Growing and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  The pleasure tightened in on itself like a black hole...and exploded, a white-hot starburst that took away any chance of thought. My body went rigid, my legs dragging him into me, heels digging into his ass. His palms were covering my breasts and I arched up into them, crushing them into his hands, each touch against my nipples bringing new waves of pleasure. I could feel myself tightening and spasming around him and then, as he growled and slammed his hips into me a final time, I felt the heat of his release.

  He leaned forward, laying breathless kisses down my neck and across my shoulders, and I rode the waves on and on until they finally subsided. It was long minutes before either of us could move, but he eventually carried me over to the mattress, kicked it across the floor so that it lay directly in front of the air conditioning vent, and laid me gently down on it. Only then did we finally separate—but only for a second, and then I felt the pressure of his body against my back as he spooned me.

  We lay there with the cool air blowing over us, listening to the rustle of leaves in the breeze as the room returned to normal. Eventually, I had my breathing under control enough to say, “That was….” And then I couldn’t think of a word to do it justice. Not my best speech ever.

  His arm slipped around my waist and pulled me tight. “Believe me,” he murmured in my ear. “That was only the beginning.” He pushed a lock of hair off my cheek. “The things I’m going to do to you…”

  The way he said it sent a tremor of fear through me...fear and curiosity and a twist of dark heat. “Oh, really?” I asked, trying to sound worldly and nonchalant.

  He heard the quaver in my voice and gave another of those dark chuckles that made me squirm. “You’ve got plenty more innocence to lose,” he whispered in my ear.

  I squirmed against him, shocked and delighted at the same time. I was already addicted to the feeling of his hard chest against my back. And I really did feel as if I’d lost my virginity all over again—there was that same sense that the whole world had changed forever.

  And just like when I was seventeen, there was that stab of fear, as the golden haze of the orgasm faded. What if that’s all it was—just sex? Was that all he wanted? “So, um...you and me,” I said hesitantly.

  He didn’t answer with words. He slipped his other arm underneath me and pulled me even tighter back against his chest, then twisted around so that he could lay a kiss on my lips. Not the desperate, breathless kiss of a lover; the slow, gentle kiss of a boyfriend.

  He moved back. “Okay?” he asked.

  It was better than okay. My whole heart swelled and lifted. “That’s your answer?” I asked, panting a little.

  “Best one I can give you.” I could see the sincerity in his eyes...and the pain. “I don’t do relationships...until now. So give me a chance...okay?”

  I nodded. It felt as if we’d started to build something. It was so fragile it would shatter if you so much as breathed on it...but it was enough.

  To try to fill the silence, I asked, “So...where were you, when I sent you the text? You said it was a job. They had you smashing some place up?” The thought of him taking orders from criminals made me sick, not to mention the idea of him in constant danger from men like the two who’d threatened me. But I figured that if we were going to be together, I’d better start getting used to it.

  He shifted on the mattress behind me. “No.”

  “It wasn’t smashing some place up?”

  I heard the pause as he pressed his lips together. “It wasn’t a job. I lied.” His arms tightened around me, as if scared I’d run.

  “...oh.” I wasn’t sure how to react—mad that he’d lied or grateful that he was being honest.

  “I was taking weed to my foster mom,” he said slowly. “She has MS.”

  I twisted around slowly to face him. “That’s why you’re growing the plants on the roof.”

  He nodded. “There’s this certain strain that helps with the symptoms...it’s hard to get from the medical growers and it’s expensive. I thought I’d grow her some, but it kept dying on me. Until you came along.”

  I looked at him in wonder. He was looking after someone too? This man everyone was so scared of, who was meant to be incapable of mercy or tenderness? I grabbed for his hand. “Why didn’t you say something? I can help. Hell, move the plants in here, we have room. I can turn those scrawny things into freaking forests.” I frowned. “Was that where you were that night? When the two guys—” I swallowed and looked away, unable to say it.

