How to Fall

by Rebecca Brooks

  He moved the pillows behind her to prop up her head and then reached for the headboard to hold himself when his legs threatened to give way. She worked both hands over him, her tongue swirling over the head, and then she grabbed his hips and thrust him forward into her mouth, taking his full length all the way back to her throat. She ran her hands over his balls while she sucked and slowly he began moving his hips, working his cock in and out of her mouth, plunging deeper when it seemed she wanted it. Needed it. Had been thinking about it as much as he had.

  He thought about her wetness, the smell of her still on his fingers, in his nose, the taste still on his tongue, the heady sweet scent driving him wild. Her mouth, open and wanting. Her hands were firm around his dick as she sucked him so deep he groaned, leaning against the headboard to press his hips in, feeling the hot, soft pressure of the flat of her tongue as she licked him up and down.

  Christ, he was going to explode into that beautiful mouth if she kept doing that. He pulled his dick out, her mouth still open, and rubbed the wet tip over her glistening lips hungry for him.

  “Better slow down there,” he murmured as her lips kept trying to find him again. Her hunger made him ravenous. He hovered above her, trying to calm himself down enough to keep going, while she snaked a hand between her legs. When she brought her hand back, she lifted it to his lips for him to lick.

  “I’m ready,” she whispered, innocent and devilish and throaty from her swollen lips. As if he had any doubt about what she wanted. He slid on a condom.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, rubbing his tip over her wetness until he thought he might scream from anticipation. She was breathing heavily and didn’t answer. Instead, she used her hand to guide him in.

  The feel of her was nothing less than a dream. She was more than ready and he built up quickly, feeling the pleasure of every thrust as he moved deep inside her body. He was panting, groaning into her ear, saying her name over and over again as she used her hands to press his hips into her harder, her legs lifting on either side of him so he could make his way deeper in.

  It wasn’t long before he had to slow down again, not wanting to climax and end it so soon. That was when they rolled over so she was on top, gasping when he pinched her nipples in his hands.

  She rode him fast, skin slapping against skin, sweat pooling between their bodies. And then she rode him slow, leaning forward so her nipples grazed his chest, grinding her pelvis against him. She took her pleasure however she wanted until he was out of his mind with it. He’d never fucked anyone like this. No, he’d never been fucked like this. She was riding him so hard, moving up and down over the full length of his cock, that he didn’t stand a chance. He came with a yell, holding onto her hips for dear life, bucking up to thrust deeper inside her as she drilled herself down onto him, raised her hips, and fucked him until he was spent.

  When he subsided with a groan, she tilted her head back and took every ounce of pleasure that was hers, sliding over his still hard cock as she pressed into him. He could feel her orgasm spread in waves until she collapsed on top of him. They lay there together, not moving, as the sun worked its way through the thin closed curtains, lighting their bodies panting and sweaty across the giant white bed.

  Forget his plans. Blake couldn’t believe he’d been about to give this all up to be safe and alone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Julia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited. Not even her arrival in Brazil had caused this kind of giddiness to bubble through her like champagne. Then she’d been nervous, self-conscious about being alone, uncertain of what was to come. Stepping off the plane, she’d been afraid that getting too hopeful was bound to set her up for disappointment. And so when she’d walked out of the airport to a gray day as dark and uninspiring as the skyscrapers that cut against the sky, it was like the city had been giving her what she’d expected.

  Now, though, everything was different. Some part of her knew she couldn’t afford to get wrapped up in Blake. But it was too beautiful a day to give in to the warnings that she was leaving, he was leaving, so she’d better not get attached. There was so much to see as they ventured outside after their nap. The beach was directly across the street; all they had to do was step out of the hotel and they were transported to another world.

  Families and couples and people lounging alone watched the waves roll. Gaggles of teenage girls bronzed from the sun eyed shirtless boys running and shouting to get a kite airborne, the bright tail swooping along the shore. Julia didn’t know what she wanted to do first—walk or swim or head downtown or stand and watch the life unfold around her.

  But Blake seemed to know where to go. He walked purposefully down the sidewalk so strewn with sand it was more like an extension of the beach.

  “Coconuts,” he said as they stepped aside to let a throng of women in practically nonexistent bikinis pass by, chattering loudly in Portuguese as their laughter carried down the beach.

  “What?”

  “I want a coconut.”

  “Okay.” Julia had never had a fresh coconut before, but she’d also never had guava juice on a hotel balcony or lain on her back to open her mouth to a beautiful man. And both of those things had been pretty darn enjoyable, so she figured a coconut probably was, too.

  She wasn’t disappointed. They approached a vendor camped out along the sidewalk, and Blake held up two fingers and rooted in his pockets for change. The vendor had a giant cart filled with enormous green globes, fibrous outsides streaked with brown from where they’d been torn from the trees. The man took a machete the size of his forearm and lopped a flap off the top of each coconut with one easy stroke, making an opening to slide in a bright plastic straw.

  Julia hadn’t realized how heavy they were, laden with cool water. It was sweet and slightly fruity and like nothing she’d tasted before.

