Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  He stops kissing me, presses my cheek against his chest, where I hear his heartbeat through the cotton of his t-shirt. “This is bad,” he says, breathless.

  “Because how old I am?”

  “You have to go.” He lets me go, then shoves me lightly toward the pebble path. “Go back, Amelia. Just forget about this shit.”

  “No way. I can’t.”

  His jaw is clenched. Shadows flicker on his face as he turns toward the water, takes a few steps, folds his arms, and, with his eyes averted, turns back toward the rocks and strides to sit down on the largest boulder. From my angle, off to his left side, I watch his shoulders rise and fall. I move closer, and Dash puts a hand over his face. “I’ve been drinking all damn day. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

  “Don’t do that. I’ll never believe you now.”

  His eyes are on mine, furious and hot. “You’ll believe what I tell you to, Amelia.”

  “No I won’t. You can’t tell me this stuff and then say forget.” I snap my fingers. “You’re drunk, but I believe you. What are you so scared of? I won’t tell. Is that the problem? If it is, I won’t tell anybody.”

  I kneel in the sand in front of him, summoning the nerve to touch his knee. My hand on him must bring him around. I see his body settle, shoulders relaxing as he blinks over my shoulder, then dares move his gaze to mine. His eyes are earnest and intense. “Do you promise?”

  “Yes. Of course. I just want you to be happy.” I stand in front of him, then reach my shaking hand for his.

  Dash closes his hand around mine.

  “What would make you happy, Ammy?” he asks quietly.

  “If you kiss me.” I can barely get the whispered words past my tight throat. I’m still waiting for the ricochet when Dash’s body folds around mine. Then we’re on the sand, our bodies moving fast and urgent, slow and sweet and heady as the fog around us.

  “Don’t let me hurt you, Am,” he bites out.

  “You’re…not...”

  We kiss until I can’t breathe, then we pull apart, our sweaty limbs a tangle, my face over his. Beneath my belly, Dash’s chest rises and falls in frenzy. “I thought…if I didn’t drink,” he pants, “I’d come after you for sure.”

  “But when I saw you, you had…”

  He shakes his head. “Couldn’t.” He rests his forehead against my cheek. “Am.” His lips press gently on my chin. “Why did this happen?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” I kiss his forehead. “I’ve felt this way since the tree. Remember, the one where we’d leave each other poems and sketches?”

  “Of course.”

  I run my hand along his chest. “I love to touch you.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  I slide a hand under his shirt, and Dash moans. “Am…”

  “I want to hear what happened at college,” I murmur. “Tell me everything I missed.” I kiss his ear, and Dash’s body jerks beneath mine.

  “Please…”

  “Please what?” My throat feels full of my heart. I’m surprised I can even speak, yet here I am, rubbing Dash’s chest as his hand squeezes my hip.

  “Please don’t…do this to me.”

  Pleasure spreads all through me, ancient satisfaction—power. “I’m doing something to you?”

  “Yes. Fuck.”

  He tries to sit up, but I wrap myself around him. I’m on top of him and it feels perfect. “I just want to hug you…”

  Dash groans again, and my pulse races. I can make him groan, and that’s not all. I still feel him pressed against my inner thigh as I straddle him.

  Unable to stop myself, I rock my hips a little. Dash’s body stiffens. “Am…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Do you want me to move?”

  “No. Yes.”

  But I can see the truth. “You don’t,” I whisper.

  His eyes open, drunk and glazed. “Of course not.” He pushes up on his elbows. “But Ammy, you’re so young. And I’m…not good.” This time, he wraps his hands around my hips and sets me on the sand beside him. He sits fully up, leaning on his arms as he stares out at the lake. “Even if we both want it, I can’t.”

  “But why?” Tears fill my eyes. My heart aches and my soul screams in a primal tantrum. “I’ll never tell, I swear. I love you so much, Dash, I always have. You know I have!”

