by Marie Byers
“His name is Michael Westlake and he’s the only guy I’ve ever loved,” Amber answers for her. There’s so much more she’d like to say but she can’t put into words. Like how he’s always been there for her through times she couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. Like how they support each other, or did anyway, and he never ever asked for anything in return. But then she’d have to get into why she needed that support anyway and out would trot the Mom and Dad freak show and she’s not ready for that. She might never be.
“He enlisted in the Navy straight from high-school.” So straight that he’d had to have his enlisting delayed until he’d passed his GED.
‘And if I’d known about that, I woulda just stayed that extra month and actually graduated with my class. What the hell was the point in pissing my folks off when I had to study for another stupid test?’ Which he’d passed the first time with minimal studying because he was smart and good at school no matter how much he actually hated it with a burning passion.
“We used to write each other while he was away,” Amber says and she sees that ‘Awww that’s so cute’ look on Kim’s face and has to turn away.
It’s not so cute when she thinks about how everything turned out. How her best friend might as well be a stranger for all she knows him, or he knows her.
“During my senior year I went to meet him.” and he wasn’t there so instead she tried to idiotically give her virginity away to some stranger she’d just met while blasted out of her skull. How destined was it that the stranger turned out to be the boy she was madly in love with? And how cruel was it now that she’d felt his love only to have it ripped away.
“We spent two weeks together and by the end of it I was pregnant.”
“Oh, Amber,” Kim sighs, her eyes are watery but she’s not crying and Amber is—well, not happy, but not not happy anyway—to see that they’re not burning with pity.
“I had an abortion only I didn’t tell him and I was stupid and I don’t know how I’m going to get him to forgive me again.”
And she doesn’t know how she’s going to forgive him either, for being so vague, for causing her to doubt him, for taking so long to show up. All of those things and none of them at the same time because really it boiled down to how were they going to forgive all those regrets.
Kim folds Amber into her arms, even though Amber is three inches taller than the petite brunette, and strangely enough she feels better than she has in days.
When Kim lets her go, Amber is standing a little taller and that weight that’s been pushing down on her shoulders for the past couple of days is a little lighter.
* * * *
Michael asks her to come over on a Friday night.
Kim and Ryan shoot her worried glances but so far they've been really supportive with very little information to go on and, luckily, the pattern continues.
Amber arrives at his apartment and Michael buzzes her up. Her heart is steady and she's calm as she slowly plods up the steps and for once her brain is quiet. No over thinking, no ruminating, no worrying an issue around and around her mind. Just blessed silence. And then she's at his door and she's knocking and he's opening it and....she doesn't know what to do from here. For once in her life she has no plan 'b.' For once in her life she's going to have to trust and depend on someone else to take care with her heart and soul because she's handing it over to him.
"Hi," Amber says. It's the only thing she can think to say.
Michael smiles at her but it doesn't reach his eyes. He tugs nervously at his ear lobe like he always had when they were children and lets her in.
He looks better. More well rested; the bags under his eyes have faded a little.
Amber looks around the mostly empty apartment and see a life for them both stretched out before them. Michael moving gracefully around the kitchen as Amber sits at the counter, chin resting in her hand as she watches him. He's never cooked for her but he swears he can and anything has to be better than how she burns water when left to her own devices.
There in that empty space underneath the floor to ceiling window, that's where they'll put a couch and spend long comfortable nights passed out on each other as the television blares away in the background.
And over there, that's where Kim and Ryan will hang their coats when they come over to study.
She sees it so clearly.
Everything she’s not sure she’s allowed to have.
She starts the conversation because maybe she’s been quiet long enough, and anyway he’s just standing there staring off into space.
“I love you, I always have and I suspect I always will. Can that be enough?”
He turns to face her and those huge expressive eyes she’s fallen for so many times, those beautiful green-gold orbs she’d know anywhere, they look into her, they say so many things she doesn’t want to hear but listens to anyway because…
Because without him isn’t an option she’s willing to take.
* * * *
Michael goes to her and holds her close for the first time since that disastrous morning on the green. Amber sinks into him, eyes shut, and for the first time in a very long time simply reveling in the moment.
He turns his face to hers and they're pressing cheek to cheek.
"I love you too," he admits opening. It's enough to have her knees weak all over again and he has to wrap his arms around her waist to keep her up. The relief of it is stronger than the grief from before and is affecting her the same way with her limbs no longer taking commands from her brain, instead they're just doing what they want.
He smells so familiar, that odd mix of sweet and spicy that he's worn since forever and she welcomes it.
"Are we going to be okay?"
Michael takes a deep breath, she feels it moving his chest, and considers her question for a very long time. "I want to be," he says, "I'm terrible without you in my life. It was like losing the love of my life and my best friend both at the same time. It really fucking sucked, Amber."
He sounds so young and distraught and annoyed that she laughs high and bright before she can stop herself.
Embarrassed she buries her head into his shoulder.
Michael leans back and pulls her up to look at him, some of the color has returned to his uncharacteristically pale face and there’s a glint of life back in those eyes she loves so well. “No, don’t,” he says, “I love your laugh, don’t hide it.”
