Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (41 page)

I ran my
fingers down his back as he caressed me, careful not to dig too deep and put my
nails into him, until at last he did go up far enough to slip his hand
underneath the edge of my panties. He sighed as he felt my wetness, and I
tensed up every muscle in my body as I felt his fingers caressing me there. It
was a surreal feeling almost, and I lost myself in it. The sounds coming from
low in my throat didn’t even sound like my own voice as I moved my hips on the
bed under his touch. I reached over then, and I touched him through his boxer
shorts. I had never felt a man before; it was surreal, but it felt so right and
it drove me to want more. I was shocked by my own boldness as I slipped my hand
down across his hard abdomen and into the top of his shorts. I felt his body
jump almost convulsively and I thought I had done something wrong, but when I
started to take my hand away he led it back to where it had been. We lay there
like that for a while, just touching and discovering each other. Then in one
swift move, Brock lost his shorts, and removed my panties, the last two
barriers between us. He lifted himself up on his strong arms and I traced the
outline of the tattoos on them as I looked into his pretty eyes. He asked me
one more time before slipping on the condom that had suddenly appeared in his
hand, “Molly, are you sure?” I nodded. I was sure, a thousand times so. He was
so gentle as he worked himself into me. I hadn’t told him I was a virgin, but
I’m sure it wasn’t hard to figure out. I had heard so much about the pain that
at that second I was nervous, but then I felt him nudge through to where he
needed to be and we were suddenly both plunging head first off of the edge of
the virtual cliff we had been dangling from. As we moved our hips together, he
kept whispering my name. It gave me chills to hear him say it, breathless and intense.
My head was swimming, but that was fine because my body had completely taken
over. It was like it knew exactly what to do and it led me to a point of climax
that took whatever rational thought was left in my head away. His entire body
tensed and convulsed then, and he shuddered and collapsed on top of me. I could
feel him trying to catch his breath, and his heart as it pounded against his
chest…or was that mine? He tried to move, thinking he was crushing me, but I
clutched onto him, wanting to keep him right there with nothing between our
hearts but skin that glistened with the sweat of our lovemaking.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

BROCK

My whole left side was numb. It was like
right after my first surgery on my head, I couldn’t move my left arm, and my
left leg was completely uncooperative as well. Except that time I had a brain
tumor and this time I have the most beautiful girl in the world laying on me,
naked. This time wasn’t like that one at all. I just wanted to mention the part
about the most beautiful girl in the world being naked in my bed.

“Good morning,” she said with a sleepy
smile.

“Good morning beautiful,” I said, kissing
her on top of the head. Even first thing in the morning she was gorgeous. She
looked happy and peaceful. I was glad. I had been afraid that she would be
having regrets after last night. I ran my fingers up and down her arm. Her skin
was so soft. She was lying against me and I took my hand and started running it
down her back. When I got to the lower right side, I could feel a tiny little
scar. I wasn’t thinking, just running my fingers across the texture of it and
she said, “That’s where they took my kidney out.” I didn’t say anything; I just
kept rubbing her back. I had seen the scar on her chest last night from her
Meta-port. I knew that’s what it was, because I had the same one. Mine had
refused to work how it was supposed to though, and after a while they had just
taken it out and started using PICC lines or IV’s to give me my chemo. It
ruined my veins and scarred up my arms. As far as surgical scars go though, I
was lucky…once my hair grew back.

“Hey Molly,” I said. “Can I ask you a
personal question?”

She propped herself up on her elbow and
looked at my face. Smiling she said, “Since I’m naked in your bed, I certainly
hope so.”

“Have your doctors ever thought about
putting you on the transplant list?”

Her face changed…just slightly, and I was
afraid I had upset her. Then she said, “They haven’t talked about it yet. As
long as one kidney is functioning, I’m not really eligible anyways.”

“Is the other one okay?” I asked her.

“So far,” she said. She looked away from
my eyes and down at the pillow on the bed when she said it. I suspected there
was more to it, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Then she said,
“Actually, the one I have left is acting up a little, but we’re taking care of
it.” I hugged her tight and said, “Good. I’d like you to be around for a
while…a long while.” She smiled then and said, “What about yours? Are you doing
okay?”

“Yeah, not bad,” I told her. “It goes away
and comes back. Right now, it seems to be shrinking some, so not bad.”

“Good,” she said, making my stomach
flutter with her next words. “I’d like for you to be around for a long while
too.”

I hugged her again, God she felt good. “Do
you have class today?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, “But not until noon. I
have Physics lab this afternoon. That’s the only class I have, but it’s three
hours long, ugh!”

I smiled. “You can go to my Music History
class and I’ll go to Physics lab for you,” I told her.

“Really?” she said.

“Yeah,” I told her. “I think I really
would. It would do you absolutely no good though. I blew up every beaker I
touched in high school. My science teacher was not amused.”

Molly laughed, “I was the nerd that
everyone wanted to partner up with. Then they’d sit back and let me do all of
the projects.”

“That’s terrible,” I told her.

“That I was a nerd?” she asked.

“No, that you didn’t go to my high school
so I had someone to do my projects for me.”

She laughed and said, “So what was Jake
like in high school?”

“Exactly like he is now,” I told her.
“Jake is good at every sport he ever tried out for, just naturally, and for
whatever reason the girls all loved him too. He does nothing for me. Anyways,
somehow he never let any of that go to his head though. He was just always
Jake, and he was the only one who never treated me different after I got sick.”

