The Guilt of a Sparrow

by Jess B. Moore

  “You would?” She shifted closer to me, which was the opposite of the direction she should be moving. “You would hurt me?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Then how do you know?” I watched her head move, tip to one side as she studied me. A fragile little bird curious about the world, and the wolf that had settled down at her feet. She looked at me like she might be able to see the answers written across my skin. I aimed to rub the words off, but knew they weren't really there. “If you hurt someone on accident, it's not the same, you know.”

  “I'm not the good guy, Maggie. If I had you, I wouldn't know how to share you.” I hadn't meant for those to be the words I said to her. I was intoxicated by her close proximity that she damningly increased ever so steadily. Closer and closer. “I can't trust that I wouldn't lose my temper at some point. Not at you, never at you. But near enough to you that you'd ... It's not a risk I'm willing to take.”

  “I trust you, Cotton.”

  Jesus. I was busted up. Four words and I was done for. Resolve went out the damn window. Will power shifted from keeping myself from her, to holding her as close as possible without crushing her. Why the hell would she trust me? I hadn't done anything to prove myself trustworthy. It was a gift that she shouldn't hand out so thoughtlessly. I was already drawing her to me, hands around her ribs lifting her up to me, before I could stop and think. My lips were already well on their way to tasting her before I was willing to look at things and force myself to walk away from her. This, my lack of control, was the reason I had to walk away. But it was likewise the reason I couldn't. She was willing. Maggie leaned up and in, pressing herself to me. Her lips met mine with their own ferocity.

  When I kissed her the first time, ambushed her outside Prissy Polly's, she had been surprised. She had given into the kiss, and she had clung to me desperately. But she had held back. Her movements were reserved.

  When I'd kissed her again, standing in the tall grass under the stars behind the homestead, she had been responsive but still letting me lead.

  Unlike the current kiss. She didn't just give in, she encouraged me to take it deeper, and she gave as good as she got. Her mouth was hungry and her hands greedy. She wanted me. Physically at least, Maggie wanted me. I wasn't as gentle as I always told myself I would be with her, spurred on by her advances. She moaned and it woke up the parts of me I had denied for so long when it came to this girl. I shifted my hands and her response was to swing her legs over mine and straddle my lap. There was no use holding back after that; she surely felt how much I wanted her. I was thorough in my caressing and exploration of her mouth. Only when I needed oxygen and sensed she needed the same did I leave her mouth. Her skin was divine.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Magnolia

  I had been kissed before. More than once. I wasn't completely inexperienced.

  Then there was kissing Cotton MacKenna, and it was something out of a whole different world. The intensity of physical longing and emotional exposure ripped me open and laid me bare. No, I had not been kissed like that before.

  When Tiny Douglass had kissed me, my sixteen-year-old self had enjoyed the moments in the way you might enjoy walking through an art gallery versus painting the art yourself. I had been there, but I wasn't invested, more interested in it out of curiosity. I was willing and found it enjoyable. He was sweet and careful and nearly as shy as I was, which led to neither of us pushing past innocent exchanges that lacked heat.

  When Mark Regents kissed my twenty-one-year-old self, it was sloppy and aggressive, and I had shied away from the contact with him. I knew right away I no longer wanted his lips on mine, his hands groping my body. I wanted space. He had inexplicably felt heat with me, and when I didn't reciprocate he called me frigid.

  When I had been on the receiving end of first date good night kisses, never once did the parting act incite my blood to boil or my head to fog or my hands to reach out in order to lay claim. I had kissed and been kissed, but it had never been like this.

  It had never been with Cotton.

