“Okay,” Mr. Falls clapped his hands together. “That’s good enough, carry on class,” he called out, walking away as he glanced around the rest of the room.
“Holy shit, dude.” Jonathan said, “You got balls.”
“Yeah, two of ‘em,” Jase answered with a straight face. “Why, how many do you have?”
Sliding down in my seat to try to reach him, I nudged his foot. “Hey, I thought your favorite color was blue.”
“Not anymore. My favorite color is the exact shade of green in your eyes.”
A low fluttering nipped at the bottom of my belly, and when I looked up into his eyes directly, the fluttering dropped to a dull throb in a very private place on my body. “Shut up, Jase!” I whispered, giggling.
“Nuh uh, Charlie. Tell me your favorite color isn’t the color of my eyes.”
Yeah, it was.
He chuckled, “Yeah.” His hand raked through the layers of his dark hair and his eyebrows pulled together seriously. “And I promised myself, well I promised Joey, to never keep my feelings to myself again, to always speak my mind, and be fearless, especially about you. You never know how little time you have left with someone.”
Oh.
Hell, he’s right.
My hand shot up in the air to get the teacher’s attention and I asked in a quick-snipped voice to use the restroom. Before I left the table, I stood up and leaned in close to Jase’s curious face and whispered. “Second floor, girls’ bathroom. Last stall. Five minutes.”
He didn’t even ask. Jase just pushed away from the table and jumped up, knocking the chair back, and ran out behind me. The murmurs and whispers of the classroom silenced as soon as the door shut behind us. I ran ahead, down the empty hallway, and turned into the back stairway, thinking the bathrooms were just too damn far.
Not caring one damn bit about where we were or who would be watching, I turned to face him; my chest hammered with thick, loud, heartbeats I swore the whole school could hear. Jase quickly devoured the distance between us, pressing my body with his up against the cool, tiled wall of the stairwell. The hungry, hooded look in his eyes made my knees tingle, and an explosion of sparks flamed between my thighs. His hands grasped both sides of my face, and like two magnets that had been held apart and suddenly let go, our lips collided together in need. His warm mouth covered mine; his wet tongue devouring my senses as my hands clawed at his shirt, pulling him closer. His hands slid into my hair, pressing my lips harder against his. Hard and fast his mouth moved with mine, like we were trying to melt into each other and sink into each other’s skin.
A low, tingling pressure was building steadily between my legs as he pressed his body firmly against mine. Releasing my hair, he reached down, pulling my hips harder against his, and slipped his hands to grip my bottom, grinding himself into me.
Somewhere around us the sound of footfalls echoed against the stairs, and low voices fluttered through our minds. We were too consumed with each other to care—too overwhelmed with the taste and feel of each other after such a long time apart. Jase reluctantly pulled his lips from mine and his hands reached up from where they pleasantly were to cup my face. The heat from his mouth fanned across my skin, making it a struggle to keep my tongue and my mouth away from his.
His blue eyes met mine, our faces close to each other. “Every time I’m with you, close to you, my chest feels so damn tight.” His voice shook and tears spilled from my eyes. He lowered his gaze to the floor and gently rubbed his thumbs across my cheeks, wiping the salty tears across my skin. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save him. I’m sorry I didn’t kill Slate with my bare hands. You know I tried, and I would have if they didn’t rip me off him.” He stepped back, letting me go. and ran his hands along the back of his neck and over his face. “But the thing I hate the most, the thing I feel the most messed up about. is my father taking me away from you. And you dealing with this all alone. I am so sorry, Charlie.”
“Stop, Jase,” I whispered, grabbing his hands in mine and pulling him back against me.
Two students walked past us gasping, and gave us a disapproving look while shaking their heads. Jase blew them both a kiss and flipped them the finger.
