Leaving Amarillo

by Caisey Quinn

  “You taste like rain . . . and like me,” I tell him when we eventually pull apart.

  He grins at me, the seductive heat of want returning to the gleam in his eye. “Oh yeah? Well, I must taste fucking amazing then. Because I can honestly say, until tonight that strawberry ice cream I licked off your stomach was my favorite, but now . . .” He pauses and glances over my head in the mirror. “Now I can honestly say, you, Dixie Leigh Lark, are my favorite flavor.”

  Turning to see what has caught his eye, I stare at our naked figures in the mirror before the thick steam covers it.

  “We look good together,” I whisper.

  Gavin meets my gaze in the mirror and nods his agreement almost imperceptibly. With his arms covered in ink and my shoulders and waist decorated as well, we look like an erotic oil painting. I watch our conjoined reflection as his hand snakes around my waist, dipping lower in a way that causes my bones to liquefy.

  His other arm wraps around me higher and his hand massages my breasts gently.

  I let out a throaty approval of his ministrations. “God, Gavin. I don’t want you to stop touching me. Please never stop touching me.” I mean ever, as in, ever, but he doesn’t seem to need or want clarification.

  His mouth meets me ear and I can’t tear my eyes away from the glass.

  “Spread your legs for me,” he says low in my ear, causing me to quiver noticeably in his arms. “Please,” he adds when I don’t comply immediately.

  “Since you said please,” I answer, doing as he requested.

  “That’s it, baby. Just like that.” My nipples harden from his praise and unwavering stare. Gavin’s expert fingers find my most sensitive spot immediately as he slides through my center, dipping in and out of my opening. “My sweet, wet girl.” The mirror shows me his muscular forearms flexing at his efforts and I could come again already.

  “I might not be able to stand up in the shower if you keep going.”

  His hand stills between my legs and his arousal strokes my bare ass. “You want me to stop?”

  I shake my head, still held captive in his gaze like prey locked in a predator’s in the mirror. “I just want to make sure you’re okay with holding me up and bathing me.”

  “Anytime, Bluebird. Anytime.” Gavin grins and quirks an eyebrow before breaking our bonded stares to dip his head and place a searing kiss against the sensitive skin on my neck.

  My whimpered moans escalate to pleading cries as he strokes my heat more intently.

  “Gavin, oh God.” My voice is strained, as is my entire body. I buck hard against him, and he tightens his hold on me.

  “Please,” I beg, but I can’t get anything else out of my mouth that makes sense.

  If feels so good, so amazingly, mind-blowingly good that I’d be afraid if I didn’t trust Gavin implicitly.

  The realization hits me almost as hard as my orgasm does. This is why it’s so different, so amazingly consuming and overwhelming, and so much better than anything with anyone else ever was or ever could have been. I trust Gavin. I trust him and I love him. With all my heart.

  I’ve given myself over to him completely.

  Once I come back to earth, I meet Gavin’s livid stare in the mirror. He has this look on his face and I can almost read his mind.

  “Trying to decide if we should shower or if you should bend me over this sink and fuck me until I speak in tongues?”

  His mouth curves wickedly. “I did love the hell out of watching you come like this and the idea of watching your beautiful face while I take you from behind is pretty much all I need to die a happy man.”

  I lean back against his body, my boneless legs struggling to support me. His arm around my waist is doing a better job of keeping me upright than they are.

  “But I think our time is running out on how much longer you can stand upright.” He winks at me.

  “Shower it is, then.”

  Gavin pulls me inside the steam-filled shower, rinsing my hair as if I’m a delicate doll he’s afraid of breaking. I trace the ink on his chest with my fingers while he lathers shampoo into my scalp.

  “I remember this one,” I say, pointing to the lightning bolt/music note hybrid on his chest. “You got it when I got back from Houston.”

  “At Black Lotus, I remember.”

  I close my eyes as he moves to let the steady stream of water remove the thick, soapy lather from my hair.

  “I always wondered why we went downtown that night. I thought you got your tattoos done at Jinxed Ink. I never asked why you switched for this one.”

