Falling In (14 page)

“But why
does it always have to happen at once?  You know that feeling, the one where
you can’t get your head above water no matter how hard you paddle?  I feel like
that; like I’m out there in the ocean right now,” she said and pointed in its
general direction.  “Have you ever felt that way, Kim?”

She
looked concerned as she responded, “We all have, but in the end you’re either
going to sink or swim and you’ve ever struck me as much of a sinker.”

Audrey
shook her head and looked through the window.  The tall trees in the distance
were barely visible and what she could see were the fattest branches as they
began to defer to the wind’s increasing power.  Leaves and even small pieces of
grass fluttered by with the larger gusts.  Some of them even formed their own
tiny vortexes before they broke back up again and went on their way.

She
watched them carefully and did her best to keep it together.

“I’m
trying to swim, I really am.”

A gust
of wind outside of the house rushed through the patio’s wood beams and made a
high-pitched howl that reminded Audrey of a wolf.  She struggled to tell her
the truth, but still couldn’t find the right way to say it.

Kim
grabbed her shoulders and pleaded, “Can you please just tell me what’s wrong?”

Seeing
her friend so concerned--remembering the look on Liam’s face when he handed her
his phone--made the guilt too much for Audrey to bear.  Here she was, carrying
on and feeling sorry for herself while she spun a web of deceit that ended up
taking more people down with her; people that she cared about a lot more than
Max, when it came down to it.

She was
done hiding everything from everyone, even if that meant she had to woman up
and admit that she was wrong.

“I think
I made a really big mistake,” she sighed and dropped her head in defeat.

Kim
forced her chin up and asked softly, “What did you do?  Is this about Max?”

“Yes and
no.”  She sank away from her friend’s touch and fell back onto the couch.  “I’m
done with him.  I’m not going back.”

“Good,”
Kim said and sat down on the other end.  “Then what’s the problem?”

Audrey
felt herself start to cry as she spoke, “It’s Liam I’m worried about.”

“Liam?” 
She leaned back a little.  “As in the Liam Stone that lives not far from here?”

She
nodded her head and wiped a few tears away.  She was so lost in her own
problems that she forgot the fact that Kim was still in the dark..  She didn’t
know about their steamy affair or the heated fight that took place just hours
before.  True to the old adage, it really was a long story.  And even if she
could tell it from start to finish, Audrey wouldn’t ever be able to tell her
friend why she did the things that she did.  Sometimes the heart doesn’t give a
reason.

“What
happened?”

“I, I mean
we,” her tongue tripped over its self.  “I might’ve made him believe that I’m
something that I’m not.”

“And
that is?”

“Single,”
Audrey sighed and sniffled.  “I never told him about Max, not even after we had
sex.  He didn’t even find out until I accidentally sent something about the
divorce to him.”

Kim
shook her head and asked, “And when was this?”

“Yesterday,”
she replied, unwilling to elaborate on their argument earlier.

“Well
I’ll have to agree.  You fucked up, but that’s one of those life lessons that you
can move on and learn from, like Max.”

“No,
it’s not like that, Kim.  I can’t leave without talking to him again.”

“You
don’t have time for all that, girl.”  She eyed her friend suspiciously.  “Don’t
tell me you’re in love with the guy.”

Audrey
brushed off her comment with a wave.

“I need
to make things right before I go, that’s all.”

“I hate
to be the bearer of bad news, but if you want to make it home any time in the
next week, either we leave now or we don’t leave at all.”  She wasn’t mean
about it, but Audrey knew from the tone in her voice that she was completely
serious.  “Look, I need to know what you want to do.  If I’m taking you to the
airport, we have to go.  Everyone is saying that departures will be stopped by
midnight and we still need to get you a ticket on one of them.”

Put on
the spot yet again, Audrey felt helplessly torn.  Every fiber of her being
ached to run to Liam and apologize, but every part of her brain said that he
probably wouldn’t even speak to her.  Then she’d have to sit through a
hurricane as her life finished its self-destruct sequence.  While it seemed
fitting, it wasn’t something that she was too eager to experience.

All she
wanted was to see him one more time, even if it meant risking a fate that
threatened to do even more damage than the storm that loomed large.

“Then
we’re not going,” she said.

Kim
rubbed her temples and responded, “Are you sure about this?  He’s just a guy,
Audrey.”

“Maybe,”
she replied.  “But I’m not leaving until I can tell him that I’m sorry.  I
don’t care if he never wants to speak to me again after that.”