I tugged on his hands to focus his attention back on me. “Jase, you did nothing wrong. This wasn’t our fault; it’s all on Slate. And the only way I’ve been dealing with this is by just saying to myself that Joey’s away on a long vacation, and I’ll meet up with him when I get the chance.” Tears were pouring down my face now. “I know it’s sort of crazy, but I just can’t face the fact that I’m never going to see him again.”
“No, Charlie. That’s perfect. Joey is on vacation. And we definitely will see him again.” His arms were around me instantly, and he crushed me into his chest. “Yeah, baby. He’s just taking a little holiday, cutting a few classes. At the beach or something,” he whispered in a hoarse voice.
We walked back to the classroom, hand-in-hand, and the rest of the day passed in a sad, hazy blur. Both of us missed him so much, and both of us suffered with the guilt of having to go on with the rest of our lives without him.
We never made it to the bonfire that night. Nope. We drove out to the cemetery and ate a picnic dinner of fast food with Joey and spoke to his gravestone like he was really there. You may think that we were both certifiable, but that was how we were dealing with our loss. We were young, we were devastated, and we were completely and utterly alone. All we had was each other.
Sometime after dusk fell over us, we walked side-by-side to his truck, our arms occasionally touching. Each time his skin brushed against mine, my entire body felt like it was engulfed in flames. Every time our skin made contact, he would glance down at me, like he was feeling the same strange inferno. After the third time, I reached my hand across and rubbed the area and wondered how I could possibly feel so much from such a small touch. After I climbed into his truck, he pulled me close to him, making every surface of my skin tingle and burn, causing flutters to roll through my belly. I wanted to keep feeling him, tattoo that feeling permanently on my skin. I wanted to surgically remove my heart and hand it to him wrapped in a little red box, because seriously, he had it already. And that feeling, that need, was the only thing that let me forget about Joey being gone.
The ride back home was full of songs and holding our hands out the windows, feeling the wind whip past us. He pulled his truck into a clear spot in front of his house and walked me to my door, placing a soft kiss on my lips. God, I wanted more. But, too nervous to tell him, I just opened my door and walked into an empty house, not even bothering to lock it behind me. No doubt my mother was with her newest sleazy boyfriend, the one that didn’t mind when I walked in on them screwing on the couch. Owen. Owen just winked at me and held my mother’s hips tighter and kept plowing into her. Vomit central. Honestly, I was pretty much used to it by now. It was like a college frat house around here, and my mother was the freaking slutty mascot.
Walking into the kitchen, I checked for messages and grabbed a bottle of water. Sipping it, I listened to two different, extremely drugged out, slurred messages of my mother telling me she’d be staying over at Owen’s place. His own slurred, drugged out, laughter spilled out of the background, and she giggled uncontrollably into the phone. The third message was from my father explaining to me that he might be able to pencil me in for a visit on the fourteenth of October, which was over a month away. What an ass. He could shove his pencil right up his ass for all I cared. I hadn’t seen him in over seven months. He was way too busy at the theater, watching the ballet, eating at the finest restaurants, or sailing around the world in his shiny new yacht with his shiny new plastic-tittied wife. Screw him and the Barbie doll he rode in on.
I kicked my chucks off as soon as I got into my room, and I yanked off my shirt and shorts that were full of grass stains from sitting on the cemetery lawn. Walking into the bathroom, I ran the water until it was the perfect temperature, stripped off the rest of my clothes, and stepped into the
warm spray. Smoothing my body scrub into a lather all over my body, I couldn’t help but think about the way Jase had kissed me in the stairwell that morning. That deep ache between my thighs throbbed again, and I wondered if he thought about things like this, too. Things like this with me.
I rinsed off and stepped into the steam of the bathroom, wrapping a soft, terry cloth towel around my body. When I walked into my room, the light from Jase’s window caught my eye, and I slowly slid back my curtain to see what he was doing. My breath caught in my throat and heat exploded low in my belly.
