Roar (18 page)

“I’ll come back later. I have to wash up and get tomorrow’s work in order.”

We stand there, in the hot sun by my car, like two awkward teenagers. It was never awkward between us. Never. I go to say something and nothing comes out. He reaches for me and then drops his arm. He chuckles and steps back from me, then takes another step, and another, until he is right out in the lot. He then turns around and heads to the huge, blue truck that reads, SHAW CONSTRUCTION on the side.
Ohmygod!

I watch my best friend, my old lover, the love of my life and a complete stranger give me a single wave as he pulls away and drives from the Piggly Wiggly parking lot.

There are going to be some serious questions and answers tonight.

I walk to my cart to the bay and almost skip my way back to the car. All of a sudden, I’m excited. I don’t know how long it’s been since I was excited about cooking for someone. There’s no fear or stress, just pure, adrenaline-induced excitement.

Forcing a steady breath, I drive lawfully through the streets of Beaver Dam with a dream in my heart for a fresh start as an adult with her life ahead of her and an aching grin on my face.

This is what freedom is, making the small choices in life, like whom you will have dinner with. I will never let this go again, and I will never take it for granted.

I’M SO PROUD OF
her, so fucking proud. I just wish I could be proud and not want to throw her down and show how much I miss her, the whole her, mind and body.

It took everything in me to make the first move away. It was only her smile that urged me to do it. She is happy, and it’s because of me. It sounds messed up; I know that. But our bodies are like beacons to each other. We belong, we fit; together we beat off the world’s beatings.

I take the stairs two at a time and I’m in the house in seconds, stripping all the way to the shower, leaving a trail of clothes behind. I damn near land on my face when I forget to kick my boots off before dropping my pants in the hall.

I have loads of time, but I want to make sure I grab some flowers on the way, and maybe a bottle of wine or… shit! The water’s burning because my brain is sparking crazily and I didn’t turn the cold on. I’m backed up to the tiles dancing like I’m part of Riverdance until the temperature cools and then, of course, it’s way too cold, but that I can handle. In fact, a cool shower is probably a good idea for many reasons.

I soap and scrub, dry and spray. Shaving requires me to calm the fuck down and stop acting like a kid or I’ll shred my face.

I complete the task with a sigh of relief that I’m in one piece. I don’t think I could have faced the torment Charlie would surely throw at me if I had to explain craters missing from my face. I kick my strewn clothes to the side. I’ll get them later.

Like a chump, I change my outfit twice before going for jeans and a navy button-up, look at the clock and see it’s four-fifty. I’ll be early, but if I’m honest, I want to be. I want to see her and be close to her.
Chump.

It’s just that things seem different today, like her old self. There are signs of cheek and fire; I was scared that they were lost, but she’s coming back. My Charlie is coming back.

IT STARTED LIKE AN
awkward date; flowers, jerky movement, and an awkward peck. There were patches of silence that drew on into its own time zone as he looked around my home.

Yeah, I’m calling this small room my home, because for a very long time I haven’t had one. Not since the state took me away. So despite having my bathroom in view of my kitchenette and tiny dining table, the overproduced landscape portrait, or my bed that sits like a fat elephant in the room, it’s
my home
.

At least for now.

I collect the dishes and take them to the tiny sink, anything to cut the thick, tense need between us. When I feel the heaviness of his warm body against my back, God help me, I sigh into him like he is the only real home I ever had. My mind, body, and damaged soul
melt
into him. He wraps his big arms around me, holding me securely, and I know there will be no other home for me. Beds, roofs, walls; they are all inconsequential to his embrace. When Nate takes me, I am his.

My heart raps fast and hard. I feel his beat against my back, not in sync, but ultimately driven by the same desire. I clench his jeans at his thick thighs, feeling the muscle bulging under the denim. It wasn’t the only muscle I could feel straining against the tight material, and I want it. I don’t think I have ever wanted him this bad.

I try to turn around, needing more, but he holds me still, and it only excites me further. Gripping at his jeans, I try to get my hands between us so I can access him, but he pushes against me harder. The sink digs into my pelvis; the sharp pain only adding to the burning need.

Nate’s tongue grazes a hot trail up my neck to my jaw, and I stretch for more. I need it. Arching into his hands as he practically kneads my breast through the cotton of my sundress that I picked out because he always likes it when I wear a dress. I pant and lick my lips before he reaches for my chin and pulls my mouth to his, extending my neck and devouring me. His tongue is so soft and driving me wild as it dips with its own needs, brushing against my teeth and lips. I swear he has never kissed me like this. There’s a cloak of desperation that I’m breathing in and matching, grasping onto anything of him I can to bring him closer to me.

His kiss is strong, absorbing, and I want to just die as his fingers rake through my hair, holding my mouth to his. He always loved kissing, and now his desire has intensified. If we both didn’t need to breathe, we would kiss forever.

His teeth nip against the corner of my lower lip. His hot, damp, breath rasping against my jaw and ear, the sound making my belly ache, and it ached harder as his other hand slid from my breast, over my stomach, to my sex.

