Blind Side (9 page)

“
H
ere
?’ I question Kemper as we approach a gravel parking lot hosting a run-down motel and more importantly, a bar. It’s not that I’m wanting to drink, rather my stomach is flipping acrobats, screaming for food like a starving toddler.

“Looks trashy.” He lowers his head to peer out the windshield. “It’s perfect.”

I can’t agree with his assessment, but like I said, I’m fucking starving. I push the shifter into neutral and apply the brakes as we make the sharp right turn into the parking lot and come to a stop beside an RV in the gravel.

Kemper rips the parking brake upward as I turn off the ignition. He’s as ready to get out of this damn car as I am. After driving another hundred or so miles, without the assistance of a GPS, we’ve somehow ended up in the upper region of North Carolina, if my basic knowledge of geography is to be trusted. Kemper suggested we were close to the Florida state line, so I’m going to have a talk with Mr. Lawrence, the geography instructor, when we get back to Ridgefield.

“You want to wait out here?” He leans across the roof of the car. “I’ll go get us a room.”

I glance around at our setting. Pitch-black darkness illuminates trees in a silhouette painting of serenity. Above us, the night sky is clear where stars burn bright. It’s the best view of the stars I’ve seen on this side of my parent’s farmhouse.

“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m good.”

“Be right back, Vin Diesel,” he jokes and walks to the front office.

I lean back against the car and up into the night sky, taking in the breathtaking view of peace and tranquility. A cool breeze crashes against my body and tangles through my hair. It’s a chilly night, but I don’t feel the cold against my skin. I feel next to nothing, but I’ll take feeling numb over the pain I felt last night.

I choose a particular star in the sky, the one that shines the brightest, and force myself to believe it’s Nathan. Believing in something—anything—is the most powerful feeling in the world. I spot another star close by, burning hot and twinkling right at me. That’s my unborn child, that’s what I choose to believe, and it brings some kind of peace to my shattered heart.

Kemper comes jogging out of the front office, breaking my focus on the beautiful painting above me, and meets me beside the car. He passes me a keycard for the room.

“Keycard?” I force a smile. “Fancy.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “We’re moving on up.”

* * *

A
fter a quick shower and shave
, I threw on a fresh pair of clothes and we made our way to the bar across the way from the motel. Three hundred miles out from home, and the place still looks like it belongs in my own hometown.

Maybe it’s true what they say, you can take the girl away from home, but you can’t take the girl out of her home. Maybe that’s not the exact saying, but it’s close enough.

We’re parked in a small booth near the back of the bar. Old country tunes are spit out of an aging jukebox machine that doesn’t appear to have been updated since the mid-nineties.

An empty plate is pushed to the side of Kemper, and a plate with a half-eaten burger and a half-serving of fries rests in front of me. Between the two of us is an unopened bottle of beer.

“Are you going to finish eating?” He points to my food with his elbows planted on the table.

“I don’t know,” I groan. After waiting so long to eat, my stomach filled quickly. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Are you going to drink that?” He points to the bottle of beer. He’s always asking questions. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

“Who says my nerves need calming?”

He furrows both brows and purses his lips, with a knowing face.

“I haven’t really drank since the accident.” I sigh and push the plate to the side and grapple the body of the bottle with my hand. “I don’t know why.”

“It’s because you associate the tragedy with it, but you shouldn’t.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“It’s always as simple as making a choice.” He reaches for my free hand to comfort me. My eyes shift to his touch. “Choose to let go of it all. I understand why you feel the way you feel, but if you ever want to stop feeling that way and take back control of your life, then you have to learn to accept things for the way they are, and then choose to let go of the way you think things will be.”

“Cars. Alcohol. Highways. My husband.” I take a beat to myself, preparing myself to push the next word from my lips. “Students.” I pull my hand away from him and ball my fingers into a fist. “It all reminds me of the night I lost my soul.”