  Gavin is mid-shrug when I open my eyes. “I go where Xander goes. He does all my ink. He was freelancing at BL that night.”

  Xander Erikson did my ink, too, actually. He’s the only one Gavin trusts, for whatever reason. But I was nervous and had seen him do a few of Gav’s, so when I was ready, I went to him. He did Dallas’s, too, our last name in script on his right inner forearm and the guitar on his left.

  “He did mine, too. I had to make him take a blood oath before he did my bluebird.”

  “I’ll be kicking his ass when we get home.”

  “You love it,” I say with an impish grin.

  Gavin doesn’t answer. He places a hand on my chest and presses gently until I step backward, putting my back flush against the shower wall.

  I open my mouth to ask if he’s seriously mad about the tattoo, but before a single sound comes out, my attention moves south and I see his erection straining proudly between us. Liquid desire spreads instantly to my core, flooding me with overwhelming need.

  “Gavin,” I begin in a breathy plea.

  “I do. I do love it,” he says, taking a step closer to me and dropping to his knees. “So fucking much.”

  My head falls back the second he puts his open mouth on the tattoo below my hip. I suck in a breath and slide my fingers into his hair. For a second I think I know where this is going. He did this in bed, placed his mouth where no man’s mouth had been before. But then he pulls back and brushes a finger over my little bluebird.

  “So beautiful,” he says reverently. “So fucking beautiful.”

  I try to breathe normally. “Yeah. Um, Xander did a great job.”

  He looks up at me and smirks like I’m missing something. “Did you take your pants off for this?”

  I shake my head, heady feelings of gratitude filling me at the sight of his jealousy. “No. I just unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down a little. I had to move my panties for him, but he was a perfect gentleman.”

  “I’m kicking his ass either way.”

  “Then who will do your ink?”

  He tilts his head to the side. “You think I need more ink?”

  “You need my name across your ass, so yeah. And then one above your dick that says ‘Dixieland Delight.’ I mean, the second one is optional but it would be a nice touch.”

  A low chuckle begins in his throat and ends on my pelvic bone as he presses his lips to me. “You gonna get one for me, then?”

  His warm breath tickles my center and I moan even though he hasn’t actually touched me anywhere other than my hip yet.

  “I already have one for you,” I whisper, because even though he knows my secret, knows about the tattoo and what I taste like and how I feel on the inside, I’m still a little embarrassed. I’m busted. Between the black rose and the bluebird, I feel like I FUCKING LOVE YOU, GAVIN GARRISON is inked permanently across my forehead.

  “Hmm. Apparently you do. Guess I owe you one then, Bluebird. Maybe even more than one.”

  Before I can answer, he licks me hard and fast right between my legs. I cry out in shocked ecstasy, my moans stretching like a seamless instrumental into one long pleasure-filled ballad while he swipes his tongue through my throbbing center, around my clit, and back again.

  “Oh God, Gavin. Oh God.”

  He sucks my clit hard and releases it with a wet sound that nearly breaks me apart then and there.

  “After tonight, you can’t say th
e words ‘Oh God’ and my name ever again. Got it?”

  “W-what?” I’m aching to the point of pain for more and I’d gladly agree to sell a kidney on Craigslist if he’ll just finish what he started.

  “Those words. You can’t say them after tonight. Ever.”

  “Why?” Please touch me. Stop talking. Please touch me.

  “Because,” he says evenly as if I’m not melting into a puddle and about to disappear down the drain with the water. “Every time I hear them, this is what I’ll think of. And me thinking of this, after tonight, will be very dangerous and detrimental to our agreement.”

  Our agreement. One night.

  “Screw our agreement, Gavin. Right now, if you don’t finish what you just started, I’m going to say ‘Oh God, Gavin’ every single time I see you. I might even whisper it to you in church.”

  An enticing grin dances across his tempting mouth.

  “You know what? Never mind, drummer boy. I can’t handle it.” Without giving him an opportunity to stop me, I dip my hand between my legs and stroke myself.

  I keep my gaze trained on his until he looks away to watch my fingers finishing what he started.