He cradles her face in his hands and she touches back, mirroring him with her own hand cupping his jaw.
"I missed you so much," she tells him. She doesn't know how to be more truthful than that. "Every single day, I missed you."
Michael bends slow to brush a soft kiss against her lips. It's all comfort and no lust and somehow the simple familiarity of it sears white-hot and she's suddenly, abruptly, desperate for him.
She's just not sure if they should add sex to the mix yet. "You really did it, huh? Just like you promised."
His fingers graze over her bare shoulder making her shiver hard and why oh why did she wear a tank top today?
"What do you mean?"
"You said you'd move out here for me and here you are." Amber swallows back bitter 'what ifs' and tries not to think about what could have been.
He must read it on her face.
"Hey, don't. We messed up, everyone does. We'll be okay." His answer is surer that even he's expected, she can tell by the way his eyebrows raise in surprise and how he freezes, so silently still, as he processes what's just fallen out of his mouth all pretty and neat and ready for forgiveness.
"I want that," Amber says. Unspoken is the 'more than anything else in the world.'
His eyes go wide, pupil eating up all that lovely green and she knows he hears that too anyway.
Hands skirt against the base of her throat and he can't stop touching, they move independently of him like her own limbs have battled for freedom and she doesn't want them to ever rediscover restraint.
Amber mirrors his
every touch, pressing her own hands to his sweat-glazed flesh. He's cold and damp so she does her best to warm him up, rubs the sensitive lobe of his ear, trails down to his bobbing Adam's apple and counts the vertebrate in his throat.
"I want that too," he says like a promise whispered low.
It's the last barrier to their caution. The moment it's breathed into life they're stripping each other in tandem like his words were a secret phrase they both had understood to mean 'get as naked as you can. Quickly.'
Her tank is easy to get rid of but her jeans take a little more time. They're tightly molded to her skin and they get caught around her thighs. The matter isn't helped by Michael's sudden fascination with her pale flesh as it’s slowly revealed.
With his eyes on her he's never felt sexier than she does right now. Even looking as ridiculous as she does standing around in a thick uni-boob sports bra with her jeans stuck around her thighs.
He grapples at her ass when she finally kicks her jeans free. His palms cup her buttocks forcefully, lifting her up into his still-clothed embrace and rocking her half-naked body against his long form.
His eyes eat her up. Amber has to close her own so she doesn't get swept away in the intensity of his stare. She moans softly as his hands climb up to the base of her neck, fingers massaging at her scalp and sending rocking waves of pleasure through her. "I don't want to mess this up," the words are drawn reluctantly from her mouth, enticed into being by the direct honesty of his open stare.
"I don't either. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." His state is so damn raw, so damn sincere she can't bare it.
"Me too," she returns and that's equally as true. Amber doesn't know how they made such a mess of things for so long but she doesn't intend to do it again.
Michael leans in and pulls her against him. His rock hard chest collides with her breasts and his lips, then his teeth, are at her jaw. "I love you," he bites fiercely with words and his mouth both. "I love you so fucking much."
Amber hugs him to her and for the longest time that's enough, they rock against each other just a little with their hips leading the way and kisses bitten and sucked into vulnerable skin until they're panting raggedly and there's fire in their veins.
Until that too becomes too much and she's tearing at his clothes to get him naked. Michael helps her, muttering sweet nothings into her flesh as he throws his clothes off item by item.
His gorgeous golden skin glows, his muscles standing out in stark relief. Amber can't help but touch him. She runs her hands across everything she can reach, his body rock hard yet so sensitive under her fingertips. She bravely touches his abdomen and he sucks in his breath, bringing his belly concave and sending her hand abruptly lower with the motion until she's pressing against his boxers and that hard line of flesh beneath that. Michael hisses like he's hurt and she skitters away suddenly shy. He nuzzles behind her ear a half plead kissed into her neck, "don't stop."
They've done so much already but that seems like a lifetime ago. Worse, this is their second chance and she's so terrified of fucking it up. Amber's hand drops back down to his cock rubbing at hard flesh through a thin layer of cotton. Michael's hips buck up into and he lets loose a long moan. So she does it again, a quick up and down motion that follows his erection from base to tip and she feels him grow harder under her touch.
He kisses her hard and fierce, eating out her mouth with his lips and teeth. Spit slick mouths slide together aimlessly, the only goal to get as close as possible. Her mouth feels tender, swollen, she'd have it no other way. Amber jerks him off through his boxers and he allows her time to get accustomed to the sensation of his hot flesh in her hand. She feels like he's burning straight through his boxers.
Wet grows steadily as he pumps out pre-ejaculate with every turn at his tip. "Fuck, yes," he groans heatedly.
Amber echoes the sentiment heartily and plunges her hand down the front of his boxers, suddenly impatient to have him in her grasp with nothing between them but sweat and pre-come.
He feels thick and solid and real in her hand. She loves how he fills it up and she's pumping him in her fist as his hips rock and thrust up into her grip. His pubes scratch at her wrist and the itch of it feels good. So many days she imagined him with her, touching her, caressing her, but she hadn't the imagination to fill in all those details. Having them now is better than anything.
