Chapter Twenty-Four
Candice
I had no idea what was going on. One minute I was sitting in my room wondering what to do with my day. The next I had kissed Dominic, and my arms were wrapped around him as we rode off on his motorcycle. I didn’t have time to fully process it. All I knew was that I was exactly where I wanted to be. I’d ask questions later. For now, I was just going to enjoy it.
We rode for a long time. I watched as the changing scenery moved around me. Undulating hills in the distance, long stretches of gravel road. I had no idea where we were going, and I liked that I was seeing places that I had never seen before. He was the one that had been away for so many years; I was the one that had lived here my whole life, and yet I had no idea where we were. We rode for what felt like hours and I didn’t want to get off. When I was on the bike, I felt safe. I felt hidden from the prying eyes of Derek, the disappointment of my father, the worry of my mother. I felt like I could finally be myself. Dominic had made me feel that way about myself when I was only eleven years old, and he was doing it all over again.
When we eventually got off, I saw that we were at a motel off the interstate. We jumped off, and he looked at me.
“Want to stay the night?” he suggested.
I grinned at him. I nodded. I would have to let my mother know. But I would worry about that later. For now, all I wanted was to be with him and to forget about everything and everyone else.
I felt foolish as we walked into the motel. Foolish, and admittedly kind of excited. I felt like I was on a movie set, or perhaps a woman cheating on her husband with another man. I kept glancing at the receptionist to see if we were being judged, but the woman at the counter barely glanced our way. I saw a magazine lying in front of her, open to a page about celebrity gossip. She chewed gum while she typed our details into a computer, and then handed us a key.
“Room 205,” she said without looking at us. I had never seen a more bored-looking person in my life.
We walked wordlessly to our room and closed the door behind us when we got to it. The room was small but clean. There wasn’t much to it other than a bed, but really that was all that we needed. We both knew it. Ever since I’d slept with Dominic, beds didn’t feel right without him beside me. I wondered if he felt the same way. But he was there, so he must feel the same way.
“Your hair,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”
“I thought you liked the red,” I said as my hand flew self-consciously to my head.
“I did. But I like this too. It’s . . . god, Candy . . . I’ve missed you. I . . .”
But I didn’t want to talk about anything. I didn’t want to hear about why he had broken up with me or why he was back. I didn’t want to talk about ex-boyfriends, or football, or parents. I just wanted to be with him. I shook my head.
“We’re together now,” I said.
The room was cold. I noticed that the window was open and that the wind was blowing through, the curtains lifting up into the air. But I didn’t close it. Instead, I took my clothes off, and I saw that his eyes went immediately to my nipples, cold and hard. He picked me up and placed me on the bed, his lips feasting themselves upon my breasts. He sucked, not too hard, but not too soft, with just the right amount of tongue for it to feel sensual. I arched back, raising my arms and spreading out my legs. The bed wasn’t very big, and I wanted to take up as much space as possible.
He took off his clothes, and moved back on top of me, kissing me with so much passion and longing that I knew he hadn’t stopped thinking about me during our time apart. We’d both tried so hard not to think about each other, but now that we were together, all that pent-up emotion was getting released. I felt him harden against my leg, and I gasped as he bit my lip. It felt like we were on a rollercoaster ride, going up and up and up. We were both waiting for the fall and the feeling of exhilaration that was going to come over us. I wasn’t ready to come down yet; I wanted to continue moving upwards for as long as possible.
We continued like that. This ride that never came down, stopping every now and again to catch our breath and to not give in to the emotion. We kissed and licked and touched each other, but still, he did not make a move to slide inside me. We knew that the moment he did, it would soon be over. But I couldn’t take it much longer. If he didn’t come inside me, I was going to scream. I was impatient. I had been without him for too long.
“Nicky . . . .” I said.
“Yeah?” he said in between breaths.
“Fuck me. Please.”
He smiled. Then, as he leaned down to kiss me, I felt him enter me, and I opened my legs wider to accommodate his fullness. I moaned. “Yes. Yes.” I wasn’t even sure if I had spoken out loud. Inside my mind, I was screaming, crying out for him.
As expected, we didn’t last long once he was sheathed inside me. I didn’t mind. I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to give in to the sensations that were overthrowing my senses. I held onto him, holding out as much as I could. But the moment I felt him come inside me, I found myself doing the same, clenching around him as I felt him pulsing from within. We came together, trembling in ecstasy, and for the first time since I had been without him, I felt like I was home.
“It’s good to have you back, Candice,” he said afterward. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too.” I didn’t even care that he had broken up with me. He’d obviously done what he thought he had to, even if that wasn’t the right thing to do at all.
“Want to talk?”
I shook my head. “Not just yet. I just want to lie here. I haven’t slept properly for a while.”
“Yeah, same here,” he said. Then he kissed the top of my head. “Come on then; let’s get some sleep. I love you, Candy.”
I turned to look at him. It was the first time he had ever told me that he loved me, and the words took me by surprise.
“I love you too, Nicky.”
He chuckled. “Bet you didn’t think you’d say that to me when you first me all those years ago.”
I laughed. “No way. You were just a silly little boy then. Now look at you.”
“A silly little man?” he suggested.
I giggled. “I loved you then, and I love you now. Just in a different way. Back then the only thing I really cared about was that street game we used to play. What did we call it?”
“I forgot about that! Torture, wasn’t it? See how many times we could run up and down the road. First person to get tired loses. Who the hell came up with that awful game anyway?”
“I have no idea. Doesn’t sound like something I would do,” I said. “Although, I liked trying to beat you, so maybe I did. I think I cheated a few times.”
“How did you cheat?”
I laughed. “I have no idea. I just vaguely remember cheating. Probably told you that I did more laps than I did.”
“Sneaky. Want to go out and play it now?”
“Hell no.”
“Good answer,” he said.
We lay like that for a while, just talking about the old days. Neither of us mentioned my father or what had happened just before his family moved away. We likened it to ‘the perfect summer’ because at the time, it had felt like we were the only two people that existed.
“Sort of like now,” he said, and I smiled at him.
“Yeah, like now.”
I closed my eyes, and with his hands on mine, I finally fell asleep. A beautiful, dreamless, full sleep that my body had so desperately craved. There would be time for more talking the next day.