Leave me alone.
She can’t go. She can’t. I can’t survive losing her again. It’s all I can do not to chase her. To pull her close to me and to try to get all the promises from her that I fear I can’t have. That she won’t go, that she’ll stay, that it’s us, together, always.
When you’re young and you love someone, it’s because you admire them. It feels like a need, but it’s not. It’s chemicals and mystery. The shock of the new.
When you’re an adult—when this is the one—you realize that this person is a part of you. That you’ve grown up together, grown together. That you can’t see your life without them in it.
That even worse, you’ve had to live your life without them in it, and it was meaningless.
Nothing.
Raquel is a part of me. The very best part.
I can’t lose you, Raquel. Don’t make me lose you again. Don’t—
The door clicks, and I can’t even open my mouth before Raquel hits me with an impact that hurts.
The shock of her in my arms judders up my spine, and I’ll take it—I’ll take any pain, so long as it’s proof she’s here, this beautiful terrified woman shaking in my arms. The most precious thing in the world, so close that I can feel her frantic heart beating against my chest, her tears on my cheeks as she presses her face to mine, her arms around my neck in a twisting, writhing loop as if she’d climb me.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she chokes out, her sound lost on my skin and her desperate breaths. “I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t.” My voice cracks. Neither of us can draw a proper breath. Against my pain and her shaking we hold each other, trying to pull each other inside of our skin, our faces nuzzling over each other and our lips finding each other and breaking apart. “You’ve got me, Raquel, you’ve always had me. I’m not going anywhere.”
A sound comes from her mouth, a cracking whimper of distress. From beneath her tightly closed eyes tears slip through her lashes. “You can’t promise.”
The pounding of my blood in my ears is like the avalanche, so much snow upon snow, and I hold her so close that it must hurt—but I’d do anything to keep her here, to keep her safe, to keep her with me. The feeling of her fingernails digging into my skin through my t-shirt is like a blessing, a benediction in pain, because it means that she’s here, she’s with me, her warm living near body close in my arms.
“You won’t lose me.” I can’t kiss her enough. Every inch of her face. Every tear. The unhappy tremble of her lips and the flutter of her wet lashes. “You won’t. Not ever, not ever.”
Is it anger at my inability to promise against fate, the way she scrapes her fingers over my back on their way to cup at my cheek? Or a desperate grab because she wants this so much to be true.
I love it, no matter what it means. A promise, a plea, a [desperate need to hold]—it’s all proof that we’re here, we’re together, that this is real and true. That now we’re together, this vivid pulsing moment, when her slim writhing body presses tight to mine and she finds my lips for a kiss that clacks teeth, all of her fear turned forward to action.
Pain is real. It’s honest. From a broken spine to a broken heart, it doesn’t lie to you.
And Raquel is the greatest truth I’ve ever known.
Fear is hungry. The fear of loss. The fear of letting go. And when it’s a fear this ravening, this desperate, it’s a lot like lust. They thread together, the terror and the wanting, so that our hold becomes more. My hands grab at her, one clutching at her hip, the other finding the curve of her neck to pull her in closer to my kiss. At the nape of her neck my fingers find cool hair and hot skin and I grip at both, trying to pull her closer than close. Against the soft give of her body I feel myself harden, want a grasping thing low in my stomach. A protest against the possibility of loss. A demand for here, now.
I want her. All of her. I want any hurt that she brings me because it promises that she’s here, that this is real, that in this moment we can’t be separated. I want both of us to crash into each other so hard that we leave bruises. Bruises on the outside that match what we have on the inside. Because even if Raquel walked right on out of my life tomorrow, I know now she’d never really go. These marks are staying forever, the scars I’ll never want to forget.
I don’t want a life without Raquel. I don’t want to be the man I was before her. She has changed me so deeply, absolutely, that I want the marks of her nails on my shoulders and her mouth’s bruises on my skin, fierce promises.
