“Don’t go. Please,” he said. “I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not sorry. Not for kissing you. I’m sorry for a hell of a lot when it comes to us, but not for that. That was the most natural thing I’ve done in God knows how long. And I wouldn’t take it back. Don’t run from me. Come back in and we’ll have something to eat—"
I shook my head. My knees were ready to buckle. I wanted to break into a run and get as far from him as possible, go lock the doors and hide under the covers and be sad and confused and then go over that fiery kiss in my mind about a thousand times.
“I need to go. I need time to think, on my own.”
“Can I take you home?” Drew asked. I shook my head again.
I knew if I got in his truck, we’d end up pulling off on a dirt road and I’d be in his lap before we ever made it a mile from this spot. It would be so easy to fall back in love with him over one kiss, one apology, like he never broke my heart in the first place. It was so seductive, knowing what he could still do to me with just a kiss, having intimate knowledge of just how good we were together, and how he could make me feel. Part of me wanted to turn around and run and never look back. The rest of me was feeling sort of slutty and would have gone and hooked up with him in the bar bathroom.
“I have my car,” I said.
“Can I call you?”
“If I’m ready to talk, I’ll let you know,” I said.
I drove home, hands gripped tight at ten and two on the steering wheel. I felt like I couldn’t even blink after that kiss. When I got home, I texted Trixie and Nicole to see if they had five minutes for a call. In a short time, they both texted back that they could do a call. I got on Skype and they joined me.
“What in the hell happened to you? Did you get slapped by a killer clown? See a UFO up close?” Trixie said when she saw my face on the screen.
“I kissed Drew. Drew kissed me,” I managed to choke out.
Trixie hooted and cheered. Nicole said, “So when did this happen?”
“Just now. We met for a drink. He wanted to tell me why he dumped me in high school.”
“This I gotta hear,” Trixie said. “What was it? A terminal diagnosis that turned out to be wrong? Got someone else pregnant on vacation? Your dad gave him a million bucks?”
“No on all counts. He just decided to dump me because I was going to college and he figured I’d meet somebody better. Supposedly he thought he was setting me free so I could go away for college and marry a senator or some shit like that. I don’t even know. I do know I haven’t been that angry before. I could’ve just picked up a chair and broken it right over his head and shouted. So I walked out.”
“Oooh, is that when he kissed you?” Nicole asked.
“He followed me,” I said. “And asked me to stop and he apologized and then he didn’t know why I was so pissed off. Like he dumped me and took away my choice in the matter of whether we did a long distance relationship or broke up or whatever. What he did literally changed how I saw everything and everyone—like I wondered for years if every guy I dated was just going to get bored and leave me like he did. And then Drew is swearing it was the most real thing in his whole life and then he kissed me.”
“Out on the sidewalk?” Nicole asked. “At least he doesn’t work for you. That got me in some deep shit.”
“We know,” Trixie said. “Now give me details.”
“He kissed me the way he always kissed me. I got caught up until a car door slammed and broke me out of it. Then I basically shouted goodbye, ran to my car, and called you guys.”
“Bit of advice, dear,” Nicole said. “When a gorgeous, sexy man kisses you like that, do not leave to call us.”
“She needed time to think. And we’re helping her process it,” Trixie said.
“I think she should’ve given it a chance, see where things go. Talk later. So is he going to call you?”
“Excuse me, did you catch the part about how he dumped me and took away my agency in the decision?” I demanded.
“It was definitely a shitty thing to do, but he was also a teenager,” Trixie said. “And he loved the shit out of you. I know it.”
“Yeah, he did still love you. It probably hurt him to do it. He was not right, and I’m not defending him. I’m just saying, it’s in the past, it was a bad decision that hurt you both. Maybe you can put it behind you.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about it. I mean it changes a lot.”
“Sweetie, you’ve never really moved on from Drew, not even after all this time. You should give it some thought,” Trixie said very kindly.
