by Jessie Evans
I swallow. “Deep down, I knew that sometimes you have to play dirty to make sure the bad guys don’t win, but until today, I was ignoring the signs, wanting to stay out of the shadows. Wanting things to be…easy.”
“I don’t think life is ever easy,” Caitlin says, laying her hand on top of mine. “But love can be.”
I look at her beautiful face and my heart flips in my chest and I no longer feel like a person who’s gotten the short end of the stick. I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world, because she’s talking about me, and there is a place in her heart that is mine.
I lean in, pressing a grateful kiss to her lips before resting my forehead against hers. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me…but there is something I would like.”
“Anything,” I say, meaning it.
“Take me inside,” she whispers.
I reach for my door—not needing to be asked twice—but she stops me with a hand on my arm. “But not the couch,” she says. “I want a new memory, without any ghosts in it.”
I nod, already knowing exactly where I’ll take her. To a place where I can watch the setting sun turn her tawny skin gold as I kiss every inch of her body, until she’s begging me to do more than kiss, and I sink inside her, and finally find out if real life can compare to all the dreams I’ve had of her.
Dreams of being shattered and made whole, dreams of finding everything I’ve ever wanted in one beautiful girl’s arms.
Chapter Sixteen
Caitlin
“I love you not only for what
you are, but for what I am
when I am with you.”
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
We go in through the red door and head up the long staircase hand in hand. It’s lighter than it was the last time Gabe and I crept into his father’s office on a Sunday. The sunset light filters in through the window at the top of the stairs, turning the air a rosy gold that makes even a law office seem like the perfect setting for a romantic reunion.
I see the leather couch in the corner has been replaced by a larger couch with carved arms made of blond wood covered in striped canvas, and think maybe it would have been okay to make a memory there, after all, but Gabe doesn’t pause on his way through the room. He leads me through the office into the small bathroom, where he opens a crystalized window to reveal a metal fire escape.
“The roof okay?” He glances back at me, heat and caution mixing on his handsome face, making it clear I’m not the only one who’s feeling as anxious as I am eager.
Will making love with him feel the way it used to? Or will it be like being with someone new? I have no idea, and I’m not sure it matters, as long as it is wild and raw and sweet.
“The roof is perfect.” I follow him out onto the fire escape, and up the metal rungs leading to the top of the four-story building. It’s the tallest building on the block, so no curious neighbors will be spying on us, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a helicopter fly over Giffney. I feel certain we’ll have privacy if not comfort, but then we step over the concrete ledge at the top of the fire escape, and my worries about hot tar beneath my back vanish in a rush of delight.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe, drifting across the roof to the garden on the other side. Raised beds full of white daisies and violet verbena stand at right angles, surrounding a set of table and chairs, and two loungers with thick red cushions. Strings of bare bulbs crisscross overhead, and a stereo and grill stand in the shelter of a wooden cabana that hints at the gatherings that must have been held here.
“Charlene did all of this,” Gabe says, coming to stand next to me as I lean down to smell the verbena. “She and her husband come up here every Friday night. They’ve been married for twenty years, but still can’t get enough of each other.”
The mention of Charlene’s name is like someone flipped a dimmer, muting the golden evening. I stand, the lemon scent of the verbena leaving an astringent taste in my mouth. “I remember meeting her when I came to pick you up after work. She seemed so nice…” I shake my head, hating that the dark things have followed us up here, to this refuge from the world. “Why would she help your parents fake your funeral? Did she have any idea why they were doing what they did?”
“I don’t know,” Gabe says. “We’ll search her desk before we go, but right now I have more important things to do.”
He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling my back to his front, sending awareness coursing through me as our bodies slide into place, fitting together as perfectly as we always have. He presses a kiss to my neck, my jaw, the hollow beneath my ear, before he captures my earlobe between his teeth and bites down hard enough to make me suck in a breath through my teeth.
“Still like biting?” he asks, fingers digging into my hips.
“Still like biting.” My pulse speeds and my nipples pull tight, celebrating the feel of his teeth raking across my skin.
He fists his hand in the hair at the base of my neck, forcing my head back as his lips return to my throat. “How about this?”
“Yes,” I moan, eyes sliding closed as my muscles go limp and my knees start to feel decidedly weak. I arch back against Gabe, until his erection pushes against the small of my back, making me shiver. He feels so perfect, the size and shape of him as familiar as my own face in the mirror, even after all this time apart.
“And what about getting fucked like I mean it?” he asks, the hitch in his voice making the course words sweeter than any of the endearments Isaac whispered into my ear.
My ribs contract and my heart lurches and I suddenly feel like I’m going to start crying the way I did when I saw Gabe’s face this morning, because he remembers. He remembers that last night, when there was nothing but him and me, and all the horrible, wonderful longing for more time, more love, more everything we were to each other. He may not remember every moment we shared, but he remembers that heartbreaking, soul-healing night, and right now that is enough.
“You always fuck me like you mean it.” I turn in his arms, twining my arms around his neck, echoing his response when I’d begged him to take me harder, to fuck me like it was the last, best thing either of us would ever do.
