Driving With the Top Down

by Beth Harbison

  He needed to be inside me or we’d both explode.

  I kicked my pants off and parted my legs under his hand, then gasped as he pressed his fingers in. He worked me for another moment while I tore at his belt and unzipped his pants and wrestled them off him. He sat up and pulled his shirt off, and I did the same with mine.

  “You look so incredible,” he said, and his gaze raked over me like something physical.

  “I—” I didn’t have an answer. Didn’t need one, though, because again his mouth was on mine and I was slipping away. I felt him unhook my bra, and it fell away like a falling leaf.

  He kissed his way down my neck and stopped at my breasts, alternately flicking his tongue across them and sucking so intensely that a coil of nerve shivered straight through my core. He glanced at me, then trailed his tongue across my stomach and abdomen and, not gently, moved his mouth onto me. He was good at this. He’d always been really good at this. His mouth was warm, his breath hot against me, but of course, that was only part of the art. The rest he did like it was instinct, always knowing where to touch me, when to back off and when to go stronger.

  My nails scratched at the floor, nothing to hold on to or brace myself with as he moved his tongue expertly in just the right spot, driving me to the point of insanity, then instinctively moving his tongue down to enter me in tantalizing promise of what was to come.

  I had missed this.

  There was no other him. There would never be another him. No one would ever be able to play me in quite the way he could. Three months I could have waited, back then, and this would have been mine all this time, but, no, my selfishness and impatience had deprived us both of this for too long.

  I would do my best to start to make it up to him now.

  He moved back up my body and put an arm protectively across me, kissing the spot right under my ear.

  I reached for him and took him in hand, feeling myself grow wetter at the feel of his hardness in my grasp. I had never wanted a man, anything about a man, the way I wanted him. I wanted to do everything with him, anything with him, I wanted to be the one to do everything he wanted. I think at the bottom of it all, my trust in him was so complete that I felt safer with him than I felt alone. He allowed me to think about things I never dared think about alone.

  My mind was racing with all these thoughts. Thoughts I hadn’t allowed into my mind in years.

  “Come here,” I managed to say, and he paused, then moved over so I could take him in my mouth. Another thing I’d never wanted from another man. But this one, I wanted everything. I wanted to taste everything. Everything about him made me want more. It had always been that way. It wasn’t intellectual, I hadn’t made a decision to want him or imagined him to be a superhero of some sort. I knew exactly who he was—that had been part of the problem, hadn’t it?—but when we got close to each other, there was no controlling the physical attraction.

  Tonight I knew I could not get enough.

  He knelt beside me while I turned on my side and sucked him, bracing my hand on his leg, which was ripped with hard muscle. But his touch on my side was soft. He pressed hard into my mouth. I ran my tongue across him, hoping to make what was already hard into something he couldn’t bear. I reached out and we twined fingers for a moment.

  Camaraderie, it felt like.

  In this together.

  His breath grew labored and he drew back out of my mouth and moved over on top of me.

  I was ready.

  He braced his arms on either side of my face, looking down into my eyes. I got butterflies at that. In the thick of all this, that moment of softness made me feel like my crush had just looked at me from across the gym. I reached up and cupped my hands on his cheeks, his beard rough against my palms but that space on his cheekbones and toward his temples soft where my thumb grazed it. He was beautiful, no doubt about it. He’d never known it—maybe that was one of the things that was hot about him—but he was physically beautiful. In a way so classic that on anyone else, it might have been boring—the description was straight out of a romance novel: square jaw, cleft chin, dark eyes and hair, high cheekbones. If you left it at that, you’d have a soap star.

  But add the details unique to him—the curved line of his lips that didn’t tell you if he was pleased or pissed, the way his eyes got hooded and slight when he was tired, the nose that was broken but not obviously, and the perfect angle of his cheek down to his jaw, and that one slightly crooked tooth—and it added up to something that could never be duplicated.

  Had the right person spotted him years ago, he’d probably be a movie star today. No, he would never have wanted anything like that. More than that, he’d just be “the one that got away” for some big-shot agent in addition to being that for me.

  But at this moment, with his mouth moving on mine and his hands running hot trails across my skin, he was nothing but mine.

  He took my hand and guided me down to his hardness. Everything inside me screamed to life.

  I caught my breath, just as I had every time.

  He pressed his hand against my cheek and moved closer against me, catching my eye for just a moment and holding it while he pressed into me, suddenly and brutally, like a searing hot blade.

  We both exhaled with relief. That was it, my favorite moment. The moment that drew me back to him again and again. Him filling me to the top, me sheathing him protectively. That moment of becoming almost one thing. This was perfect harmony.

  He drew out, all the way, and I heard myself gasp at his absence.

  “Come on,” I whispered.

  He got tantalizingly close but stopped short, and I shimmied down to him, wanting that feeling, needing that feeling of him pushing into me.

  “Do it,” I said.

  He resisted—probably for only a few seconds, but it felt like forever—then stabbed into me with the searing force. And I wanted that, I wanted him to split me open. In this momentary time warp, I would have died, I would have happily bled to death on his altar if I could go under the force of his desire.

