Gold

by E. J. Noyes

  “Understandable, especially with the level of your injuries.” Cate paused, her mouth forming an O. Then the sound came out in a whispered, “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. The shame that always accompanied recalling my addiction burned up my spine like wildfire. “I’m a drug addict. In recovery,” I said softly. Those words were so loathsome that I felt like choking whenever I uttered them. But I had to say it aloud, had to let the words out into the world or they would poison me.

  Her expression changed like flicking through channels on a television screen. Concern. Dismay. Curiosity. Eventually she uttered one word. “Okay.”

  I hastily amended, “I wasn’t snorting it or injecting. Just taking pills. Prescription meds.” Like that made it any better. I’d also never taken anything I hadn’t obtained without a script, a fact I was strangely proud of at the time. I wasn’t really addicted because a doctor said I could have the drugs.

  “Will you tell me about it?” She sank down onto the end of the bed, not touching me, her hands resting in her lap.

  I finally managed to goad my mouth into producing some saliva so I could swallow, and in a surprisingly even voice, I told her about the most hateful part of my life. She listened, her expression calm but each time she asked a question there was an underlying tremor in her voice. Everything I laid out for her was the truth, presented as bare, emotionless facts because that was all I could do.

  How could I really explain that the months following Vancouver were one of the lowest, most badly behaved periods of my life? How could I make Cate understand that even thinking about what I’d said and done to the people who were trying to help made me nauseated? There were no words to paint a picture of the yelling, and crying and baseless insults hurled at my family.

  Nor how I’d felt when as soon as I was cleared to use crutches and start my physical therapy, my ex called Hayley to come and help because my dad had never been any good when we were sick. Two months pregnant with my niece, and suffering acute morning sickness, my sister came without hesitation. Then my ex packed her stuff and left. It took her all of ten weeks of my incapacitation to bail on six years of a life together. So charming.

  After my long, rambling and borderline-tearful explanation, Cate asked quietly, “What changed? How did you get clean?”

  The heat in my spine crept down my arms and I felt I might actually choke if I had to tell her that. Cate’s hand came to my back, stroking gently up and down my tense back muscles as images flickered through my head. Me yelling, crying and begging my dad or sister to drive me out of town to see different doctors for scripts. My family crying with me. Then when it came to the point where nobody would drive me, I’d crutch my way to the car and drive myself, while still half off my head on drugs. The horror of my behavior was seared indelibly on my brain and nothing would ever scrub it clean.

  She was still waiting for an answer and I had to give her something. Anything. But the only thing that would do was the truth. After a deep but unsatisfying breath, I managed to push it out. “My sister hid the car keys so I couldn’t drive to another doctor. We had a massive argument, she was crying and I was just…screaming at her, and I was getting so angry that I almost shoved her. I almost shoved my pregnant sister, Cate.” The tears fell so quickly I couldn’t stop them.

  Cate sounded horrified when she said, “Oh, Aspen…” But when she brushed her hand over my back, it was soft and soothing.

  “I could have knocked her over and killed my tiny niece growing inside her. What kind of person does that?” I rubbed at my face with both hands. “It kind of snapped something inside me. I knew I needed help. My manager and family arranged for me to check into a private clinic and that was that.” One of the hardest things for me to handle had been their unwavering support and forgiveness. Even now I couldn’t reconcile it.

  Cate looked stricken. “I didn’t know.”

  Her response was surprising, and it jolted me out of my fog. “Of course not, nobody but my family and management team knows.” Aspen Archer Hospitalized for Painkiller Addiction was one headline we managed to avoid. I’m sure my ex doesn’t even know that I spent two months in rehab. “I had a relapse about eight months after but I’ve been clean ever since. I had to make a choice, Cate. Ski or drugs. I couldn’t have both. After all that, I just get worried about taking any kind of serious pain medication.”

  Cate’s hand came to my thigh and I grabbed it like it was a lifeline. Her thumb ran back and forth over my hand. “How’re you doing now?”

