by CJ Martín
“How did you find me?” I stand from my barstool and walk toward her.
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I’m meeting my dad. He’s staying here.” She pauses directly in front of me.
“Oh.” The wind is knocked out of me.
“So, again I’ll ask, what are you doing here?”
“I was in town for…” My voice trails off. Fuck. What can I say that is believable?
“Save it, Anders.” She blows out a cool breath and it fans across my face.
“I know you were at my graduation.”
My mouth hangs open. “How?”
“Tony, Maria’s little brother.”
I frown. “Who?” Subconsciously my body shifts toward hers.
“The high school kid you took a selfie with? He’s Maria’s brother.”
Shit. Of all the fucking people there… What are the chances?
“So again, why’d you come?”
I take a tiny step closer and she angles her body back. Damn, that hurts more than it should. “I wanted to see you graduate. Was even going to come say hello—”
“Then why didn’t you?” Her voice is angry.
When I don’t respond she shakes her head. “I don’t buy it. You wanted to see me graduate, wanted to talk to me, but then when I text you, three times mind you, you ignore me?” She takes another step back. “That doesn’t sound like the actions of someone who wants to see me.”
I say nothing at first, my brain still trying to process what she’s said. How can she possibly think I don’t want to see her? Seeing her for the few moments during and after the ceremony were the happiest I’ve been in the weeks since she left. I glance at her, but she’s already turned and begun walking away.
My feet catch up with my brain and I all but lunge at her. “Wait!” I grab her arm and spin her around. “Wait.”
Her round eyes look to mine. She looks sad, defeated. “Anders, please.” Her voice breaks at the end and I realize she must be trying not to cry.
“I blocked your number.” I blurt out.
Her mouth opens and closes. “What?”
“I had to. It was too tempting. I wanted to call you. Text you. But you wanted space.”
“Anders.” Her voice is a whisper.
“I’m sorry I was such an asshole. You have to believe me. I’m so sorry.” I suck in another breath. “I miss you. I miss you so fucking much.” Both my palms rest on her arms and I fight the urge to pull her into me.
“I miss you too.” A single tear spills down her cheek. “Why now? What’s changed?”
My finger swipes the tear away and I kiss her dampened cheek. I step back, release her arms. “Nothing’s changed.” My voice is strong and firm. “I tried doing things your way. You wanted space, you needed time to think. But I can’t wait anymore. I’m going fucking crazy. I have to tell you how I feel about you.”
“Anders…”
“I have this whole speech prepared.” I withdraw the tattered paper from my jeans pocket. My hands shake as I try to unfold it. “I wanted you to know how important you are to me. How I can’t live without you.” She rests her fingers on the paper in my hands, preventing me from reading it. I look back up at her face. “How much I love you.”
Her eyes find mine. “What?”
My heart trips. Breath catches. “I love you.”
Her mouth opens, closes, and then opens again. “Anders.”
“I’ve loved you since the very first day you crashed into me.”
She cracks a small smile. “Almost crashed into you.”
“Almost.” My eyes alight as a flicker of hope flares inside me. “My heart has always belonged to you, it just took my brain a little longer to catch up.”
Her sigh is heavy, deep. Not a good sign.
My fingers tear through my hair. “I fucked up. I know that. I can’t change the way I reacted, but I can try to explain.” I take a deep breath, and hope I find the right words. “I was scared, but not for the reason you think. I’ve thought about it a lot over these past few weeks and I was fucking terrified by how much I wanted all of that with you. A baby. A family. A life.” I struggle to keep my hands off her, because more than anything, I want to hold her in my arms while I say this. I want to bury my face in her neck, breathe her in, and confess my deepest feelings. “I’ve never needed anyone. Never cared about anyone the way I do you. And I freaked out. It terrifies me how much I love you.”
More tears spill down her cheeks and I pray they are happy tears.
I search her eyes. “Tell me you forgive me. Tell me what I need to do. Just please tell me we can make this work.”
