For You

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

I screamed and swore at him, beating his chest and slapping his face. How dare he make me hope, make me happy for a moment, only to take everything away. He was just like all the rest. Using me.

His mouth was on my mouth, kissing me to silence, his hands behind my head.

I reached my arms around his shoulders and felt myself being picked up, being cradled in his arms.

“Stop running,” he murmured.

I could barely breathe, choking on my grief.

“You're the only girl I want. Even though you burst into my room and beat me up. I'm sorry I didn't give you the answers you wanted, but you looked like you were going to murder someone and I thought it might be me.”

He was walking with me in his arms, and we came to a tall, stone fence. He stopped there, propping me up on the edge of the fence, the stone cool and solid under my butt. I couldn't let go of Sawyer, or at least my arms wouldn't.

“Hush now, it's okay,” he murmured.

“I thought you f*cked that girl.”

“I didn't.”

I whispered, “I'm sorry I didn't trust you.”

His hands were moving now, free to run up and down my back now that I was seated on the stone fence. His touch felt grounding and good.

He kissed my neck, which felt even better than his hands. I moaned, my tears stopping, and leaned my head back. There was a tree over my head, so green and peaceful. We weren't on a main street, but in an alley, between garages and back yards of houses.

He kept kissing me, his mouth like fire on my skin.

“Who were those girls?” I asked.

He pulled back and grinned at me. “I can't blame you for not believing me. If I hadn't seen it last night with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it either, but my roommate… he was making out with both of those girls last night. They were joking around about having a threesome, and then they all went into his room, and by the sound of it, they really did.”

“The skinny guy?”

Sawyer stared down into my eyes, as if he was admiring something he loved. “Yeah. Strange but true. I'd never dream of making up that big of a lie, but it's the truth.”

He moved in and kissed me some more.

I pushed him back just enough so I could move my one leg, so that I wasn't sitting side-saddle on the fence, but had my legs parted with him between them.

He moved back in, pushing the hem of my skirt up with his hands on the tops of my thighs.

“You're wearing a dress,” he said. “Just like a girl.”

His touch and words made me shiver, even though I wasn't cold.

“You're so beautiful,” he said.

I stared up into his bottom-of-the-sea green eyes and felt myself being swept away.

“Sawyer, I believe you, and not just because I want to, but because… because you're Sawyer. You're so cute, and so good to me, and patient, and oh-my-god you look so good with your shirt off. And the way you're looking at me right now, you're killing me. Look at me, I can barely breathe. I feel like my lungs and my heart are going to crush themselves with excitement, so would you stop looking at me like that and just kiss me again before I die.”

“Only if you take off your panties.”

I gasped. We were in a quiet residential alley, but we were still outdoors. Plenty of windows in houses were all around.

He licked his lips. “Fine. I'll take them off.”

He reached up under my dress and shifted me from one side to the other as he pulled down my cotton underwear. He tucked my panties in his back pocket, and then he moved in again to kiss me. I leaned back and nearly fell off the stone fence, but he caught me with one arm behind my back. His other arm moved in between my legs.

I gasped as his fingers slipped into me, and he pressed his mouth against mine, sucking my pleasurable moans into himself.

His fingers moved lightly, up and down, tracing my contours and spreading waves of ecstasy through my body, like rolling thunder.

“I need you,” he moaned.

He moved his lips to my cheeks, drawing away the salt and sensation of my tears, erasing my pain. Then he licked my neck and nibbled on my ear, his fingers still circling near the center of me.

I reached forward with my hand and found his cock, tall and stiff inside his jeans. I unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and he shuddered as I reached down into his boxer shorts and wrapped my fingers around his shaft.

He moaned in my ear, “I need you, right now. You smell incredible and you taste so good.” He licked my neck again.

I still had my purse on my shoulder—my giant purse that was always packed for the needs of the day. He'd left the box of condoms at my house, and I'd thrown a few in my purse. I dug in with my free hand and found that wonderful little square with the squishy circle inside.

He took the packet from my hand, and a moment later, he was ready and the head was massaging me vertically, rolling up and down over my nub and making me gasp with each stroke. I was so close to coming, so close.

I looked up at the green leaves above my head, feeling the dappled sun on my face. Sawyer kissed my throat and took one step closer to me, plunging inside. His hands moved down to my ass, and he buried himself in me. I cried out in pleasure as he went deeper and harder into me. I kissed his neck and cheeks and mouth, quietly urging him to keep going, to fill me up.

