Drowning Erin

by Elizabeth O'Roark

I start toward the bathroom, willing myself not to even look at him. "I'm just going to—"

  "Erin?" His voice is soft and certain, as is the hand that lands on my hip, pulling me toward him.

  And then it isn't merely his hand on me, it's all of him, his mouth against mine, his chest bearing down, his hands reaching behind me, running below my hips, tucking me into him so there isn't a whisper of space between us. I taste the champagne from the celebration earlier on his lips, suck it from his tongue, and he groans, moving me backward toward his room, shutting the door behind us.

  Certain forces in life are just too strong to fight. The lure of sleep when you’ve pulled an all-nighter, a wave breaking overhead. From the moment he begins kissing me, I know Brendan is one of those forces tonight. There’s no use even trying.

  My hands are on his skin, pushing the towel away while his remove my shorts and rip my T-shirt over my head.

  When that guilty voice somewhere in my brain tries to make itself heard, he silences it. "Don't think," he says, his breath hot against my neck. "It'll be fine."

  It's weak, accepting words you know can’t possibly be true in order to get what you want. But I am weak, which is not news, and I’m especially weak where Brendan is concerned, which isn’t a surprise either.

  He pushes me backward toward the bed. The moon is bright through the open window. Bright enough to watch him crawling over me, to see that look on his face—hungry and feral and tender all at once.

  His fingers slide up the inside of my thigh, light as a whisper. His sudden lack of haste is agonizing, and when his hand finally reaches its destination, fingers pushing inside me, I make a sound I’ve never heard myself make. He groans in response.

  “Hurry,” I plead, “before I change my mind.” He reaches over me to the nightstand, and I hear the sound of a condom wrapper tearing. It's been ages since I heard that noise, and even that is exciting to me. I feel him lined up, and knowing what is coming, how close he is, makes the ache border on unbearable. I pull him down, closer, finding his mouth, my nails pressing into his back, and in a single swift thrust, he's inside me.

  "Jesus, Erin," he groans. "You feel amazing."

  He winces and pulls back just enough to push back in hard—hard enough that the headboard slams against the wall, hard enough that I gasp "oh, fuck" involuntarily. And before I've even recovered, he does it again, kissing me possessively, his arms planted on either side of my head.

  There are no words. No way to tell him—if I were capable of speech at the moment—what this is like, how different this is from anything I've ever had.

  "Oh my God," I breathe. "Keep going."

  But instead he pulls out entirely, kissing me, working his way down my stomach. "Why are you stopping?" I cry. "I'm close."

  "Because if I hear you gasp like that one more time while I'm inside you, I'm gonna blow." His mouth moves between my legs, and suddenly I'm ratcheting up and up and up.

  “Oh God,” I moan, seizing around him, except even when I’ve settled back onto the bed, he doesn’t stop.

  “Brendan, I don’t… I’m not going to come again.”

  He raises his head, grinning up at me with the cockiest smile I’ve ever seen. “That sounds like a challenge.”

  And not two minutes later, it’s a challenge he wins.

  The moment I’m done, he’s sliding over me. “I can’t wait anymore,” he says, his eyes shut as he thrusts.

  The headboard slams again and again. He holds out, but I can tell he's struggling as he drags his lower lip between his teeth and clenches his eyes shut. I'm sure that I'm done, but as I watch him like that, grabbing the headboard with one hand, pushing hard, I discover I’m not.

  "Oh my God," I whisper. I sound shocked, almost frightened. "Again?"

  And the moment it hits me, he loses the fight, slamming into me one last time while I come around him.

  A few moments later, in the complete silence that follows, I realize Brendan and I were just unbelievably loud.

  "Oh my God,” I groan. "The entire house just heard that, didn't they?"

  "They're all asleep. No one is listening."

  I reach up, just for effect, and slam the headboard to the wall once, demonstrating the loud noise we just made at least 30 times, and then we both start laughing.

  "Okay, yeah, everyone heard that. But you know what? It was so fucking worth it."

  I sigh happily. "Definitely. I thought multiple orgasms were a myth."