She rocks back on her heels and doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t say no. But she doesn’t say yes either.
“Elena, baby, please.” I grasp both her hands in mine. “I’ll do anything.”
“You already have.” She must read my confused expression because she continues. “The fact that you flew all the way out here. Wrote me a love letter —”
“It’s not a letter.” I hedge. Although I had attempted it. About a thousand times.
“Whatever it is. I don’t even need to read it. I know it’s right. We’re right together.”
I grab her, pull her close and I crush her against my chest. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I love you so fucking much.” My nose nestles in her hair and I breathe in. Relief courses through me, but quickly recedes as she pulls away.
“Is that for me? Her eyes drift over to where I left the ring on the bar.
“It was.” Her eyes moisten again. Fuck. “It is.”
She doesn’t give me a chance to say anything or even ask. She just says, “Yes.”
“Yes?” My eyes penetrate hers. My hands squeeze her upper arms.
“Yes.”
My mouth is on hers, kissing her like I own her. Like she owns me. My tongue slides between her lips and she moans as the kiss deepens. The coiled spring inside me begins to unwind as my emotions play out. Longing. Passion. Elation. Joy. Desperation. I give it all, feel it all. We both pull away breathless.
I walk the few steps to the bar and reach for the ring. Kneeling in front of her, ring in hand, I ask the most important question of my life. “Elena “Gigs” Espinosa, I love you beyond words. Beyond reason. Will you make me the happiest man on earth and do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Her smile is shy, teasing. “You kinda have a thing for me, don’t you?”
I chuckle. “Kinda.”
“You kinda think I’m amazing?”
“A little bit.” I hold the ring higher.
“You kinda, sorta love me, don’t you?”
“Absolutely.” I hover the ring over her left finger.
“All right, all right. I’ll marry you.” She rolls her eyes playfully.
I can feel the grin spread across my face, wide and cheesy, but I don’t give a fuck. Gigs is going to be my wife. She said yes. She chose me. For always. I slide the ring down her finger. It’s a perfect fit.
“It’s beautiful.” Her voice is rushed, cloaked with emotion.
I stand, still holding her hand. “Not nearly as beautiful as you.”
She rolls her eyes again. “I already said yes.”
“I mean it.” My voice is quiet and serious. She blushes.
“We can make this work. I can talk to Coach, figure out a training schedule. It might be tough, but we can do it.” My mind is already firing through logistics. I don’t know how I can possibly train for a winter sport in North Carolina, but I’ll move heaven and earth to figure it out.
She says something, but I talk over her, venting the plan that I’ve been fretting over for the past several weeks. “The off-season is usually May through July. The other months I can work out a schedule to train four days on, three days off. I can fly out here to see you. We can spend the weekends together. And if you want—”
“Anders!” Her voice is sharp and loud.
“What?”
“I said, that won’t be necessary.”
My eyes question hers.
“I’ve been offered a position with the Jensen Corporation as the new assistant hotel manager. If I accept, I can start next month.”
“What?” My jaw is on the floor.
“So you had no idea?” Her eyes probe mine.
I shake my head vigorously. “Definitely not.”
“A part of me wondered if you or maybe JJ said something to Mr. Jensen.”
“I promise you, baby, I had no fucking clue. This is all you.”
She smiles.
I hope to hell I haven’t misunderstood. “So just to be clear, you’re moving to Seven Pines? Permanently?”
She giggles, that magical sound. “Yeah, well assuming all goes well.”
I pick her up and spin her around. “I’m so happy,” I murmur in her ear before kissing her neck. “So, so happy.”
“Mmm.” She murmurs, threading her fingers through my hair. My scruff brushes against her smooth cheek and she pulls back slightly. “You look like a caveman.”
“Sorry.” My lips caress her ear and she shivers. “I didn’t care when you were gone. I’ll shave tomorrow.”
“Don’t. I kinda like it.” Her fingers massage my back.
“You do?”
