Love with Every Beat

by K. L. Shandwick

  Focusing hard on the words I was saying to her, because this was playing out like many of the books I’d read, and I knew if I moved in on her, it would be the last time she’d ever give me a chance.

  So I leaned back on the counter resting my ass against the harsh edge of the granite, and Christ, I was suddenly full of nerves. I rocked on the balls of my feet slightly, a habit I am conscious of when I’m restraining myself. All I really wanted to do was take her face in my hands and kiss her tenderly to ease that worried look off of her face. Life sucked.

  Lily shook her head. “Alfie, all I know is since I’ve met you, apart from the nights we spent together, I have never felt so fucking miserable in my life. So that’s a resounding no. I used to be upbeat, an eternal optimist. But those nights with you, and then you pretending I don’t exist around other people, changed all that for me. I’ve never felt so insignificant in my life.”

  I deserved what she said, every last word of it, but it still fucking hurt. Our eyes connected, and I was willing her to take back what she just said. “I told you the reason for that.” I was focused on making her believe what I was saying because I meant every word about not wanting to hurt her.

  I wandering over to rest a hand on her waist, ignoring that she’d said she didn’t want me to touch her. She needed me to touch her, and I needed to touch her… badly.

  “Could you be miserable because we’re not together, Lily?”

  The dark, venomous look she gave me rendered me speechless. “Alfie… we were never together. We had this weird-fucking-arrangement, that’s all.” She stepped back from me wanting space, so I moved back a pace as well and leaned against the counter again.

  I made a sweeping gesture toward the door at her. “Okay, have it your way. Go. But know this, I never meant to hurt you.”

  My face was tight, I could feel it, and this was only going to cause her more pain, so I softened my tone and felt a tight knot in my gut at the loss of her and she hadn’t even gone yet.

  “I want you. You know I want you. I just can’t love you. I really, really like you though, Lily. I’d like to spend time with you. We could have some amazing times together.”

  Sighing heavily for not being able to at least explain what the reason was for me not getting involved with her. “Can you at least think about what we talked about today? Will you text me? Promise me you’ll text me… I still want to know how you are. If I can’t have you physically, I’d like to be your friend.” Even though she had every right not to want anything else to do with me.

  She gave me a tight smile, one like you would give to someone to placate them and get the fuck away from them as fast as possible. “Sure, I’ll think about it.” I’d never felt more sure she wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Before I knew it, her eyes flicked to the door, and her exit was so smooth and quick, by the time I reached it, she was already in her car and backing out of my driveway.

  My guts twisted low in my belly at how we’d ended the conversation. I really didn’t want to do anything about it. My body kept letting me down. Every time my head told me to let her be, as soon as her eyes met mine my dick danced a painfully slow dance of want for her.

  I had an ache in my chest right over my heart. Heartburn; that was what she gave me. I tried to ease the ache by placing the heel of my palm over it and pressing gently in an effort to soothe it. She wasn’t even out of sight yet, and my body was missing her.

  Once again, all day long she wasn’t far from my mind. I didn’t have college today. The students were doing revision tests and studio time, which was scheduled with some of the professors.

  Drew called me, and we’d arranged to get together, so when I got a text, I expected to see it was from him asking me to bring something. This was his normal form when he asked me over. When I saw it was Lily, excitement coursed through me. Why was I letting her have this effect on me when I seriously didn’t want to do this? Couldn’t do this with her.

  Pink Lady: Can you really do just friends with me?

  —Could I? This girl made me think irrationally, act like some crazy stalker dude, and my general feeling was that she’d mess with everything I wanted in my life at this time; keeping Kara and Poppy safe, the band, and earning extra money to support the girls. All three things were full-time jobs in themselves, but I was determined not to let Gary down.

  SEXPERT: Sure. Want to get a drink?

  There I went contradicting myself.

  SEXPERT: You have the advantage.

  Pink Lady: How so?

  I thought on my feet, movies…

  SEXPERT: It’s your call, I have popcorn and two new blue-rays, want to come to the movies?

  Could we really just hang out and watch movies together? I was texting Drew, blowing him off while I waited for her to answer back to me. Telling Drew that I’d had a better offer than hanging out with him.

  Pink Lady: can you promise no sexual intent or mind games?

  I stared at the screen and became conscious that I was moving my head from side to side weighing the question. Sure I can do that, maybe being around her and not having any sexual intent would make her more normal to me.

  SEXPERT: X my heart, but we can flirt though? Agreed?

  Pink Lady: We may need boundaries around that, but I’ll bite…for now. See you in thirty minutes.

  Chapter 21 – Movies

  Lily’s texts caught me off guard, and I wondered if she would actually show up. I’d been painting the side of the house with whitewash, because every so often the iodine coming through the sprinkler system from the underground well covered the sidewalk and walls of the house in rust. I headed for the shower, excited by the thought that she’d taken the initiative and texted me.

  Standing in the shower, my mind began to remember the last time she had been in the shower with me, and before I knew it I was stroking my dick. It grew thicker with every stroke as I was thinking about how she looked up there on the wall, her hair plastered to her face from the shower, and her eyes full of lust.

