Wish I May (New Hope)

by Lexi Ryan

  He breaks the kiss and leans his forehead against mine. “You feel so damn good.” His hand moves slowly, smoothly.

  How can he affect me so much more than any other man I’ve ever been with? He’s always been the standard by which all other men have been measured and come up short.

  I shouldn’t be here with him. I gave up my right to this seven years ago. I take a long drink of my wine—seeking courage and permission for this evening suspended outside of time and heartbreak. One night. One indulgence.

  I lift my hips off the seat, seeking out his touch.

  “Do you want more?” The words are so low they’re more a vibration against my ear than a sound.

  “I’m leaving in a couple of days. I can’t stay.” And that’s the only reason we can do this at all.

  His teeth nip my ear again, suck at the lobe before he speaks. “That’s not what I asked, Cally.”

  Outside my panties, the pad of his thumb is resting on my clit with nothing but the promise of the pressure I need. When his hand leaves me, I hear my own gasp of protest.

  “Come home with me tonight.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. After weeks of looking after my sisters, I need to be something other than a resented stand-in mother. Even if only for a couple of hours in this man’s bed. He deserves the night I once promised him. I deserve it. But I shake my head. “I can’t.”

  “Then tell me to stop.” The rough pads of his fingers toy with the thin ribbons at my hips. With his free hand, he places a sliced grape to my lips, and I take it, only briefly letting my lips brush his fingertips. His eyes flash—hot and hungry. “Tonight is yours. Whatever you want.”

  “This,” I whisper, rolling my hip into his touch.

  Then he tugs, and he releases the tie on my panties. His hand snakes around to the other hip, and he grins at me as he frees that side as well.

  “Lift,” he whispers, and before I realize what he means to do, he’s slipped my panties from under the table and tucked them in his pocket. He flashes me a small smile as he sips from his wine glass.

  My panties are in William Bailey’s pocket.

  “You intending to give those back?”

  “Not a chance.” But then, instead of heading straight for my newly bare girly bits beneath the table, he cups my face in his big hand and brushes his thumb across my cheek. “Memories have this amazing way of changing on us, and I had myself convinced you couldn’t have been as beautiful as I remembered. I was idealizing you.”

  I can’t reply. The heat in his eyes alone is enough to make me want to crawl into his lap. Add the way he’s been touching me, and in this moment, I am his.

  “I was right about one thing,” he whispers.

  “What’s that?”

  “My memory got it all wrong.”

  “It did?”

  “You’re so much more beautiful than I remembered.”

  Our lips touch again and I will myself to memorize every second of this kiss. The soft brush of his lips before he opens his mouth over mine, the patient sweep of his tongue as I open for him, the way he tastes—a potent cocktail of wine and regret.

  I don’t even realize his hand has left my face until I feel the possessive wrap of his fingers around my thigh. Then, as he slides to points farther north, I have to break our kiss to catch my breath.

  “Jesus,” he hisses as his fingers reach my wet heat.

  I almost cry out when he takes my swollen clit between two fingers.

  “You’re so wet,” he whispers against my neck. “So damn wet.”

  “I—William….” I have to fight to keep my volume down, to keep from moaning.

  He’s touching that swollen, sensitive spot in a slow and gentle rub that has me rocking into him.

  “You want to know what I’d do to you if you came home with me tonight?”

  I’m weak. I want to know, need to hear. “Yes.”

  “I’d get you naked because you have too goddamn many clothes on right now. Then I’d start with your amazing breasts. Remember how I could get you off just by kissing your breasts, sucking those beautiful nipples?” He brushes my taut nipples with his free hand and even through my dress and thin bra, the contact is enough to make me gasp. “Answer me, Cally.”

  “Yes,” I breathe. His fingers have slowed their movement under my dress, as if he knows how close he is to getting me off and he wants to wait.

  He moans appreciatively. “I’d start there. My tongue and lips and teeth on your breasts until I’ve memorized every curve and dip, until you’re begging me for more—” He removes his hand from between my legs, “until you come for me.”

