Stop was burning into my tongue. This was torture…not being able to hold him, touch him, or reciprocate. Not being able to cover myself was second.
“Emma…”
My eyes flashed open as he said my name.
“Tell me you want me. Say it. I need to hear it.”
My heart turned over in my chest.
“Zach…I don’t just want you. I need you. I need you to need me.”
He smashed his lips to mine as his hand touched me where it hadn’t in four years. When he felt how ready I was for him, he cried out my name. Feeling his finger again and knowing how much he wanted me only fueled my desire.
We were so young four years ago. My first few times to have sex…he was gentle and loving. I didn’t like the lights on. I didn’t want him to see me naked. I was even more embarrassed to see him. But now, this incredible man was taking in every inch of me with his eyes. I wanted him to remember and regret what he had walked away from.
My body arched up to meet his finger and his other hand continued it’s slow dance with my breast…pinching and pulling exactly where I needed. His breathing matched mine nearly breath for breath. Inside, waves of excitement built and I knew it would only be a minute before I passed over the edge. So young all those years ago, I’d never had an orgasm in the few times we’d been together. I was going to now, and I wanted him to know.
“Zach…please. Don’t stop…”
Immediately, he slowed which irritated me. I’d finish myself if need be.
“Unlock me,” I begged.
The stimulation was there again, building, intensifying, stealing the breath from my lungs. He knew too because when I opened my eyes, the look of pleasure on his face was of pure satisfaction. He enjoyed doing this to me.
Our eyes met. “Please Zach, let me touch you…hold you,” I said, hoping that would work. As I neared the point of no return, I released a long, pleasurable moan and he stopped again. My eyes opened almost in anger and his mouth met mine before my moment of protest.
He reared back and his chocolate brown eyes penetrated mine deeply.
“Tell me…you’re mine.”
My eyes searched his face. His? What the hell? He wanted me back? Or was this about Austin?
“What?” I asked not wanting to think or entertain conversation.
His finger slid easily back into me while his thumb quickly stimulated that sweet spot. The face I loved so long ago almost touching mine, and as he spoke his breath blew across my face.
“Say it Emma. Say that you’re mine and no one else’s. Say you’ll stay with me.”
My heart ached to love him and to be his. I couldn’t think about it. I was there again almost to explode. I needed this… and when he torturously slowed again, I ached horribly and I finally cried out, “Stop touching me, Zach…”
The raw and excruciating grimace that came across his face, hurt more than my lack of being fulfilled. He fumbled so quickly with the key, he dropped it twice before unlocking me. Tears had begun to sting my eyes, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring my arms down to my sides. It was as if they were glued in that position.
Only a single tear escaped before he gently lowered my arms next to me, blood rushing into my hands. I rolled into a ball on my side and he pulled the sheet over me.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said in a rushed whisper kissing my forehead.
I inhaled a long, broken breath as he crawled under the sheets and spooned me. He kissed my ear.
“I’m sorry, Emma forgive me. I pushed you too far,” he whispered again.
I nodded. I knew by the look on his face when I said stop that he was mortified. My breathing had slowed to a normal pace when I unexpectedly felt one arm wrap around my waist and the other came over my shoulder. One hand found my breast and the other pressed my legs apart to find me still wanting him.
“Please, let me take care of you,” he said softly into my ear.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he meant sexually at this moment or forever… But truth be told, I’d never had a guy just do me before. This was new…weird…just me getting off.
My body instinctively relaxed into his chest. As much as I’d grown, he still served as a cave around me. His expert fingers and hands went immediately to work and I arched my throat till my head rested against his chest. I wanted to touch him too, and I reached around to find him ready for me but still in his shorts.
“No, Emma,” he spoke tenderly. “This is for you, baby.”
Baby? That was music to my ears. I hadn’t heard that in four years. I had always been his baby. I gently rested my hands on his hips and did as he said.
Within a few short minutes, I was there…my body ready to detonate. His mouth right next to my ear, his breaths as shallow as mine.
“Do this baby, finish for me,” he pled.
Those words and his desire for me to explode for him…took me right over the edge. My hips pressed back against his groin and my entire abdomen tightened as I felt a bursting of fireworks inside my pelvis.
“Zach…”
“Hmmmmm,” he moaned as his nose nestled into my neck.
“I’ve always been yours.”
When I woke up, sunlight snuck between the curtains in a perfect little line across the bed. Dust particles suspended in the air and hung in a constant rotation even when I dragged my hand through them. Zach wasn’t in bed next to me, but a small piece of paper sat on his pillow. I opened it.
I asked the magic 8 ball if you should stay in my bed all day. The first answer was ‘my sources say no’…so I did it 17 more times until I got a yes type response. In short, you must stay in my bed all day because the 8 ball said. It wouldn’t lie. Z
I giggled and pulled the covers back. A Laguna Beach T-shirt draped over the bed and I guessed it was for me to wear.
My steps came to a screeching halt half way down the hallway when I heard Zach’s voice.
