The darkness seemed to grow tighter and warmer around me as I thought of him, standing out there in the hallway in his tight jeans and tank top. Would he knock with his fist or with the tip of his hammer? Given the size of him, it would barely make a difference. I imagined it echoing through the apartment: a giant’s knock, the door rattling on its hinges.
No. A man like that...he wouldn’t knock at all.
I saw the door erupting inward, transformed into splinters and firewood. In my fantasy, Kayley winked out of existence and it was just me in the apartment, alone. I imagined jumping out of bed and running barefoot through the apartment, my green nightshirt flapping around my thighs. Running towards the danger, drawn to it.
He was already advancing towards me, the floor seeming to shake with each heavy footstep. He was so big, not just tall but wide-shouldered and broad-chested—he seemed to fill each doorway he passed through. A low coffee table was in his way and he simply crushed it underfoot, the glass shattering into a million tiny diamonds. His arms swung by his sides, the tan globes of his shoulders and biceps gleaming in the half-darkness. Part of me was pushing me towards him but another part was telling me to flee. A split-second’s hesitation, standing there open-mouthed and panting, and it was too late.
He had me.
He grabbed a fistful of my nightshirt and used that to lift me off the ground. The fabric pulled tight around my struggling body as he twisted his hand. He pushed me up against the cool plaster of the wall and the solid heat of his body made me twitch and tremble like some small helpless creature pinned by a bear. With every breath, my stomach brushed against his abs and I went weak as I felt the hard ridges there—God, he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
He still hadn’t spoken a word.
“What do you want?” I panted. Somewhere far away, I was in my bed, on my side, my hand trapped between my thighs, and I whispered the same words under my breath.
He didn’t answer. He just grabbed the hem of my nightshirt with his free hand and tugged it up: over my thighs, then up to my waist. Even in the room’s dim light, I could see from the tilt of his head that he was gazing straight between my legs. I felt the arm holding me tense as he saw my panties. They were just simple red cotton briefs, nothing sexy, certainly not made for seduction, but I saw that powerful chest rise as he drew in a long, shuddering breath, as if he could barely contain himself. It felt as if the cotton was burning away under his gaze, leaving me naked. I felt my nipples harden under my nightshirt and, since I wasn’t wearing a bra, I was painfully aware they were starting to jut out through the soft fabric, especially with it drawn tight across my breasts.
He was still holding me off the ground with one hand. The arm that extended up towards my panting body was as steady and solid as if it had been cast from iron—that was the most overwhelming thing, how easily he could toss me around. And with his fist twisted into my nightshirt like that, the soft mounds of my breasts brushed his knuckles each time I inhaled. Each tiny contact sent a new ripple of heat washing through me.
He tugged my nightshirt higher and the soft, pale skin of my stomach came into view. He snaked a hand over it and I gasped. His fingertips traced the line of my waist, then skimmed up, up, teasing at the nightshirt’s hem just below my breasts. I was breathing in big, desperate gulps, now, panic mixed with lust, the need to escape and the need to stay.
He was still looking down at my groin, and the intensity of his stare was making me twist and melt inside, a heat like I’d never felt building fast. I realized I was unconsciously grinding my ass against the wall and tried to stop. I couldn’t.
Then his eyes flicked up to meet mine. “What do you want, Louise?” In the half-darkness, every detail of his voice stood out. Half Ireland, half California, rich amber liquor over sharp-edged blocks of ice. He leaned in towards me and his pecs pressed against the softness of my breasts. Even through the fabric, I knew he must be able to feel my nipples. He said it again, his accent making the words buzz through my body. “What do you want?”
I swallowed and tried to speak, but I couldn’t. The heat was making my mind cloudy: a thick, spinning fog where the hard press of him against me competed with my need to be sensible, to be safe, and to be good. Every passing second made it spin faster, everything becoming a blur.
