This is raw. His need is so heightened, he might leave fingerprint-sized bruises on my hip. Knowing that I can be his cure … it’s intoxicating.
Fletcher pumps me, never letting up, each of us biting our lips and each other’s arms or necks to stop from howling like wild animals. This is fucking … blind, primal fucking. It’s needing the surrender of someone else’s body for your pleasure.
My orgasm doesn’t sneak up on me, it isn’t a slow build to a cascading waterfall of release. No, it’s a seven-forty-seven to the gut, slamming into me like a plane crash landing and exploding on impact.
I start to scream as it crushes my organs in its wake, pleasure radiating from every cell, when Fletcher slaps a hand over my mouth. He fucks me like this, savagely, drawing my hips down onto him with one arm and silencing me with the other.
“You save me. Only you, Ryan … only … you …”
Fletcher breaks off in a shuddering groan, burying his face in my hair so that it muffles the dull roar he lets out. His hips jut up into me, his cock pulsing as he releases all the pent up cravings into me.
“I can’t let you go, now. You’re in me, right here.” He moves my hand to chest, splaying it directly where his heart beats. “Please, don’t make me.”
For the first time in my life, a man is telling me that it’s my choice whether or not to break us. Fletcher’s declaration is more than love, it’s complete surrender. Of his heart, to me. He’s handing it over, telling me that I’m responsible for keeping us whole, and not the other way around.
I’ve waited a lifetime for someone to give me a gift like this. But now that he has, I’m not sure I can bear the weight of it.
28
Fletcher
By the time we straighten our clothes and head back for the campsite, the intense craving that had been building in my chest since I woke up has completely left my body.
In its wake though, it’s left a blackhole-sized wreckage that plagues me with every step.
What the fuck did I say to Ryan? Why the fuck did I have to go and spill my guts on her like that?
She’s walking ahead of me, as I instructed her to, because we’re wading through brush and branches in a thicket of forest, and all I want to do is stop her and take it all back. Is she freaked out? Probably, considering I told her when we started this that we were going to take things slow and had no pressure on us.
What a fucking moron I am. I all but told the woman I loved her after like a month of dating.
Not that it isn’t true, but she didn’t need to hear all that. The whole point of convincing Ryan to date me was to prove to her I’m not like the guys of her past; I wanted to get to know her and not move hot and heavy until we burned out like a shooting star. Now I’ve ruined it, because post-coital feelings grabbed me by my emptied balls and had me confessing true love.
“I’m, uh, going to grab a shower down at the bathhouse.” Ryan’s eyes don’t even come close to holding mine as we walk back into camp.
“Where have you two been?” My twin brother waggles his eyebrows at me.
We ignore him as I head to set up our discarded tent, and Ryan grabs her bag to head for the bathrooms.
“You okay?” I hear Presley ask when her friend passes, and I look to see Ryan nod and then walk off.
I should have distanced myself … I thought as much before asking her to come on this camping trip with my family. We’ve been attached at the hip for two weeks, and if I’m not working or in my shop on the farm, I’m with Ryan. We eat almost every meal together, spend hours in each other’s beds, and she’s gotten into the habit of walking to the grocery store to meet me and walk home after my shift.
I realized I was in love with her about five days ago when she laid two slices of almost burned bacon on my plate. Not because she was a bad cook—she claimed to be, but I found out she just didn’t like it—or because she liked them that way, but because I did. She’d cooked, an activity she despised, for me and made my breakfast food exactly how I liked it. It was so simple … but to me, it was a grand gesture.
At that moment, I’d looked up into her sleepy morning smile, smelling that fruity Chapstick she was always wearing … and I knew. I am in love with Ryan Shea.
I probably had been on the cusp of it for a while before that … maybe even from the moment I met her. I didn’t put much stock into love at first sight, but knowing how I felt about her now, I should have.