I could eat her. My mouth on her is ravening. I catch her lip with my teeth and she opens wider for me and I grunt against her, fingers digging into the flesh of her ass to grind her against me, hungry for her heat and her softness, her hot and her cold.
When she breaks away, I can barely loosen my grip to let her.
She looks at me, her lips wet and puffy, her eyes dark and deep as midnight, tear-streaked and still fierce. Steel under silk.
“I want you,” she says, her voice deep and cracked, and it means so much more than just this.
I groan, chasing the sound with a kiss, claiming her mouth with my tongue. When she tries to pull away I chase her, hunting for the little whimper matched with a twitch of her hips.
She’s always had me. How could she not know?
I’ll be only hers until the day I die.
“Always,” I tell her on a grunt of want, rocking my hips against her.
“Now,” she says, and inside my too-tight jeans my dick twitches with lust.
I still can’t pick her up. I don’t need to. Raquel can take care of herself. She pushes me back, shoving me through tremors of pain and want until we’re in the kitchen. We eat each other like we’re starving, and when she has my back against the table she slides her hand between us. The work of her fingers at my belt make me hiss, the cool air of the kitchen hitting my revealed stomach. My hips are working on their own, arcing towards her, taking away the space she needs to get me free as I try to get on her. The first touch of her hand on my dick makes me grunt. I want her look. I press at her cheek, raising her head to me so that I can feast on her mouth, on the swallowed sound she makes as I twitch in her hand. I only break away to kiss over her cheekbone, her ear, to suck and then nip at the lobe so against my jaw I’m treated to the hitch of her breath, a gasp of hot air.
There isn’t time for our clothes. Raquel’s hand is already moving, working over my erection so that my hips rock involuntarily into her grip.
“Raquel,” I grunt, and she only leans close so that her hot breath is shared with mine, her hand working on and on. She arches her back so that my reaching hand can find its way to her ass, her dress bunching up over my wrist. The lace of her panties against the firm curve of her ass—fuck, I’m going to—
Raquel cries out when I shove her back, but the sound is frustrated want. She doesn’t need the demanding push of my hands. She knows to push herself up to sit on the table’s edge as I turn us around, raising her hips so that I can tug her panties down. They catch at one foot, but I don’t care: I’m pushing apart her slim thighs, unable to resist dragging my thumb over the line of wetness between her legs. Fuck.
The way she trembles, her thighs tensing before they fall apart, would be worth dying for.
The way she reaches for me, flushed and dark-eyed, her makeup running and her hair tousled, her lips already puffed with my appetite…
I brace my hands on the top of her spread thighs, forcing myself to take a breath. I can hardly swallow. I can hardly think. There’s no blood left in my head. All I can see is the way that pretty summer dress is bunched up over her hips, its folds of fabric revealing the line of dark curls above her—
It’s all I can do not to come there and then. I shove my cock down, pressing at the base with my fist, dampening down.
Some guys say you should think algebra, if you need to hold yourself back. Fuck that. All I want to think about is her.
Does Raquel know? She moans with pleasure as
I push her onto her back, and she looks so fucking pretty there, the buttons on her summer dress coming open, the hem up over her thighs.
Her hands flutter down, shifting over her own skin, an anxious too-much energy, that type of restlessness you get when you want so much you’re burning with it.
“Jay,” she begs. She’s raising her head to look at me, struggling to brace her elbows so that she can raise her shoulders. She can look all she wants. All that matters to me is to push her thighs apart wide before reaching beneath them, tugging her ass to the edge of the table so quick that she gasps, her head falling back again.
I sink to my knees in front of that table—in front of her—and it’s only appropriate.
I could drink the sweet animal taste of her for days. I grunt as my tongue slides over her, my hand between my thighs holding harder at my cock. It’s always driven me crazy. The taste of her. The way her thighs flutter beside my ears so that I have to reach up and push them down again. The sound that she makes when I do that, a strangled moan of pleasure.
