Bring Me Back

by Karen Booth

  I shied away at first, about to touch territory that had once held endless mystery. I extended my hand with caution, but things changed once I’d done it, once my fingers rolled over his shoulder. Then I became an ill-behaved child in the candy aisle—I wanted everything so beautifully displayed before me and my hands were everywhere.

  He pressed his gaping lips against the base of my throat and slid both hands under my sweater. His warm palms inched up my back, causing a sensation that made me shudder, stirring up every desire held tightly in my head. He carefully peeled away the sweater. The feeling of the skin of his stomach against mine was unspeakable, sweet relief.

  He sat back and eyed me. I’d been quite judicious with my choice of bra when I’d dressed, striking a balance between sweet and seductive, ivory and lacy. He poked a finger under the strap while he smiled at me with bedroom eyes. He sought my throat again and mumbled, “Claire, you’re so beautiful,” against my skin.

  I was amazed when I didn’t black out at his devastating choice of words.

  He traveled down my chest with his mouth until he reached the center point of my bra, then along the edge that cupped my breast. I was desperate for him to take it off and I arched my back. I was about to give orders—to remind him that the hook was right where his capable hands were, but he took his sweet time, torturing me with every movement, driving me crazy with his exquisite lips, and I kept quiet.

  Then I worried about the practical. If things continued the way I hoped, we would need a condom. He was unbelievable, a dream come true, but his penis was probably a Petri dish. There’d been a mess of women before me.

  My brain then escalated its rude intrusion, attempting to take over when I wanted it to be all about my body. I tried to push the thoughts aside, but they fought to return, they screamed for my attention. What about the story? What about my career? I was being nothing but reckless. This would make it very hard to write an unbiased piece, and I’d arguably already crossed that line. Why couldn’t I control myself?

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, still kissing my chest. He stopped and peered at me with his otherworldly green, and I couldn’t help it.

  “We can’t do this.” I shut my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” He closed his arms around my lower back.

  I almost wanted him to be mad—shut me off completely. I swallowed, searching for the words to explain my stupid problem. “I want to do this, I really do. I’ve thought about you constantly since the day we met. But this doesn’t feel right.”

  “You’ve thought about me since the day we met?” He smiled and traced his finger along my collarbone, totally putting me off track.

  “Of course I have.” I hated that he was acting dense about how much I obviously liked him. “I’m worried about what this will do to each of us and our careers, if we do this.” I stared at the ceiling, afraid to read his reaction and ashamed of my crooked logic.

  He held me tighter and rested his lips on my shoulder.

  I could tell he was thinking, but I was too scared to know the specifics. I continued my rambling, seemingly endless justification. “The piece I’m writing is so important to both of us, and I don’t want it to be overshadowed by something else. You know how people love to talk.”

  “Shhh. It’s okay, Claire. Really.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Most men would’ve been incredibly pissed. I would’ve been, if it had happened to me. Instead, he held me in his warm embrace.

  “I’m so sorry,” I muttered. “You probably think I’m a nut job. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted me to take you to the airport right now,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re so hard on yourself.” He grasped my shoulders and eased me back. “I like you. It doesn’t have to happen this weekend. We can have other weekends.”

  “We can?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh.” I smiled, shyly. “I didn’t know.”

  That, he found laughable. “Have I not given you enough hints? The kiss in the kitchen wasn’t enough? What about just now?”

  I felt thickheaded. “I didn’t think there was any way this could be real. That you could be real.” My words floated away as I set a finger to his shoulder, distracted by the appeal of his bare skin. Sometimes, it all felt so impossible.

  He smirked. “Please don’t put me on a pedestal. Someday I’ll show you how deeply flawed I am as a human being.” He gave me a quick kiss. “Now, you need to put your clothes back on or I might have to rescind my promise to be understanding.”

  I climbed off his lap and forced my hands through the arms of my sweater, watching him stand and turn his shirtsleeves right side out, eyeing that spot around his belly button before it disappeared as he fastened the buttons.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now we enjoy a quiet evening together, alone.” Chris pulled my hand. “We’ll need to avoid horizontal surfaces.”

  I decided we should start drinking, a bottle of wine or at least a few beers—Chris opted for beer and I agreed. It was far less romantic than wine. I sifted through the fridge, searching for something to make for dinner. “You must be hungry.”

  “Of course.”

  “I have some steaks. We could throw them on the grill.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Well after dinner, by nine-thirty, I was yawning.

  “Looks like somebody’s zonked,” Chris said.

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “You won’t hurt my feelings if you want to get some sleep.”

  My heart sank. He’d been so sweet to me all day. “I don’t want to waste our time together.”

  His eyes softened. Anyone else would’ve been nothing but frustrated by my erratic behavior. There seemed to be contemplation before a grin spread across his face. “We could sleep together in your room. Your rules. No funny business.”

  I groaned inside at the thought of my rules. “That would be so nice, but are you sure?”

  “I can’t wait to sleep in the same bed with you and have absolutely no sex, whatsoever,” he replied, in a rebuilt version of his accent. “I trust you have something suitably frumpy to wear.” He started to laugh. “I’m thinking flannel.”

