No One But Us

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I take his hand and place it over my breast, letting him feel the way it pebbles at his slightest touch. The pad of his thumb moves over it—once, twice, and when I gasp, his resolve disappears entirely.

  He flips me onto my back and is above me so quickly that there’s no time to register my surprise. My mouth opens but no noise comes out before he’s pushing my arms above my head, kissing me hard, his hands everywhere, enveloping me in warm skin and his smell of soap and sea.

  “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about this,” he whispers as he moves lower, taking one taut nipple with his tongue and then his teeth. The small sounds I make turn into whimpers.

  It’s been a long summer, and a lot of build-up. When he moves to the other breast, when his hand glides between my legs, I begin to feel that sharp tug in my stomach, heat washing over me.

  “Don’t stop,” I beg.

  “You’re going to come like this?” he groans, as if the idea pains him.

  “Yes,” I pant.

  “No,” he says.

  He pulls away, and before I can protest, his hand is sliding up my inner thigh and into my shorts.

  “I want to feel you when it happens,” he breathes, and then his fingers are sliding against me.

  His index finger moves lightly over me, and then inside. That’s all it takes. I cry out, and his mouth comes down on mine hard, stifling my cries, his hand holding its place while I spasm around him.

  His lips move to my throat, my collarbone, his body pressed hard against mine, still tense and full of need, and then finally he rolls to the side.

  “I can’t believe you came so fast,” he murmurs, his mouth at my ear.

  “It’s embarrassing,” I whisper.

  “No,” he sighs. “It’s amazing. God, I’m going to think about that every night.”

  His words trigger that ache in me, a reminder that one day I’ll be something he can only remember, a part of his past. I ignore it.

  “I think I can give you something better than that to remember,” I say, pushing him on his back and reaching into his shorts.

  “Fuck,” he groans as he springs free into my hand.

  And something I’d guessed at, but wasn’t certain of, is affirmed. His crayon is very, very large.

  “No,” he whispers.

  I ignore him, circling him with my fingers before I shimmy lower, dragging a path down his chest on the way. I come to rest with my head between his legs, and he watches me with feverish eyes.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” he pants.

  “Really?” I ask, smiling up at him before my tongue flickers over him, capturing a hint of salt, darting away. He gasps, and I do it again. Light, inconsequential movements that have him writhing under me, grasping the sheets.

  “Stop grabbing the sheets like that,” I tease, bringing my mouth back where it was.

  “It’s the only thing keeping me from grabbing your hair,” he pants.

  I take as much of him as I can in my mouth, once, quickly, and then grin up at him. “Maybe I want you to grab my hair.”

  “Fuuuuuuuccck,” he groans, and then he gives in, his hands burying in my hair as I continue, increasing the pressure, adding in all the little tricks Ryan so painstakingly taught me.

  “Stop,” he begs, even as he is arching toward me, his hands tighter in my hair. “I’m gonna come.”

  I increase the pace instead, and within seconds he is crying out, his hands digging into my scalp, his head thrown backward.

  It takes him nearly a minute to release his death grip on my hair. He pulls me toward him so I’m lying on his chest, which rises and falls like a raft at sea.

  “That was amazing,” he whispers. “Like, completely fucking amazing.”

  I laugh. “Now are you glad I didn’t stop?”

  “Yes,” he breathes. And then he pauses. “But Elle? I’m only going to say this once: I don’t ever want you to tell me how you got to be so good at that.”

  Chapter 38

  ELLE

  “You’re off tonight, right?” Max asks James the next day. “Come hang out at the bar, and we’ll head to Dewey once I’m done.”

  I smile, turn my face toward the sun, breathe in the smell of pine on the breeze. Last night changed things with us. We don’t feel like something that might just fade away now. We feel like the beginning of something that can only grow.

  “I can’t,” says James. “I’m meeting someone out.”

  That’s all it takes for my sense of the world’s rightness to be wrenched away. I turn toward him sharply, the sun and breeze forgotten.

  We are both off tonight, and we’d never discussed it, but I assumed we’d spend it together. Maybe I’ve done such a good job of pretending to be ambivalent that he didn’t realize it would matter to me. But either way, now I get to spend the day pretending it doesn’t hurt.

  “‘Someone’, huh? Must be a girl,” says Max.

  And my stomach sinks even lower. He wouldn’t. We haven’t laid out any ground rules, but surely he wouldn’t take someone else out. Except James doesn’t deny it. His glance toward me is quick and anxious, and then he tells Max to mind his own business.

  I jump to my feet. “I’ll see you guys later.”

  I grab my purse from my room and have just reached the door when James grabs my arm.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine.”

  He looks behind him and then pulls me out to the front stoop.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Do you have a date?” I hiss.

  He looks surprised, and then he grins. “Yeah. That’s the plan anyway.” I step away from him, and he pulls me back with his hands around my waist. “With you, Elle. I meant I had a date with you.”

  I feel all of my anger transform into a deep desire to cry. “Oh,” I say in a choked voice.

  His hands tighten on my hips. “I thought you knew.”