“I know,” I said. “Thanks for taking time to talk it out with me. I’m going to try and get a good night’s sleep. Bye.”
After we hung up, I took a long bath. I couldn’t think, couldn’t even enjoy the raspberry bath bomb I treated myself to or the glass of white wine that sat untouched on the counter. I kept running it through my mind again and again. You deserved better. Someone better. I lied. I missed you. I thought the world of you. I always have.
I was about a thousand percent confused and upset. Drew had asked me to meet him for a drink, which was a prescription for nervousness and excitement and dread. Then I went there, it was awkward, we did a little chitchat. He dropped the devastatingly casual thing about how his mom never got over us breaking up. I almost blurted out right then that I never got over it either, thank you very much! But I had stayed because of how it felt when he put his hand out to ask me to stay. Like all I wanted to do was to go around the table and slip in beside him and have him tuck me under his arm like he used to do. I yearned for him to do that.
When he said that he had lied to me, that he didn’t stop loving me when I was eighteen, I felt like a wall fell on me. Like an unexpected earthquake toppled everything I knew about myself and my life so far. Because a lot of what I believed about myself in relationships came from how that one ended. I learned not to trust my own happiness or to have any faith in people being trustworthy. It meant that I needed to reconsider my romantic relationships as an adult, to see if my self-doubt, if my scars from the breakup with Drew had contributed to the demise of other pairings.
It was no wonder I’d run out of the bar. It was a miracle that I’d managed to avoid flipping the table on him and screaming that I hated him and he ruined everything. Teenage Michelle came roaring to life, ready to scream and weep. I got out of there as fast as I could. But there he was. His voice, pleading with me to stop. His surprise at my anger—did he think I just moved on like, oh well, so he quit loving me, no big deal? The person I trusted most had lied to me and had taken away my choice in our relationship. I would’ve stayed with him. I wouldn’t have met anyone better. God knows, I still haven’t met anyone I’d consider better than he was when we were together. I wanted to ROAR to the heavens with my wrath and sorrow. Did he not see that? How cheated I felt? How ROBBED? And not by a villain, a criminal. By him. The person I’d loved more than anyone in my life. That was what he thought of me—that I was a pet he could set free, that he knew better than I did what was best for myself.
I lay on my bed, watching the slow whirl of the ceiling fan and blinking back tears. My throat ached with unshed tears. I wanted to cry and scream, but I wouldn’t let myself. I cried enough over him eighteen years ago. He didn’t deserve any more of my tears, I told myself.
He had sworn what we had was real. Drew had said in his own voice that it was real. That I had to believe him. The desperation in his voice was just what I remembered, the rasp of frantic breath behind his low-spoken words. I would have done anything he asked me to do in that voice. I felt the thrum of it in my chest, just below my collarbone.
Drew had kissed me. I froze at first, stunned. This thing I had hated myself for dreaming of for so long was happening. It was real. It was shattering and beautiful and I felt my entire body and soul surge to life when his lips locked with mine. Then I came unstuck and flung my entire body around him—or at least my arms. His kiss, our kiss
had rocked me to the core. I melted into pure sensation, drinking up the pleasure and passion he was giving me.
If the door hadn’t slammed and snapped me out of it, things would have gotten dire. I would’ve gone home with him, or asked him to come home with me. There was no way to process what he’d told me, much less that kiss. That world-shaking kiss that lifted me off my feet. My fingers got to rake through his hair again, just as silken as it was before, and I wanted to laugh aloud because I knew the shape of his head, the way his thumb traced my cheekbone when he touched my face, the familiar feeling of his heart hammering against mine.
His body had changed in the intervening years. I knew mine had, too. Now his shoulders were heavier and broader, his arms thicker with muscle. His hair was shorter, and there were faint lines bracketing his mouth when he frowned—I’d seen them in the bar when I sat across from him. His skin smelled the same, and the way his touch brushed over the pulse in my neck was exactly the same. If his hands were more calloused, rougher, his touch was still gentle on my body.
