Cable
I WAS FEELING a lot of things. It took a minute to isolate and work my way through all the different emotions, but I was doing the work, and I was grateful to have the problem of being overwhelmed. It was how I knew she was the right choice for me, even if I wasn’t the best choice for her.
I was jealous. Blindingly and obsessively so. It made me a little crazy, and I wanted to find the guy who had been walking by her side, the one who had touched her like he had the right and break all his fingers. It burned seeing her with someone who wasn’t me. It tied my guts in knots when I realized how good he looked standing next to her, how right someone else would be for her. I would have walked away, disappeared before she could catch sight of me if she had looked happy. I would have let her be if she said she cared about the guy in skinny jeans and glasses. Instead, she was back to being the way she was all those years in high school. She was flying high above him, and he was trying his best to reach her. She was still untouchable. I was the only one who weighed her down enough to touch her. When I got my hands on her, I was never letting go.
I was happy. My heart swelled and lifted as soon as her blonde head came into view. Her hair was longer and the beachy waves from the summer were gone. She had done something to tame it; the pale strands were severely straight as they hung around her face. Her golden tan was also gone, making her freckles pop on the bridge of her nose. She’d lost some weight, defying the freshman fifteen, and her face had that blank, controlled look on it she used to wear when she was dreaming of leaving Loveless. I knew some of the changes in her appearance were because of me, but I was so excited to see her, to be near her, that I let the guilt slide.
I was relieved that when our eyes met, the world still stopped. The jackass at her side didn’t matter. The months apart didn’t matter. The questions and concern radiating off her in waves didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered is how she saw me, really saw me, the same way she always had. She didn’t look through me or around me. She looked right at me and moved toward me because she couldn’t help herself. I was so thankful that our connection hadn’t been broken, that time and distance did nothing to dilute the chemistry that pulsated and pounded between us. I was elated, honestly, thrilled she agreed to talk to me and was still comfortable with me enough that she didn’t demand we do it with witnesses.
I was sad. Unhappy because she looked so sad. I hated I did that to her. Hated that I was the one who made her eyes turn that bruised color and put her back up on the pedestal where no one could reach her. I was worried she was going to tell me she’d moved on. Not necessarily from me, but from having to deal with me. I knew she cared; it was clear in her eyes and the way she fought to hold herself together. She deserved someone easier, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she went out and found him. I was worried she’d had her fill of loving an addict, that she didn’t have any faith left. I was nervous I hadn’t done enough to prove to her that I really did want to love her and that I was worthy of being loved by her.
But then she invited me inside, gave me the time to tell her what I needed to and now I was feeling things that were much more familiar where she was concerned. I was lost in the kind of emotion and sensation I’d associated with her and the way she got under my skin from the start.
And now, here we were in this tiny apartment, and I was turned the fuck on. She looked so prim and proper on that narrow little bed. She was still stunning without even trying, and my hands were dying to slide over the ice she’d encased herself in when she had walked away from me all those months ago. She looked like the ice princess she’d always been accused of being, but I knew it wouldn’t take much to thaw her out. I’d been without her long enough. I needed to reacquaint my hands with her soft skin and my mouth with her sunny, spicy taste. I wanted to rumple her up and make her hair wild again. I wanted to break that cheap bed and remind her that she might be frosty to everyone else, but for me, she burned.
I told her we had to end, that I didn’t fit in her life, but I was wrong. What we needed to do was begin. We needed a real chance to start something without my demons and her ambitions hanging over us. We needed to see what was between us when there wasn’t a clock ticking down our time together, reminding us we were bound to go our separate ways in a matter of moments. We needed to see if we had what it took to make it work between us because it was never going to be easy. I was never going to be easy to love.
I wanted to ask if I proved myself. I wanted to know if she felt I was finally worthy of all that she was. I wanted her to tell me that she could see I was really trying for once, and I understood all my actions had consequences that affected more than just me . . . finally. But I kept quiet. She told me I had to figure out the right choice for myself and that’s what I did. I couldn’t push her because I was asking her to make the wrong choice by picking me for the foreseeable future.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity and a half, she turned her head so that our foreheads were touching. Her lips were nothing more than a breath away from mine, and when she spoke, I swore I tasted her words and felt the brush of her eyelashes as she let her eyes drift closed.