“Stop Sam. You’re being paranoid.”
“Zach. I want things to be ok. But she’s going to have to go back. California is not her home. Seeing this smile on your face.” She paused. “I don’t know this Zach. I like him very much, but for four years, I’ve known this angry, bitter and sometimes violent but beautiful soul.”
I heard his knees pop, and I could tell he was up, so I tip toed back down the hall.
“Sam. I love her. I’ve loved her since I met her. I knew then she was the one for me but she was so young. You don’t know the before me. I’m not me without her. She’s my past, my right now and my future.”
I heard something hit the wall. “Vomit!” Sam laughed, “What have you done with my badass friend?”
“Throw that pillow at me again and I’ll show you that badass.”
“Just tell me, when she leaves, which Zach stays here?”
He released a breath. “Samantha! Let me be happy. I’ve never felt the happiness in my heart like I do knowing she’s in my bed right now, sleeping and I can go lay next to her. She lit my world when it was dark. Things went black for awhile. But my light is back. Sam, in my 24 years of life, a year a half of it was all I can remember. I’m lost without her.”
I quietly moved back to the bedroom and slid beneath the sheets…things were slowly making sense and falling into place. But really, what was I doing?
Zach snuggled into bed spooning me from behind. Once he burrowed up next to me, he inhaled and released the longest, slowest breath I’d ever heard. It was as if he hadn’t breathed in forever and finally took his first breath of air.
“Hey baby,” he whispered.
“Hmmm…”
His nose was on my neck. “You smell so…you.”
Was that a good thing? I giggled. “I need to get my stuff so I can shower and smell better.”
“Nothing smells better.”
I turned toward him. “Morning breath is always refreshing,” I said rolling my eyes.
After pecking my lips, he said, “Baby, I’ll take your mo
rning breath a million mornings versus some other girl’s minty fresh breath even once.”
My body was curled in a ball, my feet resting on the tops of his thighs and my head resting against his chest.
“Regardless, I need to get my stuff from where I’m staying.”
“Don’t get mad, ok?”
My heart picked up its pace as my eyes darted up to meet his.
“I paid your bill and had your things brought here from the hotel.” He closed his eyes and braced himself for my reaction.
“And you thought that would make me angry?” I said softly.
He shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what’s going on in your life. I don’t know how long you’ll stay with me here. I don’t know if I could bear…” His Adam’s apple jetted out when he swallowed. “…you leaving again.”
Chapter 5—Zach
When she darted up and out of my arms, it robbed me of breath. The hostility in her eyes worried me. “I never left you Zach. I begged you to stay. Do you remember that? That night at the hotel?” She pulled her feet beneath her.
If there was a memory forever etched in my head, it was that night—I left her there with him.
“Let me remind you. Again! I was half naked, only wearing my bra and panties. We had dinner, fooled around and then you bolted. You moved away from me. Forever!”
I monitored her eyes for tears… that would break me. Having her back for such a short time, then possibly losing her again. Sam would be right, I’d need to move away from everyone. Find an island to destroy.
Without thinking, I reached for her, but she dodged my hands.
“I’m serious Zach. What did you want me to do at 16? I had to finish high school. Do you think my parents would have allowed me to jump in my car and drive to you? Then you stopped coming home completely.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Then tell me. What did you expect?”
Nearly five years! That’s how long it had been since I had talked…opened up…let anyone truly in. And here she was. My one and only. She was a piece to my life puzzle that had been missing. I was complete now…with her here in my arms…in my bed.
“I don’t know Em. I wanted you to stop me. Part of me wanted to see if you’d go to him.” I took a risk and glanced at her eyes. Her reddish, perfectly arched brows lowered.
“It was a test?”
I quickly shook my head. “No! I knew I had to leave to protect you at the trial. Then you went and gave them every piece of information you had which completely defeated my reason for leaving and trying to protect you.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
“Hush!” I quickly said not giving her a moment to get in a word. “I have a few more things I’d like to say but having you this close to me and you not being in my arms—it’s more painful than you could imagine.”
Her beautiful blue eyes melted and she leaned down into my arms. She hadn’t grown terribly much in the past four to five years. She was still skinny…too skinny. She needed to eat more. But she still fit perfectly into my arms and against my chest. No one had occupied this territory in all these years. It was never even a thought. Twenty-four years ago, I was created for this girl. Everything I did in the seventeen years leading up to her was exactly what I was supposed to do.
I don’t know if leaving her in that hotel room with him was a good idea…it crushed me at the time. But truth be told, it happened as planned. He did take care of her. Better than I’d expected. I still searched for the courage to ask her if they’d been together. Of course they had! They’d lived together.
As her head rested on my chest, I raked my fingers through her hair.
“What more do you want to say? Given that I’m supposed to hush and all?” she giggled. And her little giggle was like blood to my heart.
“Em. I don’t know what I expected. The first two years were hard simply because of the distance. Not just our emotional distance but also the physical distance. Knowing he was loving you in a way… that I couldn’t.” My voice broke and I sounded like a damn pussy. I cleared my throat.
