Falling Stars (10 page)

“I didn’t know that.
 
He had everything.
 
Fucking Harvard. He’s rich and connected and smart. He didn’t grow up in Southie.”

“He isn’t you,” she replied. “You’re the one I want.”

The waitress appeared with our drinks and we placed our order. While Julia spoke with the waitress, I studied Julia. I examined the arch of her eyebrows, her long eyelashes untouched by mascara. I scrutinized the slight flush at her cheeks and nose. I met her eyes, and when the waitress walked away, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and taking her hand.

“I’ve missed you,” I said.

“I have too,” she whispered.

“It’s not too late, is it?”

She jerked her head side to side. “It’s not too late.”

“What do we do to fix it?”
 

“What do you think?” she asked.

I squeezed her hand and said what came into my head, unfiltered by thought or consideration or anything else. “We talk. We love each other. We never stop touching each other. We never stop paying attention to each other.”

She nodded, so I kept going.

“We make love. We
pay attention.
”

She swallowed audibly. “What else?”

I sniffed, feeling a wave of painful emotion. “We… We forgive.”

She nodded rapidly.

“Julia, I know I already asked this and you already answered it. But… Will you forgive me?”

Her eyes immediately went bloodshot and wet, almost spilling over. “Will you forgive me?” she whispered.

“Always,” I replied.

“Me too.”
 

Look. I didn’t expect to say it. I didn’t expect to do it. I’ve never been one for planning ahead. Or thinking very hard about the consequences of my actions. Or my words. So I wasn’t really responsible for the next words that came out of my mouth. It was just my first reaction, my first thoughts. It was what I
really
wanted. It was me, unfiltered.

“Julia,” I said suddenly, passionately. “Marry me.”

She froze, her eyes suddenly wide and shocked, just like I used to look when I got called up in front of Mrs. Stevenson’s eighth grade English class.

“Don’t
think
about it,” I urged. “Tell me what you
want
.”

“Are you insane?”

I swallowed. “That’s not the response I hoped for.”

“You’re fucking nuts, Crank. Nuts. Completely, absolutely crazy.”

I took a breath, steadying myself. “Then go crazy with me.”

Her eyes locked on mine, so big I couldn’t see anything else, and she said the words I wanted to hear.
 
“Yes. Yes, I will.”

“I’m not hungry anymore,” I said.
 
I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

Go crazy with me.
He’d really asked me to marry him.

I’d really said yes.

Crank smiled that same boyish, lopsided grin I fell in love with. “I’m not either.”

We left money on the table for our drinks and a tip, then Crank took my hand and we walked out of the restaurant. I felt like every part of my body was alive. Alive with want, alive with need. Alive with desire. Every nerve ending in my body stood at attention, and if someone had touched me right then, I might’ve screamed. Just the touch of our hands as we walked side by side out of the restaurant was so intense, so warm, so beautiful… I wanted it to last forever.

We fell into step beside each other as we walked slowly down the length of the motel. It was so natural and effortless, I found it easy to forget that we’d barely done this in weeks. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to hug him, hit him over the head or fuck his brains out.

His question was abrupt. “What do you say we kick Sean out of my room? Let’s send them off with money to go see a movie or something.”

Maybe all three.

“What do you have in mind?”

He winked and leered.
 
“I want to show you my tattoos.”
 

After a second, his voice dropped and he raised his hands to both sides of my face. As our eyes met, I felt my cheeks heat up. The emotional connection between us was urgent and intense.

 
“Jesus, Julia. I want to hug you forever. I want to hold you in my arms all night long. I want to make love to you. But more than that… I want to touch you. I want you to be mine.”

I put my arms over his shoulders, pulling him in closer as his hands moved to my waist.
 

“If you want me to be yours, you might just have to
make
me yours, buddy.”

Crank just grinned, then ran his teeth along the right side of my neck. I felt goosebumps rise to the surface of my already too sensitive skin.

“Let’s go,” he growled and broke away, grabbing my left hand and pulling me along behind him.

I felt a tense excitement, familiar and strange at the same time. My breath was shortened, my skin literally tingling.
 

“I’ll talk to Sean,” he said.

“I’ll talk to Carrie.”

Fifteen seconds later we got to our doors and then the damnedest thing happened. Crank opened the door to his and Sean’s room, no problem.
 
Mine wouldn’t open.
 
I tried it again, sliding the key card into the slot. The light turned green, the door clicked, the knob turned, but the door wouldn’t open.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

I shrugged. “It lights up green. I think the deadbolt is on.”

“Huh. Sean?” he called into his room. He stepped inside, and I heard him call Sean’s name again.

A moment later he came out, looking confused. “I don’t know where he could have—”

I tilted my head, looking Crank in the eye.
 
He saw my look and stopped talking.
 
I darted my eyes toward the other room.

“No,” he said. “Sean’s seventeen.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“No…” he repeated. “Not like I was… Besides… Him and Carrie?” He looked confused. Baffled.
Idiotic.

“They’re both seventeen. And they bond over spiders and fruit flies and I don’t know what all else.”

Crank literally staggered. “Dad will kill me.”

“He will not. Jack would just chuckle and give Sean a high five.
 
What’s wrong?”

“He’s still a
kid.
”

I sighed. I took Crank with one arm and knocked hard on my door with the other. “Crank. Shut up. He’s not. Carrie’s not a kid either.”

“Then… Why are you knocking on the door?”

I rolled my eyes.
 
A second later, the door cracked a little. The latch was still engaged, preventing it from being opened all the way.
 
Carrie’s eyes peered out at me.
 

“What do you want?” she whispered urgently.

