by Anne Leigh
“Yes. You’re upset at me. Everything that I do makes you angry. I make you angry. I can’t bear to keep hurting you.” Her eyes shimmered with sadness.
Oh hell no. She was definitely not getting a break from me.
I closed the gap between us. I sat back down and turned her towards me.
“Sedona, I was mad and angry at you. I felt lost when you didn’t call or text or email me when I was finally ready to talk. I had to find out from Kieran that you were in Costa Rica. In a way, I was actually relieved that you were there because you were with your dad. I panicked because I didn’t know when you were coming back. I kept hoping you came back. Soon.”
Her face was down, so I whispered into her long, dark curls that smelled like strawberries and peaches. She always smelled delicious.
“Babe, did you miss the part where I said you fill everything else in my life? This week felt like a decade without you. Now, you’re asking for a break? Without you, it would feel like a fuckin’ century. So no, babe, I’m sorry. Your application for a break from me is completely denied.”
A hint of a smile formed in her face. My girl’s face was beautiful. But when she smiled, oh man. It was like the heavens opening up. God, I missed her.
She climbed onto my lap and said, “You’re denying my request for a break?”
“Yes.”
She lightly ground her hips against mine. Fuck!
“Why?”
She was wearing a skirt with tights. I caressed her back. She was still doing the grinding motion.
My voice was getting hoarse, “Because.”
“Because what?” She nipped on my right earlobe.
“Because you’re my girl. I want to keep it that way.”
Her voice dropped even lower, her breath was getting hotter, “What if I say ‘no’?”
I felt her tongue on my earlobe.
“Are you saying no to me?”
“Yeah.” Her actions said otherwise.
“Well, I’m just going to have to tie you down until you say yes.” A grunt followed my statement.
“Really?” Her hands reached under my jeans and were now cupping my ass.
“Yeah,” I couldn’t hold it anymore, “Fuck, babe, you’re turning me on.”
“Yeah?” Her voice had a hitch. I slowly reached under her blouse. Her nipples were peaked. I tugged at them lightly.
“Yeah…I want you.” I groaned into her mouth.
“How much?” One of her hands was under my ass; the other was finding its way to the front of my jeans.
I placed her hand on top my straining erection.
“Ohh, that much?” She was undoubtedly turned on.
I snaked a hand inside her tights. Shit! She was soaked!
“Baby, we need to get outta here,” she murmured. But she stayed in place.
“Yeah,” I agreed. We needed to get out of there. Fast.
“Can we make it to your place?” My place was the closest.
My cock was saying no. However, I wasn’t ready to do have sex on a park bench. I doubt she was either.
Sedona obviously had other ideas. She pulled her tights down to her knees. Her skirt was long enough to cover both of us. It was dark and no one was around. If another person looked at us, it would look like she was sitting on me.
What they didn’t know was that my extremely aroused girlfriend opened the zipper of my jeans and let my straining cock out. She pulled panties to the side and my cock was actually feeling the side of her panty.
“Can we make it to your place?” She repeated, this time, her voice was thickened with desire.
“I don’t think so,” I honestly said.
She kissed me and nudged my cock into her pussy. It was tight and it felt so good.
“I missed you.” She slowly rode me. I was wearing a light jacket so I managed to cover my hands grazing her breasts from any onlookers.
She kept a slow, enduring rhythm. It drove me crazy! She nibbled on my ears, sucked on my lips, and plungered my mouth.
It didn’t take long, I heard her gasps, “Babe, I’m coming!”
Missing her this much, I didn’t know how I lasted. A few seconds after she came, I felt my own release hovering closely. She ground harder and faster. She sucked on my tongue and whispered dirty, dirty words.
I breathed hard and moaned into her lips, “You want me to come?”
Her voice was still hoarse, “Yes.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“Where?”
“Inside me.” Her hips set a rapid pace and her pussy lips tightened on me.
“Here goes, babe. Aahh…” I spent my release inside her.
I stayed inside her for a few minutes and kissed her hair.
“I missed you, only you,” I heard the weariness in her voice. She was tired of fighting.
Her actions hurt me. I hated the old feelings that she had for that stupid Brennan. I hated her leaving for Costa Rica without telling me. I hated her ability to understand my need for space. I hated that she looked gorgeous and fine when I saw her at the bar.
Now, putting everything into perspective, hearing her tired and weary voice, I grasped the magnitude of how much I meant to her.
She was shy and was probably scared that I would turn her away. But she stood in front of me and my teammates with all her emotions up her sleeve.
She was scared of Brennan. But she faced her fear and met with him because of me. She defended me and had the charges against me dropped.
She was not a crier. But she cried for me many times now.
