Mixtape: A Love Song Anthology
Page 38
My heart is thumping. What does this mean?
“I, uh. I couldn’t go any longer without saying it. I love you, Randy.”
Now a tear really does roll down my face. He steps forward, puts his hand under my chin, and kisses me hard. It’s a slow, but intense kiss. Our tongues swirl around each other like lumbering cement trucks, carrying such a weight that they’re not nimble. Every move means something.
Every move does.
While our tongues lap at each other, I sense a freedom I’ve never felt with him.
I’ve never been allowed to have him. But I feel him giving me his true self in the way he commands the kiss.
We break apart and take each other in, panting. I think he wants me to say something, but I’m not sure what. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
He smiles, leans in, and kisses me again. But this kiss isn’t careful or slow. Instead, as I return it, a decade of pent-up emotion comes roaring out of me, and things get a little less under control.
Like, not at all.
With his brute strength, he pushes me back toward the couch, and we collapse, ending up side to side on my leather couch, the hard zipper of his jeans grinding against the bulge in my sweatpants, our hands roaming everywhere.
My chest touching his. My lips exploring his. My hands holding him to me.
He reaches down, slips his hand in my sweats, and circles his big, gym-roughened hand around my cock, jacking me hard as his tongue probes deeper.
Holy shit, that feels good.
I yank at the denim at his waistline, but it doesn’t budge. Unbuckling his belt, he shoves off his jeans to give me access, and we end up on the floor, his pants around his ankles and shoes still on. Clawing at each other. Almost tackling each other.
And damn. He’s mine.
With a whir of shirts overhead and legs bending, all of our clothes fall off.
We’re kissing like we need each other to breathe.
His cock thumps against my belly, hard for me, and I’m so excited about it, I almost let go right then.
When I finally get to stroke his dick, it’s even better than my dream—thick and strong, foreign, yet familiar, and as I milk him, he writhes in pleasure. The groans form deep in his throat, and the desire in his eyes matches mine.
The pace of our kisses intensifies. We’ve gone from lumbering trucks to racing NASCAR. From oh my God we’re doing this to a frenzy of fuck yes, we’re doing this.
Celebrating the liberty to give what we want to each other. To take what we want.
To be with each other.
To feel.
To know.
To love.
That freedom comes fast.
So do we.
“I’m gonna come,” he yelps.
“Do it. I am too.”
With a pump that overwhelms me, his firm grip makes me climax first. The release feels like much more than an orgasm. It lets loose fear, anger, lies, and hiding.
As my body shudders and shakes, I’m conquering all of the crap we’ve been through and stepping into new territory. One where we have room for a relationship.
A moment later, his eyes digging into mine, Shane gives an almighty moan of pleasure as his cock unloads. It’s messy chaos.
It’s love.
Lying side by side, we regulate our breath, then turn to each other and kiss and smile. I thought we’d be more shy or embarrassed, but gazing at him, all I think is, we’ve only just started, because I’m nowhere near sated. I’m sure he isn’t either.
We clean up with socks, and then he follows me down to my bedroom.
As we explore each other’s bodies all night long, he whispers, “I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is I want to do it with you.”
I could mess with him and ask, “the fucking?” but I know he means our relationship.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Sounds good to me, too.”
The next morning, Shane wakes up in my bed naked for the first time ever. His huge arms wrap around my torso as he spoons behind me. He nuzzles my neck.
“Morning,” he says in a low voice, and I flop over to see his dazzling smile. The one I haven’t seen for so long.
“Hey, Sunshine. You—” I want to ask him if he regrets anything. If he’s got second thoughts. If he’s changed his mind and is going back to Kim.
Or if yesterday is the start of something permanent.
Reading my burgeoning paranoia, he interrupts, keeping me from spiraling into worry. “I love you.”
A kiss from him turns into something deeper, and he moves so he hovers over me. But instead of leaning closer, he pulls back and sits on his heels between my legs.
A-plus view, by the way, of his granite pecs and hard cock and bedhead.
He touches my thigh. “Randy, I’m not freaked anymore.”
My left eyebrow hikes up to ask, really?
Nodding, he says, “Yeah, really. I had time to think about it, and I’ve decided. Once I decided, it was an easy decision. You’re worth everything to me. Everything.”
He couldn’t make my heart sing more if he tried. This time I ask my question out loud, still not believing the change in the past few hours. “Really?”
This time he chuckles. “Again, yeah, really. The more I considered living without you, the more I knew couldn’t do it. I can’t live without you. Ever.” His hands trace up and down my legs.
“But what about . . .”
“I have a plan. I’m just sorry it took me so long.”
I snicker. Of course Mr. Control Freak has a plan.
He continues, “I saved some money from my internship. I’ll fly to Spain and tell Kim about us, but I have to do it in person. It’s not right to do it long-distance. Not with what I have to say.”
My jaw slacks. “You do mean you love me.”
The expression of warmth in his eyes is astonishing, but even more so, there’s a determination. He knows who he is, and he’s not letting anyone tell him differently.
