Stay With Me (26 page)

“A ten,” I lie.

“Really,” he murmurs. “Because I think there’s a run . . .”

I glance down at them, ignoring the slight run. “I don’t see anything.”

His finger grazes along a snag. “Right here.”

“Salvageable,” I say. “But perhaps a . . . six point five now.”

“The run is deepening,” he says, his fingers stretching the fabric, widening the gap, and the snag starts to streak down my leg. “Maybe a five now?”

“A four. The other leg”—I lift the skirt of my dress higher so that it covers my underwear but leaves my upper thighs bare—“has no snags.”

“But a one-legged stocking isn’t good.”

“Unless you’re a one-legged pirate. But maybe,” my breath catches as he makes a small tear in the other leg, “it’s a two now.”

“A two,” he says. “How about we make it a zero?”

And then Caleb rips my stockings, leaving gaps in the fabric that he pulls apart, tearing upward to the heat of me.

“Small problem,” I say. “I’m still covered.
Here.
”

“Scoot closer to the edge.”

I do so.

“Lift.”

I raise my butt off the counter, and he reaches under my skirts, his hands finding the waistband of my stockings.

“You probably could’ve done this from the start,” I say. “And not torn my stockings.”

“Probably,” he admits. “But why do things . . . easy?”

“Or something that makes sense,” I add dryly, as he starts to lower the stockings and my underwear down my legs.

“You’re making too much sense,” he says. “Time to sex you up so you’re not thinking so clearly.”

He tosses the stockings and underwear behind him. My bared butt falls back to the counter, landing on the fabric of my dress.

Caleb puts some more frosting on his finger, but he doesn’t go to my mouth. He steps between my legs, kissing me, and his hand goes to the center of me. He coats me with frosting, smearing my lips down there with butter-cream.

I’m sticky. I’m wet. And, oh God, I am burning up for him.

Caleb lowers his head, lifting my skirt, his breath warm on me. “Let me eat cake.”

He licks me. Right
there
. His tongue sweeping along my lips, lapping up the frosting, sucking me into his mouth. I slam my hands down on the counter, my eyes squeezing shut.
Holy Mother of God.

“Caleb,” I moan. “I . . .”

Good. So good.

He keeps going down on me, pressing his thumb against my clit. My hips buck upward, straining toward him.

My muscles tighten, my pussy is slick against him, and he’s making these low noises against me, like he can’t get enough of me. Like he could spend
all
night there.

I’d die.

Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m about to die from all this pent up pleasure.

But I’m so close, his teeth graze along my clit, and I jump, the want streaking through me like a blaze of fire.

If he presses against me one more time, I’ll come.

But he steps away.

“Caleb!” I yell.

In answer, he lifts me off the counter and to the ground. My legs are slightly shaky, but his arms are tight around me.

“Where’s the damn zipper?” he growls into my ear, his fingers searching at the back.

“The side,” I say. “It zips up on the right side.”

He goes there, unzipping it.

“I have to lift it over my head to take it off,” I say.

“Do it.”

I take the hem of my dress and lift it up my body. I have it near my head, covering my face, when Caleb reaches behind me, then smears frosting on my nipples.

He takes a nipple deep into his mouth, and I tear the dress off of me.

“Not fair,” I say.

“Don’t play fair.” He squeezes my breasts together, the tips slightly smeared with frosting, and rosy with desire. “Not going to start now.”

He leans down, my breasts still against one another, and takes both nipples into his mouth at the same time.

Oh. My. God.

I arch up on my toes, and grasp his shoulders, my fingers digging crescent marks into his skin. He keeps on sucking me, and I’m about to fall to the ground, about to come . . . and he steps away.

I pant, my body shuddering in denied pleasure. I step to him, my hands going to his pants, unbuttoning him. I flatten my palm against him through his boxer briefs.

“Do that one more time,” I say, slipping my hand to touch his naked cock. “And I will kill you.”

Caleb wraps his hand around mine, removing my grasp from him. “Bedroom. Now.”

He walks me backward to my room, removing pieces of his clothing along the way.

We don’t kiss. We don’t touch. Because if we did, we’d fuck right then and there.