She was letting me go because she thought I needed a break from her so she could stop hurting me.
She said she missed me. Everything about me.
For a girl who planned everything in her life, who washed her hands as often as I scratched my groin, who carried a stain remover for ketchup stains – she just gave herself to me on a park bench and didn’t care.
This was her way of telling me how sorry she was and just how much she missed me.
She was amazing.
She was mine.
Chapter Nineteen
“We meet different types of people in our lives. What we gain from crossing our paths with theirs, that’s the ‘difference’.”
Sedona
We headed to Pier 39 after my last class. Zander was quiet during the 20 minute drive. I called it his ‘thinking while brooding’ mood.
He took out a thick, blue beach towel from the trunk of his car. He had gotten around to bringing towels after he accidentally sat on bird poop, during one of our dates. The bird poop was so hard to remove that I had to soak his jeans for an hour before putting it in the washer. After that, Zander stocked up on beach towels.
We were sitting in one of the benches overlooking the ocean, the blue towel draped across the bench, his head resting against my lap. He was tall; almost a third of leg was hanging in the air off the bench if he stretched to his full height.
After the drama with Brennan, I was relieved that we had managed to somehow put it behind us. There were moments, however, when he looked at me, somber. Almost sad.
He had been playing sad songs in the piano. Whenever we stayed over at his place, he found the time to play for me. Lately, the songs that he played were haunting, the kind of music that reached the recesses of a person’s soul.
I kneaded his shoulders lightly. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing was even, and his eyes, from what I could see through his sunglasses were closed.
Was he sleeping? He must be tired.
I thought he drifted off to sleep while I was talking.
I heard his voice break the silence, “I miss her.”
“Who? Your mom?” I asked. His mom traveled with his dad everywhere.
His lips fell into a thin line, his jaw muscles hardened; he was struggling to say something.
“I miss Chrissy.” With his eyes closed, the silence dragged between us.
Who’s Chrissy? He has never mentioned t
his name.
His throat bobbled, his voice slightly breaking as he spoke, “Being with you makes me miss her. I wish I could talk to her about you. She would have loved you.”
Would have loved me?
“Who’s Chrissy?” I asked softly, pressing my mouth closer to his head.
He was so still. I thought he was going to leave my question unanswered until I saw tears streaming down his face.
“She’s my sister,” he gulped in few, quick breaths. I thought it would be better if he sat up but he continued, “My older sister, by about 4 years. She would have loved you, loved hanging out with you. I could just see it, she’d pepper you with jokes about me” Tears kept flowing from his face but his eyes were still closed. “She had so much energy; she called it her ‘joie de vivre’. It’s ridiculous how many times she said that term. She learned it in her French class. I like people, but I have a hard time trusting people. Chrissy, she trusted easily, she loved freely, she did everything happily. And she loved music. She always wanted me to play for her.”
His words, the night of my first time, echoed in my head, “I haven’t played in a while.”
I put my hands to his cheeks and I felt the hot tears. He reached for my hand and held it over his heart.
“It used to annoy me. The way she thought everything was good. When I lost a game and my mom and dad weren’t there, she’d give me a hug and say, ‘At least you gave it your best shot.’ My dad called her his ‘Fairy Princess’ even when she went to high school and college. She looked like my mom, she even had her smile.”
She must have been a beautiful woman.
“My parents did not want her to go abroad for college. Chrissy was persistent though, she convinced them. She said that she wanted to learn another culture, immerse herself in it, and be with her best friend, Shana, who also wanted to study abroad.”
His eyes opened and from what I could tell, he was trying to blink back his tears. I caressed his hair. The ocean breeze was chilly. Goosebumps were starting to form on my arms and legs. I wanted to know more about Chrissy. I was afraid that if I said something, anything, Zander would not continue.
“She finally convinced my mom to let her go study in Germany for 18 months. My dad took a longer time to cave in but when he did, he made her promise that she would call or video chat every day. My dad has a business hub in Germany so he asked one of his colleagues to find a nice place for her to stay. We all flew with her to Germany,” He sucked in air and though his tears stopped, his voice hinted extreme sadness as he spoke.
“Chrissy kept her promise, she called every day. With the time difference, she’d leave video or phone messages and I either texted her or called her a few minutes a day. My parents got to visit her often because of my dad’s work. He probably used work as an excuse but I knew he wanted to make sure she was ok.”
“Then, one day, she didn’t call,” his voice broke and he started heaving, his nose flaring. He sat up on the bench. He pulled his sunglasses tighter. He was trying to compose himself as he took in huge breaths.
He held my hand tighter.
“Babe, when I say it’s been a while for me since I’ve been in a relationship, it’s the truth,” he was looking away so he must not have seen my nod.