After I set up our tent, I move the rest of our bags inside, unroll the sleeping bags and throw a pillow at the top of each one. We’re ready to sleep on the ground for the night, although I know Ryan is less than pleased about the arrangements.
It’s about half an hour before she comes back into the campsite, and she’s changed from jean shorts and a T-shirt into black yoga pants and a long black tank top. The ensemble matches her hair, and when she ducks inside the tent and comes back out, there is a big wool sweater engulfing her body.
I didn’t realize how chilly it would get out here, it’s been a while since I’ve gone camping. Apparently, the city girl is more prepared than I am.
Over the course of the next two hours, we all help cook dinner, eat, clean up, and then start a fire in the common area we’ve made with our tents. My nephews are sword fighting with large sticks they found in the woods, Presley and Keaton are uncharacteristically showing a lot of PDA, and Bowen is FaceTiming with Lily and the baby. Penelope is busy setting up s’mores supplies, and my twin brother is probably taking a rest in his tent.
But Ryan is right here next to me, and I know we need to talk.
“Hey, do you want to—” I begin, but my sister-in-law cuts me off.
“S’mores, y’all! Come and gather round!” Penelope claps her hands cheerfully, and I think she might be more excited about the bonding than the sugar we’re about to consume.
Me? I could use some chocolate therapy. Sugar to an addict is the next best thing to getting drunk or high. That and cigarettes, but I never much got the taste for them.
Everyone jokes around at first, seeing who can light their marshmallow on fire or toast it perfectly. Ames accidentally drops his entire stick in the fire, and we all rag on him for his burned treat smoldering in the fire.
“What is the thing you fear most?” Presley starts in a spooky growl, like she’s a camp counselor trying to start a scary story circle.
The campfire flickers and illuminates everyone’s faces, and Bowen, who she turns to first since he’s sitting right next to her, ignores the question to make his fourth s’more.
“Snakes! I really hate snakes.” Matthew nods gravely, and Forrest shoots his stepson a fist bump, as if to say he, too, is scared of snakes.
“Laundry. I fear laundry. Especially stinky, smelly, little boy laundry.” Penelope bends her arms at the elbows and presses her palms to her cheeks, as if she’s quaking in her boots.
The boys crack up, booing their mom for making fun of them.
“Well, I was always especially afraid of under the bed. Even now, I can’t sleep with one foot out of the comforter, or I think some monster will reach up and grab it.” Ryan shivers as if she’s thinking about it.
“How about you, Fletch? You know, he used to be terrified of Daffy Duck.” Keaton laughs as if just remembering the memory.
I’ve been lost in my own thoughts, half-listening while staring into the fire, but I glance up at the sound of my name. This is a fun, family bonding time, but I’d be lying if I told them anything other than the one thing I fear the most.
Falling off the wagon.
My biggest fear is getting my hands on a bottle and never letting go. Is that what they want to hear, though? Hell, no.
“Yeah, he was pretty scary with that voice.” I laugh along, but my heart isn’t in it.
I feel Ryan’s eyes on me as the group moves on to the next question, or some kiddish form of truth or dare. Honestly, I’m not really paying attention.
“Do you want to call it a night?” Ryan asks, as if read
ing my mind.
“Yeah, I’m pretty tired,” I tell her, glad for the excuse to get up and tell everyone good night.
We walk to our tent, not touching each other, and I feel like the biggest jackass in the world. For the words I should have held back, for attacking her like a savage, for letting her see my true struggle with sobriety.
Ryan turns away when we crawl through the zippered opening, and as I close it, I see her beginning to undress and slip into her warm pajamas.
“Hey, so …” My voice is awkward, and the woman I care about very deeply feels a million miles away.
“I’m pretty tired. Let’s just … sleep.” She tosses a look over her shoulder that says she can’t do this right now.
I’ve never seen her whiskey-colored eyes so guarded, not even when we were trying to deny that there was any spark between us.