  His lips were soft, gentle when he tried too hard to hold himself back, firm when he gave into bouts of hunger for me. His hands followed suit, alternately tender or ferocious. I was sky high while on my knees before him. My hands moved up his thighs, then grabbed for his arms. He had magnificent arms, strong and firm with muscles. I gripped him tight and he pulled me ever closer. I shifted to his lap, with my knees on the outside of his legs in my mom's stupid rattan chair. My knees ached from the press of the wood on my skin, but I pressed harder into Cotton's lap. He stopped kissing me in favor of nibbling along my neck and suckling my earlobe. I gasped, for air after prolonged kissing, yet mostly because it was so good. One of his hands had fingers tangled into my mess of hair, and supporting the weight of my tipped head. His other hand skimmed up my ribcage, then back down, and found my bare skin beneath my camisole.

  Some small part of my brain, that I wholeheartedly ignored, was shouting about how embarrassed I ought to be. Panting. Rocking my hips so that the hard length of him rubbed against me. My body took over and told my head to shut up. It was better to feel, to know the searing burn of Cotton's hand curved around my waist. His fingers pressing into the skin of my back and his thumb moving up and down and making me go crazy. How could such a simple thing bring forth such a riot of sensations in me?

  A moan of some sort passed my lips. Cotton's mouth moved across my collarbone from one side to the other. His tongue was warm where it tasted my skin, then his breath cooling as he moved to a new spot. I was hot and cold at the same time, wanting to strip off my clothes and also to shiver, at impossible odds with myself.

  He groaned. A strangled sound, like he was frustrated, and yanked my body closer to his. I couldn't actually get any closer, not in that chair, not sitting as we were. Not without removing clothes.

  The shock of how much I wanted him was alarming. I gave into a convulsive shiver, and rocked again, craving the friction that came from pressing myself down onto him and relishing in how hard he was for me. Never had I been so turned on. I hadn't known it was possible to feel this way. I had experimented with masturbation over the years, tentative as I touched myself and learned what created a heat inside me that yearned for escape. That had been okay; it had been a good release. Cotton's firm grasp on me, along with his lips leaving a fiery trail along my skin, and his erection forcefully rubbed against my most sensitive parts, I was ready to come apart. I understood the phrase weak in the knees and was sure I would collapse if he let go of me.

  He mumbled words into my neck and hair that I didn't catch. His hold on me was at once furious and tender, ever caught between wanting to have his way with me and wanting to do the right thing by me.

  It was the realization that I would fall apart if he left that brought my higher faculties back into play. My brain knock knocked and let herself in to have a word. The cold shame that followed after he walked away before, kissing me to the brink of insanity then pulling away, came back in measures. He could do it again. He could turn away from me, leaving me to try and comprehend the residual longing within me. I couldn't turn it off like he had. I wanted him and let out soft mewling sounds at his touch on my body, hyper aware of him. I wanted him and shifted yet again to move his length down my center. I wanted him and it was an impossibility for me to change my mind.

  Except, all the physical stuff wasn't enough.

  I wanted more.

  Fear slithered in, tiny tendrils that sought purchase in my head and my heart.

  He could pull away. He could walk out. He could go so far as to have sex with me and still leave me alone in the end.

  Cotton had told me he would hurt me. With simple honest words, he had warned me.

  I shifted, not for our mutual pleasure, but to put space between us. My throbbing excited female parts away from his equally excited male part. An inch of space that spoke volumes. I lifted my head from his hand and twisted to release his fingers from my hair.<
br />
  He held me tight. Unwilling to let me go.

  “Cotton.”

  His answer was an animal sound, a low growl groan. He bowed his head so that his forehead rested on mine. I worked on calming my frantic lungs that struggled to pull in enough air.

  “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

  His harsh whispered tone wheedled into my ears and straight to my core. My fingers, not inclined to let go or to listen to my practical reasoning, clutched hard at his arms.

  There was evidence enough that he was physically attracted to me. His hands had been worshipful and his mouth hungry. His nether regions had grown in response to my closeness, and I had felt first hand - albeit through layers of pajama pants and jeans - how much he desired me. I wasn't that girl. The physical would never be sufficient for me. I needed the emotional connection, the commitment, along with the physical gratification.

