One hand held her shaking thigh steady over my shoulder while the other slid up beneath my tongue, two fingers pressed inside again, and the combination of my hand and mouth tilted her. Her knee buckled, arms wrapping around my neck as she fell a little. I caught her, pulling her into my arms as I lifted from my knees and kissed her hard, the taste of her still on my tongue.
Sex with Wren was unlike any sex I’d ever had. It wasn’t just about getting off, it was about connecting. Our hands touched and gripped and pulled. Our eyes searched and closed and searched again. Our tongues tasted every inch, like one might be different than the other, like no single part of us should be left untouched. It was the most intense sexual experience of my life, every single time.
We stepped blindly into the shower, lips still locked together, and as soon as the curtain was closed behind us she turned, hands planted on the back wall and back arched, wet hair dripping, body waiting.
She was beautiful, pale and slight, and somewhere in the back of my mind it registered that I had no idea how long I would get to touch her like this. Neither of us asked for tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Neither of us promised them, either. But right now, right here, today and tonight, Wren was mine.
I ran my palm down her spine and she arched deeper with the touch, goosebumps spreading from where my fingers touched her until I hooked them in the dip at her waist and positioned myself behind her. She was soaking, both from me and the shower, and I slid in easily, filling her in one long, deep thrust.
Wren threw her head back, wet hair swinging as I pulled out completely just to flex forward once more. Each time I rocked into her she spread farther, I hit deeper, and we both moaned as ecstasy coated us.
My hands ran the length of her, skin wet and slick as I rounded her ribs and grabbed both of her breasts as I slammed into her again. Her hands flew back, wrapping around my neck, back still arched. My fingers pinched her nipples, rolling them, palms massaging the tender swells as I thrusted deeper. She was pulsing around me, holding her breath, ready for release.
I slid one hand up to wrap gently around her neck and when the other dipped between her legs to circle her clit, I squeezed gently, and a guttural moan broke through her lips as she came. Her walls tightened around me, over and over, her screams mixing with the steam and water. I felt every vibration through the hand wrapped around her throat and she placed her own hand over it, nails digging into me, pleading.
She slowed, and I matched her pace, kissing the back of her neck and unwrapping my hands. They hooked at her waist once more and I entered her carefully, letting her float down from her climax. When she was ready, she pushed back, meeting me thrust for thrust. I was already close, and when she moaned my name I nearly came but she stopped.
I ached at the loss of her, a groan straining my throat as she turned and wrapped her arms around my neck. She kissed me hard, tongue desperate, and then she lowered slowly, hands and lips devouring every inch of me on her way down to her knees.
Just the sight of her there, bent and small beneath me, eyes cast up—it was enough to undo me. It was enough to make me want to drop to my knees, too, and pull her into me. I felt an insatiable yearning for her, a desperation that both excited and terrified me. But when her small hands wrapped around me and she bent, tongue touching just the tip of me before she pulled me inside her mouth all at once, every thought vanished.
I closed my eyes on a moan, hands bracing on the wall behind her so they wouldn’t reach into her hair. I wanted to let her have the control, because I knew I would have absolutely zero. The water still ran hot down my back and I creaked my eyes open, watching as the steam danced around where Wren knelt in front of me.
Her mouth worked in time with her hands, fingers gripping at my base where her lips didn’t meet. She hummed and the vibration soared through me, pushing me closer to the edge.
“Fuck, Wren,” I groaned, hips flexing forward as the wave started. “I’m coming.”
I expected her to pull back, but instead she took me deeper into her throat, gagging a little as I found my release. I cursed, or maybe I prayed, I couldn’t be sure because black invaded my vision and every cell in my body numbed and exploded all at once. Wren kept working, hands and mouth, until I fell to my knees in front of her, panting, completely spent.
She looked at me, lashes wet and cheeks flushed, and then she swallowed.
“Jesus Christ.”