  His expression hardened and he pulled me into a bear hug. “Yeah. She has times when she’s okay and times when she’s bad. She needed me.” I felt his whole body tense as the guilt hit him. “And so did you.”

  I hugged him back, my arms absurdly fragile around that huge back. “You got here in time,” I told him. I ran my hands up and down his back, trying to comfort him, and it gradually worked. I felt his shoulders lower and his muscles relax…

  ...and then my fingers touched the scars I’d seen, that day when he’d stepped under the lights, and I jerked them back. He leaned back so that he could check my expression and he must have seen me put it together: Foster parents. Scars. Stuff he won’t talk about….

  “It’s not what you think,” he snapped, pulling away from me.

  “I didn’t say—”

  His look cut me off. I’d been thinking it and that was enough. “Don’t try and fix me,” he said. “I don’t need fucking fixing.” And he grabbed his jockey shorts and started to pull them on.

  Shit. “Wait!” But he ignored me and stood up to pull on his jeans. “Sean!”

  He froze. He’d turned away from me but I could see his massive back rising and falling as he panted, fighting down the anger.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—Look, I won’t ask about it again, okay? It’s off-limits. We’ll make it a rule.” I was babbling now because I could sense I was seconds from losing him. “I’m good at following rules!”

  He slowly turned and looked over his shoulder at me. “You are good at following rules,” he said at last, his voice a low rumble

  “Yes! So...come on.” I patted the mattress next to me. “Can we make this work?”

  The question hung in the air between us. I could see the battle going on in Sean’s eyes as he stood there, torn between heading for the door and returning to me. He looked deep into my eyes...and something changed in his expression—a softening, as if something had just melted inside him. I thought I saw him lean towards me, about to take a step—

  The silence was shattered by his cell phone ringing. Both of us jumped. Sean walked over to his jeans and dug his phone out of the pocket. Looked at the screen. Answered.

  I could only hear his side of the conversation and even that was mainly muttering. But I saw the way his expression darkened and the way he kept looking at me. I recognized that look from the time we’d gone to see Murray for the loan. He was scared for me.

  When he finally ended the call and let the phone hang down by his side, he just stared at me, his lips pressed together.

  “What?” I asked nervously.

  “It was one of Malone’s people,” he said. “Malone’s the guy we’re going to sell the crop to. He wants to meet. Tonight.”

  I sat up. I was still naked but the room was hot—I’d been comfortably warm until he spoke. Now, the tone of his voice made me shiver. “That’s good news, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Sean. “But he wants to meet you.”

  Louise

  “Why?” I asked, my voice coming out high and tight. “Why me?”

  “You’re the grower,” said Sean. “You’re what counts. You’re what’ll make it a good crop. I’m just hired muscle.”

  This was the side of things I’d not wanted to touch, the side he was meant to handle. Sean had terrified me, when we first met, and he was several rungs below the guy we were talking about. Someone with enough money to buy half a million dollars worth of weed...that was serious gangster territory, find-your-b
ody-face-down-in-the-river stuff. “I can’t,” I said weakly. “I don’t want to meet him.”

  “I don’t want you to meet him,” he told me. And I saw his hands ball into fists. “I want to keep you as far away from him as possible. But fuckers like Malone, they get what they want. If we say no, the deal’ll be off.”

  Shit. Now I really did feel shivery. I grabbed one of the blankets Sean used for sleeping and threw it over me, despite the heat. It smelled faintly of him, and that made me feel better. “Where? When? What’s he like?”

  Sean’s voice was a low rumble. “His jazz club. Tonight. And he’s a big, fat, bald, black fucker.”

  “I meant—is he dangerous?”

  “I know what you meant.” He came over to me and knelt down in front of me, then brushed his hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with regret. “Yeah, Louise, he’s a nasty son of a bitch. But no one else around here can move this amount of dope.”

  “Does he know I’m a woman?”

  “No. He doesn’t know anything about you,” he said bitterly. He’d been hoping, just as I had, that I’d be able to remain out of sight. He’d wanted to keep me insulated from all this. But now....

