by Alex Rosa
He continues after eating a mouthful of cooked meat. “What about school, Skye? What’s the plan? When Josh mentioned you were stressed out about medical school applications I nearly wanted to punch something because I haven’t been keeping tabs on that, and how it might be stressing you out. We keep talking about this new world of modeling and stuff, but tell me what you’re thinking.”
This is when I finally say what’s on my mind. “I wish I could kiss you right now. I need it.”
He releases his deep chuckle, and a full grin, and it’s glorious. “You don’t even have to ask, babe.”
He drops his fork and napkin, and scoots his way around the curve of the booth, grabbing for my arm, pulling me to him so that we are snug against one another in the confines of the booth, before crashing his lips to mine. I suppress a groan at his taste, his touch, his all-consuming way of capturing me.
I don’t know if the kiss was supposed to be short and sweet, but it becomes so much more as he coaxes my mouth open, twisting his tongue around mine, devouring me like he would this meal, and he’s back to being my elixir.
He pulls away, leaving me breathless.
“I need you,” he says, his tone giving away to a lustful mood shift.
I lift my hand to trail my fingertips over his jaw, loving the fact he hasn’t shaved in a couple days.
I’m about to reply with something sweet, but the burning smell catches his and my attention as we scurry to the grill to move the burning chunks of meat while releasing strings of laughter.
“You’re too distracting,” he mutters as I try to muffle my laughs with my hands.
“Whatever,” I say.
“So, don’t think we aren’t going to talk about school. Josh also said you graduate this semester. I didn’t know that.”
The mood shifts so suddenly in a direction I didn’t expect. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to mention it. I’ll have a whole semester off at least. I applied for graduation last week, actually.”
He nods, not lifting his stare from the food. “That’ll at least leave room for you to seek out, or explore, other avenues during that semester off, I would think.”
I go wide-eyed as I watch him, but in a good way. “I didn’t think of it that way, but you’re right, I guess it would.”
“Like modeling?” he questions, finally shooting me a supportive smirk.
“Yeah,” I nod, eating a mouthful of charred remains of meat, simply needing something to do as I think.
“Have you heard back from schools, then?”
I nod, unsure of how I want to respond.
“Skye . . .” Blake whines, as if reading the tight V that I can feel between my brows. “What’s wrong?”
“Scared.” It’s a one-word answer that doesn’t necessarily make sense, and I try to regroup. “I’ve heard back from four schools, but they were all out of state.”
This time his shoulder droop is more pronounced. “Oh . . . what did they say? You get in?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want to open them without you, and to be honest, I don’t think I want to leave the state anyway. I haven’t heard back from UCLA or UCSD yet, so there’s still some hope . . . but . . .”
“But what?”
“I don’t know what I want to do with school.”
Blake’s groan isn’t what I expect as I watch him rub his temples. “Your brother is going to kill me.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “He’ll deal. Remember, my brother will get over anything I throw at him. The more pressing issue is what the hell am I doing with myself? You’re right, having a semester off will give me time to figure it out, but at the same time, what’s there to figure out? Let’s say I choose modeling. What if that doesn’t go the way I plan? It’s a risk, and I’ll have no job.”
Blake nods, and he takes on a new air, like I remember him doing when we first met, when he would dissect my commitment issues after getting out of my abusive relationship. His philosophical ideals and hidden wisdom was such a wonderful thing to discover, and helped me through not only my own commitment issues, but his hidden heartbreak. That feels so long ago, but it isn’t. It’s only months. He’s so much smarter than he lets on, if he lets his brain work.
“That isn’t true. You’d have a biology degree under your belt. There’s lots you could do with that, and I’d be happy to be there and help you explore any avenue you want. Go into research, reenroll in school. We’d figure it out. Either way, whatever you choose, we’ll be okay.”
This time it’s my turn to say it as all the tension I had been feeling over the issue leaves my body like a gust of wind. “I love you.” The confirmation that whatever happens, we’re a team, is everything and more.
He winks from across the table. The adorable jerk.
“Then we’ll be okay. I just want to make sure we open them together,” I say.
He nods. “As long as we choose what you want, and not what you think I want, then that sounds perfect.”
“I wish I could hate how charming you are sometimes.”
“Pshh, doubtful. I’d do anything for you, Skye.”
I guess I always knew Blake was serious about me, but there’s a sense of finality to his tone that’s more than his I love you’s, and I can’t imagine ever being happier.
There’s a screech that sounds through the speakers, causing me to wince through my wonderful moment. The girl that was at the hostess podium earlier speaks softly into the mic, asking if anyone would like to sing, and begs the crowd to not let the mood die with the evening.
Surprising me, Blake squirms in his seat, shimmying his way out.
“Blake, what are you doing?” I ask, gobsmacked with the fear I had when I realized what this place is.
He can’t be serious.
When he slips from his seat with an obvious goal, I want to claw at him, and pull him back into the booth. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m embarrassed for him, or myself.
He shakes his head adoringly while shooting me another wink. Damn him.
Climbing up to the stage, he leans in to the girl and whispers his song pick. She eagerly nods, handing off the mic to him before running off to the DJ.
