by Lucy Lambert
Dash twisted the key and killed the engine, then held the dangling keychain out to me. As soon as I accepted it, he stepped out of the truck. The squeal of the hinges cut into the quiet that enveloped us.
I stepped out, too. I kept the hood of the Ranger between myself and that house.
White aluminum siding, a couple of windows looked out on a shaggy lawn from a small porch. The sloping roof needed new shingles.
There wasn’t a for sale sign on the lawn, but I didn’t think anyone lived there anymore.
Which was a good thing, since Dash went right up onto the property and around to the backyard.
“Wait!” I said, suddenly alone on the street. A street I had driven past I didn’t know how many times before this. And all that time this house sat there, forgotten.
It was enough to give me more goosebumps.
I stole across the street after him. I walked faster and faster, suddenly certain that as soon as I rounded the side of the house to the backyard Dash wouldn’t be there. He’d be gone, vanished like my memories of him before he showed up in town again.
“Dash? Dash!” I said. I ran my fingers along the cool and dirty siding.
He didn’t answer.
He’s gone, I thought. Even though I knew he couldn’t be.
And he wasn’t. I rounded the corner and saw the backyard. There was an old, rusted chain link fence around the perimeter. An equally old, windowless shed stood in one corner.
Dash stood by a tall maple in the middle of the yard. Its high branches swayed and rustled in the breeze, and its canopy of leaves cast a broad circle of shade on the lawn. He leaned against it.
No, he wasn’t leaning. He pressed his bare palm to the rough bark.
An old Michelin truck tire hung from a frayed rope tied to a low branch. There was a trough in the ground beneath the tire where young feet had worn the grass to bare, packed earth.
Suddenly it felt like I’d just stumbled into a church in the middle of a moment of silent contemplation.
Dash’s long hair ruffled in the breeze when he lowered his head. Was he praying? I didn’t know.
As much as I wanted to hear his voice, I didn’t interrupt him.
He broke the silence instead.
“I haven’t so much as dreamt about this place in years. But I know if we go in through that back door, the second step from the mud room into the kitchen creaks. Unless someone’s cleaned up in there, there’s a smoke stain up on the kitchen ceiling where I accidentally burnt some toast once. I was late for school and forgot about the toaster.”
“Dash…” I said. I started towards him. I didn’t know why, or what I intended to do, only that I needed to be closer.
“I lost my mother about seven months ago. We used to live here in this house, but you know that already.” He kept his head down while he said this, his back to me. His broad shoulders rose and fell in a sigh.
“Yes,” I said.
“You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
“You’re the boy who used to live in this house. You’re the boy I saw in the park. The boy who kissed me.”
This time he did look back at me. He also kept his hand on the same spot on the maple’s trunk. He held his other hand out to me, palm up. I could see the creases in the skin, the callouses from long miles on the road.
“What is it?” I said.
Somewhere down the street, maybe by the school, a car rumbled by. I had the irrational fear that it was Sheriff Robert, or worse, Bobby, and that one or both had followed us.
I turned towards the noise.
“We should go…” I started.
“Not yet,” Dash said. He reached out and took my hand. It was a firm, insistent grip that brought my attention back to him.
In the shadows under the maple his eyes were dark pools. “I couldn’t remember if this was something I imagined or something real.”
“What?” I asked. I thought at first that he meant the tire swing. He didn’t.
He took his hand off the spot on the maple’s trunk. Despite the shadows, I saw clearly what he’d been covering. It was a simple carving, the letters darkened by time and the elements. Small enough that they could be easily missed unless you knew where to look.
D+E. That was all. Three characters carved into the bark. I pulled my hand out of his, overwhelmed by the need to touch, as though my eyes might lie to me.
I traced them with my fingertip, the bark rough by the exposed flesh of the tree smooth against my skin.
“I don’t remember this…” I said.
“You wouldn’t,” he replied, “I did it myself, when no one was looking. There was this girl I liked at school, you see. I liked her a lot, more than I wanted her to know.”
He took my hand again, pulling it down from the tree, enclosing my fingers in the steady warmth of his palm. Or was it my hand that was so warm?
My whole body flushed with heat. I could feel the urge to look at him. It was strong. Instinctual, even. But I couldn't. Not yet, at least.
“Why are you here?” I asked him. “Why now? This sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life. In real life the boy moves away and you never hear from him again because the world is such a big place. How can this be happening?”
“My life has been very strange lately,” he said. His fingers squeezed around mine almost imperceptibly. “But I think that the world is a lot smaller than people make it out to be. At least when it comes to other people. I suppose that some things are just meant to happen, even if they seem impossible.”
Then he put his other hand against my cheek. It burned. I don’t know if it was his palm or my cheek. Maybe both. He tilted my head so that I did finally look at him.
I struggled for something to say. Anything at all.
But then his lips were fire against mine. His hands dropped. His arms went around my waist and pulled me close even while my hands went around his shoulders.
Then I wanted him. I wanted him more than I'd ever wanted a man before. It was like I was incomplete without him.