  “William.”

  “I’ll get you there, baby. I swear. But not yet.” He slides his hand farther up my dress and circles my navel. “Do you want to know more?”

  God help me, I do. I want to know it all. And then maybe when I’m back in Las Vegas and wishing I could have him, I’ll shape his words into my very own fantasy. My very own souvenir of my what-if life. “Please.”

  “Then I’d kiss you here.” He pinches my navel piercing. “Damn, I bet this looks so sexy on you. When did you get it?”

  “After I moved.”

  He draws back, his eyes hot on mine, his jaw hard. “For a man?”

  “No. I got it when I was missing you.”

  He moans into my ear then fans his hand out to my waist. “I’d have to take my time there then. I’d run my tongue from hipbone to hipbone, then turn you over and lick down your spine.” He slides his hand across my hip and under my ass. “When I got here,” he says, squeezing, “I’d have to see if you’re as sensitive here as you are everywhere else. Your ass is so incredible, and I can’t forgive myself for neglecting it when I had a chance. I’m dying to bite you here.”

  He pinches my ass, and my breath draws in sharply. I shudder in his arms and feel his smile against my neck.

  “Would you be ready for me then?” As he asks, he returns his hand between my legs, and I find myself scooting to the edge of the seat, parting my thighs to give him better access. I don’t just want him to touch me. I need it. Like water. Like air. I need to feel William’s hand between my legs because right now I am nothing but the pulsing ache of my arousal, and it’s the fucking best I’ve felt in months.

  No man I’ve ever touched could touch me the way Will does. It’s like he has some sort of ability to intuitively know how I’m feeling.

  Even now, sitting at the back of this candlelit restaurant with the wait staff milling around us, he doesn’t rush in his movements. His fingers slide over me, alternately teasing and touching, working anticipation in equal measure against the pleasure.

  “What else would you do?” I bite back a moan. “If we were alone?”

  “I’d drop to my knees,” he whispers. “And I’d cup your amazing ass in my hands as I tasted you.”

  It hurts, sitting here, listening to this, wanting it, knowing I can’t let myself have it. Knowing that tonight, this moment, is all I get.

  I curl my nails into his forearm, and he groans in my ear.

  “But for now,” he says, “for now I’ll settle for touching with my fingers what I want to taste with my lips.” He slides two fingers inside me, curling them as his thumb rubs my clit. “That’s what I want you to think about next time you touch yourself.”

  I shudder, the pressure and pleasure building. “William,” I whimper.

  “Because next time my dick is in my hand, I fucking swear that’s what I’ll be thinking about. You. Naked. The taste of your pussy as you come against my tongue.”

  Dear God.

  I have to bite his neck to muffle my moan as my orgasm hits, hard and fast.

  THE CAR is quiet on the drive home, and when I reach for her hand, she lets me take it. I have to remind myself that she’s leaving. That this—the sweet silence of our touch, her soft fingers twined through mine—this isn’t the new normal. I don’t get to keep her. I don’t get to finish what I started at the restaur
ant. She’s leaving.

  When we pull up to the motel, she doesn’t rush from the car, so I turn and press my lips to hers. At first, I think she’s going to pull away, but she opens under me slowly, and what I intended to be a brief goodbye kiss leaves me hard and breathless, and her clawing at my shirt and half in my lap.

  We lean our foreheads together and catch our breath.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow? Day after tomorrow maybe? Dad’s home. I just want to get the girls settled, but then I need to get back for work.”

  There’s nothing I can say to get her to stay. I’m not even sure I should want her to. Tonight wasn’t real after all. Reality wouldn’t have let me touch her in in public like that. Reality dictates that I stay away from her, that I hate her for what she did to me. Or, at the very least, that I want nothing to do with her.

  But tonight wasn’t reality. It was like visiting a memory. And it was perfect.

  I walk around to get her door. The moment she steps onto the pavement, I have her pressed against the side of the car, my hands in her hair, my knee between her legs, pressing our bodies as close as possible. Because touching her in the restaurant only made this need for her grow, and now I want her more than ever.