  He pushed back in, keeping his eyes fixed on mine, and moved slowly inside me, gradually going faster and harder until eventually he was doing me as if I were the only one strong enough to take what he needed to give.

  At that point, he took complete command. He was the man, he was the aggressor; I was the woman, I received and accommodated. I was flexible to his convenience, no matter how he moved me, as soon as his cock slid into me, I was powerless to resist anything.

  I couldn’t say how much time passed. All I knew was that this was a moment I would replay again and again, and I wanted to live in it for as long as I could. He never faltered. Everything he did, everything he thought of, was always exactly right, sending agonizing twists of pleasure through every part of me. Pleasure rebounding and ricocheting like echoes inside me. I could have done it forever. I could have happily just lay beneath him and let him have me forever. I wouldn’t have slept through it, but I wouldn’t have missed sleep either. This was much, much better than sleep.

  Much more restorative than sleep.

  “Put your hands up,” he said into my ear, moving my arms up and away from my body against the floor, holding me down by the wrists.

  He kissed me hard, tangling his fingers in my hair and holding tight, then suspended himself over me and slid in and out while I skidded my fingers across the landscape of his hard triceps and back.

  “Put your legs together.”

  I did.

  He moved in me, and I felt him ripple against every nerve I had down there. I could barely breathe.

  Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.

  And on it went. I moved at his whim. He flipped me over, drew me under, moved my legs like I was Circus Barbie. I did whatever he wanted, glad to give up the control I had to have in the rest of my life in order to defer to his strength for at least a couple of hours of relief.

  Forget later. How could I worry about that when now felt so good?

&nb
sp; I would, of course. Later I’d second-guess this. I’d be ashamed of my weakness in giving in to him so easily again. But I’d also suspect, I’d always suspect, that he needed this even more than I did. That with all the tension that drew him tight in the rest of his life, he needed my love and comfort a lot more than he’d admit.

  If I hadn’t believed that, I probably could have walked away.

  Instead, I was ransomed by it. Like when I was a kid and my cousin threatened to put a needle in his eye if I left the basement where we were segregated to go up to the adults at the party upstairs. I’d sat down there for hours, scared to move, for fear he’d hurt himself if I made a wrong move and then it would be my fault forever.

  There was no threat from Blake, but the imperative felt the same—he needed me. He needed warmth and touch and nurturing. He always had. As wild as he’d always been, there was a little boy in there who needed love. Craved it.

  I’d always had to work to read him. It required thought and interpretation, despite the fact that, to him, I was a book that didn’t even need words for him to decipher. I was Where’s Waldo? Good Dog, Carl. Everything I thought and felt might as well have been pantomimed by schlocky, horrible actors—A-Team rejects—in front of me. He was Dostoyevsky to me, and I was Dr. Seuss to him.

  But I thought I was good for him once.

  Was I right?

  And, if so, was I still?

  His rhythm increased, and I recognized the change in his breathing. He wasn’t the only one who knew this dance. I knew every movement, at this point. He was nearing the end. The crescendo. I wrapped my legs around him and held on, his back so strong, he didn’t even seem to notice, and drew my arms tighter around his torso. Safety. That was one thing I got out of this. I felt safe beneath him.

  I almost never felt safe anymore.

  He grew stronger, his breath coming in forced bursts until the culmination.

  I’d always tried to time this moment right, like a game. I closed my eyes and felt myself ratchet higher and higher up that mountain of physical need. Don’t stop, don’t think, don’t interrupt, just feel. The sensation increased with his hard thrusts. It felt like he was getting even bigger in me, touching every spot inside and out, until finally my body reached fever pitch and went flying over the cliff into an orgasm so shudderingly strong that I shook.

  Almost immediately, his breath quickened and he spilled into me. And in that one moment of vulnerability, I felt like the strong one.

  His hands found mine again, and he sank down on me. I felt his heart pounding against mine, our breath ragged but synchronized. Every bit of his warmth felt good along the length of me.

  This, I thought, was what sex was supposed to be. This was what was wrong with everyone else, all the gentlemen who would be so careful and quick. That wasn’t how I wanted it. Sometimes I wanted it dirty, and hot, and sweaty, and raw. I wanted to feel so much need that there was nothing I’d stop at, nothing that would feel too far. I needed to be with someone who tasted perfect to me and smelled perfect to me, and felt perfect to me. Nothing else would do.

  They were simple ingredients, but hard to find. And here he was, his skin on mine, his breath in my hair, his sweat under my hands on his back, but I knew I had to go, and when I did, maybe I would wish I hadn’t done any of this.

  A taste of honey’s worse than none at all.

  Was that true? Had this whole thing with him been a reawakening, or just some cruel tease, showing me a standard I should have stood up for a long time ago but hadn’t, so I was screwed?

  Better luck next life.

  Hope you learned a lesson from this.

  When Blake and I went our separate ways, had he missed this as much as I had, or was this ordinary to him? Maybe it was even subpar, I didn’t know. Maybe he had a lot more experience than I did. Almost certainly, he’d had a lot better experience than I did, given that Lew and I had virtually no interaction. In believing this to be awesome, maybe I was a fool, some rube who’d never had real food and proclaimed rhubarb “the sweetest treat you can eat.”