  “Feel good, baby?” He arches an eyebrow up at me.

  “Not as good as your mouth and nowhere near as good as your big, thick . . . fingers,” I say with a teasing wink. “But I know how I like it. Years of wanting you to touch me have given me an extremely vivid imagination.”

  I see it the moment the need blooms wild and bright in his darkening eyes. He’s crossed over from sweet and teasing to animalistic and dangerous. The way he did in the car when he lost it on his mom. I push the memory aside and let my instincts take over. Dipping my fingers inside my inviting heat, I move them until they’re slick and covered in my wetness before placing them against his lips.

  “I love when you taste me, Gavin. How do I taste?”

  He opens his mouth and sucks my fingers inside. Hard. He closes his eyes and I feel the throaty growl all the way to my insides.

  I’ve barely blinked when he returns his mouth to the needy apex of my thighs. It was sweet in the bed, to take the edge off like he told me. But this is different. This is about gratification and pure, unadulterated need. His teeth graze over my sensitized flesh and I cry out his name.

  Two of his fingers thrust into me, blanking my mind of any logical thoughts.

  I hear my cries, the praise I’m raining down on him like water, the pleas for more. I’m outright begging him not to stop when I feel my body falling over into the abyss. It’s a rush, like spending years climbing a rocky mountain ridge only to rappel off it bungee-style when I get to the top.

  I’m mid-release when he stands abruptly and slams his bare cock into me. A hiss slips through his teeth and falls onto my lips.

  “Harder, Gav. I want you harder. Oh my—Yes, oh God, Gavin.”

  He complies, lifting me, impaling me on his velvet-encased steel and slamming me into the slippery back wall over and over until there’s a rhythmic beat to it. He’s inside me without a condom but his eyes are animal-kingdom gone. He’s too wrapped up in us to remember, and it feels so good that I can’t bring myself to care about things like consequences.

  My legs wrap around his soaking wet waist and I cling to his powerful body for dear life. If we fall in here, we will get seriously injured and there will be no way to explain it. But I’m pretty sure I’d happily endure a body cast for this degree of pleasure.

  He fucks like he drums. Putting everything he is into the intensity, giving himself over to it one hundred percent. His mouth covers mine, drinking it in greedily, swallowing my moans and breathy pleas. My release has become too intense to contain quietly and I claw at his back while his pounding forces noises of surrender from deep inside me. Once the pleasure has rolled over me, I’m weak, going limp in his arms.

  I feel him losing himself and his grip on me, but as soon as I’m aware of it, he makes it clear that it’s intentional. Gavin lowers me to my feet, keeping an arm around my waist as if to make sure I’m capable of standing. I am—barely.

  He grips my waist and whirls me around so that my back is to him. The curtain whips open, letting cooler air inside. My eyes land on the reflection of us in the mirror. Gavin stands behind me looking like he could devour me in one bite. I lean back against his body, covering his hand with mine as it roams my stomach and breasts.

  “You nearly broke me with that comment about bending you over the sink.” Gavin squeezes my hip and I spread my legs without having to be asked this time.

  The moment I’m open enough for him, he thrusts upward and into me in one delicious stroke.

  My head drops back onto his chest when his expert fingers begin massaging circles around the outside of my sex while his dick does the same to the inside of me.

  His shoulder nudges the back of my head. “Eyes open, Bluebird,” he says, leaning down to breathe his command into my ear. “I want you to watch. Watch how hard you make me come.”

  My eyes are liquid fire from his words as I watch the reflection of him taking me from behind. Seeing us in this erotic pose, fully bared and completely connected, even in the mist-covered mirror, is so earth-shatteringly hot that I know it’s an image that will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.

  “I have to pull out, baby. I’m sorry. I went in without—”

  “Don’t,” I say, gripping his hands tightly and clenching my internal muscles down on him. “I want to feel you, Gavin. I want you to still be inside of me even when this is over.”

  His body tightens against mine, so I squeeze and bear down, clamping myself tighter around him until I’m using every ounce of strength I have left. If all I get with him in my entire lifetime is this one night, then there is no time for shy and cute and coy. Or safe.

