The Map to You

by Lindy Zart

  I put a hand on her arm and she stops talking. I gently squeeze and her muscles tighten beneath my palm. I hold her wary gaze. “Exaggerate?”

  Her eyes go to slits. “Stretch the truth,” she amends.

  I lift my eyebrows.

  Opal sighs. “Fine. I lie. But only about things that don’t matter.”

  I make a sound of mockery, my palm warming where our skin meets. “Who are you on the run from? I thought it was a ‘what,’ but it’s a ‘who,’ isn’t it?”

  She focuses on the table. “I can tell you have a lot of baggage, Blake.”

  I drop my hand and straighten, feeling like she stabbed me in the heart with her drawing pencil. “I am aware.” My voice is iced over.

  Opal shrugs. “Well, so do I. I don’t want to burden you with it, same as you don’t want to burden me with yours. That’s why I called a truce. You’re breaking our truce,” she tells me haughtily.

  Both of my eyebrows hike up.

  “Maybe we can, I don’t know, act like we don’t?” Hope lifts her voice.

  I frown. “Act like we don’t what?”

  “Have baggage. You’re normal, and I’m normal, and we just met at…a community fundraiser. And we liked each other. And now we’re here, at a restaurant, having a gourmet meal.” She smiles and chews up the last of her second sandwich.

  Her and her fantasies.

  I tilt my head. “Do you like me?”

  Opal eyes my food. “Are you going to eat both of those?”

  I wordlessly hand over the plate.

  “Do you have any chocolate? I could really go for some chocolate,” she says around egg salad sandwich.

  “Opal.”

  Her shoulders slump. “You’re okay, I guess.”

  Chuckling, I grab back one of the sandwiches and get to my feet. “There might be chocolate ice cream in the freezer, but I’m not sure how good it is by now. It’s been there a while.”

  “Good enough.”

  I take a bite of the sandwich, enjoying the salt and pepper blend with hardboiled eggs and mayonnaise. “You know your name? Opal. It’s distinguished, dignified. What if…what if you were named after someone well-loved? Like, a grandmother or something. I think that’s pretty cool. And you can choose to think that way, you know? You can believe what you like. You have that right.”

  Large eyes lock on my face. They don’t waver; they don’t blink. They stare, and sink into me. I feel them all the way to the pit of my stomach, as if Opal knows my secrets. As if I just unveiled hers. As if she and I have an unexplored connection.

  Feeling uncomfortable with the fixated way she watches me, I wave with my sandwich and turn toward the doorway. “Anyway, I’m going to close up the house and call it a night. Did you pick a bedroom?”

  “Yes,” is her meek response.

  “All right. Help yourself to whatever. See you in the morning.”

  I check all the locks as I eat my sandwich, take a quick shower in the upstairs bathroom, and head for my room. It’s funny, but I am no longer worried about Opal taking anything she shouldn’t. Even with her somewhat deviant ways, she has a dented form of honor to her. She could have taken those kids’ money at the circus, and she didn’t.

  It doesn’t take long for me to fall asleep, and it doesn’t take long for me to wake up when I feel the bed shift beside me. I open my eyes in the dark and turn them to the left, where Opal hovers partially above me. Desire streaks through me, unapologetic and undeniable. Her body is pleasing to the eye, but it isn’t that that gives me the head rush or ensuing overdose of lust. I can’t explain it. It’s something about the way she looks at me like she knows me, sins and all, and she doesn’t care.

  “Blake?” Surrounded by black, her eyes are the only part of her I can see. They’re wide and luminous.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you…can you kiss me more?”

  I take a shuddering breath, my body instantly responding to her request. I’m not really one to have doubts, or second-guess myself. I am definitely attracted to Opal, and if she’s sure about this, then so am I.

  Moving to my side, I look into her shadowed eyes. “If I kiss you, it won’t end at that.”

  A hand touches my shoulder, light and hesitant. I choke on air as her fingers trail down my arm, becoming bolder, and move to my chest. Her palm stops directly above where my heart pounds, fast and strong. She looks at me with eyes that shimmer with arousal.