  Dash’s body folds around me, his arms around my shoulders, his mouth near my ear. “I know you wouldn’t, Am. I know.” His finger wipes a stray tear off my cheek. Then he has my hands and he is pulling me up. “Come here.” His big arm goes around my waist. “Walk with me. Let’s walk down the beach, and we can talk.”

  “I don’t want to walk,” I sniffle.

  “Yes you do.” He pulls me closer. “You missed me. You told me so.” He gives me a slow, sweet smile and I am helpless. Just as helpless as I’ve ever been near him.

  We walk along the shore, moving farther from the lake house. My stomach flip-flops as he moves his arm from around my waist and takes my hand. He looks into my eyes. “I’m sorry for this, Ammy. Please believe me when I say I didn’t tell you all that shit to make you sad.”

  “Will you talk to me?” My voice is thick with tears. “I want to hear more about…” I swallow. “How long are you in town?”

  “Just tonight.” The words are pointed.

  My heart aches. “So you really have to stay and talk. I want to catch up.”

  Tears are rolling down my cheeks as Dash leads me to the water. We sit side by side. He nudges his flip-flops off and I kick off my sandals. How strange that the cool, damp sand between my toes should feel so normal.

  I watch as Dash rolls his jeans up his calves.

  “Hang on,” he murmurs. Then he’s pulling off his shirt, and I am dying at the sight of his bare chest. He hands the shirt to me. “For you to sit on.”

  The sand is damp, so I do as he says. When I’m settled again, he tilts his head toward me and shifts his eyes to mine. “You’re older,” he says softly.

  “Yep. That happens.” I can’t help a small smile.

  He reaches for me, pausing only for a moment before two of his fingers rub a strand of my hair. “You look good, Am. You had a good summer?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I was worried about you.”

  His mouth twitches on one side, a would-be smile that never blossoms. “I’m okay.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Just hanging around.”

  “Where did you go?” I sense his reticence, so I make it easier. “Name one place you went this summer.”

  His mouth softens. “Maine.”

  “What was your favorite part of Maine?”

  He runs his fingertip along the strand of my hair, then releases it and clasps his hands atop his knees. “I saw some whales.”

  “What kind?”

  “Humpbacks.”

  I try to picture Dash in Maine. My mind’s eye evokes him with binoculars around his neck and straight-front khaki shorts. A pair of Sperrys. “Were you on a boat?”

  “I was.”

  “Well…did you like them?”

  He smiles slightly. “Hated them.”

  “Oh really.”

  He licks his lips, then bites down on the inside of his cheek for just a moment—nervous habits—before continuing, seeming at ease. “They were majestic. The kind of thing you think you’d never really see.”

  “Is it rare, to see one?”

  “No. But it seems like it should be, you know? Kind of feels like they’re there just for you.”

  “So are you really leaving school?” I ask him.

  “Maybe.” He runs a hand back through his hair, looking away from me, out at the streak of moonlight on the water.

  “Why?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just…” He shakes his head. “I’m not sure how much I like to study art.”

  “Yeah?” Does that mean he’s not sure he wants to
be an artist? I’ve stalked him online, so I know he’s got a web site where he sells his paintings.

  “Tell me more about you, Ammy. What’s the best part of your summer been?”

  “Tonight.”

  He looks pained. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I’ll feel like shit for leaving.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out to Montana.”

  “What are you going to do there?”

  He shrugs. “Paint. Work.”

  “I thought you liked Providence.”

  He gives me a gentle smile. “I said I thought you would.”

  “Will you call me? Please?”

  “I might not have a phone.”

  “Everybody has a phone. Don’t leave me and never call, like you did this year. Please. It…messed me up. It was like you disappeared.” I hold my breath, then let it out. “It was…like my Mom.”

  He wraps an arm around me, pulls me close enough so I can feel my hair catch in his chin scruff. “Damnit, Am. I’m so damn sorry.”

  “You should be.” I wrap my arms around him. “Will you kiss me?”

  “No.” His arms tighten around me. “But I’ll hug you.”

