Carry Me Home (5 page)

K
eep your shit together.
My cheek settles against Sunny’s leg, right above her kneecap. There’s this adorable freckle in my line of sight and the hint of a scar, faded to a dappled white, on her shin. I grip too hard, my palm sweaty against her skin. My heart pounds. She’s going to notice. I can’t deal with this. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

When she eases off my hat, sinks her fingers into my hair, a tremor vibrates between my shoulder blades.

“Feel good?” she whispers. All I can manage is a nod. Any more and I’ll fall the fuck apart. She massages my scalp, and maybe to her this means nothing, but to me it’s everything I’ve tried not to think about.

“Relax.”

“I’m not sure I know how.” I’ve been tired, tense, and stressed for so long,
relaxed
is a foreign word, a language I’ve forgotten how to speak.

“Oh, Green.” She sounds almost tender. I try to jerk away but her featherlight grip holds me in place. “When’s the last time you’ve been touched, just because?”

“No idea.” None. My mom hugs me on occasion, an awkward, darting side grab while she stares with sad eyes, wanting to ask how I am but scared of the answer.

Sunny slides her hand from the top of my head, traces my jaw and circles my mouth. Her thumb brushes the seam of my lips. I’m seized by an inexplicable urge to bite her¸ then lick away the hurt. What the fuck is wrong with me?

“When’s the last time you’ve been kissed?”

The memory strikes me like a gut punch. Pippa’s heart-shaped face, her too-small mouth and too-big eyes. I tried to hold her tight and she recoiled. I kissed her then, so hard our teeth hit, and she pulled back. She always pulled away. Hated when I touched her body, her beautiful, perfect body. Afraid something would jiggle. She didn’t get that any slight imperfection was part of the good stuff, a little secret that only made her better. She wiped me from her mouth. “Don’t,” she whimpered. “You know I can’t.”

“Then I can’t either.” I had grabbed my board and torn for the door. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”

“Tanner—”

“I mean it for real this time. I can’t keep going if you won’t get help.”

“I know.” She ground the heels of her palms into her sockets. “It’s not fair to you.”

“This isn’t about me. I love you, Pippa.” And I did. I really did. Maybe not as a girlfriend, not anymore, but as someone I’d known for so long there wasn’t a clear boundary where she ended and I began.

“I know you do.” She lowered her hands and gave me a tearful smile. “But maybe I need to figure out how to love me too.”

The next day she was gone. A neighborhood tweaker sped through the stop sign, leaving her brain-dead.

“Tanner?” Sunny’s voice yanks me to the present.

“It’s been a while,” I mutter.

“Talia?”

“No.” I take a deep breath. “I never kissed Talia.”

“What?”

This time I move fast, faster than she can stop me. The far edge of the couch is safer territory. “You heard me.”

“But you—”

“I fucked her—there’s no other word for it.” I bury my face in my hands. “I fucked Talia but never kissed her.”

“Tanner.”

“I can’t…I can’t go back there. Please. Stop.”

“What happened?” Sunny rises to her knees and braces my face with her hands.

I want to scream. I want to punch a wall until I make it a window.

“What happened that night?”

“I slept with T.”

“Yeah.” Her jaw tightens. “I know.”

“We were wasted. Everything happened fast. One minute we were talking, and the next I had her shirt off. Her hands were in my pants. I didn’t know what was happening. No, wait. That’s a lie. I knew. I knew exactly.”

“You wanted to feel close to someone after losing Pippa.”

“I…Wait.” I shake my head. “No. You make it sound better than it was.”

“I’m sure it was awful. Pippa was Talia’s sister. You were her boyfriend. That’s one hell of a ghost between you guys.”

“I didn’t…I couldn’t. I…I didn’t…” Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this.

“Didn’t what?” Sunny keeps pushing.

“I didn’t come.”

“You pulled out?” She frowns.

“I wore a condom but faked coming or whatever.”

Her eyes widen a fraction. “Guys do that?”

“I knew, the moment I was inside her, that it was wrong. I was angry at her, at me, at life. And she cried, Sunny. She cried and I…Fuck it, I cried too. And I didn’t come. I just stopped. And we lay there. And she cried until she fell asleep, and I didn’t even offer to hold her. I had nothing to give. Nothing.”

“And you left.”

