by LL Meyer
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her.
“Sshhh,” she whispers back, her fingers coming to rest on my lips. She’s sitting on the edge of my seat with her feet on the street, and the stupid car is dinging, protesting the situation.
“Come on,” she says, undoing my seatbelt. She stands and holds out her hand to me. I take it because she’s everything I want in the world, what I can’t live without. I would do anything for her, and I have to make her understand that.
I follow her up the front path to her porch, all the while trying to get myself together, because I’m supposed to be the one taking care of her, not the other way around. I promised. I refuse to let her down. And I’ve got some serious apologizing to do.
She takes me into her room and pulls me onto the bed with her, so we lie facing each other. She’s beautiful in the light cast by her bedside lamp, but I can barely look her in the eye. “Please forgive me, Lil. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
She shakes her head. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry, too, for reacting badly.”
I don’t want to hear her apologize to me. “Lil, I lied to you.”
Her brows drift together in question, obviously confused by the abrupt shift in the conversation.
“When I told you why I never had a girlfriend, I lied. I mean, my parents were the start of the problem, but they’re not the real reason. I want to tell you now.”
For a moment, the world stops. Then she nods her assent.
“I did discover sex when I was sixteen, but I left a huge part of the story out.” I take a deep breath to steel myself for her reaction. “A girl, or a woman I guess, a friend of the family, came to stay at Jason’s house. The second day she was there, when the rest of the family was out, she invited Jase and me into her room. She wanted us to do stuff to her that neither of us had even dreamed of until that day.”
I try to study her expression, so scared she’ll be disgusted with me. But as far as I can tell, there’s just interest.
“She taught us everything she knew about sex. And she always wanted us together, if you know what I mean.”
A flicker of something crosses her face; probably about what I’d said earlier about the movie.
“For almost four months, I was in heaven. It was a huge distraction from my sad life. She warned me that I was getting too attached to her, and that I shouldn’t, because obviously she wasn’t interested in two sixteen-year-olds for anything other than what we were doing – getting each other off almost every day.
“Her internship was supposed to last until the end of September, but around the middle, I came home from school and all her stuff was just gone. She vanished from one day to the next without even saying goodbye, and it destroyed me.” My voice is getting rough now, but I refuse to get emotional over these memories; they should be long dead.
“And when I say destroyed, I mean it. Jason was disappointed, but I was absolutely shattered. I loved her more than anything in the world and after my parents disappearing out of my life, I hit rock bottom. Everyone thought it was a delayed reaction to my parents’ deaths, and I let them believe that. Only Jase knew the truth. And I’m so thankful to him for putting up with me. Because to this day, I’ve never been the same. But you, Lil, you’re the first girl I’ve wanted close to me, and so help me, I can’t lose you, too.
“Please, my sweet Lily, Pretty Girl, please forgive me. I’ll do better. I’ll think before I speak.” My stomach literally hurts as I beg, so scared that she’ll be appalled with me. “I love you so much.”
“Sshhh, Dane, I love you, too. We just had a fight, that doesn’t mean you’ll lose me. You’ll never lose me.”
The relief hits me like an avalanche. She’s giving me a pass. Thank fuck, she’s giving me a pass, and my eyes sink as the ache in my chest lessens a bit. That was too close. Too, too close.
The feel of her lips on my eyelids startles me, but I let her continue to kiss me gently all over my face. She shifts on the bed, and now I feel her fingers working circles into the nape of my neck and it feels wonderful. An embarrassingly loud sigh slips out of my mouth, making me snap it shut, but she doesn’t make fun of me, she just lays more kisses on my neck, my jaw, my collarbone.
The tugging on my T-shirt turns out to be her trying to get it off, bringing me back to where I am and what I’m supposed to be doing. I pull it over my head and then reach for hers, but she swats my hands away. And I let her. Just a little more, I think. Then I’ll take care of her.