Something pressed between my knees: his leg, the denim rasping against my bare skin. God, he was so hard, so solid, the heat of him throbbing into me. I thought of those muscled thighs spreading mine, that long, thick cock inside me, and I made a half-hearted attempt to twist away because I knew this was wrong. But that only made my groin stroke along the taut hardness of his thigh. Bolts of pleasure shot up inside me. He groaned and I bit my lip, barely managing to stop my own throaty moan.
“What do you want?” he asked for the third time. I knew he wouldn’t ask a fourth.
This is crazy. I’m up against the wall of my living room. I don’t even know him. He’s a criminal. I can’t do this. I opened my mouth and said, “Stop. Let me go.”
Except it came out as, “You.”
My eyes went wide and my mouth fell open as I realized what I’d said. I saw those cobalt-blue eyes gleam in the darkness and narrow in lust. Then his mouth was coming towards mine and I wanted to yell, “Stop! No! I made a mistake! I’m not like this!”
But I barely had time to draw a breath before our lips touched. Then we were kissing and any sane thought in my head was vaporized.
I’d never been kissed like that before. It was a moving, twisting, panting epic with full orchestra that made every kiss I’d had until that night seem like a shonky rehearsal. It wasn’t something we did; it was something we had to do, as if neither of us could survive unless we kissed each other right then.
I’d never felt so delicate, so insubstantial, as when I first felt Sean’s kiss. I was as light as a breeze blowing between the trees of a forest and he was heavy darkness and heat, a creature born of lava and brimstone, scorching me with every touch, making the air shimmer and ripple. We whipped around each other, twisting together, good and bad, air and earth.
My head pressed back against the wall, my mouth suddenly feeling so soft next to his insistently searching lips. Every touch of him sent fresh ribbons of heat twisting down towards my groin, every breath coming faster and faster until both of us were panting, desperate for air but even more desperate to stay in contact. His tongue stroked at the join of my lips and then my mouth was flowering open under him, welcoming him in. I knew that any protest I could make would be exposed as a lie because he could feel how much I wanted him.
His tongue explored me, seeking me out. At first, as we twisted and panted, I just let him take the lead, going submissive, letting him invade my softness and relishing it. But every time the tip of his tongue caressed mine, it sent a jolt of heat down through me that turned to trembling, maddening need. I sought him out: tentatively at first, but every play of our tongues together felt so good I couldn’t stop. I heard him growl as he felt me come alive.
Kissing him back wasn’t enough, though. Not enough contact, not enough of him. I grabbed for him blindly, finding his muscled shoulders and going weak at the muscled bulk of them, then sliding my hands up his neck. My fingertips slid over the sandpaper fuzz at the back of his neck and buried themselves in his thick, black hair.
The kiss was still moving and changing. The only sounds in the room now were the rustle of our clothes and my soft gasps of need every time our lips parted. My mind felt like it was lifting, separating from my body, and rising up to the ceiling, leaving all my worries far below. It was hot, but it was more than that: it was floaty and magical, like that first kiss when you’re a teenager, the one you’ve been anticipating for years. I hadn’t known kissing could feel like that, as a grown up.
And then I felt the fabric of my nightshirt hauled up, my nipples catching for a second on the hem before my breasts bobbed free. The shock of air against them made me gasp and a thin thread of sanity tugged on
my floating mind. This is where you’re meant to tell him to stop.
He broke the kiss—only so that he could start kissing down my jaw and throat, but it left my mouth free. I opened my mouth to say, “Okay, enough. Wait. This is too fast.”
But his lips felt as though they were on fire and the winding trail he was following might as well have been drawn in gunpowder. I knew exactly where it would end and the anticipation was making my whole body twitch and writhe. Wait! What am I doing? I don’t do stuff like this!
His lips grazed the soft skin of my upper breast and I caught my breath. They glided down, ever so slowly, and I arched my back helplessly. My eyes half-opened, heavy-lidded with lust, and I watched, transfixed, as he came closer and closer to my aching nipple. A hot, moist breath from his mouth and then—
I cried out as he took me into his mouth, closing his lips around my nipple and then lashing it with his tongue. I squeezed my eyes shut as the heat rocketed up inside, thrashing my head from side to side to release the pressure. He kept up a steady, insistent stroke: left then right, back and forth. I squeezed my thighs together, locking his thigh between mine and grinding against him. The heat was like a furnace now, burning me up from the inside out, leaving no room for thought.
