Loving Abel Adams is hard work.
I thought being friends with him would be hard, but loving him in secret is harder. Good thing I don’t mind hard work. I’m good at it, in fact. I’m good at being protective of our love. I keep it hidden inside my heart, guard the secret with my life. Although I want to shout it out, tell everyone that I’m in love with the most amazing guy ever.
I’m good at sneaking around now. I lie. I make up stories to see him.
I tell my mom that I’m at the library for a study group. But in reality, I’m with Abel at Lover’s Creek. He can’t fit inside my tiny treehouse anymore, so we lost the best hiding place ever. But Lover’s Creek is good too, I guess. It’s on the other side of the town, at the edge. He drives us in his uncle’s old pick-up truck that he bought from him. That place is super beautiful. A stream running on one side and bushes galore.
People who don’t want to be found go there. People like us.
Though, I have faith. I have all the faith that when the time comes, God’s going to help us. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re in love. It doesn’t matter how much my parents and a few other narrow-minded people hate David and Delilah. It doesn’t matter that they think Abel is bad. Nothing matters because in the end, we’ll be together. Love always wins, right?
I open my locker and find a tiny note wedged in between my notebooks, like the most cherished secret a person can have. I can hardly contain my grin. I know who it’s from.
Abel.
The boy I love is a total romantic.
Ever since we started sharing the same school space a year ago — I’m a sophomore and Abel is a senior — he’s been leaving me sticks of Toblerones and love letters in my locker. Tiny, one-liners that read both bossy and pleading.
Don’t wear that dress, Pixie. You trying to kill me?
Untie your braid, baby. Do it slowly.
I wanna kiss you. Can I kiss you, Pixie? Please? Can I put my mouth on you?
So maybe he’s not a romantic. Like his kisses, he’s a dirty romantic but I’ll take it, and my answer is always yes. To whatever he says.
The only thing that tops seeing his little notes is seeing Abel in person, which happens every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.
I see him walking down the corridors, carrying a backpack. Sometimes he has a sketchpad in one hand while he’s spinning his pencil with the other. Or sometimes he’s across the room in the cafeteria, biting into his apple, sharing lunch with me from across the distance.
Sometimes when the stream of students is thick and unknowing, Abel isn’t satisfied with only looking. He comes closer. He passes me by in the corridor, brushing my shoulders, making my breath hitch. It’s a small taste of his warm body and softer-than-the-clouds t-shirts and I always end up wanting more. So much more.
It didn’t take Sky long to figure out what was going on. I think she figured it out the first week we started high school. I denied it, of course. But she caught me.
“How long has it been going on?”
“Not long.”
“Evie.”
“Darn it. A year now, I guess. But he says it started the day we met. I’m not exactly sure I believe him.”
“Oh my God. That’s like… so intense and crazy. Are you in love with him?”
“Yeah.”
“Ohmigod. You’re so dead. Both of you. I guess your mom’s gonna kill him first, and then she’ll lock you up somewhere and leave you to die.”
“It’s not going to be so bad. We have time. We don’t have to tell them right now.”
“How about never telling them. How about running away?”
“What? No. We’re not running away. Come on. When the time comes, I’ll tell them. I’ll tell Dad first. He’s way cooler and then, I’ll tell Mom. She’ll be mad, yes, but you know what, I don’t care. She’ll come around eventually.”
“Yeah? Come around to the fact that her precious daughter’s in love with a monster?”
“He’s not –”
“I know. I know. But does she know?”
Well, if my mom doesn’t know, then she’s an idiot. There. I said it. Yes, Abel has been less than nice to her but still. It’s not as if he’s making any trouble. He’s well-behaved. A little intense but that’s only with me.
But I’m not going to worry about it today, when his note says to meet him in room 302. It’s way, way down the hall, like, in the back, where people don’t go as often.
I tell Sky about the meeting place and she rolls her eyes because she has to stand guard at the door. “I don’t wanna hear any kissing noises, okay? So keep it down.”
“Shut up.” I hit her with my notebook, already imagining all the kissing and other things we’ll be doing.
Leaving Sky outside, I open the door to the room. Across the sea of empty desks, propped against the wall in the back, is him. My Abel.
The sunlight through the window slashes him in a pattern of light and dark. He’s so hot and sexy and handsome. His breathing picks up as I enter. His mountain-like chest moves up and down, heaves, strains against his white t-shirt.
He’s grown so much over the past years, exploded actually. Thanks to working out all the time. He’s just so big and muscular.
