The Edge of Never

by J. A. Redmerski

  “Goddammit, please fuck me, Andrew…please,” I beg, my voice shuddering with my breath. I say what I feel this time without his prompt.

  And it feels so right.

  Andrew leans fully over me; I feel his hardness forceful and persistent. I want him inside of me so bad, but he’s keeping it from me on purpose, making me feel like any moment he’s going to shove it in me, but he never does.

  Shivers attack my body again when I feel the tip of his tongue trace a path along the back of my neck. One side of my face is pressed against the mattress, the hard weight of his body on top of me forbidding me to move. I bite my lip when the sting of his teeth clamps down on my back, enough to cause pain, but not breaking the skin. And after he bites me he kisses and licks each spot to ease the tender pain.

  As if my weight is nothing to him, Andrew flips my body over with one hand onto my back and slides me up to the center of the bed. He crawls in-between my legs, bumping them apart with his knees so that I’m completely exposed to him. He presses the palms of his hands on the under-part of my thighs, forcing my legs to stay open.

  His green orbs flash on me once and then he looks down at me spread open before him. He probes me teasingly, sliding the length of one finger between my lips and then around the edges of my clit. I gasp and shudder, feeling my insides squirm with every touch. He looks up at me again under dangerous hooded eyes and slides his fingers inside so deep. I move my hand down to join his and he lets me touch myself for a moment before refusing me anymore. He fingers me furiously now, touching every possible spot sensitive to touch and I start to writhe gently, my head pressing back into the pillow. And as if he knows I’m going to come soon, he pulls his hand away to keep me from it.

  He crawls his way on top of me, kissing and licking and biting my skin from my thighs all the way up to my throat and he holds my arms above my head so that I can’t grasp him. His wolfish eyes study my mouth and then find my eyes and he says, “I’m going to fuck you so hard…God, you have no fucking idea.” His words cut a path of pleasure from my ear all the way down into the throbbing wetness between my legs. He bites my tongue and then kisses me violently and we breathe heavily into each other’s mouths, moaning against each other’s lips.

  His right hand moves down without breaking the kiss and he takes his cock into his hand and finds me, just barely entering me so that it drives me mad. I thrust my hips toward him, trying to force it deeper, kissing him harder and finally getting one hand around the back of his head. I grip his hair in my hand so hard that I feel like I’m pulling it out. He doesn’t care. Neither do I. He enjoys the pain as much as I do.

  And then very slowly, so that I can feel every painfully searing sensation shiver through my body, he slides himself inside of me. My neck arches back on the pillow, my lips part open. I gasp and moan and whimper. My eyes are tingling so much that they’re heavy and I can barely pry my lids apart. His cock feels like it’s swelling inside of me and my thighs are trembling against his body.

  He fucks me slowly at first, forcing my eyes open to see his. He takes my bottom lip between his teeth and pulls back and then traces the full length of it with the tip of his tongue.

  I crush my mouth against his, pushing against him with my hips and forcing him deeper.

  My legs are shaking now. I can’t control them. He starts to fuck me harder and I can’t maintain the kiss anymore. My neck arches away from the pillow again, my back starts to lift, pushing my breasts toward him where he licks my nipples hungrily. I wrap my arms and legs around his body, digging my fingernails into his back, feeling his sweat bead underneath them. I break the skin. It just makes him fuck me harder.

  “Come with me,” he whispers hotly into my ear and kisses me again.

  Seconds later, I do. My body trembles and quivers as I feel myself constrict around him. “Don’t pull out,” I whisper while we come together. And he doesn’t. A deep, shuddering moan moves through his chest and I feel the warmth of him releasing inside of me. I tighten my legs around his waist until I can’t anymore and slowly let my legs give way. He doesn’t stop pushing himself inside of me until his body begins to relax.

  He lies next to me; his face on my heart, my leg draped over his waist. And we lie like this for a while, curled into one another, letting our breathing steady and our bodies calm. But twenty minutes later, we’re at it again. And before the night is over and we’ve fallen fast asleep in each other’s arms, he’s had me in more ways than I’ve ever been had.

  The next morning, as the sun beams in through the curtains, he shows me that he’s not always rough and aggressive by waking me up with sweet kisses. He kisses each of my ribs and massages my back and my thighs before making love to me softly.