  “Fine,” I said as firmly as I could. “I’m so sorry. I should have said something sooner but I’m incredibly ashamed. Before now, before you, I didn’t want to share this part of myself with anyone.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “Back then it was just like I was out of my head and not in control of my body. I was so low, Cate, like ten feet below rock bottom.”

  “It’s not your fault, Aspen. Addiction doesn’t discriminate.”

  “No, I know.” Now I’d told her, I couldn’t stop talking. “But the accident and surgeries, I was in so much pain and I couldn’t ski and I was just so angry with everyone. Then my relationship died. Nothing made me feel good anymore but the drugs did.”

  Cate frowned. “Why don’t you ever say her name?”

  I smiled tightly. “Because having her name in my head is bad enough. Having it in my mouth makes me want to vomit.”

  Cate blinked. “That seems like a good reason.” She ran a trembling hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Aspen. That must have been so hard. Do you still…think about it?”

  “Sometimes, yes. When I’m upset or the pain’s really bad.” A sudden, horrific thought slammed into my consciousness. I knelt up and clutched her hands. “I’m not a junkie, Cate, I swear. I barely even take over the counter stuff. You can trust me. Please.” My breath had started coming in little panicky gasps and I fought desperately to calm down, to take a full breath.

  Cate held my face in her warm hands, forcing me to look at her. “Relax, sweetheart, please.” She opened her arms to me and I dove into them, wrapping mine around her waist. “It’s okay, I promise. I get it, really I do.” She pulled my head to her breasts, stroking my hair as if I were a child needing comfort.

  It’d been years since I cried over this period in my past. In the safe haven of her arms, I gave up trying to stop the tears and let myself fall apart. “Really?” I choked out, reaching up to grasp her forearm.

  “Really. You’re still the person you were before. You’re still one of the bravest people I know.” Murmuring sweet words, she ran her thumbs softly under my eyes, kissed my tears away and held me until I fell asleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A little after ten p.m., I stood at my bedroom window, resting my forehead against the glass and watching small sporadic flakes of snow swirling around. It rarely snowed down in Jindabyne but it’d been dusting down lightly for the past half hour, giving everything a soft, dreamy look in the moonlight. A nice distraction from the bone pain that’d been my unwanted companion all day. Headlights cut a path through the mist, and I pulled back from the window.

  I waited on the front deck, my hands tucked deep into my pockets and breath steaming in the night air as Cate slid out of her car. She jogged up the path with her shoulders hunched against the cold, hopping lithely up the stairs. I pulled her close, an arm around her shoulders and my nose against the hair at her temple. Cate relaxed into me, her arm stealing around my waist as we went inside.

  When I’d locked the door behind us, she brushed her fingers over my cheek, the touch warm against my chilled skin. Then she kissed me. There was urgency in the kiss, one I hadn’t felt before. Not the first time we’d kissed, or made love or at any time after. She was desperate, but for what I couldn’t tell. We hadn’t talked about my breakdown, and my confession hovered in the background. Not as something malevolent, but something that could never be taken away.

  Resting my hands on her waist, I gently massaged the muscle over her
hip with my thumbs and waited for her to tell me what was bothering her. Cate slipped her hands up under my tee to stroke my back, pressing herself to me. “Did you have a nice day?” she asked, the question muffled against my chest.

  “Mhmm. How about you guys?”

  “Yeah, not bad.”

  I leaned back, lifting her chin with a finger. “Is everything okay?”

  Her shoulders came up in a helpless shrug. “Just thinking about going home.”

  Three days. I was trying very hard not to think about it. Every time I remembered, something inside cracked a little more. “Oh. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. That’s the last thing I want to do right now.”

  I pulled her close again, wrapping her in a tight embrace. She instinctively molded herself into me, like she was made to fit me and me her. I lowered my head to speak low near her ear. “I love how you feel.”

  My heart tripped at my accidental usage of that word but she just laughed and said, “Your nose is cold.”