His brown eyes move up and down my body, and even though I’m wearing a cotton dress with sunflowers, with a modest neckline and hem-length, it makes me feel… much less clothed.
Yup, so over the past years the looks he gives me and the way he touches me have changed too, grown, exploded and morphed into something that’s too big for our bodies.
It borders on pain.
Goosebumps riding my skin, I move toward him and he straightens up, braced for when I throw myself at him. Is it shameless? Yes, maybe. But I don’t care. I need him. Besides, all the shameless things inside me, which I’m only now discovering, are also inside him.
We match in every way.
I skip over to him, and then the entire world shrinks to fit just the two of us. I get up on his feet, making him my ground. His shoulders become my mountain and the sweet breath from his mouth becomes my air. And his soft hair? It becomes the grass that I can sink my fingers into.
Gone are the days when I didn’t understand my own body. I didn’t understand the escalated heartbeats, the constant blushing, the suspended breaths.
Like Abel, I’ve grown too. It’s like one night I went to sleep and the next day, I woke up with this deep hunger that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with Abel.
My body feels new. New sensations. New dips and curves. New softness and roundness. My breasts have grown out, round and big and heavy, and every time I think about his kisses, his hands, I feel them tingle. My nipples punch through the cotton fabric of my bra, hurting and aching.
Abel hauls me up and sits me on a desk, cramming his large frame in between my thighs.
Yes. Oh God. That’s the perfect spot. So perfect.
I already know what to do. I already know that my thighs will hook around his lean, muscular hips and my ankles will cross and my flats will fall off my feet, and my heels will dig into the back of his thighs.
And he’ll groan.
I can’t wait for that groan. It’s so guttural and raw, and then he will start to move, like he can’t control himself. His hips will start thrusting into the juncture of my thighs. Big, desperate jerks.
God, yes.
Abel does things in a big, loud, large way. That’s the only way to describe him and his actions. One of his large hands will go to my waist, now bruise-free for some time because Abel advised me to stay away from my mother, literally, and grip my dress like he’s going to tear it apart with his fingers. The other will find its home either in my hair, undoing my braid, or on my needy breasts. So freaking needy. It’s not funny. Nothing is funny about this situation, actually.
Not when he rasps that it hurts him to be apart from me. It hurts so much that he isn’t even sorry about humping me like a crazy, horny person. He needs to do this before he even says hi to me. He isn’t even sorry when he comes in his pants, he says.
No, not funny. Downright achy and painful. Because it hurts me too.
The first time it happened — we came — was inside the church closet. One second we were making out, and then, oh my God, my entire body went up in flames and my panties were flooded.
I was so embarrassed. It was like I was zapped by electricity, but then it shouldn’t have felt so good, right? Right on the heels of my explosion, Abel exploded too.
I want that right now. I’ve been so achy and restless all night.
Abel drops his head on my shoulder with a sigh and places soft but wet kisses on my collarbone.
“The minute you turn eighteen, I’m picking you up, throwing you over my shoulder and driving you down to the nearest courthouse so you can say I do,” he rumbles, tattooing those words on my skin.
My hands bury themselves in his hair as my back arches toward him, craving the rough terrain of his chest against my soft, rounded breasts, shooting sparks all over.
“You haven’t even asked me n-nicely, yet,” I whimper, baring my throat to his exploring mouth. He hasn’t. It’s been over a year since he brought it up at the treehouse and I told him no. Since then, he likes to joke about it but he’s yet to ask me formally.
“I don’t have to. I already know the answer.”
“A little too cocky, aren’t you?”
“Oh yeah, that’s definitely what I am.” He chuckles, sucking in the skin of my neck, making me shiver and blush. Oops. Double entendre.
The way he’s tugging on my flesh is translating into a melty pull down below. “Abel, no. That’s gonna leave a mark.”
He growls and looks up. The brown of his eyes is completely gone, a drop of honey drowned by a black lake of desire. “One day I’m gonna kiss you in front of the whole world and if they don’t like it then fuck them.”
I read the frustration in his tone, the suppressed anger, and it hurts my heart. No one should be made to hide their love. No one. It’s too pure, too beautiful to ever keep hidden. I caress his pulsing jaw. “Okay. Kiss me at our wedding, then. In front of the whole world.”
A slow smile spreads over his lips and I want to fill my mouth with it. “So, you saying yes?”
I shake my head at him and give him a smirk. “Maybe.”
He plants a hard kiss on my mouth. “Kidnapping you it is, then.”
“Oh my God, you’re crazy.” I laugh.
