by Claire Raye
Sienna lets out a breathy laugh. “I’ll bet I know exactly which song you’re thinking about,” she says, brushing her lips against mine, her teeth gently biting my bottom lip.
I hit play on the song before dropping my phone onto the bed. The opening beat, a pumping base, fills the room as my other hand moves to her hips, turning us so I’m backed against the bed now. I sit down, pulling her down with me so she’s straddling my hips, her thighs on either side of me.
The song continues to play as its hypnotic beat and fucking hot lyrics filling the room. Sienna wraps her arms around my neck, the smile still on her face as she stares down at me.
“Is this the song?” I ask, lifting her hips a little as I position my cock against her.
She draws her bottom lip between her teeth as she slowly lowers herself onto me, sliding down inch by painful inch until I’m finally buried inside her. “Uh huh,” she breathes out.
I groan, burying my face against her neck as she slowly lifts herself off me until it’s just the tip of my dick inside her. “I really fucking love this song,” I tell her, my arms wrapping around her back, holding her against me, silently telling her that it’s not just the song I’m referring to.
“So do I,” she whispers as she lowers herself onto me again.
I drag my lips and teeth over her skin, my mouth finding hers as I kiss her deeply, all of the lust and want and desire that’s been coursing through me since that blow job in the car this morning, finally coming out.
Sienna kisses me back, our tongues and teeth colliding with a hunger I’ve never felt before. And as the music continues to play, the same song on repeat and only fueling all the need and want we’re both feeling, Sienna rides me hard, pushing both of us to the brink, until the song ends for the fourth time and we both come hard, collapsing back onto the bed.
“I think that might be my new favorite song,” I finally say, my head turning on the pillow toward Sienna.
She’s lying on her stomach beside me, head on the pillow and hands underneath it. She opens her eyes, smiling. “I’m definitely adding it to the playlist,” she says.
I roll over, propping myself up on one elbow as I lean down and run my lips down her spine. “Four times,” I murmur, feeling her laugh beneath me.
“Four times for now,” she says, wiggling her ass a little.
I kiss a path down to her ass, biting her cheek, my hand smoothing over the mark I leave. “Fuck, I am never going to get tired of doing this with you,” I say, my mouth against her skin. “You are so fucking sexy, Sie.”
She slides a hand out from under the pillow, curling it around my ribs and pulling me down so I’m half lying on top of her. Kissing me, she whispers, “Good, ‘cause I want to do this with you forever.”
My heart flips in my chest as her name falls from my mouth on a groan and I roll my body onto hers, my stomach and chest pressed against her back. My dick is hard again and Sienna moans as she lifts her hips, pushing her ass against me.
“Jesus, Sie, yes,” I groan, lifting my hips so I can slide into her from behind. I run my hands up the sides of her body and her arms, my fingers curling into hers as I hold our joined hands above her head.
Both of us groan, as I slowly start to thrust into her, a wordless acknowledgement of what we’ve both just admitted to each other.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sienna
This is it. Last night was the last time we’ll be alone together for a while. From today on, we’re either filling Caleb in or sneaking around, and the latter option seems like a shitty one. I have no idea why I’m worried about telling him. He isn’t irrational and there’s no way he’s going to do anything but make fun of me for falling for his best friend.
“How do you want to tell Caleb?” I ask as Silverchair’s “Tomorrow” effortlessly serenades us in the background. Not that I think there needs to be a plan. Who I am kidding? There needs to be a plan because I’m panicking just a bit.
“A little worried there, Sie?” Reid teases, reaching over to squeeze my thigh.
He doesn’t see things the way I do. To him this is simple and to me it’s complicated. While it’s something I wished for, dreamed about even, I can’t help but let thoughts of breakups cloud my head. Or how this will affect the dynamic between the three of us. It was always Caleb, Reid and me, and now it feels like Caleb will be the third wheel.
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” I reply back indecisive as hell as I pull a hand through my hair. “What if we breakup?”
“We won’t,” he says with finality, not even pausing for a second to let my question sink in.
I tilt my head giving him a look that screams before this trip he wouldn’t keep a girl longer than twenty-four hours.
“You can’t be serious,” he says, not even needing an explanation of why I’m looking at him the way I am. He knows me well enough, but he also knows we both don’t know how to do this relationship thing.
Neither of us had the best example of how to be loved or how to love in return, so it’s not like I blame him for his past choices. It’s what we both did to get by, keeping people at enough of a distance to not get close.
“Sienna, I don’t know how I lasted this long without you. It was pure fucking torture watching you at parties with other guys, seeing you on campus when someone would be hitting on you. You’re the one who will have to leave me.”
I can’t picture myself ever leaving him. I need Reid like I need oxygen and while it’s only been six days, we’ve waited our lifetime for this. I’ve never been one to need anyone, living on my own and taking care of myself, but the idea of losing Reid nearly cripples me.
“I need you too much now,” I admit, feeling too vulnerable and showing Reid a side of me that I’ve never let anyone see. I’ve longed to feel connected to someone, but I always knew I would only feel it with Reid.