  “How would I know that?” I ask. “You never even mentioned it.”

  “I spend every freaking minute with you. I thought it went without saying.”

  “Nothing goes without saying, James. I have no idea where things stand.”

  “Things stand wherever you want them to,” he replies.

  I think he realizes how untrue his words are as soon as I do. His lips brush my forehead and cheeks like an apology.

  I want to tell him where I want things to stand. I want to tell him that I’d settle for not lying about our relationship to everyone we know. But I say nothing. He’s put up these barriers to us becoming more—not telling anyone, keeping things less physical. I’ve already knocked down one barrier, and I plan to knock down a lot more before this summer is through. I might even knock down all of them.

  That night he tells me to dress up. I come downstairs wearing the same backless dress I wore to Ginny’s birthday.

  “You look…” James begins.

  “As I recall, you were unable to come up with anything nice to say the last time I wore this.”

  He pulls me against him. “Every time I saw you in some new way, it was like being punched. I couldn’t stand the things I thought about when I saw you in this. And I couldn’t stand the fact that other guys were thinking them too.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “What’s less sweet,” he says with a sigh, “is that I’m thinking them now. So if we don’t get in the car this minute, I don’t think we’re leaving at all.”

  We go to a restaurant in Lewes, which is far enough away that no one we know will see us. For once, reality eclipses even my loopiest daydreams. It’s all the best parts of a first date—the hopefulness and the giddy excitement—without the awkwardness of being out with a relative stranger. We talk easily about almost anything, but honestly, it would have been enough just to see his smile, to hear the low rumble of his laughter. To drink in the way he looks at me, like I’m a prize he can’t believe he’s won. The way his eyes grow hazy and heavy-lidded when either
of us references last night.

  We get back to a—thank God—empty house. I run to the bathroom and find James waiting on the couch when I return downstairs.

  “So we probably need to talk,” he says.

  I stand before him, reaching to the side of my dress for the zipper.

  “In spite of what happened last night, I don’t want this to be something that—”

  “James,” I say, pushing my dress off. It billows into a small pile at my feet, and I step out of it.

  “Jesus Christ,” he breathes.

  I climb into his lap. “We don’t have to sleep together,” I whisper. “Not until you’re ready.”

  His laugh is slightly strangled as he runs a hand down my back and glances at his crotch. “I don’t think my readiness was ever the issue.”

  “You know what I mean.” I smile. “But I’m not going backward either.”

  He pulls my mouth to his, and I reach down, unfastening his belt, pushing down his khakis and boxers, unable to work fast enough for either of us. He is beyond ready, groaning as I slide against him, separated only by the thin satin of my thong. “Fuck,” he says. The desperation in his voice, that last note of resistance, drives me to move faster, and suddenly he is lifting us both off the couch and walking us to his room, grabbing my dress as he goes. The door slams behind him, and moments later he’s tossing me on the bed, hooking his hands beneath my knees to get me flat on my back. With one finger he pulls the thong down and sends it flying somewhere behind him. He leans over me, his stubble scraping my jaw, his breath against my ear. I arch against him, where he rests between my legs, seeking contact, needing something more, and I hear the air hiss between his teeth.

  “Do I need a condom?” he asks.

  “No,” I pant. “Just...please.”

  Wordlessly he thrusts inside me, and my body bows off the bed with a moan I can’t begin to call back.

  He stays there for just a moment, flinching. “Oh, fuck,” he hisses. “You feel too good. I need a second.”

  I shift uncomfortably beneath him, trying to adjust to his size and desperately needing more from him at the same time. And then he begins to move. Slowly at first, capturing my gasps with his mouth.

  His hands slide up, span my waist, move higher. His touch and his mouth grow desperate, less calculated, our skin slick, dampening the sheets beneath me. He no longer moves slowly inside me but with a force that finds me bracing myself against the headboard, and I thank God we’re alone, because if we weren’t, my noises would be waking the whole house.

  His jaw is locked with restraint as he tries to hold back, but his thrusts become fast and irregular, and I feel my whole body tightening up, every muscle coiling and ready to spring.

  “I’m close,” I cry, and the words are barely out of my mouth before it hits me, my blood heating and exploding as I clench him inside me, my nails digging into his back.

  His whole body goes rigid.

  “Elle,” he groans, a single pained syllable as he comes, his mouth pressed to my damp skin, eyes squeezed shut. With one final pulse, he stills and relaxes against me, burying his head in the crook of my neck.

  I let his weight settle over me as our breathing slows.

  “So perfect,” he mumbles, kissing my jaw, my neck, my ear. “Oh my God. I knew it would be like that with you.” His voice is sorrowful, though, and it makes something squeeze my chest like a vise. He’s already thinking of this as something he will miss when it ends.

  He begins to roll off, and I stop him. “Don’t go.”

  “I’m crushing you.”

  “I like it.” But he is already gone, pulling me onto his chest.

  “I’d have risked it before, but now that I know what it’s like to sleep with you…”

  I laugh, and then we lay there with his fingers tracing quiet patterns over my skin.