  “Damn it,” his hisses in my ear. “Goddamn it.”

  “Spill in me, Gavin. Fill me with you. I want you inside me in every way I can have you.”

  He swells inside me and I watch the veins in his neck bulge and strain; his groans come out through gritted teeth and for a second my feet leave the wet floor.

  My arms remain wrapped around his neck, stretched to their fullest capacity as his fingers dent deep into my stomach and hip while he fills me with the hot, scorching bursts of his release. Somehow in the midst of his madness, he finds my clit again and strokes me exactly how I need it until I’m writhing and coming right along with him. It’s too much. My body strains against itself, wanting to push away from him and meld to him permanently at the same time.

  It’s burning hot inside me as I feel my soul tear into two equal pieces. One half accepting that this is all we’ll ever have and the other hissing and gnashing its teeth angrily, refusing to settle, demanding more. Always more.

  His eyes meet mine in the mirror and I see the same greedy demon whispering to him.

  “I’ve never—” He interrupts himself to kiss my shoulder. “It’s never been like that for me.” He kisses my neck, wrapping his arms around me tighter. “You okay, Dixie Leigh? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  My logical mind is still shattered and doesn’t fully understand his words but my body and soul do.

  “You set me on fire, Gavin,” I whisper. “I’m nothing but ashes now.”

  The first conscious thought I have is that he tucked me in. My exhausted sex-and-sleep-muddled mind has a vague recollection of him taking care of me in the shower, getting on his knees with a washcloth and washing me gently between my legs. I’d nearly blacked out and he’d rinsed me and carried me to bed wrapped in a towel, which it feels like I am still wearing. Partially, anyway.

  Gavin’s solid muscled chest is beneath me and his heat is making me sweat. I lie still for a few minutes, absorbing the moment, memorizing it and listening to his even breaths.

  Our night together has been a lot of things, but we haven’t spoken about what comes next. If anything. Propping up on one elbow, I stare at Gavin’s sleeping form, admiring hi
s masculine profile and perfect mouth. A familiar ache rakes across my chest, reminding me that no matter what happened between us tonight, he is not mine. He’s not anyone’s. Gavin has always been a lone wolf, he just decided to allow Dallas and me to join at his flanks temporarily from time to time.

  Watching him breathe, and feeling a heck of a lot like a creeper, my mind recalls the first time I ever got the chance to watch him like this. It was our second summer living in Amarillo. Nana and Papa had ordered pizza and let us eat outside. After dinner, Dallas had been doing something in Papa’s shed, restringing the guitar Papa had bought him at a secondhand store most likely, and Gavin and I had sat on the ground, sated from dinner but hungry to make the day last longer. Lightning bugs, as I called what he and Dallas called fireflies, had begun to dance in the yard as darkness fell, calling to each other with flashing glows of neon green in the night. It was hot, and despite the breeze, I still felt the sting of the day’s summer sun on my skin.

  Leaning back on his arms stretched out behind him, Gavin stared up at the stars unabashedly. My eyes trailed his long black shorts, pants he’d cut off at the knee either because he’d outgrown them or because it was hot as Satan’s balls outside according to the boys. His iron-flat abs rippled and flexed when he spoke about the Big and Little Dipper, but I barely heard him.

  Sitting with him, watching him look at the expanse of stars in the broad Texas sky, I realized something that night, something it had taken me this long to actually learn, to absorb and fully understand.

  Heartbreak is an actual physical thing.

  Falling in love with Gavin Garrison happened without my permission; as inevitable as a Popsicle melting down my chin in the middle of a heat wave, Gavin cracked my heart open and seeped into me slowly and all at once. My feelings for him consumed me, worked their way into my genetic makeup, and became an intrinsic part of who I was without my actually realizing it. Even when I was dating Jaggerd, it was there. Even if I grew up and got married to someone else and had children that I loved with all my heart, my love for Gavin Garrison would still be there. Like my blue eyes, my brown hair, and the freckle to the left of my nose, it was a permanent part of me.