  She kisses me back, clings to me, hand fisted in my shirt. Her mouth and hands match the desperation of my own, closer and closer, as if she wants to disappear into me.

  I want more. I want to put her back in the car and take her to my house, take her to my bed. Because if tonight is the only stolen moment we get, I don’t want it to end.

  But despite all that, I’m the one who breaks the kiss. I’m the one who pulls away. Looking at her doesn’t make it any easier. She’s so fucking beautiful it breaks my heart. Flushed cheeks, swollen lips, thick lashes fluttering as she opens her eyes.

  If I’d forgotten who and where we are, if I’d forgotten that she’s no longer the girl I once loved, the look in her eyes brings me back. The girl I knew would have had nothing but love and desire in her eyes. But I see pain there now, pain and weariness edging away her desire.

  “What happened to you?” I whisper.

  “What do you mean?”

  Swallowing, I trace the edge of her jaw. “You’ve changed. There’s something…darker about you now.”

  Sadness washes over her face. “I regret so much. I should have been with you and I shouldn’t have….” She shakes her head and looks up at me through her thick lashes. “You should hate me.”

  Impossible. “I’ve tried.” I force a laugh, but it’s hollow. “I don’t know how.”

  Her lips tilt into a ghost of a smile. “You’re too damn good, William Bailey, and I don’t deserve as much of you as you’ve given.” She grabs my hand and kisses the rough skin of my knuckles. “Thank you for tonight. It was amazing.”

  I kiss the corner of her mouth and squeeze her fingers in mine.

  “I should go in,” she says. “I’ll never forget this. Goodb—”

  I press a finger to her lips before she can say our once-forbidden word. Because I can’t bring myself to hear it. “Don’t ruin tonight with that word.”

  She closes her eyes.

  “Sleep well,” I whisper.

  She slips away, heading toward her room and leaving me feeling empty. “Sleep well,” she calls over her shoulder.

  I watch her disappear into her room, and then I look up at the moon and stars we once wished on together. They make me feel lonelier than ever. Because she may no longer be the girl I once loved, but she’s the woman I want.

  When Gabby was six and Drew was eleven, I pawned a pair of three-carat diamond earrings and took the girls to Disney Land. We didn’t stay at the fancy resorts and we couldn’t buy all the cool souvenirs, but the girls didn’t care. We packed up the car and drove to a cheap motel, setting an alarm so we would be at the park gates right at opening. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do with the money. There were a thousand other ways we could have spent it. There was definitely a voice at the back of my mind that said this was why rich people think poor people make their own problems. But the look in Gabby’s eyes when she saw Minnie Mouse for the first time made it worth it. Even Drew teared up as Goofy wrapped his arms around her and spun her around.

  At Gabby’s parent-teacher conference two months later (where I was standing in for Mom, who was “sick”), the teacher confronted me about it. Was that really the wisest use of our limited funds? Didn’t I understand that we were two months behind on our share of classroom supplies? Think how many pairs of shoes I could have bought the girls with the money we spent on our park passes.

  I stared at my lap and took every judgmental word from her lips. But it didn’t matter what she said because, for one day, I got to show my little sisters that there really are magical things in this world. I got to prove to myself that the entire world wasn’t as shitty as it had felt for the three years under Brandon’s rule. That was worth a thousand years of school supplies and a hundred pairs of new shoes. Maybe I’m a little bit like my father in that way—willing to sacrifice practicality for a little magic.

  As we pull up to Dad’s house, I wonder if any of that has stuck with them or if they’ve lost faith in their world. I throw the car into park and turn to Drew, whose eyes have gone wide and horrified in the passenger seat.

  Thunder rolls in the distance and heavy storm clouds hang over the house, making it look even more depressing than it did in yesterday’s sunshine.

  “It looks worse than it is,” I say softly. “A little TLC, and it’ll be just fine.”

  She climbs out of the car and slams the door behind her. The sound echoes through the car.