Nothing ever felt as good as kissing him again tonight after so long. It was a blissful, bittersweet agony. All that lost time, all the pain and lies and mistakes. All the nights I’d lain awake longing for him and then lecturing myself about how he hadn’t loved me and I needed to let it go. It hurt to be kissed by him and to feel like no time had passed, when that was just a cruel illusion. We had lived our entire adult lives apart. It wasn’t fair and it didn’t make sense that kissing him felt so good or so right. It should have felt awkward. I should have wanted to shove him away and say, that was a lifetime ago, Drew, and you don’t get to confess your sins two decades too late and then kiss me. Except apparently that was what he got to do. Because I was temporarily insane thanks to the shock of his revelation about dumping me to ‘let me go’ in some obnoxious, sexist way where he didn’t want me worrying my pretty little head about a long-distance relationship.
I could have bitten through steel, I was so angry. Punched a window just to hear it break and not care if it made me bleed. I already felt like I was bleeding from his words, from his kiss. I felt undone by all of it. Like if I were in an old black and white movie, I would take to my bed in a silky robe and put my hand to my forehead in despair and refuse to get up.
When I shut my eyes and told myself to go to sleep, I replayed the kiss in my mind. A lot of times. I tried to make myself quit. I tried to say the alphabet backwards, which apparently is not a thing I know how to do. I tried counting sheep. But I finally drifted off, only to wake with my hand between my legs, rubbing.
I felt the tingling of my skin and the tightness of my nipples against my silky pajama top. I didn’t even bother trying to stop. I needed the release, even if I knew it would be a pale imitation of what I really wanted. So I let myself go, and I gave myself rare permission to think about being with Drew way back when.
We had driven up to the Falls on a night with a narrow crescent moon. I had snuck out my window and down the trellis and met him a block away. When he parked out by the Falls, there was no one else there. It was past two in the morning. All the hot and heavy teenagers who made out there were long gone. Only the two of us here, and when I turned to reach for him, he gave me a mischievous grin and jerked his thumb toward the back of the truck. I had thought we’d stay in the cab, but he had other plans.
When I followed him to the back of his pickup, he lowered the tailgate and then climbed up there, undid some noisy Velcro straps, and then there was a huge whooshing sound as an air mattress inflated. I laughed out loud. He did too, threw his head back and laughed, exposing the long line of his tanned throat in the moonlight. I wanted to bite it—and I laughed again because I thought he could make a vampire of anyone with a neck like that.
“You put an air bed in your truck?” I said incredulously.
“I want you to be comfortable. I want to take my time.”
“Classy,” I had giggled.
“Hey, I know how to treat a lady,” he had laughed right along with me.
We had started kissing while we laughed, and we knelt on the air mattress, kissing and touching. A soft breeze cooled my hot skin when he peeled my sundress off.
“Oh my God,” he had breathed. “You’re not wearing panties. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Yes. The murder weapon was no-panties—next week on Law & Order,” I giggled. He kissed my neck and then bent me back over his arm, kissing my nipples, licking at them and sucking them until I jerked and whimpered in his grip.
Drew lowered me onto the cushioned air mattress that smelled of plastic. The stars spread out above us in the dark like a blanket. He ran his bare hands down my belly and between my legs, my knees falling open for him. He spread me with his thumbs and licked me there, a long pass with his hot tongue that made my hips lift off the mattress and my abs cramp with the fierce pleasure. I clawed at his hair.
“You can’t—" I gasped.
“Watch me,” he said, and I felt him grin, felt the curve of his lips as he kissed me between my legs. I knew my thighs were trembling, trying to clamp shut on his face even as my hips started to grind against him.