“You don’t need to learn how to love me, Cable.” She lifted her hand and put it on the side of my face. I sighed as her thumb swept wide circles over my skin. It made me shudder, and all the other emotions that were scrambling for recognition faded behind the overwhelming amount of passion and hunger I had for this girl. “I think you have all along, in your own way. I just needed to recognize that’s what it was.”
I made a noise in my throat and clenched my fists so I didn’t grab her and throw her on the bed when the tip of her tongue darted out to touch the very center of my bottom lip. I felt that tiny touch all the way through me. It made my body tight and deflated the balloon of pressure that was in the center of my chest so I could finally breathe normally for the first time in months.
“I spent close to ninety days with you and more than ninety days without you. Gotta say I preferred the days with you, Affton. Even when I thought you were the enemy.” Little did I know she was always going to be my biggest ally. She realized I was my own worst enemy before she even knew who I really was, and she’d never been scared to fight for me and against me when I so desperately needed it.
I wrapped my fingers around her wrist and felt her pulse flutter excitedly against my fingertips. Her lips lifted into a tiny grin that I wanted to kiss permanently onto her face. “That’s okay. I preferred the days I spent with you even when I thought I hated you. I never really did. I wanted to, I believed I did, but my heart never let me. It didn’t listen and loved you anyway.”
I moved my other hand so I could grab the back of her head. I threaded my fingers through her hair and touched my lips to hers. “Thank God your heart isn’t as smart as the rest of you, Reed.”
Her grin grew into a smile, and I couldn’t stop myself from kissing her. She was the light I needed to see through the dark. She was the goodness that took up all the room inside of me where the bad got to play. I would always have my demons, but this girl did her best to tame them. I did love her in my own broken way and always had. I just had to make sure that was enough to keep her.
Her lips tasted sugary and sweet. She always tasted good, but whatever this was, it wasn’t her. When I pulled my head back and smacked my lips together, she giggled a little. I lifted an eyebrow and ran my tongue over the sticky coating on my mouth. “Strawberry?”
She reached out a finger and traced the wet trail I left on my lower lip. Her eyes got heavy, and her cheeks turned that pretty pink I loved. She bit down on her lower lip and nodded. “Lip gloss. Jordan convinced me I need to make more of an effort now that I’m in college. She told me I’d been planning for this my entire life and I wasted high school refusing to fit in. She took me shopping before I left Loveless and loaded me down with stuff she insisted was necessary.” She rolled her eyes and shifted her touch to my top lip, tracing the dip and stopping at the corner of my mouth. “I almost poked my eye out trying to figure out how to draw a perfect cat eye, and my freckles look weird under all that stuff she picked out for my face. Lip gloss is as good as it gets.”
I stuck my tongue out again and this time licked the side of her thumb. “It’s enough. You don’t need any help.” I lowered the hand that was tangled in her hair to the back of her neck and pulled her down until we were facing each other on our sides on the narrow little bed. “You don’t have a lot of room to work with in here, Reed.” I tried to keep it casual, but she had to know what I was getting at. This bed was way too small for two people to sleep in and I was hoping against hope that she’d been in it alone while I was in rehab.
“I don’t need much room. It’s only me. It’s been only me all semester. I study and sleep; that’s about it.”
I covered her cheek with my palm and leaned forward so I could kiss her again. This time the sweetness didn’t surprise me, and I licked along her lips until she let me into the natural sweetness I was craving. Her familiar taste popped on my tongue and made memories explode in my head. She was everything that was right in my world, and I doubted I’d ever be able to get enough of her. I swirled my tongue against hers and let my teeth nip at her lower lip. Her hand curled around my bicep and one of her legs lifted and hooked over my hip.
I pulled away to catch my breath and told her, “The beds in rehab were narrow, too. There was only room for one, and I can’t say I minded that at all.”
She stared at me for a long moment and then asked in a small voice, “What about before you left for the program? Your bed in Port Aransas is definitely big enough for two.”
She spent enough nights tangled around me naked and sweaty to know that was true.