“You drive to work everyday,” he points out. “You drove my car down an unfamiliar highway. You only associate cars with tragedy when you’re lost in the past. When you’re living in the present, you’re not living with the constant reminder.” He pushes himself back against the padded seat. “That drink in your hand isn’t the drink that was in that boy’s hand. Maybe it’s the same brand. Maybe it’s not, but that bottle is fresh from the factory and you can’t push the weight of that night on that bottle.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s not about drinking.” He shakes his head and sighs, his mind bypassing my attempt at humor. “It’s about overcoming your fears so you can stop living one flashback at a time, so that you can start living the way you want to live.”

I nod at him like he’s right, which he most likely is. Moving on isn’t as easy as making the choice to move on, however. It’s a minefield, littered with bombs, and if I’m not careful with each step I choose to make, I’ll be blown to bits.

For the first time since I’ve known him, he appears irritated. His lips are drawn tight and his eyes chase his forehead while his head bobbles. He pushes his tongue against his cheek before reaching across the table, ripping the bottle out of my hand, and twisting the top off. He pushes the bottle into my hand. “Drink,” he commands.

I defy him and stand to my feet. “I don’t want to.” I storm away from the table.

He jumps from his seat and chases me with the bottle in hand. He rushes in front of me and sticks the bottle out to me. “Drink.”

“Why are you so hell bent on this?”

“Because I saw you put a gun to your head last night,” he explodes in a fit of passionate fury, but then quiets and leans into me. “You tried killing yourself because you can’t let go of the past.”

“Fine,” I huff and rip the bottle out of his hand. I’d do anything to bring this conversation to a screeching halt. I throw my head back and down the entire bottle in one chug. When the bottle is empty, I throw it in a nearby trashcan and wipe the wetness from my lips. “There, I did it. Are you happy?”

His mouth is dropped open, his eyes bulging in apparent shock that a woman could chug an entire bottle of beer in one go. “Did you have to drink it all?”

“Jesus Christ.” I throw my hands in the air. “I can’t win.”

“Don’t you get it?” He caresses my cheek soft and gentle. “You just did.”

I stand frozen, my eyes marching across his. A glow passes my face, and I find myself floating through the clouds. He’s right. I’m winning.

“Do you want to dance?” he questions me with an apprehensive twitch.

“Only because I know I don’t have a choice.”

“That’s the attitude I like to hear.” He takes my hand in his and pulls me to the center of the bar, away from the booths that line the east wall. When we come to a stop, one country song fades into another, a song I’ve never heard before. It’s a soft and gentle song about eternal summer love, sung from the pipes of a fragile, broken-hearted man yearning for redemption.

Kemper grips me by the waist and we begin to dance in a slow circle, but it’s clear as soon as we begin that we’re both dancing with two left feet. It doesn’t matter though. Nobody here is judging. They’re too lost in their own lives, whether they’re working behind the bar or drinking away the traveling blues.

I lean my head on his chest and his palm traces up my back, caressing me. His heart thumps from beneath his chest, throbbing against my cheek. A genuine, warm smile passes over my lips as I lay against him, all the while spinning in a slow circle, but it’s my own heart that’s spinning. I feel full, and for the first time in what amounts to forever, I know it’s there, pumping blood through my veins like it’s supposed to. My heart’s not dead. It’s just been in hiding.

“I want you to think about something,” he whispers against my head.

“Do I have to?” I sigh, and dig my head deeper against his chest. “That’s all I do. Think.”

“Since we left the motel this morning, you’ve changed,” he says, not giving me the chance to turn it all off.

“People don’t change in the course of a few hours.”

“True. But you’re different when you’re away from it all. You’re happy.”

“I’m distracted.”

“Also true.” He retreats from me, but his hand remains attached to my back. “I just wanted to point something out to you that should be obvious, but you’re kind of dense.” A mischievous smile, full and wide, is scribbled across his face. It’s an irresistible smile that could undo the strongest of women.

“Do I need to punch you again?”

“If it helps.” He shrugs. “Anyway, the point isn’t that the pain is gone. It’s not. You’re hurt, and you’ll be hurting for a long time, but it gets better.”

“We’ve already read this chapter,” I groan and break away from him. “Get to the point.”

“The point is that you
can
be happy.” He combs his fingers through short hair. “It doesn’t mean you have to be happy tomorrow, or the day after that. It’s proof though that life is worth living.” And then he’s pulling me in with his eyes, because he knows that when he does so, I have no choice but to listen. “Your life is worth living.”