“I felt like I was dying every day I lived without you. If I lost you now it would kill me,” he says, the words taking on a possessive co-dependent quality that borders on unhealthy. But it doesn’t matter. This is who we are. This is who we were always meant to be.
You don’t meet someone at five years old and carry them with you through every life event if they weren’t meant to be with you always.
“Does that scare you?” he asks when I don’t respond.
“It calms me,” I reply, leaning my head against his shoulder and with the quiet stillness we bring to each other, he presses his lips to the top of my head. It’s a simple gesture, but it holds so much meaning.
The music plays, the tires spin and each mile that passes brings us closer to a place where it isn’t just us. This little bubble we’ve lived in for the last six days has kept any outside forces from ruining what we’ve created. It’s hard to think about going back to our normal life, back to school, back to all the things that could force their way into our happiness.
“Don’t worry about Caleb,” Reid says, his words soft and reassuring. “I’ll talk to him, but I would think he already knows.”
“Did you tell him and you’re just playing it off like you didn’t?”
“No, I promise I didn’t, but he’d be a fucking fool to think I could spend six days alone with you and not…” He stops speaking suddenly and I look over at him. He shakes his head a little but turns and gives me a simple smile.
“You are quite hard to resist,” I say, not dwelling too much on his unfinished thought as I press my lips to his shoulder.
“I’ve never been one to turn down a naked girl who busts in on me jerking off in the shower.”
I gasp out loud, smacking his chest with an open palm. “How many times has that happened to you? I really thought I was being creative.” I push my bottom lip out and wrinkle up my nose, pouting at the idea that some other girl stole my thunder.
“Settle down, babe. You’re the only one. Just giving you shit.”
“I was terrified,” I admit. “Imagine what the rest of this ride would’ve been like
had you turned me down? Fucking mortifying.”
Reid laughs and I imagine he’s thinking about the awkwardness that could have befallen us had it gone differently.
“I’m glad it was you who made the first move because there’s no way I could have,” he confesses and I instantly shake my head, rolling my eyes.
“Oh please, you fucked with me for so long. Trapping me in that bathroom, brushing your lips against mine, sucking on my finger. You made the first move a million times and I did nothing but run from you.”
“I thought you hated me. You played it so well.”
“See that, I thought you were hell bent on ruining my life. Boys who tease…” I shake my head, laughing a little at how long it took us to get here.
We both fall silent and I lean forward to turn up the music a little. Hole’s “Violet” has just started, and we let the stillness of our voices cover us, a reminder that it will all come to an end. There’s a lot waiting for us when we get back to Providence, a lot that we have yet to even discuss.
As if he can read my thoughts, Reid says, “We haven’t even talked about your dad. Are you okay?”
Besides the initial conversation, the argument on my porch the day he came to tell me, we haven’t said a word about it. I’ve spent the last six days thinking if I don’t talk about it, maybe it didn’t really happen. But in a way it feels like it was a lifetime ago and possibly not even part of my life anymore.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what to feel.”
For years I scanned my memories for times when I can recall my father being there or doing something a father would do, but I come up short every time. After my mom died, I thought things would get better. He had two six year olds to care for, babies who had lost their mother. But in the grand scheme of things, she wasn’t well enough to care for us either, so it wasn’t really any different. He would float in and out of our lives as if we were his tiny roommates and it was the people around us who helped us get by until we were old enough to do it ourselves.
But no matter what, Caleb and I were together and because of what we went through, we’d always have that connection. At night when the house was still and the noises of the darkness would scare me, I’d sneak into Caleb’s room and lie on the floor next to his bed. We’d talk about what it would be like to have different parents, but mostly I dreamed about what my life would be like when I left Providence. I was realistic enough to know that our father was our father and that wouldn’t change, but I could change my own life.
And the one constant in every dream I had was always Reid.
“How would you feel if your dad died?” I ask, such a disgustingly morbid question, but the thought hit me so many times as a child it began to feel normal.
Being an absent father is just as bad as not having one at all. Abandonment really fucks you up.
“I wouldn’t care,” Reid says, not missing a beat and I’m caught off guard a little. I asked for his honest answer and I got it, but I guess it wasn’t what I expected. “He’s a horrible person. He ruins people lives. Look at my mother,” he snaps.
“Yeah, but he’s still your father,” I tell him, knowing I’m waging an internal battle over how to grieve the loss of my own father. Maybe hating him would be easier and after what he put Caleb and I through I wonder if I should.
But how could he even take care of us when he couldn’t take care of himself?
“But is he?” Reid asks, a rhetorical question, one that has us both contemplating what it really means to be someone’s father. “I used to think I’d never get married or have kids because how could I possibly know what that would look like. How could I possibly take on that role when the only model I had was such a fucking mess?”
“At least you had a model,” I say, as if this is some sort of competition. “All I had was Twilight.” My comment lightens the tension just a little, but I understand what he’s saying. It’s hard to navigate life when your guide is nothing more than a broken compass. “What made you change your mind about marriage?” I now ask, not missing that part of his comment.