I gripped his hand.
“You’re the first relationship I’ve had, since Chrissy died,” his jaw tight as he spoke the words that caused my heart to drop to my stomach.
My heart was breaking for him, “When did she pass away?” I managed to ask the question.
“About 2 years ago,” he removed his hand from mine, pulled me against his chest, and burrowed my head under his chin, “but it still feels like yesterday.”
“How?” I asked, “What happened?”
“Shana called my parents. She felt that something was wrong when Chrissy did not show up for dinner. They were supposed to meet up. She tried calling her Chrissy’s cell but it went straight to voicemail. Chrissy never turned off her cell. When Chrissy didn’t call back after 5 hours, Shana called my parents. My parents flew out that same day. My dad used all his connections to track her phone, to alert the authorities, to do everything that they could to locate her. My parents didn’t tell me what was going on. I had a game that day. They only told me after they found her,” his voice breaking, I felt hot liquid against my hair.
“They found her in her on the side of the road, her car parked a few feet away. She was tied and gagged.”
I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to throw up. I don’t even know how I even managed to stay in his arms.
Gruffly, he went on with this heartbreaking story, “You see, we didn’t even know that Chrissy was dating this one guy. According to Shana, Chrissy went out on a few dates with him but didn’t see it as anything serious. This guy had other plans though. He was upset when Chrissy said she wasn’t going to see him anymore because she was moving back to the U.S. Chrissy was almost done with her study abroad program so she was ready to come home. The bastard, the fucking bastard, did not take this well and they had an argument. Chrissy’s gone because of him!”
The last shred of his control broke. His voice was furious, “This guy didn’t know whose daughter or sister he killed! In court, when they asked him why he did it, he said because he couldn’t let her go. She’s gone because he couldn’t fucking let her go so he killed her instead!”
He pulled his arms away from me and stood up. He walked towards the beach. I remained in place.
When he came back to me, he removed his sunglasses, and looked at me with eyes filled with sadness and unspeakable emotion.
“Remember when I said that this tattoo was special to me?” he asked. His left hand touched the condor tattoo on his right arm.
I nodded as his voice slightly broke, “This is for her. We used to watch condors fly around our house when we were children. Chrissy called them as the ‘dope’ birds. They were feisty, wild, and free. She was all that,” his strained gaze glistened with unshed tears, “She is here”, his hand clutched against left side of his chest, “here,” his hand touched his head, and “here,” touching his arm with the tattoo, “my throwing arm.”
I leaned down and pressed a kiss on his right arm, right on the spot where he etched a lasting memorial to his beloved sister.
His eyes did not waver its gaze on me.
“You mean a lot to me, Sedona. I’ve never told anyone about what really happened with Chrissy. Kieran and John, they know because they’re closest to me. When the incident with Brennan happened, it hit so close to home. I felt like ripping his heart out and then you went to him. I know that you did it for me. It doesn’t make it better. Please don’t ever do something like that again,” his voice imploring.
How could I say no to this man? He held me at the palm of his hand.
I nodded and said, “Babe, I’m so sorry. It must’ve been horrifying for you to go through that,” I added with a promise, “I will never put myself in that situation again.”
His eyes left me, but a hint of relief, tugged on his face, “My parents have managed to keep Chrissy’s death out of the press. Chrissy was not into sports like me or anything the media might be interested in. Only our close friends and family knew exactly how she died. She suffered before she passed away. We didn’t want to be hounded by the press about how or what happened to her so my parents pulled out all the stops to keep it on the down low.”
I wanted to comfort him, to ease his pain, so I kissed him tenderly on his lips, “I understand. You can always talk to me about her, about anything. I’ll be here. ” I said softly against his lips. He kissed me and hugged me tightly as we watched the sun descend from the skies to nest at the horizon.
Sedona
Our relationship cemented on a stronger foundation after Zander’s revelation about his sister. He was so strong, so resilient. He gave me a piece of himself that day and I held on it, tightly.
ChattyPepper.com became somewhat of a normal thing for us. It still bothered me; j
ust not as much. The website continually posted pictures of Zander and I around campus, maybe holding hands or hugging each other. It was part of the reality that we both lived in. My boyfriend was popular and my best friend was a rising star. The website continued to insinuate that there was a love triangle between the three of us but everyone close to us knew the real deal.
Tonight was bar night so we went straight to Hudson’s after he picked me up from school for some beer and greasy, happy hour food. If there was one thing I indulged in, it was spinach and artichoke dip and Hudson’s was the best. And, of course, Zander had to have his chicken wings. Our seats were at the bar counter so we were seated side-by-side; my chair was to Zander's right.