His breathing became ragged, his movements steady and forceful. I dug my fingers into his back and bit down on his shoulder as I came, blissfully quaking.

He paused for just a second, and then he held me tight and released into me, lifting me off the stone fence completely as my legs wrapped around him.

We were together, completely.

Finally, he placed me back down on the ledge and withdrew, kissing me tenderly as he did.

With a nervous chuckle, he looked left and right as he pulled his boxers and jeans up from his ankles. I didn't see anyone, and it seemed nobody but the birds in the tree above us were witnesses.

The rubber was still wrapped tight around his cock, a pocket of white at the tip. He turned, embarrassed, and dealt with that, disappearing up the alley to find a garbage can.

When he came back, looking so cute and embarrassed in nothing but a pair of jeans, sweat glistening on his chest and shoulders, he said, “You look so hot on that fence, with your cheeks all pink. That's how you should always look.”

I held out my hand and whispered, “Can I have my panties back?”

He tilted his head to the side. “Nope. You're making me hard again, just thinking about you walking around without any underwear.” He sidled up to me, slipping his hand between my legs again. “Plus this way I can touch you.” His fingertips stroked me again, and I felt myself swelling under his sweet touch again. “Let's go back to my house so I can take my time. I'm going to lick you right here.” He swirled his fingers on my * to illustrate, then tilted up my chin and kissed me deeply, swirling his tongue at the same time.

I moaned again, falling under his spell, my body limply pressed against his.

I could have sat there in that alley, under the tree with the dappled light, and kissed him for hours. Something creaked, like a nearby window opening, and I pushed Sawyer away.

“Let's go somewhere more private,” I said.

He looked like he didn't want to wait, but then we heard the sound of a patio door being opened, and he got moving. I skipped ahead, feeling like a marionette, my body loose and my head giddy.

I waited for him to catch up with me, then reached up and fluffed his wavy dark hair. “You still have bedhead.”

He rolled his eyes up and moaned playfully, “Oh, baby, you give a hot scalp massage. Don't stop. Don't ever stop… massaging my scalp.”

He put his arm loosely around my shoulders, and I kept rubbing his scalp, enjoying the funny faces and sounds he made.

We got to the house, which was eerily quiet, the music turned off.

Inside, we found three very concerned-looking people, most of them dressed. I was formally introduced to Spanky, the skinny roommate with red hair that was short on top and long in the back. I met the girls, named Charity and Gwen. Gwen was the dark-haired, timid girl I'd met in the kitchen.

Charity, who wore a red bra under a white shirt and looked like a skank, shook my hand and said, “Sawyer told me all about you, Aubrey. He's quite the guy. You better hold onto him.”

Spanky pretended to be jealous and smacked her on the butt.

I didn't like the way Charity glowed when she talked about Sawyer, or the words she was saying, but I tried to push jealous thoughts from my mind. Sawyer had been given the choice, and he chose me. I was the one holding his hand.

The five of us ate some breakfast together. I didn't think I was hungry, but as soon as the first bite went into my mouth, I discovered I was ravenous.

We ate in the living room, since they had a pool table where a dining room would go. Sawyer placed his hand on my lap, his fingers between my knees, and he casually moved his hand up, up, toward… where I was not wearing any panties.

He still hadn't put on a shirt, and the sight and smell of his skin was turning me on like crazy. I could barely finish my pancake, because I wanted him again. We'd had full-on sex twice since we'd met, and it had been fast as well as amazing, but now I wanted to take my time, the way you eat a really delicious dessert.

Finally, he turned to me and said, “Would you like to come upstairs and have a look at that art piece I was telling you about?”

“Oh, I guess,” I said coolly.

We dropped off our plates in the kitchen and I followed Sawyer's sexy ass up the stairs, getting more nervous with each step. He was so perfect, even his back was gorgeous. I started to get worried about him seeing my body and its imperfections.

An old worry surfaced, one I'd almost forgotten about in all the excitement. What if he could tell I'd never had a kid? There were no stretch marks on my stomach, and what if he'd been with a woman who'd had a baby before, and he could just tell by how it felt down there? Would I look up at him while we were being intimate and see his expression change, see distrust creep up on his face?

I got more and more worried about everything, and being in his room brought back the vivid memory of me freaking out. We stood at the foot of his bed, and he took my hands and kissed me, but even that didn't calm me down.

“What's wrong?” He shifted back, his dark eyebrows pulling together with concern.