Through the small opening of his blinds, I could see him sitting in front of his computer. Even from where I was standing I could tell what he was watching: that stupid video of me dancing around in my white bikini from last summer. I knew he had a ton of videos like that. I never thought anything of it, not until now. One of his hands was between his legs, moving quickly up and down, up and down. His body was tense and rigid and thrusting against his hand. My body shivered with a strange need. Holy crap. Selfishly, I wanted him to stop his private moment and turn it on me.
Without even thinking, I fumbled for my walkie-talkie and stammered a message into it, “Turn around.”
His taunt body jumped up, facing the direction he kept his walkie-talkie in. I could see the stunned expression cross his face, eyes wide, and mouth open. With one hand still around himself, he shoved aside the blinds with the other. His eyes met mine and I raised an eyebrow, daring him, daring him to continue to touch himself while watching the live version of me.
Please, Jase, please give me something to forget all the bad.
I took a deep breath and let the towel that was wrapped around me fall heavily in a damp heap around my feet. My heart thudded wildly in my chest and there was that strange ache between my legs again. It was like one of those aches when you saw a really sexy scene in a movie, but that kind was always in the pit of my belly. This ache was lower, much lower, and it was so intense. I felt like if I touched it, if I touched myself in that one specific spot, I would explode. His eyes looked everywhere at me, devouring me, and I shuddered with the need for him to touch me. Slowly, I slid my fingers down my belly and lowered them to the parts of my skin that throbbed the most. Instantly, my eyes squeezed shut tightly, too scared, and too terrified to see his reaction.
A few seconds later I felt something in the room shift; it was like the air became thicker and hotter. Blinking my eyes open, Jase was standing next to me, so close the warmth of his body made my cool skin prickle up with goose bumps.
I stopped breathing. I forgot my own name. I didn’t know how to move. My cheeks flooded with warmth and my scalp tingled with heat, and that throb that was between my legs before, was pounding like it was my heartbeat. I was too frightened to look into his eyes, so I stared at his neck and watched it hammer with the pulse of his heart. I watched the rise and fall of his chest as it quickened.
Rise and fall.
Faster and Faster.
What am I supposed to do now? I never felt this much. The emotions, the need, the want–was overwhelming.
The rise and fall of his chest became even faster.
Then he stepped closer, lifting my chin to look at him. Taking another step closer, he backed me up against my dresser. Sliding his hands up over my neck and grabbing a handful of my wet hair, he leaned down and opened his mouth over mine. When our lips touched my body went liquid. I thought my bones and muscles were going to melt into a thick, hot mass on the floor.
“Charlie,” he whispered against my lips. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked, slowly skating his fingertips over my shoulders and collarbone.
“No,” I whispered back hoarsely. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
“I’ve wanted you forever,” he whispered as the heat of his warm breath brushed over my lips.
There were no more words.
When our lips touched again, there was more urgency, an uncontrollable need. His breath hitched as our tongues tangled together, and my hands were grasping at his shirt, clumsily lifting it over his head. I slid my hands to his waist, unbuttoned his jeans, lowered his zipper, and let everything that was keeping us apart fall to the floor. He kicked at his jeans, sending them flying across the room to land in a crumpled heap on my bed.
His fingers hesitantly curled around the weight of my breasts, caressing the rough pads of his fingers over my sensitive skin, touching, then tasting, licking, sucking. My pulse crashed in waves through my body; I’d never needed anything more in my life than I needed him.
I heard him hiss when I reached down and took him in my hand. Gripping him firmly, the smooth, taut skin throbbed and pulsed under my touch. Slowly, I moved my fist, sliding it up and down. Wrapping his hands around the back of my neck and kissing me deeper, he thrust himself against the palm of my hand, moaning into my mouth.
Still wrapped around each other, we stumbled awkwardly to my bed, falling over the covers, laughing and giggling into each other. I was positive he had to feel the hammering of my heart as his hands and lips roamed my entire body. My head spun in circles. This was my best friend. I was kissing and touching my best friend. It was so utterly beautiful it nearly broke my heart.