I fall back onto my bed and reach over to the nightstand to grab a condom. I kneel up when Caleb dips onto my mattress.

I take his long, hard cock between my hands, squeezing lightly. A drop of pre-cum appears at the tip, and I smear it over the length of him, jerking once, then twice.

“Hailey,” he says.

“I don’t play fair either,” I say, slipping the condom slowly over him, and give him another squeeze.

Caleb presses me flat to the mattress, kissing me as he thrusts into me. “Good,” he says. “As long as we understand each other.”

“Yes,” I say, raising my hips, meeting his thrusts, my hands rubbing his shoulders. “Fuck me. Now.”

His pace slows, his cock rubbing against me. “Hailey. I’m not fucking you.”

His kiss is soft, tender. His cock strokes into me, filling me deep.

“I’m loving you,” he says.

His eyes lock onto mine. I can’t look away.

He thrusts into me, his head ducking to suck a nipple into his mouth. I scrape my fingernails on his back, then reach down and hold onto his firm butt. I squeeze.

“Love me,” I say. “Love me.”

“I do.” He thrusts deep, and I moan around him, my nerves bundling tight. “So much.”

And then he places his hand between us, rubbing my clit, and I scream my release.

He comes soon after, gathering me close.

I hold onto his hands and look out into the snowy night.

He loves me.

He really loves me.

And maybe . . . just maybe . . . I’m starting to love him, too. I don’t say anything though. I don’t want to mess this up with Caleb. I don’t want to do anything until I know for sure.

How am I supposed to know for sure, though?

Is there a cosmic shift in the universe? Do the heavens open up and cast a heavenly glow upon me? Does my whole being feel all warm and fuzzy, with electricity coursing through my body? How does
he
even know for certain? We’re young. People way older than us who fall in love don’t last.

What if we didn’t end up working out? It would hurt so much—rip me in two—to not be with him. Does that mean I
love
him?

And doesn’t Caleb deserve the best of me? Doesn’t he deserve to be loved completely, wholly, without all the musings and worrying about what love is.

I just . . .

Each day, each hour, each minute, every second, I fall deeper and deeper in with Caleb. I can’t imagine my life without him. I don’t even want to.

But is that love?

Is it?

I just . . . I just want to say the words to him—when I say them, if I say them—and not have him be unsure about me. Or me be unsure about myself. I want to be careful. I don’t want to hurt him, and I certainly don’t want to get hurt, either.

I just want to be sure.

Of everything.

But one thing is for certain: Best birthday sex ever.

Chapter 32

L
ATER, MUCH LATER, I WAKE
up in the early morning when the sky is still covered in stars. It’s long since stopped snowing, and a fresh blanket of white covers the parking lot and streets. Caleb sleeps beside me, on his stomach, his head pressed sideways against a pillow. I reach out to brush his hair off his forehead but stop myself, not wanting to wake him.

Instead, I get up and pull a bathrobe on, crossing to the window. The windowpane is cold against my palm, my breath fogging it. I’m tempted to write his name in the fog, but I don’t.

It’s so beautiful out. And I’m relaxed, even though I am still a little worried.

What if Caleb decides he doesn’t want to wait for me to say the words he’s said to me time and time again? What is so hard about saying those three little words? Worse . . . what if he leaves me, like everyone else?

I shake my head, irritated at myself. Stop thinking like that. He’s told me how he feels. I’m the one who’s holding back . . .
because I’m afraid
.

Because it’s still hard for me to really trust.

Excuses. So many excuses.

“Have you decided?” he asks, jolting me from my thoughts.

I spin around in surprise. “You’re up.”

“Barely,” he says, glancing over the clock. “It’s four in the morning, Hailey.”

“I know.”

Caleb pulls back the comforter, patting the mattress next to him. “Come back to bed.”

I take off my robe and slide under the sheets, facing him. “Why did you ask if I decided?”

“Isn’t today the day?” he asks. “When you have to tell your professor if you’re going to do the art showcase or not.”

I’d somehow forgotten all about that—or, more likely, I just kept putting it off because I was unsure. “I haven’t,” I confess in a shaky whisper. “I’m not sure what to do.”