Nodding, I set to throwing on my fleece-lined sleeping gear. Earlier, I thought we’d unzip both sleeping bags and lay on one while the other was thrown over us, giving us unfettered access to … keep each other warm, if you know what I mean. But Ryan just tucks herself into the singular sleeping bag, and I can’t help the disappointment that pings my heart.
Once I fold my body into my own, I flip the switch on the battery-operated lamp beside me, and we’re plunged into darkness. I can hear my family still outside around the fire, laughing and talking about whatever topic they’re onto now.
Ryan flips over with a huff, and apparently, we’re not just going to drift off into awkward sleep. “What you said earlier …”
“Ryan, you don’t have to … we don’t have to talk about it. I didn’t mean it.” I try to take the coward’s way out.
“Yes, you did, don’t play that bullshit with me,” she snaps, and I know I’ve hurt her.
Scooting to close the space, I pull her into my arms, our sleeping bags bunching between us. Even in the few hours she’s been distant, I’ve missed her being here. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I did mean it. But, it doesn’t mean you have to talk about it.”
Ryan blinks slowly, her chin tipped up to look me in the eyes. “I know I don’t. It scares me. We were … taking things slow, and you had to go and say all of that.”
I press a kiss to her forehead, because I can’t not breathe her in. This thread between us feels finite, in this moment, like anything could snap it. I long for her, yearn to do this for a long time to come. Does her being scared of that mean … she doesn’t want it, too? Either way, I have to own my feelings now. They’re out there, and I’ve held myself back from what I wanted for a very long time. It’s within arm’s reach, and I’d be an idiot to let it go now.
“I know I said that we could just … hang out. But, come on, Ryan. I think we both knew from the moment we said that, that it wouldn’t be true. It might seem fast, or too much this early in the grand scheme of whatever we’re doing together, but I don’t care anymore. I’ve felt something for you since the moment you walked into that rehearsal dinner for Presley and Keaton. You infected me, you got straight down into my marrow. The instant buzz that started between us, it’s a once in a blue moon thing. I’ve never felt the way I feel about you about anyone, that’s just a fact. You’re the first person I think about when I wake up, and you pop into my head a million times a day. When I’m with you, I forget about all the bad shit I’ve done, I forget the doubt that tells me I’ll never be the man I’m trying to be. Because for you, I want to be him. So yes, I want you to stay with me. I don’t ever want to let you go.”
“I’m scared,” she says it again. The only two words in response to my quiet declaration in the darkness of our tent.
“Why?” My voice is a whisper.
“Because I feel it, too.”
Her short confirmation is all I need, a big, verbose confession to match mine isn’t necessary.
Without wasting another second, I kick out of my sleeping bag and make for hers, unzipping the side and making her giggle as I struggle to climb in next to her.
She stops laughing, though, when I cover her mouth in a gentle, deep, endless kiss.
We make love in slow, tender strokes, using the other’s mouth to silence the sounds from carrying past the paper-thin tent walls.
29
Fletcher
The summer ends in a flurry of squirreling away days in the sun, after-dinner ice cream trips and hoarding every possible second I can spend with Ryan.
September rushes by as well, the kids go back to school; I bury myself in the clock tower project, and Ryan gets hired as a computer aide in the middle school. The job is temporary, and it makes me wonder if that means she is as well, but I don’t push the issue.
We’re all but living together, with her going back to the guest cottage every few days for clean underwear. And … it’s settled into a nice routine. She teaches three days a week, while I work my day job. I was promoted to manager at the grocery store and had a few more projects come in, so I can afford to take her out on the weekends. Probably nowhere near as fancy as she’s used to in New York, but she never says anything.
Anyway, I cook us dinner, Ryan got me into bingeing Game of Thrones … even though I lie to Forrest and still tell him I’d never watch that nerd show. On the weekends, we hang out with my family or I take her to some of my favorite secluded spots in the county. For claiming she hates nature, she sure does love the hidden gems I show her.