“Finally, yeah. After the sun came up. I sat there awake all night, and when I saw a lifeguard come onto the beach, setting up the station, I bailed. I didn’t leave her in the dark. I’m not that big of an asshole.”

She holds up a finger. “But you did leave.”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything? Put it right? You hurt her, Tanner. Hurt her bad.”

“Sometimes…there aren’t words.”

“I get that.” She doesn’t avert her eyes. “Sometimes there really aren’t.” She reaches over and tugs the afghan from the back of the couch, draping it over us.

“What are you doing?” I ask as she slides an arm around my back, gently tugging me against her.

“Holding you.”

“Why?” My body is stiff. I’m not used to touch being offered freely.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

Her honesty relaxes the knot inside me. I don’t know why either, but I’m grateful.

I snap to a strange and hazy alertness and rub my eyes. “Shit, what happened?”

“We fell asleep.” Sunny wiggles free. “Ah, so did my arm. Ouch.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She shakes her hand out. “You looked like you could use more rest.”

“I don’t sleep great.” The clock on the wall shows we dozed for about an hour.

“I know.” She reaches out and strokes the skin beneath my eye. “Those are some dark circles, my friend.” And then she leans in and we’re here, locked in a room without an exit and I never want to leave. The world is nothing except her mouth hovering centimeters from mine. Every time she breathes, I feel it. Fuck, I taste it. My biceps inadvertently flex, and goose bumps break out across the base of my spine.

I reach for her, and my fingers instinctively curl in on themselves. Pippa allowed touching only in permitted places. I don’t know Sunny’s approved spots, what’s allowed, where I can go.

Sunny grabs my fist and slides her grip to my wrist. She takes hold of my other hand with her free one and raises both above my head. As she pulls, I rise to my knees until our stomachs crash against each other. She’s still almost but not quite kissing me, and I’m afraid if I move, this moment will vanish. With my arms up, it’s like she’s got me under arrest, and maybe she does. Fuck, she can throw away the key.

“Are you going to kiss me, Green?” Her hot breath delivers a shock wave of lust to my dick.

Fuck, yes
is what I want to say. Christ, I’m so hard it hurts. But everything I want to do crams into my brain until all I’m left saying is, “Want me to?”

Dumbass.

My lame question shifts something in her. She releases me, leans back, and settles against the couch, folding her hands over her stomach.

“Here’s the million-dollar question…What do
you
want to do?” She twiddles her thumbs. They go around and around slowly, and my mind spins her question, caught in a sad, lonely hamster wheel.

“I…”
How’s
everything
for an answer?

“You and me.” The thin white cotton tank doesn’t hide much. The dark pink points of her nipples are visible beneath. “We have unfinished business. You know that, right?”

She’s right, but hearing her say it, really put it out there, gives us both pause.

I swallow hard, and she giggles shyly, a thick, husky sound in the back of her throat.

I want to replace that giggle with a moan.

Her steady gaze keeps me in lockdown as her hand wanders, skimming her skirt. “Want to touch me down here?”

If she’s trying to mess with my mind, mission accomplished. “You serious?”

She huffs a little, blows the bangs off her face. “First up, I don’t fuck around. If I ask for your touch, I mean it. But remember, if we do this, we can’t undo it.”

I stare at her. Charged seconds tick by one after the other.

“So, what’s it going to be?” A flush blooms across her clavicle, rises up her pale neck to color her freckled cheekbones.

Is this the right move for us? For her? Worse, what if she’s messing with me as revenge for what happened to Talia and the minute I say I want her she’ll laugh in my face? There’s only one choice. Look in her eyes and decide based on what’s there.

What I see takes my breath.

She wants me.

She wants me as much as I want her.

“You in or out?” Her words are casual, but they don’t match the gaze.

“In.” I say the word like it strangles me. It’s all I can do not to grab her now. “I’m in.”

“Fine, but remember, you’ve been warned.” She crawls toward me. “And it’s just this once.”

“Once?” That’s never going to happen. “Why?”

Her gaze darkens, desire replaced by uncertainty. “I think that’s all we get, you and me. One shot. Get out of each other’s systems,” she whispers, her mouth an inch off my zipper.

She thinks she can play me, that I’m this safe thing. She doesn’t know how bad I want to taste, touch, fuck, and feel. My temples pulse. “Go on, then, or are you all talk?”