Her mouth and fingertips make their way down my chest, skimming across my skin with feathery soft caresses, her hair a silky whisper in their wake. I drift away on the pleasure of her touch, losing track of time. It’s her hand on my cock through my jeans that brings me back again.
“I’m sorry,” I groan, shaking my head to fight off the haze. I raise my hips and help her get my jeans and underwear off. When I try to sit up, she nudges me back down, her expression so loving that it takes my breath away. I try to pull her down to me for a kiss, but she resists.
“Where you going?” I whisper, my gut twisting painfully as she steps away from the bed.
Her smile eases the tension as I watch her uncover herself, her clothes coming off slowly, piece by piece, until she’s completely bared to me. I drink her in, marveling at how beautiful she is, my gaze lingering over my favorite parts of her body, especially the taut skin pulled across her abdomen between her hipbones. So sexy. I reach for her, wanting to touch her, but she doesn’t allow it.
“Lil . . .” I start, but she gently shushes me as she digs my wallet out of my pants and pulls out a condom.
“What . . .” I try again, but she cuts me off, coming close to place a kiss on my lips.
“Let me love you, Dane.”
No. My mind rejects the idea immediately and completely. “That’s my job,” I whisper.
She quirks an eyebrow at me. “To love you?”
I smile and try to pull her in for another kiss. “You know what I mean.”
Her fingers are on my lips, hushing me. “You’re not going to move from that spot.”
There’s that finality again, spoken with a confidence that she’s rarely shown. My mouth opens but the words die in my throat at the resolute expression on her face. Once again, her mouth begins its journey down my body, and I lose myself. A low moan fills the room when her mouth finally closes over the head of my cock. She bobs gently up and down for an eternity, inexorably bringing me closer and closer. It’s heavenly.
Now, the gathering pressure is threatening to break. Shit. I fist the comforter and take some deep breaths, trying to come up with an image of something that’s going to take me back down. But before I have a chance to really get things under control, I hear the very familiar crackle of the condom wrapper. It’s funny how my body responds to that sound after all these years. The anticipation is so very good, but not very helpful if I want to last more than a minute.
I try to take the condom from her, but she doesn’t let me.
“Hey, your only job is to come for me.”
Her words send a shiver through me, and then things get worse by her unrolling the rubber down my shaft. Coherent thought is no longer a possibility with her inexpert fingers creating extra friction. The need to come throbs deep in my balls now.
Hauling in a ragged breath, I still her hands when she’s done. “I’m not going to last. Give me a second. I . . .”
“Sshhh.” Her fingers are covering my lips again. “Don’t hold back.”
I groan. I want to protest, but now she’s straddling me. My heart pounds in my chest as she starts taking me inside of her, inch by scorching inch. She holds my eyes, and it feels like she’s looking right into me instead of at me. I’m exposed and vulnerable, but like the pleasure that’s surging within me, I want it. I want her to see me, to know everything.
When I’m fully seated, I concentrate on the ecstasy splashed across her face as she places her palms on my chest to support herself.
Licking my thumb, I press it gently to her clit and watch her reaction to it. She slowly grinds herself against my finger. She’s not fucking me, but the inside of her is churning around me, tensing, releasing, tensing, releasing, as she slides front to back. The newness of it swamps me, pulling me down into a whirlpool of sensation.
“Jesus,” I whisper and her eyes snap back open to meet mine. They’re full of self-satisfaction. On the next back sweep, she pushes up on her legs and then slams down on me. This is a feeling I’m much more familiar with and I buck up into her as I come, my world reduced to the perfect feeling of my cock exploding, surrounded by her tight heat.
Oh, wow. I’ve never felt that before. He’s literally pulsing inside of me as he comes. And the look on his face? With all the orgasms he’s been giving me, I’ve been missing out on his.
I’m pretty desperate to come, but I won’t tell him that. This was all for him, because he needed it. And I finally understand that he needs me just as much as I need him. The realization loosens the vise that’s been holding me hostage for the past eleven days.