My hands gripped the blankets that surrounded us as I watched him run his lips over me. When he reached the insides of my thighs, his dark, silky hair brushed along my most private area, sending shock waves through my body. A low moan escaped my lips and his mouth was on me, fingers inside me, as I franticly pressed myself against him, unable to control my hunger.
“Jase,” I whimpered, pulling him up. His eyes were glazed over, a delirious smile on his face, lips glistening from me.
“I’m never going to get enough of you, Charlie,” he said, looking into my eyes. “Even when we’re old and gray, and back in diapers, I will never get enough of you.” He captured my lips with his as I wrapped my legs around him. He lifted his lips from mine; his cheeks turned red with the question in his eyes. I nodded and smiled; my cheeks burning to probably match the color of his. He wildly grabbed at his pants that were on the covers next to us and pulled a foiled wrapper out of one of the pockets.
I yanked it out of his hand and ripped it open, giggling. “Let me,” I whispered. And as he held himself over me, I slowly rolled it over the length of him with shaky fingers.
When I was done, he leaned his forehead against mine, gently laid himself over me, and grasped both my hands with his. Pulling them over my head, he entwined our fingers together, “Tell me what you want, Charlie.”
“All I ever wanted was you, Jase,” I whispered, lifting my hips to meet his.
“Then, I’m yours,” he breathed, sliding slowly inside me. “And, Charlie, you’ve always belonged to me.” His forehead lifted off mine, our eyes locked, and the way he looked at me completely stole the air from my lungs. I will never feel this way about anyone else in my life.
His mouth claimed mine as we moved together. No, it was more than my mouth he claimed. He claimed my body, my soul, my mind; he claimed all of me. I knew without a single doubt in my heart, I would never love another person as completely as I loved Jase Delaney.
We slowly healed from our loss, wrapped in each other’s arms. All around us, people were going on, living, breathing, working, laughing; whatever it was they did. But, we noticed nothing. None of it mattered, because we were the world to each other. Our kisses healed our tears. Our touches healed our sadness, and we healed each other.
There was nothing that
Could ever come between us.
We were each other’s
forever.
But forever isn’t real.
Is it?
Chapter 10
Charlie
During our senior year, every moment Jase and I could steal for our own, we did. That Christmas we exchanged silver rings and vowed to never love anyone but each other. For Valentine’s Day, we got fake IDs that said we were eighteen, so we could get half-heart tattoos. When we held hands,
it made one heart. We slept in one another’s arms every night in the tree house. Jase was there each time I cried over silly books in the middle of the night, or if I woke up, sobbing, with nightmares about Joey. His lips would find mind and we’d fit perfectly together—my lost puzzle piece finally fitting into place. His hands would slide across my skin in the darkness, pressing and shifting. I’d open to him each time, memorizing his breathing, his fingertips, his whispers, like every time would be our last, as if each time was our first.
And then winter turned to spring, and one day, when we were almost okay, the ground seemed to erupt beneath us. And within another few moments of violence, my life was changed yet again.
Jase was excited that night; he made reservations for us to eat at a nice restaurant in the city and got tickets to see Wicked. There was no special reason; he just wanted me to get dressed up and feel special. He planned to take me to a bookstore after for coffee and dessert. It sounded like a perfect date to me. Anything to me was perfect where Jase was concerned—anything.
I even went and bought one of those little black dresses that all the glamor magazines swore you had to have. Better than that, I bought a pair of heels. High, like stripper high, heels. I even practiced walking in them.
I wanted to get ready as soon as I could, even if I was too early. My mother’s boyfriend was over and she went out, leaving me in the house alone with him, which always creeped the Hell out of me. I had my curtains wide open, like I always did in my room, and so did Jase. We always seemed to need to keep in constant contact with each other, realizing it stemmed from what happened with Joey, and we never complained to each other. Neither of us felt suffocated; we just needed to feel safe. It was the only way we knew how. We spoke about it a lot and we never hid our feelings from each other no matter what the situation.