Of course, she wanted to know about the time I could have done my best to fuck away her importance and her memory. I’d used girls to get away from my problems for years, so I wasn’t surprised she thought she would be so easily replaced. “When I first got out of the hospital, my hand was pretty messed up. I was mad at myself. I was mad at my mom. I was mad at you. Maybe the idea of fucking around crossed my mind once or twice, but it was simply reactionary. It was the same thing as all those girls at the start of the summer, a habit I used to avoid the real issues that were tearing me apart. I got on a bunch of different meds to try and regulate the depression and anxiety. Some of them really messed me up. I could hardly function, and the last thing I wanted to think about was sex. When I finally found a combo that worked for me, it was easy to understand that if I wasted my time on sex with someone who wasn’t you, then I would never have a shot at ever having sex with the only person I really wanted to again. Those consequences to my actions were crystal clear, and the thought of never having you under me or over me again just because I was blindly doing what I have always done was enough to make me rethink some of those bad choices I’m so well known for.”
She studied me for a second while she tried to figure out how much truth was in my statement. She must have decided to believe me because when our lips met again, she was kissing me. It was her tongue teasing mine and her teeth doing the biting and tugging. She put her hands under my jacket on my shoulders and started to push the fabric down my arms. I couldn’t help her get the heavy fabric out of the way fast enough. I also managed to get my hands under the bottom of the bulky sweater she was wearing and tugged it up over her head. Her hair floated around her face in a silky slide as she shook the static out of it. We faced each other, breathing heavy, back in this place we both knew so well, but now we weren’t visiting. We were staying here permanently . . . together.
She got her hands under my t-shirt and started to work the cotton up my torso. She sighed when she uncovered my abs and let out a little groan when she reached my tattooed shoulders. I grabbed the back of the collar and yanked the thing over my head. I grabbed her hips and rolled so I was on my back and she was straddling my waist. Her leggings did nothing to keep the heat and hardness of my erection from pressing right against her center. Her eyes widened, and her breath hitched. She put her hands on the center of my chest and leaned forward so her hair surrounded our faces. Her lapis eyes were intense with a vast array of emotion, some I couldn’t identify because they were too big and too bold to name. I was surprised she had enough composure left to ask, “What happens next, Cable?”
I laughed and lifted my hips up so that she bounced a little. “I know it’s been awhile, but I doubt you forgot how to do this in that short amount of time. You had an amazing teacher. Those lessons had to stick.”
She made a face at me and moved one of her hands, so she was gently cupping my jaw. Her eyes bored into mine, not giving an inch, demanding I give her every ounce of my newly acquired sincerity and honesty. “You know what I mean. I wasn’t even planning on going back to Texas for break. My dad is coming here to see me. How are we supposed to do this when we aren’t in the same state?”
I knew by this, she didn’t mean sex. She was always better about thinking further into the future than I was. With a little grunt of exertion, I rolled her underneath me and started working on getting her out of the lacy tank top she still had on. One thing I would miss about Texas was the weather. She never had this many clothes on back home. “We aren’t going to be in separate states. You need to be here, and I need to be where you are, so I’ll be close by.”
I had her top off and was reaching behind her to pop the latch on her bra when she suddenly pushed up so that she was sitting in front of me. She tossed her bra onto the floor, and it was a real struggle to continue the conversation with her pretty tits in my face. I reached out my scarred knuckle and rubbed it over the velvety surface, pleased to see she still reacted to the smallest touch and the lightest caress.
“What do you mean you’ll be close by? What did you do, Cable?” She sounded equal parts pleased and panicked.
I decided she needed a distraction, so I stood, pulled my belt off, and went to work on getting my jeans open. The wild-eyed stare she had pointed at my face immediately dropped below my waist when I set my trapped cock free. It was pressing insistently against the thin material of my boxers, the rigid outline and plump head clearly visible. She licked her lips and started to lift a hand out to touch, but she always was too focused for her own good.
“I want you in my life, but I have to finish school. I owe it to my dad, I owe it to all those little kids who might lose their moms, and I owe it to myself. This is everything I’ve worked my whole life for and as much as I want you and this,” she pointed a finger between the two of us. “My future is not something I can give up in order to have it.”
