"I said nothing in my texts. You came up with your own conclusions and you were mad thinking about me being with someone else..."
"Stop," he said, his jaw tightening.
"Touching another man..."
"Stop it."
"Sleeping..."
He ran to me and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me once, not hard, but enough to make me stop. "Quit it," he whispered, his voice deep and dark. My spine tingled while a new hot wave crashed into my belly. Our eyes locked once again and I didn't move. I didn't want to lose the warmth of his palms or his smell—musk and a masculine body wash—and his closeness. "Don't say a word."
"But..."
He shut me up the best way possible. He kissed me, fiercely, his lip ring biting into my soft skin and his tongue tracing my lush lips, slowly, thoroughly until I opened them once I recovered from my shock. The first wave of pleasure hit me full on, making me moan without restraint.
When his tongue met mine in the most dizzying dance ever known, I gripped his shoulders, closing the small distance between us. My breasts, heavy with desire, brushed his firm chest in a tease, a whisper of a touch that made me squirm. But when he deepened the kiss some more and let his hands wander from my shoulders down my back to settle where the tips of his long fingers brushed my ass, I forgot everything that was happening and that I should be the better person and stop this madness.
Instead, I rubbed more firmly against his chest, letting the friction send more sparks through me. Now, it wasn't just desire. It was raw need, carnal and primitive and so very good that another moan escaped my mouth to mingle with his breath as he broke the kiss and backed me up against the door.
Before I could gather my bearings, he kissed me again and groaned when I ran my fingers through his wavy hair, tugging hard on the locks while my tongue dueled with his. With my lips and teeth, I caught his lip ring before I nipped on his lower lip, slightly fuller than his upper one.
He snaked a hand behind my neck to keep me from escaping his devastatingly hot kisses, as if any sane person would try to escape this. His other hand traced once my waistband, the tip of his finger scalding my skin with burning tingles calling for something more. Then, when his tongue brushed the roof of my mouth and I moaned again as one of my hands landed on his tight and perfect ass, his free hand went under my tee-shirt and over my ribcage to settle just under my breast. But I wanted it on my breast, I wanted him to touch me everywhere, to release the fire inside me. I wanted him more than I'd ever wanted anyone. More than I thought of ever wanting someone. So much more.
He broke the kiss and slowly opened his eyes, now glazed over. I didn't know what I looked like, but he was enjoying looking at my mouth and eyes. He looked ready to tear my clothes off my body. His eyes were glazed and hot on me, so dark that they didn't even look hazel anymore. His lips were red and swollen, so tempting that it was hard not to devour him. He was sinfully beautiful even if beautiful wasn't the best way to describe a man who looked ready to pounce on you to fuck you senseless.
He looked down at the bulge under my tee-shirt where his hand was before he locked his eyes with mine again. And then, reality hit us both back. That reality that I pushed away when he put his hands on me. He pulled away fast and shook his head, closing his eyes not looking at me anymore. It made me feel cheap.
I bit on my lower lip that was starting to tremble as sobs were welling up from the same place in my belly that was burning hot seconds ago.
"I...I don't..."
"Spare me," I stop him with a cold tone of voice that surprised me. He crossed his arms over his heaving chest, hiding his shaking hands under them. "Just leave and go back to New York or go see your mother before she dies. But leave me alone instead of playing games with me. I will not let you play with me like this, I do have some respect for myself and it looks like I'm more mature than you are."
He took a deep breath and released it slowly, soundly, while he kept his eyes on me, shame written all over his face. "I didn't want to be disrespectful, but I was worried."
"Worried? You were worried so when you find me you just kiss the hell out of me? Is that how you react when you're worried? Are you even listening to what you are saying?"
"Stop that shit, Little B."