  “That’s what I’m hoping for,” she says in her throaty voice that sounds like sex, and I am one hundred percent ready for her.

  I have a brief, responsible thought of protection, and sigh with relief when I remember there are some condoms in the nightstand next to the bed.

  I drop my gaze to her body, wondering what I’ll find. I blink at the sight of one of my older shirts—a bright yellow one with SpongeBob SquarePants’s face on it. Not bothering to ask how she came to have it, I remove it, my palms sliding down hot, soft, naked skin. All she had on was my shirt, and now it’s gone. A growl emanates from deep inside me. Her hair is damp, and her skin smells like me, like I already claimed her. Already marked her as mine.

  On her back, with me keeping my weight from her with my arms braced on either side of her head, I brush my lips across her collarbone and feel her tremble. The boxer briefs I’m wearing are hardly a barrier, and they are uncomfortably tight right now. I told her I wasn’t a good guy. I warned her. A decent guy would say no. A decent guy would think of her more than himself. But I’m not that guy. Not in this instant anyway.

  “This is all I can give you, Opal,” I whisper. “Now. This moment. That’s it.”

  “I’m not asking you to give me anything else.”

  I nod. “Good.” And I let my arms relax.

  * * *

  Opal

  His mouth is my master, and I am the most diligent pupil. Blake’s lips move one way, and I mimic the motion. He slants his mouth, and I mold mine to his. When his body moves up, I move down. It’s like a dance, erotic and smooth. Sensations pulse through my body, aching for more. I swear my whole body is shaking. And then I take charge, my lips in control. And he follows. I can tell he likes it. His hands are clenched around my hair, tight enough that it stings, and I must be depraved, because I like it too.

  “You kiss so good,” I rasp, not caring if that sounds tacky. I want to say all kinds of tacky things. Like, his hair is soft. And his mouth is amazing. Blake’s body makes mine blaze.

  Things are moving fast, but everything about us is that way. If we don’t move along with it, we’ll get left behind, wondering how we missed one another. I don’t want to say goodbye to Blake without having this night. I want him, and he wants me. In this moment, it’s right. Because his erection is pressed directly where it should be, and his body is hot and hard against mine, and this feels too good to be wicked. And if it is, well, then everything should feel this bad.

  Blake sweeps his tongue across my lips; his teeth nip at my lower lip. It feels like a million tiny pulses of heaven on my mouth, but even so, I lose my rhythm, my confidence. I freeze up. I’m suddenly doubting everything about this, because what if it’s terrible? What if we French kiss, and it’s the most appalling thing ever? All saliva and rough tongue and gagging? I never should have let Jonesy use his tongue in my mouth. I suppose maybe it was a slight overreaction on my part to refuse to kiss him after that, but it just ruined the whole intimacy thing.

  I shudder at the memory, and Blake goes still.

  He pulls back and stares down at me with eyes that smolder silver. “If you don’t like it, I’ll stop,” he says breathlessly, the rough timbre of his voice shivering along my skin. “But let me try.”

  Just like that, I am all for it.

  Lightning streaks through my closed eyelids as I relax my mouth and allow him entrance. Because the first thin
g he does is suck on my lower lip, and then he licks it. I moan, sounding like the debauched heathen I presently am, and then he French kisses the hell out of me. It’s sensational, like my mouth is humming with need, and he is providing what I crave. He doesn’t demand; he doesn’t force. Blake is smooth eroticism. He doesn’t just kiss with his mouth. His whole being is involved, and he’s really, really into it. Like kissing me is the only thing he wants to do.

  God, that’s sexy.

  I must say it out loud when he moves his mouth to my neck, because he pauses with his face against my skin, and I feel his lips curve up. A faint tremble runs through his shoulders, telling me he’s trying not to laugh at me, and it makes me laugh.

  “What?” I demand with a grin on my face, pushing at him.

  He shakes his head, the inky black of night not able to completely hide his smile. “Nothing. You make me laugh.”

