Waiting for You (17 page)

“Hey,
where are you going?” he asked watching me.

I
leaned back so that my ass rested on his thighs. My fingers moved to the
waistband of his jeans. “Is this okay?”

Dylan’s
eyes were dark but he didn’t respond. I could hear the rain outside the hotel
room growing more intense as I unbuttoned his jeans. He raised his hips off the
bed, assisting me as I pulled them and his boxers down and off his legs. They
fell to the floor at the foot of my bed and all I could hear was the sound of
his breath and mine and the thud of my heart that was surely expanded in my
chest after he had made me feel so good, made me want him even more than I ever
thought possible.

Watching
me, still, his arms propping him up on his elbows I glanced at him one more
time before I touched him there, for the first time, with my hand.

Relaxing
against the bed, Dylan sighed when my hand stroked him once. Nothing was said,
he needed relief and I knew that only I had no idea how to do it. “Is this what
I do?” I asked with my head buried against his chest and shoulder not watching
his reaction in fear.

Dylan
moaned slightly lifting his hips to meet my strokes. “So good,
fuck
, I
needed this so bad.” His hand that was around my shoulder held me close, the
other one stayed resting on the bed at his side, gripping the sheets.

When I
finally looked, I watched the movement of my hand on him and the way his body
was flexing and contracting, wanting and needing. It felt good to be giving him
the same pleasure he gave me, reciprocating those amazing sensations I had just
felt. More than anything, it felt good that he wasn’t pushing me away and that
finally, we were doing something we wanted and not stopping just because he
thought we needed to.

The
noises he made mirrored the ones that I made not long ago and I knew I was
doing something right. The corners of my lips pull upward with that knowledge.
I had absolutely no experience in this but you’d be amazed what you can find on
YouTube.

His
hands stayed gripped on the sheets next to him, but he said my name repeatedly
and it felt like he was touching me all over. I loved that I was making him
feel this way.

It
wasn’t long after I started that his body tensed. He said nothing but I felt
his body become rigid, his breath gasping and then all of a sudden his hips
jerked a few times and then I felt a warm sensation on my hands.

Dylan
laughed shaking his head; my eyes were wide judging his reaction and hoping I
did that right. “You didn’t have to do that.” His hand that was on the bed ran
down the front of his face before resting on his stomach. “I’m glad you did
though, I was going crazy.”

Dylan
got in the shower after that and I joined him which was slightly weird but we
made it quick because he said if he wasn’t careful I’d be pressed against the
shower wall with my legs around waist.

I
didn’t argue.

Afterward
we stayed in bed, wrapped and tangled, and mostly quiet, as the room got darker
and darker and the rain settled into a steady patter. The silence was welcomed.

Shortly
before we decided to sleep,
I was so thirsty I decided to sneak to the vending
machines down the hall but couldn’t find my shirt so I reached for Dylan’s
flannel beside the bed. It was too big but I loved the way it made me feel when
it draped over my shoulders.

“You look good
wearing that.” His hand shot out from the blanket and rubbed my leg below the
edge of the flannel.

I giggled squirming
as it tickled. “I look like a lumberjack’s wife.”

Dylan chuckled, the
sound deep and groggy before he rolled back over and pulled the blanket back
over his head.

I don’t
know how many different ways it was possible to want and need someone, but
however many there are, I wanted and needed Dylan in all of them. At the
vending machine, I got two bottles of water and a Pepsi along with a Hershey’s
candy bar I knew Dylan had a slight obsession.

When I
got back to the room, Dylan was still on the bed, the blanket draped over his
lower half, his chest revealed. My eyes found his tattoos, examining their
beauty.

When I
sat back on the bed, I handed him a bottle of water and his candy bar. He
smiled a crooked alluring smile and reached for both. Settling the bottle on
the bed and the candy bar in his lap, his hand rose to touch my cheek,
thoughtful, deciding, and speaking words he wanted to know. “Why did you come
with me?”

