I Found You

by Lark, Jane

  Everything still felt right between us. Good.

  When we got in the apartment, I pressed her back against the door and kissed her neck, whispering against her skin. “Do you want to go to bed?”

  “God, yes,” she said to the air above me. “I’ve been dying for you to ask for the last three hours…”

  I laughed.

  Then pulling away from her I began unbuttoning her coat.

  She smiled and unzipped my jacket and then her hands slipped beneath it around my waist as I pushed her coat off her shoulders.

  She was kissing my neck.

  I tipped her chin up with my thumb, then kissed her lips.

  After a moment I broke it and stripped off her coat, then mine.

  “Do you want a drink?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Nor me.”

  I took her hand and walked backwards toward the bedroom, grinning at her.

  She was smiling at me, too.

  We were going to be okay, I knew it.

  In the bedroom I stripped her shirt off over her head, and then bent and kissed her collarbone, while I reached about her and freed her bra strap.

  “Jason, take off your shirt.”

  I did. Then we were equal as we kissed, and her naked breasts brushed against my chest. My hands reached for the button at her waistband. I felt a smile break her lips and then her hands were at the button of my waistband.

  I beat her to undoing it though and got her next button too, then slid my hands into the back of her skinny black jeans, and gripped her buttocks. I’d been longing to do it half the night. She was wearing a sexy emerald satin thong beneath them. I’d watched her put it on.

  Before she’d had the chance to get my pants off, I kissed my way down her sternum, and ended on my knees before her.

  She leaned back against the wall.

  I’d never kissed a girl, there, between her legs. Lindy had always hated the idea of it.

  But the skin of Rach’s stomach was soft and inviting.

  I looked up and pulled her black cotton jeans down a little further. She was watching me with questions in her eyes.

  She’d done this before, with many men, I didn’t doubt it. I wondered if she liked it. She didn’t seem to want me not to.

  I kissed her stomach across the top of her thong, then slipped her jeans down further.

  “Jason?” she whispered into the dark room.

  I couldn’t tell if it was pleasure, or wanting, or a desire for me to cease.

  I didn’t cease though, I figured she’d tell me to stop, if she wanted me to. Lindy always had.

  With her cotton jeans down to her thighs, I braced her buttocks in my hands, my fingers gripping beneath her thong. Her muscle had tightened since we’d been running.

  I kissed the satin once and then drew her thong right down. I could smell her beautiful familiar feminine scent.

  “Ooo.”

  That was definitely a sound of pleasure.

  While my thumbs parted her, my tongue tasted her––she tasted fucking beautiful. She was like silk, so soft, and I was horny as hell as lust raced into my veins.

  She pulled my head closer and rested more heavily back against the wall and then her hips were moving, and it was like she knew I didn’t really know how, and she was teaching me, with the movement of her hips rocking back and forth, and with the pressure of her fingers in my hair.

  She came on my tongue and God her beautiful nectar was the most deliriously exciting thing I’d ever known.

  Within moments I had her lying down on the mattress with her boots and jeans stripped off.

  We hadn’t even got as far as taking off my pants. They were just slack on my thighs as I pressed into her.

  It was a heavenly feeling. I felt entirely consumed by her, body and soul.

  We hadn’t done this for a couple of days and coming back to it felt like coming home, like returning to where I ought to be.

  She was panting hard as I made love to her, the soles of her feet gripping my hips and her toes sliding into the top of my slack pants.

  She was flexible and mobile in bed. She was awesome.

  Her coming again broke me. There was a sigh on her lips and a warm fluid pull at my groin.

  “Rach, honey,” I cried as I fell.

  I’d made my choice earlier and now it was like that decision was cemented into place.

  When I rolled off of her and got fully undressed, I felt the momentous thing I was about to do roaring inside me, like a huge tidal wave crashing in.

  I was going to say it.

  I lay back down beside her and drew the covers over us as I reached my arm about her and held her close. She pillowed her head on my chest.

