Finding Allie

by Meli Raine

  He does, the brush of his soft lips against my split one both agony and ecstasy at the same time. I make a little moaning sound.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says in a ragged voice. His hand moves to cradle my cheek on the side of my face that doesn’t look like strawberry jam.

  “That wasn’t a sound of pain,” I say with a sigh, trying to smile. My mouth hurts as my lips spread, though. I wince.

  “I want to help you. And I also want...” His voice dies down into a low baritone, a deep sound of wanting that makes my body fill with a warm, wet sensation.

  “I want you, Allie. And I’m a guy, alone out here with you all vulnerable and beautiful.” He pauses and takes a deep breath, letting it out. “First, though, we need to make sure you don’t get these cuts infected.”

  “You sound like a paramedic,” I say with a laugh.

  “That’s because I am an EMT,” he says, pretending to tip a hat at me.

  “You are? That’s what you do for a living?” I’m surprised. I never thought about Chase as doing anything but stunts and riding a bike.

  “No,” he says shaking his head, very matter of fact as he rips open some sterile gauze and gets a small bottle of disinfectant out. “I took the classes and got the certification because someone in the club has to help with medical issues. It’s a thing. Three of us are certified. Frenchie’s a registered nurse, actually.”

  “Frenchie? A nurse?” I start laughing, the pain in my lip be damned. I couldn’t imagine that snake working in a hospital and tending to patients if my life depended on it.

  Chase waggles his eyebrows as he lifts my elbow. “Yep. I’ve seen that guy set bones. He cries like a baby afterward, but he’s good in a crisis. Taught me a lot. Now,” he says, frowning. “This is going to hurt.”

  For the next ten minutes Chase hurts me. A lot. The disinfectant stings like crazy as he carefully wipes all the dirt and tiny stones out of my scrapes. From elbows to knees, wrists to ankles, it turns out I have a kid’s playground worth of sand and dirt embedded in my stupid bicycle-riding skin.

  When he’s done, he pulls out a small tube of cream.

  “What’s that?”

  “Antibiotic ointment. Now I’ll bandage everything major up with this, and you’ll be good to go. It has a little lidocaine in it, to numb the pain.”

  “Can you smear it all over my lip?” I joke. “I wish it would go numb.”

  “Won’t taste very good when I kiss you, Allie,” he says quietly.

  Oh.

  Chase lifts my arm and, before he applies the ointment, tenderly kisses my elbow, right where the softest skin is in the center. I shiver. The kiss sends electricity straight between my legs. He bandages that elbow, sets my arm down, and lifts the other.

  Kiss. Zing. Bandage. He repeats this for my knees, my ankle, my wrist, each kiss more intense. Each zing builds some powerful feeling inside me, a rush of urgency I’ve never felt before.

  My blood is building to a throb that makes me think I’ll explode through my panties, which are now wet.

  When he’s done, he quietly throws the bandage wrappers away. He uses an alcohol wipe on his hands, and then rises them in water in a small bowl next to the water cooler. The sun is going down outside, the night sky streaked with pink and blue. A gold haze fills the sky outside Chase’s window.

  And then.

  Oh, and then he kicks off his boots, heel against toe, and climbs into bed with me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The slide of his body against mine feels like the finest luxury the world can provide. He’s warm and strong, turned on one side and facing me. Chase props his head up, elbow on the pillow, and his eyes take me in.

  “That better?” he asks. “You took on some serious scrapes. You’ll scab up soon and it’ll all hurt. And tomorrow your body will ache even more.”

  Oh, I don’t think it could ache more than it does right now.

  And not in the way Chase thinks.

  You know that sense of fear that feels like it’s a second person living inside your body? I live with that every day. I have always thought it was just a part of me, like the critical voice in my head that tells me I’m stupid when I make a mistake. Like the other critical voice in my head that stops me from introducing myself to an interesting person, or from volunteering to try something new that might be great. That voice is a part of me.

