Together Again

by Aria Ford

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  We sped off into the night.

  We reached her apartment sooner than I would have expected. I had, I realized with surprise, only been there once or twice.

  “Baby,” I said as she pressed against me, a little sigh in the back of her throat. “I want you.” I pressed against her, loving the feel of her soft body against my hard, throbbing manhood.

  “I want you too.”

  It was awkward getting back onto my crutches after hugging her, but I managed it as she reached for her key and took some time letting us into the apartment. I followed her across the threshold and into the lift.

  I started to feel the first tingle of nerves as we headed up to her apartment. The lighting in the lift was stark and made me feel exposed. I suddenly dreaded the moment when she might catch sight of my leg. All of a sudden my confidence was chipped away with my misgivings.

  When I looked up from the floor, she was smiling at me. My doubts quickly slid away as fast as they came.

  She whispered my name and pressed against me as the lift door sealed behind her. I leaned into her, letting myself feel nothing except the sweet pleasure of her body against mine. She was warm and soft and her curves fit against me as if she had been carved to fit in my arms. I sighed and let my tongue push into her mouth and held her tight.

  We almost fell out of the lift on the eleventh floor. She giggled, and I leaned against the wall, giving myself time to get steady. I had my arms in the loops of the crutches, my hands on the bars, and I needed a moment to balance. She went over to unlock the door, giving me the time to get steady.

  Then, as the door unlocked with a click, I followed her inside.

  ***

  I switched on the light and closed the door. I couldn’t believe it. Jay was here.

  I swallowed hard and tried to distract myself from the feeling that my abdomen was on fire and all I wanted to do was press against him. I could feel a wetness soaking into my panties and I knew that if I didn’t have him soon I would go crazy. All the same, I wanted to go slowly and savor this.

  “Uh, here we are,” I said with a giggle. “I recently redecorated the bathroom…” I knew I was talking to cover my awkwardness and I guess he knew too, because he didn’t say anything. I turned around, hair swinging, and looked at him.

  He smiled at me. He was leaning against the wall, the crutches clenched so tight that I could see the white knuckles under the skin. It was his eyes that drew me in, though, soft and blue. They started at my feet and traveled up my body, making me tingle fiercely. I could feel his eyes studying my body, lingering at legs and breasts and thighs. It was almost like he touched me.

  “Margo,” he said. His voice was rough and grating and low with need and it set my whole body on fire.

  “Jay.”

  My own voice was tight and low, and I felt chills go through me as he reached out. I was standing close now, close enough for his fingers to just brush my side.

  I allowed myself to do what I wanted to. I stepped toward him and pressed my body into his. I could feel that hard, muscled chest under his shirt, his narrow waist and the hard thigh of his left leg. I pressed close, letting my body mold against his where I could also feel a telltale bulge in his trousers and I pressed against it, loving the way it felt when it rubbed against me.

  “Oh, baby,” he moaned. “I want you.”

  I sighed. My whole body was glowing and shivering. I could barely think for how much I wanted him.

  “I want you too,” I said. I meant it.

  He kissed my hair. Gently, he cupped my face in one big, muscled palm.

  “You’re so lovely,” he whispered.

  I shivered. My whole body was throbbing as his touch worked its magic on me. I wanted him so much it hurt.

  “Come on,” I swallowed.

  I wriggled loose from his grip and led him through to the bedroom.

  I stood in the doorway, hearing him lean the crutches against the wall as he sat down heavily on the bed. I heard him say my name again.

  “Margo.”

  I turned quickly away and joined him on the bed. My body was trembling. He reached over and kissed me hungrily, his tongue licking, stroking, exploring me. I felt like waves of fire were flooding me. His hand rested on my thigh and traced higher, so that his fingers flicked my panties. I gasped.

  He smiled.

  “Stop…teasing,” I gasped. The way he touched me wasn’t fair. I was melting as his hand squeezed me, fingers stroking the lace undies.

  He grinned. “Okay.”

  He moved his hands then, reaching to unfasten my dress. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to focus on the sweet sensation as he stroked down, unzipping me and gently rolling me to the side so he could work the dress down to my hips. I opened my eyes as he stared down at me.

  His gaze was so admiring, so tender, that my heart thumped. He was staring at my breasts, held by the tight push-up bra, a mix of wonder and need in his eyes.

  I rolled over, moving my body to show myself to best advantage.

  He chuckled. “Does that come off?”

  “Find out,” I said.

  I let the dress slide down my legs and slip off my feet.

  He leaned down and gently reached behind me, unclasping my bra. I sighed as he worked it off my hands. He stared down at me.

  “Margo, you’re just amazing.”

  I grinned. His eyes on my body were almost as pleasurable as a touch, starting at my waist and traveling up to my breasts, lingering there. He seemed to be torturing himself, just sitting looking at me. Then he reached out and gently worked my panties down off my ankles. He let them drop onto the floor.