  I felt her contentment as well as her warmth. I was sure we could do this.

  “Rach,” I whispered. “I love you too.” It had taken me days to say it back, but it was true. “I want us to stay together, if you do? I want to help you raise the baby”

  She sat up a little, her hand pressing onto my chest and her eyes shone in the shadow covering her face.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, if you’ll let me?”

  “Are you sure, I mean––”

  “Rach, you know I’ve thought about it. I love you too. I want us to stay together. I want you, and so I’ll be a father to the baby… If you’ll let me?”

  “I do. I will.” Her last words came out on a rush of breath and then her face was buried into my shoulder and her arms burrowed about my neck. “You’re far too nice for me, you know that?”

  My hand stroked across her naked back. “Well you’re far too nice for me too. A ton of guys have been thinking that tonight, so we’re even.”

  “I love you.” The declaration was warmth against my neck.

  “I love you too.” I whispered it against her hair and then kissed her head.

  “Am I dreaming?”

  “No, you’re not dreaming.”

  ~

  “Rachel!” Jason called me from the bedroom as he dressed.

  I was getting him breakfast, a bacon bagel. I thought it was the least I could do after all he was doing for me. He’d been so… so… nice. But nice was such an inadequate word. He was the good guy in my life. It had taken me too long to find him, but Lord I hoped he’d stick around. He’d said he would. “Yeah?”

  “I was thinking…” he shouted, then he came to the bedroom door. “What would you say about going back home with me for Christmas, to Mom and Dad’s?”

  My heart hammered, and my hands hesitated as I dished up his food. “Jason, they hate me.” We’d only been together for five weeks, I’d never lived this normal sort of life, but wasn’t five weeks a little early to be showing me off to his folks? Especially when they’d made it plain they disapproved of me. And they didn’t even know about the baby yet.

  “Rach.” He came toward me. “I know it’ll be difficult, but I want them to like you, and I don’t want to tell them about the baby over the phone. I want to tell them in person. Do you think you can handle it?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to meet his family. I knew they blamed me for him and Lindy splitting up, and they liked Lindy. I wanted to be with him, yes, but I didn’t want to play the whole happy family thing with his parents. I didn’t know how to do it.

  “They’ll like you…” His hand ran through my hair. “…when they meet you. They’ll see what I see in you.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  He kissed my cheek, then moved behind me, wrapped his hands about my waist and kissed my neck, before whispering to my ear, “I love you. I won’t let them upset you, but I know they’ll take it better if we go there.”

  I still hadn’t got used to him saying those words. I love you. He said them like he really meant them too.

  I rested my head back on his shoulder. This was his parents he was speaking of, his parents who cared about him, and I knew he cared for them. He loved them, too. I shouldn’t keep him away from them then
, just because of my fears. He’d said he was committed to me and the baby. I shouldn’t have anything to be afraid of.

  I sighed, as his lips brushed my neck again. I should go back with him, and support him in putting things right with his mom and dad. I guess this was payback for crossing the bridge to the nice side of life.

  “Yeah, okay, if you wanna go…”

  He lifted me off my feet for a moment, swung me round and then set me back down, before turning my head and kissing my lips, then saying against them, as he looked into my eyes, “We’ll go the day before Christmas Eve and stay for five days. You’ll need to get the time off work. Will that be okay?”

  “Yeah, probably, they can ask the students to do more shifts over Christmas anyway.”

  “You’re wonderful. I’ll book the tickets today.”

  “No, you, are the wonderful one.” I was terrified. Christmas was only a week away. I wasn’t wonderful, and he really ought to know it before he took me home to meet his mom and dad. Perhaps I should say… I sighed. I didn’t want to risk him walking away now, I’d only just got used to his kindness, I didn’t want to lose it, or him. Seriously though, when was the moment to share the reason for all the wrong decisions I’d ever made in my life and warn him there were probably gonna be a lot more? I wasn’t who he thought I was, not really.