“Do you have birth control?”

“
Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
she cried, then slammed the door in my face.

I shrugged. “I’ve done my duty.”
 

Crank assessed the situation, then made the correct decision. He took me by the arm and pulled me into the other room, letting the door shut behind us.
 

Darkness descended instantly and I began shaking. Hard. I’d promised to forgive. I’d asked for forgiveness. It felt like having a bucket of ice thrown on me. A chill went up my body, goosebumps forming on my arms. We’d been fighting so much, it had been almost three weeks. Three weeks since we’d touched each other. Three weeks since we’d made love. And almost two months of hurt feelings, of anger and miscommunication.
 

For just a second, I felt my old mask of chill reserve slip back over me. My mask of pain and ice. The mask which had protected me for years, but then almost destroyed me.

Crank put his arms around me and I cringed for just a second. Crank had hurt me. He’d gotten jealous and kissed some groupie and grabbed her ass, and next time he might do worse.

“Let go, baby,” he crooned in my ear. “I won’t hurt you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, hard, then I felt it, the reserve and armor swept away by the low rumble of his voice. He swept his left arm behind me and under my knees, then lifted me off my feet and carried me to the bed.

My breath caught, then picked up again, noticeably faster and tighter. I felt my pulse at my throat and in my chest.
 
He lowered me to the bed with the care and precision of a surgeon.
 
A faint light shone through the window in a single vertical line that ran the length of his body where he stood over me.
 

My breath began to speed again as he unfastened his buttons one by one, slowly uncovering his tanned, muscular skin. Involuntarily, I felt the muscles in my back tighten, arching my back, pressing my breasts against my shirt.

“What…” I said.
 
My breath came in and out too quickly to make any sense.

His lips curled up in a crooked grin.
 
Nude now, his erection unashamedly at attention, he leaned toward me and began to peel my t-shirt off. The touch of his fingers against my bare skin caused me to convulse a little.
 

“What…” I said again.

“I’m going to make love to you now, Julia Thompson.” As he spoke, his eyes looked into mine. Open, exposed, vulnerable.

I know I’m usually in control.
 
But now I’d lost any control.
 
Crank tugged at the button of my jeans, unzipping them, and pulled them and my panties off in a single, swift motion. I closed my eyes as he moved closer.

 
I gasped and jerked as his lips touched the ridge of my hip bone on my right side and both of his hands clamped firmly on my waist. I let out a slow cry as he trailed his lips along my stomach, then nipped at the underside of my ribcage.

I leaned my head up to kiss him, but he just smiled and shook his head, then kissed my chest just between my breasts. I wanted to tell him
stop
, to move it along, but then his hand touched me on the stomach and began moving in lazy circles, closer and closer.
 

It was excruciating. Every time his hand moved close to me, my hips arched involuntarily.
 
I breathed faster and faster as his lips touched my collarbone. My neck. And then one finger, and another, were inside me, and my world narrowed in like tunnel vision, everything wrapped around the feeling as he slowly spread me open with his fingers, then slipped them deeper and curled them up toward him.

My muscles tightened around him as he slid his fingers in and out. Slowly. Then faster and faster until I began to shudder. I’d lost awareness of all my surroundings, everything fading in a haze of sensation and touch and love. One wave after another crashed over me and my voice rose higher and higher.
 

When he slowed down, I twisted and protested. “Don’t stop!”

His lips were next to my ear.
 
His hot breath.
 
“Tell me you love me, Julia. Tell me you want me.”

I sucked in a breath, unable to control myself, and whispered, “I love you, Crank. I want you so badly.”

His fingers slipped out, leaving me suddenly cold, and his eyes bore into me.
 
“I love you, Julia. No one else. I’m yours.”

The next few seconds were so intimate they were excruciating. And then he plunged into me.
 

His eyelids fluttered and my neck arched back, begging him to kiss it, to bite it, to do whatever he wanted. What
I
wanted was for him to move fast and hard. But he went slowly, very slowly, gazing into my eyes.
 

“Faster,” I demanded.

He shook his head. “I want this to last forever.”

I let out a moan at his words.
 
His hips tensed as he slowly pushed in. My body gripped around his, legs wrapped around his ass. I fought for a grip at his back, my nails digging in, hut he refused to move faster.
 

Slow.
 
So excruciatingly slowly, he moved in. And back out.
 

I let out a loud cry as he slid back away, then in again, a little faster this time, but still teasing, still driving me to the edge of insanity. He stopped as he was almost all the way out and lowered his mouth to my breast, teasing, his tongue circling my nipple, barely touching.

I let out an involuntary growl, clutching his back. “Harder. Now.” My voice was fierce, demanding, and Crank responded, lowering one arm to push my leg back hard against my chest. Suddenly he was moving as fast and hard as I’d demanded, his breath growing loud and hoarse.
 

Even as Crank’s lips locked on mine, our tongues working together furiously, he began to move in and out, hard and fast, the slapping against my thighs forcing my legs back wider, straining every muscle in my body.

I pressed against him, my hips moving back and forth, my fingers raking down the skin of his back. I wanted him
closer.
His breath was hot and wet against my neck, one arm hooked around my leg, the other planted on the bed, bent at the elbow and wrapped behind my head.
 

“Julia, I fucking love you.”
 
His voice was full of need. His hips, narrow, muscular, pounded in to me, harder and harder, driving into me like a piston, and I felt waves of layered sensation moving up my body.

Even then he didn’t stop, didn’t let up, and his voice just grew louder and louder, and I found myself crying out, calling his name, screaming, “Crank, I love you!” as loud as I could until we both collapsed, spent and exhausted.