Denial (53 page)

“That is just another reason to come back separately. And we should practice… dealing with it. The fear.”

“I’m not scared.”

“I am. I better do it now before I think about it too much. We’ve already sat here too long.”

“Okay,” I peep.

“Good job not touching me. It’s going to be a lot harder when we’re outside the car but we can’t. I’ll walk from here. You can make it, right?”

“Yes.” Wow, he’s leaving now. My pulse drums in my ears. It still doesn’t seem real.

“Let it ring once. Wait five minutes. Call again. I can’t answer, I’m sorry.” His finger lies limp on the door handle as his eyes stay down. He can’t leave. “Twenty minutes, plus the time it will take you to get there. Please be careful.”

“You be careful.”
You’re the one on the street
.

“I can’t believe how hard it is not to kiss you right now.”

“Me too.”

“Okay. Wait until I get to the end of the block before you pull away. I’ll turn around to make sure you got in the driver’s seat.” He’s making a run for it.

“I’ll be there. I’ll call you.”

“Maya,” he croaks nervously, tapping his fingers. “See you later.”

The door opens and shuts. He’s gone, the silence punches me in the chest and I heave, my eyes glued to his back as he walks away, shaking it off. It’s not a bad part of town at all, but instead of getting out of my car, I slide over and grip the steering wheel. He’s almost to the end of the block, strolling slowly, giving me time. Finally he spins, turning step by easy step, not really looking at the car until he’s completely turned around.

Our eyes meet and I can see the fear on his face before he hides it and gives me a fake version of that cocky smile I love so much. I grin back at him and blow him a kiss. His lips draw in, catching it, as his face contorts painfully before he spins back around it disappears. He’s turning the corner and I’m starting the car and going straight. The apartment is down my street, but I have no idea what’s down his.

I’m not supposed to, but I turn my head and linger at the stop sign to watch him walking away, backlit by the streetlights, turning him into a silhouette. My foot needs to press the accelerator, but I can’t bear the idea of tearing my eyes off of him. This is going to be our lives soon, for a while anyway. I turn my head first, so he disappears from the corner of my eye as I pull forward. This is awful.

For such a pricy building, the security at the apartment complex really sucks. It’s pretty much nonexistent in the parking garage. I want to run from my car to the elevator, but that would stick out too much, so I walk briskly. I can’t stop wondering where he is right now, picturing different scenarios. It’s late, dark, he’s alone. What if they are watching us and they know?

The hallway. Isaac tells me it’s just normal people living behind these doors. Do they really have no idea what’s going on behind ours? I get lucky and none of them open before I get to the gate, slide in my key and shut the door behind me, throwing my bag on the counter and rifling around until I find the phone and start assembling it. It takes forever to turn on, and there’s no number in there. I search for the card, flip it in, restart the phone. This is taking forever.

I dial it. It rings until it goes to a voicemail that isn’t set up. 12:38. Call again at 12:43. Hopefully he’ll be here by one o’clock
. I need to do something, so I start cleaning. I still have to sneak and clean when he’s not paying attention, but he doesn’t fight me when I do it with him anymore. This place needs to look like we’re still doing what we’re supposed to be doing, and we have been really slacking. So I dust and polish hastily, the seconds ticking by so slowly I check three times, sure that it’s been long enough and I need to give him that second phone call, but it hasn’t. Once it is, it just rings like I knew it would, but I need him to pick up. Where is he?

I can’t call back, so I disassemble the phone and go back to faking domestic servitude. If I do the windows, it will smell like that cleaner in here. Isaac won’t like it. So I’ll detail vacuum, thinking back on the last time I did it. He told me to do it naked, it took an hour to do what I’m accomplishing in ten minutes because he kept groping me so often.

This is unbearable. It’s like I haven’t seen him for a week. The really funny thing is that I’ve only known him for two. But we’ve spent practically every single second together. It’s Day 17, so we’re just over 400 hours of contact, minus a third for sleeping which we do together so even that kind of counts. Even at 20 hours a week, which is generous because I rarely spend that much time with Luke, that’s still like knowing each other for three, maybe even three and a half months. Could it work that way? That could explain it.