“Don’t be gentle,” I say, standing on tiptoe, kissing him with the words. “I don’t want gentle tonight.”
He curses beneath his breath, letting me know I drive him as crazy as he drives me. “I don’t think I could hold back right now. Even if I tried.”
“Don’t try,” I whisper, a startled sound escaping my throat as he swings me into his arms, sweeping me off my feet so swiftly my head is still spinning when he lies me down on the lounge chair and covers my body with his own.
Our lips meet in a bruising kiss that is a frenzied tangle of lips, teeth, and tongues, not even close to the languid kisses we usually start with. But Gabe’s right—tonight, a slow burn would be impossible. Right now, we are a spark and kindling catching fire, igniting with enough heat to burn down the entire building.
His hands work their magic and suddenly my skirt and tank top are gone, without me remembering shifting to help him make them disappear. And then he’s pulling away from me to rip his shirt over his head, revealing chiseled muscles sharper and more defined than the toned chest I remember.
“Become a meathead while I’ve been gone?” I ask, hands shaking as I trail my fingers down his rounded pecs, to the taut ridges of his abdomen.
He was lovely before, but now he is…perfection, so gorgeous it seems a shame sculpting the male figure went out of vogue with the ancient Greeks. Someone should sculpt this man, immortalize every inch of his beauty in marble for women to drool over for generations to come.
“You know I enjoy torturing myself,” he says, a pained expression flickering across his face as I hook my fingers over the waistband of his shorts.
“No torture tonight, only good things.” I dip my hand lower, raking my fingernails over the bulge straining his fly, drawing another curse from his
lips.
He captures my wrists in his hands, drawing my arms up over my head before pinning them to the lounge chair’s cushions. “Not yet. If I take any more clothes off, I’ll be inside you in thirty seconds.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I wrap my legs around his waist, flexing my muscles until I’ve pinned his hips to mine. His cock presses against me through his shorts and my thin bikini bottom, making my entire body tighten with desire.
“I’m not the only one who’s changed.” He runs his hands from my knees to my thighs before giving them a squeeze. “Run any marathons lately?”
“I don’t do organized athletic activity. I run at night, by myself.” I punctuate the words with circles of my hips, grinding against him through our clothes. “I run so I’ll be fast enough to get away from the bad guys.”
“You are so fucking sexy,” Gabe says, breath shuddering out against my lips as his palms slide higher, until his fingers nearly encircle my waist.
He dips his head with a growl, finding the end of the bikini strap tied around my neck with his teeth and loosening the bow with a jerk of his head. My top springs free, baring my breasts, and a moment later Gabe is pulling my nipple into his mouth. Immediately, I forget that I was going to tell him that he is sexier, and that I’m never going to get enough of his body. I forget everything but the amazing way he makes me feel.
Waves of bliss course from my breast to every electrified inch of my skin until I’m moaning and squirming beneath him. I thread my fingers through his hair and try to tug his mouth away from my chest, but he only intensifies his efforts, licking and sucking and biting until my breasts ache and the flesh between my legs is swollen and slick. I feel bruised with wanting him, and I only crave more. More of his kiss, his touch, more of the way he makes me feel like my skin is too small and my soul too big for this fragile human body.
“Please.” My fingers claw into his thick biceps, so much denser than they used to be. “I don’t want to wait. I need you. Now.”
“Not yet,” he mumbles against my breast, but a moment later, his hand slips beneath my bikini bottom and his fingers slide through where I am hot and wet and dying for the relief I know only he can give me.
“God, Caitlin.” He groans as he kisses his way down my ribs until his breath warms my fluttering belly. “You taste so good. I don’t want to be able to taste anything but you.”
I whimper. I want to tell him I need him inside me, where I have craved him so desperately that I wake from dreams of the two of us with tears streaming down my cheeks. But before I can form the words, he’s made my bikini bottom vanish and hooked my knees over his shoulders. And then he lowers his mouth between my legs and I remember that there is something almost as good as Gabe’s cock.
His mouth.
God, his mouth.
His tongue teases through my heat, sending more blood rushing between my legs as he circles my clit with the perfect, delicious pressure. He takes me right up to the very edge, close enough that I can feel the hot winds of oblivion blowing across my cheeks, promising to sweep me away to a world where there is nothing but bliss, before Gabe abruptly abandons his work.
I suck in a ragged breath, but before my moan of frustration can escape my lips, Gabe drives his tongue inside me, wrenching a different kind of cry from my throat. He drives in and out, fucking me with his tongue as his hands hook around my thighs and spread me wide, wider, until I am completely exposed.
But I know this is how he likes it. He loves me like this, laid open to him, hiding nothing, concealing nothing, shamelessly reaching for the pleasure he wants to give me. I buck into him until every muscle in my body is strung tight, and my breath is coming fast enough to make me dizzy. I fist my hands in the cushion above my head, desperate to have something to hang on to, and then it happens.
Gabe tips me over the edge and I’m falling, spinning weightlessly through the air as my womb contracts and my toes curl and my features twist with the horrible beauty of it all. I make a face I know isn’t pretty, but I don’t try to hide when Gabe surges up over me, bringing his lips back to mine.