And what he revealed to me? Obviously, he thought it would shock me; at the very least, make me reconsider being with him, and at the worst, have me dumping his ass out onto the street. But I’m not repulsed. The sex part aside, I know what it’s like to have your heart shredded and then to stand by helplessly while it slowly bleeds out. And combined with the death of his parents, his ordeal must have been magnified tenfold. After Parker, I decided to throw myself into dating after a year of suffering. Dane? It’s been eleven years by my calculations, though I guess he stopped his hemorrhaging with emotionless sex instead of curling into a ball like I did. But the bottom line is that he’d been traumatized, plain and simple.
His glazed appearance makes me smile. He looks thoroughly satisfied. And I did it to him, I think triumphantly.
Reaching forward, I ruffle his hair. “Was that good?” I ask sweetly, repeating his words back to him from our first time.
He smiles lazily as he nods.
I reach between us and grab the base of the condom like he always does and get off. After he gets rid of it, he comes back with a smirk on his face.
“Your turn,” he says, trying to push me down on the bed.
“Nope.” I scoot away from him. “That was just for you.”
He gives me a bemused expression, cocking his head. “What?”
Laughing softly, I change the subject. “Do you want to call Jason to come get the car, or should we go home?”
The bemusement becomes hope and it melts my heart. “Don’t you have to study?”
I shrug. “The exam’s not till one. I can study in the morning.”
He’s torn. I know he doesn’t want to be responsible for me bombing what, I admit, is an important exam.
“Don’t worry. I’m that good,” I tell him cheekily. “I don’t have a perfect 4.0 for nothing.”
He laughs, pulling me into his arms to hug me tightly. “Is it okay if we go home? Your bed is awful.”
“I know,” I laugh. “I didn’t even know it until I slept on your bed. You’re ripping the rug out from under so much of my life, you know that? Soon, I’m not going to be able to live without Starbucks.”
He pulls back, letting me see his eyes that are sparkling with humor, before he starts kissing me.
I fall into it for a few seconds before I realize he’s seducing me right under my nose. “Oh, no,” I say pulling away from his lips. “Just because I’ve agreed to go to your house doesn’t mean that I don’t have to be asleep at a very reasonable hour. I’ll sleep in your bed, but there won’t be any sex.”
A frown appears on his face that I feel compelled to ease. “I wanted to give you that, and I don’t want anything in return. And if I’m not in bed and asleep by 10:00, I’m going to blame you for whatever grade I get.”
With the frown fading, the just-climaxed glow makes a reappearance on his face, and I revel in it. His glow is my glow.
After we get dressed, I follow him out to the car where I sit next to him like it’s where I belong. It feels so good. When I’d seen he was still sitting outside the house more than fifteen minutes after I’d gone in, I’d texted him. And when he didn’t respond, I went outside completely unprepared for what I found. That he opened up to me still has my mind doing pirouettes, though it’s overshadowed a bit by our fight. His words were said in annoyance, and they did make me feel terrible, but if they led to this? I’m okay with that. I try to imagine him and Jason doing what I saw at the sex shop to a woman, but I force myself to shove the image aside. It’s too overwhelming, like my brain would short-circuit if I concentrated on it too closely. Anyway, that was a long time ago. They’d been kids, and now they’re both nothing if not adults.
I hold him to my word and all we do at home is sleep, and in the morning he happily buys me Starbucks before he drops me back at home. I get out of the car and go around to the driver’s side and wait for him to open the window.
“Drive carefully?” I say as I lean down to kiss him. He’s going to Portland and the thought of us not being in the same city makes me curiously anxious.
He smiles. “Only if you ace your test.”
“Kay. I’ll see you later tonight.”
He nods, pulling me back for another kiss.
“I love you,” I tell him.
“Love you, too.”
He waits until I’m inside before he drives away. I half-heartedly review my notes, but I know this material inside out. Knock on wood, but there’s no way I’m going to mess this up.