  I kissed her neck then shifted so my nose was back against her hair. Cate lifted her face, begging another kiss and I gave it to her. She poured herself into me until I was suffused with warmth. After an eternity, Cate pulled back slightly, her breathing rapid and shallow.

  “I could kiss you forever,” I whispered.

  “Is that what you really want?”

  My answer was immediate. “Yes. I want…more.” Aside from the brief and unfinished let’s just see talk, we hadn’t discussed what would happen after she went home. I’d begun to wonder if she’d changed her mind, if maybe me pushing had made her rethink what came after this. Or worse—if my past was too big an obstacle for us. The desperation made my throat close and my stomach ache with the fear she might not want to see me again, that I was just a vacation screw and nothing more.

  Her exhalation was long, and after a protracted, searching moment she said, “Me too.”

  The fist holding my stomach relaxed slightly. “We can talk when I come back to Colorado for my downtime between seasons?”

  “Two months,” Cate said. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t, simply watched me with a closed expression.

  I hurried to add, “It’s not that long, really. We can Skype and call. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks but this feels right, Cate and I’d like to keep seeing you. I’d like to see where this could go.”

  Cate grabbed my shirt, pulling me into my bedroom. “Take me to bed and remind me how right it feels. We don’t have much time.” She let go of the fabric, curled her fingers and glanced down. “Do you have a nail file?”

  “Uh, yeah in the bedside table.” I dropped to sit on my bed, reaching down to pull my Uggs off as she opened the drawer.

  “Aspen?” My name was a breathy, curious word.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s this?” Cate held up my harness and a couple of toys.

  “Well, that’s a strap-on, that’s my vibe and those are my handcu—”

  “No shit, wiseass. I meant why haven’t I seen this before?”

  “Well…you’ve never been in that drawer, obviously. And I wasn’t sure if you were into that sort of thing.” Rachel didn’t like toys but I did. I liked them a whole lot.

  “I am into that sort of thing. Not all the time, but…sometimes I just want hard and fast.” She bit her lip, still holding the harness. Her knuckles were white. “Can we play a little?”

  I tried to sound casual but my response came out a husky whisper. “We can do whatever you want.”

  Cate backed toward the bathroom. “Give me a minute.”

  I closed my eyes, relishing the flutter of anticipation spreading through my body. I already knew how much she loved me burying my fingers deep inside her, so it wasn’t a big leap. Just another way we were compatible in bed. It was like she’d been created just for me. Closing my eyes, I imagined having her that way and the arousal was immediate. I swallowed. Even thinking about her made me wet.

  Cate came back, locked the bedroom door and set her loot down on my side of the bed. She’d transformed, the introspective melancholy giving way to a devilish expression that promised she wasn’t going to hold back. The pulse between my legs grew even more insistent. Cate stopped in front of me, just out of reach, and began to strip. It was unhurried, as though the teasing and knowing how much I wanted her was part of her own pleasure.

  She drew her shirt over her head, then slid her jeans down one slow inch at a time and the whole time, she watched me watching her. It was clear by the flush over her cheeks and neck, the tightness of her nipples and her quivering muscles how much she enjoyed it.

  My eyes strayed unashamed over her body, delighting in the way her fingers brushed over her crotch before she pulled her panties down and kicked them away. Those long fingers slipped inside her folds, circling lightly and I didn’t know where to look—at her face, alight with desire, or at her fingers raking over her clit and tweaking her nipples.

  Almost unconsciously, I leaned forward. I jammed my thighs together, flexing the muscle to get a little pressure. I hadn’t even touched her, or her me, but I was so wet and throbbing so hard I could feel the tingling right down to my calves. “Cate…”

  “Shh.” Cate pressed her fingers to my lips, gently parting them until I took her fingers into my mouth. She groaned when I sucked, my tongue sliding over her skin to taste her. The throb dialed up a few degrees. Cate knelt in front of me, pushed my legs apart and unfastened my jeans. She ran her hands up my thighs, the touch firm and demanding. “Lift up,” she murmured. I lifted my butt so she could tug down my jeans and underwear. When I reached to touch her, she pushed my hands away with a firm command. “No touching. Not yet.”