  Now I was going to have to get closer than ever to that dark, criminal world. Or the whole plan would fail. But I was so scared...

  I took a deep breath. For Kayley.

  I leaned forward and put a reassuring hand on his arm. “You’ll be with me, right?”

  He gripped my shoulders with his huge hands. “Fuck yes.”

  I nodded. “Then I’ll be okay.” I looked into his eyes, then down at myself, at the mattress. I wanted to know where we stood, what his answer was. The phone call had interrupted us just at the crucial moment.

  He gathered me into his arms, the drape sliding out from between our bodies, and cuddled me naked against him to show me that everything was alright, and I gradually relaxed. We were together and, as long as that was true, I felt like I could handle anything else. “I have to get home,” I said. “I raced out this morning—I haven’t seen Kayley all day.”

  I felt his nod against my shoulder. Then he drew back, took my cheeks between his hands and kissed me, sending a soothing glow through my whole body. “Go,” he said tenderly. “For tonight, put on something dressy. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

  Louise

  At home, I fixed some food for Kayley, badgered her to do some schoolwork and talked to her about boys while throwing a load of laundry in the washer. I tried to make everything seem as normal as possible...but I was worried about her. There was only a month to go of the six Dr. Huxler had given her. Each day, her eyes seemed a little less bright. Just hang on, I kept willing her. One more month.

  Meanwhile, I was reeling from what had happened with Sean. It wasn’t that I regretted it: I knew being around him was dangerous, but it felt like everything had changed, now: it was him and me against the world, instead of him off on his own, not letting anyone near him. Whatever the dangers were, we’d face them together. The thing that had me reeling was suddenly being in a relationship. After years single, I was suddenly with someone...and I couldn’t tell a damn person about it.

  Add in being terrified about meeting a freaking drug lord that night and it’s fair to say I was a mess. I also realized I had no idea what the hell you were supposed to wear to a jazz club and I was pretty sure I didn’t have anything suitable anyway. In desperation, I called Stacey.

  Being Stacey, she was at my apartment with three different dresses and two pairs of shoes in less than half an hour. I eventually settled on the third dress, a red one that managed to be classy and sexy without showing too much skin. At first, I rejected the heels—I never wore serious heels. But once I tried them, I found the extra height gave me a little more confidence. And I was going to need every bit of confidence I could get.

  “You go have fun,” Stacey told me.

  I gaped at her as I realized what she must be thinking. “It’s not a date!” I spluttered. God, she thought I was leaving my sick sister to go off and meet some guy! “It’s a business thing!”

  She frowned. “Louise, I’ve said this before: you work at a garden store.”

  I opened and closed my mouth a few times.

  She sighed and lowered her voice, making sure Kayley couldn’t hear from her bedroom. “It’s okay to have fun.”

  “It’s not a....” I trailed off. It wasn’t a date...but I had finally started something with Sean. She was more right than wrong. And that made me feel utterly ashamed. How dare I have fun? The only thing in my life should be Kayley, especially when she was sick.

  Stacey must have seen my expression because she shook her head. “Stop trying to be super-mom for one second and think of yourself. I’m glad you’ve met someone,” Stacey said. “Seriously. I hope it goes well.”

  I sighed...and nodded. Maybe she was right, even if she had no idea who it was I was getting involved with. Maybe it was okay to have some fun. “Okay,” I said at last. “Thank you.” Then I saw how she was looking at me. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?” She had a look in her eyes you never want to see from your best friend: pity. I replayed the conversation. “What did you mean, I hope it goes well?”

  She went quiet and it took another few seconds of studying her guilty face before I got it.

  “You mean in case she dies,” I said hollowly. “You mean you hope it works out because, if Kayley dies, you don’t want me to be alone.”

  “No!” Stacey said frantically. “Not like that!” But after a second, she sighed and hung her head.

  “Jesus,” I said to myself. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like that. That however much I wanted Sean, however much I liked him, the idea of him being someone Kayley and I could share my life with—I wasn’t even going to allow myself to think about a life without Kayley—that was just....