This isn’t a delicate savoring, though. This is appetite. This is us here—now—so desperate for each other that each of us is panting with it, Raquel’s breath coming to sharp cries so quickly as I lick and suck and graze with my teeth, pausing only to wet my left index finger in my mouth before sliding it into her. That slick heat—the way she tightens around me, her thighs twitching again and her back arching. Fuck.
“I’m going to—Jay—”
Of course she is. She was already so wound up when her panties came off, I’ve hardly have to touch her.
I hold her as she rocks and cries out, riding the bucking peak of her orgasm, and then when the rhythm of her body’s waves slows, I kiss her again before standing up.
Raquel is already straightening to meet me. Her legs hook about my hips, strong and demanding, tugging me in. She catches my face in her hands, fingers twisting in my hair, and her kiss catches my grunt of pain as my hips impact the table.
“Mine,” she says.
“Yours,” I agree with a grunt, before I push through the guiding curl of my fingers and into her.
The sound she makes in my ear almost makes me come straight up.
It’s not tender. It’s not sweet. Raquel holds onto me with nails clawing under the neck and hemline of my t-shirt. I bite at her neck before sucking the tender skin there, feeling through the slim column of her throat the low and hungry vibration of her moan. With my hand at her hip I keep her hooked close to me, so that every pump of my hip opens her deep, every grind rolls over her clit.
We hold on to each other like we’re drowning, like we’re lost together, and there isn’t anything else in the world, just her pussy her mouth her sounds, our sweat-slick skin sliding together.
It’s still making love. With us, it always will be. But love doesn’t have to be sweet and soft.
Just like any other truth, love can be hard and rough and desperate.
Undeniable.
“JJ,” she moans as she holds onto me, the rock of her hips echoing mine, the soft inside of her tremoring. “JJ, don’t—”
Don’t go, don’t go.
And I never will, never. I promise it with each thrust of my hips, the clutch of my fingers, the hunger of my mouth as I kiss at her face. Fuck, she feels incredible.
She feels—
She feels—
“Kel—”
My orgasm obliterates everything. There’s only the feel of her body wrapped around mine. Of my cock inside of her.
Slowly I can hear again. The exhausted gasping of our breaths. The rush of blood in my ears.
Raquel has her face pressed to my shoulder, and she doesn’t lift it up.
I can’t see her expression. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. I only know that she holds on to me, like I’m the only thing keeping her afloat on a deep, empty sea.
Against my chest I can feel her heart beating. Fast not just with the sex we’ve had, but something else. A fugitive beat, like she is trying to escape from her own skin.
“Raquel,” I begin, hardly a whisper, and then her hair tickles my nose as in the half-light she shakes her head.
No. But no what?
She moves carefully, slowly. Her nails withdraw from my scraped skin. Her arms shift as if creaking with stiffness. Her right hand finds my left, and she presses until one by one our fingers are laced. The edge of one nail bites into my skin. I don’t mind. I press my face into her hair, taking in a deep breath of her smell as if it’s something I might lose.
Don’t go, Kel. Don’t.
She doesn’t mind that my fingers must be crushing hers. We each squeeze tighter.
There are so many things I could say.
Don’t go.
It’s always been you.
I love you.
But they’re all so vast, so profound, I can’t name them. Like sacred things I don’t want to profane by trying to fix them into words that are never enough. That can’t ever convey how I feel for her.
Maybe she feels the same way.
“JJ,” she whispers finally.
“Raquel,” I agree.
Raquel
It’s the first time I’ve left Jackson and had it be the home I’m going back to.
Or at least, the first time since… that time.
I’m nervous when I give JJ a kiss at the airport drop-off area.
“You’re gonna have a great time,” he says. “Say hi to the girls from me.”
There’s the slightest sense that he’s pushing the smile, as if he doubts that the girls are going to be entirely happy to hear from him. Which is fair enough. You don’t always get the best reception from your ex-fiancée’s squad.