Ah yes,
the magic question. The question I’d wanted to ask him since we left four days
ago.

Why?
Why did you ask me, why did I come, what are we doing, what are you doing?

All
questions I had.

“Because
you asked,” I said leaning into his palm. Dylan smiled and pulled me forward to
lay
on his chest. The sound of his steady beating
heart relaxed me enough to say, “Why did you ask?”

For a
moment, a brief deciding moment of decisions and regrets, he thought.

“Sometimes
it’s easy to imagine your life can be different. That it could be…” he paused,
voice-softening type of pause where the moment changes, light to dark, lies to
truth, bared truth. “I wanted you to see there was more to life than what you
had.”

The more
Dylan talked, the more I listened to his words and the underlying meaning of
them. Dylan wasn’t running from anything when he left. It was me, I was the one
running.

The following morning, Dylan had been
talking on his phone on the balcony when I woke up, the sheets tangled around
me as I wore nothing but my underwear and Dylan’s flannel. I noticed he only
had his shorts on, no shirt, and his underwear was peeking from the waistband.
Why I found it sexy, seeing his underwear was weird, but I did.

I watched him closely,
wondering what he was thinking out there and if he regretted anything, we did
last night. I doubted he did. Last night had been my first sexual experience.
Although we didn’t have sex, it was the closest I had ever been, aside from making
out with Eric. So many thought ran through my head, none in focus, drifting
thoughts and memories of his touch.

When Dylan came inside
scratching his bare stomach with casualness, he smiled a beaming smile I hadn’t
seen in a while, boyish even. “That was my uncle Eddy,” he said holding his
phone up. “He’s in Wichita tomorrow night, not far from here.”

“That’s cool. Are we
going to meet up with him?”

“If you want to,” Dylan
took a seat on the bed beside me rubbing my leg over the blanket. “He’s doing a
show there at some bar. He said he could get us in.”

I nodded thinking a
little about last night and a little about what this summer would bring for us.
We hadn’t had sex but I felt closer to Dylan after last night, like we’d shared
something special between the two of us.

He laid there for a
minute rubbing his stomach before he sat up.

“Come on, we need some
exercise.”

“Exercise?”
I flipped his words over in my head wondering what kind of exercise he had in
mind.

“We’ve been in a car
all day for the last week, we need exercise,” he said tossing my shoes toward
me and putting on his own. When he stood, he ran his hand down his stomach that
screamed fitness. “You didn’t think I got this body by accident, did you?”

Dressed in a pair of
his shorts and no shirt, he headed for the door.

“Like
right now
you
want to run?”

“Yes, like right now.”

I decided to wear my
jean shorts, which I was positive I would regret, and my sports bra, which I
was positive Dylan would regret.

I was never much of a
runner, it just didn’t appeal to me. Now that Dylan was beside me, suddenly
running had some appeal.

We did a few stretches
in the parking lot and then walked for about a half mile when Dylan gave me a
nod to run, so I did.

As we fell into a comfortable
jog, my lungs told me they were very upset with my new hobby and my legs
threatened me every other step with giving way to my ass and those donuts.

At some point, my
breathing went from gasping from full on choking. I was glad that I was so dry-mouthed
from dehydration or I would have choked on my own spit at the way I was motor
boating.

When we slowed to a
comfortable walk around two miles later, I thanked the heavens above because I
was moments away from passing out and we were finally back in front of the
hotel.

“I’m impressed,” Dylan
said keeping his eyes on me, he tipped his head back. Before taking a drink, he
pulled the bottle back. “You’ve got endurance.”

The last part came out
seductive, as it was meant to be, judging by the wink.

I had no reply. But I
couldn’t breathe so how could I have replied?

Sitting down in the
grass, Dylan noticed that I wasn’t exactly doing so hot with all my panting and
side grabbing.

“Come on,” he motioned
with his hand for me to sit down in the grass beside him, “stretch out those
freakishly long legs.”