I laughed humorlessly and walked back to the couch before I sat down, all the while my legs were shaking pretty bad. "And now you're hiding behind a silly nickname you gave me when I was nine." I couldn't see him anymore, he was behind me, still breathing hard, and it was easier to keep my composure and ignore just a little longer how hurt I was with the way he handled things. But there was something I couldn't ignore, a question to be specific. Did he love his girlfriend if he kissed me that way?
"What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing. Just leave." I blinked a few times to push away the tears welling up in my eyes, but it didn't work and two lonely tears fell silently down my cheeks. "There is something between us that is more than friendship and you feel it, but you don't want to acknowledge it and it's hurting me. I won't let you hurt me like this, even if letting you go makes me feel like I'm suffocating."
I could hear him walking, probably going to the door. I stiffened, but fought off the urge to call him back, to beg him to stay with me and love me because you can't beg someone to face their feelings, if it was love and not just lust he felt. But he wasn't leaving. He rounded the couch and sat next to me, his body as stiff as mine.
He was looking at his hands crossed on his lap, his eyes troubled. I hated to see him so troubled, but it could be easy if only he told me the truth of how he felt. "I don't want to leave you," he whispered with a hitch in his voice, as if it was hard for him to mutter these words that made my heart beat faster in my chest.
"Why's that?"
He locked his eyes with mine and that sizzling connection was back again, burning me and probably burning him too. It couldn't be one-sided, not when it was so all-consuming. "You wouldn’t understand."
"Try me."
"When I think about you, I remember you with pigtails, running around giggling over some silly thing, or that time when you asked me about kissing a boy when I had been fucking every girl who wanted me. That's that gap that I can't shake off my memory and I don't understand how I can want you so bad, want to have you under me, squirming, thriving while I thrust deep in you. You're beautiful and sexy and perfect, but you're eighteen and I knew you when you were a kid."
"And you have a girlfriend you love."
He cringed at my mention of her, but said nothing to contradict me. I should be delighted or on cloud nine at knowing that he wanted me so badly, but it was my body he wanted. Not me. "I have a girlfriend."
"Don't worry, I won't tell her."
"I know, you're not like that."
We fell silent and it was hard and cold and heavy with all the things unsaid and unexplored. That was it, my only chance to be with him, even for one night, gone. Maybe it was for the best. It would have been so much harder to make love with him and be left alone to deal with the aftermath. Kissing him was complicated enough because from now on I would always compare kisses to the few ones he gave me. So sleeping with him! That kind of connection would put a dent in me and I didn't need another one.
“Just go, Nolan." I closed my eyes when it stung my heart so badly. "Please."
"Look at me,’’ he asked me softly.
I opened my eyes and focused over his shoulder instead of his face. "Can you leave and put an end to it? It hurts badly enough."
"Tell me it doesn't mean that you're crossing me out your life."
"Right now, I need some time to calm down. Call me in a few weeks."
"Weeks?"
"What do you think? Nolan, I've been in love with you for most of my life. Do you think it's easy to cope? It kills me to think about you in bed with your girlfriend, but I have nothing to say about it. I need time."
"Nothing happened."
"What do you..."
"Since I saw
you again, nothing happened with her. I can't... I don't know."
"Do you love her?"
"I thought I did, but it's nothing compared to this with you and I don't even know what this is."
"Nolan?"
He stood up abruptly and walked to the door. "I need to go," he mumbled with his back to me as he suddenly left my tiny apartment without a glance back. He ran away.He's scared. And maybe nothing is lost after all.
* * *
NOLAN
I couldn’t stay away from her.
It was useless to ignore that fucked up fact. Yes, I did have a hard time forgetting our age gap, yes I did have a girlfriend and yes I did think it was fucked up what was going between us and I was disgusted with myself for it, but I…It’s impossible for me to resist her, to not want her.
