by A. S. Kelly
Then one day something in my equilibrium and my self control just broke down. We had just signed the contract for the second album after the first one was successful in Ireland. People started to recognize us in the streets, asking for autographs, following us to concerts. There were sponsors, tours in Europe, money, fame, everything we always dreamed of. For us guys who grew up on Pearse Street, from simple families who had never seen anything similar, it was overwhelming and we didn’t want to mess it up. But the tour would have taken Neil away from Rain for eight long months and he wouldn’t have been able to resist being with her. He lived for her. Rain had her job, she had just started student teaching at the school. She adored the children in her class and they venerated her. She never would have left them to follow us.
“I’m gonna marry her, Liam, by God, I am! And I’m gonna bring her with me, I can’t leave her here, you understand me?”
And I could understand, more than he realized.
I found her in tears in the garden behind the house. The door was open as always in our house. I went to go find her after Neil told me she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry him. He was desperate, he wanted to give up everything and stay behind for her. But without Neil, we were nothing. He was the soul of the group. He was the one who wrote our songs.
I decided to try and talk to her, to try and find a way out of the situation, because our dream was on the line. Rain was sitting on the old rusted swing in the garden, swinging silently, crying. I walked up to her without saying a word while the words from ‘My Chemical Romance’ blasting full volume on the kitchen stereo were breaking my heart to bits.
We sat there in silence for about a half an hour until she finally looked up at me and I realized in that moment that I would have lost it.
Forever.
Well, when you go/Don’t ever think I’ll make you try to stay/And maybe when you get back/I’ll be off to find another way.
“Neil wants us to get married,” she told me, “before leaving for the European tour. A month, Liam, that gives me a month. I can’t do it, not this soon and not for that reason.”
“Have you told him what you think?”
“I love him, you know,” she answered with tolerance, shrugging her shoulders.
When you go would you even turn to say/I don’t love you like I did yesterday?
I shut my eyes tightly, and grabbed the chains on the swing with such force I could feel the rusted metal cutting into my hands.
“I’m happy for your success, you all deserve it. But I can’t turn my life upside down for this. I don’t want to wait for him to come back to the hotel room at night after hundreds of women have fawned over him.”
“You know he’s not like that. Neil loves you, he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“Yeah—”
“—You don’t have to if you don’t feel it, Rain. He’ll understand.”
“And you?”
“Me, what?”
“I’m asking you what you think.”
Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading/So sick and tired of all the needless beating/But baby when they knock you down and out/It’s where you ought to stay.
I jumped to my feet to get as far away from her perfume as I could because it was clouding my thoughts, it would have made me swing her way, fall apart, ruin everything.
“What do I have to do with this?” I said, turning my back to her.
I heard her stand up and come towards me. I heard her breath quicken as she got closer. I heard my own heartbeat going crazy and the blood rushing to my temples.
She put her hand on my back to force me to turn around and face her. I couldn’t avoid it, I couldn’t refuse that contact.
Just one time, I told myself.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds before taking a big breath and opened them again, only to get lost in hers. I implored her, with my eyes, with the tears and the words that did not come out, but that I yelled with my whole heart. Then, I caressed her face and she rested her cheek in my palm. I felt the cold tears falling through my fingers, I felt my heart stop a few seconds and I knew I had to do it.
Just this once.
I pulled her to me with the other arm as tight as I could, to transmit everything I could in that hug, all of the words I wasn’t able to say.
She let me hold her and console her, until I pulled back and I dove into her eyes without hesitating.
“Don’t do it,” I simply told her.
And a second after that, her hands were in my hair and mine in hers. Our lips were searching for each other, exploring and tasting one another for the first time. A sweet flavor like her disarming fragility, and bitter, because I knew it would be the only kiss that I would have ever stolen from her.
I don’t love you like I loved you yesterday.4
“Please, I beg you not to do it,” I repeated, when she had already gone and all that I was left with was the taste of her tears on my lips and the pain of losing the only woman I would ever love in my heart.
Rain
“Is something wrong?” I ask.
Liam seems lost in thought. He offered me a tea and I accepted it, just to have a little distraction; to avoid looking at him and feeling inadequate.
I’d like to escape, because my emotions are going nuts. Maybe all this is too much for me. I don’t know what to do, how to act, I don’t know what he’s expecting.
“Everything’s fine,” he says, sitting next to me on the couch. “It’s nice having you here.”
“It’s nice to be here,” I reply, while he wraps his arm around my shoulders.
“Come close to me.” He holds me a little tighter so I can rest my head on him.
We stay like this, in silence, while our breathing aligns, falling into the same rhythm.