“Zach…”
My hand shot up halting her words.
“I stayed focused on my school work. Got to know Sam and Dylan. Moved in with them. They started to see my mood swings. Learned certain triggers. I remember one night after a Journey song came on at a bar, not Panchas. I threw a beer bottle at a wall when I asked them to turn it off and they said no. That was about the fourth bar we’d been banned from off campus. We were sitting at home one night and Sam came at me pretty hard. Wanted to know what caused the anger. Demanded that I go to therapy. So, I did.”
Her little head popped up and she planted her chin in my chest. “You went to therapy?”
I nodded. “Yeah, until the therapist told me that I needed to let you go and move forward.”
“What did you say?”
My chest rumbled with an internal laughter. “I told him to fuck off.” I grinned down at her. “Nothing could make the anxiety and anger away. Nothing. Coming home only made it worse. My mom adored you and I felt as if I’d ruined that for her. Oregon was a piece of you, so I stopped coming home. That’s when Dylan and I started popping shit.”
“Zach, you promised you’d never do that again.” Her eyes held a disappointment that made me want to vomit.
I closed my eyes. Seeing that look in her eyes was intolerable. “A lot of promises were broken Emma. I never thought I’d be that low again. I know that doesn’t excuse it. It got me through at times, that’s all I can say.”
When the cool air hit me, I could tell she’d moved off of me. I risked opening my eyes. The smirk on her face eased my mind.
“What?”
“It got you through?”
“Yes.”
“From what I saw, it got you through a blow job? How was that by the way?” Her brows cocked high on her forehead.
A slow grin spread across my face. “It wasn’t you.”
“Did you reciprocate that?”
Reciprocate? “Did I go down on Sophia?”
“Yes,” she said as her lashes fluttered and she looked down at her hands. This was the Em I remembered.
“No baby. I haven’t gone down on a girl since you.”
She grabbed my shirt that she wore, just above her sternum. I didn’t know what that meant. And then she swallowed almost like it was painful.
“Hold me,” she whispered.
And there was no way she was going to ask twice.
Chapter 6—Possession
The sand was different than in Cannon. Maybe a little bit finer… and it was hotter than hell from the sun. Today, he’d driven me to Laguna Beach dead set on teaching me to surf. I always thought my world was the prettiest most beautiful one, but I now understood, his love for this place he now called home. It was easy to see why his heart remained here and why it was so easy to return. The area was so different from Cannon. It wasn’t San Fran, his original home, but I had a feeling this place beat even that.
After, getting slammed to the ocean floor twice and my nose getting completely flushed with natures best saline water mixed with a thin layer of sand, he forced me to stop. He seemed frustrated.
“How can you fly down a mountain on a snowboard but not balance on a surfboard?”
“You only let me try twice, Zach!”
My shoulder was nearly pulled out of its socket as he tugged me from the water.
“Yeah, well, seeing the face I love being slammed against the sand isn’t my idea of fun.”
Yanking my arm free, I rolled my eyes and started walking back to the water with my board. “I’m trying again.”
“Em, baby, please…”
His voice seemed desperate, and when I flipped around, my board nailed a guy walking past. Wow, a hot guy walking past.
“Sorry,” I said and smiled embarrassed.
“No worries, doll. You need help with that?” His accent was thick, very heavy…
/>
Australian? Sexy! He pointed to my board when he asked.
Zach dropped his board and took two strong steps toward the guy. “How about you take your ass back where you came from. You need fucking help with that?”
“Zach!”
“Easy bro. Just asking the lady if she needs help, “ he said and touched my back as he said it.
I reached up to touch Zach’s hardened jaw. “Baby…” I whispered.
His eyes found mine for a split second then moved back to the guy beside me.
“I’m not your bro. And I’m gonna say this one time, move the fuck along now or I’ll break your arms off for touching her and send them back to your mother C.O.D. ”
The guy shook his head and moved along as told. Unable to find the courage to look at him, I offered an apologetic smile.
“What are you doing?” I gritted through my teeth.
Zach’s eyes rounded. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, that guy did nothing wrong.”
He lowered his aviators and winked at me. “I know he didn’t, doll.”
This longer-haired, better built, possessive Zach wasn’t the one I was used to. He had always been patient and kind and fair. “Zach, you can’t beat up every guy who speaks to me.”
A slow wide grin spread across his face. “I can damn near try.”
“Ugh! Who are you?” I chuckled and started walking away.
“Wait, hand me that board. I don’t need you goin’ and hittin’ more dudes.” He carried both boards. “And when you go and apologize like that…it’s only asking for trouble.”
“Oh! I apologized wrong? Is that right?” In utter disbelief, I shook my head. Then decided to kick sand at him and his smile only broadened.
He cleared his throat and took off his sunglasses at the same time. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voiced elevated about two octaves then he batted his eyes and peered through his long lashes.
Just One of the Guys 3 My Someday... Page 4