And there, he stops.
When I look down, Hale is propped up on his elbows, gazing intently at my body, stretched out on the bed in front of him in the soft light of the streetlamp.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
‘Nothing.’
‘You stopped.’
‘Shh,’ he says. ‘Give me a minute.’
‘What? Why?’
He smiles up at me. ‘I spent a whole summer dreaming about getting to this position with you, and then ten years wondering about what might have been. Just let me enjoy it for what it is. Just for a second.’
I almost have some smartass reply lined up, but the touch of his fingers across my skin is electric; after that, nothing springs to mind except just how much I want him. No one has ever looked at me like that before. I’m not sure anyone has ever looked at anyone the way Hale is looking at me, but I could get used to it. Oh boy, I could take any amount of that.
‘How does the reality live up?’ I say at last.
He grins. ‘Better. God, a thousand times better.’ He plants a soft kiss on my stomach. ‘Ten thousand.’ Another kiss. ‘A million. More.’
‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a charmer?’
‘It’s been mentioned.’
The kisses don’t stop; they follow one after another, each delicate and filled with a decade’s worth of longing, each one lower than the other, until his lips are resting at the thin lace barrier that hides me from him.
Thank God I wore the matching underwear, I think to myself. Hale pauses for a moment at the threshold, hooks his fingers into the dainty elastic at my hips and, as soon as I lift myself ever-so-slightly up off the mattress, slips my panties down. A swift kick later and they’re on the floor, forgotten.
But the kisses continue.
His hands cup my ass gently, bringing my hips up to meet him as his tongue goes to work. The moment he parts my lips, I let out an involuntary shudder of pleasure. The caution is gone now, the hesitation evaporated; his focus is on me, his actions attuned perfectly to my body. When I moan, his tongue darts quick little circles around me. When I’m quiet for longer than an instant, I can feel him probing, searching, finding new ways to excite me. Minute by minute, my pulse quickens, my body cries out for him. I can feel the cresting wave of an orgasm rush over me as I run my fingers through him hair, pulling him close to me, holding him between my thighs.
I need this.
I deserve this.
At long last, he’s mine.
For tonight at least.
He’s mine. His body. His tongue. Every part of him.
Fuck…
All mine.
Fucking hell…
It’s been so long – too long – but I’m sure it was never like this with anyone else. No one else has ever thrilled me so richly and so quickly. No one else has ever made me feel so wanted, so alive.
I bite my lip and stifle a gasp that could wake the dead, let alone the neighbours. My fingers curl into the bedsheets, my back arching…
Fuck…
So close…
And then…
And then…
Nothing.
Absence, for a second. Just empty space where previously Hale’s head was between my legs, and the longing in every part of me for him to return when he pulls himself away.
There’s the sound of a search for a condom, the tearing of a small foil packet, and then a moment later the weight of his body on top of me, his naked torso pressed against mine. I can feel the firm ridges of his stomach, the work that has gone into his perfect body. In the almost-darkness I can imagine the scars and the scratches of his youth. I know what he looks like; the image danced around my dreams for years. I know Hale’s damage.
‘Tell me you want this,’ he breathes heavily into my ear. ‘One last time. I need to hear it.’
‘I want this,’ I say. ‘I want you.’
There’s just enough of a glow from the streetlight and the crack in the curtains for me to make out the smile on his face. It’s the last thing I see before I feel him enter me, and my entire world catches fire.
Chapter Fifteen
When my alarm goes off, it catches me in the middle of the lightest of sleeps. Hale and I had spent most of the night like that, drifting off together, wrapped in each other’s arms, our naps punctuated by repeated bouts of enjoying each other’s bodies: blissful, easy, gentle explorations. I’d wake from a half-hour of dozing to find Hale tracing his fingers along my hipbones, would turn and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, as though making up for ten years of absence. And that would inevitably lead onwards, downwards, until our bodies were coated with sweat and we collapsed back onto each other, ready for a brief respite before one of us would accidentally wake the other and the next round could begin.
I reach across him to turn the alarm off, a sleepy apology for waking him prepped and ready, wondering whether or not this interruption will lead to more of what I’m increasingly coming to realise is Hale’s extremely vigorous, athletic brand of sex, but the bed is empty.
He’s not there.
Bathroom, I think. That’s all it is. He’s in the bathroom, or he’s gone to get a glass of water, or… Or any one of a thousand reasons, all of which involve him coming back. None of which convince me fully.
I sit up suddenly, like I’m waking from a bad dream, and scan the room. The curtains are heavy, but they let in just enough light to dimly illuminate the sight of Hale standing there in the corner, pants on, socks on, fastening up the last few buttons on his shirt in complete silence. When I sit up, he freezes like a rabbit in headlights for a second, and then smiles at me.
‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Hey yourself.’
‘I was trying not to wake you.’
‘You’re leaving?’ I ask, and he nods.
Well, that answers that. Nice while it lasted, I suppose. See you in another ten years. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
‘Oh,’ I say.
I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but I have no idea why I bother: I can feel it written on my face in fluorescent neon, shining out into the half-dark like a lighthouse beacon.