Thank fuck.
“I do. I’ve had enough of hiding. This is who I am. Who we are. I’m making whatever this is official in as many ways as we can. If you’re on board—”
“I’m so on board, I couldn’t be more on board if there were more boards. That doesn’t make sense, and I don’t care.”
“We’ve waited long enough for each other,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
He shakes his head. “No. Too expensive for a quick trip. I’ll go as soon as I can get a flight.” He grimaces. “I’ll need to tell my parents too. Would you forgive me if I took some time to figure out how to break that one to them?”
“You don’t wanna just rip off that Band-Aid by having me lay a big smack on your lips in front of them?”
Leaning down to kiss me, he whispers against my mouth with a smile, “That would do it.”
And his lips go back to doing other things to me.
A few minutes later, Shane’s phone rings and rings, and we ignore it. We’re busy for the rest of the afternoon.
When he finally checks it, it’s a message from Kim.
Dear Shane,
We really need to talk . . .
Kim.
“Time to book my flight to Spain,” he says. “I really hope she understands.”
♬
To find out Kim’s story, read SOMBRA.
Connect with Leslie McAdam
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | NEWSLETTER
Moment of Truth
Veronica Larsen
“Say You Won't Let Go” - James Arthur
CHAPTER ONE
Dean
If I were drunk enough, I might forget I’m still in the city.
There's the unusually warm February night, the Cuban music and the women in tiny dresses standing under the patio lights. There are men too, of c
ourse, moving like vultures past the banner that reads, Valentine's Day Singles Soiree.
I spot Gabby, sitting on one of the white couches. Her back is toward me but there's a bright cocktail in her hand and she's leaning into a conversation with her roommate, Remi, who's across from her.
I approach them, running a hand down the front of my button-down shirt. It's Remi who spots me first. She gives me a nervous smile, before nodding to Gabby in my direction.
“Dean?” Gabby says, her expression frozen with guilt. “Hey . . . I didn't . . . I didn't know you'd be here.”
“A singles soiree? Are you kidding?” I deadpan. “Wouldn't miss this for the world.”
I sit down beside her as though the air isn't suddenly thick with an awkward tension. As though this is like any other night we meet out for drinks.
Except for the sudden silence that follows my arrival.
Across from us, Remi draws the straw of her drink into her mouth and casts her gaze away from us.
Fuck this awkwardness.
I tilt my head toward Gabby and lower my voice.
“What's going on with you?”
It's loud in here, the music is competing against the rising wave of laughter and idle conversation.
“What?” Gabby shifts closer to me and her dress rides further up her thighs.
The sight makes me glad I grabbed a drink before coming to talk to her. I tilt my glass of whiskey to my lips and swallow hard.
I try again.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“No, no . . . I've just been going through some weird stuff.”
“When did you stop being able to talk to me?”
It's a simple question, but it seems to rattle something in her gaze. A strange struggle floods her features, like she wants to look away, but is anchored by the weight of my words.
By our history.
I've known Gabby all my life.
Or, at least, all the years that count.
We were eight when we met, the summer before third grade. She was a golden-haired little girl, playing in the dirt behind the trees instead of sitting delicately on the swings like the other girls. I'd been the lone boy sitting at the top of the hill, trying to hide a bruise on the side of my face by pulling my jacket hood as far down as I could.
By that point in the summer the other kids knew to steer clear of me. I had a tendency to lose my temper and get into fights—which is probably why my father stopped worrying about leaving bruises.
Reckless kids like you get hurt all the time, he'd say.
I'm sure they did. But he and I both knew that wasn't how I tended to get hurt.
That was the day Gabby came up to me for the first time, and I never understood why. Why she asked me to break off a big branch for her fort, like she knew how useless I felt that day. Like she knew how much I needed someone to not look at me like a stick of dynamite that might go off at any moment.
Even though I was.
My rage sat just under my skin in those days. And, honestly, if Gabby had been my daughter, I would've warned her off from befriending a kid like me. I was a bad kid. Everyone knew it.
She knew it, too.
She wasn't stupid, she was fearless.
And endlessly generous—she saw my need for an escape and tugged me into a world of imagination. Making forts that were castles, or digging holes to make moats. We spent the rest of the summer absorbed in a world we imagined, escaping our own realities.
I never felt calmer than when I was with her.
She has the ability to ground me even now.
But tonight, my skin crawls with an urgency I can’t put my finger on. All my life, it seems, I've felt right on the verge of losing her. And with her pushing me away for the past week, I’ve stayed up at night, wrestling a truth I can hardly admit to myself.
I have feelings for her. I don’t know when I started falling for her, but I’m too far gone now to try and stop it.
I came here tonight hoping to tell her. I just underestimated how much the awkwardness of her avoidance would sting.
“Gabby . . .”
She puts up her hand, wrongly guessing I’m going to scold her. “Look, I'm good now,” she says. “I just needed some time to think, and now I've got it figured out.”