Just as I thought it couldn’t get any better, he opened his mouth wider, taking more of me inside and enveloping me in hot, sucking wetness. He began to nibble at me with his teeth: first with his lips as padding and then, gently, without. The edge of pain was like liquid silver on top of the molten heat. I gasped and stiffened. My ankles crossed and my feet twisting against each other. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears, my orgasm swelling inside me, filling every part of me—
That’s when his free hand grabbed my other breast, lifting it and squeezing it hard. He used his palm to roll it in slow circles as he squeezed and my whole body followed in response. It would have been too rough, if I hadn’t been on the very edge of orgasm, but now it was perfect, brutish and hard, showing me how hungry he was for me. God, I was being held up against a wall and mauled—
His mouth left my breast for a second. When he spoke, each syllable was a little blast of hot air against my slickened flesh, making me dig my fingers hard into the muscles of his shoulders. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” he growled. “You’re all innocent but you don’t want innocent and fuckin’ sweet. You want it hard and dirty.”
I gasped and panted for air and found myself nodding.
Suddenly, his hand dropped to my groin. Two thick fingers hooked under the front panel of my panties and, before I could even cry out, he was tugging the fabric away, stretching it clear of my body. The material held for a second and then there was a jagged ripping sound and I was naked below the waist. I saw him toss the ruined panties away and then those same two fingers were between my thighs, probing my entrance, and finding me soaking wet. They slid up inside me, stretching me, while his thumb found my aching clit and—
I came, shoulders and ass pressed hard against the wall and my back arched like a bow, thrusting my breasts out to meet him. My cry of release was so loud it shocked me, but I couldn’t hold it in. And I couldn’t stop: not with his hot mouth still working at my breast, not while his fingers plunged inside me, not while his thumb circled and rubbed. Not when that big, hulking body was pressed between my thighs and pinned me there so easily. And not when my eyes fluttered open and I saw that he was staring right into my eyes, those blue orbs gleaming with a lust that matched my own. I shouted all of it out in a long, keening, panting cry that rose and rose and only ended when I was utterly spent.
My eyes fluttered open and I found myself lying in my bed: no Sean, no broken coffee table or splintered door. My panties were still in place—though I’d shoved them to the side to plunge my own fingers inside me—and my nightshirt was in place, though it was rucked up around my waist. I lay there panting and sweating, my mind slowly spinning to a halt.
Sean O’Harra?! Was I insane? He wasn’t a guy to fantasize about! He was an actual, real-life criminal. He existed in a world I barely even came into contact with. And even if I was going to have some sort of crazy, bad boy fantasy about him, I didn’t like it rough and up against a wall with my panties torn off…
...did I?
I closed my eyes again, reddening. Anyway, whatever I did or didn’t think about Sean O’Harra, he certainly didn’t think about me that way. That embarrassed me even more than the fantasy itself: that I could be vain enough to think some guy like him would want to jump my bones.
On the plus side, I was now very, very relaxed. My eyelids were already sliding down, my head heavy against the pillow. A bit of harmless fantasizing never hurt anyone, right? It’s not like I’d ever even dare speak to him, in real life.
***
“We’re here to see Dr. Huxler,” I told the hospital receptionist.
She frowned. “I’m sorry: who?”
I dug the Post-It note out of my purse, just to make sure I’d written it down right. “Huxler.”
She shook her head. “Dr. Huxler is Oncology. Next floor up.”
I smiled. I actually smiled. “No, our appointment is definitely here. Endocrinology.” I checked the sign. Yep, we were in the right place. “My sister has a thyroid problem. Or, you know, something like a thyroid problem.”
The receptionist’s gaze flicked to Kayley and then back to me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Dr. Huxler is definitely Oncology.”
It was the tone of her voice that did it. She was so...apologetic.
