Extreme

by Lark O'Neal

  “It was a car wreck when I was twelve. My mom was driving, and she totaled the car with both of us in it. Air bags saved us, but we both got hurt. Mostly my face. She broke her back.”

  I twine my fingers through his.

  “You said she has mobility issues. Is that why?”

  “Yeah.” In the pause, I hear his debate over what to say next, then he says, “She does have issues, you know, but really, she just got hooked on pain pills and now, she’s kind of invested in being in pain so she can keep the pills.” His voice is rough. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  “Or not.”

  “She is very dependent on my dad, and now he’s not that well, and I know they wanted me to stay.” He touches my thumbnail, as if there might be wisdom there. “I just couldn’t.”

  “Well,” I say. “I can see why you think you’re a bad person.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Exactly.”

  “Except that you’re not. You have this goal and you need to follow it where it takes you.”

  “What would your parents say?”

  I consider this. “They would say family is more important than a vocation.”

  “See?”

  “But they’re wrong. You were talking about soulmates and all that, but I think the real soulmate stuff is with ourselves, and it’s rooted right there, in our work. Like, if you can hear that and pay attention, you can do something for the world by just being yourself.”

  He moves, urgently, and kisses me. Hard, pulling me into his body, his arms tight, his mouth hungry. And I give myself up to it, swept into the ferocity of his hunger. Our legs entwine. His are bare but mine are not, and I wish they were. I wish I could feel the skin of his thighs, the hair, as our legs scissor together. I reach under his t-shirt to touch his back, and he follows suit, sliding his hand under my shirt to my waist, sliding it around to my belly, urgently.

  He lifts his head to look at me. “Where did you come from? Everything you say, everything you do—” he bends to kiss me again. “Everything,” he whispers, and his hands move on my body.

  I shove his shirt upward, shaping his ribs, around to his chest, touching the crisp hair, the erect nipple, and he makes the slightest noise, and somehow I know to open my mouth wider, allowing his tongue to thrust farther, pull mine back, and I scratch a nail over the nipple, lightly. He sucks my lower lip into his mouth and it’s my turn to make a soft noise.

  “Take off your shirt,” I say.

  In an instant, he’s flung it aside, and lies back down against me, and all at once, it’s overwhelming, my senses flooded with the rich, hot smell of his skin, with the sight of his broad shoulders, rounded at the top of his arms, the collarbone hollowing as he lies on his side, the sound of his breath. Without thinking, I lean in and taste his skin, right over the shoulder. I taste the length of the collarbone and kiss his throat and then his mouth. His hands are exploring my torso, sliding over my shirt, shaping my breasts, touching my throat. Fingers dance up my back, down to my hips, up to my arms, down over my breasts, but light and fast, then to my waist again. “This is in my way,” he breathes, plucking at the fabric.

  I sit up and he grasps the hem of the shirt and peels it upward, revealing my unbound breasts. His nostrils flare, and his hands rise to touch them. Small breasts, really, thus the fact that I do not need a bra. “So perfect,” he whispers, tracing the shape with the tips of his fingers, then bending in to taste one erect dark nipple—

  And I make a noise I’ve never made in my life, half choked, half moan, because the heat of his wet mouth lights a thousand nerve endings, turning my body into an electrified, glowing thing. Urgently, I straddle him, and he sits up to meet me, his hands on my back, his mouth moving from one nipple to the other, then up my throat. Beneath me, I can feel his erection—big and pulsing—and I feel dizzy with power, with desire, with the moment itself.

  I pull his head up and kiss him, and we rub our naked chests together, and we’re kissing, kissing, touching skin, moving sinuously.

  And then I realize that I am two seconds from coming. The pressure is exactly right, and I’m going to die of embarrassment if that happens, so I break away, panting. “Wait, I—”

  He smiles. “What?”