It’s 1:04. Twenty one minutes after the second phone call. Any second now. He did say that he should wait an hour.
1:06. What if he doesn’t come back? What do I do then? Just leave, go back to my place like this never happened? I lied when I told him I wasn’t scared. His key slides into the lock at 1:07. I have to wait until the door closes before I can jump on him.

41

That took forever. I’m flooded with relief when I see her standing there and the half second it takes the door to close is an eternity before she leaps at me. I catch her, laughing when her little body collides in a blow to my belly, winding me. She’s here, safe.

It was agony. Anything could have happened to her and I wouldn’t have been there. I
can’t always be there to protect her, I knew that when we started. But I didn’t realize that was going to be the hardest part, worse even than being away from her, a thousand times worse than not being to fuck her. The worrying. That’s going to be what kills me.

She changed out of my baggy clothes into something tight and soft. I can see the outline of her curves for the first time all day. Shifting her weight in my arms, I carry her over to the living room and sit us down on the chair she likes to cuddle in the most.

“I missed you,” she whispers into my ear softly, her voice edging on that squeaky range that unravels me.

“I missed you, too.”

I can’t take it anymore. I have to kiss her. My tongue invades her mouth, coaxing hers to play with me as my fingers wrap into her hair. Holy fuck, she tastes so good and I really want pull her clothes off.

She yields to my grasp, my hand leaving her hair so it can grip her ass while the other one cups her breast. My heart drums loud and
fast, driving the heat and need through my veins in waves. Her scent gets stronger with every breath I take against the skin on her neck. Just one upward thrust, just a little friction to take the edge off. I push her hips down into mine and grind against her through our clothes. She mewls, hugging me tighter, kissing that spot on my shoulder. She kisses me there all the time now. I want to feel her lips on that skin. I want to be naked against her naked body, inside of it.

She squirms out from under my chin, long strands of her mane getting stuck in my stubble like strands of a spider’s web connecting us as she sits back on my thighs to look at me. God, she is so beautiful, it takes everything not to lean forward, kiss her, take over, but I hold still because I want to see what she does.

I shiver when her little hands land on my neck, her soft fingertips grazing the skin until I’m covered in goose bumps. Her lips dance around my face, darting across mine, teasing me until I have to smile. It’s the only way she’ll kiss me, and she does, parting my lips, but no tongue, daring me to take over.

“I like when you do this,” she says.
I can play your game too. Keep talking
. “Let go when I touch you. The way I do when you fuck me.”

“Oh, I let go when I fuck you, too.”
More than you realize. Thankfully, your cervix is apparently made out of iron.

“Yeah, but I can catch you better here.”

She’s right. I slump forward, letting some of my weight press against her, my head falling into her shoulder, her soft hair caressing my face, filling each breath with her scent. Her arms feel strong when they cradle my head, almost like the size difference between us has reversed and I get smaller.

Her fingers trace circles in my hair as I let out a groan so cracked and pitiful I feel ashamed to have made the sound. All of this energy rises into my throat and catches with my breath. I want to say something that I can’t. Something I won’t be able to stop myself from sayin
g soon. I don’t care if she can’t say it back yet.

My blood warms, I get harder, my spine lengthening as my shoulders square, taking on the posture that she understands. My arm threads up her back, my forearm lining up with her spine to support her weight as I guide her back. I know she needs me to take over when I feel the weight of her head sink into my palm. I groan, a wave of arousal from the power crashes into a wave of something else from the fact that she’s letting me. But there’s something else here too, a strange reluctance, and I don’t understand how it crawled in here with us.

