I Need You

by Jane Lark

  I held his gaze. ”Yeah.”

  “Well that is something, ‘cause I don’t remember ever seeing her naked.”

  I shouldn’t be having this conversation, I was betraying her, but if I didn’t, how was I gonna sort it out? “I taught her to like it but it’s back-fired…” Shit, if I was telling him stuff, I might as well tell him it all. “I liked her the whole time you two were together––”

  “The whole time?”

  “Yeah.” I looked at my beer bottle. “I wanted to be with her before you two started dating.”

  “Are you kidding me?” His fist hit my arm, but it wasn’t a punch, just a knock.

  I looked up, heat burning in my skin. Fortunately the color I’d captured on the coast probably hid my awkwardness. “No.”

  His eyes flashed confusion, then his gaze turned to his beer. “Shit.”

  “Sorry.”

  He swigged some of his beer, then looked at me again and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, her and me are over. But did you hook up with her when I went to New York deliberately?”

  “No, it just happened… I told you that. She got upset. I comforted her. But I’d wanted her for so long, I messed up and kissed her, and she kissed me back ‘cause she was thinking of you… and then, well… I took it too far. She never wanted it that night.”

  “But she does now…”

  “Yeah…”

  My cell vibrated in my pocket.

  Lindy. Had she’d frickin’ heard me. ‘I know you’re out with Jason, and I know we agreed we wouldn’t meet up. But I really want to see you. Would you come and pick me up after.’

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Lindy.” I handed Jason my cell. There was that eyebrow lift again as he read it, then he looked at me.

  “A booty call?”

  “A booty call.”

  “That girl has changed.”

  I smiled. “Well I like that she’s changed. I just don’t know where the fuck I am with her. She never talks about going out someplace, or even says we’re dating… I don’t think I’m any more than a friend to her still.”

  “So how are you going to reply?”

  “I’m gonna go see her.”

  Jason laughed. “Have you had a massive thing for her for years, then?”

  I held his gaze. This was honesty in its rawest form. “Yeah.”

  “Shit. I won’t lie, that makes me feel weird. We shared a fucking apartment with you…”

  “I know. Tell me about it.”

  “Do you like torture or something?”

  “I must do. ‘Cause she’s got me all tied up.”

  He laughed and drank from his beer, then lowered it to the counter. “So what do you want from me?”

  “A plan?”

  “Like I said, just have it out with her. If I had done that, I’m sure we’d have discovered long before we did that we weren’t right for each other. Maybe you and her are right. Maybe she just needs to get it. You know what Lindy is like, full of opinions. She has her way of doing stuff, and everyone else just has to come into line. Call her on it.” He laughed then, before grinning at me. “Tell her she can’t have any until she makes up her mind. That’s what a chick would do. Hell that’s what she used to do to me.”

  Shit, he made me laugh, and I should not be laughing at that.

  Oh, my God.

  Putting the brakes on would be weird, though. But I had a gut feeling he was right––and things couldn’t keep on as they were.

  I needed closure one way or another.

  I needed to get on with my life, with or without her. I couldn’t keep living with pause pressed.

  I looked at my cell and texted back. ‘Okay. I’ll call when I drop Jason off.’

  ‘:D’

  Cool. This was gonna be one hell of a night. My heartbeat rocketed up to the manic pace of a base beat. It pounded through my blood.

  Billy

  As Jason walked up the driveway to his parents’ house, I called Lindy. “Hi.”

  “Hey, Billy.” Her voice was bright.

  “I’m just leaving Jason’s.” In contrast, my tone came out flat; the muscles in my back knotting. I didn’t like the person Lindy made me––the anxious fool. I’d made her happier, but the problem was, for us to work, I needed to be happy too.

  “I’ll see you soon. I’ll come outside.”

  “Okay.” I cut the call.

  My head held images of Jason and Rachel, and the easy way he’d leaned in through the truck window earlier. Stuff was relaxed between them. He’d never been like that with Lindy, he’d been too busy pleasing her.