  I could die in this bed with him right now, wrapped in his arms and I would never know that I had died.

  ~~~

  Andrew squeezes me against him within his arms and kisses my jawline.

  “You can’t go anywhere now,” I whisper.

  “I never wanted to.”

  I turn around to lie facing him, tangling my naked legs around his. He touches his forehead to mine.

  “But you were going to,” I say softly.

  He nods. “Yeah, I was going to because…,” his thoughts trail.

  “Why?” I ask. “Because I was too afraid of the obvious?”

  I know that must be why. I think. I hope….

  Andrew’s gaze strays downward. I lift my hand and brush the length of his eyebrow beneath my fingertip and then the bridge of his nose. I lean forward just a little and kiss his lips softly.

  “Andrew? Is that why?”

  My heart tells me that it’s not.

  His eyes begin to smile and he pulls me closer, wrapping me up tighter in his arms and kissing me hard.

  “Are you sure you want this?” he asks, as though he doesn’t believe I could ever want him in this way, which is utterly absurd to me.

  I struggle to find the meaning behind his thought-process, and I come up short.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I say. “Andrew, I meant what I said: I can’t breathe without you. Last night, after you had been gone all day, I sat down on the edge of this bed and was literally breathless. I thought you had already left and I started thinking about how I didn’t even have your phone number and that I would never be able to find you—”

  He touches my lips with his finger, calming me. “I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”

  I smile longingly and lay my head against his chest. His chin rests upon my head. I listen to his heart beating and the sound of his breath as it comes out through his nose in an even, quiet motion above me. We lay like this for hours, hardly saying a word. I realize this is exactly where I’ve wanted to be since I spoke to him on that bus that day.

  I’ve broken every rule…Every. Single. One.

  ANDREW

  30

  THE HEART ALWAYS WINS out over the mind. The heart, although reckless and suicidal and a masochist all on its own, always gets its way. The mind may be what’s best, but I don’t give a shit what my mind is telling me anymore. Right now, I just want to live in the moment.

  “Get up, baby,” I say, patting Camryn on the ass.

  She fell asleep in my arms again after we woke up together earlier this morning. I think maybe I did too at some point, but all I’ve thought about since last night is her and if I was ever asleep at all I’ll never know.

  She moans in protest and rolls over to face me, her body tangled in the white sheet, her blonde hair a matted mess, but still sexy as hell.

  “Oh come on, baby,” she says and my heart thumps hard a few times hearing her call me that, “let’s sleep all day.”

  I throw on my t-shirt and step into my shorts and sit on the bed beside her, grounding one arm on the other side of her body.

  I lean over and press my lips against her forehead.

  “I want to do everything with you,” I say, smiling so big that I realize how awkward it feels,
but I don’t care. “We can go everywhere, do whatever idea falls into our laps.”

  I’ve never been this happy before. I didn’t know happiness like this existed.

  Camryn smiles so sweetly up at me, her blue eyes glistening still with that just-woke-up innocence. It’s like she’s studying me, trying to figure me out, but enjoying the process.

  She reaches out both of her arms.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to carry me around everywhere,” she says.

  I reach out and take her arms into my hands and she lifts to sit upright on the bed.

  “Well, I have no problem with that,” I laugh. “I will totally fucking carry you around—it’ll get a reaction out of people, but so what—But why do I need to carry you?”

  She kisses me on the nose.

  “Because I don’t think I can walk.”

  Realization teases my smile into a dark grin.

  She starts to get up from the bed, letting her legs fall over the side and I see the discomfort in her face.

  “Oh shit, baby, I am so sorry.” I really am sorry, but I can’t stop smiling.

  Neither can she, really.

  “I’m not saying this to stroke that sexual ego of yours,” she says, “but I have never been fucked like that before.”

  I laugh out loud, throwing my head back once.

  “The shit that comes out of your mouth!” I say.

  “Hey,” she points up at me, “that’s all your fault. You’ve turned me into a foul-mouthed, perverted, nymphomaniac that will apparently be walking funny for a day or two.” She nods her head once to underline these facts.

  Carefully, I lift her into my arms, both legs over one arm instead of making her straddle me in her ‘condition’.

  “Sorry babe, but you were already kind of foul-mouthed when I met you,” I say, grinning down at her looking up at me with a puffed-out upper-lip. “Perverted? Maybe. But that was already in you, I just helped bring it out. Now nymphomaniac? That would mean you want to do it all the time, even if you’re walking funny for a couple of days.”

  Her eyes grow wider and wider. “No, I am definitely out of commission, at least until tomorrow morning.”

  I kiss her forehead and carry her into the bathroom.

  “Sounds good,” I say, trading jokes for a softer expression. “I wouldn’t let you anyway. Today, Camryn Bennett, you will be pampered. And first on the agenda is a long, hot bath.”

  “With bubbles?” she asks with a Bambi-eyed pouty face.

  I smile down at her. “Yes, with bubbles.”

  I run the bath water while she sits on the counter where I put her, naked to boot.

  “Bubbles might be a problem, babe,” I say, squeezing what’s left of the shampoo in the trial-sized bottle the hotel provides.

  “You know what?” she says, swinging her feet back and forth with her hands propped on the edge of the counter. “I’m out of just about everything—my toothpaste tube is flat and I could use some body wash, or somthin’.” She reaches down and feels her bare legs. “I practically have scales.” She makes a face.