  I couldn’t believe I was really here.

  He let me go and walked around to the other side of the breakfast bar to sit down and eat his food.

  As I sat down to eat mine, facing him, I told myself, over and over again; this was real, this good guy really did like me, and he liked me so much, he was taking me home to see his mom and dad.

  I’d run from one life into a very different one, and my mixed up head was struggling to grasp hold of the change.

  My heart raced. Not one guy I’d been with had introduced me to his family. There was always an unspoken understanding that I wasn’t that type of girl. But then they hadn’t been that type of guy either. Now I was in nice guy territory, and I was gonna have to learn how to fit into this world full of normal stuff, and that included learning how to blend into a family that didn’t do any of the cruel crazy stuff my mom or I had done.

  I’d stepped into a parallel universe the night I’d crossed the bridge.

  The excitement and noise in my head died, and my bizarre brain shifted moods, rocketing me toward darkness, as black clouds rolled in with the strength of a spinning tornado.

  I didn’t know if I could do this, but I didn’t want to let him go, and if I didn’t want to let him go, then I was going to have to try, and I was going to have to learn.

  But I should tell him I was crazy. “Jason…” His name came out of my mouth, and he looked up, a question in his eyes. But I couldn’t add the other words. No matter how hard I tried to force them out of my brain and through my mouth, they wouldn’t come

  He reached across and gripped my head. “It’ll be okay.”

  God, every time he said it, I wanted to believe him. He sounded so convincing. I wanted it to be okay, so much. But he was the wonderful one. Me… Well… I thought his parents knew the truth. I wasn’t wonderful. I was just a mess.

  ~

  Perhaps Jason had sensed my mood turn this morning, because when he met me from work he was even more attentive than normal, his hand took mine gently as he kissed my lips. Then when he pulled back, he asked, “You okay? You look tired.”

  I was tired. Tired of having to fight the negative thoughts and drowning sensations in my head so I could keep going.

  I just nodded, too tired to really speak. I didn’t think I could face his parents.

  His hand let go of mine, and his arm came around my shoulders. I tipped my head against him as we started walking.

  “Did you get the holidays off?”

  I nodded again, wrapping my arm about his waist. His hand squeezed my shoulder.

  I should have been honest and explained things to him this morning. I wouldn’t be able to speak now; I felt too low.

  “Are you worried about coming home with me?”

  Yes, but I didn’t say it. I just nodded again. It would be mean to make this hard for him.

  When we got into the flat, he flicked the light on, then turned and looked at me. He tilted his head a little. “You really do look tired. Go and run a bath. I’ll make you some supper, yeah?”

  Again, I only nodded.

  When I came back into the room, he was frying me a cheese sandwich, I’d told him a couple of weeks ago I liked them. He looked up and gave me a really wide smile, intended to charm.

  It did charm me. It even managed to reach beneath my bad mood a little and made me smile too.

  “I’m taking you out on Monday,” he said, flipping over the sandwich. It was crisp and golden on one side, and the cheese was oozing from the middle. Just the way I’d said I liked them.

  “When you’ve gotta work? That’s sensible…”

  “It’s sensible if I say so…” He threw me a grin. “I’ve told Mom we’re going to spend Christmas with them, but we’ll have our own Christmas party here before we go.”

  I smiled again realizing, even in my dark mood, this guy was nothing but kind. I needed to be kind back to him. Perhaps I ought to get a tattoo to remind me, maybe on my hand. Be good to this guy. You want to keep him. A warm feeling caught light in my heart. He really did care for me. The darkness in my head, asked why? But for whatever reason he did. My heart knew it, because my heart cared for him too.

  He dished up my sandwich, and slid a cup of coffee across the counter toward me, but instead of taking it, I walked around and hugged him, lifting my mouth to his. He answered my desire, kissed me and then held me tight.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I love you too.”