  “You really thought I wasn’t ready to sleep with you?” he asks.

  I shrug, the motion tiny, masking a thousand insecurities. “I didn’t know what the deal was.” I guess I still don’t.

  “I wanted to,” he says, flipping me to my stomach so quickly that the air rushes from my chest in a sharp burst. He bites my earlobe as he nudges my knees apart. “And I want to again.”

  “You just finished. You can’t possibly be ready to go again. You’re still dressed.”

  He pulls his shirt over his head and kicks off his pants and boxers, which were at mid-thigh. He lowers himself and—damn. There it is. He’s more than ready.

  “You have no idea how many times a day, an hour, I’ve thought about doing this,” he says, moving against me until he’s in the exact right place. “I have some catching up to do.”

  Chapter 39

  JAMES

  My dad went to law school hoping to save the world. I remember his old room in my grandparents’ house, preserved in its teenage glory. The huge tomes in the bookshelf about social injustice, the walls covered in stickers and slogans for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He wound up at my mother’s family’s law firm instead—pretty much the opposite of what he’d planned—defending rich assholes who didn’t deserve his help. Because that was what my mother wanted—the two of them, side-by-side in her family’s business. And my dad loved her enough to go along with it.

  My mom always told the story as if it was comical—sweet, naïve Jim who needed to be steered in the right direction. She laughed about how little money he’d be making if he hadn’t met her. And he’d laugh too, but his laugh was more subdued, and sometimes I’d see this look on his face as if he was somewhere far away, watching a different future unfold—the one he still wanted.

  My dad shouldn’t have given up his dream. My mom shouldn’t have nearly starved herself to death when he tried to leave. My family’s history is riddled with people who did stupid shit for love, and I refuse to become one of them. But the more time I spend around Elle, the more I find myself wishing things were different. Wishing we’d met at another time, maybe when she was out of college and we had other options. Those are thoughts I shouldn’t have at all, because the natural progression from wishing things could work is to start trying to make them work, and there are too many reasons a relationship with her never can.

  Was it a mistake to sleep with her? Of course it was a fucking mistake. It’s a mistake for any addict to give into a weakness, and now that I’ve given in once, I will give in a thousand times, because she has opened the floodgates. I’ve just ensured that when this summer ends, it’s going to be fucking awful.

  We walk into town together the next morning to get coffee. I watch as she sips her latte, wishing I could catalogue all the things about her face that I love. Like the gold flecks in her eyes, the way her upper lip is slightly fuller than the lower—wistful until she smiles. It’s been five hours since she slipped off to her bedroom last night, and already, watching her, I’m back to feeling like I’ve gone a year without sex.

  We walk home, and my hand twitches with the desire to grab hers. I shove it in my pocket instead. “So,” I venture, “last night...”

  “I swear to God, James, I’m going to punch you in the face if you start telling me it shouldn’t have happened.”

  I laugh. “I think that ship has sailed. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “You mean emotionally? Or am I too sore to do it again?”

  “Both.”

  She walks ahead of me, glancing back over her shoulder. “I think so,” she says with a sly grin. “But maybe we should try it again to be sure.”

  No one is there by the time we get back. So we try it again. Several times.

  I watch her as she dozes on the pillow beside mine. I’m not sure how I will leave her when this summer ends, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I will. If I’ve learned anything from watching my parents, it’s that you should never make life decisions based on infatuation.

  Chapter 40

  ELLE

  The last days of July have become
the early days of August, all of them a blur of bare skin and orgasms. James’ sheets are full of sand because we return from the beach each day too worked up for things like showers and floor mats.

  It isn’t just sex, though. He holds my hand under the kitchen table at breakfast. He pulls me into the deep freezer at work. His hands trace patterns over my skin as we lounge at the beach. I want to spend every waking moment with him, and he seems to feel the same.

  But it is all done in secret, which is difficult when you have two housemates. Ginny works constantly and doesn’t have time to pay attention to her own life, much less mine. But Max is another story.

  “Okay, one of you needs to admit it,” he says one afternoon.

  “Admit what?”

  “That,” he says, pointing at my mouth as it twitches in an effort not to smile. “The two of you look like that all day long. When you’re not touching each other and pretending it’s an accident, that is.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re referring to.”

  “Seriously?” he scoffs. “I know he can’t cop to dating a teenager, but what’s your excuse?”

  His words make my stomach drop. Is James actually embarrassed? Enough that Max doesn’t even question it?

  “There’s no excuse. There’s nothing to tell.”

  I’m beginning to wonder if there ever will be. I fall a little harder each day, but being the fling James is ashamed to acknowledge doesn’t really feel like the start of a fairy tale.

  Max mentions the next day that a few friends need a place to crash for the weekend. James seems to think that might even be a good thing, since Ginny is coming home from a trip today as well.

  “Maybe it’ll be chaotic enough that they won’t notice us,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be nice to get three straight hours with no one interrupting?”

  I think he’s overly optimistic, and I am right. We get home that night to discover Max’s “few” friends are more like a mini Burning Man Festival in our home. There appears to be a half-naked hippie around every corner.