  And that’s where the Dr. Phils and Oprahs came back into my head. You should have let go, they said. Take your clean break and keep it. You can’t go backwards. No one can go backwards.

  I didn’t have an answer for them.

  So I pushed the feelings down and ran my fingertips along his ribs and down his back. For the moment, this was enough. Later it wouldn’t be, of course, I’d second-guess everything I’d done and would almost certainly think about doing again, but for the moment, just this moment, this was enough.

  * * *

  AFTERWARDS—AND I don’t know how long afterwards it was—I told him the truth about the trailer, that Colleen and her niece were out there, sleeping off a hangover.

  He was, needless to say, surprised. But, in a way, didn’t it just figure? The last time he’d seen me, she and I had been two peas in a pod—and now, here we were, still. But it was getting later in the evening, and it was just about time for us to stop anyway. Why not stop here?

  Man, I hoped I could convince them of that.

  I went to the trailer and found a very impatient Tamara and Colleen sitting there, playing cards.

  “I have to pee so bad, it’s not even funny,” Tamara said without preamble.

  Colleen was not so impatient. “What is going on?”

  “We’re at Blake’s—”

  “Got that.”

  “He’s fantastic, as wonderful as ever, I don’t think I ever fell out of love with him.” I could have gone on and on, it felt so good to be saying all of this. “I think maybe he feels the same way about me.”

  “Does he have indoor plumbing?” Tamara asked. “Because otherwise, he’s going to have one hell of an embarrassing scene in front of his house in about two minutes.”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “He has plumbing. Come on in, you guys. He says we can stay the night.” I raised an eyebrow at Colleen. “It saves the hotel money.”

  She quirked her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “And answers some long-unasked questions?”

  “More than you know.”

  “We’re in.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tamara

  Ending up at Bitty’s old boyfriend’s house. That was a twist Tamara hadn’t expected. She wasn’t part of the whole thing, and she was Undesirable No. 1 right now, so she did her best to sink into the hunter green walls and not be a bother. She slipped outside, catching a glimpse of side-eye from Colleen. This was farm country, though. They both knew Tamara couldn’t go anywhere. And it’s not like she would anyway. Hell no. Not after that night.

  Things just weren’t the same with Colleen ever since then. No, she wasn’t being all pissy and brooding and angry like her dad would have been. She wasn’t raising a hand in the air to slice the connection of their conversation. She wasn’t even being bitchy or lecturing her. Yes, Colleen had lost it on her at first, but even Tamara understood that.

  It was weird, actually. Tamara knew it was an old—now certainly unfunny, if it ever was funny—thing where someone with their face in a bucket on New Year’s Day announces, “Ugh, I am never drinking again!”

  But the morning after the night from hell, she wondered why she had ever thought that her current and regular life was worse than the potential feeling that her constant risks could land her with? Was a boring night worse than accidentally doing too many drugs and ending up God knows where with God knows who, covered in God doesn’t even want to know what?

  While Bitty, Colleen, and their friend chatted at the table, she walked outside. She had never gotten the farm or country thing. But this … was kind of awesome.

  She looked up at the sky, where she could actually see stars. There were effing thousands of them. Even though Tamara knew that was obvious, it was more startling than she would have thought. Once for an Astronomy class, a bus had taken her and about twenty-three other less-than-interested students out to a big field an hour away, where t
here was less smog. But even that was nothing compared to this. It was like she had grown up with a Charlie Brown Christmas tree with one sad string of half-working lights, and this was the tree in Rockefeller Center. Except Charlie Brown’s tree had its certain charm, and Catonsville with its gross streets and ugly private school–uniform navy sky had none. Of course, it was where she had lived forever.

  Tamara had a strange urge to cry. She wasn’t even sure if it was because she was happy or sad or guilty or angry or what. She thought of her mom, long gone. Then thought of her dad. He was cold and hard, but he was still her dad.

  She bit her lip and stared at a spot in the field next to her before reaching in her pocket and pulling out her phone.

  Tam clicked his number and let it dial.

  Ring. Ring. Ring.

  “Hello,” came her father’s voice on the other end. It was never a question when he answered. Never a warm greeting. Just what he knew he was to say when he picked up the phone. It was what you were obligated to say before it was someone else’s turn to talk.

  “Hey, Dad … um, so what’s up?”

  “If you’re calling to say something in particular, just tell me. I don’t want to chitchat until you break something to me. What is it?”

  Again, not a question. A demand for a response, but not an invitation for one.

  “No, Dad, nothing. I’m just calling because we haven’t, like … talked at all this whole trip.”

  At first she felt offended and irritated that he was assuming she had something grave to call and announce. But then she realized that if she were being 100 percent honest, that probably would be why she was calling. But it wasn’t, she figured, so screw him for assuming it.

  “Oh,” he said, still not sounding humble, sorry for asking, or like he even believed her. “How’s the trip going, then?”

  “It’s good.… We’ve been stopping at some cool places. It’s fun.”

  “Great, that’s good. I’m glad Colleen’s trip is a success.”