  "I think maybe we should see if it was just a freak occurrence." He is already hardening again, pressing into my thigh.

  "I can't. I can't possibly come again."

  He rolls me onto my stomach and grabs my hips to drag me to my knees. "When are you going to learn not to challenge me, Erin?"

  I have no idea when we went to sleep. I have no idea how many times I came…at a certain point I grew too tired to keep an accurate record. All I know is that when my eyes blink open, the room is flooded with sunshine, and the bedroom door is flying open, with Matthew launching himself toward us. Brendan manages to yank the sheets up, but not fast enough.

  Matthew, frowning, asks me where my pajamas are. I cast a panicked glance at Brendan, who looks tempted to laugh.

  "They must have fallen off while I was asleep.” I wince as I say it. Really, Erin? You couldn’t do better than that?

  And if Matthew decides to get any more observant, we're going to be explaining tied-off condoms too, since I don't ever recall Brendan getting up to flush them.

  "Let's go downstairs, Matthew," I say.

  "Erin," says Brendan with mock seriousness, "you can't go downstairs. Your pajamas fell off, remember?"

  "It seems like a better idea," I reply between my teeth, looking at the floor and nightstand behind him, "than staying in here, don't you think?"

  Understanding comes into his face, and he swings the covers away. "I'll take him."

  In spite of the situation and the presence of a small child, I take one last moment to let the glory of Brendan sink in. The future may be a mystery to me, but I guarantee it’ll never involve anyone quite as pretty as him walking out of my bed, bare-ass naked.

  "Your ‘jamas fell off too, Bwendan?" Matthew asks.

  "No, my pajamas didn't fall off," Brendan replies, grabbing shorts from his backpack. "Real men don't wear pajamas."

  Matthew follows him from the room, nodding as if he's just learned something valuable. I bet Olivia never convinces him to wear pajamas again.

  When the door shuts, I stumble into the shower. My whole body is sore, and there are certain parts rubbed so raw that soaping them hurts. I emerge feeling almost beaten, dying to climb back in bed and sink into the sort of deep sleep Brendan and I only got a small taste of. But I can't, of course, because I’m leaving in a few hours, and also because if the girl who just ran 100 miles can rally, I can too.

  Wearily, I descend the stairs. Most of the crew is here, and there's a look on their faces as I enter the kitchen that lets me know, in no uncertain terms, that we were every bit as loud as I thought last night. I catch Brendan's eye and watch as he tries to maintain a straight face while simultaneously laughing so hard his shoulders are shaking. As does Olivia beside him.

  "I hate both of you," I mutter as I walk past them to the coffee.

  The discussion, fortunately, has turned to a blow-by-blow of the race. Will comes down and unceremoniously hands Caroline over the table to Olivia.

  "Hungry," he grunts. I'm unsure if he means himself or the baby until I watch Olivia pull her shirt over Caroline's head and start to nurse.

  Brendan flinches. "It's so awkward when you do that."

  "Yeah." She nods. "But not nearly as awkward as you trying to push the headboard through the wall last night. I mean, I ran a hundred miles yesterday, and even I couldn't sleep through that."

  He groans. "Olivia, my mother is sitting right here at the table."

  "I slept here too, Brendan,” says Dorothy. “It's not like I'm
just figuring it out now."

  "I'm going back to bed," I grumble, turning on my heel to leave the room.

  "Don't worry, Erin!" Olivia shouts. "We'll keep Brendan down here so you can get an hour of undisturbed sleep."

  41

  Erin

  Present

  Sleeping with someone you’re not supposed to sleep with is an awful lot like breaking a diet. Once it’s happened, it’s pretty easy to justify breaking it again. It’s tempting, in fact, to scrap any attempt at discipline at all.

  I woke up later Sunday morning to catch the airport shuttle. Brendan was sprawled out on his bed, asleep, with his door wide open. That was the first moment I thought one more time wouldn’t hurt. I’ve thought it about a thousand times since.