“What are you doing?” I mouth to him from our booth sitting center stage.
He waves me off as he brings the mic to his lips, and speaks before whatever song he’s chosen starts.
“This song is for my girlfriend, who’s always keeping me in line, but doesn’t seem to give herself the credit she deserves. She’s half of me, and just like the song implies, ‘and her eyes, she’s a Skye full of stars, and she’s such a heavenly view . . .’”
Hoots and hollers sound through the restaurant. People are peeking out of their private booths to see whom Blake is staring at, and I’m too busy rubbing my face, aghast at what’s happening. I must be the color of Mars, and I’m suddenly thankful for the darkness.
I know I can feel the potent alcohol thrumming through my insides, and I wonder if it’s what gave Blake the confidence he needed to jump on stage, but I think I know better. This is who he is. He isn’t afraid of the limelight, and he sure isn’t afraid to tell people how he feels about me.
Although it has me feeling like the luckiest girl on the planet, I still want to run in the opposite direction.
The piano beats of Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars” begins sounding through the speakers, and I’m giggling like an idiot. I can’t believe him.
Ugh, I can’t tell if I want to strangle him, hug him, kiss him, or fuck him. Whichever. I’m so thrown by what’s unfolding as his eyes stay locked onto mine. He slowly brings the mic up to his mouth. The ham he is, doesn’t hesitate lifting his pointed finger at me as he begins.
“’Cause you’re a sky, ’cause you’re a sky full of stars . . . I’m gonna give you my heart . . .’”
The crowd go
es wild at the unabashedly passionate, croaking timbre of his voice belting out the words.
He’s grinning through the lyrics. He doesn’t care about the crowd, which has begun clapping to the beat, as if they, too, are reveling in this moment. It feels intimate, even with a crowd. I laugh when Blake’s voice breaks a bit over a line, but he chuckles through it. Blake isn’t a terrible singer, but I don’t think he should be making a mix tape anytime soon. I’m still laughing through my smile. The beautiful fool.
“‘I don’t care, go on and tear me apart. I don’t care if you do-oo-oo. ‘Cause you’re a skyyyyy, ’cause in a sky full of stars I think I saw youuu . . .”
This time the crowd joins him in the chorus, and if I wasn’t such a puddle of goo, I’d throw my arms around him right now. The way he commands a room, bad singing and a dashing smile, is silly and awe-inspiring all at once.
I’m giggling through every word until he hits the final chorus.
“Because you’re a skyyyy, you’re a sky full of stars. Such a heavenly view. You’re such a heavenly view-oo-oo . . .”
The sounding piano beats expand into the end of the song, and he says his final piece into the mic. “I love you, Skyler.”
This is when I rise from my seat and throw my arms around him as he makes it off the stage.
I press my lips to his, and the whole restaurant applauds. My giggles can’t be stopped as they squeeze their way between our mouths. “You’re such an idiot,” I murmur, and his grip only tightens around my waist as the vibration of his chortles echoes between us.
We did it. We overcame whatever it is we had to work through. Or at least it feels that way.
His grip is possessive, and I know he doesn’t want to let me go as we stumble back to the table. My blood is churning red-hot in my veins, making my brain fuzzy, and the throbbing between my legs edges near uncomfortable.
“We’re done with dinner,” he mutters, only pulling away to lean over the table as the crowd calms. Another person approaches the stage ready to sing another song, as if feeding off of Blake’s confidence from before. Blake just has that effect on people. Not just me. He lights up a room and fuels people wherever he goes. I can only wish for a fraction of his magical charisma.
“Babe, let’s go.” He slaps an obscene amount of bills on the table before grabbing my hand and towing me outside.
I’m still getting a grip on my body and mind, and with his hand encasing mine, I don’t care about much of anything. Is it alcohol, his song, his touch, or love that’s making me so dazed?
I doubt I’ll ever be able to get rid of this smile even if I wanted to, which I don’t.
We make it to the crisp evening air, and thinking we’ll be waiting for a cab, I’m stunned when I’m yanked around the corner, and around the building.
“Blake, whe—”
“Here,” he replies as we a take sharp left down an alley. We don’t make it twenty feet before he’s pushing me back against the cement structure.
“You drive me insane,” he says before his lips collide with mine. It’s hard and possessive, and we clash for the briefest of moments before I acclimate to his feral state. We’re all mouths and hands, and it’s everything I want.
“I’m impatient, and I can’t wait,” he sputters this time as his lips trail down my neck, and that spark shoots down my back, and pulses between my legs. How long has it been since I’ve had Blake like this?
Scarily reading my mind he says, “It’s been almost two weeks. It’s too much. I need you, right now. Being without you is . . .” his breath comes out in a hot, humid chuff against the nape of my neck as his hand takes a firm grip of my bare thigh. “ . . . torture. I thought I could wait this morning, until tonight, but . . . I can’t. Tell me to stop.”
His hand on my thigh inches upward to where I want him, and I don’t care that we’re in some dingy alley outside. It’s deserted, and that’s all I care about.