  Until now, I thought it just was me. That this all-consuming fear was a permanent piece of my self. Being with Chase is changing me. Spending time with him makes that fear fade away. Shuts those voices up. Shuts those voices down.

  Those voices sound a lot like Jeff, but not only Jeff. Sometimes they sound like Chuck Jorgenson. Other times, the snotty teachers at school who labeled me trash. The popular girls’ clique back in middle school and high school chimes in sometimes. A few of the voices are the men who come to the bar to hoot and catcall, to grab and squeeze. They make me feel like all I am are tits and ass, and that’s all I can ever be in the world.

  And then there’s Chase.

  When his voice whispers deep inside me, it says things like:

  You’re so beautiful.

  I love how kind you are.

  You’ll be a great actress one day.

  I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

  Go away with me to Los Angeles.

  Let me love you, Allie.

  Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved.

  All those voices are hissing in my head right now as he stares at me. It’s like his eyes are planting all those wonderful thoughts in my head. His lips aren’t moving, so he’s not saying all that, though. As the light outside fades, he’s suddenly in the shadows, body smoky and chest wide. I can smell his sweat and the light scent of deodorant, something spicy. He smells like dirt and mint, spice and the outdoors, and he leans his head down for a kiss on my sore lips.

  I reach back and kiss him, pulling his lip between mine, pain be damned.

  Fear be damned.

  Because I am not that scared little Allie anymore.

  Chase pulls in, his arm reaching around my waist, his other arm still propping up his head. His lips work so gently with mine, tongue darting out to touch mine, his mouth saying so many words I know he can’t speak. The sound of his inward sigh makes me pull my hips closer to him and I feel his arousal. He wants me. I’ve never touched a man like this. I’ve never been touched like this. All I want is to feel every part of him.

  I reach down and tug his t-shirt out of the waistband of his pants and glide my scraped palms against the soft, damp heat of his abs. A thin sprinkling of hair on his chest leads down to a thicker trail below his waistline. I close my eyes and explore as Chase follows my lead and soon I feel his hot, rough palms on my naked back.

  “Oh, Allie, I want you so much,” he says. “I was so worried about you out there on the road. So afraid something had gone really wrong. Watching you fall was like watching my heart slide out of my chest and topple off a cliff.”

  He moves his hand to my chest, cupping my breast around my bra. A wild heat fills me between my legs, down to my toes and up to my ears. My own kiss becomes more forceful, the craving to touch all of him at the same time so strong it’s going to kill me. I feel alive and in danger all at once, the urgency in me to connect with him so strong it’s like I can’t get enough oxygen. Chase is my oxygen, and I just can’t breathe right now.

  I need so much more than I can get, and what I can get is limited by...by what?

  Our clothes? Time? Inhibitions?

  Fear?

  Nothing’s holding me back right now from making love with this man whose attraction to me I can’t explain. Not one thing, except my own mind. I’m the obstacle right here, right now. Not Jeff, not Galt, not privacy, not money.

  Me.

  Chase is looking at me and kissing me and touching me like he knows exactly what he wants.

  I want the same. Giving myself to him, being touched and love
d and tasted and explored is how I find another part of myself, right? Not that I’m not whole as is. The Allie I am is enough.

  But the Allie I could become is even greater. Chase holds the key to that new puzzle piece. I need to give in order to get.

  “I want you so bad, Allie,” Chase says in my ear as he licks it, his tongue teasing me and making my ears rush with a sound like violins playing the same, low note. My body floods with arousal. My brain turns into a fireball.

  “I want you too, Chase,” I whisper.

  He kisses me and reaches behind me, his fingers on the hooks of my bra.

  “Is this okay?” He’s asking permission, and I smile. It’s so sweet, a strange feeling in the middle of something so heated.

  “Please,” I beg him. “Please do.”

  With two twists my breasts are free and he sits up, reaching for the hem of his t-shirt and stripping it over his head, the full breadth of his chest and arm muscles on display for me like a work of art.

