“I’m a little off script,” I admitted.
He moved his hands to my butt again. “Then I’m going off, too.”
“Close your eyes. I’m almost done.” Before I completely lost control of the situation, I touched the fingertips of my left hand to the spot between his eyebrows. “This chakra is sometimes called the third eye. It relates to vision, intuition, and insight. It allows us to detach from subjective perception and see truth or symbolic meaning in a situation.”
“Right now all I want is to detach you from your clothes.”
That was all I wanted too, but I was determined to finish this. I placed my left hand on the top of his head. “The crown chakra symbolizes enlightenment, pure awareness. It brings us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss.”
“Will it bring you to sit on my face? Because that sounds like bliss to me.”
My thigh muscles clenched around his. I had to close my eyes so I wouldn’t see him and be distracted. “Dallas. Focus with me. Imagine the energy flowing up through all the points I touched.”
“There is definitely something flowing up in me.”
“Picture the color violet.”
“I’d rather picture my dick in your mouth.”
Oh, fuck. I opened my eyes and brought my hands to his shoulders. “You would?”
“Yeah. Does that make me an unenlightened brute?”
“Probably.” I kissed him softly, traced his lips with my tongue. “But I’m going to give you what you want.”
“You are?” His hands tightened on my ass.
“Uh huh.” I slid backward off his lap until I was kneeling on the floor, then pulled his jeans down just enough.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said as I took my blouse off and reached behind my back to unhook my bra. “You’re so beautiful.”
I laughed and ran my hands up his thighs. “You’re just saying that because you want to see my mouth on your cock.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I mean that. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, you will always be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.”
My heart soared. “Really?”
“Yes.” His hands fisted in my hair. “Now put your mouth on my cock.”
I’d given Dallas a few awkward blowjobs when we were together, but I never knew what I was doing and I was always scared that he would come in my mouth and not tell me first. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do that for him, it was just that the thought of it terrified me. Would I choke? Gag? Make a weird face? Getting something as big as his dick in my mouth was difficult enough, and sometimes when the tip of it hit the back of my throat, there was this terrifying moment when I thought I might suffocate. He never pressured me, and it usually only lasted a few minutes before he wanted to have sex, anyway, and we’d be scrambling to get the condom on fast enough.
This time was different.
I wanted it all—and I wanted him to watch me take it.
So this time when he said Maren, stop, I didn’t. I pushed his hands away. I went at him faster. Sucked harder. Took him deeper. (I might have quit the stage, but I still knew how to put on a show.)
Dallas struggled to hold back. “Fuck. I’m so close. If you don’t want me to come in your mouth—”
“That’s exactly what I want,” I said, rubbing the tip of his cock over my lips, “so shut the fuck up and give it to me.”
“Oh, Christ.” He groaned and grabbed my head again, holding me steady and fucking my mouth with zero restraint. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe how much it turned me on to feel him lose control and know that he was watching every second of it. He cursed and moaned and growled and lasted only about twenty seconds before I felt a hot, pulsing stream at the back of my throat.
As soon as he loosened his grasp, I sat back and swallowed. Wiped my lips and chin. Caught my breath. But I only had about three seconds because Dallas launched himself off the couch and came at me like a linebacker, tipping me onto my back and rolling with me to the empty space on the carpet beyond the coffee table. Less than two minutes later, he’d dragged my shorts and underwear off my body and flipped us over again, so I was on top.
“You know what I want,” he said. But before I could guess, he slid down beneath me so I ended up kneeling over his face, his arms locked around my thighs. Then he went at me with his unbelievably strong, seemingly tireless, and utterly magical tongue. When I came, I screamed so loud I thought my front windows would shatter, and even when my orgasm was over, he kept going.
“Stop,” I begged, trying to lift my hips from where he had me imprisoned above him. “I can’t take any more.”
“Sorry.” He loosened his grip and I wriggled down his body, stretching out on top of him. “But I can’t ever get enough.”
I laughed, still breathless, and laid my head on his chest. “You always say that.”
“But I’m serious. With you, that’s how I feel. I’m like an addict.” He wrapped his arms around me. “It’s a good thing we don’t live in the same state. You’d never get a moment’s peace.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’d trade a little peace for more of this in my life.”
He was quiet then, and I wondered if I’d said too much. I tried to think of a way to reassure him I wasn’t asking for more than he could give, but I couldn’t. I tried to think of a way to let him know he could talk to me about his family, but I couldn’t. I tried to think of a way to tell him I was falling for him all over again without scaring him away, but I couldn’t.
I went for safe instead. “How’s your headache? Did the chakra cleanse help?”
“Undoubtedly.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’m feeling much better. I also worked up an appetite, so what do you say we head downtown and grab something to eat before the game?”
“Sure. I just need to clean up a little.”
We put ourselves back together and headed out to the car, and Dallas tossed me the keys without my having to ask. We parked in a garage downtown, and he held my hand as we walked around Grand Circus Park, finally ducking into Cliff Bell’s for something to eat.
