Cal reached Annie's door and opened it without bothering to knock.
Annie had just exited the bathroom when she stopped and sucked in a sharp breath upon seeing him. He looked the same as when she’d first opened the front door.
Lost. Vulnerable. Hurt.
Their eyes locked.
"Why would you leave without seeing me?" He demanded an answer with not only his voice but his eyes. "You made a promise."
She wanted to ignore his tenacious question, and she tried to ignore the determined look in his eyes. "The three of us were getting ready to go to dinner." She turned and stepped toward the window. "I can't do this. I can't do this right now."
Cal took a few steps until he came to a stop sign at her body. He stood behind her and peered at her reflection in the pane. "Do what?"
His sensual-sounding words spilled into her ear as he pressed his front against her back and slipped his arms around her waist.
Annie's response to his touch was immediate. Muscles ached. Limbs wilted. The sound of his voice had already worked its magic, paralyzing her.
Now he used touch.
Now she could smell his freshly-laundered-after-a-day-spent-at-the-beach scent. Now he was within reach.
She looked down at his fingers and considered placing her palms over his hands as his energy ballooned into a canopy and covered her soul. Safe from rain and harm. A protection she longed for and had refused for three weeks. Maybe she’d refused it all summer. Knowing truth but accepting a lie.
He tilted his head down and moved her hair using only his face and his nose. Then, in the space he created, he softly kissed her bare neck and ear.
"Please, Cal." Her voice cracked. "Go." Goose bumps rose to the surface of her skin. She pushed his hands off her waist and stepped forward a pace.
"When are you leaving?" He met her eyes in the glass.
"Tomorrow."
"It's been weeks since we've been together.” He paused. “Jesus Christ. You can't just—”
"I can't just what?" Eyes ablaze, she turned and looked at him. "I asked you not to touch me, Cal. I asked you not to look at me like…" She swatted at the air, gesturing from his head to his toes. "…like this. Don't you remember? You can't push me away, ask for time, send me love songs in Seattle, and now, now, bust into my bedroom ready to fuck. It can't be both ways."
The corners of Annie's eyes crinkled as she stood, hands on her hips, staring him down.
Cal tried his damnedest not to smile in response to her temper, but the amusement park of emotions she’d just exhibited lit a spark in his eyes.
Annie noticed it and growled.
He reached for her hand, but she shook it off and gave him a roll of the eyes.
"Do you not feel the least bit of guilt, coming here, to your friend’s home, charging up their stairs to screw me in the middle of dinner?"
“Is that why you think I came here?”
“I don’t hear you asking about my trip or my work or about me.”
“You had since … what? Wednesday, to call me. We had time to talk. We could have spent the last few days—"
“What? Fucking? I thought you needed time.”
“I told you I wanted to see you when you returned.”
“You came here for one reason." Annie pointed her index finger toward the ground.
Shoving a hand in his pocket, Cal inhaled, shook his head, and watched as Annie began to pace in front of the window.
She didn't need this schoolgirl drama. She couldn't handle it. Her mind was a pigsty of thoughts. Muddy, muddled, mud. All their time together — the summer, the days, the beach, the talking, the spooning, the eating out, the fucking — it all flashed before her eyes, ending on the wall.
The concrete wall.
The no-bother-with-a-condom-fuck-the-life-out-of-Annie wall. Her stomach churned as if she’d just consumed a bunch of scorching-hot chili dogs and beer and cheese puffs.
Yeah … well, at least the churning wasn't because she was pregnant.
Are you there, God? It's me, Annie. I'm pregnant.
Maybe she would hurl after all. She wrapped an arm around her waist, willing herself not to throw up or shake — to hold it together. How was she ever going to tell him, Mr. I-Don't-Want-To-Have-Children, that she had a growing, living creature — a life! — inside her body — his-his-his — and it was a life she wanted to keep?