All in all, we’ve settled into my idea of the perfect relationship. I get to spend all my free time with her, and the sex is still off the charts.
And then, October rolls around, and I wake up into my own personal day of hell.
From the start of this Wednesday morning, Ryan knows something’s up. I barely get out of bed, and I didn’t tell her that I requested off of work a week ago specifically so I could mope around.
“Hey, get up, you’re going to be late.” She pulls on a pair of yoga leggings, preparing to go take Presley’s morning class.
“I’m not going.” I know I sound like a petulant child, but I can’t help it.
Grief will do that to you, make you an irrational son of a bitch. The days I wake up and feel the need for a drink burn so harshly in my throat that it’s a like a wildfire rushed through there … those are hard days.
But those days are nothing compared to this day.
“Do you feel sick?” Now her attention is fully on me, my gorgeous girlfriend standing at the foot of the bed staring at me.
Her eyes hold sympathy, but also suspicion. I’ve never done this before, even on a day where I feel like my sobriety is slipping, and Ryan looks worried.
“No, I just … go to your class. I’m going to stay in bed.” I flip over, burying my head between the pillows.
My heart weighs about a thousand pounds in my chest, and even if I wanted to, I have no energy to leave the mattress.
Ryan sits down beside me, her body making the bed dip, and rubs a hand up and down my back. “I’m not going to class while you’re like this. Talk to me, Fletch.”
For someone who appears so callous and off-limits in her city-girl attitude, Ryan is extremely caring and kind. It’s something I’ve come to learn over the last two months while we’ve spent all this time together. There is no one more ready and willing to listen than this woman.
Too bad I feel like wallowing in my sadness. “Go, Ryan. I need some time.”
And even though she’s empathetic, Ryan also knows when to walk away. She isn’t a woman who will let you treat her like crap because you feel like crap. She told me as much when we were talking about her past relationships one night. It’s something she’s trying to change, and even if I’m gloomy right now, I respect it when she gets up, tells me she’ll be home in an hour, and walks out the door.
Once she’s gone, I flip over onto my back and inspect the ceiling.
Eight years ago today, my father died.
It’s a weird thing to think, that he’s been gone for almost a decade. I spent so much of my life with
him, but sooner than I realize, I’ll have spent just as much time with him gone. The thought makes me want to rage, to punch holes in the wall or fuck up my life worse than I have in the past. If it wasn’t for the debilitating sorrow keeping me chained beneath the sheets, I probably would.
I drift in and out of a hazy, restless sleep as I wonder what Dad would say if he were here today. Would he approve of Ryan? Hell, he’d probably like her more than he liked me. Would he be proud that my creation was going to be displayed up there in that clock tower? Would he rag on me for renting a place above Carlucci’s, or use it to score more free pizza? He always had a complimentary slice waiting for him whenever he went to see the restaurant’s owner.
And the rest of my family? Well, we just never really talk about it. I know that Mom goes to his grave in the morning and then eats a marble frosted donut by the lake in Bloomfield Park. Marble frosted were his favorite.
But this day hits me harder than it does my brothers. They all have families, people, and actives to keep them occupied. I’ve never had that before this year, and I can’t seem to drag myself out of it despite having Ryan around. My bond with my father was complicated, but I was also the one who was there when he died. I saw it with my own eyes, and …
I have to shut the thought down before it completely undoes me. Instead, I slap a pillow over my face and drift back off to sleep. The memories are too painful to relive.
“You could have told me today was the anniversary of his death,” Ryan says quietly as I emerge from the dreamless sleep I was in.
Her keys are in her hand, and her face is a little red, so I know her workout must have ended just a little bit ago.
Sitting up, I wipe the exhaustion from my eyes and survey her wearily. “Never had anyone with me on this day before.”
She kicks off her sneakers and crawls up the bed, planting herself next to me and then pulling me into her arms. It’s not the hold of a lover, it’s one of compassion … which I didn’t realize I needed until right now.
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