I let my breath rush out into his mouth, tasting my taste on his lips, clinging to his shoulders as he disposes of his shorts and boxers with one swift movement. I hear the tearing of foil and feel Gabe’s hands moving between our bodies as he sheaths himself and then the hot, pulsing head of him is at my entrance and he’s pushing inside.
He drives home with a savage thrust and a groan that is wild and primal and makes my teeth ache with the need to trap flesh between them and bite down. He pushes in and in and in, until every inch of him is buried inside me, and the head of him butts up against the end of me.
I throw back my head, squeeze my eyes closed, and cry out, just that one single thrust almost enough to take me over again, but then Gabe pulls back, depriving me of all that sweet fullness.
“Look at me.” He cups my face in his hands, his voice as ragged as my soul feels. “I need to see your eyes.”
I look up at him, into him, and at that moment—with both of our walls down, and nothing but skin on skin, and sweat, and blood pumping too fast between us—I see everything. I see down to the heart of him, and I know that none of the other bullshit matters. He is Gabe, and he is mine, and I am his, and I am going to love him forever. I am going to love him until I die, and after.
Looking into his eyes, I believe in reincarnation, because one lifetime isn’t enough time to love this man. I need forever, eternity.
“I love you.” I know it’s too soon, but this moment is too real for secrets.
“I love you,” he says, throat working as he swallows. “I thought I needed the memories, but…all I need is you. You’re all I’ll ever need.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I press my lips together, fighting through the emotion, not wanting to cry. Right now, I just want to be with him, and for our second first time to last forever.
As if he’s read my mind—and maybe he has, the same way he’s read my heart—Gabe’s second thrust is infinitely slower than his first. He glides into me with a long, languid stroke as he moves his hands beneath my back to cup my ass in his hands. He shifts my hips until we hit that sweet spot where every thrust takes me a little closer to bliss, and then he sets about driving me slowly out of my mind.
With Isaac, slow meant slow and steady, a long distance runner plodding resolutely toward the finish line. With Gabe, slow is a roller coaster creeping toward the apex, making my stomach flip and my thighs tremble and my heart lodge in my throat because I know the fall is coming. I know it’s coming and it will be epic and terrifying and wonderful and I will never be the same after he takes me there.
There…there…closer…closer…
“Yes,” I gasp, fingers digging into the back of his neck, breath coming fast against his lips as he drives home and my body quivers like a bow string about to break. “Yes. Please, Gabe, now.”
“Come for me, Caitlin,” he breathes. “Come for me.”
And I do, the way I always do with him, my body obeying his command like I was made to lie beneath him, made to spread my legs and lift my hips and come, crying out his name, as his rhythm grows faster and he takes me with all the passion we create together. He comes moments after I do, his cock pulsing inside of me, sending aftershocks of his pleasure echoing through my bones. I swear I can feel how good it is for him, like part of my soul is tangled up in his.
It’s so much more than an orgasm. It’s a celebration, a prayer of thanksgiving for the return of lost things. He whispers that he loves me again, but I don’t need to hear the words, I can feel the truth in the way he holds me close and kisses me like I am the answer to every question, the balm for every hurt, the only thing in his world that could never be replaced.
After, we lie tangled together, catching our breath as the sun sets and the air begins to cool. My fingertips drift up and down his back, relishing every brush of skin against skin, the miracle of him, of this moment, o
f us, too big for words.
“Let’s stay here forever,” he says, hugging me closer, kissing my bare shoulder.
“Okay,” I agree with a content sigh. “We can hang hammocks and go to sleep watching the stars every night.”
“Sounds like heaven.”
“Until it rains.” I kiss his cheek.
“Or the mosquitoes descend.”
“We’ll get mosquito coils,” I say. “We have tons of mosquitoes at the house in Hawaii, but with a few coils burning, we can hang out without getting devoured. Except Emmie, the poor thing. Mosquitoes love her. I tell her it must be because she’s sweeter than the rest of us.”
He props up on his forearms, smiling down at me. “I don’t know, you’re pretty sweet.”
“As sweet as you remember?”
“Sweeter.” He traces the curve of my ear with a fingertip, even that innocent touch enough to make my body start humming all over again. “I should get rid of the condom, but then I want to hear about Hawaii. How you got there, where you live, where you go to school, whether you’ve learned to surf…everything. I want to feel like I’ve been there with you.”
I smile, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world, as I watch my gorgeous man walk naked across the roof to toss the used condom in a trashcan near the grill, and turn back to me with a smile on his face that assures me there is nowhere he’d rather be than here with me.
After we’re snuggled up again, I tell him about Aunt Sarah and the will, about flying out with the kids. I tell him about Danny’s girlfriend, Sam, and how well he’s been doing in school. I tell him about the friends I’ve made at the community pool, and the way Emmie took to swimming like she was born in the water. I tell him about my courses at the U of H, Maui campus, and my night runs, and how sometimes the sadness was so strong nothing could make me feel better except running down to the shore and watching the waves pound against the rocks.