  Somehow I’d ended up dragged on to the same path. How had that happened?

  Shit. Jason was right. I had to face up to her.

  When I pulled into her street she stood on the sidewalk, in the place she always waited, her arms crossed over her chest, like she was cold. But the night wasn’t that cold.

  When I drew to a halt she pulled the door open and climbed in, smiling. “Hey.” Her expression was warm.

  “Hey. The lake?”

  She pulled the belt over and popped it into the slot, looking at me with a wide smile. “Yeah.”

  I pressed down on the gas and pulled away, my heart still playing that base rhythm.

  “I know we said we wouldn’t meet up, but I was itching to see you.” Her hand reached over and gripped my thigh, squeezing it a little.

  She didn’t see anything wrong in this. She didn’t think it was weird…

  I kept my focus on the road, illuminated by the beam of the headlights.

  “Are you okay?” Her voice expressed concern when I didn’t do anything to respond, and her hand slid off my thigh.

  I glanced across and threw her a slight smile. “Yeah.” No.

  “What did you and Jason talk about?”

  You. “Just stuff…”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “It depends what you call interesting. He told me his cousin Richard is getting into lots of trouble. The crowd he hangs ‘round with are bad news apparently, the Doyles.”

  “I heard that. Is Jason trying to talk sense into him?”

  “Yeah, but he hasn’t got time to pull his cousin out of that bullshit, he’s got Saint and Rachel to focus on.”

  “Yeah.” The answer was quiet.

  Because she was jealous? Because she still thought she loved him? Why?

  The conversation died until I pulled into the parking spot we’d used every night since we’d started coming here.

  She unclicked her belt. “Let’s get in the back.”

  Awesome! No time for conversation again.

  There was something wrong with my head, there must be, ‘cause I was a guy, this should be my fucking idea of heaven––a pure sex relationship.

  But I loved her.

  I’d loved her for years.

  This was not what I wanted.

  When her fingers gripped the door catch she must have sensed something in my mood ‘cause she stopped and glanced back. “You, okay? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I may as well do it with her one more time, it may be the last time, and I was gonna make a memory I could hang on to for the rest of my days. “Come on.”

  I released my seatbelt and slid out when she did.

  We got in opposite sides of the back of the SUV, like the last few times I’d seen her.

  It had got sordid for me, like she was a hooker. Not that I had ever picked up a hooker.

  “Take your jacket off,” she said, already stripping off her sweater. She had on a short, fluid cotton skirt and a camisole-type top.

  Lust caught hard in my belly and gripped at my balls, tingling to the tip of my cock. I wanted to be in her no matter that this was sordid. Maybe secretly I was the dominatrix type… Letting her be the boss of me. But then that wasn’t what turned me on, just her body turned me on.

  I took my jacket off, as ordered, and tossed it over onto the front pass
enger seat. Then her fingers began unbuttoning my shirt.

  From a girl who couldn’t stand to be touched and had to shut her eyes and bite her lip to endure sex, she had gone from one extreme to the other… Her fingertips ran over the skin of my torso, brushing across the contours of my abs and pecs as I watched in the moonlight shining through the back window.

  She lay on her back, moving her legs either side of me as I kneeled.

  “Come on.” Her fingers pulled my belt from the buckle, then her cold hands were unbuttoning my jeans.

  “Can’t we take it a bit slower tonight?” I just wanted her to value this, but I was rock-hard for her and she knew it as her hand slid inside my boxers.

  Shit.

  Ahh. Shit.

  She’d learned how to touch me just right, and she didn’t hold back.

  “I have to get back to the house,” she whispered up at me, as she touched.

  It was always the same excuse. I have to get back home. Why? For fuck sake. What did it matter if she was home in one hour or two?

  Her hand let go of me, and she pressed her heels into the leather seat covers either side of me, lifting her hips to slip off her panties. Then she turned and shifted, sliding them down her legs and off, as I rested back on my haunches watching, my jeans hanging open and my dick bouncing out the top of my pushed-down boxers, fully aroused and aimed at her. Right now that was where my brain was––in her panties, or rather not, her panties weren’t a barrier anymore.