  I heard him shift on the bed and then he reached down and gently put his hand on my thigh. Leaning forward, his other hand cupped my breast, and I sighed as he gently teased my nipple.

  Then he was upon me. His one hand slid between my thighs, stroking me like he had earlier, only now there were no panties there. I sighed and let my thighs gently part as he reached in, his thumb working my clit in a way that made me want to scream.

  I moaned and shuddered and gritted my teeth as his hands worked me, prodding and probing and bringing me so close to climax that I wanted to cry. It was almost agony.

  He changed the direction of the strokes, moving up and down, up and down in a way that shuddered through me like fire. I could feel my wetness rising. I was shivering, my thighs contracting in little spasms as I reached the edge of need.

  “Please, Jay,” I said.

  His grin flared, then faltered. He looked nervous for a moment and I wondered why. Then he started to undress. I was amazed by how quickly he could work pants down over his right leg, but he managed it effortlessly and then he was naked. His legs were visible to the knee. He was sitting on the edge of my bed, turned toward me.

  It was my turn to stare. He was so beautiful. His shoulders were still huge, his biceps rippling in the half-light of the lamp. His waist was sweetly narrow, and I could see the thick, stiff hardness of his cock pressed tight against him.

  He saw me looking and grinned. Then he knelt between my thighs and pushed into me.

  He did it slowly, taking himself in his hand and rubbing the head against me, pushing it against my clit. I sighed as he parted my legs, rubbing himself in my wetness, gently probing me to make sure I was ready for him. Then he knelt between my thighs and entered me.

  I cried out. He was so big, so thick. I had forgotten. And yet, he didn’t hurt me. He pushed into me gently, giving me time. Not that I wasn’t already ready—I was shivering, reining in the climax that was about to crash over me like a thunderstorm.

  I felt him push right into me and groaned as the feeling of fullness flowed through me. Then he pushed out and in again, further and fuller. I was moaning now, pushing against him, letting him rub on all the places that incited that sweet, tickling, throbbing, fiery feeling that was slowly filling me up like a madness, rising through my body, making
me shiver and shake and cry…

  I screamed as I came, the ocean crashing through my body and taking my mind to a place of pleasure so intense that it seemed for a moment like I was unconscious.

  He was throbbing and shuddering and pushing and he, too, cried out. He collapsed onto me.

  We lay like that, his arms round me, my arms clasping him, sweat dripping.

  It was much later when he rolled off me. He lay beside me, eyes closed. I thought he was asleep except that his breath was too shallow for that.

  I rolled onto my side.

  “Margo,” he whispered.

  “Jay. That was amazing.”

  “It was.”

  When he opened his eyes, I was astonished to see the depth of tenderness in them. I had been crying and he reached out and stroked a finger down my cheek, messing the neat pathway of a tear.

  He smiled gently. “You always do that.”

  I giggled. “Only with you.”

  “Really?” He sounded confused.

  I grinned. “Really.”

  I was crying, slow, silent tears that made my voice wobble. I couldn’t help it. Lovemaking with him—and that was what it was, real lovemaking—always did that.

  His hand touched mine and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t quite believe how I felt. I was so fond of Jay it sometimes felt as if my heart was one with his. It was crazy.

  I nestled closer and wrapped my arm around him, feeling his breath beside me. I felt as if we hadn’t lain like this for so long, and yet it was as if we’d been doing this, unbroken, since four years ago. It felt natural.

  “Margo,” he said again, very softly.

  Then he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

  First Impressions

  PROLOGUE

  The girl standing in front of me took off her shirt.

  I couldn't help staring as the buttons unclasped one by one to reveal the pale white cleavage. It was thrust into an improbably-small piece of underwear and it drew my focus. The girl was beautiful in an explicit, made-up way and I felt my loins stiffen. I watched the pale body under her shirt appear inch by inch.

  “Wanna kiss, big boy?” she whispered.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away, forcing myself to do so before the sight and sound and scent of her got overwhelming and I couldn't refuse anything.

  “No,” I said.

  That took all my effort. Feeling drained, I stood and walked to the door. I was shaking when I stood there, drawing in gulps of air. Behind me the music carried on, and with it the scent of cheap cigarettes and the sound of loud laughter and loud, rhythmic music.

  “Jerry!” One of my friends called out – Pete. His voice came across the loudness and the music and got into my head. I turned to stare across at him. He was holding a glass of beer. He was already red in the face and smiling.

  “Where you going, Jerry?” he called out, repeating the nickname my friends had given me. It grated on me. It was part of my former life.

  I sighed. “Pete, I can't.”

  I stayed where I was at the door of the Reef Club – really an overstated name for a seedy bar in the worst part of LA.

  “Can't what?” Pete asked. His face creased with concern – evidently he wasn't too drunk to notice my desperate frustration.

  “I can't do this anymore.”

  Pete sighed. “What's wrong, Jared?” he asked. “I mean, really wrong?”