We sat at the bar, and Dallas looked around in amazement at the beautifully restored 1930s supper club. “This place is amazing,” he said. “How come I never knew about it before?”
“It wasn’t open when you lived here. And besides, this wasn’t exactly our scene back then.” I grinned at him. “Mostly we were looking for places to be alone.”
“True.” He leaned over and kissed my lips.
I took a breath and decided to be brave. “But next time you’re in town, we should definitely come here for dinner and see some music. They have great bands in here. It’s really fun.”
He nodded, his eyes dropping to his hands on the bar for a moment. “I’d like that.”
Victory! I nearly bounced in my seat.
The bartender came over, and I ordered a glass of wine and a salad. Dallas ordered calamari, and when asked what he’d like to drink, he said, “Just water.”
“No cocktail?” I asked, surprised.
He hesitated. “The headache meds I take don’t really mix well with alcohol.”
“Ah. But they help?”
“A little.” His crooked grin appeared. “Not as much as the blowjob.”
“Shhhhhh!” I put my hands over his mouth and glanced around to make sure no one heard.
He grabbed me by the wrists. “Hey. You should be proud of that.”
“Not in public, thank you. But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“I did. I don’t even want to know why you’re so good at it.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not because I’ve had a lot of practice or anything. I was just really into it.”
“Ah.”
I leaned closer to him and whispered. “Plus I sometimes watch porn.”
He burst out laughing. “Yeah. Me too.”
While we ate, we reminisced more about high school and what we knew a
bout where our friends had ended up. I talked about my sisters a little bit, how Emme was driving both Stella and me bananas with all the wedding stuff, and how Emme and I did not understand Stella’s strictly platonic relationship with Buzz. “I mean Walter,” I said. “Emme and I just call him Buzz because he’s obsessed with bees.”
Dallas grinned. “That’s buzzarre.”
I laughed and asked him what his friends were like in Portland, and he said he had one pretty close friend named Evan who was married and expecting a baby with his wife.
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Yeah, it is. I’m happy for them.”
I picked up my wine. “Do you want kids someday?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think I’d make a very good dad.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not…reliable enough. Responsible enough. Mature enough. I’m reckless. Careless. Shortsighted. I don’t make good decisions.” He looked at me with his water glass halfway to his mouth. “Should I go on?”
I wondered how many times he’d been told those things in his life. Enough to believe them, evidently. “That doesn’t sound like you talking. That sounds like someone else. And I don’t think it’s true.”
Another shrug before he looked into his glass like he wished something stronger than water was in it. “It’s true enough.”
I let it go, although it pained me to hear him talk about himself like that.
“So what will you do with your inheritance?” I asked. His grandfather seemed to be the one person in his family he enjoyed talking about.
“I’m not sure yet. I had a couple ideas at one time, but…”
“But what?”
He shrugged. “Finn talked me out of them. Said they weren’t practical. He thinks I should just keep the money invested.”
“Well, it’s not Finn’s money. Tell me about your ideas.”
“I thought about opening up my own tattoo shop at one point. But I’m not much of a businessman.”
“You could learn. I have faith.” Unlike your family.
“Yeah, maybe. But I actually really like the shop I work at now. I guess if I moved somewhere else, it might make sense.”
“What was your other idea?”
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “My friend Evan’s family has a ranch, and I worked on it this one summer a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It’s a working cattle ranch but it also hosts this program for what they called ‘troubled youth,’ but they were really just mixed up, angry teenagers who felt like they didn’t belong anywhere.”
“Wow. Did you work with the kids?”
“A little. They had teachers on site for academics, but sometimes I supervised a group of kids working on a ranch project, and a few times I held drawing workshops.”
“I bet the kids loved that.”
“Some of them did, I think. And I could kind of relate to them because of my background, although a lot of them had it way worse than I did. Some had been abused, some were depressed, some were recovering from addiction. Others were just really fucking mad at the world.”
“Must have been tough to see.”
“Actually, it was pretty cool to see how working on the ranch helped them. I mean, there was therapy there too, but it seemed like the actual physical work, especially with the animals, really made them feel good about themselves. I was only there for one summer, but I saw some pretty amazing transformations.”
“I bet. Are you thinking of doing something like that again?”
He shrugged. “I was, kind of. Evan recently told me his parents are looking to retire, and he and his wife are thinking about buying them out and taking over. He wants to adopt more sustainable practices, but that costs money and he’s looking for partners to invest.”
“Would you live and work there? Or would you be more of a silent partner?”
“I hadn’t really decided that yet. It’s a beautiful place, and Evan said he’d even sell me some of the land for personal use. I could build on it if I wanted to.”
“Where is it? Near Portland?”
“It’s in Lakeview, Oregon. Closer to California, actually.”
I nodded, thinking that both states were very far away from here and trying not to be sad about it. “What did Finn say about it?”