At that she grinned, and I did, too, pulling her into me and under the water. It ran cooler now but our bodies were still heated as I cradled her against me, kissing her lips tenderly, fingers running through the wet strands of her hair. We stayed there until the water ran too cold, and then we shut it off and stayed there still.
When we finally did move, wrapping ourselves in warm towels before climbing into her bed for the night, she curled up on my chest. Her wheels were turning, but what she finally said was the last thing I expected.
“Tucker asked me to go to dinner with him tomorrow night.”
Her fingers traced circles on my chest, and a wave of possession rolled mercilessly through me. I forced a swallow, jaw tight, but through the jealousy I realized why she’d told me.
She wasn’t telling me at all, actually—she was asking. What were we? What was she to me? What did I want?
And though I wasn’t sure it was the right answer or one I was allowed to have, I rolled until I was between her thighs, biceps framing her ribs, and I kissed her.
“No.”
I barely stopped kissing her to say the word, but she pulled back, eyes big in the moonlight that had just begun to filter into her room.
“No?”
I shook my head, nose grazing hers, and then I kissed her softer. “No.”
She smiled against my lips, and it didn’t matter anymore if the answer was right or wrong, because it was the one she wanted to hear and the one I wanted to give.
Right now, that was good enough for me.
Two nights later, I stood in Davie and Yvette’s front yard with a cold Bud Light in hand. The sun had just set not even twenty minutes ago, but already we had blown through half the fireworks we all chipped in to buy together. I didn’t care though, because I hadn’t lit a single one. In fact, I hadn’t moved at all. I just stood and watched.
Specifically, I watched Wren.
It was fascinating, the way the bright whites and blues and reds lit up her face as she looked upward, laughing, constantly laughing. Her long hair had been thrown into a messy bun earlier in the day, and she didn’t have a single ounce of makeup on. Her skin was slightly darker than it had been that first day I’d seen her, but nothing about her smile had changed. If I didn’t know better, if she hadn’t let me see her scars, I’d have sworn she was the happiest girl in the world.
She was across the road in the clearing where we hosted the pig roast every year. Right now it was vacant, aside from a few sheets of plywood that had been set up to light fireworks on. It was a clear night, which we were all thankful for since it had rained that morning and into the early afternoon, and everyone was out to celebrate the biggest holiday of the summer.
Benjamin ran past me, chubby legs unsteady as Yvette jogged behind him. She threw a shrug back at me with a laugh and I just grinned, toasting her with my beer. Davie was already across the street and he swept Benjamin into his arms with a spin before setting him on his hip. Then, he pulled Yvette in for a kiss, and as a family they turned to watch Zeek and Julie light the next set.
Wren was helping, and she bent down near Zeek with a long lighter. They were jumpy, flinching back a few times before the fuse caught and laughing hysterically. When it finally sparked, they both sprinted off in separate directions, Wren off to herself on the far side of where everyone else stood. It gave me a full view of her face as the firework zipped into the sky and burst, raining down a white shower of stars over the group.
Ron sidled up to the left of me, the only announcement of his arrival marked by him spitting
a lip of dip into his empty beer can. For a minute he just stood there with me, eyes on the fireworks, but then he followed my gaze to Wren.
“Good girl,” he said simply.
I nodded, watching as another bolt of white colored the sky and lit up her face. The smell of sulfur mixed with the faint traces of today’s barbecue, floating on every breeze to paint a memory so vivid I knew I’d never forget it—not for as long as I lived.
Ron spit into his can again, standing a little taller with a sniff. “Scared?”
This time a laugh cracked out of me. “Fucking petrified.”
Ron smiled, and if I hadn’t been there to see it in person I wouldn’t have believed it. But he didn’t smile like what I had said was funny, rather like he understood. It was as if he’d felt that very same notion just moments ago, but my bet was that it was actually years. My bet was that time didn’t erase a feeling like that.
“There ain’t no guarantee a girl like that will stay forever, so you just have to act like tonight’s all you got,” he said, and the grin slowly slipped from his face.