My God. She was keeping it. Had it ever been a question? Or a decision? She didn't know. Whatever. I'm fine. Fine. Pacing the window. In love. Uncertainty climbing. A pea in a pod. I'm fine. Pacing, she scratched the back of her neck like a cat clawing at fleas. Her lips moved in a monotone of a mumble.
Cal grabbed Annie’s hand, stopping her frantic movement and mumbling, and he pulled her toward him.
No space existed between them.
"Baby," he said and lifted her chin.
Despite the confusion, anger, and frustration, despite the tiny little thingy/creature/life inside her womb, despite the muddied-up pigsty that was her mind, she still wanted Cal with a motherfucking passion. She wanted him to rip her clothes off. To erase. To go forward. To hurt. To expand her horizon.
"Is this all we are, Cal?" Quieting, Annie found a center. "Just a good lay?"
"Baby," he said again, wiping a tear from her cheek, "this has never only been about a good lay. Ever."
"I know." She stared at his chest. "I know."
"But it is pretty fucking good," he whispered into her ear.
She kneed his thigh, and he laughed. She let out a little laugh too, a giggle mixed with a sniffle.
They held each other tightly. Longer. He waited for her to settle completely, until her breathing returned to normal. "Have you had anymore panic attacks?"
She shook her head against his shirt.
"I have to tell you something." He stroked her hair.
"The reason you called." She dropped her chin. "I'm being such a bitch. I forgot to ask you.”
"Annie. Shhh. No." He looked around the room for a moment, then he put his hands on the sides of her face and looked deeper into her astonishing green eyes. "I'm flying home Tuesday. For good."
She grabbed his wrists. "What?"
"Michelle, my cousin, she called today. Constance is..." He dropped his hands from her face, deflated, and inched away. Palm over his mouth, he rubbed his jaw. "She's dying, Annie."
With caution, Annie reached for the small of his back.
"She's barely eating, and she is..."
Annie planted her forehead on his shoulder. "Cal." She gripped his waist. "I ... I’m so sorry." She squeezed him. His body felt like hardened wax.
She glanced at the side of his face — the poster boy of planning and calm — and stroked the back of his neck, trying to communicate the words let me love you using only her eyes.
"We'll figure this out." He exhaled, then kissed her forehead. He wouldn't meet her let me love you gaze. "I'll call you when I get settled in Ojai.”
"That's it." She swallowed. "You're leaving? Right now?"
"Annie, I'm following your commands."
They stared at each other for a moment, an ice age, then he turned and walked toward the door.
"Cal." Annie choked on his name. "Don't."
He froze, hand on the knob, his back toward Annie.
"I do," she said.
"You do what?" He shifted his face to the side, looking at her out the corner of his eye.
"I do want you to say goodbye to me. Now. Today. Please," she said with so much love in her voice it ached. Cal turned around. "I'm glad you came. I'm asking you. No, I'm telling you. Touch me. Take it all away. Everything. Please."
Cal took three huge strides toward Annie and cupped her cheeks. "God, I missed you." He nibbled at the corners of her eyes, her jawline, her neck, kissing her.
She whimpered and fumbled with his belt. "It's been more than ten days.”
He pulled the hair at the nape of her neck, holding her in place. "You understand I still need time."
She slid a hand into his pants. "I said make me forget."
"Take off your clothes, Annie." He removed her palm from his dick.
“I want to touch you.”
“And I want you naked.”
The power pendulum swung. Left. Right. Cal. Annie.
She removed everything. The blouse. The capris. The bra. The panties.
"Do you have condoms?" he asked.
As she stood up tall and naked, her face lost color. She bit the insides of her cheeks, then tipped her head at her purse.
He slid his belt out of the loops, took off his shirt and pants, then handed her the bag. Hands shaking, she found what they didn't actually need, set it on the bed, and dropped the purse to the floor.
"Why are you nervous?" He snapped the loop of the folded belt. It cracked.
"I'm not."
He ran the leather across her cheek bones, down her shoulder blades, across her nipples, then circled her navel. "You lie."
"I expected you to have something."
"I told you that’s not why I came here today."