Dallas exhaled. “Not much beyond, ‘A ranch? Are you crazy? You don’t know anything about farming.’ And he’s not wrong, I don’t know that much, and I only worked there the one summer. But I liked the work. Evan’s wife is in finance and believes the land is a solid investment, and the ranch turns a profit every year.”
“Would you miss being a tattoo artist?”
“I don’t know. I might. But I think as long as I was still doing something creative, like drawing or painting with the kids, I’d be happy.”
“I’ve heard that therapy is really effective.”
“I’m not any kind of therapist,” he said quickly. “It would be really informal. But if it did some good…” He lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s probably crazy.”
“I don’t think so at all.” I set my glass down. “And don’t let your brother talk you out of it if you really want to do it. Those kids need people like you. And the work is rewarding. I get much more out of the yoga programs I do at schools and women’s shelters than I do from teaching at the studio. Not financially, of course, because they’re free, but spiritually.” I touched my chest. “I feel like I’m doing some good, even if it’s just yoga or meditation. Maybe that was someone’s only sixty minutes of calm that day, you know? The only time they spent on their body and soul.”
He smiled, then leaned over and kissed me. “Yeah. I know.”
When we were done, we walked around some more, and finally made our way over to Comerica Park. Dallas held my hand again, and I stayed close to his side. I couldn’t say it out loud because he’d have hated it, but I felt so bad for him. The way his family had treated him as a kid—and still treated him, apparently—was so unfair. They focused on all the things he wasn’t without noticing all the things he was—smart, sensitive, charming, funny, talented, thoughtful, passionate, generous. The kind of person who stuck up for others. The kind of person who remembered your favorite song. The kind of person who knew when you were having a bad day and did his best to make you laugh.
He wasn’t perfect. He was stubborn and impulsive and rebellious, he got moody sometimes, and there was obviously something going on with him he didn’t want me to know about.
But his heart was huge, and being with him was so easy. It was almost as if we’d never been apart.
I felt myself falling.
Ten
Dallas
After my phone call with Finn, I wasn’t sure anything could put me in a good mood.
That was before I discovered the wonder of the chakra-clearing blowjob by Maren Devine.
Holy. Fuck.
I don’t know if it was because she already had me all worked up, what with her sitting on my lap and one hand down the back of my pants and the other one doing all sorts of things to my front and the sound of her voice and the fact that she was devoting all her time and attention to me, or if it was simply the best blowjob I’d ever had—and it was—but I swear to God, I saw stars. Comets. Meteor showers. Quasars, and I’m not even sure what a quasar is.
She was just … incredible. So fearless and unabashed, so eager to please me, so different than she’d been back then. Not that her shyness about it had bothered me back then—when you’re seventeen, a blowjob’s a blowjob—but there was something so erotic about watching her enjoy it so much today. I felt like she wasn’t doing it only for me. (Probably this is something guys tell themselves so they can justify shoving their dick in someone’s mouth, but I really did feel like it was turning her on too.)
But it wasn’t only the blowjob. Every moment I spent with Maren felt good. I loved that I could still make her laugh. I loved that she wasn’t asking me a bunch of questions I couldn�
�t answer. I loved that she still kissed me like she was seventeen and no one was watching. I felt connected to her in a way I’d been unable to connect with any other woman I’d been with. Sex with other women had always left me feeling empty and unsatisfied. Sex with Maren made me feel alive.
The last thing I wanted to do was to say goodbye tomorrow. But I had no choice—this thing in my head wasn’t going to magically disappear. I either had to treat it or let it do its worst, and neither of those were journeys I would let her take with me or even see me on.
One night was all we had. Maybe two.
“Do you want a souvenir?” I asked her in The D Shop at Comerica Park. “A shirt? A scarf? A beer mug? A pair of Detroit Tigers Multi-Logo Glitter Flip-Flops?” I held them up in front of her face.
She laughed. “No, thanks. But I’m happy to help you pick something out for your niece and nephew.”
“Come on, you need a memento from this weekend. And I want to get you something.” As if anything in here is going to make up for disappearing from her life again. Ignoring the voice in my head, I set the flip-flops down and picked up a women’s navy blue hoodie. “How about this?”
She looked at me like I was nuts. “It’s like ninety degrees out.”
“Right now. But it’s Michigan. It could be forty in a couple hours.”
“True. But—”
“No buts. It’s yours.”
She tipped her head onto my shoulder. “Thanks.”
For Olympia and Lane I picked out stuffed animals, T-shirts, and water bottles, and for myself I bought a hat. We found our seats and spent the next two hours rooting for the Tigers, booing the Red Sox, cursing the umps, and eating ballpark food—Maren refused to eat a hot dog but she did partake in popcorn, nachos, and even cotton candy. There were plenty of fancy options, but I told her it was sacrilegious to eat something called “Buffalo Cauliflower” at a baseball game, because for God’s sake it was vegan and came with celery sticks. In addition, I told her anything served with pepper-olive salad, balsamic vinegar glaze, or on a brioche was also out.
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