Her gaze slams me like a rogue wave. “Dare me.”

“I’m not daring you to suck my dick.”

“Pity.” She sucks her top lip, and there’s an audible pop on the release.

“Look, I’ve never done this.” How fucked-up to admit that I’m over twenty and never had a girl’s mouth on my cock.

“Shut the hell…” She pulls back a little, sinks into the couch cushion. “Oh God, you aren’t joking.”

My mouth is dry. It’s hard to form the words. “No.”

“But I don’t get it. You could have any girl.”

“I don’t want any girl,” I mumble. “I wanted to be with someone that I…”

She narrows her eyes. “That you…”

What do I say? I’m not ready to admit half of what I’m feeling to myself, let alone to her. There goes my zipper. I don’t want to look because I’m afraid she’ll stop whatever she’s about to do.

The blood pounding in my head diverts to my lower stomach as my balls tighten. I fall back on my heels, my ass against the armrest.

Her tongue circles my tip, soft, barely a caress. “Holy shit,” I grind out. “Holy shit.” She brushes my sensitive head with the flat of her tongue, then works the underside until all my previous fantasies feel like nothing.
Shit
. She sucks harder, and I slide way in. I’m worried I won’t fit, but she takes me down, deep into a tight wet heat that makes it difficult to breathe.

I’m buried in her mouth. She hums against my skin, watching me, pupils dilated, through those long lashes. Her cheeks hollow as she bops up, tickling my balls, only a graze but enough to make me lose my mind.

“You’re beautiful,” I gasp, meaning each word, and not just because she has my dick in her mouth. She’s either the simplest answer or the biggest fucking catastrophe of my life. “Sunny, stop, I’m going to…”

She pulls back. “I want you to do it.”

A few more slow, hard sucks and I explode in one quick, hot flash. My thoughts are obliterated, replaced by white noise.

Fuck.
Afterward I try to focus, but it’s hard. Jesus, what she just did…

“So.” She shifts backward, licking her lips. “How was that for your first time?”

“Unreal.” My voice is a rasp. “I need to feel you. Now.” I tug her skirt. It’s easy, an elastic waistband. She leverages her hips a few inches, her pelvic bones jutting in sharp relief as I yank it off. She is covered by pink cotton shorts. There’s a dark patch, wetness at the apex, and a groan rips from my chest.

I cup her a moment, so hot beneath my palm. She gasps and spreads her thighs further, her skin pale, smattered by a Milky Way of freckles. I want to map each one.

I ease her panties off. There’s a soft dusting of ginger hair and glistening slickness. More. I need to see everything, and she parts wider. Her hips rock back and forth, her clit glistening. When I circle it with my thumb, it’s so slick I need to press firmly to keep a rhythm. I can’t stop. Her lids fall closed, and when she licks her lips, they look as slippery as the ones I’m touching. She starts to grind against my touch, and her participation is a relief. She isn’t going to lie there. She’s guiding me to the right friction and speed, responding with nods and clenching legs when I’m on target.

“This okay?” I want it to be good. I want this to be incredible.

“Mmm-hmmm.” Her dreamy gaze drifts from me, to the ceiling, then back again. “You’re not going to stop.”

She’s not asking; she’s telling me. And I watch her eyes. She’s into the moment as much as I am. Her thighs quiver, fast as the beat of a hummingbird wing or the pulse in my neck.

At thirteen, I loved her. Sunny was meant to be my first kiss, my first love, but our lives forked in a way neither of us prepared for.

I don’t stop or pretend at fancy moves. I’ve been with only two other girls, and neither of them have a place here. This is red, wet, and…and…and fuck me.

“A bit harder,” she purrs, and I press on her clit. Her hips buck. “Oh God. Yes, like that, perfect. Those slow circles are exactly right. Does this feel good?” She’s talking, demanding I be here. I’m not sure what to say.

“Tell me,” she murmurs. “Is this what you expected?”

“I…”

“After the party, when you saw me, you thought about it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” I slip a finger inside her, and her soft walls tense. This is a good place. I could lose myself in her secrets, and maybe I’d find the parts of me that have gone missing.

“Did you touch yourself?”

My cheeks heat.

“You’re blushing. That’s cute.” Her eyes roll back when I crook my finger. “Fuck. God, right there.”

“Don’t tell me I’m cute while I do this.”