And, like a lighthouse beacon, it draws him towards me.
He crosses the room and sits down heavily on the bed – the foot of the bed, far from me, but it’s still not nothing. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘It’s not like that. I told you, I’m meeting up with a realtor in Hogarth. About Dad’s trailer, remember?’
‘Oh. Yeah, right. Sorry. I forgot.’
‘You thought I was just going to bail on you? That this was a one-night-stand sort of deal?’
‘No,’ I say, but isn’t that the whole point of Hale? That even after all this time, he can still tell exactly when something’s bothering me? His fingers pause, his shirt half-buttoned; I can see the taut muscles of his abdomen as he leans across the bed and kisses me softly. If it was a one-night-stand sort of deal, that would be an exquisite sort of torture to leave on. ‘Trust me, Carrie,’ he says. ‘It took a lot for me not to decide to blow them off this morning and spend the rest of the day in bed with you.’
‘Is that so?’
‘You bet your ass it is.’ As if to punctuate the point, his hand slips under the covers and comes to rest on my skin, just south of my hipbone. Immediately I’m transported back to the night before: his face between my legs, his fingers gripping me in just the same spot, the bliss that followed…
I can’t stop myself from biting my lip in memory of the shuddering orgasm that Hale had given me – but quite which one, I’m not sure.
‘Don’t start what you’re not willing to finish, Fischer,’ I say, and he grabs a little more tightly, playfully.
‘Or what?’ he asks.
And there, he’s got me. Instead I kneel up on the bed, take his face in my hands and kiss him, kiss him, kiss him, like he’s a soldier returning from the wars who had waited an
d waited and now has no intention of waiting for a single second longer.
‘Well,’ he says as he begins stripping off his clothes once again. ‘Maybe once more won’t hurt…’
Chapter Sixteen
‘You’re late,’ Pete says as I hurry into the diner. I barely had time to shower and run a brush through my hair after Hale and I had finished; the ‘once more’ he had promised had turned into ‘twice more’, and would have been a third if I hadn’t caught sight of my alarm clock just as it ticked over from Fashionably Late to Unfashionably Late to It’s A Good Job You’re The Boss, That’s All I Can Say.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Shower trouble.’
‘I bet. I told Dina she could take off. Figured you’d be along soon enough.’
‘Thanks.’ It’s a good job the place is still mostly empty; Dina, sweet as she is, is really just around to give me and Mom a helping hand. I wouldn’t trust a sixteen year old to be the only wait staff on hand, even though I was more than capable when I was that age. Still, no harm done.
‘Have fun last night?’ Pete asks.
‘Hmm?’
‘On your little date with loverboy.’
‘It wasn’t a date,’ I say, a little defensively than I perhaps would have liked.
Oh, if only you knew.
‘No?’ he asks.
‘Nope. Well, sort of. Maybe.’
‘Saw your boy’s bike parked outside your apartment when I left work last night,’ he grins. ‘Saw it there this morning, too. Funny thing, that.’
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Funny thing.’
‘You want to be careful,’ he says. ‘People around here just love to talk. Word gets out, you’ll be more popular with the old gossip set than Wheel of Fortune.’
‘So?’ I ask. I mean it, too: why shouldn’t I care? I’m happy. I think Hale’s happy. Hell, I’m one step away from shouting it from the rooftops and getting a notice put in the Eden Enquirer myself. ‘Let them talk, if they want. It’s not like I can do anything about it.’ And I wouldn’t even if I could, I think. Whatever the town might think about Hale, it doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is what I think about him.
And, of course, what he thinks about me.
That’s apparently enough for Pete too. ‘I’m happy for you, kiddo,’ he says, pushing two plates of eggs and toast towards me. ‘So now you can go and make Table Six happy too.’
~~~
Meredith has been in town for all of two days, and she still doesn’t seem like she can quite believe her life has brought her to this; every time I’ve seen her, she’s had a sour expression on her face, like someone who isn’t sure if she’s stepped in dog dirt or if everything surrounding her just smells like that all the time. That’s why, when I see her enter the diner – willingly, I might add, and with a spring in her step – it’s almost difficult to believe it’s the same woman.
‘Coffee, black,’ she says to me as she seats herself at the counter and picks up one of our menu cards. Even the brisk tone can’t hide the fact that she’s smiling while she says it.
‘He’s not here yet,’ I say as I pour.
‘Who’s not here?’
‘Hale. I figure that’s why you’re here? A meeting or something?’
She takes a sip from the coffee, and doesn’t even grimace. ‘Oh, I wasn’t looking for Hale,’ she says. ‘I just thought I’d experience a little of the… local colour, you know?’ I try and ignore the fact that she’s just described my life with the same tone she’d use if she was an explorer making first contact with a tribe of pygmies in the Amazon.
She’s still scanning the menu; it’s hard to believe that she’s still keeping up the pretence of actually wanting to eat here. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘What’s a “grit”, exactly?’
‘A what?’
She points at the laminated card. ‘A grit.’
‘Grits,’ I say. ‘Sort of a… corn-mash thing.’
‘Like polenta?’
