by Bloom, Anna
She doesn’t. “You can come under if you want.”
Two seconds later I’m under the duvet and I physically can’t stop myself from sliding my body alongside hers. The warmth of her skin seeps into mine and I wonder just how long it has been since I last felt warm. She stretches herself a little and we fit into all the little grooves that are unique just to us. I take a deep breath and the smell of her skin fills my head, it is far more intoxicating than the wine. “You know that song,” I whisper into the darkness.
“Yes.”
My fingers sting with the need to reach out and touch her, but for once I try and use words to talk to her, not actions. “It’s all I can think about, it is all I can play. I just don’t know how to move on from this.” The whole truth would be that I don’t want to move on from this and I definitely don’t want to make a move that does not involve her, but I keep that to myself.
Instead I kiss my favourite spot on the back of her neck.
Her body freezes after my kiss, but before I can apologise she relaxes back against me and says. “Neither do I.”
I close my eyes and wait for her to add something else. Shame I can’t close my ears along with my eyes.
“I don’t know how to be with you now,” she says. I hold my breath for her to finish whatever it is she is battling to say. “But I also don’t know how to not be with you.”
I somehow manage not to grab her and pull her into me, to try and convince her to be with me again. I don’t have to. She turns to face me, her body so close to mine it hurts. I make a resolution, a promise in the dark, which I plan to keep for the rest of my life. “I will do whatever it takes to make you want to be with me.”
I lean forward ever so slightly and kiss her on the lips. I wait for her to tilt her mouth up to mine but she doesn’t. Instead I move my hand around her back and start to trail my fingers up and down her spine.
What the hell am I going to do? Lilah McCannon does not know how to be with me anymore, and I don’t know how to be without her. How will this ever work? What can I do to make her understand that she is literally the only girl that I have ever been interested in? Ever. I thought I’d made her understand. I thought she knew how I felt, but now I’m beginning to realise that I never convinced her of my feelings. Not enough for her to realise that she is the one that I put above all others.
What will I say to my band mates when I tell them that they will have to go to the States without their lead singer?
She has been a sleep a while, gently breathing in and out, giving a “put-put” noise with every outbreath when I decide to tell her. I want her to ask me to stay. I want to just tell her. I don’t know what I want, but I know I am going to say the words.
“Lilah, are you awake?”
“Mm.” She lifts her head a little and accidentally, at least I assume it is accidentally, slides her nose along my chest.
“The band has been asked to go to the States during the summer holiday to work in L.A.” It feels like the words gush out of my mouth.
“Oh.”
I wait for her to say more but nothing happens. “I don’t know what to say.” I tell her.
I feel a deep exhale of breath brush against my skin and then she says. “I don’t know what to say either.”
She slides one arm around my waist and I pull her in towards me, my fingers still trailing her spine. I don’t know what to make of that conversation. Surely if she wanted me to go she would have just said. Yes that must be it. My eyelids begin to close and I am starting to slip into some erratic dream when her voice pulls me to.
“Ben, are you awake.”
“Mm.”
“I think you should go.”
What the fuck?
My eyes fly open in surprise, my heart hammering in my chest. “What now?”
“No, to the States.”
Wham.
Now, that I was not expecting. Honest to god my mind has gone completely blank.
Lilah moves herself so our bodies are pressed against each other tight. A lot of strategic places are touching, causing significant friction. But I can’t even concentrate on the feel of her body against mine, all I can hear is her words her over and over again, “I think you should go.”
She leans in and kisses me full on the mouth. Two months I have waited for this and now I don’t know what to do with it. She has just told me to leave the country. I never expected that.
“You know,” she says her lips against mine. “You’ve got things you need to do, and I have things I need to do. If this is meant to be then it will happen in the end.” My mind is in free fall. “This will happen in the end.”
My arms automatically slide around her and I crush us together. My hands slide up her back, exploring the sensation of her skin under my touch again. I move my mouth along her throat and she arches her neck towards me. I feel like I am on fire.
“What do you have to do, Lilah?” I ask through my kisses.
“I need to learn to let go,” she says. Her arms link around my neck and I roll us over so she is pressed beneath my body. I have the most terrible realisation that I am one of the things that she is going to let go of, but she is still here with me now and she hasn’t let go of me yet.
I make the quick decision to make use of the opportunity I have been given so I can hopefully change her mind. I lower my lips to her collarbone and skim my mouth along the groove to her shoulder, once there I very carefully use tentative fingers to slide the strap of her bra down. She does not stop me so I lower myself ever so slightly and use the lightest of kisses to explore down from the hollow at the base of her throat. She pushes herself towards my touch and I can’t help but smile when I think last night I was sitting in my room, soaked in whiskey, wondering just what she was doing and now I am with her doing this. The idea excites me and I lower my lips further still, flicking my tongue along her stomach until I reach the edge of her hot pink knickers. Her skin is covered in goose bumps and I am pretty sure that if she was going to stop me the moment has passed.
“Ben, wait.” she whispers. Damn it.
Lilah pulls me up so we are level again. I can make out her eyes shining in the dark.
“I really miss you, Ben.” She speaks into my neck, like hiding her face makes the words easier to say.
“Lilah, I miss you so much.” I make the understatement of my life.
She plants her lips against mine, this time her lips are hungry, she makes the classic Lilah move of sliding her tongue along my bottom lip, in response I spin us over so she is on top. She straightens up and reaches behind her back to undo her bra, allowing it to fall to the floor by the side of the bed. I lift my hands and slide them over her skin. She throws her head back slightly and again I am thinking ‘really is this actually happening?’
Yeah it’s happening alright.
“How much have you missed me, Ben?” she asks. She leans forward and lifts my T-shirt with one hand while sliding the other down across my stomach.
“I have missed you more than you will ever know.” I make a swift move and lift us up so we are both sitting, Lilah straddles my lap with her legs tucked tight behind my back. “Lilah McCannon. I, Benjamin Chambers have missed you more than you will ever know. I’m so very sorry.”
I’ve finally said it. Face to face. I don’t add all the other words I want to say, that I am sorry I broke her faith in herself and that I am sorry she now wants to let me go.
Instead she says. “Make me feel right again, Ben. Just one more time.”
So I do.
And then again.
It’s everything me and her have been, should be and could be together.
Later as we are lying in the dark, she has her head on my chest and my fingers trail up and down her spine, like I am playing the most beautiful tune I could ever dream of on my guitar. I have one promise to make myself and one promise to keep. I will earn Lilah’s forgiveness and I will win that girl back. If it is the single last thing that I ever manage to do
.
The End
Note from the Author
If you are enjoying The Uni Files series and want to know more stop by www.annabloomwrites.com
Or you can follow me on twitter @annabloombooks or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AnnaBloomBooks
The Uni Files Year One is out now on Amazon along with a novella from Ben’s perspective The Saving of Benjamin Chambers, where Ben recounts the first time he sees Lilah and his bid to find her again.
Lilah’s diary covering her second year at university The Art of Keeping Faith is due for release in the spring.
Watch this space.
A.B