There are some places your mind just doesn’t go to, as a parent. For the first time, I went there. And suddenly, it was as if the floor had turned to nothing but spider webs, with only a midnight-black void beneath.
“What’s going on?” asked Kayley in a voice I hadn’t heard her use for years. The one she used to use when she woke from a nightmare and she still wasn’t sure if it was real.
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s probably just a mistake.” And I took her hand and stalked towards Oncology, pulling her away from the receptionist before she could tell her any different.
***
Dr. Huxler was in his late fifties with thick, fluffy curls of gray hair. There were orchids in his book-lined office: beautiful and peaceful and probably designed to make patients feel calm. They weren’t helping.
“Your parents,” he said, studying Kayley’s records, “they’re deceased?”
I always think deceased sounds so peaceful, as if they passed away happily in their sleep aged eighty-three instead of being snatched away from us in a heartbeat.
“Yes,” I said. “They’re deceased. I’m Kayley’s legal guardian.”
He nodded. Took a breath and held it. I was digging my nails into my knees, part of me wanting him to spit it out, and part of me wanting him to never speak again.
“Your blood tests indicate that you have leukemia,” he said to Kayley.
I grabbed Kayley’s hand and squeezed it harder than I ever had in my life.
“We need to do more tests to narrow down the exact type,” said Doctor Huxler. “We can run those right now, if you’re okay with that.” He was calm, but the urgency in his voice scared the shit out of me. I nodded. Next to me, Kayley nodded too. Her jaw was firm, her hand gripped mine, and she didn’t shed a single tear.
But, as we left Doctor Huxler’s office, heading for the first test, she squeezed my hand in a death grip and said, “Say it’s going to be okay.” And I heard the crack in her voice, like a fracture in a glacier that’s about to split wide open.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said automatically. But I could feel myself shrinking inside the parent suit I’d been wearing for the last few years. This isn’t right. I can’t do this. As we walked down the hallway, I looked around—I mean I actually, instinctively looked over my left shoulder—for my parents because I needed to hand things over to them, now, and get a hug myself.
But they weren’t there.
They made Kayley str
ip off her clothes and I gathered them up: the artfully distressed jeans and the belt with the obscure Japanese cartoon characters on it I’d bid for on Ebay as a Christmas present; the lurid pink top we’d argued over for days before I’d let her have it. The things that made her her. The hospital staff gave me a bag to put them in and Kayley and I exchanged a look as I folded the top down. This is just temporary, we nodded to each other.
But once she was in a gown, she looked like a patient.
For the next three hours, I watched my precious, fragile sister be stabbed again and again: stabbed in her arms for more blood, stabbed in the base of her spine for spinal fluid, stabbed with a slender, howling drill to collect bone marrow. The staff were polite and caring, but in the fake, rehearsed way that airline staff swear they’ll take extra special care of your package or your suitcase or your dog. Maybe it was because she was so stoic; maybe they just saw hundreds of patients and had gotten jaded. But I wanted to scream at them that she was a child. My child.
When it was all over, Dr. Huxler asked me to come into his office “for a second.” He made it sound as if it was nothing important, boring paperwork that Kayley didn’t have to sit through.
“I want to stay,” Kayley said immediately. “I want to be in there.”
Dr. Huxler caught my eye and I’ll remember the look he gave me until the day I die. “Kayley,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level, “go check your email. It’s okay.”
“I don’t want to check my email,” she said, her eyes huge. “I already checked it. I want to stay with you. I want to know.”
A lump was swelling inside my throat. My chest hurt. I was about to break down in front of her and I couldn’t let that happen. “Check it again,” I said. And took a step away from her, towards the door Dr. Huxler was holding open for me.
“No,” I heard Kayley say behind me. “No! I want to go in!”
Another step. My legs are shaking. Another. Another. I heard Kayley start forward behind me, then stop. I couldn’t turn around or I’d lose it completely. Then a nurse’s voice, murmuring to Kayley: “You stay here with me, honey.”
Growing and Kissing Page 3