  I turn to Gabby in the back. “It’ll be an adventure.”

  Her bottom lip trembles and she’s twisting her hands in her lap. She was three when we left and the couple of times she saw Dad over the years weren’t enough to create those bonds a child deserves to have with a father, especially if he’s going to be her primary care provider. Of course, she hasn’t said a word about any of this, but she doesn’t have to. It’s all written on her face.

  I climb out of the car and open her door, offering her my hand.

  We twine our fingers together and follow Drew to the door—Drew, who’s decided to take the disinterested tack and is already glued to the screen of her phone.

  Dad pulls the door open before we even climb on the porch. “Welcome home. I was wondering when you’d get here. You girls hungry? I made some chili?” He’s speaking too fast—a rare occurrence for my father—and his words trip over each other.

  Drew glances up from her phone but doesn’t answer. Gabby squeezes my hand.

  “Chili would be great,” I answer, leading the way in the house.

  I’m relieved to see that he’s straightened up the place a bit. The kitchen counters and little table are clear of papers and books, and he’s set out red disposable bowls at each of the four seats, a metal spoon and glass of water next to each.

  Gabby and I sit down, and Drew joins us, her jaw tight.

  “Phone,” I remind her, and Drew slides it into her pocket with a roll of her eyes.

  We sit quietly as Dad serves us the thin, red soup he’s calling chili. We stare at our bowls.

  “Did you make this?” I pick up my spoon, preparing to set a good example for my sisters.

  “Yes. I hope it’s okay. I’m not used to cooking for anyone but myself.”

  “What’s in it?” Drew asks, poking at it with her spoon.

  “It’s…vegetarian.” Dad clears his throat. “Tomatoes, beans, onions, green peppers, okra.”

  Drew drops her utensil. “I’ll pass.”

  “Vegetarian,” I growl.

  “Okra,” she growls right back. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her chair.

  “Thanks for thinking to make us lunch, Dad,” I say, attempting to salvage these awkward beginnings. “That was thoughtful.” I make myself take a big bite, keeping my
face neutral as I chew and swallow.

  Next to me, Gabby slowly lifts her spoon to her mouth. She blanches slightly when the soup hits her tongue—the still-crunchy vegetables and slimy beans make for an odd combination of textures—but she’s a trooper and smiles at Dad before slowly taking another bite.

  “So, what grade are you girls in now?” Dad asks between bites of his own soup. I’ve never seen him so nervous. For the first time I’m realizing that the girls aren’t the only ones suffering a major life upheaval. “Drew, you must be in, what, seventh grade by now?”

  Drew shoots me a look, as if our father’s cluelessness is entirely my fault.

  “She’s in high school, Dad. Drew will be a sophomore. And Gabby will start fifth grade in the fall.”

  Dad looks taken aback by this information. “You’ve grown up so much,” he says, almost to himself. Then he turns his gaze to his soup and we finish our meal in silence.

  I make a mental note to get money from Dad to go grocery shopping for some basic foodstuffs. Drew will likely starve before eating okra. She may be a vegetarian, but she shouldn’t be mistaken for someone who actually eats vegetables.

  After our meal, I show the girls to the room they’ll be sharing, and for Drew’s sake, I try to see it through her eyes. Old pea-green shag carpet, mattresses on the floor that I’ve already made with their sheets and blankets from home, rickety little end table between the beds.

  “This is worse than the brothel of a motel you had us staying at,” she says under her breath.

  “It’ll be better when we move all your stuff in.”

  She snorts. “Sure. The lipstick on the pig didn’t do it, so let’s try some mascara.”

  “Drew, I need you to try.” I feel Gabby at my side, grabbing my hand. “This situation will only be as good as you let it be.”

  “Good?” Her voice shakes and she throws her phone on her bed. “What in the fuck is good about any of this? I lost my mom and I have to live with this guy who never cared enough to visit more than a handful of times or, I don’t know, call on my birthday. I had to leave my friends and my home. I hate this house. I hate this town, and I fucking hate you.”