  We lie on our sides there on the shore, Dash’s arms around me, my face against his t-shirt, lips brushing the skin-warmed cotton.

  I wrap my legs around his. “For how long?” I whisper.

  Dash’s hand plays in my hair. He waits so long to answer, I think he’s not going go.

  “Remember when I got strep throat? In seventh grade? It was during the summer. I think Mom and Dad were on that long safari—and we had that asshole nanny. Netta?”

  “The Norwegian Marry Poppins,” I whisper with a smile, because I do remember. “She thought you were faking sick because she’d taken away your video games. I think you hid her purse or something really innocent and dumb. But it made her really mad.”

  “You came over with that smoothie.”

  “I knew you were sick, because you hadn’t touched that book you were really into in like two days. The one about the rabbits. Watership Down.”

  He nods. “You climbed into my bed and held me. You remember that?”

  “Of course.” I’d been too young to understand the concept of a crush, but being near Dash made my heart beat harder.

  I shift my gaze upward, so I can see his face, and when I notice tears in his eyes, my stomach clenches.

  “Dash…”

  And then his mouth is overtaking mine.

  Five

  Amelia

  His hands are on my breasts and hips, his mouth is worshipping my mouth. I can do nothing but cling onto his elbows, then his hips, and Dash is groaning.

  Dash is kissing down my chest, teasing my breasts through fabric.

  I’m on top of him again and I can feel him where I want to feel him most. Dash’s hand is clasping my neck as our tongues stroke and his hips buck and I bare down against him, moving my own hips out of sheer instinct.

  “Jesus Ammy—” between kisses. “You’re…so perfect. Everywhere. Perfect.”

  I can’t keep from gasping as he tongues my nipples.

  “Sorry. Slower,” he promises, and pulls away, kissing my throat as I go limp atop him. Limp except my legs, which can’t stop moving. I can’t keep from rocking atop him.

  “God…”

  “Tell me to stop,” he grits.

  “Don’t stop!”

  His mouth is back on mine, so hard it almost hurts, but then our tongues are stroking, and I’m lost—so awfully lost—in what we’re doing, everything feels good and blissful. I feel Dash’s erection against me and I sit up on him, repositioning myself so I’m rubbing with the throbbing part of me.

  “Shit,” he moans.

  I grind against him.

  “If you…keep doing that…” He squeezes my knees. “I’m gonna…”

  “I know.”

  “Ammy…”

  He tries to move away from me, but that’s not easy with me on top. I run my hands over his chest. His face looks beautiful and rapt, his eyes shut, his lips pressed tight.

  Feeling brave, I reach between us, sifting through the folds of my dress until my fingers find their mark through his pants.

  Even through the fabric, I can tell he’s long and hard and thicker than I thought he would be. When I rub him, Dash comes off the ground. I find the head of him and stroke there with my fingertips, dizzy with the rush of hearing Dash moan.

  I rub my cupped palm up and down him.

  “Ammy, please. It hurts…”

  At first, I believe him, so I let him go. Then I see his glazed eyes peek open, and I read what they are saying: more.

  I touch him once more, tentative, then start riding him again. Here I feel more comfortable, spurred by the pressure I feel building in myself. The way it feels when I rub up against him there…it makes me crazy.

  Pretty soon we’re both gasping. Dash’s hands are clasped around my hips, he’s pushing me and pulling, dragging me over him. I can feel the hard, firm pressure of him where I crave it most.

  More!

  I need something more.

  Looking down at him, there is a moment where I make a choice. Then I’m pulling down my bathing suit bottoms. I rise off him and do it fast, then sink back on him.

  “Am…?”

  I arrange my dress around us. Then I unbutton his pants, looking into Dash’s eyes as my shaking fingers work his button, then his zipper.

  “Ohhhhhhh.”

  “I want to touch you,” I whisper.

  His hands are on my thighs, his fingers gentle as they move toward where I want them. When his finger covers me, I cry out.