  I can’t act on it, of course, because Rob trusts us. We need to stop while it remains an accident—granted, an accident that occurred seven times. Except even now that I’m home, Brendan looms so large in my head it’s as if there’s no room to want other things. Sleeping with Brendan was supposed to cure me of the desire to sleep with Brendan. Instead it has opened up some bottomless well inside me, one bubbling over with dangerous urges and possibilities.

  Timothy drones on endlessly about the importance of branding during the Monday meeting, and I only hear the way Brendan’s voice grows raspy just before he comes.

  I spend lunch thinking about the cocky way he sits, leaning back in his chair with legs spread wide—as if he’s just about to demand you get on your knees and finish him off. I’ve fantasized about doing it more times than I can count. Now it’s just another missed opportunity, one more thing I should have done Saturday when I had the chance.

  I’m still thinking about Brendan when Timothy stops by my cubicle. It’s hard not to scowl openly at him. Going from fantasies about Brendan to the reality of Timothy is a difficult transition indeed.

  In his hand is the only completed piece for the new branding campaign, a postcard featuring the cringe-worthy tagline Timothy insisted upon: ECU: A Place to Know, A Place to Grow, which sounds like the title of a Dr. Seuss book. He throws it on my desk like it’s an accusation in and of itself.

  “I was surprised you weren’t here on Friday, Erin,” he says, lips pursed.

  I sigh heavily. I knew this was coming. “I told you I was going to Tahoe. You signed my leave slip.”

  “I thought you’d just be gone Thursday.”

  Who takes a long weekend by going away Thursday and coming back Friday? I pull the document out of my drawer. “The form clearly stated I’d be gone both days.”

  He doesn’t take it from me. “Well, this project is important, and you deciding to take off and miss a meeting does not signal commitment to your job.”

  You have got to be shitting me. I know people who didn’t finish high school, yet make more than I do, and I routinely work 50- to 60-hour weeks. I don’t know if my Brendan-focused lust has left me unable to give a fuck about anything else in my life, or if it’s just four years of outrage welling up inside me, but I’ve officially had it with Timothy’s shit.

  “When I left here Wednesday afternoon, there was no meeting planned. And, I reiterate, you signed the leave slip.”

  His frown deepens. I see the wheels turning in his brain—he’s dying to reprimand me—but fortunately, the wheels of Timothy’s brain do a fairly poor job.

  “Your job review is coming up,” he warns. “I’m going to need to see an attitude adjustment, or you’re not going to like what you hear.”

  I act as if he hasn’t spoken and return to my computer screen. I’m glad I paid Sean’s tuition, but God, I wish at some point in the past four years I’d gone down a different path. I’m hard pressed to imagine a job that could make me less happy than this one.

  I spend Monday night packing to move into the room free at Harper’s place while her housemate is in Europe. If I’d hoped it would give me something other than Brendan to think about, though, I was sadly mistaken.

  Tuesday is more of the same. Me: throbbing and needy and miserable with want, barely capable of pretending to do my job much less actually do it. But I’m determined to put Saturday night behind me.

  And then I get home and find a FedEx addressed to Brendan on the front step.

  “Seriously?” I ask aloud, softly banging my forehead to the door. I’ve been fighting the desire to contact him since the moment I left last Sunday, and now fate is practically forcing my hand.

  No. I’m not using this as an excuse to see him. The safest course is just to deliver it with no phone call or face-to-face contact. Before I can change my mind, I’m racing up to Manitou Springs as if the clock is running on my self restraint.

  I get to his place and slide the envelope under the door, which flies open before I’ve even stood back up.

  His eyes are narrowed, looking from the envelope to me with suspicion. “You were just going to slide this under my door without knocking?”

  “Well, I didn’t know if you were home or busy or—”

  He raises a brow. “Yes, that’s why people knock.”

  “And how awkward would it have been if you’d had a girl here?”

  “I already told you, I don’t have girls here.”

  He opens the door wider, gesturing me in. I really should not cross the threshold. What I should do—what a decent person would do—is make an excuse and hightail it back down those stairs. Yet here I am, moving past him into his place. Stupid, disobedient feet.