“Megan was like that for me. She would
come to the hospital every day and tell me what was going on at school and who
was dating who and who hated who and who was wearing what. She made me laugh
and forget about everything that I was going through for a little while. She
loved me, but she didn’t feel sorry for me. She just always stayed close until
I was better, and then once I was we went on with life as we had always known
it.”

I laughed softly.

“What?” she said.

“I was just thinking how weird it was that
it seemed like we were living parallel lives all of those years before we even
knew each other.” She thought about that for a minute and said, “Maybe it was
all leading us to here.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE

MOLLY

While Brock and I lay talking in bed, I
could hear Jake moving around in the apartment.

“Does he have class today?”

Brock looked at the clock, it was seven
forty-five. “He must,” he said, “or he would never be up this early.”

“Can I stay in here until he leaves?”

I knew he would know, because since I
didn’t go home last night, Megan will know. What Megan knows, Jake knows…for
the most part.

Brock kissed me. I hated thinking about all
of the kisses I’ve missed by holding out for so long. I loved his lips, and the
rest of the body they were attached to. He was so kind and gentle, but at the
same time he was all man. I shuddered, just thinking about last night.

“You can stay forever,” he said. Then he
quickly changed the subject, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “I’ll
go make breakfast and see if I can hurry him up. I’ll let you know when it’s
all clear.”

I kissed him back. I really liked this
whole kissing thing and I hoped I wasn’t developing a dependency on it. What if
I suddenly became like Megan and I couldn’t go five minutes without one?

“Thank you,” I told him, truly grateful
that he was such a sweet guy.

Brock slipped on a pair of sweatpants and
a T-shirt and then he took a long-sleeved shirt out of his closet and said, “If
you don’t want to get all dressed up in your pretty skirt and blouse for
breakfast, you can wear this.”

“Thanks,” I said. After he had gone, I
rolled on my back and stretched. I couldn’t stop smiling. I rolled over onto
his pillow and breathed in his scent. I suddenly wanted to kiss him again.

I finally forced myself to get up a little
bit later. I put on the shirt he left for me. It was long, stopping just below
my knees and definitely more comfortable than putting my skirt and blouse back
on would have been. I heard Jake call out, “See you later,” and then Brock
said, a little too loudly, “Okay, Buddy! Have a good day.” That’s okay though,
Jake probably wouldn’t get it anyways. I poked my head out the door and said,
“Is the coast clear?”

“All clear,” he said. He was standing at
the island in the kitchen slicing something or other. I came out of the bedroom
and went into the bathroom. I had to at least finger-brush my teeth. I wanted
to be prepared in case the opportunity arose again for a kiss.

Once I was looking vaguely human, I went
out to the kitchen. Brock was still chopping and he looked up at me as I came
down the hall and grinned.

“Mm, that shirt sure does look a lot
better on you than it does on me,” he said. I felt my face flush and mumbled
some kind of thank you. It was silly, I told myself. A girl who just woke up
naked next to this guy shouldn’t be acting shy about wearing his shirt.

“It smells good in here,” I said, deftly
changing the subject. “What are you cooking?”

“I made egg-white omelets with mushrooms
and bell peppers and fat-free cheese,” he said.

“Wow, maybe you should be a chef instead
of a musician,” I said, taking a seat at the counter.

“Quick, which would you rather, me sing to
you or cook for you?”

“Sing,” I answered without hesitation.

He grinned, “I was hoping that would be
the answer. I like to cook, but I live to sing.” To prove it, he started
singing. I don’t even know the name of the song, or who the artist was, but it
was once again, beautiful. As he sang he worked and when he went to the
refrigerator to get something out he grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to
me.

I smiled. “Thank you. You don’t have to
take care of me, you know.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve seen you do a mighty
fine job on your own. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little help though, isn’t
it?”

“Yes,” I told him as I opened the water
and took a healthy drink of it. I think I needed it. I had barely been able to
pee this morning. Dr. Harris was not going to be happy with my output unless it
got better than this.

Brock put our omelets on a plate and added
a side of toast. He sat one plate in front of me, and the other in front of the
other barstool. “You want some juice?” he asked me.

“Is it green?” I asked. I wasn’t heartily
against green juice, but I wasn’t what you could call a fan of it either.

“No, it’s peach mango,” he said with a
grin.

“Then yes please,” I told him.

He sat down and when he did, he just
reached out and lightly touched my hair. It was barely even a touch, more like
a breeze from the motion of his hand, but it gave me goosebumps nonetheless. It
was the intimacy of it. The fact that we had made love last night had forged an
already forming bond even deeper. I liked it. While we ate, I asked him about
his family.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I
asked him.

“I have a half-brother,” he said. “He’s a
great kid, but I don’t get to see him that often. He lives in London with our
mother.”

“How old is he?” I asked him.

He’s ten. He plays rugby already, and from
what I’ve seen in the videos my mom sends me, he’s pretty good.” I could see by
the way Brock’s eyes lit up that he was proud of his little brother.

“What about you? No siblings to torment
you?” he asked.

“None that I know of,” I said. “With my
mother unfortunately, who knows? She may have five more out there somewhere
that someone else is raising. I don’t know who my father is, so he could have a
hundred that I’ll probably never meet.”

I hoped after I said it, that I didn’t
sound too bitter. I really wasn’t…most of the time. My mother had left me in a
better place than she had ever lived in as an adult, so for that I suppose, I
am grateful.

We talked for another half hour or so and
then I helped him clean the kitchen. It was after nine now, and his first class
was at ten. I went to put my skirt back on, thinking I would just throw my coat
on over and walk home. When I came back out, Brock said, “It’s freezing out
there. You’re not walking.”