I shrug. ‘Maybe?’
‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘Best not.’ In the end, she settles on a grilled cheese sandwich and a salad, which isn’t on the menu – there’s not much call for it, somehow – but which I know Pete at least has the ingredients for, even if he does have to pull them out of individual cheeseburgers.
‘You seem like you’re in a good mood?’ I venture. ‘Everything going well?’
‘Oh, spectacularly. Couldn’t be better.’
‘Anything interesting?’
She smiles. ‘Actually, I was hoping to speak to you about that. Thought I should probably let you know, given that you’re involved now.’
‘Involved?’
Did Hale tell her? He can’t have, surely? I mean, when would he have had the time? And why would he have? It’s not like he ever seemed particularly close to Meredith.
‘I saw you,’ she says. ‘Last night. Going into… what’s the name of that charming little Italian place?’
‘Isabella’s.’
‘Isabella’s,’ she says. ‘That’s the one. I mean, I was going to say hello, but you seemed to be having such a nice time with each other that it seemed almost churlish of me to interrupt you. So I just took a few quick photos of you and left.’
‘You did what?’
‘Photos, darling,’ she says. ‘Not many. Just a couple. You looked quite stunning, I have to say. You scrub up nicely.’
I let the almost-compliment fly right by me. ‘Why would you take photos of us?’ I ask. I’m gripping the dishcloth I’m holding so tightly that if I open my hand I’m pretty sure I’d find a diamond in its place.
‘You do know what my job is, right?’ she asks, fishing her phone out of her purse. ‘I’m Hale’s publicist. I’m here to create publicity for him. That’s the only reason I didn’t drag him back to New York with me two days ago.’
‘But…’ I start. ‘His dad…’
‘Died two years ago.’ She looks at me the way a teacher might look at a student who claims to have forgotten her homework for the fourth time in a row. ‘Come on, Carrie, give me some credit. Of course I checked up on his little story. This isn’t my first time, you know?’
I nod. If there’s one impression I got of Meredith, it’s that she’s a woman who knows her job.
‘So anyway,’ she says, skimming a finger across the screen of her phone, ‘I took the liberty of uploading them to a few places. Made it look like a fan just caught a glimpse of him, and… well, you know how the internet works. Stoke the fire, poke the embers, and watch the whole thing catch.’ She points down to a picture of the Hale and I from last night. She’s right, I do look good – not just because of my dress, or my makeup, but because there’s a glow on my face that comes from something more than the candlelight. I’m looking into Hale’s eyes, and I look happy. Blissful, in fact.
Beside the photo, there’s a counter that reads COMMENTS: 495. As I watch, it ticks up to 498, and then to an even 500.
‘Made quite the splash,’ Meredith says. ‘People are going crazy talking about who Hale’s mysterious new squeeze is. They’re all coming out of the woodwork to cast their little theories. Honestly, you can’t buy exposure like this. And of course, the bump has caught the attention of some of the smaller gossip sites, and if they get reporting on it… well, I mean, who could resist that? It’s free advertising. If TMZ decides it’s worth picking up, God willing, we might even sell out Denver.’
The Meredith train is rolling merrily down the tracks, but all I can think of is how many people saw that picture. How many people have suddenly found themselves with a window into my life.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asks abruptly. ‘After all, this is the only reason we agreed he could stay – as long as I was allowed to use it for promo material. You heard him say it himself. I’d just hate to have to drag him back to the city so quickly, especially how well you two seem to be getting along…’
As implied threats go, it’s not the most
subtle, but it does the job: I know as well as she does that, if there was no other choice, Hale would go back to New York. He should, anyway. Sure, I’d want him to stay, but I’d be pushing him to go and make something of his big break – and besides, maybe he’d find his way back to me when the tour swung down south.
Maybe.
What’s the harm, really? So I got my photo taken while on a date with an up-and-coming rock star. So a couple of his fans might get a little jealous. Somehow I’m sure I’ll cope. ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I don’t mind.’
‘There’s a good sport,’ she says. ‘Anything for the ticket sales, right?’
‘Sure.’ Personally, I couldn’t care less about the ticket sales, or how much money it puts in her pocket – but I know how much Hale’s music means to him. For him to be a success, for him to really feel like he’s made it… I mean, a little invasion of privacy is a small price to pay, I suppose.
Besides, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t at least a small part of me that was enjoying it. I did look good in that photo, after all, and so did Hale. There was a strange sort of satisfaction in knowing that hordes of anonymous fangirls were wondering who I was, and what my relationship was to the man they had a crush on, knowing that I was the one he’d spent the night – and the morning – in bed with. If they only knew about that, I thought to myself. They’d pitch a goddamn fit, I’m sure.
‘There’s a good girl,’ Meredith says, and then, after a slight pause: ‘I can’t tell you how nice it is to finally find one who’s a good sport about these things, I really can’t.’
There’s a ding from the kitchen: the order-up bell.
‘One?’ I say.
‘Hmm?’
‘You said it’s nice to finally find one who’s a good sport. One what?’
Reckless: A Bad Boy Musicians Romance Page 17