  That was crazy, right? He was a criminal. And he kept shutting me out. And yes, we’d overcome those things, for now, but to think it could last, that we could make something long term?

  Crazy.

  And yet I wanted it to be true. The feel of his chest against my back, the way he’d kissed me just before I’d left the grow house...it had been the first time I hadn’t felt alone in years.

  “You’re a good friend,” I said at last, and gave her a squeeze. “I don’t tell you that enough.”

  She squeezed me back, relieved that I wasn’t mad at her. “Just be careful,” she told me, her voice muffled by the hug. “I hope he’s a nice guy.”

  I closed my eyes and just held her tight for a second. Then I faked my best smile and said I’d better finish getting ready, because my date would be here soon.

  Louise

  I didn’t want Stacey to see Sean, so I slipped out of the apartment and met him in the hallway. Thank God Kayley had dozed off in her room, so I didn’t have to explain to her where I was going.

  Sean took a long look at me, taking in the borrowed dress and the heels. Unbidden, I felt my whole body react under that ferocious gaze, icy cold and yet burning hot at the same time.

  “You look amazing,” he said. It wasn’t like any compliment I’d been paid before. It was so simple and heartfelt—it made me feel amazing.

  Outside our building, a full-on summer storm had started complete with charcoal sky and hard, beating drops that hurt your skin. It would be gone again within a half hour but, for now, it would soak us to the skin as soon as we stepped outside. Sean put a hand on my arm—stay put—and then stalked out into the middle of the street, ignoring the rain entirely, and put a hand out to stop a passing cab. Then he stalked back to me, whipped off his leather jacket and held it like a tent above my head. We jog-walked to the cab and everything except my legs stayed dry.

  Inside, we both sat there brooding. I stared out of the window at the hammering rain: after weeks of dry weather, every parched blade of grass and struggling weed was st
raining towards the sky, desperate to receive something.

  The cab swept into downtown, passing bars and fancy restaurants, and my fear started to build. We pulled up outside a big, slate-gray place that stood on a corner, with a neon saxophone outside. There was a line outside, people standing under umbrellas and slowly shuffling towards the door. Two doormen were checking IDs. It could have been any club—there was nothing to suggest it was owned by a...I didn’t even know what to call Malone. Drug dealer didn’t cut it. Supplier? Kingpin?

  It brought it home to me that there was a whole other Los Angeles, a whole other world, lurking beneath the one I knew, a world I’d spent my entire life staying away from. “I’m scared,” I said aloud.

  Sean had been studying the doormen. He turned to me, but I was too busy eying the club. “Look at me,” he said, his accent cleaving the air. When I focused on him, he said, slowly and deliberately, “I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay?”

  I took a deep, panicky breath. “Promise?”

  His voice softened a little. “Promise.”

  We ran across the street and under the shelter of the club’s awning. I went towards the end of the line but Sean shook his head and led me straight towards the doormen. Both of them squared up when they recognized him, blocking the doorway.

  “Easy,” rumbled Sean. “I’m just here for a meeting.”

  The doormen muttered into their earpieces, glaring suspiciously at Sean. I barely warranted a glance. Eventually, they heard back from whoever was on the other end of the radio and nodded us through. Another big guy in a suit directed us through a metal detector, and then gave Sean a quick pat-down and checked my purse, just to be sure. We didn’t have any weapons to give up, but it still felt as if we were being made safe, in the way a creature might be de-fanged and de-clawed before being served to the king on a platter. With every step we took into the club, the outside world seemed to recede.

  The main room was a huge, dark cavern with tiny, closed-packed tables and a small stage. Most of the lights were aimed at the stage, with only flickering candles lighting the tables. Every seat was full and there was barely any room to stand. Even so, the crowd parted like water when the security guards marched us through. We stopped in one corner and were told to wait behind a red velvet rope while a guard went on ahead up some stairs—presumably to announce us.