  I skipped up the stairs after he’d made his suggestion. The sex could wait. I hoped he was serious when he’d said we’d have other chances.

  He was nuts if he thought I was going to wear something frumpy to sleep with him the first time, even if we were going to be on our best behavior. I changed into light blue pajama pants and a tank top and finished getting ready for bed. When I flipped my bathroom light off, Chris was waiting for me on the bed in a gray t-shirt and navy blue striped pajama pants, unfairly handsome. My willpower wavered. I knew I’d done the responsible thing, but my body wasn’t on board with the decision at all.

  “Where do you want me?” he asked, clearly inquiring on which side of the bed he should sleep.

  “Oh, uh, it doesn’t really matter. How about the left?”

  “Do you mean the left when you’re in the bed or when you’re looking at the bed?”

  “Why do you have to be so difficult?” I asked, smirking as I climbed over him to the other side of the bed.

  “Is that how it’s going to be then?” He flattened me on top of the covers then hopped up and threw back his side of the comforter. “Come here.”

  “No way. I don’t trust you,” I answered, breathless.

  “I want to conduct an experiment. You’re going to have to trust me at some point.” He had that look in his eye—the one that prompted me to force the issue on the couch. “Give me your hands. Both of them.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you or it won’t be scientific. You might try to throw off the results.” He fought a smile.

  I decided to give in, mostly confident that he was too much of a gentleman to renege on his promise. “Okay, but this is a
gainst my better judgment.”

  He took my hands and pressed them together with palms facing. I relaxed and settled the side of my face on the cool pillow, watching. He gathered my wrists in his one hand, leaving the other free.

  “Now, this won’t hurt a bit.”

  He began tickling me, mercilessly, all over my stomach, on my sides, in my armpits, and in the crook of my neck. It was likely only twenty seconds of complete bodily chaos, but it felt like an hour. I was dying, in pain from laughing so hard and jerking all over the place—I could barely breathe by the time he was finished. I hadn’t yet seen him laugh that hard.

  “Don’t,” I gasped, “ever do that again.” I huffed and laughed. “What in the hell would make you do that?”

  “Curiosity,” he said, flatly. “I don’t know why, but I enjoy doing that to people.”

  “And by people, you mean women.”

  He grinned. “Yes, I suppose I do mean women.”

  The gross disparity between our love lives was something I’d thought about more than once. I didn’t want to know the specifics and he’d probably lost count years ago. There had to have been at least one girl in every city before Elise came along, and Banks Forest circled the globe countless times. Since his divorce, he was a tabloid regular, always with a new companion on his arm.

  I, on the other hand, was still in the single digits. None of them was spectacular, although Kevin had had his moments.

  We settled in, now that tickling torture time was over and I turned off the bedside lamp, leaving us in darkness. I thought I’d feel great about the decision to hold off on anything physical if I didn’t have to look at him, but his pull on me was still considerable in the dark.

  “Claire, I’ve been wanting to ask you. What’s the story with Sam’s father?”

  I felt no hesitation at telling the story, however painful. Chris had shared his secrets with me. “His name is Brian. We met in college. We both worked at the campus radio station. We liked a lot of the same bands.” This was dredging up things I hadn’t thought about in a long time. It was such a great time at the beginning of that friendship, before everything went wrong—it had been one of the only times I’d had a real guy friend. “There was nothing romantic between us. It was hard to keep up with Brian’s love life. He’s very handsome. Not as handsome as you, but you get the idea.”

  “You have to stop saying things like that. You’ll give me a big head.”

  “I think you’re entitled to your big head.” I paused for a drink of water and Chris wrapped his hand around my arm when I turned back. It was tingly, but I could concentrate enough to talk.

  “After senior year started, we went to see a band and I got really drunk. Brian walked me home to put me to bed. The last thing I remembered was taking off his clothes. We tried a boyfriend-girlfriend thing for a few months, but it was a disaster. I figured out I was pregnant three weeks after we broke up.”

  “Wow.”

  “He said he wanted to be there for me, but he wasn’t in love with me. He was there when Sam was born and he sends her gifts on birthdays and Christmas, but that’s about it. He moved to upstate New York, got married, and has three kids.” There was a whole continuation of this story, about my mom getting sick and dying while I was pregnant with Sam, easily the darkest chapter of my life.

  Chris stroked my forearm and took my hand. “That must’ve been hard. I can’t fathom becoming a parent at that age. I was so self-absorbed.”

  “I think that’s why Sam and I are so close. We had to grow up together.” I couldn’t help but think about the child he’d lost and the sadness he had that would never go away. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her.”

  I suddenly felt very cold and retreated further under the covers, twitchy, with goose bumps. Chris put his arm around me and moved closer, keeping me warm. He tenderly swept my hair behind my shoulder and rubbed my back. In the dark, I could’ve been with any man in the world, but I very gladly wasn’t.

  ****

  I somehow managed to get cold in the middle of the night, which was crazy since Chris was such a hot-body, literally. He seemed to run at least five degrees warmer than me. He’d insisted on getting the extra blanket for me and I had to talk him through it since my bedroom was unfamiliar terrain in the dark. I felt terrible when he stubbed his toe, but I laughed as he unleashed a string of incredibly cute British profanity.