“Yeah, it’s kinda sexy.” Her head tips back, allowing me better access to the creamy expanse of her neck. “Kinda rugged. Kinda wild.”
“Baby, you can’t even begin to imagine how wild I’m gonna be tonight.”
Heels click in the distance and then a throat clears.
Gigs pulls back startled, her face a deep pink. She dips her head, and smooths her hands down her dress before saying, “Anders, meet my father.”
There are not enough hours in the day. The weeks following graduation have been a flurry of activity—from address changes, to packing, to sitting down with my mother and telling her the whole story—I haven’t had much time for anything else. Not to mention trying to cram in the most time with my friends in North Carolina before they all leave to start jobs or move back to their home states.
My mom took the news surprisingly well. I’d only told her the bare minimum about my living arrangements with Anders, but perhaps I’d mentioned his name often enough to make her suspect my feelings. She told me she already had her suspicions about Anders and me, telling me, and I quote, “Elena, I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.” I swear my mouth was on the ground. She knew the whole time? I guess it’s a technique parents use. Much like Maria’s parents ignoring Tony’s smoking, my mom chose to believe what she wanted—the whole ignorance is bliss concept.
Anders changed his flight and was able to stay with us for an additional two weeks. He charmed my mother almost instantly, and I think that helped her accept our relationship even more. When she saw the engagement ring, she went into full wedding planner mode, even though I insisted I wanted a long engagement—at least two years. I was still young and wanted to focus on my career. She solicited Anders’s help—he wanted to marry me yesterday—and we compromised on a year, although we still haven’t set an official date.
My relationship with my dad has gotten somewhat better. Right now, it’s as good as it’s going to get. Anders and I had coffee with him that night after he found us making out in the bar (awkward). I got through an entire two hours of conversation with only rolling my eyes four times, so I counted that as a success. To be honest, having Anders by my side helped a lot. He served as an excellent buffer between my father and me since we normally stick to neutral topics such as the weather and current TV shows. We agreed to text and meet up again, the four of us—Anders and I, he and Sara—and the reluctance in my voice when I agreed was barely noticeable. Like I said, progress.
At the end of the day I find myself back in my old bedroom at my mom’s house, sorting through tons of crap, for lack of a better word. Packing is the worst. I’ve been at it for over three hours and haven’t made a dent. Packing up my apartment was much easier, since most of my belongings were still in boxes from when I had them shipped from Seven Pines. My old bedroom though, is a nightmare. I catch myself stopping every five minutes, reminiscing when I discover forgotten items buried at the bottom of my drawers.
“Where’s your mom?” Anders walks into my bedroom and stands alongside me where I’ve been folding clothes.
“I don’t know. Probably downstairs. Kitchen, maybe. Why?” I ask, not bothering to look up from the pile on my bed.
“I just thought…” His voice oozes sexual promise as he moves closer, presses his chest against my back, and his lips find my neck.
“Anders.” I hiss. “You can’t be serious. You’re not even supposed to be in here.”
His lips slide across my skin, find my ear.
“Mmmm.” I murmur, but then shake my head. “Stop.”
His hands move to my breasts and I drop the folded shirts from my hands. “Didn’t you have enough?” My fingers work into his hair, tugging him closer.
“No.” He breathes the word against my neck. “I’ll never have enough of you.”
“Never?” I ask, smiling, as my mind flashes to that first night in his hotel room. How he took me up against the door, like he couldn’t wait another minute to be inside me. How he carried me to the bed and kissed every inch of my body and whispered, “I love you,” after each and every kiss. How he came inside me, groaning my name. How he shook his head when I’d attempted to remove my ring before our shower.
“No,” he’d said. “Leave it. I want to fuck you wearing my ring and nothing else. I love seeing it on you. Love knowing you’re mine.”
I nodded, right as he pinned me against the shower wall and entered me slowly. Then again and again. Each time faster and harder than the last. I had so many orgasms I lost count.