Drew lapped at my slick folds, then up to my clit where he kissed and licked and then tapped with flicks of his tongue until I shuddered and begged and came in a great convulsion where it felt like my whole body turned inside out. I was shaking hard when I came down from that, and he kissed all the way back up my body, making me giggle with some sensitive ticklishness. He kissed my nipples and my neck, my jaw, tipped my head back and kissed my chin before taking my mouth with his. I could taste myself on his tongue, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I loved it. I wrapped myself around him, legs and arms.
“That’s it,” I teased. “I’m never letting you go.”
“If that’s all it took, I would have eaten you out a long time ago. Made you promise to stay mine forever that way. Now you know my evil plan. I’ll keep learning ways to make you come and that’s how I’ll get you to stay with me.”
“I want to stay with you anyway. Always. I mean, this is a perk, you doing that—"
“I’ll make sure there are plenty of…perks,” he teased, raising an eyebrow at me comically.
I hugged him, “You are such a dork.”
“It’s a good thing you love me anyway.”
“I love you because you’re such a dork,” I said, laughing.
“I don’t care why. As long as you don’t stop loving me,” he had said, and his beautiful so-dark-they-were-almost-black eyes were serious. Even in the dim light I could see that and I hugged him fiercely.
“I love you forever. The rest of my life,” I said, choked up, and I kissed him.
“Show me,” he said.
I lay back and looped my arms around his neck, my eyes on his.
“Yes,” I said.
Drew settled himself between my thighs. The blunt tip of his long cock brushed against my sensitive sex. I felt a thrill roll through me from that slight contact. My body ached for him to fill me. I took a long breath, smiled at him. He dipped his head and kissed me. The kiss grew bumpy and sloppy as he notched his cock at my slit and thrust forward, taking me fast and deep with one stroke. I arched into him, our thrusting eager, messy at first until we caught an ancient rhythm and ground together. He brushed my sweaty hair back from my temple, whispered to me how beautiful I was, how much he loved me. His strokes grew heavier, harder and with a sharp jolt, he spilled inside me. I felt the hot gush of his cum and my body clenched, seizing up. I thrashed and cried out as I came. His thumb reaching between us rubbed my clit, making my orgasm longer, a harsh cry escaping him as I clenched around him so hard. I shook, my teeth chattered. He thrust against me, giving me friction and pressure right where I needed it. The climax went on and on until my vision went black and fuzzy at the edges. It was so powerful that I thought I might be dying.
When I finally managed to draw breath and my bowed body drooped back onto the air mattress, I was laughing and t
rembling. He pulled me into his arms and held me, grabbing a rolled-up blanket from beside the air bed and throwing it over us both.
“You thought of everything,” I said wearily.
“Yeah, but mostly I think of you. All the time. Promise me we’ll stay like this, Chel. I didn’t know anything like this was possible. Not for regular people. It’s magic.”
“Okay, Harry Potter,” I teased.
“You say that like your dad ever let you watch those movies,” he said.
“Hey, I watched the first one at Trixie’s house.”
“So you were sneaky even as a little kid?”
“Always,” I said proudly.
“What if your old man catches you when you sneak back in your room. What will you do?”
“I’ll tell him if he doesn’t like me sneaking out he can let you in the house like a normal human being. If not, I’ll keep sneaking out to be with you.”
“You’ll get tired of it,” he said.
“Never. I will never get tired of you. This is my real life. The rest of it is the lie.” I insisted.
I lay with my head on his bare chest, syncing my breathing to the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek. It felt so perfect, like we’d managed to defy the laws that kept us from being one person, from merging completely. I thought of words like soul mate and husband. I drifted off in his arms.
I came, dreaming of him like that.
Here was the secret I’d never told anyone. Every time I’d had an orgasm, it had been because of Drew. Either I was with him or I was thinking of him. No matter who I was with. Not that I’d ever say that aloud to him or anybody else. Some secrets you take to the grave, and the fact that Drew Casey was the only man who could crank my engine was that kind of secret.
Falling in Love: A Secret Baby Romance (Rockford Falls Romance) Page 6