  I’d only told him, so he’d say it back. I adored him saying it back. No guy had ever said it to me before. But then I don’t think I’d ever said it to any other guy either.

  His palm embraced my cheek and his thumb pressed beneath my chin as his brown eyes burned with emotion reflecting back the light from the down-lighters in the kitchen ceiling. “I… love… you… Rachel Shears… Do you hear it?”

  I knew I blushed. He knew, he knew, I was saying it to hear him say it too.

  He kissed my lips again briefly, and hard, before saying against them. “Go and have your bath. I’ll bring your coffee and supper through.”

  Once I was in it, he knocked on the door, and when I called for him to come in, brought in the grilled cheese sandwich on a plate, and he set both that and my coffee on the lip of the tub, then sat on the toilet seat, so we could talk.

  It felt like my swelling heart would burst, I had never felt such overflowing emotion for anyone in my entire life. Well, perhaps one other person, my mother, when I was very small and didn’t know what she was really like.

  His elbows resting on his knees and a smile playing about his lips, he told me all about his day and how he’d run down to Prospect Park. It was like he knew I wasn’t in the mood to speak and he was just keeping my mind busy to help me deal with the idea of going to his parents. Maybe that was why he’d planned for us to go out on Monday too. But then I still had a week before we flew out for my screwed up head to deal with.

  If he could help me through that though, he could probably help me through anything.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Jason!” A man hailed us from the picking up point at the airport. The weather was icy cold, and piles of dirt-stained snow were heaped at the edges of the road, where it had been salted and ploughed aside.

  The sky above us was starkly white, threatening more snow.

  The man who’d called was obviously Jason’s dad. He was the same height and build and coloring as Jason, just older.

  My heart thundered as Jason moved forward, taking my case from my hand as well as carrying his own.

  I hung back a little behind him. I was more scared than I ever remembered being.
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br />   I’d never wanted to make a good impression before. I never normally cared. But now I was terrified I was going to do something stupid and let Jason down.

  In the week since he’d suggested this, my anxiety had been spreading through my veins like a drug, and Jason knew it, he’d kept me busy all the time, we’d gone for dinner a week ago on the Monday, rather than go to the club, it was as if he’d sensed I couldn’t have faced the noise. Though he’d never said it and I still hadn’t explained it. Most of the other nights were absorbed with playing his Xbox games. But the Xbox had been left behind in New York and now I was left with nothing to escape the crushing emotion inside me. I didn’t know how I was going to cope with this, but I was determined to try––for Jason’s sake.

  “Dad!” Jason shouted in greeting.

  His dad waved, waiting for us to come over.

  I’d been shaking for the whole flight. Jason had gripped my hand for most of it, but then my legs had just trembled instead.

  I felt physically sick as I watched his father come toward us. His eyes were on Jason. He looked like he was a good dad, like he cared about Jason.

  “It’s good to see you, son” his dad said, as they met.

  Jason put down the cases and hugged him.

  I felt awkward, and I wanted to shrink into oblivion.

  Jason turned back and looked at me. “Dad, this is Rachel.”

  His dad’s eyes shifted to me, but the look was dismissive, like he really didn’t want me here. “Rachel,” he said, bluntly, already looking away from me.

  “Mr. Macinlay.”

  His rejection felt like a knife cut and tears pricked my eyes. I was trying to be normal, but these people didn’t want me to be here. Jason grasped my hand and squeezed it for a moment before he picked up the cases.

  The look in his eyes said, sorry.

  It wasn’t Jason’s fault.

  I smiled.

  “The truck’s over there.”

  We followed his dad, me trailing behind Jason, my stiletto boots crunching in the salted, half melted, ice. I felt like an interloper, like I shouldn’t be here. But my brain said loudly that I should. Jason wanted me here. He’d spent a week proving it and overriding my doubts so many times, that now, I could actually do it for myself.