When I could talk
again, and in between stretches, I asked. “Did you run a lot in high school?”

“Yeah,” he gave a
thoughtful shrug, “sometimes it’s nice to just shut your mind off.”

That I could relate to.
It’s why I enjoyed photography so much. Dylan, knowing me, brought that up.
“Kind of like you and your photography.”

I smiled that Dylan
took notice that I found something relaxing about photography. Since we’d left
home, I had to buy a new memory card with the amount of pictures I had taken
and Dylan didn’t miss the fact that I enjoyed it.

As we sat there
stretching, my eyes scrolled over his tattoos again.

“Why did you get a
tattoo of a dragon?” I asked focusing on the dragon on his shoulder and back.

“Landon told me it
means power and wisdom.” Dylan rolled his eyes stretching out his arms, his
left one crossed over his chest. “I think he’s full of shit but mostly because
my mom liked dragons.
Thought it’d be a nice gesture.”

“It is.”
Then blurted out, “why did you get a humming bird on your wrist?”

Dylan’s eyebrows
pinched together and then he looked at the inside of his wrist. “It was for
you.”

“Why though?”

He shrugged, “because I
wanted to.”

Standing, he held out
his hand to me, which I took. “Come on, let’s eat and then head to Wichita.”
His arm slung around my shoulders.

There’s something about a road trip
that’s relaxing to me. The silence, the unknown, the sunsets, the perfectly
planned songs with the hidden meanings, but that wasn’t every road trip.

That’s what a road trip
with Dylan Wade was like.

We were somewhere along
Interstate 35 when a girl walking on the side of the highway caught my
attention.

“She looks like she
might need a ride,” I said looking out the window when the traffic slowed for
what appeared to be a wreck ahead.

“You don’t pick up
hitchhikers,” Dylan said adjusting his rearview mirror to look back at her too.
 “That’s a dumb idea.” Since traffic had slowed, he used that time to take
a drink of his water that was lying next to him.

“You’ve had worse.” I
felt the need to add taking a drink of my own water and opening the chips I had
got at the gas station in Perry.

Dylan knew damn well I
was referring to the lot lizards. He glared swerving to the side of the road.
“Point taken.”

“Hey!” she chirped
bouncing into the backseat of the GTO. Dylan looked over at me as he slouched
to the side looking annoyed. “I’m Teri.”

“Nice to meet you,” I
said shaking her energetic hand. Energetic was putting it lightly. She was a
trip.

In the thirty minutes
we were in stop and go traffic, I learned more about Teri than I cared to and
felt more confident in myself in that thirty minutes.

The girl had so much
fucking energy it was exhausting to listen to her talk.

“She’s fucking bent,” Dylan
said when the girl had her head stuck out the window. She claimed that it made
her feel like she was flying.

“How do know?” I asked
trying to keep myself from punching the girl in the stomach as she leaned over
me to hang out the window. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with my face pressed to
the dash.

“Uh, maybe because her
fucking eyes are black and she’s a blonde?”

“Oh.”

Dylan laughed
sarcastically, “
Oh
she says.”

“Hey,” I pushed back
against the seat with a brackish laugh. “I was trying to be nice.”

“We
gotta
ditch this girl,” he said noticing my irritation with her.

She was completely
fucking crazy but I tried to play it off for entertainment value. My glare
toward her must have given it away. “She’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? She
asked me if she could suck my dick.” He gave his own brackish laugh watching
the girl hang out the right side of the car. “I can’t believe you’re okay with
that.”

“I like watching you
squirm.”

“Don’t fuck with me
brown eyes,” Dylan’s eyes drifted from the girl to me arching his eyebrow, “or
I’ll ditch both your asses.”

“I wonder how many
times you’re going to get offered to get your dick
sucked?
”

Dylan glanced at me as
if he didn’t quite hear me and then it made sense. “
You
offering
too?”

“Maybe.”