  I’m dizzy, blind with need. I rock my hips so I’m pushing against his fingers.

  Inside. I want them inside!

  “Please…” It’s whimpered.

  “You want me to touch you?”

  “Yes!”

  Dash’s finger slides inside, and my world sizzles like a bolt of lightning.

  I don’t know… His fingers moving… I’m touching him, too, and…God, the way he moves. The jerky motion of his hips, the little gasps from both of us and deeper groans from him.

  When he moves his fingers off me, I reach down myself and align him with me, so as I rock, I’m gliding over him. I know it’s naughty. Dangerous. But I can’t stop. I just can’t stop.

  I want Dash’s heart and soul, but in this moment, what I need is Dash’s body. The humid air pulses and crackles in my ears. I hear the water lap the shore and feel the cotton of his boxers and the hot silk of his skin over that long, stiff rod.

  I don’t dare to touch him too much with my fingers—I’m too shy, too tentative—but when I rub myself against that part of him, it lights me up so bright I just can’t stop. And so we’re thrusting, both of us bucking, craving something deeper, craving, and I know, I know what I can do…

  I reach down, parting myself, making room, and then I guide his tip into the heat of me.

  I see Dash blink once, his eyes going wide, and then he’s got me by the thighs. He murmurs, “love you,” soft and slow. I feel his fingers shaking. “Do it,” I beg. He blinks, shutting his eyes for just a moment. Then he thrusts—and all at once, I’ve entered heaven.

  They say that it’s supposed to hurt. That there is blood, and women cry, but that’s not how it is for me.

  All at once I’m filled. I’m whole.

  Dash touches my deepest ache and makes it good. He makes my body sweat and scream and flinch and buck and rub against his. He makes my head spin so fast I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m saying. I’m saying “I love you.” He echoes it back and while it’s fast, it’s hard, it’s rough, I love it so much. There is nothing better in this world than Dash inside me, moving, grunting, sweating. I allow it. I allow him anything he wants, and so he takes and I give.

  Then he’s finished. I’m still aching, so he claims me with his mouth
, and I come apart into a million pieces. I am dancing in the moonlight.

  Afterward, I’m wrapped in Dash’s shirt. He holds me in his lap, lamb-style, kissing my cheeks and chin and hair and eyes.

  When we’re more steady, Dash uses his shirt and lake water to clean my hands.

  “They’re not dirty,” I giggle.

  “I want to take care of you,” he whispers. “We should go. Somewhere that has a bath.”

  “I don’t want to let go of you.”

  And so I don’t.

  We lie there wrapped in moonlight, talking until the sky begins to lighten.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” he says near the end.

  “Shut up, Dash. I wanted it. I wanted that to be with you.”

  “I’m still leaving.” He hangs his head.

  “It’s okay.” It hurts me to say so, but I love him. I just want him to be happy. “All you have to do is call—and come see me.”

  Sometime around six o’clock, Dash’s phone rings and he steps away to take a call.

  “Alexia,” he sighs, kissing my cheek. “She got fucked up and someone took her home. I need to check on her. I won’t leave so soon anymore, though. I’ll hang around a few more days; I want to be with you a little longer.”

  “Good.”

  “Just let me run to my house? Take care of some things? Did you say you’re going to your friend Lucy’s house?”

  I nod. “She texted. I could still go now, but I would need a ride.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  He carries me to his truck, sets me on the seat, and buckles me. We stop at a small but clean motel, where Dash leads me inside, and he bathes me, rubbing me so that I come apart again.

  I look down at him, hard and strained, but Dash just shakes his head. “Just you.” He kisses my hair, and we hold hands in the cool and dewy air as we walk back out to his truck.

  At nine o’clock, he drops me off at Lucy’s family’s farm, half an hour south of Sandy Hill.

  “I’ll call you in a few hours,” he says, giving me a long kiss, open-mouthed and drugging.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “If you don’t, you’ll wreck my world,” I tell him, trying to sound teasing. “Remember what I told you—about Mom.”