I pulled back the barest amount, “But we’ve only known each other a day,” I said.
“That’s a lie, and you know it,” he said.
He pulled the back of my shirt up enough to trace hot lines with his fingers on my bare skin.
Then I was ready. I wanted to give myself up to him. I wanted him to give himself up to me.
Then he stopped. He looked around, listened to the branches rustling over our heads. “Not here,” he said.
The ten minutes it took to get back to my house were some of the longest of my life.
On the way there, that same part of me that was certain Dash had vanished was then certain that Sheriff Robert would be waiting on my porch again with more questions.
Because that’s the way the world works, you see. At least for me.
But he wasn’t.
As soon as we set foot in the front hallway Dash pressed me back against the wall. His lips found mine again, our mouths fitting together with incredible heat.
This time his hands didn’t stop at the small of my back. I craved his touch. I loved the way his fingers sent hot and cold shivering waves of desire through me.
His stubble prickled deliciously at my cheeks, and it tickled the sensitive skin on my throat when he nuzzled against my neck.
I put my hands on his strong chest and felt the desire pounding in his heart. I ran my hands up and down along the front of his body, gasping when I felt how rigid he had become.
“I want you. I can’t wait any longer,” he whispered into my ear, his breath hot against me flesh.
“Upstairs…” I said, wondering if either of us could hold out for that long. I wanted to tear the clothes from his body.
Then he picked me up, literally sweeping me off my feet. I gasped, encircling his neck with my arms and holding tight while he took the stairs two at a time.
He started for the master bedroom.
“No, please. Not there,” I sa
id.
He hesitated for only a moment, and I thought he wanted to say something but he didn’t. He carried me down the hallway and put his shoulder to my door. Then he flung me down onto my bed.
He pulled my shirt off and traced a hot line down between my breasts with his mouth. He kept going down my stomach. My skin knitted into gooseflesh in his wake.
It was so intense. My fingers squeezed the comforter into my fists while I arched my back up.
His fingers found the button and zipper of my jeans. He pulled the zipper down and tugged the cotton and denim lower, so he could tease the sensitive flesh there with his lips.
I knew he wanted to tear my jeans and panties away, wanted to savage me until I could take no more. I had a momentary panic, trying to remember if I’d shaved my legs and kept the hedges trimmed the last time I’d showered. I think I had.
But then something crept into my mind.
“It’s been a long time for me since… you know,” I said.
“Me too,” he said, “Are you asking me to be gentle?”
I hesitated a moment, then said, “No.”
He pulled my jeans off so quickly they turned inside out. Then he ran his lips up the inside of my leg, tracing fire and gooseflesh the whole way.
He lingered for a moment at the crease where my inner thigh met the rest of my body. I gasped at his touch. I’d forgotten how sensitive the skin was there. And how maddening it was for him to be so close.
I could feel the heat of his breathing as it rushed over the thin cotton of my panties. I squeezed the hell out of the comforter while my own heat seemed to concentrate into this incredible ball just below my navel.
His mouth switched to the other thigh. The other crease between my leg and everything else.
My hips arched up off the bed, inviting, commanding, demanding. I trembled for him, inside and out.
His lips grazed over the cotton fabric that separated me from nakedness. I gasped again. This time my hands crawled into my hair, pulling and tugging, giving me some of the physical sensation I wanted so badly but that he continued to deny. My nipples were so hard they ached.
And the heat! It concentrated in my stomach, yes. But there was still more than enough to make my whole body flush with it. I could hear the blood rushing past my ears, feel my heart drum against my ribs in an effort to keep up.
“I can’t take much more of this, Dash,” I said. My voice was low and quiet and full of yearning.
He gave me a hungry wolf’s grin. “You’ll have to. I’m not done giving yet. Not by a long shot.”
This time when his lips grazed over my panties he paused. He kissed me through them. The pressure was exquisite and agonizing all at once.
My hips arched up again of their own accord, trying to get more of that delicious pressure. But he pulled away. I moaned, part frustration, part anticipation.
He reared back on his haunches and removed his shirt, making me watch as he popped each button through its hole. Then he shrugged out of it.
The sunlight that made it in through the curtains was more than enough for me to admire his body in. And this time I didn’t have to hide it.
He was rigid with muscle. And his skin was flushed with heat, too. The flush deepened when he took in my semi-naked body, clothed only in bra and panties.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“You’re hot,” I replied.
One corner of his mouth twitched upward. Then he lay beside me on the bed, on his side. He placed one scorching palm on my stomach, covering my navel. The tips of his fingers were achingly close to the elastic waistband of my panties. I squirmed with need beneath that touch.
Electricity danced between his skin and mine, leaving me tingly and hot all over.
“Do you really remember me?” I said, “You really remember kissing me and carving those initials into that tree?”
“I do,” he said. His eyes were deep, still pools. He was so close to me.
“Touch me,” I said. My body writhed on the bed, eager, desperate for him.