  “I’m just…uh—”

  “Mmm,” he says, and bends to suck my nipple into his mouth again, and I cry out for real, the feeling is so intense and so wild, and it makes that pulsing urgency between my legs that much less controllable, but I don’t want to stop now. He holds me against him, moving and moving, kissing and lapping, and then I’m coming, with my tights still on and nothing but his mouth on my breasts and his hands on my hips, and it floods through me, making all of my nerves pulse, and I’m making a low, moaning, panting noise, and he pulls me to him and kisses me hard, urges my hips to ride hard on him, and I realize that he’s coming, too, so I let him haul me into him the way he needs, kissing him and gripping his hair. And when he comes, I feel the pulsing against my own subsiding orgasm, feel the dampness, and he bites my shoulder, sucks hard on my skin, his hands on my buttocks.

  When it’s over, his forehead falls into my neck. “Sorry. That wasn’t what I planned.”

  “Me, either. Thank you for sparing me the embarrassment of the year.”

  Lifting his head, he pushes hair out of my face. “Never be embarrassed with me. It’s all natural, and good, and fun.”

  “So you shouldn’t be apologizing, either.”

  “Well, guys have a certain reputation to maintain.”

  “But what are you supposed to do when a girl is having a screaming orgasm right there against you?”

  “There’s that.” He swallows. “Seriously, that was hot. And all for the best, since I am almost 100% certain I don’t have a condom anywhere in this place.”

  “A guy like you? I’d think you’d buy them by the case.”

  “What do you mean, a guy like me?” He laughs. “I’m too busy for women.”

  “Really?”

  He runs his fingers over my shoulder. “Really. I don’t know why you think I’m some ladies’ man, but I’m not.” His fingers run up my neck, over my chin. “I just like you.”

  For the first time, I let myself admit the truth. Gently, I settle my hands against his face and bend in to kiss him. “I like you, too. So much.”

  Our eyes meet. Our bare chests brush. I feel a quiver of new desire. “But I think if there are no condoms in this place, I need to get up and distract myself somehow.”

  “Ditto. You want a cup of tea?”

  “Maybe.” I look at the clock. “It can’t be five in the morning, can it? I stayed up all night?”

  “You did. Do you want to get a little sleep before I have to take you back to the hotel?”

  It’s only then that I realize just how sleepy I am. “Maybe a little nap. If you don’t mind.”

  “Be my guest. I have to leave here around seven, but that gives you a couple of hours.”

  Then it’s my turn to crawl into the bed and fall asleep. It’s surprising how fast it happens. In two seconds, I’m out.

  * * *

  He drives me home in the dark. “Can I come get you tonight, take you out?”

  We’re sitting in the rumbling Range Rover. Snow has begun to fall outside, and at first it frightened me, because I thought it was ash. It’s just ordinary snow. But there’s a lot of it. As we sit there, it starts to pile up and I feel a longing to be on my board, flying.

  “If they open the airport,” I say, “I have to go, you know.”

  He swallows, hesitates, then nods. “But if they don’t?”

  “If I’m stuck here, I might as well see the sights.”

  “Good.” He grins. “I’m not sure when I’ll be done, but I’ll text you. See what’s going on.” He sobers a little. “If you have to leave, let me know, okay?”

  “I will.” A wave of foreboding comes over me. “Gabe, maybe this is a bad idea, the two of us, seeing each other.”

&n
bsp; “Why would it be bad?”

  “Because—” I loop my hand through his. “Because maybe you’re right and this is something, and I can’t afford that complication. Sounds like you can’t, either.”

  He moves across the seat and presses me into the passenger side door, not violently, just with intent. We’re bundled in coats but it doesn’t matter, just the proximity of his body makes my nerves shimmer and I catch my breath a little. “This is something,” he says and kisses me, slow and long and sweeping. “You know it is.”

  I can’t manage any words, only a nod.

  He releases me, sweeps one more kiss over my mouth and says, “I have to go. I’ll text you later.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  “Promise,” he says.

  “I promise.”

  Chapter ELEVEN

  Kaitlin

  There’s no one in the breakfast room that I recognize, so I grab a couple of apples and a cup of coffee and carry them upstairs. Without any moorings of light or dawn, after the long, strange night, I’m out cold until housekeeping knocks on the door.