“Oh fuck, baby, you gotta stop,” Michael gasps out. His hand clenches around her wrist pulling her to a stop even as his hips still thrust beseechingly when her fingers squeeze experimentally around his length.
“I want you to make love to me,” Amber tells him.
Michael sweeps her off her feet and carries her to his room.
* * * *
Amber doesn't get a chance to look around when he spreads her out on his bed. Not that she's complaining with Michael's weight deliciously pressing her down into the soft mattress and his mouth firmly attached to her neck, sucking red-purple bursts of hickies into her throat. He leans up to admire his handiwork and she admires the thick bunch of his biceps as he hovers over her. Had she really ever thought this physique in front of her was not her type? It feels like so long ago. She could never not love anything about Michael Westlake.
Michael settles himself back on top of her, careful not to crush her as he bears down. Her thighs automatically spread open and her legs rise to clutch around his waist and pull him more forcefully into her. She loves how heavy he feels, she loves the way his dick presses against her pussy unerringly, how he's helping to spread wet between their crotches with just the subtle shift of his hips.
Michael knows she loves it. He's grinning now, that cocky smirking smile he deserves because all they've done is grind a little bit and she's ready to fall apart.
"What do you want me to do," he asks huskily. She's forgotten for a moment what a talker he is, how he loves to discuss every move endlessly prior to during and after they actually do it.
"Want you to kiss me," Amber replies immediately, a blush staining her cheeks hot pink. She reaches between them, arching her back and forcing her crotch up firmly against his. Her hand stutters at her panty-covered pussy and taps it obviously. A grin has spread across Michael's face. "You want me to kiss your beautiful pussy, is that it, Amber?"
She shudders and his erection nudges against her as obvious as her tap. "Yes," Amber sighs rolling her pelvis in circles and trying to get some sort of friction where it's wanted most.
“Yeah, okay, lets.”
He moves to glide down her body but she stops him, her mind suddenly changed with that openly hungry expression that furrows his brows in concentration.
Amber locks her hands behind his hand and drags him down to her mouth.
Michael is stiff for a fraction of a second and Amber uses that time to kiss him breathless, sucking the very air from his body and words from his tongue, her tongue all tangled and twisted around his own. It’s the last time she’s fully in control.
Then the shock recedes and he arches up to capture her face in his hands and show her how it’s done. Amber’s panties are wet and her body is tingling by the time he breaks with a gentle lick at her kiss-swollen lower lip.
“Or maybe we could do that,” her voice is wrecked and her head feels dizzy but she doesn’t regret a moment of air deprivation.
Michael chuckles against her spit slick mouth and shifts her lower against his lap to press against his rapidly filling cock. She lets out a small moan and rocks her hips against him letting his hardness rub against her damp panties and encouraging his cock to grow.
“Or maybe more of that,” she says.
“Yeah? Then how about this?” Michael grabs her ass and hauls her close and now they’re really humping each other with intent. Her head rocks back and he closes the gap to bite down the long column of her neck and suck wet kisses over the bits of her exposed breasts her cleavage highlights where she’s falling out of her bra.
Her lower body is nude except f
or the thin line of her barely there thong-panties and his hands pet at her long long legs, gliding smoothly over them. Bubblegum pink is turned translucent with all her slick. He tears at her bra, unhooking her from the back, jerking it open so hard Amber feels an audible tug and hears a snap but she doesn’t have time to care because he’s tossing the material on the floor and bending his head to her nipples to suck them in.
“Yes!” she groans so loudly it’s practically a yell, “suck them,” she demands because it’s like her nipples are hotwired to her pussy and she can’t get enough.
Michael obliges, tonguing over her chest from one soft mound to the next, lips pulling in the hard nubs of her nipples and sucking on them languidly while she rides against his dick, every pull on her nipples hotwired to her wet pussy.
“Shit,” she mutters to herself. She’s shivering on the edge of orgasm and her clit has swollen enough that her pussy lips have spread and it keeps catching on the soft silk of her panties. Every jolt ramps up her lust until she’s sure, without looking, that his pants must be a sodden mess. The smell of their sex is heavy on the air, mixed pleasantly with the scent of his cologne and the flowery perfume she wears. They haven’t done much but she’s already going to come, right here.
Amber bows her head to his collarbone and whines her excitement into his throat. Her hips thrust frantically and she dry humps herself to completion against the hard ridge in his pants, his erection creating the perfect bulge for her to rock herself against.
Her climax comes over her like a slow burn, gradually building from the base of her spine and washing up through her pussy, her belly, her chest and throat, until she feels every nerve lit up and electric with sheer pleasure flowing through her veins.
She’s floating, ecstasy so sweet she hovers limp and light, weightless in Michael’ arms. He hugs her to his chest and slows the roll of their hips as she twitches in his lap.
She giggles into his collar and blushes again hard when the haze of desire has cleared enough for embarrassment to set in. She’s not usually this forceful, but from the feel of things Michael doesn’t mind.