I moved my shoulders forward in a gesture I hoped was cute. “Nervous.”

“Don't be. We'll get used to each other. I just need to see you more. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I'm busy.” He was pushing me again, asking for more. The room was spinning, and my legs didn't feel so stable, so I stepped back and took a seat on the bed.

He said, “Are you blowing me off? Is this it for us? I see you once a week at most?”

“This is the second time I've seen you this week.”

“No, it's Sunday. This is a new week.”

“Sawyer, let's not fight.”

“We don't have to fight. Just say you want to see me. Say you'll do whatever it takes to see me more than twice a week. You barely live ten blocks from me, so it's not like distance is a factor.”

“Bell's having a tough time in school.”

“She's a kid! School's tough. Let me try to help. I can help with homework. What grade is she in?”

He let out an exasperated sigh and started pacing the room, looking like he might punch the wall.

“Sawyer, can't we just take this slow?” My voice was trembling. He was angry at me, and my heart was breaking.

He went to the long wall in the room, across from the window, and tugged at a blanket that was hanging across something on the wall. The blanket pulled down to reveal an enormous canvas that must have just barely fit in through the door. On the canvas was a black and white drawing, like one of the drawings in his sketch book, but grander and busier.

The scene was a pond, with lily pads and frogs, giant round leaves, cattails, and a girl. The girl floated on her back in the water with her arms stretched over her head in almost a ballet pose, but more natural.

She was nude, her breasts round and relaxed as she bathed in the sun. Her dark, wavy hair fanned out in swirls, blending into the nature around her, never ending but becoming the pond itself.

My own eyes stared back at me.

Sawyer seemed calmer now, no longer pacing like he might punch the wall.

He held his hands up over the breasts of the painting. “The restaurant has asked for some leaves to swirl up around here, to give her a modesty bikini. I swear, I didn't set out to draw her naked, but when I tried to do a G-rated version, she didn't speak to me.” His voice got really soft. “My beautiful muse wouldn't speak to me until I let her be free.”

I looked down and realized I was holding my arms crossed over my chest, as if I was the one exposed, and wasn't I?

Sawyer joined me sitting on the bed. “Say something. You're killing me, as usual. Tell me you hate it, and you don't really want me in your life. Just say it, so I can start getting over you.”

The tears that had been flowing earlier returned. I clenched my jaw to fight them, but Sawyer saw them in my eyes, and his expression scrunched up in worry.

“I'll prime the canvas,” he said. “I'll start from scratch, and I'll give the restaurant the kind of cheesy thing they want, a copy of a famous work of art. Not anything original. People don't want to have to feel things when they look at art, and this piece is too beautiful to be somewhere, unappreciated.”

He jumped up and darted to his closet, grabbing a plastic bottle and popping up the lid. He picked up a palm-sized brush from the top of his dresser and squeezed white paint onto it.

“No!” I got to my feet and flung myself between him and the canvas. “Don't you dare ruin your art.”

He looked like he was in pain. “I don't know what to do, Aubrey. I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. If someone tells me not to do something, that's the only thing I want to do. I start things and never finish them. Everything in my life is part-time. I'm a part-time artist, and I work at a restaurant part-time, and now I've got this beautiful girl in my life, and she only wants to see me part-time. What am I supposed to do? I've been waiting for a sign to tell me how to fully live my life, how to give myself completely to something greater than myself, and the only thing I can think about is you.”

The paintbrush was still dangerously close to the canvas, so I gripped his wrist with my hand to make sure he didn't ruin the painting. His muscles were tense, his skin hot, and compared to me he was impossibly strong.

We stood face to face, me with my back to the canvas, my body in front of the drawn body. Sawyer's eyes flashed at me, tinged with red and brighter green than ever. He looked like a dragon.

“Aubrey, how can I give myself to you? What do you need so you can know this is real? I'll move out of this house, I'll move somewhere better. I know your daughter comes first, and that's how it should be. I haven't even met her, and I already care about her so much, because she's a part of you. So, I've been thinking about the future. I could take a job with my father's company. Enough of this starving artist's lifestyle. It's not nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. My life is no fun at all without you in it.”

He moved his arm, shifting the brush so the paint was almost kissing the canvas.

“Aubrey, say something. Do something. If we're going to be together, it has to be all the way.”

“She's not my daughter.”

He moved his other arm up, his hand landing on the canvas on the other side of me, so his body was caging me in against the wall. “Explain.”