  At that point, I head downstairs, wishing I’d thought to get a few phone numbers from the others. The clerk is typing something at the desk as I drop off my key. “Any word on flights?”

  “Still cancelled,” he says wearily, as if he has said the same words and been yelled at a thousand times.

  “Thanks. Any suggestions for what to do around town while I wait?”

  From behind me a voice says, “You can come wash clothes with us.”

  It’s Olivia, part of the Madeline and Olivia team, bundled up in a down parka and warm boots. She’s pulled a blue knitted cap over her head and it brings out the strange, bright blue of her eyes. “There’s a place called The Laundromat that has a cafe and washers.”

  “Ok, I’m in.”

  “We have to wait for Madeline. She stopped to see if Chelsea wanted to come.”

  The sound of a low, fierce argument leaks into the area, and Olivia peeks around a corner to a small anteroom. She turns back with wide eyes and whispers, “Hunter and Emily.”

  The Ambercrombie twins. In a voice even quieter than hers, I say, “Is it weird to you that they look like twins? I thought they actually were.”

  “I know, right?” She moves closer, leaning into me a little as she keeps an eye on the opening to the alcoves. “Did you know they’ve been together since the fifth grade or something? Like they’ve been dating ten years already.”

  “That is a little weird. No wonder they’re fighting.”

  Olivia gives me an impish smile. “They’re probably bored to death.” She shakes her head. “No way, that’s not for me.”

  I shake my head in agreement, just as Emily storms around the corner, her tear-stained faced telling the story as she slams out of the foyer and into the brutal cold beyond. Hunter follows, cheeks stained red with fury or—

  “God!” he cries out. “I don’t know why she’s being such a crazy person. I can’t do anything right.”

  I shrug. “Maybe she’s just hormonal.”

  “Whatever. I’m sick of it.” He heads toward the stairs and takes them two at a time.

  Madeline arrives, a stuffed backpack on her shoulders. “What was that all about?”

  “Probably you,” Olivia says. “It was Hunter and Emily.”

  “I have nothing to do with that.”

  “Come on,” Olivia says, dismissing the matter. “Let’s get out of here. I’m desperate for clean underwear.”

  “Toldja you should get the air-dry kind.”

  We head into the morning. The snow is falling still, lightly, and the world is gray. “How do people live here all winter?”

  Olivia shrugs, leading the way down a pathway to the street. “You just have the weather where you are, right? It’s just the way things are.”

  “True. I don’t mind cold. But I really don’t like the dark.”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Madeline says. “I think we should move on as soon as the flights are back on.”

  Olivia makes a noncommittal gesture. “Chelsea wasn't there?”

  “Nope.” Madeline glances at me.

  “Stop doing that,” I say. “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s never been my boyfriend. He’s never without a woman in his bed, and I’m totally used to that, okay?” They’re looking at me. “Really.”

  “It’s just that your face is kind of telling another story whenever his name comes up.”

  I sigh, walking up the hill. “I’ve known him my whole life. And I might have had a crush on him more or less forever, but that’s not the same thing.”

  “I have a crush on him, too,” Olivia says. “He’s insanely hot.”

  “And totally wrecked,” Madeline adds. “Did you know his girlfriend, the one who trashed him so bad?”

  I sigh. “I only met her briefly a couple of times. But you know who she is, right?”

  “No.” They shake their heads in unison.

  “You know that movie Torches, the big Romeo and Juliet story?”

  “Oh my God,” Olivia says. “I cried my eyes out. It was so good. And that guy is incredible. The loves scene, all that nakedness—” she fake-shudders. “Juicy.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “The girl, Jess Donovan, is the one who broke Tyler’s heart.”

  “What?”

  “No way!”

  “No kidding. She was waiting tables when he met her and she got discovered in New Zealand or something, and the rest is history.”

  “Did she just get famous and drop him?”

  I’d love to say yes, but it wouldn’t be fair. “No. Tyler has issues. Lots of issues. Until he works them out, he’s not really good boyfriend material at all.”