  Her breasts begged to fill my hands, and her denial had me almost trembling. I curled my fingers in the bedspread, clenching the fabric hard in my fists. “That’s not fair.”

  Torturously slow and teasing, Cate removed my shirt then bra until finally I was naked. She’d kept eye contact the whole time she undressed me, her gaze almost a challenge as though daring me to object to the pace she set. Now her gaze was burning. “Did you like watching me, Aspen?”

  “Mhmm.” I nodded dumbly. “You’re so damned sexy, Cate.”

  “Stand up.”

  I pushed myself to my feet and she knelt, fastening the harness around my hips. Cate took her time, sliding it over my skin, letting the cold metal buckles press against me. She carefully tightened the straps, teasing me with wet kisses on my thighs, dangerously close to my slick heat. Cate groaned, her breath fluttering over the oversensitive flesh. “You’re absolutely soaked.” Still on her knees, her tongue swirled closer and closer until she buried her face between my thighs.

  I gasped at the first touch, almost buckling. “Oh, God!” Gently fisting her hair I lowered my head to watch her. “That feels so good.”

  Smirking up at me, she ran her tongue slowly through my wetness, clamping her lips softly around my clitoris. The tremor in my legs grew until I was almost unable to stand, and I rested a hand on her shoulder and with the other pushed her hair back so I could see her face while she licked me. Eyes half-lidded, she looked almost serene as her tongue flicked over the base of my clit.

  The sensation, her expression and the low hum of pleasure at the back of her throat all concentrated into an urgent, exquisite pressure deep in my core. “Wait. Stop. I’m going to come.”

  She ignored me, the flat of her tongue tracing a leisurely path up and down my valley. Cate slapped my ass and I had to clamp my teeth together to stave off my imminent climax. Breathing raggedly, I begged her again, “You need to stop or I’m going to come.”

  After one last light sweep of her tongue, she stood and arched into me for a consuming kiss. I tried to slow us down, to be soft and gentle but it was pointless. She was lost in desire and I was carried along with her. Mouth hot against mine, Cate bit my lower lip then soothed it with her tongue. I lifted her up, turned u
s and lowered her to the bed.

  She tensed as I dragged my fingers over her slit, moaned when I slipped inside and groaned as my thumb came up to her clit. I ignored her pleas to go faster, taking time to tongue her nipples into firm peaks and tease her before I slid down between her thighs to worship her with my mouth.

  “God, you’re delicious,” I murmured. She let out a loud cry when I sucked her, massaging the tight bundle of nerves with my tongue until she was writhing and begging beneath me.

  “Aspen,” she gasped. “Please, can you—”

  I slid back up to kneel between her spread thighs. She was so beautiful, bared for me, body flushed with pleasure. “Tell me what you want, Cate.”

  She sat up. “I want…” Her hands traced lightly up the front of my thighs, along the edge of the harness. “I want you to take me from behind. Hard.”

  My excitement rose even higher at her unashamed statement of exactly what she wanted me to do to her. “There’s lube,” I said quietly.

  “No,” she murmured, busy snapping the toy into place. “You’ve got me so goddamned wet already.” With that simple assurance, Cate pushed herself up and straddled me, arms around my neck. She was sliding against the shaft of the toy, pleasuring herself and with every downward push, the pressure built against my clit until my breathing was more like uncontrollable gasping.

  She was so sexy and so self-assured, and her riding me this way was one of the most erotic things I’d ever seen. Our lips met again, not fighting for dominance but sharing passion. Cate sucked my tongue as I lay her down on her back and her breathing caught when I rolled her onto her stomach.

  She knelt and twisted around to look at me as my hands slid down her back, cupped her ass, then slowly traced back up her sides and around to her glorious breasts. I drew my hands down her stomach and dragged my hand over her heat, stroking her clit lightly. She was so wet, waiting for me. “Please,” Cate begged.