“Don’t stop,” I breathe out, rewarded with a growl before his lips come back to mine, and I tangle my fingers into his thick hair, with my other hand dragging over the smooth steel of his chest to the waistband of his jeans.
“I want to savor you, but this’s going to have to be quick,” he says between rushed breaths, and all I can do is nod.
Both of his hands inch their way up my thighs, and I can feel the intensity of his touch through the hard pressing of his fingertips into my flesh. His lips still stroke and nibble against mine, while his hands are under my dress, hooking into my lace panties that I wore specially for tonight. He breaks away only to push them over my hipbones, and leans down at my feet, helping me step out of them. Watching Blake kneel before me in the middle of being so intimate, while also being in public, does something to my insides, turning them into a mixture of thick syrup and sloshing goo.
He stuffs my panties into the back pocket of his jeans as he lifts the hem of my dress just high enough to press a kiss to the inside of my thigh, nibbling it just lightly enough to having me whimpering before he rises.
“God, I love to hear you.” His hands resume their grip on my legs, and I can feel his bulge against my stomach.
I focus on my blazing wildfire of need, delete the memories of cameras earlier, and let go of the evening, only to focus on this moment, fast and quick, and mine. My hands release the button on his jeans, pushing his pants and briefs over his statuesque hips, releasing him. There’s so much I want to do, like he said before, to savor him, but now I just need him inside me. I need him to satiate my unfurling desire this instant. Savoring can be for later. He’s right.
“Wrap your legs around me, babe.”
He lifts me up, and I obey. With my legs I pull him to where I want him as he drags his lips over my jaw and nibbles on my earlobe.
For the briefest of moments, I can feel the head of his cock at the entrance of my sex, and I hear the tight hiss from his lips that has my body screaming in anticipation.
He sinks into me and stills. “So good. Always so good.”
Then he begins to move, long ins and outs as he owns me, body and soul. I wrap my arms tighter around him, needing his lips as his hips grind into mine, the pace picking up, faster and faster.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he breathes roughly, burying his head into my neck as he swings his hips harder in unison with the tightening grip he has on my ass. He hits that pulsing need over and over, and I’m on the brink. All I hear is the hum of the light autumn breeze, our rushed breaths, and our bodies sliding against each other in perfect rhythm, and I’m right there.
“Blake,” I groan as the world around me twists and contorts. His final push into my hips has me seeing stars as my body clenches around him. I try to muffle my long groan of his name into his shoulder.
“Oh, fuck, Skye,” he moans into the crook of my neck as he releases himself inside me, slowly pulsing his hips until he stills, and I feel the tremors rolling through his body.
This is our night, our forbidden moment. No one can take this away from us.
We don’t move. We stay wrapped around each other for a long minute until our breathing calms.
My legs are on the verge of not working as he pulls out of me, my body mourning the loss of his. When my feet land on the pavement my knees try to solidify back into working joints.
He keeps a hand on my hip to steady me before smoothing my dress down, making sure I’m covered, then leans his forehead against mine.
“I need to get you home.”
I smile and nod. “Yes, you do.”
Chapter 15
Skyler
I don’t know why I agreed to let Gio pick me up. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been in the business of arguing lately, and especially not with Gio. I could tell from his tone on the phone that I wouldn’t have been able to win if I tried anyway.
With Blake reach
ing the tail end of filming, the past week has been a bit nerve-wracking to get through as I count down to being able to see him more often.
Gio’s reasoning for picking me up was that if he’s to be my guide, then I should damn well let him guide. He was riled up before I even said no, as if he expected me to challenge him. I guess I can’t blame him. Then again, I don’t ever remember proclaiming him as my guide.
When we enter the unmarked building on the grungier side of LA, which could arguably be most sides of LA, I’m in awe as tens of people buzz around setting up lighting and props. Mostly men handle all the heavy equipment as they stand on ladders to adjust large lights and their umbrella heads. I blink through my awe as I watch the scene come together. It’s kind of stunning in its own right.
I try to keep at least ten feet between Gio and me as we walk through the open room. I don’t want it to seem like I’m here because of him.
I can only assume most girls work their asses off to get the opportunity that has been presented before me. I won’t take this for granted. I feel lucky, and I hope that my appreciation comes off calm and collected, rather than squirrely and timid. I’m all good when I know the facts, but this, this is uncharted territory, and I’m walking in blind. I wonder when I’ll start to know what to expect, if ever.
As if feeling the same, Gio blindly waves me in the opposite direction across the open room, signaling this is when we part ways. For once, I welcome his natural inclination to rudeness.
I pull in a deep breath. I can do this.
I take my steps slowly, reflecting on this morning as a way to settle my nerves. Blake went back into work mode this week, and could only press a kiss to my neck, cheek, and lips before whispering his vote of confidence. He was out the door before the sun was up.
It’s feast or famine with that man. I either get him in more ways than one, all at once, or not at all, and not for a while. It has its perks, but it’s kind of awful, too.
I walk around a tall white curtain, witnessing six half-naked, stick-figured women, all with undeniably beautiful bone structure, slipping into equally beautiful clothes. I go shell-shocked, and offer a tight smile as my greeting.