I’m not afraid, I don’t want to leave. I feel safe. I feel protected.
I feel at home.
“I don’t want to go home,” I say out of the blue without over-thinking it—because that’s what I feel in this moment. I don’t want to go away from him. I want to continue to feel like this, part of something.
Part of him.
“Don’t do it.”
His words go straight to my brain and wake me from the coma I’ve been in since my life has taken this direction two years ago, since everything I’ve heard around me is dimmed and filtered, as if someone had chosen very carefully the words to say to me, as if everyone held back their emotions for my sake.
“What did you say?” I ask him, sliding out of his arms.
“I said that you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can stay here. Stay,” he concludes with imploring eyes.
Don’t do it.
I hear it again in my head, like a hammer, like a familiar and close voice I’ve already heard. I jump off the couch and take a few steps away from him. I have to get my thoughts and there are blurred flashes appearing and interrupting my mind.
Don’t do it.
I look at him and my lips fall apart, ready to go, to ask him, but he doesn’t give me time. He stands up and in two steps he’s in front of me.
“Is everything okay? Did I do something wrong?”
I deny it with a shake of my head and lower my glance. The words remain were they were, in my throat. I’m not ready to spit them out.
“If you want, I’ll take you home—”
“No, I want to stay here with you.”
He relaxes his expression and gives me half a smile that seems both malicious and tender and I cannot resist. I reach up on my tiptoes and give him a soft kiss on the lips. At first, he’s surprised, then, however, he grabs me by the waist and pulls me to him. Chest against chest, I can feel his every heartbeat, which is accelerating at an alarming rate, keeping pace with mine. The initial sweetness disappears in a few seconds, in the moment in which our tongues meet, touch, play. Liam tugs at my lower lip, biting it softly and I feel a shock that runs through my entire body.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt like thi
s before.
I let myself go and am transported by that kiss and everything it means that is the opposite of taking it slow, and without even realizing it, I lift myself up and wrap my legs around his hips. Liam grabs me by the bottom, before letting out a sort of groan.
“Rain,” he whispers. “I promised you I’d go slow, but if you act like this, I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself.”
“Well then don’t do it.”
“I can’t. Try to understand.”
“And if I wanted to? If I wanted to—well, you know.”
He lets out a laugh before kissing my nose. Then he takes a few steps in the direction of the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, where he sits me down, but remains just a few centimeters away from me.
“No, really, I don’t understand,” he says playfully, resting his hands next to my body.
I blush for a second, embarrassed by my own thoughts.
“Rain, if you can’t even say it, how can I believe you’re ready for—well, you know.”
“Well really, what? I don’t understand,” I say, imitating him.
And he explodes in laughter—loud, real.
Alive.
I feel this feeling surround me and warm me. I feel my heart explode with joy, with life.
With love.
His laugh is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I wish he’d do it more often, because when he laughs his face relaxes and he shines, losing that dark shadow he carries and that sense of anguish that seem to distinguish him.
“You don’t know how much I would love to, but it’s not the right moment, not now.”
Maybe he’s right, perhaps I pushed it too far.
“I’m not in any hurry,” he continues, leaving a trail of kisses on my neck, tender and chaste, even if on me, they have another effect.
“I will wait all the time it takes,” he concludes, kissing every centimeter of my face, before coming back to my lips.
And in that moment the tenderness turns into something else, because even if I don’t feel ready, I desire this man with everything I have.
I want a man’s hands on my body.
I want to be loved, in every way possible.
I want to feel a man inside of me, making me feel things I think I have felt in the past, but that I don’t remember. I want a man to make me tremble and shake, make me feel like a woman.
I want a man.
A man for myself.
I want this man.
I grab the bottom of his shirt and I take it off of him, not allowing him time to reply. I observe, almost breathlessly, his sculpted abs covered in tattoos, just like his neck and his arms. He looks at me and that limpid sky turns into a storm of emotions that I wish would fall right on me, like a hurricane with nowhere to escape.
“Rain,” he warns, but in reply I slide open my blouse and let it slide off my shoulders to reveal my naked breasts before him.
“God, Rain,” he cries before launching himself at my breasts that call him, asking to be tasted, consumed by his lips.
The second I feel the heat of his breath on my naked chest, I let out a little yelp I’m not able to contain.
A man’s body on top of mine.
I run my hands in his hair, pulling just slightly to encourage him to continue. His lips close in around my nipple, while his other hand is full of my other breast. I let my head fall back and free my body that is threatening to explode in fire under his breath, his mouth and his fingers. His tongue plays on my body, his hands moving frenetically, then his teeth bite me softly and I gasp loudly. I hold my legs tightly around his waist, getting closer to his hips, pushing myself forcefully against him, because I need to feel his desire run through me now.