“You, Sienna,” he states. “Because I don’t have to be anything more than who I already am. I don’t have to hide from you. I don’t have to guard anything. I told you I’d marry you in heartbeat.”
“That’s a little impulsive, don’t you think?” I say, but I find my heart racing at his comment just as it did before.
“Not when you’ve waited your whole life for someone.”
The ride grows shorter and before we know it, we’re only an hour outside of Providence. I cling to Reid, my arms wrapping around his arm, a feeling of dread pooling heavy in my stomach. Everything feels like it’s about to change.
I wasn’t ever supposed to come back here, because coming back is like taking two steps back for every one I’ve taken forward. This place, my home, the bar, all of it is a life sucking nightmare, but I know I can’t leave Caleb to do it all on his own. I know it won’t just be the organizing of a funeral, but everything else that comes with death. Oddly it almost feels like it could be a clean slate.
Neither of us really ever had any interest in running the bar, so in my head I play around with telling Caleb about Reid and me and then convincing him to sell the house and the bar and come to Hawthorn. It can be like we always imagined it. We can all start over.
“I think we should tell Caleb together,” I say, taking in a deep breath as I try to keep myself calm. I have no idea why there’s this nagging feeling at the back of my mind. It calls to me when everything feels settled. When I find myself remembering that Providence isn’t my home anymore, that voice creeps in. It tells me something isn’t right.
What isn’t right is me being back here.
Everything about it is off.
“If that’s what you want then I’m all for it,” Reid says, taking the car off the highway and exiting onto a street that brings us one mile closer to the street where we grew up. “Whatever you need,” he adds and I close my eyes, his words covering me.
“You’re all I need.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Reid
“Sie,” I say, lifting my arm and slipping it around her shoulders so I can pull her closer. “You’re all I need, too,” I tell her, kissing the top of her head. “As long as I have you, then everything is good.”
She lets out a noise that’s half sigh, half whimper as she presses her face against my neck, her lips against my skin.
“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” I say. “I promise.”
She nods against me before pulling back. “I know,” she says, giving me a smile. “It’s just so…so weird being back here is all. I didn’t think I’d ever come back.”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing out the side window, familiar streets and places now passing me by. “I know what you mean.”
“Are you going to go see your parents?”
I shake my head. “Hell no,” I tell her. “If we’re telling Caleb together, then we’re doing it as soon as we get home and then I’m staying with you.”
“Seriously?” she asks, as though I would even joke about this.
“Yes, seriously,” I tell her, laughing a little. “Why wait, Sie?” I ask her. “Let’s just tell him so we can be together.”
“Okay,” she says, nodding once. “Let’s do it,” she adds, squeezing my arm. “But you should still go see your parents.”
“Nope,” I assert. “I’m not even going to bother telling them I’m back. It’s not like they even care.”
“Reid,” she says, looking up at me.
“What?”
Sienna opens her mouth as if she wants to tell me they will care, but then stops herself because we both know it would be a lie. Our parents might have come from different backgrounds, might have run in different circles in terms of wealth and status or whatever, but they were exactly the same when it came to being parents. When it came to not giving a shit.
My dad was never around when I was growing
up and the few times he was, it’s not like he ever gave a shit about me. He never came to my football games and never checked in when he got home from work. The only time he ever asked me about anything was to ask about my grades, to make sure they were good enough.
And my mom, fuck, she spent most of her time somewhere else too. Spending money and generally avoiding my dad, and I guess me. When she was home, she was usually staring at the bottom of a wine glass, never interested in anything I had going on.
“I’m staying with you, Sie,” I repeat, giving her a smile. “Unless of course you don’t want me to?” I ask, brow cocked in question.
She smiles, leaning her head against my shoulder again. “Of course I do,” she says. “I’ve gotten used to sleeping beside you now and I…”
I chuckle. “Used to me, huh?”
Sienna laughs. “You know what I mean,” she says, pinching my side.
“I do,” I say, smiling. “And for the record, I’ve gotten used to sleeping beside you too. You’re so nice and warm and naked and sexy,” I say. “And you have wandering hands too, which is…”
“What?” she asks, surprised. “I do?”
I laugh. “You do,” I tell her. “They like to explore when you’re sleeping, which makes sleeping next to you a lot of fun,” I tease, chuckling at the surprised expression on her face.
“I didn’t know that,” she murmurs.
“Trust me, baby, it is definitely not a problem.”
Sienna looks up at me, her brows narrowed a little, even though she’s smiling. “Guess that explains why you wake me up so much in the middle of the night to, you know…”
“Fuck?” I suggest, laughing when she blushes a little. “Yeah, it certainly gets things moving in that direction,” I tease. “But I’m pretty sure I’d be waking you up anyway.”
“You do, huh?”
“Yep,” I say, nodding. “I’ve spent so many years dreaming about having you in my bed, now that I have the real thing, I don’t wanna waste a second.”