For a moment he had been here with me, but now he was somewhere else entirely. His eyes grew misty, but not a single tear fell. He gave me one last pointed look and clapped me on the shoulder once before making his way back inside the house just as Wren’s eyes caught mine.
She started walking toward me, stepping around where Julie and Zeek had bent to light the next round. Her eyes never left mine, and I finished what was left of my beer before crushing the can and tossing it in the trash bag for recycling tied to the tree next to me.
And then I started walking, too.
Ron hadn’t said much, but it was more than he’d said in years. And what was more, he’d said what I needed to hear to let go of all the fear I’d been choking on since Sarah’d left my place. I’d swallowed so much of her poison, but hearing just that simple sentence from Ron allowed me to spit the last of it out before it killed what little joy I’d found in almost a decade.
I didn’t know how long she’d stay, or what would happen when she left, but I had tonight.
And I’d take it.
Wren’s smile grew when she saw me start walking, too, and she jogged, closing the last of the distance between us and jumping straight into my arms. I didn’t care who was around, who was staring, who had something to think or say about us. I pulled her in tight, wrapped her up, and kissed her with everything I had.
I’m here, I said with my lips on hers. I don’t know what I have to give. I don’t know if it’s enough. I know you don’t have much to give, either. But still, I’m here.
At first she kissed me with a smile on her lips, but the tighter I held her, the more urgency she felt, the more she spoke to me, too. Her hands fisted where they gathered behind my neck, her lips hard on mine. Her brows bent together, body leaning into me, feet just barely touching the ground. And when we both pulled back, fireworks illuminating our faces, I read her response in her red, white, and blue eyes.
I’m here, too.
BEMUSE
be·muse
Verb
To occupy the attention of: distract, absorb
Keith hated when I wore heels.
I wasn’t sure why, because he was plenty taller than I was, but every time I wore them he would complain. He said I didn’t know how to walk in them or that they didn’t go with what I was wearing, and in both cases, he was lying. I was a fashion designer for Christ’s sake, I knew how to wear high heels. Still, after a while, I stopped wearing them when we would go out. I saved them for girls nights.
I remember I’d fastened up my favorite pair of Jimmy Choo’s the day I left him, though.
Looking back now, I wondered if I’d done so on purpose. Was that the first time I told Keith to take what he thought about how I should look or act and shove it right up his ass?
Maybe.
Regardless, it made absolutely no sense that Keith’s issue with my high heels was the first thought to pop into my head when Julie ran up on my porch and told me Zeek had given her a promise ring, but it was.
“Wow!” I said, forcing a smile and sitting up straighter on the little wicker bench. She’d plopped down next to me and wore the biggest smile, finger that sported the new bling waving in front of me. I reached for her hand, steadying it, surveying closer. “It’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?! I just can’t believe it. He snuck over when my parents were sleeping last night and we had the most amazing night and then this morning before he leaves he just pulls it out of his pocket and puts it on my hand! We were both crying, it was the most romantic thing.”
I was nodding, eyes fixed on the ring and lips pinned between my teeth to keep myself from speaking before thinking. I didn’t know what to say.
I still remembered the promise ring Keith gave me when we were seventeen—I could remember what he was wearing, where we were when he asked, how we’d both cried, too—and yet I couldn’t remember any of it. Because the biggest piece that was missing was the innocent love not yet touched by reality. I couldn’t recall what it felt like to feel that love so strong without any fear attached at all. That part of it was gone for me, maybe forever, and my heart ached with the realization.
“You don’t seem happy for us,” Julie accused, pulling her hand back. “What? We’re too young?”
Yes. “No, no, not at all, Julie,” I assured her.
And truthfully, I didn’t think that. Davie and Yvette weren’t the only high school sweethearts I knew who were absolutely perfect for each other. I had to keep reminding myself that just because my own love had gone sour didn’t mean every other love story would, too.
“I think it’s pretty special,” I continued. “How are you feeling about it?”