I moan before he even takes hold, sucking hungrily on my neck. I can’t take much more of this without being able to touch him; it’s frustrating and… fucking hot.

“Please,” I beg in a rasp, and he groans against my skin before flipping me around and taking my mouth again. His hands take the bottom of my dress and pull it up enough for him to get to my panties that are wet. I am so ready for him, wanting him, needing him. I fumble with the button of his jeans like the novice I am not. But my hand won’t stop shaking,
I
can’t stop shaking. I don’t even get to the zipper before he grips my ass and lifts me onto him. I wrap my legs around his waist; my lips seeking his jaw, which is almost baby-smooth. He smells of something rich, and it makes me want to lick him, so I do. I lick and taste and breathe him in as he spreads me out over the bed. My fingers dragging through his short, dark hair as he kisses my neck, my chest, and as his fingers make little work of the tiny buttons of my dress. His lips and tongue follow, sending me spiralling down the rabbit hole into my crazy.

He’s hovering over the dips of my breasts, just over the lace-covered nipple, and I know what he’s about to do; my body knows it. As his lips close over the peaked cherry, I gasp, and he sucks harder before finishing his expedition down under the small mound. Who the fuck knew the under breast could be so sensitive? I arch higher, and he groans.

“You’re so beautiful. I want to touch, lick, taste and eat every last inch of you.”

I can’t think, I just do. “Nate,” I say begging.

“I know.” His voice is deep with a mutual need. He licks and nips his way right to my panties, hovering dangerously, torturing me. I wriggle beneath him, but he holds me to the mattress. “Soon, but first, I will devour you, and then, I will make you mine forever,” he vows.

The urge to cry is strong. I want to kiss him and love him. I want to show him how much I want to be his. I want to tell him I’ve always been his. As the words lick my inner lip, his hot mouth is over my sex, licking and sucking through the material as his fingers seek the soft, wet flesh through the side of the drenched and strained material. There is no resistance to his pursuing fingers as they slide into me, building the heavy ache that’s spread from my stomach to my entire sex making it softer for him.

My body wriggles relentlessly despite Nate’s weight holding me down, his shoulders and arms keeping my legs apart for him. Why won’t he take me already? I need him inside me, filling me with his thick cock and heady seed. I feel out of breath and almost crazy as I build and build against the thrusting of his fingers and torture of his mouth.

“Now!” I rasp pushing at his head, torn between wanting to lose myself to his savor or the small reprieve that having to undress him will give me before he takes me.

There’s a deep growl of need from his chest as he rises and pulls his shirt over the back of his head throwing it to the side of the bed. He slides off the bottom of the mattress, never deviating from my gaze that burns to see him naked, to see his ready cock for me. It will be the first time we make love as adults and it will be the closure on all that is past. I need this in so many ways, as does he.

My body is open for him, my dress splayed out on either side, only my arms hold it to me. My bra hides little, and thanks to the saturation of my panties, they hide nothing. I sit up and allow the dress to fall from my shoulders and withdraw my hands. I then unlatch my bra and free my breast for him to see and take. The only thing remaining is the panties, but I want him to do that.

Nate has dropped both his pants and trunks, standing at the foot of my bed, deliciously naked and eagerly firm. He has changed in so many ways, and all of them, I respect and can’t wait to appreciate.

He crawls up the bed, between my awaiting legs and takes each side of the thin material. I think he’s going to tear them, but he does worse. Meticulously slow, inch by excruciating inch, he pulls them from my body. His tongue leaves a trail in their wake until they are pulled from my feet, and I’m naked to him. My body and all that I am, are ready for Nate to fill me and please me like a man should, and Nate never disappoints me.
Never
.

He hovers above me, his cock resting against my welcoming sex. He wants to be slow, he wants to take care, I can see it in his eyes and each second of his restraint; Nate is scared for me. He isn’t scared of hurting me; he’s scared I need more time to think about it…to choose.

I don’t need more time. I choose him; I will always choose him.

Taking his thickness in my palm, he lets out a small gasp, and I raise my hips just enough for the head to penetrate; he’s lost in me from that moment on. He lowered himself in one fine thrust, sliding effortlessly, making me breathe so deeply, my mouth forms that illustrative O. Nate is buried so deep in me, I can feel the pressure deep inside and my sex closes around him.

Deep and passionately strong, Nate fills me over and over, the rhythm intense and tighter until I fight against all that screams for me to let go.

“
Nate
.”

He brings me up from the mattress, straddling him as he kneels, filling me deeper. I rock against him; his breath in my ear, one hand splayed on my back, the other pulling at my hair so he can get to my neck. I rock and pant until little squeals involuntarily escape my lips. Within seconds my body leaves my mind behind as it clenches around him, and I scream.

The primitive growl that vibrates from his very chest only makes me come harder as he follows suit, pulsing within me and filling me with his seed.

Swathed in sweat, our bodies grip one another as we come down from the high. He kisses just under my ear and then my mouth. I love his kisses: the desperate ones, the swift ones, and the playful ones. But those kisses, the soft, lush ones, they show me his love more than his words ever could.

“Mine,” he whispers against my lips.

Except for that one word―it bears everything.