I frown, not liking the way that sounds. “Got what figured out?”
Remi clears her throat. “Go on, Gabby,” she says from behind the straw of her drink. “Tell Dean what you figured out.”
Gabby's eyes seem to narrow in warning, but Remi looks too drunk to care. She bobs her head side to side a few times, offbeat from the actual music playing.
No one talks for several moments, the sounds around us filling the silence. And somehow, Gabby and I are sitting closer than before. My arm is hung over the back of her seat.
This always happens.
We're constantly drawn toward each other by invisible threads.
Yet even as she sits beside me, she feels distant—farther away from me than ever before.
I drag my palm over my face and say, “Look, I'll go. I don't want to invade your . . . singles soiree.”
“Wait,” Gabby says with a groan. She pulls up her long blonde hair and lays the back of her neck on my arm to stare at the night sky overhead. “Please don't go.”
The air is flooded with the mouth-watering scent of her shampoo. The same one she's used for years—a smell so comforting, I've come to crave it. I have to fight the urge to lower my face into the side of her hair and breathe her in.
When I glance over at Remi, there's a trace of a smile on her lips like she knows what I'm thinking. The mischievous glint in her eyes hints at her next question. “Oh, for God's sake . . . why don't you two just screw already?”
Gabby sits upright, coughing.
“What?”
“You heard me, Gabby. You heard me just fine.” Remi raises her drink in mock toast.
Gabby looks flustered for the first time tonight. “You—No, that's . . . We grew up together—”
“And?” Remi asks.
“I wasn't always this good looking,” I offer.
Gabby laughs and slaps my chest, but I set my hand over hers and flatten her palm there.
Before I realize what I'm doing, our eyes lock and there's a strange glint in hers, like she knows. Knows I've been coming to grips with my feelings for her. I have to wonder if she's actually considered something happening between us.
Gabby looks back at Remi, blinking.
“It's just too weird to think about,” she mutters. “Me and Dean?” She laughs nervously, picks up her drink and gulps down what's left of it. “Anyone need another drink? Because I do. I’ll be right back.”
“Run, Gabby,” Remi sing-songs in a wispy tone, “Run so your feelings don't catch you.”
Visibly annoyed now, Gabby gets to her feet and edges her way around the circular table. Her dress shows off her gorgeous, long legs and I stare hungrily at the smooth skin of her inner thighs when she steps over my feet.
Then I remember Remi's watching me.
She shakes her head, laughing. “You've got it bad.” She drags out the last word, then stares into space for a few seconds before adding, “Seriously. I've been trying to tell her . . .”
“Hang on—you two talk about this?”
Remi answers with a non-committal, “Mmmmm.”
“Remi . . . tell me what you know.”
She narrows her eyes. “I was sworn to secrecy.”
We have a silent standoff, staring at each other and daring the other to speak. To confess.
But Remi, clearly drunk, seems to forget about the standoff after just a few seconds. She leans in and lowers her voice.
“Gabby's been having dreams about you.”
I tilt my head. “Dreams?”
“You know . . .” Her smile widens.
I stare at her, not daring to take her seriously just yet, be
cause she's been known to mess with people for sport. But Remi nods at my incredulous look and says, “I know . . . crazy she's just now having them—I've been having sex dreams about you since the day we met. I'd fucking destroy you.” She snorts. “Don't tell Gabby I said that. But seriously, mine are innocent compared to hers.”
“Wait—” I hold up a hand, sure I've heard her wrong. “Gabby's having sex dreams about me? Why wouldn't she tell me?”
“Isn't it obvious? They're fucking with her. Why do you think we're here? She's trying to get them out of her head.”
Remi raises her free hand at our surroundings. Just then, a guy walks by our table, his eyes fixed so squarely on the plunging neckline of Remi's dress he nearly trips over his own two feet.
The humor of the situation evaporates from the air when I realize what Remi is trying to tell me.
“Are you saying she came here to find someone to sleep with?”
“Someone who isn't you. She wants everything to go back to normal.” Remi pauses to slurp back more of her drink, then flicks her gaze to the ceiling as though she finds this whole situation trivial. “Gabby's super attached to you, Dean. You know that. She's not going to risk making things weird between you.”
“Shit's already weird,” I say, leaning back in my seat.
I'm staring at Remi. This is a lot to process.
Remi snaps her fingers in the air in front of me to get my attention.
“Dean? You need to stop pretending you're okay just being friends. You guys are not getting any younger and—” Remi stares past me, in the direction of the bar, and frowns. “ . . . it's only a matter of time before someone else swoops in.”
I follow her gaze and my throat goes dry.
Gabby is standing at the bar with a dark-haired guy. He's got his hand on her arm and she's smiling at him. The chemistry between them is undeniable.
“Who is that?”
“He's been flirting with Gabby all night. I think she actually kind of likes him. But look at him—I wouldn't trust a man who parts his hair on the side like that . . . Looking like a goddamn IRS agent. Fuck that guy.”