And I’m right. Two hours and twenty minutes into the three-hour exam, I’m done. It’s not like me to leave so early, and the TA scowls at me when I hand my papers in, but I don’t care. If I have nothing left to add to the exam, then I have nothing left to add. At yesterday’s exam, I’d left early too. I am a strong, confident woman, and I’ve decided to stop second-guessing myself so much in life.
Laughing at the self-help guru I didn’t know was inside of me, I open the doors of the building and step out into the afternoon sunshine of another beautiful day.
With no regular classes in session, campus is pretty deserted, so I do a quick celebratory spin with my arms out. The idea that I’m now free of homework and classes for the next three months permeates my brain, and I can’t stop a huge smile from spreading across my face.
The chill of the exam hall has faded, so I strip off my hoodie and tie it around my waist as I walk down the long path in front of the building with a spring in my step.
“Hey. You Lily?”
The oily voice immediately yanks me away from my pleasant mood. My stomach clenches as I see a man approaching across the grass on my right. Alarm bells ring loudly in my head.
“No, sorry,” I tell him coldly and continue down the path with more purpose. My heart is galloping in my chest, a sure sign that something isn’t right. My instincts are never wrong. I scan the parking lot for help, but there’s nothing around except the cars of the students taking the exam. Should I go back inside? But I don’t hear the guy behind me, and I relax a fraction. Maybe he believed me. I turn my head to try to keep track of him, but now I don’t see him anywhere.
Turning back, I stop dead in my tracks. He’s a few steps in front of me, blocking my way. Pure, unadulterated fear rushes at me.
A sleazy look drags up my body until it comes to rest on my face. Bile rises in my throat. His hair is greasy, his black hoodie a bit ratty, and he’s wearing dirty, gray track pants. He doesn’t belong on a university campus.
“Can I help you?” I say nastily. Thank goodness my voice is still strong.
His expression is sickening. “Oh, I think you can, baby.”
I take a shaky step back, gripping my backpack strap tighter for support. In the past, when guys have approached me, there have always been other people around, so I just tell them to get lost and that’s the end of it. But now? That this guy isn’t like the others is clear; intention
is written all over his face. God, will someone hear me if I scream? I push the panic down. Stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine. I take another step back.
“Where you going?” he asks slyly, stepping closer.
“Get away from me.” My fear causes a vile expression to creep over his face.
“Aw, come on, baby. Me and you gonna have a great time.”
“Get away from me.” This time the steel is back in my tone, but my insides are liquefying with terror. I don’t know what to do.
He lunges and his fingers bite into my bicep as he jerks me toward the parking lot.
“Let go!” I scream.
He turns a vicious look on me and I freeze. “Fucking slut. They said you might fight, but you do not want to push me.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God. He’s staring me down into silence, but as soon as he starts dragging me again, my fight instinct takes over. I can’t let him take me away. I can’t. I won’t.
“Help!” I scream with everything in me as I kick and claw at him. “Help me!”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch! Let’s go.” The steel band of his hand around my bicep tightens with his renewed attempts to get me moving.
“No!” I’m beyond frantic now. “Help me!” This can’t happen. I kick, punch, slap, claw at him, but he’s not letting go. I catch sight of him drawing back his fist, and I cringe away from the coming blow.
But it never comes. Suddenly, I’m falling to the ground, and through the haze of my panic, I hear the solid thunk of a fist meeting flesh.
My body wraps itself into a ball, my hands covering my head. There’s only the thundering of my heart in my chest. It’s so strong and fast that I’m surely going to die of a heart attack.
“Oh, Pretty Girl,” I hear, but I can’t place the words. A hand touches my shoulder and I scream. The hand disappears.
“Lily, it’s me, Jason.” The voice is soothing, but still the words aren’t registering. “It’s me. He’s gone. You’re safe now.”
“Jason?” I whisper, my voice trembling.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