After swapping his belt for the condom, he nudged her against the wall and looked into her eyes. She could see his I love you on the tip of his tongue, in his eyes, on the lines across his forehead.
"Give me your will, Annie. Tell me you understand I need some time … alone."
"I do."
"That's not good enough." He kicked her legs open. "Say all of it." He touched her clit.
Her knees went slack as she closed her eyes. "I missed you."
He slid a finger along her folds, dragging the wetness to her clit. "Do you understand me?" Two fingers went inside her body. "Open your eyes."
"Yes."
"Do you?"
She nodded. He stroked.
"I understand you." Her words were broken, barely audible. His fingers created sparks.
"When I leave and—"
"Not now." She shook her head.
"When I leave, Annie." He squared her chin. "I need to know you understand why." He slid his fingers out. "I need your will." He flicked her clit.
She cried out, her breath begging for the sensations only he could provide.
"You will wait for me. You will be patient.” He flicked it again, and she jerked her hips and yelped.
These were the games they played, except they weren't games.
"I’ll wait." A whisper of a promise, a disbelief mixed with assurance, burst from her mouth as a tear slid down her cheek.
He touched her aching clit, massaging it lightly, perfectly, with the skill of a god. "Do you know your own strength, Annie Rebekah Baxter?"
She lunged at his lips and shoved her tongue into his mouth. Wrapping a leg around his waist, grinding her pelvis over his erection, she kissed him with all her worth and strength, all her let me love you, let me have you, I need you. Could he hear that through her lips, her hips, and her rocking?
They kissed and bit and sucked and bruised. They put a hole in the wall.
Minutes later, lips swollen, breath short, after tasting everything she offered, Cal pulled his head and mouth away. "You wouldn't answer me the last time I asked you." He bit her neck, then made a trail to her nipples. He bit them too.
She pressed on his shoulders. "Maybe because you're always fucking me when you ask."
He flipped her onto the bed, and she landed on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. He took the belt, folded it, and wasted no time bringing it to her ass cheek.
"You want me to ask you the question when I’m inside you?" Leather met skin again.
Cheek against the mattress, she grunted, eyes rolling into her head as he snaked his fingers to her clit and rubbed her into delirium.
"Yes?" he taunted as he yanked her hair, causing her face to lift off the bed. He hadn’t stopped the massaging.
"What-what-what?"
Taking a hold of her body, he pulled her toward the edge of the bed, leaned down, and gritted his teeth near her ear. "You need to know you’re strong." He lifted her ass so that she was on her knees. "More than the two of us."
With his feet planted on the floor, he gripped her hips and pushed into her all the way, filling her with his entire length, beginning to thrust her over and over and over.
"Cal." She swallowed his name before it even came out.
He continued the onslaught. "I can't go home without hearing you say it." He pulled out. "Tell me."
Shaking, near tears, pussy aching, she bunched up the sheets in her fists, and moaned, "Please."
"That's not what I want, baby." He continued to nudge her crease with his dick, driving her mad with need.
She beat her fists into the bed. "I am strong!" She pounded the mattress, nostrils flaring.
"Yes!" He inched inside. A little bit. Slowly. "What else?"
"Please."
He pulled out.
"I will wait," she said, glancing back at him. "I. Understand. You. You have my will.”
"I need to see you, your face. Come here." He sat on the bed, legs open, and pulled her toward him.
She sank down onto him, wrapped her hands and legs around his back, and with skin slicked with sweat and bodies melded together, they bounced, rocked, and writhed.
Foreheads touching, eyes roving, souls lost on a plateau and searching for another, a home, an understanding, a comfort, an ease, an escape, a way to forget and remember — they watched where they joined.
Annie lost herself inside a maze of no time, lost in his eyes, in their unspoken I love yous, in their wills, in her promise, the one she wouldn't break this time.
She would wait. She would understand. She would own and bridle and harness the strength he jam-packed into their manic lovemaking.
And when they came, they screamed strength and fucked disillusionment.
They tried to absorb the comfort they both feared.