“I wish I had your wisdom when I was nineteen,” I say dryly. He’s wise beyond his years, wiser than those twice his age. He’s lived through something hard, to be as insightful as he is, he would have had to.

“There’s something I need to be honest about.” He exhales and takes a cautious step backward. This can’t be good. “I may have fabricated my age.”

“You’re lying,” I insist with a petrified smile.

“Judging by that look on your face, I’m certainly leaning towards,
I wish I were.
”

“You are unbelievable,” I scoff at him and twist on my foot, prepared to flee.

“I’m going to need you to relax,” he says as he reaches for my arm and twirls me back to face him.

“I take back the wisdom bullshit.” My hands do the talking, throwing gestures left and right. “You’re obviously an idiot if you think it’s appropriate to tell a woman to relax.”

“To be fair, you
are
overreacting.”

“Just stop talking. You’re sounding stupider every time you open your mouth.”

“Is
stupider
proper—“

“Say another word,” I dare him, and wait for him to comply before continuing. “Whether or not I knew who you were going to be, my student, when we did what we did, I could lose my job and my reputation and maybe go to jail.” I point at him with both hands for emphasis. “That’s when you were of age. Now you’re telling me that was another lie?” I take a threatening step toward him, the smile I had a few short seconds ago now flipped upside down. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

I throw daggers with my eyes.

“I swear.” He reaches into his pocket and retrieves his ID from a brown, leather wallet.

I rip the ID out of his hand and chuckle to myself. “Cute picture,” I tease him. Nobody has an attractive photo on their license, but this is just ridiculous. He has long, shaggy hair and a puffy face. I run my eyes over his stats and see the proof he’s telling the truth. He just turned eighteen two months ago. I pass him his ID, and he stuffs it back into his wallet.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asks as he pushes the wallet into his back pocket.

“You’re going to do it regardless.”

He takes a step toward me and wets his lips. It’s hard to tell what’s ever about to come out of his mouth, so I don’t even try to prepare myself for it.

But he doesn’t ask a question. He presses his lips against mine, and I aim to protest, but find my hands clawing at his back to pull him deeper into my mouth.

T
his isn’t happening
.

Okay, it’s happening.

I’m not proud of myself.

But what the fuck did I expect?

Kemper pushes me through the open door of our motel room and kicks the door closed with his foot. He pushes me backward, his lips never parting from mine until the back of my knees hit the edge of the bed and I fall onto my back against a stained mattress. I take the opportunity to inhale a sharp breath before he’s climbing on top of me and back at my lips.

Deep and hard, passionate and wanting, he devours me with cherry lips, holding me in place with strong arms as he pulls me inside out, and when my eyes flash open, I find that his own eyes are open too, boring down on me, burning with lust.

My fingers curl into his hair and a stifled moan is thrown from my throat when his lips shift to my neck, leaving a trail of warm wetness across my skin, flammable kerosene ignited from the embers of his lips. I’m on fire from within, lost in the throes of this dangerous affair.

His teeth nibble against my neck until he pulls away from me. His hands slide underneath my back and he lifts me into a sitting position so he can tug my shirt over my head with ease. As he’s disposing of my clothing on the floor, I unhook my bra and toss it to the side.

My chest heaves, with my tits nuzzled against the stubble of his chin. But his eyes aren’t focused on my breasts, available for his taking, they’re focused on my eyes as he fights his own battle to breathe.

He looks right at me, and then right on through me, and I know the war is over, if only for the night. I’m done fighting the natural world order, how things are supposed to be and how they are. I give into the freedom and press my lips against his, taking control of my life for the first time in my life.

When I break away from the kiss, he’s back at my neck in an instant, with his warm breath sending chills down my spine. I push against his body and roll him onto his back to straddle him. I buck against him with a careful rhythm, getting off on the friction of our bodies trapped within denim, but it’s not enough. I crave to feel him inside of me, stealing whatever innocence I have left in my body and surrendering myself to him completely.