We kissed again, his lips somehow soft and giving yet also insistent. He tasted good.
With agonizing, teasing slowness his fingers pushed beneath the waistband of my panties, inching towards the source of my heat.
He started slow. Almost gentle, even. But we were both insatiable. Even though we’d never been together like this before, he still somehow knew just how to touch me.
I trembled and bucked beneath that touch until I could take it no more. I went rigid with a sudden climax that shot through me with all the force and heat of a lightning bolt.
“Dash!” I cried out, while he nuzzled my neck.
My hand slipped between our bodies and cupped the hard ridge on the front of his jeans. He groaned at my touch and I shivered with pleasure at the noises he made.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he said, his voice husky and breathy with his need.
“Then don’t,” I said.
He yanked my panties down and threw them away, then lifted me just enough to undo my bra with one snap of his fingers. And then I lay completely naked before him.
My breaths were shallow and shaky, goosebumps kept pebbling every inch of my skin. That ball of heat just below my navel threatened to burn me away to nothing but cinders.
If I had any apprehension about it, those feelings disappeared when I saw the way he looked at me. He drank me in with his eyes. Raw, primal desire filled them.
He stood at the foot of the bed and I watched while he stripped his pants off. My body throbbed in response when he revealed just how much his own passions inflamed him. He, too, trembled with need.
He crawled back onto the bed, looming over me like a lion about to devour his prey. I offered myself to him, fully exposed. I ran my hands up his sides, loving the heat and smoothness of his skin, feeling the muscles play beneath it.
He looked a question at me that I understood immediately. It took only moments for me to fish the foil wrapper out of the nightstand, and only moments for him to roll the contents on.
Those moments only built the anticipation.
When he slipped into me, I gasped. Instinctively, my hands slipped up to his powerful shoulder blades and my nails bit into his flesh. He let out a moan of his own.
“Oh, God, Dash…” I pulled his face down so that I could kiss his lips again, feel the prickle of his stubble on my cheeks again.
Once more our rhythm built slowly, one body getting used to the other. I gripped him tightly, but he liked it.
He knew what he was doing, though.
He found the pace I liked and kept it. My back arched up off the bed beneath us, my stomach brushing against his, as though my body tried to join even more fully with his.
My head pushed back into my pillow, exposing my throat. He ravaged me with kisses up and down that sensitive skin.
And then something touched off inside me. An incredible climax that wrested all control from me, so that all I could do was writhe beneath him, completely at his mercy.
He was merciless, riding me through wave after wave of some of the most intense pleasure I’d ever felt before.
Then I whispered, “come with me, please,” in his ear, my voice raw and ragged.
He did. His handsome face twisted into that grimace of melded pleasure and agony, every part of him rigid as steel inside and out. “Ellie…” He groaned, setting off another wave of fireworks inside of me.
We finished and he rolled off me onto his back. I nestled into the crook of his arm, my head resting against his chest. His heart pounded out a steady, comforting rhythm that went beyond hearing.
“What now?” I asked. Part of me wondered if maybe this last carnal act completed something for him. Something that might make him move on.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet. It’s been so long since I had to figure out more than what town to aim my bike at next.”
I traced my fingertips down the soft creases between his abdominal mu
scles. I didn’t realize how much I missed this sort of intimacy, this sort of closeness.
But it had never been like this with any other guy. Definitely not Bobby. I wanted Dash to stay so badly, I knew that now. But I felt like if I said, I might drive him away.
My voice caught in my throat, and I pretended like it was just a cough. “Are you going to point your bike at a different town soon?”
I wondered if maybe he should. Bobby and his dad wouldn’t leave us alone forever. And sometimes bringing up the past was painful.
Besides, him being here brought back those desires in me to leave Pleasant. Brought back the desire to do it, and the fear, too.
He didn’t answer me, though. Instead he kissed my forehead and relaxed. “Let’s just sleep for now,” he said.
My eyelids, suddenly heavy, began shuttering. I wondered if he would still be here when I woke up.
Chapter 15
DASH
If anyone ever asked me why I stayed in Pleasant, I might shrug and remain non-committal. They could think what they wanted. People are good at that: giving reasons for why other people do what they do.
The truth was that I found things I didn’t even know I was looking for. Pleasant was a doorway to a past that I’d done my best to leave behind.
And what does that make Ellie? Part of my past? Or maybe my future?
That was why I liked the road so much, ever since I ran. There was no past, no future. Only the fact of the road itself. Miles eaten up, towns ahead, towns behind.
There was a simple, comforting truth to it that almost - but didn’t quite - fill the void inside of me.
Ellie stirred next to me on the bed, gathering the sheet around her. I think after last night we each managed to stumble to the bathroom and then back before falling into what for me was a deep and dreamless sleep.
And since it had been an early night, it was now early morning. Not yet five, according to the green digits on Ellie’s clock which sat on the dresser across from the bed.
I smiled at that. At imagining her having to put it there so that it necessitated getting up, groggy or not, to turn off the alarm.