  He doesn’t ask if I want a drink; he just opens a beer and hands it to me. I imagine, with the anxiety I’m feeling right now, I look like I need one.

  I lean against the kitchen counter, ready to bolt, and stare at the beer bottle—as if the label I’m peeling off is a bomb in need of defusing. I try not to look at him, but even in my peripheral vision I see his legs—lean and muscular at once, smooth. The hair on them is light, sparse, and barely visible. Why does he have to be so perfect? Even his damn leg hair is perfect.

  “How was the rest of the trip?” I ask. “Lose any more car keys?”

  “Leave that poor label alone,” he says, and I’m forced to meet his eye.

  Their pale blue has turned foggy, like the grayest morning in autumn. He isn’t smiling. I take a big pull off the beer, the way a man would, out of sheer nerves. I’m sure it’s not an attractive sight, but there’s something that’s gone avid in his gaze. You’d think I just tied a cherry stem with my tongue or slowly sucked on a popsicle with the way he’s watching me. And in the space of that moment I remember him on Saturday night. Above me, flinching as he tried not to come. A muscle spasms low in my abdomen.

  “What are you thinking?” he asks.

  Oh God. I’m so caught. I can tell just by the way he asks, by the look on his face, that he knows.

  “Nothing,” I squeak.

  I need to get out of here. Now. I set the beer down on the counter so quickly it wobbles. My hand shoots out to steady it, and his wraps around mine as he steps forward, eliminating the space between us.

  Only our hands are touching but I feel the press of his skin everywhere—a chill at the base of my spine, firing through my bloodstream.

  “I should go,” I whisper. His nod is barely there, more just a tip of the chin. He releases my hand.

  I head across the room with absolutely no idea what I should say when I get to the door. See ya around? Don’t be a stranger? He follows in silence and I am hyperaware of his smallest sounds—his feet against the hardwood, his breath.

  But when I reach the knob, his hand covers mine once more. “Wait,” he whispers.

  I turn to face him. “I—”

  His hand curves around the back of my neck, and then his mouth is on mine. There is no time for me to object, though who knows if I actually would have. The spike of adrenaline that began when we both grabbed that beer bottle is now coursing through my veins, taking over. He kisses me until my breath comes in small wisps and my knees shake. The sound of his zipper sliding down ma
y be my new favorite noise.

  “My room, now,” he says, breaking away as he starts to pull me past the couch. I allow myself to be led for a moment, but already I’m thinking of all the things we didn’t get to on Saturday night, all the missed opportunities I’ve been ruing. If we’re really doing this, I want to leave with fewer regrets than I had when I arrived.

  “No,” I say, pulling against his hand. I push him toward the nearest chair. “Sit.”

  He raises a brow but does what I ask, perhaps as surprised as I to discover that I’m taking charge.

  I push his shorts to the floor and straddle him, sliding my hand between us, still outside the tight boxer briefs that leave almost nothing to the imagination. My fingers can’t quite wrap around him, but even through the fabric I swear I can feel him pulse. “Erin,” he growls, and moves as if he’s going to lift both of us.

  I press my mouth to his ear. “You need to learn some patience.”

  “Fuck that,” he hisses.

  I laugh under my breath. We’ve barely begun but already triumph dances up my spine. It’s not some kind of supreme confidence in my own abilities. It’s simply that I’m so determined to walk away from this with what I want—the memory of him begging and desperate against my tongue—that I feel certain it will happen.

  I slide to the floor, pulling his boxers with me. I give him more of what he wants, but not enough, memorizing his groans and his hands tightening in my hair. It’s not until he begs, his breath labored as he thrusts upward, that I take him in my mouth.

  “Oh Jesus,” he groans. His fingers press to my scalp and already I feel him swelling, wanting release and fighting it at the same time. “I’m gonna come,” he gasps too late, not that I’d planned on going anywhere. The pained noise he makes as he finishes is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He looks down me. “Where the fuck did you learn that?”

  I laugh. “You really want me to answer?”

  He shakes his head and then joins me on the floor, pushing me to my back. “No, but at some point I’m probably going to ask you to do it again.”