  Oh, my God.

  He’s huge. His chest is like something out of the movies, like a superhero with deeply-grooved pecs, and a six pack set of abs that is more like an eight pack. I can see small scars on his belly and wonder what they are, but I don’t ask.

  There is a huge tattoo of a dragon on one side of his chest, creeping up to his shoulder. It’s intricate and rich, made with great care. My eyes flit to his other shoulder, where there’s another one. I want to reach out and touch the ink, trace it with my fingers. My tongue.

  If I open my mouth, drool will fall out.

  “Your turn,” he whispers, eyes full of sex.

  “My turn to what?” I ask, stupid with desire.

  He laughs and his face changes from serious to playful. “Your turn to strip.”

  I reach down and make a yelping sound, My elbows. I can’t.

  My body goes numb with self-consciousness. “I can’t.”

  He makes a sympathetic face and pulls back, breaking our touch. “I get it. It’s okay. You’re scared and this is a lot. You say ‘no,’ Allie, and I’ll listen. Always. You’re in control here. I won’t ever take advantage of you.”

  “No! No, no—I mean, yes! YES!”

  His eyebrows go up. “I don’t know what the hell any of that just meant, Allie,” he says with a chuckle.

  “It means,” I say, taking one hand and reaching out for that line of hair that starts at his breastbone and thickens down at his waist. My finger draws a lazy line down, down, down until his breath hitches, “that my elbows are too injured to pull my own shirt off.”

  Our eyes lock.

  “You’re going to have to do it for me, Chase.”

  His chest starts to move faster, breath coming out in a rugged, rough kind of way that only a man can breathe. Heat is pouring off him, and not the kind of late-summer broil that you get inside a shack with no air conditioning. The tiny little fan near the window is going creak creak creak as it tries to move the air and all I can think is, Why aren’t you touching me, Chase?

  “Whatever you want, Allie. I’m here to make you happy.”

  Chase leans forward and helps me sit up more, then pulls the hem of my shirt out for me, sliding the thin fabric up. My loose bra dangles like it’s drunk, willy-nilly resting on my breasts. He gently slides that off me, too, and now my nude chest is revealed to him.

  I am naked from the waist up for the first time in my life for a man.

  His eyes are glowing.

  “You’re perfect. Just so fucking perfect, Allie. I knew you were beautiful, but this...this is like you’re—” He breaks his words to swallow, and reaches out to cup one breast, his thumb reaching up to stroke the nipple.

  Heat pools between my legs. My breathing stops.

  “You’re like a work of art, right in my hands.” And with that, he reaches forward and pulls me into an embrace, a deep kiss pinning me to him. The thin, wiriness of the hair on his chest tickles my nipples. His skin is so soft, yet the hair is so raspy, and my body shivers with his heat and with how unfamiliar all these sensations are, all happening at once.

  It’s a tsunami of sensation.

  His hands roam in the thin space between us, touching my breasts, making me tighten and open all at once. Different muscles have different reactions to his body, his mouth, his hands, and I fumble to reciprocate. What am I supposed to do? I kiss him back, I touch his shoulders, but it’s like my brain just can’t multitask like this.

  I can’t receive pleasure and give pleasure at the same time. I’m confused and aroused and pulsing with so much heat. So much fire.

  All of it ready to burn with Chase, ignited by joining our bodies together.

  But first, I need to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to do.

  He pulls back and dips his head down, my hand burying itself in those sandy blonde waves. He takes my nipple in his mouth and suckles it, tongue flicking the tip. A desperate sound comes out of the back of my throat.

  He does it again to my other breast, and my grip on his hair tightens. This feels so good, so mind-blowingly good. The wind whips through the room suddenly and I look around. A light grey fills the room, the faded blue quilt that covers the bed now turned grey, the navy pillowcases black. The room is so simple, and in the distance I can hear nothing but the wind scraping against the rocks, the ground, the sky.