I tossed my wallet on the bed next to her, then I took a step back so I could kick off my shoes and peel my pants the rest of the way down my legs. I heard her bite back a moan and hid my grin. While I was on my knees in front of her, I got her shoes off and pulled those stretchy, ass-hugging leggings off her deliciously long legs.
“I don’t want you to give up a damn thing.” I kissed the inside of her knee and used my hands to pull her legs apart. She said my name, but I ignored her because it had been way too long since I’d been this close to her shiny, sweet center. She was already glossy and wet. She shivered under my touch and tensed as I leaned closer so that I could breathe her in as I slid a finger through her pouty, pink folds. “All I want is to be part of the future you’re creating. I only need a slice of it, and I’ll give you a slice of mine.” She couldn’t be the only thing that mattered to me, because my entire world would crumble if things didn’t work out between us. I’d come too far to fall back down that slippery slope. “Remember the guy I told you I was locked up with? The one who used to own a tattoo shop?” She mumbled an affirmative but it was barely a sound because my fingers were stroking her, sliding inside of her and slipping over her clit, twisting and pressing down with each pass. Her hips lifted on the edge of the bed and she didn’t argue in the slightest when I lifted one of her legs and braced it on my shoulder. I sank my teeth into the inside of her thigh and grinned against the sting as she yelped in response. Good thing her roommate wasn’t around. There was going to be no mistaking this for quiet cuddling.
“I talked to him before I left Texas. He gets out of jail in another month or so, and I asked him if he would be interested in getting out of the gang life. I thought maybe he could move out here and we could go into business together. You were right about art. I love it, but I can’t imagine sitting in a classroom having someone else critique what I do. I thought Emilio could teach me not only how to run a tattoo shop but also how to tattoo. I think it’s something I might enjoy doing, and if it turns out not to be my thing, I can just run the business end of it. I don’t think I’d be a bad silent investor, and I dig the idea of giving someone in a shitty situation a way out.”
I curled my finger against her silken passage and honed in on the spot that made her eyes cross and her toes curl. The way she moved against me and wrapped her hand around my wrist was the same as all of my most favorite memories. I dragged my nose along the crease where her leg met her hip and sighed when her hips lifted toward my open mouth. I let out a little hum of approval and told her, “I’ll be around, but I won’t be in your way. We’ll make this work.”
I didn’t give her a chance to respond. My mouth was watering, and I had to have a taste before I lost my mind. I covered her clit with my lips and tugged. She came all the way up off the bed and clutched her hands in my hair. There was a lot less of it to hold onto now, but she made do. She lifted the leg that wasn’t over my shoulder onto the edge of the bed, dug her heel into the mattress as she rode my face, and writhed against my flicking tongue. She fucked herself on my fingers until illicit, sexy sounds filled both the room and my head. I dragged the edge of my teeth over the trembling flesh I had between my teeth and felt her entire body bow. She gasped my name and pulled on my hair hard enough that it hurt.
I never wanted to be without this again.
I never wanted to go without her again.
She made making the right choices easy, and she made trying to be the right choice for her a challenge I was ready to face head-on.
She whimpered and twisted wildly under my mouth and hands. There wasn’t a single place on her that I would consider cold. She melted against me and rushed liquid and warm everywhere I touched. She was close to the edge, pent-up emotions pulling her closer and lifting her higher and higher up the harder I worked at her, but I didn’t want her to go over without me.
This wasn’t the end either of us were facing alone, it was the beginning we got to face together.
I sucked hard on that tiny bundle of pleasure and gave it one last swirl with my tongue. I let her ride my fingers a little bit longer, tapping her g-spot and winding her up to the point I could see she was ready to snap. Her chest was flushed. Her eyes were wide and dark. Her nipples were pulled into points so tight they looked painful, and her teeth were embedded in her lower lip so deeply I was surprised she didn’t draw blood.
She was beautiful.
She was broken.
She was mine, and I was going to do whatever it took to keep it that way.