  Shit. Her fist gripped and worked me again. She pulled me along like I was on a leash.

  How had she undermined me so easily?

  Jason had felt snowploughed––she was doing the same to me, just in a different way.

  But right now––shit––my blood hummed with need and I didn’t give a fuck. Her cotton skirt had slid up her thighs, revealing everything. My temperature shot up ten degrees as her hand left me and she touched herself when I went down on all-fours over her.

  I played right along with her hand, touching her, and then sliding two fingers into her damp heat.

  A whisper of a sigh left her mouth and she shut her eyes, ending her own little game as I took over, but then she pushed her hips up against my fingers.

  She was fighting to get to orgasm already, letting her mind search every sensation. I watched her expression, looking for signs that meant I’d done something right. I wanted everything to be right for her––so she would stay with me––love me.

  One hand on the leather seat holding my weight off of her, the other touching her, I nipped and sucked at her neck. Her body arched. She’d put her hands behind her back to undo her bra.

  A shiver of lust ran up my dick, as she lifted her top and her bra so I could kiss and suck her breast, and then she undulated against my hand as I sucked hard on her pointed nipple.

  The girl was gonna have me coming any moment… any moment… Shit, she broke, all over my hand, throbbing about my fingers, sticky and hot.

  I slid my fingers out of her and lifted them to my mouth to suck her flavor off them, ready to power into her.

  Her fingers pressed on my chest. “Condom!”

  “Shit.”

  She didn’t wait for me to get it, but pulled my wallet from my back pocket and helped herself.

  She had it out and on me in moments.

  My brain was a fuzzy babble of want as I pressed into her warmth and her inner muscles welcomed and gripped at me.

  I was frickin’ insane for her. I was lost. She had me in chains.

  Both my hands pressed down on the leather seat, as hers ran under my open shirt, over my back and buttocks. I looked down, watching myself entering her, working her slowly, enjoying every sensual second as she pushed up against me.

  She wanted me to go faster. I wasn’t going faster. I wanted to hang on as long as I could. It could be our last time…

  Fuck. She was good now. The Lindy of a few weeks back was long gone. She was rocking up against me and shifting her pelvis so the different angles added to my pleasure.

  I gritted my teeth, trying hard not to come, thinking of anything but what she was doing… refusing to be hurried.

  This was a true battle.

  I bit my lip to cover a growl, when she caught the tip of my dick with a crafty movement.

  “Come on, go faster.” Her hot urging hovered in the humid air around us as a desperate plea. It was said because she really needed it, not ‘cause she just wanted it.

  I gave in, pumping hard and fast, striking at her most sensitive spot with each thrust, her legs opened wider, and her toes slipped into the back of my jeans, over the top of my thighs.

  She came in seconds, her legs limp and her fingernails scoring my back. I carried on, determined not to let this end yet. I worked brutally for minutes and minutes more, making her come over and over again, until with a whimper of pure bliss her fingertips slid down and gripped at my buttocks as she came one more time. That had me. I went over the edge with her. Falling like a stone into a deep ravine and tumbling hard. I shut my eyes. Shit. Shit. That was probably the best orgasm I’d ever had. It blasted through me like a jet engine and left me empty.

  My heart slowed to a calmer rhythm and breath returned to my lungs. I opened my eyes to find hers focused on me.

  Her fingers combed through my hair. Her eyes said she had a deeper feeling for me than friendship. But, how did I know?

  I sighed as I withdrew from her.

  “Here.” She gave me a tissue she’d brought from home, to put the condom in, like she did every night.

  The bitter sordid feeling twisted a knife into my gut.

  When I moved back to put my clothes straight, she slid her panties on, then did her bra up and straightened her top.

  I knelt on the seat, my arm along the back. I had to face her off and get the air clear. I needed to push this to get it right.