He’s a stranger still, a stranger who should be unobtainable and untouchable, but he’s shown me more compassion and understanding in twenty-four hours than anyone in my life ever has. He has a way with words, and a way with looking at me the way a girl dreams of being looked upon. He has a way to make me throw all fucks to the wind and live in the freedom of now.

He has a way of catching me off guard, and he does it again, flipping me onto my back and landing a kiss along my collarbone while his hands massage at my breasts. I stare at the popcorn ceiling and stale-yellow ceiling fan that’s stuck in place as he makes his way down my stomach, leaving a train of wet kisses along my skin.

I turn to the window with open curtains and see a car pulling in front of the room beside us. They could see us, with their headlights shining into our room, but I can’t bring myself to care. It’s exhilarating, the idea that someone could be watching. It’s terrifying that someone could see me in such a vulnerable state after I’ve been wearing a strong façade for so long.

Kemper is the only one who’s truly seen me break in every way the word could ever have meaning. He reaches my jeans and pops the top button with haste, and with the speed of a pro football player, he tugs them down my leg along with my black panties.

I’m bare. Exposed and my eyes flash back to the window to see an elderly couple stepping out of the car. There are no lights on our room, but the neon green lights are enough to paint our skin in an otherworldly glow.

Kemper’s breath is hot against my pussy, and his firm hands glide over my inner thighs. I look down to him, laying flat on the bed with his head between my legs, and now know what true hunger looks like. I know what it feels like—to hunger for touch.

I crane my heel around his head and pull him close to me, craving his tongue against my sensitive flesh. He runs a rough hand over my opening, and then lunges forward, planting his hot mouth over me. His tongue flicks against me as he parts me with his hands, devouring me with absolute, devastating, numbing hunger.

I cup my hand over my mouth. It’s all I can do to muffle the screaming, inching toward release. Then he’s parting me with one finger, and then two, and then raising his body to meet mine so that we’re face to face.

“Turn over,” he says with ragged breaths, but I refuse.

“No.” I shake my head. “I want it like this.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod, and he takes no time getting to work. He digs a condom from his jeans, and then dispatches of the denim in a hurry. He pushes the jeans down his hips and kick them to the floor, and then does the same with his underwear. His cock springs to life, and I throw myself upward in bed, engulfing his cock in my mouth.

“Fuck,” he cries out and almost fumbles backward.

I steady him with one hand against his ass and lap my tongue from the base of his cock to the tip, and then swallow it whole until my lips meet his pelvis. With one hand, I stroke his shaft, and with the other, I suck his cock. It’s freeing, liberating even. Here in this hotel room—with him—I can be somebody else. Someone who isn’t married to a man she wishes she could hate, and someone who didn’t run away from home with one of her students.

His fingers curl in my hair and I pull away from his cock, leaving a pool of saliva dripping from his member. I look up at him with lust-filled eyes, and he immediately knows what I want from him.

“I’m going to fuck you the way you should be fucked.” He tears the foil wrapper with his teeth and glides the condom over his steel cock. “The way you’ve been dying to be fucked.”

“Kemp—“

“Shhh.” He lunges forward and bites into the flesh just below my collarbone while he pushes my thighs apart with his knees. He’s like an animal in the sheets, but someone else entirely when we’re elsewhere. There are two sides to him, the primal side, and the tender but quirky side.

He lines his cock up against my pussy and pushes forward, sinking into me painfully slow. His mouth drops open and he catches his breath first, and himself second. Slowly, carefully, he pushes until he’s buried within me. He caresses my cheeks with one hand, and stabilizes himself with the other.

“Are you good?”

I nod an affirmative nod, too occupied holding myself together to verbalize an answer. In the heat of the moment, I wish to say nothing, content to let my body talk the talk, and talk it does. It screams as he makes the first careful retreat, his thick cock chipping away at my sanity.

I latch onto his back, holding onto him like he’s my safety, protecting me even while he’s the one responsible for the torment wreaking havoc on my body, littering my insides with indescribable sensation.

“Fuck,” he moans.” Rocking into me. Rocking out. He’s young enough to not be jaded by it all. Too young to know it won’t always be this way, that eventually fucking becomes synonymous with routine. In and out, and then done. Jump in the shower, and drift to sleep.