  What he told me about his past, about the girl who died, and all the things he didn’t tell me—I wish I could erase all the fissures of hurt from his bearing. I didn’t know what to say, and I knew words wouldn’t be enough. His pain was palpable. It resonated through the air and stole my breath. No one but the person experiencing it can heal that kind of anguish. I can only mute it. And now, here he is, laughing. His laughter always sounds abrupt, like he is surprised to find humor in something. I find it sweet, and sad. And his smile—I love seeing his smile, timid and rare as it is. And his stormy eyes, looking at me like I’m something special. Like I took away a little of his sorrow.

  And then, what he said about my name, and what it could mean—what Blake said about being named after my grandmother. It sent me to a place I can’t explain. A place I know is there, waiting, but one I am not ready to approach. A place of acceptance for who I am, and even who I am not.

  “Be careful, Blake, or I’ll think you like me too,” I whisper just before I slide my fingers down his ridged stomach and hook my thumbs around the fabric of his boxer briefs. I pause like this, knowing the location of my hands to his groin has to be driving him crazy. It’s driving me crazy. “It isn’t fair, you know.”

  “What?” he chokes, his breathing unsteady.

  “That you still have on clothes, and I have on none.”

  Blake shudders as I dip my fingers inside the band of the boxers, brushing them over his skin. My heart crashes into a wall and revives itself. Back arched, head back, his chest lifts and lowers as he struggles for air. I go still, staring at the rawness of his pose, and how it affects me. It makes me mad with desire, my fingers twitching to be on more of his skin, to touch what is so close. An inch to the side and he would be mine. Before I can venture past a turning point, Blake springs from the bed, tugging at his boxers with one hand and riffling through a drawer with the other as he hops from foot to foot. It would be comical in daylight.

  I go up on my elbows. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m about to make history,” he says as he turns to me, and I snort.

  The humor dies as soon as he joins me in the bed, and his hands are all over me. Testing, touching, memorizing. Fingers on my arms, hands over my thighs. Even his hair is a tool used in my seduction, tickling my flesh wherever it goes. And his lips—his lips join in and then I’m a panting, moaning, embarrassing mess without a shred of dignity or self-consciousness.

  Hooded eyes, sensual mouth, magic hands.

  Blake.

  And to my ever-loving mortification, when Blake finally stops tormenting me with his mouth and decides on another course of pleasurable torture, entering me in one, sure stroke, I shout, “You’re my master!”

  He goes still, and then he laughs.

  I don’t care. I have no shame. It feels too good to care.

  I willingly bow down to my master.

  Blake’s still chuckling as his body picks up the momentum, bringing me to the brink of chaos and order and pain and euphoria.

  “Yes,” he coos. “I am.”

  * * *

  I don’t know if it’s good or bad that he doesn’t bring up the master thing, but I can tell, as we start off the next morning with another round of fornication—our third time—that he’s thinking about it. With the light of the sun streaming in through the window and spotlighting the bed and us, he loves me slowly this time. Sweetly. All the while with a secret smile on his face and light dancing in his eyes. He’s beautiful. Like a dark, imperfect, savage angel.

  “I know you’re thinking about it,” I say, lifting my hips to better accommodate him.

  Blake places his cheek to mine and says into my ear, “Thinking about what?”

  He is a great lover. He makes sure I get as much out of it as he does. I’ve enjoyed this—him, his body, this place, all of it. This is the last time I’ll get to have this with him. Even though I’m staying another night, I can’t spend it in Blake’s bed. The more I’m with him, the harder it’ll be to go. It’s best to put the barriers in place now. I roll my eyes at how my current thoughts glaringly clash with my present activities.

  After this.

  After this, the barriers will go up.

  “That I called you my master.”

  I narrow my eyes when he brings his face close to mine. A smile tips his lips, brightens his eyes, and I have a hard time breathing. He looks so sweet it makes my heart hurt. Blake rocks his body just right, and I tense up as pleasure sweeps through me.

  “Say it again,” he murmurs huskily.

  “No…way.”

  “Say you like kissing me.”

  When I close my lips to keep the words inside, he goes still.