I have my own doubts, but they’re soothed away by the flight—predictably awful—and then, when I’m walking out of baggage reclaim in Reno, the sound of wolf whistles.
My girls are there, all of them, two of them wearing old squad T-shirts.
It’s been almost ten years since we were Division I together, but being on your college gym team together is something you never lose. We roomed together, and then we had an apartment together; we trained together, and we competed together. I shouted myself hoarse cheering these girls on from the sidelines of meets all over the country, and they did the same for me.
It’s the kind of bond that you don’t ever break.
“Raquel!”
It’s Meaghan who gets me first, hopping over someone’s suitcase to run at me before she almost lifts me off my feet in a hug.
“It’s so good to see you. Did you fly okay? The house is ridonkulous, you’ll go wild. We’re rooming again.”
And then I’m surrounded by all of them, all of my squad. When we used to train together twenty hours a week around our college degrees, we were different people. It’s a long time ago. Now the women around me have husbands and kids, careers and houses. But they’re still the same fresh-faced, wide-eyed girls who were my squad back in some of the best days of my life.
It’s all a flurry of hugs, commenting on Diane’s new braids and Ellery’s baby bump. Pure happiness fills me with a feeling of lightness, of sunshine as bright as the day outside.
“You’re in my car,” Meaghan says, grabbing my suitcase immediately. “Come on. I want to go swimming.”
* * *
I should be happy.
I’m lying in my bikini on the deck overlooking Lake Tahoe, a virgin cocktail in my hand and the broad brim of a sunhat over my face. If there is a heaven, I think to a lot of people it would look something like this. The house that belongs to Diane’s brother is, indeed, “ridonkulous.” The weather is perfect. I’m surrounded by my best friends, and we have a whole four days spread out before us, free of husbands and children and work—just us, hanging out like we used to, when life was simple.
Someone’s put music from our college days on the speaker. Maria and Brenna were dancing to it, the last time I checked. Ellery’s inside putting snacks on plates. Some o
f the other girls are still down at the lake.
Meaghan is lying on the deck chair beside mine, her hair tied up, huge sunglasses covering her eyes. Beyond her is Diane. I’ve cooed over pictures of children, caught up on the oldest gossip. I should be feeling relaxed.
Instead, I can’t stop thinking of JJ. It’s not that I’m worried. He’s going to be basically living with Chase and Brooke when they get back from their vacation to Mexico tomorrow. He’s not going to be on his own, feeling lonely or getting hurt.
It’s something else. Something that leaves me feeling somehow out of sync with everything. Like a part of me has been left back in Jackson. Like…
It’s not as simple as missing him. It’s something worse. Something gnawing at me.
It’s the fear of missing him forever. The fear that maybe he’ll go. That I’m getting into this thing again, when really I know how it will end, because I made that decision before: I can’t live with knowing my husband, and the father of my children, might not come back from work today.
I give JJ all of my heart but I know that even holding it, he might take risks that mean he never brings it home to me, and my heart is lost somewhere in the snow.
And though we haven’t spoken about it, I’m so afraid that he’s making the same decision that he made before.
No one’s commented on JJ that much. Not that they’ve let it pass without mentioning, but it’s been mostly: are you back together with him? And me saying: we’re taking it slow… and then them raising their eyebrows.
But now Diane’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“So what’s the deal with you and JJ?”
I look over to see that Diane is propped up on one elbow and, between us, Meagan has also turned her face to me and lowered her sunglasses.
“Yeah,” Meaghan says. “What is the deal with you and JJ?”
It’s much more loaded when she says it. Not because she has an opinion she’s trying to goad me into saying aloud—Meaghan’s too straightforward for that—but because she wants to know mine, and she’s one-hundred percent sure that I have a lot more feelings about it than I’m letting on.
Crash: The Wild Sequence, Book Two Page 23