  “I can't do this.” My confession was barely audible.

  He heard me, and he reacted. It was subtle, the way his shoulders stiffened and his breath staggered. The harder press of his fingertips on me, claiming me. I waited until he lifted his head and moved me farther back, onto his knees more than his lap. I slid my legs free of their cramped position, my toes meeting the ground.

  I watched his head nod, just once. I saw the way he steeled himself, withdrawing all the parts of him he had been offering to me, and shutting down his emotions. His eyes were guarded and his lips pressed flat. I hated it. It caused me physical pain to watch him shut down, draw away, and prepare to leave me. I stood up, off his knees, and he let his hands fall away from me, the last bit of disconnection making it final. My hands were empty and useless without him in them, so I wrapped my arms around my chest.

  Cotton stood, too. The burning pain in my chest seemed to be suspiciously located in the area of my heart. There was a burning behind me eyes as well, that told me I was on the verge of tears. I blinked frantically to keep them in check.

  “I'm sorry.” He was so damn tall, standing over me, uttering his useless words. In two steps he was at the front door and pulling it open. “I'll go.”

  “Don't be sorry.” I called out to him, putting force behind my voice. I knew I sounded desperate and gave away my cards. “And don't go.”

  He spun around. I worried about the doorknob in his death grip. I faltered and moved a teeny step back from him. His eyes raked over me, missing nothing so that I was too exposed; he looked at me with steady eyes that called to mind a hawk.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I don't know.” I pulled in a breath and let all the words inside me tumble out. Cotton stood there all stony faced and intense. “Dominic hinted you maybe liked me, and then he left and you were here. You. Which is a lot to handle. I mean, after we kissed before, and now with the more kissing. Knowing that you can just walk away. I don't know what to do with that.”

  I was flustered. My cheeks burned and I lifted my hair up off my neck to cool myself down. I rambled and he let me, and I couldn't get a read on what he was thinking. I reminded myself that Dominic at least had my best interest at heart. He wouldn't have sent Cotton to me if he thought I'd end up in tears again.

  “The thing is, Cotton, I can't just go around kissing you. I'm not that girl.”

  His teeth were clenched so tight I didn't think he could answer. His face was so darn handsome, even while he was unsure of me and visibly upset. His eyes were always his most amazing feature, the blue sharp and bright, with facets to catch the light. They were somehow both hot and cold. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and hoped he would say something. After all my verbal vomit, I would take anything at all from him.

  “Don't worry. It won't happen again.”

  He ground out the words. I flinched. The tears I'd been working so hard to keep at bay spilled over. I went cold, which was startling for my system after being so hot just seconds before.

  I expected him to storm out, yank the door closed, and avoid me for another decade. I braced myself as best I could, which was admittedly not well. Something inside me was breaking, and I knew that I would crumble at the first chance.

  He surprised me. Cotton's face fell, his head bowed for a brief moment, and he let go his hold on the poor defenseless doorknob. I watched his chest expand as he took a breath. Then he came back to me.

  Cotton's warm fingers swiped away the tears on my cheeks. His face wasn't stony, it wasn't guarded, it was open and filled with wonder as he looked at me. He placed one hand around me, barely there on my low back, and it sent shivers coursing through me. Such a simple gesture that touched me on a deeper level.

  “First, let's clear a few things up.” His voice was low, gravelly. If I didn't know better I'd think he'd been screaming until his throat was raw, instead I could only blame heightened emotions and close proximity. “I do like you. I've liked you for most of our whole lives. I am a lot to handle. I never do things halfway and I think that's the issue here now. I don't regret kissing you because there's no way in hell I would trade those moments. I am sorry about the way I'm going about this. You're right, you aren't that girl. Thing is, I like that about you.”

