clouded over--low, heavy cloud cover. And now, as I drive, I realize those clouds aren't just gray, they aren't just cloud cover. Those are storm clouds. Low, heavy, dark, threatening thunderheads.
I keep driving, but now I'm keeping a nervous eye on the sky.
Rain patters on the windshield. A few drops, here and there, at first. Then harder. I close the windows and lower the volume on the radio. Mile after mile I drive, and the rain beats harder and harder, and the skies darken, going leaden and then nearly black, so even though it's nearly midday, it could very well be past sunset. It's like nightfall, after dark.
Out the window, I can see smaller trees bent sideways in the driving wind.
Something in my gut stirs, clenches. I slow down, scanning the horizon. Wind buffets the truck, rocking it on its suspension. Even with the windows closed, the wind howls deafen
ingly. I should turn around, go back home. But then I realize I'm far enough away from home that I wouldn't make it before this storm breaks. And something in me says I shouldn't be on the road when it does.
I accelerate, seeing a sign on the highway announcing the nearest town is less than ten miles away. Rain batters and splatters on the windshield, thick, fat hammering drops in a deluge so blinding the wipers make no difference even on full blast. The wind is screaming now and hitting the truck side-on, rocking it, knocking the rear end sideways, pushing me toward the ditch. My heart is in my throat, my pulse hammering, both fists gripping the steering wheel for dear life.
I can't see shit. It's pitch black outside, with only the occasional flash of lightning in the distance to illuminate the storm-wracked world.
Finally, ahead of me, civilization appears: a single main drag with a gas station, a diner, a drug store, and a liquor store on one side, and an auto garage, a hardware store, a supermarket, and a car parts place on the other. There is also a church with a wide corona of grassy yard and a small cemetery. I can tell there are a few square miles of residential streets on either side of the main street, as well as a strip mall with a doctor's office, a video rental place and another bar. I pull into the gas station, just to get off the road and out of the truck. I park near the front door of the gas station market, exit the truck and jog into the store, soaked to the bone in the few steps it takes to get from my truck to the store. The wind is a roar, twisting street signs on their poles, blowing trash down the street, sending traffic lights swinging on the power lines.
There are a few other trucks parked out front, and an ancient Buick parked at a gas pump. One of the trucks looks familiar, but I barely have time to notice it. I manage to make it into the store itself where a group of men are clustered around the coffee station, clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee and talking about the storm.
"Powerful shit comin'," one old, white-haired man says, in a thick twang. "Powerful, I'm tellin' ya. Ya'll best get home, down in'ta a basement, if you got one. This here is the makin's of a tornado. Big'un, 'less I miss my guess. This here town is gonna get flattened, I do believe."
The next voice to speak sends shivers down my spine, and ripples into my core. "You're sure?" It's Lock. Of all the people, in all the places in the state, he has to be here, standing inside this gas station.
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