  Twisting the inside of my mouth between my teeth I say, “I’ll go to the store.” Letting the tub fill up behind me I turn to her and check out the stuff she has lying on the counter. Then I go back into the room and come back with a tiny hotel pencil and a palm-sized square notepad. “What do you need?”

  While she’s thinking about it I write down what she already mentioned.

  “Toothpaste, body wash—.” I look up at her, “that’s just liquid soap, right?”

  “Well, not really,” she says and I’m trying not to check out her boobs. “It’s not hand soap, it’s—well, you’ll figure it out.”

  I jot down: not liquid hand soap

  I look back up at her. “OK, what else can you think of?”

  She purses her lips contemplatively. “Shampoo and conditioner, I prefer L'Oréal; it’s in a pink bottle, but it doesn’t matter really, just none of that shampoo+conditioner stuff—left the bottles I recently bought in the last motel. Oh! Also, get me a small bottle of Baby Oil.”

  I raise a very interested brow. “Baby Oil? You have something in mind?”

  “No!” She hits me gently on the arm with the back of her fingers, but all I notice is how her boob jiggled when she did it. “Definitely not! I just like to use it in the shower.”

  I jot down: large bottle of baby oil (just in case)

  “And maybe some snacks and a six-pack of water or non-lemon tea—something besides soda—and, oh!” She points her finger upwards. “Some beef jerky!”

  I grin and jot that down, too.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, I can’t think of anything else yet.”

  “Well, if you do,” I say, pulling my phone from the leg pocket of my cargo shorts, “call me and let me know—what’s your number?”

  She smiles and happily tells me while I call her from my phone. Her voice mail picks up and I say: Hey, babe, it’s me. I’ll be back in a bit; right now I’m a bit pre-occupied staring at this incredibly hot blonde sitting naked on a counter.

  Camryn grins and blushes and pulls me between her suspended legs and kisses me hard.

  “Oh shit! The water!” she says, noticing the tub close to overflowing.

  I turn the water off quickly.

  I set the phone and my grocery list on the counter and lift her into my arms.

  “Andrew, I’m not crippled.” But she’s not exactly arguing with me, either.

  I help her into the tub and she leans back into the warmth of it, letting her hair fall around her shoulders and into the water, too.

  “I’ll be back in a few,” I say as I go to leave.

  “You promise this time?”

  That stops me in my tracks. I turn back to look across at her and this time she’s not joking. It makes me feel bad that she even has to ask, not because it offends me, but because I had to give her any reason to ask in the first place.

  I look at her very seriously.

  “Yes, I promise, babe. You’re kind of stuck with me, y’know that, right?”

  She smiles sweetly, though it’s laced with mischief. “Damn the things I get myself into.”

  I wink at her and leave.

  CAMRYN

  SEX ALWAYS CHANGES EVERYTHING. It’s like you’re living in a bubble where everything is safe and flirty and often predictable. An attraction to the right kind of person can last forever when that intimate mystery is left in-tact, but the moment you sleep with someone, safe, flirty and predictable often become their opposites. Will the attraction die out now? Will we still want each other as much as we did before we had sex? Are either of us secretly thinking that we made a huge mistake and should’ve left things the way they were? No. Yes. And no. I know this because I feel it. It’s not overconfidence or the delusional dreams of a young, inexperienced woman with insecurity issues. It’s a blatant fact: Andrew Parrish and I were meant to meet on that bus in Kansas.

  Coincidence is just a safe conformist for fate.

  I soak in the bath for a while, but decide to get out before I start pruning. I am sore down there, but I’m perfectly capable of walking. I just think it’s sweet the way he feels the need to take care of me.

  I slip on my gray pair of cotton shorts I bought on the road and a black tank-top. I make up the bed and straighten the room a little before grabbing my phone to check my messages: same random stuff from Natalie. Still nothing from my mom. I always leave my phone on vibrate. I can’t stand to hear a phone ring. It doesn’t matter if I could have any kind of ring tone I wanted; a ringing phone is like nails down a chalkboard to me. I head over to the window and pull the curtains open wide to let the bright sun flood the room and I lean on the windowsill, gazing down at New Orleans. I’ll never forget this place.

  I think about Andrew and his father briefly, but shut it out of my mind. I’ll give him a few more days before I try talking to him about it again. He’ll hurt for a while, but I do
n’t want him unintentionally using me as a barrier. He has to deal with it sometime.

  I set my phone down on the windowsill and scroll through my music. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to any of my stuff; surprisingly, I’ve not missed it much. Andrew’s classic rock has more than just grown on me; he’s made me kind of love it.

  Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars. I stop on that one—my favorite for the past two months—and turn the speaker on, letting the music filter into the room with that folky-country style that is my guilty pleasure. I’m not much of a country music girl, but this band is an exception. I sing along with John and Joy, letting myself loose since I’m in the privacy of my room and I sing as loud as I can. I dance a little standing in front of the window. And when Joy’s solo begins, I sing along with her like I always do, trying to work my untrained voice to sound as velvety as hers does. I could never sound like her, but it makes me feel good to sing along.

  My lips snap shut and my dancing body freezes when I notice Andrew leaning against the wall by the door, watching me. Grinning, of course.

  I literally melt under the blush of my face.

  He walks the rest of the way into the room now that he’s been caught and sets two plastic bags down on the TV stand.