“Never.” His voice pulls me back to the present moment. “I’ll never have enough of you.”
My skin prickles with awareness, part sexual desire, and part nervousness. My mom might accept our relationship, but she would not be cool with us having sex right under her nose.
I place my hands over his. “Stop.” But my voice sounds weak even to my own ears. “I’m not supposed to have boys in my bedroom.”
He groans and pushes his erection, hard and thick into my backside. “That’s hot.”
His hands work down my chest, finding their way under my shirt. His warm fingers wrap around my ribs, causing my skin to tingle. A strangled moan escapes my mouth as his fingers find my breasts. The rough pads of his thumbs brush across my nipples.
“Fuck. You’re not wearing a bra?” He bites my shoulder.
I don’t answer, but my back arches against him. Another moan.
“Can you be quiet?” His voice is low and deep in my ear.
Panting, I nod.
“Can you?” He pinches my nipples and I moan again. “That’s not quiet.” He drops his fingers.
I murmur in protest, “Anders, please.”
Warm hands grip my breasts again, thumbs dragging across my nipples. My legs squeeze together, trapping the wet warmth that has begun to pool there.
“Gigs, you’re not doing so well…” His fingers fall away again.
I shake my head. “Don’t stop.”
He chuckles low in my ear as he moves his hands down my waist, and then his fingers skim underneath my cotton shorts. His strokes are light, teasing, and I squirm against him.
“Can you be quiet, Gigs?” he murmurs. “Can you be quiet while I finger your beautiful pussy?”
“God,” I whisper. His dirty words alone are enough to tip me over the edge.
Bolder, his fingers stroke lower, grazing me from the bottom of my slick opening up to my clit. My head rolls back to rest on his shoulder.
He sucks on the sensitive skin of my neck. “Do you want me Gigs? Are you ready for me?”
“Yes.” I breathe, my voice husky, right as he slips two fingers inside me.
“Christ.
” He hisses.
“Anders.” My voice is much louder than I expected it to be.
“Quiet.” He withdraws his fingers and I whimper in protest.
“Okay.” I agree. “I’ll be quiet.”
“I don’t think you can.” His hand drifts up to skim over my breasts.
“I can, I can.” At this point I’ll agree to anything.
He dips his other hand down again, fingers graze my clit, and I moan. God, it feels so good. I can’t be quiet. He pinches my clit. “Be quiet or I’ll stop.”
“No.” I moan in a soft voice.
His two fingers slip back inside and I use every ounce of effort to remain quiet. “Good girl.” He pushes his fingers farther in. God.
“You’re thinking of my cock right now, aren’t you? You want me inside you, stretching you, filling you.”
“Yes.” The word barely comes out.
“Tell me what you want, Gigs.” His hips rock against my ass.
“I want…” My voice trails off as I imagine the scenario. “I want you to take me face down on my bed. I want you to pull my hair and be rough with me. And I don’t want you to stop until you come inside me.”
“Fuck.” He curses, thrusting his fingers faster, thumb circling my clit. He pumps his hips faster as his erection slides over my ass.
Peaking, my body tenses, leg muscles stiffen against him, right as my mom’s voice from downstairs pierces the room. “Dinner’s ready,” she calls. We both pause, hold our breaths. It’s eerily quiet.
Fuck. I couldn’t stop my orgasm even if I wanted to; it tears through me, demanding to be felt.
“Guys? Did you hear me?” Her voice booms in the silence.
“Yes.” I breathe. “Coming.”
Anders’s chuckle is dark and proud. “Yes, baby, you are.”
My plane leaves in less than an hour. It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve seen Anders. He flew back to Boulder to complete some paperwork regarding his suspension and file said paperwork with the SSC Administration. I spent a lot of time raging on his behalf—how could the SSC be so stupid? But each and every time he calmed me down and assured me that it would all work out. He’d been cryptic and aloof about his sentence and I chalked it up to his way of dealing with the setback.