I had never wanted another woman so fiercely before, so overwhelmingly. She’s tied to me, to my past and to everything that I had become. I couldn’t think of my career without thinking of her, couldn’t look around my apartment in Manhattan without wishing to have seen her face when I bought it. And now, now that I had a taste of her I couldn’t kiss or touch my girlfriend without thinking of Brooklyn or comparing it to what that girl I’d known for years made me feel with just a fucking look, a light caress of her hands and a brush of her plump lips. And the way she played with my piercing…
That thought alone made me falter as I made my way back to the hotel after I parked. My cock jumped against my zipper and I growled. I locked my jaw and nodded to the man at the front desk and made my way to the elevator. All the while, I kept trying to push away the thoughts of Brooklyn, the taste of her, the sounds she had made and the smell of her. I didn’t need that shit when I was about to face my very pissed off girlfriend.
In front of the door I paused and shook my head, feeling myself finally soften. Brooklyn made me hard, but seeing Lena made me soft. I’d hit a new low.
I opened the door and took only a step before Lena frowned at me and sighed.
“You’re finally back. Where were you?’’
I leaned against the door and let my head hang between my shoulders. I couldn’t keep up a front. I didn’t even know what to say. Fuck, I kept on kissing another girl when I was in a committed relationship. Lena deserved better than that even though the last couple of months had been rough between us. She deserved better and I thought I was better than that.
“I was with Brooklyn.’’
She scoffed and went back to her laptop with a glower on her face. Apparently I didn’t have to worry about pushing her away and the sex. She obviously wasn’t in the mood either.
“I don’t see what you see in that girl. She’s small town trash all over.’’
“Don’t talk about her like that, Lena. You don’t know shit,’’ I bit back.
“I see the way she looks at you, that’s enough for me. And you keep on ditching me to go and spend time with her. Seriously, Nolan, what’s wrong with you here?’’
I rubbed at my neck, but the tension wasn’t easing up. “I need a shower.’’ And that was that. I padded to the bathroom, feeling Lena’s eyes on my back as my thoughts were going back to that last kiss with Brooklyn and how, in my guts, I regretted not touching her breast.
My cock hardened immediately. I stripped off my clothes and jumped under the lukewarm water, my hand drifting south on its own until I fisted my hard length and pumped myself. My teeth sunk in my lower lip to keep in the rising growl coming from deep inside me as my fantasy took form behind my closed eyelids. My fingers tightened around my cock and I moved faster. My breathing became shorter. My thighs tensed and my abs flexed. I was so close. So fucking close.
Quietly, under my breath, I mumbled a name and it wasn’t the name of the girl waiting in the other room.
In my mind, I pictured Brooklyn’s sounds as she came and I jerked in my hand, coming and coming.
Something had to give.
"Why don't you want to let me read it?" I whined and pouted on his bed. He was scribbling in his old notebook at his desk. It'd been two hours of watching him write, his knuckles now white after so long at holding a crappy pen. These last few months he had spent more time writing and I loved watching him even if he never let me read his stories.
"Because it's not suitable for your age and it's not finished," he replied distractedly as he re-read something. He shook his head and closed his notebook before he threw his pen on the desk. It rolled and rolled before it fell, but he didn't care. He massaged his neck and went to sit beside me on his big bed.
"Always the thing with my age," I mumbled before I laid down, my eyes now on the cracked ceiling.
"I'm working on a thriller, Little B. It's far from the sweet Harry Potter."
"Shut up, people die in Harry Potter," I retorted and realized too late how juvenile I sounded. I blushed, but didn't try to hide it. It was pointless.
He chuckled and gathered me in his arms, both of us lying on his bed over the covers now wrinkled. "You're cute. Maybe one day you'll read my books after you bought them in a store."
"What? You wouldn't give me one for free! Or dedicate it to me!’’ I could see his face in the corner of my eye and he seemed amused.
"I would dedicate them all to you. You're my number one fan after all."
"I can't wait to see your books in stores. It's going to be so amazing!"
"Don't get too enthusiastic, Little B. I have to land an agent for that and then a publisher. It might take me a decade before it happens."
"It won't take that long."