  They sat in the sand, watching the waves and the kids with the kite, and talked about the places Blake had traveled and Julia’s other trips, up to the Wisconsin woods, east to New York City, long drives with Liz to Toronto and Omaha. She hadn’t thought about them as really traveling—not like what Blake was doing—but he hung onto her every word, interested in how vast and varied North America was.

  “Did you ever think you’d be sitting on a beach in Rio, sipping from a coconut, talking with an Aussie?” he asked, tipping the coconut to get the last drops of liquid inside.

  Julia shook her head. “To be honest, as soon as I arrived in Brazil I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. Walking around São Paulo by myself wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for.”

  “What were you hoping for?”

  She thought for a minute, knowing she could brush him off but wanting to give a real answer. Wanting to remember what it was she’d dreamed of when she clicked to buy her tickets. She’d never thought about traveling to Brazil before she saw the sale on an advertisement in her inbox and decided that a trip was exactly what she needed for her Christmas, her birthday, and her life.

  “I don’t totally know. An adventure, maybe. Something different. Something I could do for myself, where I didn’t have to take care of anyone or look after anyone or answer to anyone at all.” She paused and winced. “I guess that sounds sort of selfish.”

  “No,” Blake said slowly, mulling over her words. “That sounds like a very good idea.”

  “I guess sometimes you have to step back and think about yourself before you completely burn out—or explode.”

  She knew, though, that she’d never really explode in front of her friends or colleagues. She’d just keep plugging away like she always did, trying not to rock the boat, until she made herself so small she disappeared.

  “You should be thinking about yourself. What you want, what you need. It seems strange that getting away helps bring us back to what we’re really looking for. I guess it’s like having a giant time-out from life.”

  “Where you can sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done?”


  “Something like that.”

  “And what is it you’d done that you needed to think about?” she asked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, keeping her voice light and playful but aware that she’d slid from joking around into more serious territory.

  The waves surged in and out, the ocean a living, breathing thing. Julia wasn’t surprised when Blake shrugged.

  “Work, mostly,” he said. “Things got really crazy on set, and I felt like the screenplay and production were completely taking over my life. Which is what I wanted, obviously—I’m definitely not complaining about creating a popular show.”

  Julia nodded. She suspected there was more he wasn’t telling her, but she realized this was the first time he’d really mentioned anything about his job. Or the fact that, from what it had sounded like from Chris and Jamie, he was a pretty big deal. “Just because you’re fulfilling your dreams doesn’t mean you don’t need to take care of the rest of your life,” she said, waving her straw at him as she lifted the coconut and tilted it back to drink up the last bit inside.

  A thin stream trickled down her chin and Blake brushed it up with his thumb, cupping her jaw for a moment in his hand. “Insightful.”

  “Normal,” she corrected him.

  “No, some people seem to think that when you’re ‘famous’ or ‘successful,’” he punctuated the words in air quotes like he didn’t really mean them at all, “you have everything you could possibly want. Except for more fame and success, since, like money, one can never have enough.”

  Julia had a definite feeling that “some people” meant his ex-girlfriend, whoever she was. She must have liked Blake’s popularity—maybe a little too much.

  “And what is it that you still want?” Julia asked.

  He looked over at her. Looked at her, looked past her, looked through her. Maybe even looked into himself. Finally he answered. “To be happy. Is that too simple? Or too hard? Too impossible to even think about? I want to write—I’ve always wanted to write. So I just want to do it. I want to write and create and make things happen on screen. Make sure my mom is taken care of—don’t laugh.”

  Julia didn’t.

  “And—” he looked away, gazing down the beach at the humpbacked dome of Sugar Loaf Mountain rising like a crooked finger where the line of sand curved away in the distance. “It’d be nice if there was someone else who shared that desire, who wanted something simple. Meaningful work, a close family, good friends you can count on, who like you when you’re down as well as up.”

  “That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for,” Julia said, following his gaze down the beach.

  He turned and looked back at her, squinting into the sun. “Doesn’t seem like it, but I haven’t had it so far. Maybe it’s time to revise my expectations.”

  Julia shook her head. “Don’t settle for anything less.”

  “See?” He smiled. “Insightful.”

  “No. Just trying like everyone else not to fuck up.”

  “Well, not everyone seems to be trying for that. So I’d say that, in and of itself, makes you a rare bird.”

  “Do what I say, not what I do. I’m the one who spends more time at work than at home, and I can assure you that I’m not bringing in any more pay. I’m too much of a sucker to say no.”

  Blake chuckled. “It sounds like you really care about your job, though.”

  “I care about the students,” she corrected him.

  “At least you always know why you’re doing it.”

  Julia nodded. Sometime in the future, when she was grading tests on the weekends or trying to get through to a student who just didn’t care, she was going to have to remember those words.

  He reached for her coconut and she passed it over, watching him stand and brush the sand from his shorts. He moved with such grace, so easy in his body as he slid his sandals on and walked back to the vendor. When he returned, he was holding the coconuts balanced in both hands, each one split open with a stroke of the vendor’s machete to expose the creamy white inside. He passed her a little piece of the coconut that the man had cut off, showing her how to use it like a spoon to scrape out the flesh.