“Well, you know how I feel about it.” Caleb yawns. “But it’s up to you. Your call. Your decision.”

“I know,” I say. “But I’m . . . I’m scared.”

“You?”

“Yeah. Me.”

“You left everything you knew behind you, Hailey, to do something you dreamed about doing. It cost you a career, your friends, and your mother.”

“That was easy,” I say. “I wanted to leave. I wanted to go to college to find myself. To find . . .
me
.”

“I think you have, Hailey.” Caleb reaches out, holding my face in his grasp. “You just have to realize that. You’re the bravest person I know. Be a little more brave.”

“For you?”

“No,” Caleb says. “Not for me. For
you
.”

I
STILL HAVEN’T DECIDED WHAT
I’m going to do when I enter art class later that morning.

Professor Rodrigo doesn’t look over at me as I take my usual spot behind the easel. Kate is already sitting and taking out her art supplies, laying them in front of her.

Today we’re doing work with negative space, and we’re instructed to select an object to work with. Kate chooses a vase with a single rose, and I get up to walk around the room before choosing a seashell. Other students have moved their easels around, away from one another, to draw their objects. I decide to bring mine closer to the window area and set my seashell against the windowpane.

The shell is standard—half an oyster shell, grayish blue in color. Thin, faint ridges of white streak across the shell, and I turn it around to expose the inside of it. Pearly white, translucent, and the harsh white from outside filters in, making the dark outer shell show lightly through.

But it’s only half of a shell.

I wonder what happened to the other half. If it was washed away by the tide. Where it was found. And what happened to the oyster that once lived inside—did it get eaten by another sea creature, or become a pearl when a grain of sand was trapped within?

There are so many stories untold—so many possibilities.

I shake my head.

It’s
just
a shell.

I take a pencil to sketch the negative space around the shell. A branch taps against the window, its edge pointy, uneven, and at the spot where the branch meets the tree, there’s a nest, abandoned by birds for the winter.

Birds return home to their natural habitat . . .

I pause, pencil in hand.

Is that what I’m really worried about? That I’ll return to Hollywood? To my “natural habitat” if I pursue any sort of creative endeavor?

Is that why I’m holding myself back?

Because I’m scared? I’m scared of becoming what I was once again. I don’t want that for myself. Not at all.

Caleb says I’m brave. But do I believe that?

A part of me does.

It was scary to leave something I knew to come here. It was hard to believe the worst about my mother. It was nerve-wracking to do all of this—school, classes—when I’ve never done it before.

And maybe . . .

I can be a little braver after all.

Maybe it’s time I do things
even
when I’m scared and don’t back away . . . I don’t need to hold myself back because I’m unsure of what tomorrow will bring . . . what the future holds in store.

Maybe it’s time to be
me
and embrace the fact that I don’t know what will come. I think back to my conversation that seems like it was years ago with Daphne. How we both said we would seize the future, no matter what.

But I haven’t been seizing the day. I’ve been taking baby steps. And it’s time I fly. Starting now. For real, starting now.

When class ends, I approach Professor Rodrigo to hand him my drawing.

“About that art showcase,” I say.

Professor Rodrigo looks up, his gaze studying me. “Yes?”

No time like the present to seize the day.

“I’m in.”

Professor Rodrigo smiles wide. “Hailey, I’m so glad. I was hoping you would—that you would see what I saw about your talent.”

“I didn’t see it for a while, but I do now,” I say. “I know I have a lot of hard work in front of me, but I want to do this.”

“Good,” he says. “I’ll add your name to the list and email you details later on.”

“Thanks,” I say, heading toward the door. “And thanks for . . . believing in me when I didn’t.”

“Well, don’t thank me yet.” Professor Rodrigo’s dark eyes twinkle with amusement. “The showcase is next week, and I assume you haven’t painted anything new yet.”

“I haven’t.” I will totally be working overtime to create something showcase-worthy and also prepare for a final exam in Environmental Science and turn in two final papers for Philosophy and English. “But I’ll do something that’s me. Just me.”

“That’s all I ask,” he says. “Just be you.”

And somehow the thought of
just being me
isn’t as scary as it used to be.