I asked her to hand me my wallet. While I scrambled with shaking hands to pull a condom out, she finally got her hand on my cock, and I almost fell on top of her as my legs turned to Jell-O. She circled the shaft with her hand and used her thumb to trace the throbbing vein that ran along the bottom. She circled the tip, slowly and deliberately. Her lips landed on the taut muscles right above my belly button, and I had to reach out and put my hand under her chin before she blew my mind by blowing me. I wouldn’t last. The second her mouth touched the tip, I would be done for, and this was a moment I wanted to last.
“We’ll have to save that for the encore, Reed. I want to make it through the first act before you get your mouth on me.”
Her eyebrows lifted but she shifted back on the bed to make room for me as I crawled between her spread legs and made myself comfortable at the notch between them. I sighed in heavy satisfaction as her warmth surrounded me and sucked me in as I glided my erection through her slippery folds. The head of my cock bumped into her swollen clit, and we both jolted in response. I placed a sucking, searing kiss on the tip of one of her breasts and closed my hand over the other as I braced myself on my forearm over her head. This tiny bed really didn’t have a lot of space for either of us to move, so she curled her legs over my hips and sank her heels into the curve above my ass as I situated myself at her entrance.
I groaned against the side of her throat, and her sigh shifted my hair as I let myself sink into her slow and steady. Anywhere she was happened to be my favorite place to be, but being inside of her, making myself at home against her sensitive walls and in her wet heat was my second favorite. I belonged there; it was a place she kept secret and special just for me.
She was still achingly tight and outrageously responsive. She squeezed and clutched my cock in the best way possible, and her chest rose and fell to brush against mine like she was trying to catch her breath after a race. It was clear she missed this as much as I did. It was obvious she belonged to me as well as with me, the way I belonged to her.
I rolled the velvet bud of her nipple back and forth and started to move as I kissed along her neck. She shivered against me and rocked her hips up in a greedy manner. I laughed into her ear and put my mouth over hers so I could catch and savor every cry and every plea. Her legs tightened around me as I started to move faster, push deeper, asking for more, taking what was mine.
She pulsed around me, body quickening and fluttering along each stroke. She made me harder than I thought I’d ever be. Her softness was intoxicating and sensual as she writhed and begged for release beneath me. I let her work herself up until she was practically bucking against each thrust and demanding I go deeper, thrust harder, fuck faster. When she was as out of control as she always seemed to make me, I let go of the nipple I was torturing and moved my fingers back between her legs. She swore in relief and immediately let sensation take her over the edge. Her pleasure rushed furious and frantic across my pounding erection, and her body tightened to the point I almost couldn’t move. I was being strangled in desire and choked in passion, and nothing had ever felt better.
My orgasm unfurled from the base of my spine and raced through the rest of my body. She wrung every single scintilla of pleasure out of me, leaving my limbs heavy and hard to move as I collapsed on top of her, sweaty and spent. I kissed the side of her head as I struggled to roll off her so that I wouldn’t crush her. I was surprised when she refused to let go of me so that when I finished rolling over, she ended up sprawled across my heaving chest, her hair everywhere as we stuck together with sex and perspiration.
She was tracing the shape of a heart on my chest when she asked, “You have it all planned out, don’t you, McCaffrey?”
I threaded my fingers in the hair at her temples and kissed the crown of her head. I needed to pull out of her and ditch the condom before all those plans I’d meticulously been working on were blown to hell. While the idea of tying her to me forever through a baby didn’t freak me out nearly as much as I thought it would, we were both too young, too new, and too unsteady for that kind of complication. Besides, I promised her I wouldn’t derail her future, and I meant it.
I lifted her up and set her down next to me so I could climb to my feet. “First time in my entire life I’ve ever looked past the day I was currently struggling to make it through. It was easy though . . . when I looked ahead all I saw was you, Affton.”
She smiled, and it made me smile. I was so glad I wasn’t numb anymore. It would suck not to experience all the great and exciting things this girl made me feel. She was right . . . I was wide awake. She forced me to open my eyes.
“You’re all I see, too, Cable. And I love the way you look standing there in my future.”
I would never stop proving to her that I had earned my spot there or make her ever question her place in my forever.
This was our beginning. . . .