He’s slow and careful with his timing, but that’s the quickest way to force me to shatter. It’s the quiet moments, the build-up to a thunderous climax, that count the most. When it’s fast and hard, you scream from the inside like you’re riding a roller coaster. You forfeit all control and ride the ups and downs until the roller coaster comes to a still. You’re winded and coming down from the ride, as all you pull back into the Launchpad, you’re still fighting to catch your breath.

When it’s slow, it’s you against the world, fighting a desperate fight to stay afloat when your body is ready to slip off the tracks. It’s more dangerous this way, and dangerous is the name of the game when you’re entangled in an affair such as the one I’ve thrown myself into.

His pace quickens, reaching the tip of the hill as the chain beneath the tracks pulls taut. I waver on the edge of pandemonium and let loose as we finally take the plunge, and we’ve reached the point of no return.

He stirs above me, bracing himself so that he can watch me as he fucks me into the mattress with not a care in the world. The springs creak with every pound of his body against mine, and groans are thrown from his lips with reckless abandon. Cries and moans scratch against my throat as I try to contain them. It’s a futile endeavor

His cock slips free and he shifts to his knees. With one strong hand, he lifts me by my ass, while the upper half of my body remains flat, and he thrusts into me, watching as my cunt devours him whole.

He’s sharp and calculated, focusing on my own pleasure as much as he focuses on his own. His stomach is tense and rock hard, with fine-cut abs that I can’t help but caress. I push a hand against his stomach, a failed attempt to steal some control back into my own hands, but it’s already too late.

I’m not going to last much longer, and by the clumsy and sly grin stretching across his face, he knows it too. But then that look is replaced with something far more grim.

“Fuck,” he grunts and begins to pull out. “The condom broke.”

“No.” I lock my feet behind his muscular ass and pull him back into me until he’s filled to the hilt. He collapses on top of me so we’re back in true missionary, a position I avoided the first time we fucked, but something is different now. “Don’t fucking stop.”

He bores down at me with apprehension, but I’m too close to coming for him to stop now. I dig my heel into his ass, trying to pull him in deeper even though I know he’s already at the limit.

He shakes the worry from his mind and pulls away, priming himself and then thrusting deep within me, mercilessly pulling me inside out with impossible depth and impossible speed. He’s a well-oiled machine hitting a crescendo of rhythmic thrusts, and fucking me to a melody that only seems to escalate with each passing blow.

Sweat trickles from his hair, seeping down to flushed cheeks. Ecstatic moans rumble through trembling lips and ragged breaths. This is as primal as it gets; two souls fulfilling their basic needs of touching and being touched, and he’s touching me in places that have long been abandoned, and his touch expands beyond the physical realm, as something tugs away at my soul, and I don’t know if I’m being resurrected back to life, or if I’m dying a slow murmuring death.

It all feels the same. Torturous rhapsody splintering through my body and soul, sending chills down my back as I feel myself tightening within. Fighting against the currents, and chasing the inevitable through the winds of change.

The pleasure ratchets, pulling as taught as an archer’s bow and with every chaotic thrust, the chord tightens more until I’m left begging for release.

I come around his cock, squeezing him tight with my pussy and my body. My feet kick outward, my toes dancing along the sheets. My nails dig into his skin as he continues to fuck me into the mattress. Harder and deeper. I continue to break, unable to take a long enough breath to come down from one impossible high that explodes into another as I feel myself shattering again.

“K… Kemp,” I moan as I reach a second peak. It’s too fucking much, and I struggle to breathe, to stay afloat and conscious, but the world goes blurry, wavering between closed eyes and darkness, and the surreal image of the man above me riding his own wave of pleasure.

And then he slams into me one last time, burying himself balls deep within me as he shoots his warm seed in the deepest parts of my cunt. His lips tremble, and he can barely find the strength to breathe. It’s not long before he’s collapsing on top of me, sweaty and quivering, and broken, and fucking free.

My eyes hang heavy, and when they draw to a close, I’m content to drift off to sleep with this beautiful man on top of me. And in the silence of darkness, all I hear are his shallow breaths.