  The quilt was one my mom had made, the only one she ever finished, although she’d had a closet full of ones she started. The squares and triangles were faded blues, seams intersecting in a mostly ordered way—everything about my mom had been a shade off-kilter. I couldn’t escape the significance as I cozied up with him under it, that it was the blanket on my bed when I was seventeen, when I first dreamt of him.

  He woke in his usual sunny mood with a smile and arms that reined me in; he didn’t say anything, but kept to humming an odd tune in my ear. I wondered what he was thinking. Maybe there was a chance he was sad about leaving. Maybe he was preoccupied with going back to New York and returning to work. He’d said that we had weekends ahead of us and I wanted specifics, but was terrified to ask. I would’ve been disappointed by any answer other than, “I’ve been eyeing that cute little house next door.”

  “When can I see you again?” I blurted, shocked that the words in my head had erupted from my mouth.

  He hesitated, which put me on edge. “That depends on when you finish the story.” He released his hold on me and rolled to his back. His eyes were such an unusual shade in the morning light—the color of old Coke bottles. “It’s obvious you won’t feel comfortable with this until you’ve turned in your article.”

  “It’ll only take a few days to finish now that I have the CD.” I propped myself up on my elbow.

  “I’m mixing through Thursday. Sam told me yesterday that her spring break starts next weekend.”

  My shoulders dropped. I knew there had to be a bad part. I’d completely forgotten, so wrapped up in the story and my own head that the calendar was a foreign concept. “I guess that throws a wrench in things.”

  Chris laughed, which seemed like a mean-spirited response. “You’re so quick to assume the worst. I was thinking that her spring break was an opportunity.” He rolled back to his side and put his hand on my waist with a playful tug.

  “I’m listening.” I fought to hide the growing smile on my face.

  “Good. I’d planned to take a break after mixing. Since I’m already on the east coast, I was going to go down to my place in the Caribbean for a few days, but I don’t have anyone to join me. It’d be a lot more fun if you let me take you and Sam.”

  I was floored. I also couldn’t imagine a proportional response. Was I supposed to hop out of bed and jump up and down and shriek like I’d just won a car on a game show? That never would have seemed believable coming from me.

  “Well, wow, thank you. That sounds amazing. It makes me nervous though, taking a trip together.”

  “I knew you’d say that. It’ll be fine, I promise. We’ll have total privacy. Just a few days to relax and get to know each other better.”

  I watched as a happy look took hold in his eyes and he ran his thumb along my lower lip, leaving me with only one answer. “You have to let me pay for our flights.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m not bringing you unless you let me pay for everything.” He held a finger to my mouth when I tried to argue the point. “Don’t say another word. You’ll never win.”

  It wasn’t in my nature to give in to a man, I usually had to put up a fight about something, but Chris wasn’t like any other man, so I held my breath and said yes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Andrew and Sam had a lengthy performance of “goodbye” the morning we left for our trip. At least it kept her occupied for a few minutes. Watching them hang on each other in the driveway tugged at my heartstrings, but in a “spare me” sort of way. His arms tightly wound around her neck and her hands deep in the b
ack pockets of his skinny jeans, as if they were doing a slow dance in the school gym. I was happy they liked each other so much, but I also worried about her acting like me, jumping in with both feet, unconcerned with the ramifications if anything went wrong.

  Sam and I had our first surprise of the day when we checked in at the airport and learned that Chris had booked us in First Class. She passed the time in the land of leather seats and legroom by requesting snacks and sodas as if they were her last meal, fully decked out in her island-hopping gear, white Capri jeans and flip-flops. I’d had the worst time deciding on an outfit, up late, trying things on and second-guessing. I settled on one of two new sundresses—navy blue with a quirky button detail down the front, an off-white cardigan to ward off airplane cold and a pair of strappy leather wedge sandals.

  We arrived in Miami twenty minutes before Chris’s flight was due to come in and I dashed to the bathroom to check my makeup. My hands trembled as I re-applied mascara. I didn’t remember being quite so nervous when he’d come to visit me, but the anticipation was of a different scope now.

  When the door opened at his gate, he was the third person off the plane. It was exactly like the morning in the lobby of The Rivington—everything turned dark and my focus was Chris, as if he was walking through a tunnel of light, in slow motion, of course.

  He wore my favorite jeans and a black dress shirt, sleeves rolled up and an extra button undone. The ubiquitous sunglasses were swiped away once he saw me, causing me to hold my breath as his eyes lit up and worked their way into mine.

  “Hello, beautiful,” was all he said as he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. He hesitated for a second, holding me close, and the heat between us was highly inappropriate given that there were old people and babies around.

  “Hi, handsome,” was my not-so-clever reply. Like a shot of good tequila, he rendered a few of my brain cells no longer viable and my entire body felt like it was on fire.

  Chris took my hand while we walked down the concourse. “I got your message last night. I’m glad everything went well when you turned in your story,” he said.