"Why do you say that? You have yet to read my stuff."
"I believe in you."
His heart beat a little bit louder and faster under my ear and he squeezed me closer to him, his big hand wrapped around my shoulder, caging me protectively against him. I loved to be so close to him, as if the world could end around us, but nothing could touch us. I knew how silly it was to think that way, but it made me feel good, even if just for a couple of minutes.
"I won't disappoint you."
I chuckled and punched him lightly in his flat stomach. "You couldn't disappoint me even if you wanted."
"Why don't I have you as my sister?"
It hurt to be reminded how he saw me. Sister. I covered my pain with a shaky laugh and closed my eyes. That was hard, but at the same time, I had him in my life and without him, my life wouldn't be that great. I had friends, but it wasn't like what I had with Nolan. It was special and even if it wasn't what I wanted, it was so much more than I expected when I met him years ago outside my window.
"Future best selling author," I whispered against his chest and he laughed, kissing the top of my head.
BROOKLYN
"And you often play at the bar?"
"Once a month. I had to convince my boss, but he saw that it was drawing quite the crowd. They can ask me to play any song and it lasts thirty minutes to an hour. It's fun and that way I don't feel like wasting away my passion and I get to do what I love doing rather than just playing at home."
Mrs. Bell nodded with a calm smile. As soon as she saw me about to climb the stairs after my shift, she asked me to come and have some tea with her. I had never drank so much tea in my life than this past week, and at the same time, I never had to go pee so much, but at least, I was keeping my flat stomach despite eating way more junk food than usual.
I had spent the day overanalyzing what happened the previous night with Nolan. Of course, he had yet to show himself but knowing that he ran back to his girlfriend was taking its toll on me. I had barely slept and I had been grumpy all day, not earning myself many tips. But when Mrs. Bell asked me to join her, I couldn't say no. And hearing her labored breathing today, I didn't regret it.
"That's great. I'd like to hear you play one day, but I'm not up to going to the bar."
"I'll give you a private gig," I said with a smile.
"You're such a sweet girl, Brooklyn." She coughed and her breathing got heavier, louder, whizzier. Something w
as not right. "I..." she coughed some more, unable to mutter another word.
I took out my phone with shaking hands. "Do you want me to call 911? Just nod if you want." At her feeble nod and a new round of mean sounding coughs, I dialed in a daze, giving some info to the nice lady who was trying to use a soothing voice to calm me and keep me sane enough to be efficient.
Not even five minutes later, knocks at the door spurred me to move and leave Mrs. Bell's side who was barely hanging onto her consciousness. It was obvious she wasn't breathing correctly. I opened the door and found two paramedics, two males middle aged.
I let them inside after a quick word and watched them taking Mrs. Bell's vitals which weren't that good. Her heartbeats were too fast from her nerves at feeling herself suffocating. They put an oxygen mask on her face and talked to her all the while, explaining that they needed to drive her to the hospital.
The taller one led me to the tiny kitchen by the elbow, his hand authoritative but reassuring. "Miss, is she your mother?"
"Hmm, no, no. She's my neighbor and a friend's mother. Do you think she's going to be okay?" I asked, my eyes unable to stray from her thin shadow as the other medic was checking her vitals again that were starting to improve with the help of the oxygen.
"She's very ill. According to the info we have, her cancer is in the late stage and that kind of episode won't stop. At the hospital they will monitor her for a few days, adjust her medicines and keep her on oxygen. Maybe you'd like to call her family."
Nolan. Should I call him? "Can I ride in the ambulance? I'll call once she's settled."
He nodded and I followed them. In no time, we were in the ambulance and I had her thin, cold hand in mine. She was looking at me with unshed tears and fear. I knew exactly what her fear was. She wanted to talk with her son before she was gone. I squeezed her hand.
"I'm here." But I wasn't the one she needed.
She blinked and nodded. A tear fell and I felt it in my bones.
Six Years Page 14