  “Yeah, he’s got the brooding soul bit down pat,” Madeline says.

  “He can be all brooding with me if he wants,” Olivia laughs, patting her chest. “Come to mama.”

  “Here we are,” Madeline says.

  The cafe is busy, which isn’t surprising considering the situation with planes. It’s all anyone is talking about. When we can leave, when flights will be in the air again. It’s a budget strain for a lot of people, but what can you do?

  A text comes in on my phone and I glance at it. My mom again. Third time she’s texted, but I’m ignoring her.

  Olivia and Madeline get their clothes into washers and then we settle in over hearty sandwiches. “Tyler was a snowboarder, too, right?” Olivia asks, popping a French fry in her mouth. “Is that how you met?”

  “No. His family and my family have cottages in Maine. Summer places.”

  Madeline raises an eyebrow. “‘Cottages.’”

  “Yeah, that’s what they call them.” I give her a smile and a shrug, like ‘what can I say’. “We grew up together, sort of. He’s older, and I was the youngest of all the kids, so they all just found me annoying.”

  Olivia is eyeing me with a slight edge of hostility. I’m used to that, too. “Don’t hate me. I get that my life has been really easy.”

  She nods, but in a more at-ease way. “I guess you can’t help where you were born.”

  Madeline rolls her eyes.

  “Tell me how you guys planned the trip,” I say. “Who thought of it?”

  “I don’t know. We were best friends from the seventh grade and it just kind of kept coming up,” Olivia says. “Then our high school choir had a chance to take a trip to Barcelona, but neither of us could go.”

  “Broke both our hearts,” Madeline says, tucking that shiny black hair behind her ear.

  “Totally,” Olivia nods. “We’re kind of the trailer park end of the class structure.”

  I don’t know if she’s kidding or exaggerating or not, so I don’t say anything. If it’s true, they are not my idea of what trailer park looks like. But then, maybe I’m not their idea of a rich girl, either.

  “We decided to make it happen ourselves,” Madeline says.

  “Do you have a plan of where to go, what t
o see?”

  “We did a ton of research,” Madeline says. She has her phone on the table and seems to be playing a game every so often, but she multi-tasks easily, moving between the conversation and the screen adeptly. “So we looked at all the round the world tickets and found some that were flexible, and we made a tentative list—I want to see the Outback and Thailand, and Olivia wants to go to Venice, and we both wanted to go to Peru, so we started there, spent some time in Argentina, and now we’re here.”

  “And up next?”

  “Europe.” They look at each other and some knowledge passes between them. “The Brits have offered a place to crash in the UK, and then maybe we’ll go to Venice. A couple of others are talking about Venice for Carnival.”

  “It’s pretty crowded then.”

  “Too crowded? So crowded it cancels the pleasure of carnival?” Olivia asks.

  “She’s a fire dancer,” Madeline adds.

  “Oh, well you might really like going during Carnival, then.”

  “You’ve traveled a lot?” Olivia asks.

  “Mostly to slopes and to very poor places my father wanted us to see. Like Nairobi.”

  “Venice?”

  “Well, yeah. My mom likes it there, so she pushed for it a few times.” I look away, touch my phone, see the list of missed texts from my mother, turn it off again. “The best touristy place I’ve been is Cinque Terre, in Italy. Tyler has a friend there and he was painting there last summer, so I visited him. It’s so beautiful. If you’re going to be in Italy, you might really like it.”

  “We should have figured out our seasons more realistically,” Madeline says. “Three months in Peru was good, but then we’re backward for Europe.”

  “But it will be good to go to Australia in their winter,” Olivia says. “That was part of the discussion, too.”

  “Yeah.” Madeline shrugs. “We can’t make it perfect.”

  “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” I toss in, something my father says.

  “Exactly.”

  “Is it okay if I tell her?” Madeline asks me. “You know, about your…career?”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t care.”

  “Our friend Kaitlin is a major slope style snowboarder. She won the gold at Sochi.”