She was still eying me warily, but her narrowed eyes leveled out and she smiled, kicking back beside me on the bench and staring at her finger. It was a strange day for the middle of July. The high had just barely touched sixty-four degrees, and now that the sun was beginning its descent beyond the mountains, it was only cooling down further. I tucked my oversized sweater around me and pulled my feet up, hugging my knees as I waited for Julie to talk.
“I’m not scared, you know?” She finally stopped looking at the ring, tucking her own legs up to match mine. She leaned her cheek on her knee and smiled. “I love him, that I know for sure, but I don’t know where life will lead us. And that’s why I love what he said when he gave me this ring. He didn’t promise to marry me or love me forever, he just promised to love me while he could and to never do anything that would intentionally hurt me.”
I felt the joy radiating off her, almost like it was a steam that could permeate my own skin.
“I can get down with that,” she finished, flashing me a huge smile.
I chuckled. “You’re sure you’re only sixteen?”
I saw so much of myself in Julie, especially when she grinned wider with a slight blush in her cheeks, and yet she was so much wiser to the world than I felt like I was. I frowned, wondering if leaving Keith had blackened my heart, if I was ruined for love and fairy tales and romance. Would I ever see a ring again as anything other than an imprisonment? Would I ever see it as a symbol of undying love? Or maybe just of a love worth fighting for here and now, regardless of the future?
I felt like a pessimist, like an old witch raining on a princess’ parade.
Julie’s eyes lit up as she looked behind me just before I heard Anderson’s boots climbing the stairs.
I turned to find him bundled up in a thick beige sweater, face and hands clean, hair still damp from his shower. A sweater shouldn’t have turned me on, but it was the sweater I’d bought for him on an impulse buy in Gold Bar the other day. I’d been with Yvette planning out side dishes for the pig roast and seen it in the window of a small boutique next door. I never thought I’d see him wear it.
And now I couldn’t wait to take it off him.
“Well I’m going to go show Momma Von,” Julie sai
d, popping off the bench with a wink. She waved to Anderson as she squeezed past him and then turned back to me. “Can you still make my costume for the Alder 1k? Please, say yes!”
“Are you kidding? Our costumes are almost done, putting finishing touches on tomorrow.”
“Yes!” She threw up her hand for Anderson to high five. He did so with a smile and she scampered off, big curls bouncing the entire way.
“Costume? I didn’t realize we were dressing up this year,” Anderson said, standing tall in front of me with his hands tucked in his pockets.
The Alder 1k was a tradition at the pig roast where everyone in the community jogged around the small cabin loop, stopping twice for Jell-O shots along the way. From what I’d heard it was a riot, and I’d be participating in it very soon.
“Oh yeah. You better bring your A game too, buddy, because Julie and I are out for gold.”
He laughed. “Oh yeah, and what’s the prize? Some of Momma Von’s hooch?”
“Like you wouldn’t dress up as a pony with a rainbow tail if it was.”
“Touché,” Anderson agreed, extending a hand out for mine. “Walk by the river with me?”
I loved looking up at him, the way the sun’s rays spilled through the trees and down onto his tan skin. He wore a comfortable, welcoming expression—not quite a smile, but nowhere near the frown I’d found imprinted when I’d met him. I nodded, letting him help me up.
“Let me just run inside and change my shoes,” I said, motioning to the lace up suede wedges on my feet. “Don’t think I’ll make it long on the rocks with these.”
“You can wear them later,” Anderson suggested with a smirk.
“Only if you’re lucky.” I winked, ducking inside and quickly kicking off my wedges, trading them for a pair of boots by the door. When I shut the door behind me and rejoined Anderson on the porch, he held his arm out for me and I hooked mine around it.
We carefully made our way down the path behind my cabin until we were near the water. We were still walking on a large bed of rocks, but there were patches of beach, and we walked slowly, talking a little about everything and nothing at all. The sun seemed to take its time setting, casting a beautiful orange glow over the river and west side of the mountains. I held onto Anderson tight to keep steady as we navigated the rocks, and he didn’t seem to mind.
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