“Rain, I beg you—” he whispers in my ear before coming back up to my mouth and suffocating me with kisses.
His tongue becomes invasive, taking away my breath, turning me into his prey, and a situation from which I do not want to escape.
He separates from me, panting, biting my lip. Hungry.
“I w-want you, Liam,” I say, so full that I’m not sure he really heard me.
“I know,” he sighs, sliding a hand toward the button of my jeans. “I want you too, you can’t imagine how much.”
When I understand what he’s about to do, I draw back without wanting to. Apparently my subconscious has control of my actions.
“Be calm,” he whispers, kissing my neck. “Everything’s alright.”
And I believe him.
Slowly, he unbuttons my jeans and pulls down the zipper. The sound fills the room like thunder and inexplicably, I start to shudder.
“I can stop, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to to do, Rain. Trust me.”
“I—I’m not afraid. I trust you.”
His hand slides slowly inside my pants, touching me lightly over my underwear, causing another earthquake. Liam smiles against my lips before going under the panties. When he touches my heat with his fingers, he inhales almost painfully, as if he’s struggling to keep his control. Then he starts moving, rubbing his finger over my most intimate spot with his hot sure fingers.
“I can stop,” he whispers in my ear.
“N-no. Please don’t, don’t.”
“I just want to feel you.”
I nod against his shoulder and I relax just before Liam slowly slides a finger inside of me.
He smiles again and bites my lip this time more aggressively, passionately. I grab his shoulders at the moment in which he inserts a second finger and rubs my clitoris with his palm, making me shake in agitation for the pure emotion of being made to feel like a woman again. He moves slowly inside of me and I abandon myself to him, to his hand that is torturing me, to the heat that is burning me, his heavy breath on my skin and the feeling of being desired.
His mouth slides down looking for my breast. He takes my nipple in his mouth and sucks on it, almost rasping before pulling at it, just slightly while my body shakes without control against his. His strength and his desire flood me and lead me to move, going towards his fingers that are sliding in and out of me.
I want to feel it again.
And I want more.
“Yes, like that!” his voice is hard and full of desire that gives me goosebumps. “You don’t know what it means for me to feel you.”
His fingers push down, making me bend on him. His movements get faster like our breath that is ever faster and in need of more oxygen. His palm brushes anxiously against my clitoris, and his voice continues to call my name, causing a thrill that morphs into something else in a few seconds.
“Let yourself go.” And he doesn’t have to say anything else, because five seconds later, I’m yelling, and pushing my nails into his back.
A wave of warmth expands over my body, hit by this hurricane, while I suffocate my shaking body by biting his shoulder.
I can’t believe this is happening to me.
His hand, his delicate touch between my legs, and then his fingers go up slowly along my belly.
“You’re wonderful, Rain. Never change, you are perfect just like you are.” And his words make me cry with abandon. The emotion was too strong and they need to come out somehow.
“Shh—everything’s okay,” he whispers again. He caresses my face with his beard and seals this moment with his wet lips. He moves back from me slightly and helps me with my jeans, he smiles at me tenderly and lifts me up, bringing me into the other room. He lays me down on his bed and lays down next to me. We’re still half naked, but it’s not important.
He pulls me to him so that my back is against his naked chest. His arms hold me, his breath on my neck, his light kisses behind the nape of my neck. The heat of his body wraps itself around me. I run my fingers over the tattoos on his arms, tracing the edges and when I arrive at his fingers, he squeezes them, as if he were afraid I would go. But I have no intention of doing so.
What I want now is to feel this heat on me.
What I want is to feel a man’s body next to mine.
What I want is his arms tight around my waist, making me feel safe.
What I want, everything I want, is here in this room, in this bed next to me.
20
Liam
“Oh my God, you guys, that was fucking awesome!” Neil yells before grabbing the keys and getting in the driver’s seat.
“Hey, you’re too wound up, and I think you’ve had too much to drink. Let me drive,” I tell him.
“Nah, I’m fine. You drank too.”
“I just had one beer, while I think you went overboard a bit.”
“Oh, come on. We had to celebrate, right? This was our last concert in Dublin, in a bit we’re going to be leaving and there’s going to be a tour. We have a contract for the next album I’ve already written half the songs—I feel good, almost invincible.”
“Neil, think about it—”
“Don’t break my balls, Liam! Sit in back or you’re gonna be walking.”
Reluctantly, I leave him behind the wheel of his car and get in back while Rain sits up front, next to him.
I’m not able to look her in the eyes, not after what happened to us two nights ago.