  I could still see her against the tiles, held high and oh, that feeling when she slid down, and I sunk myself deep inside her. There was no way I was going to get through the night without taking care of myself to make sure I was relaxed and not behaving like some crazy sex maniac when I saw her.

  The doorbell rang just as I was drying myself, and in hindsight I should have taken that extra minute to pull some pants on. Instead, I opened the door with the towel wrapped around my waist. Lily’s face was a picture, but not the one I wanted to see. She looked appalled, and I knew immediately what she thought I was expecting of her. My focus was initially on how amazingly beautiful she was, but that quickly changed to one of panic that she’d read the situation in front of her wrongly, and I needed to deal with that immediately.

  She started to back up, and my hand flew out in her direction in a plea for her to stop. She was regarding me with suspicion; eyes narrowed, mouth pursed, arms folded. “No, it’s not what you think, I was painting, and I just needed to clean up, you just came too quickly,” I blurted out, and as soon as my brain caught up with what my mouth had said I grinned, my hand covering my mouth before any more fell out of it.

  “Shit! I just made a ‘Freudian’ slip too.” I stifled my laugh that was threatening to burst out of my throat and dropped my smile when I saw her deadpan response to my explanation. Feeling the need to redeem myself I pinched my lips together. “Sorry, I’m nervous. I’m not used to the just-being-friends thing yet.”

  Her eyes were steadfast and locked onto mine. She didn’t want to look anywhere else and that made me think she was scared to because, like I always saw in Lily’s eyes, she didn’t know how to deal with the feelings we had going on between us.

  Lily hadn’t spoken out loud at all, but there was a stream of emotions trickling through her eyes. Hurt, anger, lust, hunger, fear, sadness and adoration—I recognized each and every one of them, because they were the same feelings running through me
. And they were mentally and physically crippling.

  The air began to thicken between us both standing there. A dangerous, suffocating riot of emotions was brewing between us. Air so thick I could hardly breathe. Both of us, willing the other to have the strength to back off and save us from another cluster- fuck discussion between us that always seemed to take us around in circles. And fuck if I had any answers to them.

  Staring at Lily, right there in front of me, the one thing I craved more in the world at that moment than anything else. Being so near her was making me weak.

  The energy and will to resist her was seeping out of me, like a slow leak, draining by the second as I stared into those beautiful blue irises. My mind began to drift, and I started thinking I just wanted to get lost her in beautiful body for hours and hours. To touch her. Feel her touch me. Tease her. Taste her kiss. Bury myself so deep inside her and never come out.

  So… I needed a minute away from her. I was determined not to give in to all the crazy fucked-up schizophrenic hot and cold feelings that seemed to railroad me every time she was near me. Those chills up my spine, electrical pulses that went straight to my dick. Emotions and feelings that continually swamped me whenever I was around her.

  I turned and headed for the stairs not trusting myself in the same room as her for another minute, unless she wanted to be lying naked on my couch with her knees around her ears while I tasted and teased her sweet slick pussy.

  “You want to set us up while I get dressed? The movies and popcorn are on the kitchen counter,” I called over my shoulder as took the stairs two at a time in my towel.

  When I was safely in my bedroom, I glanced down at my towel. Fuck, I was as hard as a rock, and I was going to have to sit downstairs on the couch with her for hours on end and not be able to touch her. Worse than that, I had only cum twenty minutes previously, and she had me rampantly hard again with just looking at her.

  I dropped the towel on the bed and began to stroke myself again, feeling pretty fucking stupid that I was upstairs rubbing one out like a teenager while thinking about the hot girl who was probably sitting directly below me.

  My saving grace was that Lily was oblivious that I was up there having to do something so basic in an effort to quench the thirst I had for her body. And all that just so that I could sit down in the same room as her and watch a movie without me fantasizing about making a completely different one of my own with her.

  No matter what, I had to be strong and not touch her. I’d crossed the line too many times with her, and the last thing I wanted her to think was that I was just using her. This was maybe my one chance to show her I wasn’t really a shitty man- whore who went around using girls like they were just a ‘fuck hole,’ as some guys did.

  Lily needed to know I could do ‘friends’ instead of the expectation that we’d get naked and fuck each other’s brains out. I could do that with other women, but for some reason beyond me, I was so fucking in lust with her, I couldn’t function.

  Seriously, I was done in minutes and back downstairs pouring us some wine and settling down to watch the movie. She refused a glass of wine initially, and I stared at the bottle wondering if it was wise to drink. Another argument crept in, sure you could drink it might give you erectile dysfunction and that would be most welcome in Lily’s company. I suggested I leave the wine, and she agreed to have half a glass with me.

  We sat awkwardly, shifting in our seats. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her changing positions. Fidgeting, pulling the hem of her shorts down, curling her legs up, each time her eyes were darting over at me. Neither of us could concentrate. So I hit the pause button.

  I wagged my finger between us. “Is this as awkward for you as it feels for me?” I stared at her seriously, and she bunched her brows at me.

  “How do you mean?” she asked.

  “We’re at opposite ends of the room, it feels so unnatural. Can we try something?” I saw her body tense and felt kind of aggrieved that she couldn’t see I wanted this to be nice for her.