  “Lind…” She sat with one knee bent up on the seat so she could face me, and the other leg on the floor of the SUV, her hand curled in her lap.

  I willed her to say what I wanted her to say, but I could see she just wanted to go home.

  “Yeah.”

  I held her gaze. “What are we doing? Are we dating or what? Are you my girl or what?”

  Her forehead squished up in a frown.

  What the frick was so confusing?

  “Billy––”

  I heard the denial––rejection––in her pitch. My hand fell off the back of the seat.

  If anyone ended this, I was. I was gonna be in control. I wasn’t gonna let her push and pull me around, and I couldn’t stand to hear her say, nothing. “It doesn’t matter, whatever it is, it’s over.”

  “What?” Her eyebrows shot up. The word stung with accusation and anger.

  My hand lifted and flung my irritation at her. “I don’t want this––”

  “What do you mean?” She moved toward me.

  I leaned back. “I mean, I don’t want to be your sex toy––a sex-only thing. I can get that anywhere. That isn’t what I’m after with you. I won’t drive you out here again. That’s it, we’re done, okay?” Why did I say okay? I didn’t care if she was okay with it. I wasn’t.

  “Billy…” Her fingers gripped my shirt, like she had something to say, like she was gonna fight for me, but if she’d intended to, the fight died on her lips, cause she let me go and turned away instead. “Will you take me home?”

  “Sure.” Course I’d take her home. I wasn’t gonna leave her out here…

  She unlatched the door and slipped out. She was in the passenger seat by the time I climbed back in to the driver’s seat.

  She stared ahead as I reversed out.

  She didn’t say anything and I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing either.

  This had turned into a pile of shit. But I knew where I stood now.

  Nowhere.

  I had to get over her, get her out of my soul. There was nothing there on her side, beyond lust. And lust was not enough for
me.

  As soon as I stopped outside her house, her belt was undone, and she leapt out the SUV.

  The door slammed without a goodbye or anything.

  My teeth clenching on my anger and hurt, I hit the wheel with the palm of my hand. “Fuck it.” I’d blown it. But then in reality there had been nothing to blow.

  My obsession with Lindy had to be over.

  Gripping the wheel hard, I gunned the engine and pulled off, leaving the pain I’d endured for years behind. I’d lived with it long enough.

  Lindy

  “Lindy? Lindy, honey?” Mum shouted as I ran into the house and straight past where she lay on the couch. “Lindy!”

  I couldn’t speak to her, not now, I just needed a minute to pull the shattered pieces of me together, but when I got into my room, that wasn’t what I did. I slammed the door shut, fell against it, gripping my head in my hands and cried as heartbreak poured out of my soul and I slid to the floor.

  Why had I thought a guy would want me? Nobody wanted me! I wasn’t meant to be happy! I was meant to be miserable! I sobbed noisily into my hands, glad no one was here to see.

  I hated Billy and I hated Jason. I hated fate and God and life…

  If I didn’t know it would hurt Mom and Dad too much, I’d just get rid of myself… But I knew how selfish that had been now, and I couldn’t consider it again.

  I stood up, angry with them both: Billy and Jason. Oh… and with myself. My mascara-smeared face glared back at me from the mirror on the chest of drawers bedside my bed. I threw it at the wall. It crashed against it and smashed.

  “Lindy! Lindy!” Dad’s voice rumbled along the hall outside my room. “Lindy! Are you okay? What is it? What happened?” He tried the door, but I’d flicked the catch when I’d slammed it shut.

  The handle rattled. “Lindy, open this!”

  Just go away.

  “Lindy!”

  He wouldn’t go. I knew he wouldn’t. Not after I’d taken an overdose. He was probably picturing all sorts of hideous stuff right now. I took a breath as tears streamed down my cheeks.

  “Lindy?” His voice was quieter. Perhaps he’d heard me crying.

  “I’m coming. Just give me a minute.” I went into my bathroom and ran the water, grabbing my washcloth.