  It was smooth and slippery, firm yet soft, sweet with a distinctive flavor all its own. They sat for a while hacking at the pieces and slurping them up while Julia declared that she could never go home because now that she’d discovered eating coconuts on the beach, how could she return to a life without them?

  Blake scooped up a piece with his little coconut-spoon. “Maybe you can start an import-export business.”

  “Then I’d definitely know why I was doing it.”

  “Yeah, purely selfish reasons. Making sure you have a constant supply of fresh coconuts.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of bringing it to the cold, deprived masses in Chicago. I guess they’re not as cold and deprived in Sydney.” She paused. “Or wherever it is that you live.”

  “Sydney.” He nodded. “There are coconut palms in Australia, but Sydney is definitely not the same as Rio. I’d say we’re still just as deprived.”

  “I’m not going to tell you what the current temperature probably is in Chicago with the wind chill because I don’t want to ruin my day by reminding myself of what’s waiting for me.”

  “Good plan. All thoughts of home life officially banished today.”

  “Deal,” she nodded, picking at the last scraps of coconut clinging to the inside of the shell.

  “Good. Now that that’s decided, what’s on the agenda next?”

  Julia looked down the beach, hugged by the mountains and the buildings behind. “Anything? Everything? You know what’s good here—I’m up for whatever you want.”

  Blake shook his head. “None of that. You have to decide what it is you want to do.”

  “I see.” She leaned in close. “Is this another one of those times when I have to declare what I want, and then beg for you to give me exactly what I’m asking for?”

  Given how little clothing most people on the beach were wearing, she felt no compunction about sliding her finger up his bare skin, raising the hairs on his forearm, before kissing him on the ear.

  “I don’t know which I like more, when you ask or when you take.” His lips tasted like coconut, sweet and sticky, and he wrapped one arm around her neck and slid her hair out of her ponytail as he pulled her close.

  “Is there anywhere with a good view?” she asked. “It seems like there’s so much to see with the city nestled in the mountains like this.”

  Blake jumped up and extended a hand. “Your wish is my command,” he said as he helped her up, planting a kiss on her temple. “I know just the thing.”

  It turned out that asking for a good view in Rio was like standing in the middle of the beach and asking to see sand. They started by taking the cable cars up to Sugar Loaf Mountain, Pão de Açúcar in Portuguese, a peak on the mouth of Guanabara Bay. First they went up a smaller hill that stretched beside the mountain. Then the cable car took them straight across from one peak to the other. It had glass windows all around and gave them a view of the whole city as it grew out of the mountains, the buildings a small attempt to mirror the peaks rising up to the sky. It was dizzying and terrifying and so beautiful it seemed unreal to float from one mountain to the other, water below them and the sky above.

  When they finally reached the top, Julia was amazed to see rock climbers scaling the nearly vertical sides. Some people even climbed all the way up, sleeping on the ledges when they needed a break. The thought made her stomach clench.

  “That is. So. Terrifying.” She pointed to the small figures inching their way up the sides.

  Blake laughed. “I guess we know the limits of your adventurous spirit.”

  She spun to face him. “You would do that?”

  “Hell no! There are about a million other ways I’d rather die. Top of that list being quietly in my sleep when I’m old.”

  “Or at least with both feet on the ground.” She shudd
ered, unable to pull her eyes away.

  “But I like the idea of it,” he clarified, “even if I wouldn’t do it myself.”

  “You want to be that adventurous?”

  “In my next life. Maybe.”

  “You keep working on that,” she said. “I’m happy to spend all my lifetimes watching other people do crazy things.”

  “Always on the sidelines?”

  “Sometimes you have to know who you’re not,” she said emphatically, even as another voice inside her wondered if that were really true.

  “What if who you’re not changes?” Blake asked as he grabbed her hand and led her around to the other side of the peak, and it was like he was reading her mind.

  She didn’t have an answer for that.

  Later they crossed the city and climbed up to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue, one hundred feet of concrete and soapstone on a twenty-foot pedestal standing with outstretched arms. It topped the Corcovado Mountain in Rio’s Tijuca Forest National Park, an enormous rainforest that Julia couldn’t believe was in the middle of a city. Sugar Loaf and the Redeemer looked like they were facing each other, two points flanking the sprawl of buildings below them, endless blue water and mountainous green on either side. They were in the city, surrounded by concrete and throngs of tourists taking in the views. But they were also above it, surrounded by color and light, breathless and floating over everything on street level that hardly seemed to matter at all.

  “Does this qualify as decent enough views?” Blake asked as he came up behind her and helped slide the strap of her patterned red sundress back up her shoulder from where it was starting to slip.

  “I had no idea a city could even be like this,” Julia said, not sure where to look first.

  “I told you Rio was amazing.”

  “It’s so close to São Paulo, yet so completely different.”

  “To be fair, I think São Paulo is a great city if you give it a chance. But you probably have to know where to go and what there is to do. It’s not like this, where you can basically go anywhere and find something amazing.”