  I nodded. Not because I had come to terms with everything he had said, but because I was working on it and nodding seemed like the right answer. It was a lot to take in. Cotton MacKenna giving confessional in my living room with his hands on me. The Twilight Zone level strangeness made it hard to believe it was real. His breath on my face as he spoke grounded me. The scent of him, his woodsy soap along with a slight hint of beer, made him a solid entity before me that I could believe in. I focused on what my senses picked up because my brain had gone haywire.

  “What did you mean about halfway being the issue?” I wasn't sure what the issue was, beyond ending our make out session and stirring us into turbulent waters. My hands once again found purchase on his arms, my fingers greedy to cling to him.

  “Either I walk away and that's that. No more kissing. Nothing.” He meant it, his words wrought with steel. I stilled and waited him out. If I held myself very still I could control my reaction to the hurt he might inflict. “Or I'm all in. You will be mine. Damn the consequences.”

  My heart thundered in my chest and my body felt the reverberations all the way to my fingers and toes. His words swam, in dizzying loops, around my mind as I tried to make sense of the last minute that had passed. I didn't know him well enough to make an all in commitment. Did I? I had known him virtually forever, and he was the guy that dropped everything to come check on me and ensure I wasn't afraid. He was the boy that had stood up for me to my brother countless times, though I hadn't understood the reason for their fighting at the time. I had harbored a crush on Cotton MacKenna most of my life, and he was laying it out before me. I didn't let a little thing like our barely knowing each other get in the way. There would be time for that. Right?

  “If it was up to me, I'd choose the latter.”

  I looked up through my lashes to gauge his reaction. I knew my voice had lost all its power, coming out in a soft whisper. I tended to do that, to shrink when I was nervous.

  “Would you now?” His eyes that I had thought were so cold and hard before, gleamed with light that was inviting, the hottest part of the fire. I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling too big too fast, as I watched the left side of his mouth curve up into a half smile.

  My head moved up and down in a nod. His hands on me tightened, a giveaway of how much he wanted me to stay there, of how much he liked my answer. His grip on me was firm to the point of almost pain. I liked it, the way he held me, the way his hands told me the truth. That I was already his.

  “All in.”

  “Uh huh.” I fully gazed up at him, stunned by the turn of events, and unable to form complete words.

  “Mine.”

  “As long as you're mine, too.”

  Hungry eyes, smiling lips, determined hands. Both of us were breathing like we'd run a mile. Hesitation, as we held
onto the sweet honesty of the conversation, kept us from mauling one another.

  “Damn the consequences.”

  I agreed to that too, with a sound and a sort of nod. I wasn't sure what the consequences were or why they were damned. Or if we were damning them ourselves. All I knew was that Cotton was there, holding me in that way of his with careful restraint and wild abandon coming in turns, as he wrestled with his desires for me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cotton

  I was addled. I had a taste of Magnolia Porter, and the reality of it had addled my brain. There was no other explanation for what was happening.

  After I had spent how many years avoiding this girl, for her own good mind you, I was rolling in and taking her? It was wrong, and I knew it was wrong. I was doing it anyway. Holding her in my hands, tasting her mouth and skin, giving in and going over the edge. That was it. I was done for. My hormones and my heart got tangled in the brambles of her and I made stupid proclamations. My brain had checked out, and refused to weigh in on the issue other than the buzzing reminder that I was going to hurt her. Eventually, I would hurt her.

  I couldn't let her go. She was right there, in my hands, nodding her head at me. It would be like her to go along with whatever bullshit I spread.

  The bullshit was more like manure, because it was useful and good for the growth of the garden. I couldn't be with her without my bullshit edicts. I was greedy. I was high on her presence and her answers to the positive.

  If she had only climbed into my lap and then come to her senses, and if I had then been able to get out her door - I'd have stood a chance. As it was, hearing her voice wobble as she spilled her confession at my feet - chance gone. I was hers. Simple as that. I had been running from that truth for so many years it was my default. When it came down to it, I had devoted myself to her when we were kids, and I had never wanted another girl. She was it for me. My head was a mess, warring with itself to hold her tight while telling me to run.