  I shook my head, trying to swallow the lump that had unwittingly appeared in his throat. I had drunk quite a lot, and I knew the sudden urgent intensity of my feelings was at least partly to do with that. But it was more than that. The news about Callum had cut me hard. I still couldn't think anything about it without feeling that strange, cold numbness right inside me.

  Callum was dead. He would have been twenty. Shot in a gang-related incident on the street. I knew Callum had been involved with the heroin dealers. It was probably why he'd been hanging out with the Marlow Gang in the first place. That didn't matter – no-one deserves to die for having gotten involved with stuff like that. Everyone deserves a second chance. Now he was dead.

  He was a good friend. A good man. His life should never have ended that way.

  I dragged fresh air into my lungs, wishing something would exculpate the terrible rancid smell of smoke and cheap alcohol and sweat from my mind and nostrils. I hated this place now. Why was I even here? Callum had died living the kind of life I'd been living. It was time.

  “I don't want to live like this anymore.”

  I focused on Pete's face as he said it. I looked into my friend's wide, bloodshot blue eyes. He swallowed, and nodded.

  “Jared, I...I understand,” he began. “We...”

  The name of Callum was like a lead weight in the air between us. We didn't have to speak it for both of us to know what we meant.

  “I need to get out of this, Pete,” I said. “Callum would have agreed too.”

  That was what he'd said to me the last time I saw him. Which was why it hit me so hard, as such a horrible irony, that he'd died. He wasn't meant to die just when he'd decided we were both going to live a better life.

  Pete nodded slowly. The rest of the group – Jake and Bill – they hadn't been as close to Callum as I had. Callum had been restless and different and spoken more to me than he had to the rest of them.

  “You're right,” Pete agreed. “He would want that. Good for you. We understand.”

  I swallowed. The words meant a great deal to me. I had been afraid to walk away – afraid of losing the social circle I had. Of being on the edge of things the way Callum was. Now I knew: they wouldn't reject me just because I wanted to better myself, and that meant I had to try.

  I wanted more than getting drunk and having sex with girls who I didn't know and who didn't know me. I wanted to remember my weekends clearly and make real love. Hell, from a childhood on the streets to an early adulthood of dissolution, I wasn't sure I knew if love even existed.

  It was time to find out.

  I let out a long sigh. That was it.

  I wanted more than that. Callum had wanted more than that. And he'd died trying to find it. But I wasn't planning on dying before I took that brave step out of the life I'd known and into the life I had no idea about but knew sounded good. I wanted it.

  I was ready for it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Darby

  I stood on the edge of the field and hissed at my brother. Around us the Wyoming day cooled to night.

  “Alex, I can't go in there.”

  My brother sighed. “I know, Darby. But really, you can.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides. Why did no-one understand?

  “I need to go back. And you know what Uncle's like...we'll all get talked into staying for another week and I can't! I have work to do.”

  Well, that wasn't strictly true. It was holiday season and I had taken a week off. I could stay. I just wanted to have some time to myself, in civilization, to catch up on filing and to the administrative stuff for which I never had time. I hadn't banked on being stuck out here.

  Alex gave me a serious look. “You know, Darby – you need to slow down sometime.”

  “Oh, for...” I glared at him. My brother is a handsome, six-foot man with blue eyes and a stunning smile. The fact that he's a well-earning financier doesn't make him any less appealing to girls, either. But sometimes, especially now, when he treats me like his baby sister, I want to punch his arm like when we were kids.

  “What?” he asked, those baby blue eyes serene. “It's true, Darbs.”

  “That doesn't mean that it makes it any easier to hear it, over and over again. If anyone else tells me to slow down, I swear I'll...”

  “What was that, auntie Leona? No, it's okay... we're both vegetarian. Yeah.” He turned back to me. “Come on, Darby.”

  I sighed. “Alexander, you know what?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I'd only agree to something like this for you.”
/>   Alex looked pleased. He smiled at me.

  “I'm glad to hear it, Darby. Well. Come on. We should go in before we cause even more disturbance... as two vegetarian-borderline-vegans in this place, we're freaky enough.”

  I laughed. Alex had a way with words. I often thought he should have gone into law. He could persuade anyone to do anything. As it happens, I was the one who went into law. Funny how these things happen.

  Which was, of course, my problem. I am a junior lawyer at a busy firm. I need to work. Hard. I really don't need to spend a week sitting on my bottom in the middle of nowhere. But since I'd already been persuaded to come on this crazy family reunion thing, I might as well go along with it.

  “Okay,” I said to Alex. “I'll join in. But only if you promise me we'll stick to my plans.” My plans were to get on the plane in two days' time.

  “Okay,” he promised.

  “Good.”

  I let myself be persuaded to follow him into the tent my uncle had raised in the sprawling backyard.

  “Whoa!”

  I caught my breath as someone stumbled into me. How rude! I was about to let slip a word I'd never normally use in polite company, when the someone turned around.