  It’s the same sound I hear when he kisses me and the stubble on his chin slides against my skin.

  He reaches up and I yelp. He’s accidentally touched a scrape on me. Chase freezes.

  “Oh, Allie, I’m so sorry,” he says in a pained voice. The eight pack of abs moves like it’s rolling, his breathing coming quick. His hand slides down my collarbone, over one breast, just touching. Feeling. He’s not shy, unafraid to look me in the eye.

  I’m completely stunned. I had no idea being intimate with someone could feel so good. Marissa told me right before she left for Los Angeles a few years ago that sex with boys was good until you actually have intercourse. Then it hurts the first few times, and after that it’s okay.

  Okay? Okay? If just being touched like this feels so amazing, then actually making love must be like discovering another planet or winning the lottery.

  Or being kissed so sweetly, like Chase is doing to me right now. He reaches for my waistband and undoes the button to my jeans. I’m glad. I don’t think I can do it.

  And then he slides my pants over my hips.

  “May I?” he asks.

  I nod. The feeling as my jeans strip off is like being born again. Now I’m in bed with panties and nothing else on. A sharp intake of air as Chase’s eyes take me in.

  “This isn’t fair.”

  “What?”

  “We’re not equal.” And with that, Chase stands and strips down to nothing.

  He’s completely nude.

  My jaw literally drops open and my split lip hurts, but I don’t care.

  He’s a golden god. A Greek statue in front of me, all hard lines and perfect power. I can see his tattoos now, though the shadows make them seem like something dancing on his skin. I peer closer, wanting to know his body. To memorize those tats. To understand all of him. Immerse myself in nothing but Chase’s skin.

  Chase climbs back into the bed with me. His fingers play at the waistband of my panties. My whole body is one, big pulse.

  “Your pain. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  His words pull me out of my mind. “My pain isn’t your fault,” I say with a confused laugh. “It’s all Jeff’s fault. And gravity. Gravity sucks, too.” He lets out a soft laugh.

  “You can’t hurt me. All you can do is help me get away from Jeff right now, Chase.”

  He’s silent. I breathe in and out, needing the air.

  “I don’t want you to lose your virginity to me because you’re angry at someone else. I want you to give me this gift because you fall in love with me.”

  Chase pulls back and strokes my face, his hand smoothing my hair over my jaw.


  I’m speechless.

  “And when you’re ready, I’ll be here, Allie. For everything. Especially the falling in love part.”

  I smile. “Is there normally this much talking during sex?”

  He laughs and touches my thigh. “That’s the great thing about sex. You get to make it up as you go along.”

  “No, I mean...” I sigh. “In the movies, and in books, it seems like sex is this great, sweeping, amazing, romantic scene that unrolls naturally. People kiss, they touch, then they...you know.”

  His eyes roam over my body. “Oh, yeah. I know.”

  I giggle. “And it’s seamless. No one bumps another person’s bandaged knee, so one ever makes a weird noise. Even two virgins seem to know exactly what they’re doing. He never tells her where to put her hands and she never tells him if something feels good.”

  His head tilts as he studies me. He’s really listening. “We’re not two virgins having sex, Allie.”

  I jolt. That’s right. He wouldn’t be a virgin too, would he? Of course not. I mean, I know he’s not one, but hearing him say it is really striking.

  “Then, when you’ve had sex before...was there this much talking?”

  A huge grin splits his face as he watches me with those catlike eyes. “You are the most fascinating girl I’ve ever been with.”

  “Huh?”

  “No other girl would ever talk about the other girls I’ve slept with while being naked in my bed.”

  He has a point. A very good one, at that.

  I shrug. “I’m not threatened by them. I’m the one who’s here. Now. Naked with you.”

  His turn to freeze, the moonlight peeking in now and lighting up the glistening curls on his legs, the sheen of sweat making the hair lie against his skin in sweaty whorls.

  “Yes, you are.”

  “So sex isn’t just wham bam thank you ma’am?”