But he swallows it up with his mouth. He’s kissing me, really kissing me. Like, he’s lost all patience with me and he can’t be a good guy anymore. He needs to be bad. He needs to suck both my lips into his mouth and drink my flavor straight from the tap. He needs to bite into my flesh to get to it, dig his way inside the pores and fuse us together.
The tug on my belly gets sharper. My eyes flutter closed as I squirm on the desk. The wood feels slippery, even as it sticks to the back of my thighs with the sweat.
My hand slides down from his hair and finds his silver cross as I let him devour me. The noises he makes today are even more guttural. Even more raw. No one makes that kind of sound until they are at the end of their rope, end of their life, even.
Maybe our lust is bruising, life-threatening. Maybe we’re both dying of too much love.
“I want you so bad,” he whispers thickly, his hands going under my dress and stopping so close to the hem of my panties. I want to look down and see them under my hitched-up dress but I can’t look away from him, from the sheer need on his face. “You know what that means?”
“N-no.”
Okay, that’s a lie. A big, fat lie. Of course, I know what he means. Of course. He wants… sex. I have seen movies and I have seen the love scenes in them, when Mom’s not around. I know one day it’s going to happen between us. In fact, I stay awake at night thinking about touching his bare skin, rocking against him when we are… not wearing anything.
But — and it’s a big but — I’m scared. I’m a big chicken and I’m scared of the whole sex thing. Even though sometimes I feel like I’m dying for it.
“You can’t lie for shit, Pixie.”
“I’m not lying.”
He rests his forehead on mine and our skins slide against each other, all sweaty and heated. “You think about it, don’t you? At night?”
When he’s asking me in that way, in a knowing way, I can’t deny it. “Y-yes.”
Abel doesn’t stop there though. He continues, “Me too. All night I keep jacking off, rubbing my dick raw, thinking about you. Your smile, your face. Your hair. God, the things I wanna do to your hair.” He grunts like he’s imagining them right now.
“W-What things?”
He shakes his head once, puffing his sweet breath over my lips. “There’s this video I like. The girl is a blonde like you and she’s got long hair like yours.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “The guy pulls her hair and wraps it around his dick. Fuck. I come every time I see that. Every fucking time.”
The buzz that runs through my body right now, is nothing compared to when I come. Nope. Not at all. It’s much more potent, more thrilling. It’s like my body is already on fire and I’m loving every stinging second of it.
How can his vulgar and dirty words be more powerful than an orgasm?
“Video means…”
Abel opens his eyes. “Porn. Yeah. I’m so gone over you that I look for girls who have your hair. I watch and I jerk off but I don’t get relief. Because no one is like you. No one.” He swallows. “Do you hate me? Do you think I’m a goddamn jackass for watching porn and thinking about you?”
Do I?
Do people do that? And if they do, it’s bad, right? It’s bad and wrong and… yeah. It’s all the things I never thought I’d like but I somehow do. I like it. I like his desperation because I’m desperate too. It’s just that I’m a little chicken to do anything about that.
“No. I can never hate you.”
At that, he kisses me and we’re rocking into each other. His words have already gotten me so hot that I don’t need much friction, and I come with a gasp. And then, he comes too.
He came because I came.
If that isn’t the most powerful and wonderful thing in the world, I don’t know what is.
In the back of my mind, I worry about cleaning up and getting new, dry panties. I carry extra underwear in my bag; it’s a necessity. But all thoughts vanish when Abel recovers and watches me with a satisfied smile. “You’re so fucking beautiful like this. Blushing. Your blue eyes wide and glazed. I wish I could take a picture of you like this.”
Oh yeah. Abel finally got his camera. He bought it himself with the money he saved up from his job. He says he loves to draw me, take his time with my face. But sometimes my face is so beautiful that only a camera can do me justice.
“You’re the worst,” I tell him.
“But you love me.”
“For now.” And just for good measure, I add, “And no sex. Nuh-huh. Not until we tell my parents about us or…” Then an idea strikes me. “Or we get married, like, way, way in the future.”
Okay, I admit it: I love to torture the guy. I’m not waiting for marriage, even if my mom says to. But I am nervous. It’s real, okay? I’m freaking scared of sex right now. Right now, I just want us to play and give each other delicious orgasms.
Chuckling, he kisses me again, and lowers the hem of my dress, gently and sweetly covering me up. “Fine. No sex and I won’t take a picture of you like this. Not until I take you to church and marry you in front of God and man.” He pulls me forward and off the desk, fisting my dress at the waist. “And then, when I’ve given you everything, I’ll take. Whatever I want.”