I pull her face to mine for a kiss, forgoing the gentle lead in. It’s not what she needs. We’re all stocked up on gentle right now. Her muscles are tight and quaking under my hands and her hips wiggle and grind uncontrollably. I can’t help but smile down as the little creature’s lips pull away from mine and start traveling down my throat as her finger’s slide under my waistband, sliding along the flesh on my hips, getting lower until she finds what she’s in for and tries to free it.

“Not here,” I rasp, capturing her wrists and pulling them upwards. Her eyes meet mine as she pants. Oh, she’s so fucking hot when she’s this horny. “I want you in a bed.”

She giggles when I pick her up, throwing her arms around my neck. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, too light and joyful. A wave of insecurity washes over me, but I hide it.
Okay, we can cuddle first, if you want
. I don’t know why the idea makes me so happy. I’m laughing with her as we tumble back and forth against the walls of the hallway until we get to the first door with a bed behind it.

I toss her down into the covers, pulling my shoes off, unbuckling my pants, hesitating before I slide them to the floor. Leaping upwards, I dramatically flop down beside her as she squeals delightfully. Her giddiness is contagious, and that’s not the energy I need to be picking up on. But I can’t help it, I’m tickling her, kissing her face everywhere. Her body trembles in my hands from laughing so hard. Our lips lock together, giggling against each other while her fingers graze my sore cheekbones. I’ve been smiling all day and I still can’t stop.

Then she pulls at my shirt. I guess playtime is over. It should feel like it’s just beginning, but it doesn’t. I’m so fucking horny it hurts, but I want to stay with her like this. Her groan is whiny into my mouth, and I relent, pulling it off, so her eyes can rake over my flesh. I don’t know why I’m so hung up on this shit, I do the same thing to her when she pulls her clothes off, crawling back into my arms in a bra and panties that aren’t going to last long. Her hair is so crazy right now. I’m glad she can’t tell.

But she doesn’t leer at me as I’m expecting, she just flashes me that shy smile before pressing her lips back against mine briefly. Maybe that healing circle of scabs on my shoulder was what she really wanted, because she kisses it compulsively, nuzzling her nose back and forth, moaning, muttering my name, her fingers tracing patterns across my neck and in my hair. I’m disintegrating. My hand slides up her spine and holds her head against the spot.
Stay there, just for a little longer
. Then I’ll pull myself together and take over.

“Maya.”
You’re so soft and sweet, I had so much fun with you today. Everything was perfect, you’re so fucking perfect
. But I can’t get into how wonderful it all is because I have to top her right now, I always do the first time, I always want to the first time and so does she. But she’s so squirmy and cuddly right now, I want to join her.
I need to kiss you
.

For a few seconds, I savor her slowly, softly, toying with her hair lightly. Her body loosens against mine and I catch her weight in my chest. I kiss her harder, deeper, and I want to, but I keep going long after I want to stop, tighten
ing my fist in her hair, pulling her backwards, reaching to her breasts to pull this bra off of her so she gets that rush she craves, even though I’d rather see her shy eyes gazing into mine when she takes it off herself.

She gasps, not an affirmative sound. She didn’t like it and my stomach tightens into a knot. That was really fucking sloppy. Her body isn’t in synch with mine, isn’t yielding in my grasp. Great. Fuck this up. Fail at the only thing you’re good for.

I’ll go harder, claim her. My body wants to, it’s my nature. I don’t understand why my head can’t get into it right now, not all the way, the way she needs me to be. Fuck. My eyes travel downwards from her belly to the little patch of pink patterned cotton fabric that I’m sure is wet from me teasing her all day. Maybe if I look at her, see her eyes hungry, it will snap me back. I’m on stage, and I forgot my lines. I need a cue.

Reluctantly, I hide my real face and bring it up to hers. She’s not hungry. No, she is, that’s not it. Her wrist is in my hand. I didn’t even notice that I’d done that. My fist in her hair is too tight, I can sense her discomfort as she squirms. What the fuck? Why do I keep doing this? I lighten my hold. But her face. Something is off, or rather something is there that shouldn’t be. Disappointment? Fuck! That did not help at all.