  “Depends what that is Alfie,” she ground out looking suspiciously.

  “You cuddle with Will and Neil, and you’re not having sex with them, right?” Lily wasn’t as self- aware as she thought she was, and I could see the panic in her eyes that we would be touching each other. I was confident though after my two episodes with my fist.

  “You want to cuddle me?” I grinned and nodded.

  “Would that be okay?” I kept my voice light.

  She bunched her brows. “I thought you didn’t do the emotional thing?”

  I smiled softly. “This is about comfort, not emotions, Lily.” It was.

  She sat staring at me for a few minutes. I didn’t push her, just waiting silently for her to decide whether or not she could trust me.

  “Do you want a safe word Lily?”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  I cleared my throat when I saw her facial reactions; her brow furrowing, chewing her lip, and rolling her eyes to the top of her head—she was overthinking things. “Your innocence is so adorable,” I said shaking my head at her. “If there is anything I do that you’re not comfortable with, you can say it, and I’ll know and promise to back off.” She smiled looking relieved.

  “Okay, yes.” She nodded her head slowly. So I waited for her to choose, while we stared at each other. “What?” she asked, confused again.

  I couldn’t help laughing, “YOU pick the word, or a phrase, something we can remember.” She was thinking for a long time then a soft smile graced her lips.

  “Save me a space,” she told me.

  I bit back a chuckle and met her eyes again. “Is that the best you can come up with?” I was struggling not to laugh, but it just tickled me. WTF did that mean, so I started laughing loudly, throwing my head back to connect with the back of the couch. “Too funny.” I knew I was risking embarrassing her but I couldn’t help it, it was falling down funny, not what she said, but how seriously she had glanced at me when she thought of the phrase she wanted to use.

  “Say… say it again, I’ve forgotten.” I was almost helpless once the laughter had taken a grip of me.

  “Save me a space.” She half giggled, mainly because my laughing was becoming infectious. “What’s so funny about that?” I really tried hard to get myself under control.

  “Ahem,” I said, clearing my throat. “Never heard that before…” I chuckled again into my wine, before breathing out through my nose as another wave of laughter hit me. My red wine splashed out of the glass and on to my leg.

  “Okay,” I said finally. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard that before.”

  She began to explain to me. “Well, it kind of means I’ll be there in a few minutes, or I’ll be with you in a minute… soon or something like that.” She began laughing as well.

  “Well, shit! Lily, how the hell am I supposed to know what to do with it, if you can’t even explain it?” We were both crying with laughter by this point. Maybe you had to be there to see the funny side of it, but we were in hysterics.

  Laughing together seemed to put us both at ease, and we seemed much more comfortable in each other’s company after that broke the ice for us.

  I turned the lamp out at the back of the sofa, because it was reflecting on the television screen and distracting me. The room was plunged into darkness except for the glow of the screen.

  Lily threw a leg over the arm of the chair and tried to lie down more comfortably. She looked a sexy, uncomfortable mess. It wasn’t the biggest chair, and within minutes she was changing position again.

  I glanced over and patted the couch near me. “Come here, honey. It’s more comfortable on the couch. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.” I knew I was taking a risk but was confident that I’d be able to hold myself together.

  Truly, it was the most normal I had ever felt around her. I was really trying not to objectify her and for her to know me other than the lecherous guy I’d been portraying myself to be
toward her.

  She unfolded her legs, stood and sashayed over toward the couch. It wasn’t meant to be sexy, but fuck, it definitely was anyway. She climbed onto the couch but as far as possible away from me. She tucked her legs under her, her ass resting on her feet.

  I couldn’t help chuckling lightly but knowing she was uncomfortable, I just looked back at the movie. “It’s okay, Lily. Really, I won’t touch you inappropriately,” I reassured her, without taking my eyes off of the television.

  After a couple of minutes I noticed her suddenly sag and meld into the couch. She began to relax, admitting that it was a lot more comfortable. We ate popcorn, and I was so enamored by the way she got caught up in the storyline, stuffing the popcorn in her mouth at the parts where she was excited and her legs moving like she was running during an action scene.

  She was climbing up the arm of the couch as the storyline got more exciting, and she hid her eyes, burying her head into the cushion, when she got scared. It was so fucking cute.

  At one point, her leg came over the top of my thighs when she kicked out with fright, and I caught it. My palm connected with her calf and skimming over the bare skin.

  Really, I should have taken my hand away, but I couldn’t bring myself to. A buzz was brewing in my body starting at the base of my spine, working its way around to my groin, and fizzing all the way up to my heart.

  Placing her leg on my knee with my hand still touching her, I kept a hold of it. It seemed like an innocent gesture, given how it happened, but it gave me a little taste of what I was craving without it being obvious to her.

  By the time the movie ended she looked really comfortable. “Are you staying for the other one?” I was praying she would say yes, I wasn’t ready for the night to end. The comfortable silence and companionship we were sharing felt spiritual in a weird way. Like we were both trying to manage.

  “What time is it?” she asked, stretching. My eyes fell to her midriff when I saw her blouse ride up. Then she caught me looking and quickly readjusted it to cover herself up again.