  With his thickness inside me, deep and full, madness digs its claws into my scalp and tightens its grip. Insanity brought on by need pinpricks my skin, escalates my pulse. I buck in an attempt to get him to move, but Blake is solid stone, his hands wrapping around my wrists near my head to further lock me in place.

  Gray eyes shot through with desire lock on mine. “Say it, Opal, and we’ll continue our lesson.”

  I chuckle throatily, and his grip slackens. At some point during the night he told me he liked the sound of my voice, and I think he likes the sound of my laughter too. I think he likes quite a few things about me. Blake nuzzles my neck, practically purring with male satisfaction. I shift my hips, and he growls with need. I wiggle, and bump, and he is suddenly out of control. Moving so fast, so wild. Harder. And harder. Sweat clings to me—his, mine. The smell of his skin is like perfumed toxin. I inhale, and I lose my mind, bit by bit.

  “Say it,” he pants, his breath hot on my ear.

  Blake pulls out, fills me. Again, and again, and again.

  “Say you like kissing me,” is a low whisper along my sensitive shoulder.

  “I like kissing you. I love kissing you,” I confess shrilly as I throb, and build, and descend.

  Blake follows close behind, his face strained, his eyes closed. The expression on his face is beastly. Devilish. And then, with his eyes still closed, he smiles. And I melt. All of me melts. Because that smile is happy, and content. And one thousand percent satisfied.

  Entwined in one another, we rest, our mingled breaths slowing as one. The side of Blake’s face is on my breasts, his arms next to mine, almost hugging me. My heart is pounding, and if someone were to ask me what day of the week it is, I would say monkey. My brain is mush, and my body is limp, and all of me is, I don’t know, peaceful. I like this feeling.

  He leaves too soon, separating our bodies. I’m instantly cold without the warmth of his body. I watch him walk from the room, and I don’t take my eyes from the doorway as I wait for him to return. I refuse to bring words to my feelings. Instead, I let them be, and focus on enjoying the sight of Blake as he reenters the room. Sinewy long limbs, so white I wonder if he’s part albino. His black hair looks like a tornado ravaged the thick locks, and when he gets close enough for me to see the stubble on h
is sharply honed jaw, I shiver at the remembered feel of it scraping along various delicate spots on my body.

  Blake leans down, puts a hand on either side of my face, and does that half-smile thing that turns my heart upside-down. “I am the master,” he teases, and then he firmly presses his lips to my forehead before straightening.

  He grabs clothes from the dresser and pauses in the doorway, his decadent backside at eye level. “Meet me downstairs. I want to show you something.”

  “It’s my master, not the,” I grumble. “It was in the heat of the moment.”

  I don’t bother looking to confirm, because I can literally feel his gloating smile.

  As soon as I hear the water pipes rumble to wakefulness in the bathroom, I let my head fall back against the pillows and stare at a crack in the white ceiling. Forehead kisses from Blake are more debilitating than full-on lip ones. There was tenderness to it, affection. Things Blake has no right showing me. A funny, sickish feeling swims around in my stomach, and I rapidly blink my eyes until the crack in the ceiling blurs, grows, and fills my eyes.

  With his scent wrapped around me and the lingering warmth of his heat captured by the blanket to keep me company, my eyes get heavy, and I relax into the bed. I turn to my side and grab the pillow Blake used last night and cuddle it, snuggling my face to its softness. It smells like a mixture of man and spices. Cloves. Pepper. Satisfaction. A contented sigh leaves me, and I drift off.

  “I’m making pancakes,” is called up the stairwell, and I soar from the bed.

  Spinning around in a crazy circle, I fight to fully open my eyes as I look around my surroundings. I have to remind myself where I am, and what I spent last night doing. A cool draft along my naked skin helps me recollect, as does the ache of my body, and the sated feeling that comes with it. A gloating smile of my own forms to my lips and I charge from the room with exuberance and a hungry stomach.

  I wash up in the bathroom with pink walls and cream-colored shelving and dress in jeans and a turquoise T-shirt. Teeth brushed, I turn a critical eye to my hair. It got frisky along with me and Blake, its wanton disposition shown in the disorderly waves. I brush it, which results in added volume it does not need, and then I barrel down the stairs.