It
wasn’t true, of course, but the intensity of her feelings for him was almost
embarrassing.  Surely her friend--and the rest of the outside world--wouldn’t
understand, would they?

“Okay,”
Kim relented and threw both hands up into the air.  “You win.  But I hope
you’re prepared for what you’re getting yourself into.”

“With
Liam?”

“No,”
her friend said and pointed to the window, where they could easily see the
gathering blackness in the sky.  “That’s a fuckin’ hurricane, not some snow
storm that you can shovel your way out of.  You’re going to have to contend
with that, too.”

“Add it
to the pile,” she said and sank back onto the couch.  “I need to do this.”

Kim
rolled her eyes as the phone screeched from inside her pocket.

“Excuse
me for a minute?”

“Yeah,
sure.”

She
hopped up from the couch and took the phone into the kitchen, which left Audrey
alone to contemplate her choice.  There was no way for her to know if Liam
would accept anything that she had to say.

Shit
, she thought to herself,
I’ll
be glad if he doesn’t slam the door in my face
.

After a
quick phone conversation, Kim came back into the room.

“That
was Morty.  He runs the general store in town.”

“Oh
yeah.  We spoke the other day.”

She
walked up and leaned on the back of the couch.

“His
grandsons are almost here.  They’re going to help us.”

Audrey
turned around and whipped her loose locks to rest behind her shoulder as she asked,
“Help us do what?”

Kim
chuckled and patted her shoulder, “Put on your work shoes.  We have some boards
to put up.”

---

The
sharp rattle of hammers and nails echoed through the tense air.  Brian, David
and Steve Sullivan--three brothers who shared the same brown hair, freckles and
emerald eyes--each worked on a different side of the house, leaving the last
one for Audrey and Kim.  They kneeled together in front of a window on the
lower level and sorted through an old coffee can full of nails.

Most of
the work was already done, but there was still a bit of a rush to finish.  Some
of the first outer bands of the hurricane started to pass over, dumping quick
sheets of rain and then disappearing completely.

Kim
stood up and hoisted the board in to place.  She called down to Audrey, who
waited below with her hammer poised, “Go ahead.”

She
brought its heavy head down onto the nails that they picked out, driving five
in a row without missing a beat.  It felt good to take everything out on those
tiny slivers of metal as she pounded away without mercy.  The winds around them
picked up for a third time in an hour, but it did little to cool Audrey down. 
Heavy beads of sweat studded her brow, most of which eventually rolled down to
the tip of her nose and dripped onto her dirty sneakers.

“Thanks
for helping,” Kim said and held the board in place with both hands to keep a
gust from blowing it away.

“No
problem.  I couldn’t just sit inside and let you guys do all the work.”

“Well
you could’ve, I guess.”  She paused and eyed Audrey’s healing wrist.  “If Liam
doesn’t want to talk to you, can you at least promise me that you won’t go back
to Max?  You can stay here as long as you want if you don’t have anywhere else
to go.”

Her
friend’s kindness forced a smile onto her face as she answered, “Kim, that’s
one promise that I’m absolutely sure I can make.”

Audrey
stood up and hugged her, forgetting for a second that she was covered in
sweat.  But in that moment, it really didn’t matter.  Kim squeezed her back
just as tight.

“You’re
gonna be okay, kid.  I know it.”

Audrey
pulled back and dabbed her moist eyes.

“One way
or another.”

“Here,”
Kim said.  She dug around in her pocket and replaced Audrey’s hammer with a
small key chain.  “Take my car.  There should be enough time for you to get
back if you need to.”

A sense
of relief washed over her as she curled her fingers around the keys.

At
least they won’t be able to say that I died while riding a bike in a hurricane.

Chapter
11

Audrey
flew around the porch, down the front stairs and eventually settled behind the
wheel of Kim’s old station wagon.  She slammed the heavy door shut and took off
down the bumpy road that led off of the property while she did her best to
remember which way to go in a town that was still mostly alien.  Between that
and the darkness that fell, she quickly started to wonder whether or not she
should’ve left at all.

Thankfully,
she pulled up to Liam’s house just a couple of minutes--and a few wrong
turns--later.  She was still at a complete loss for what to say but even that
didn’t matter anymore.  All she needed was a chance.

“Liam,”
she called out and stumbled up to the front door, where she began to pound
against the heavy wood.  Most of the lights in the spacious home were out,
which made her worry about whether or not she drove out there for nothing. 
“Are you there?”

A gust
of wind blew by that whipped her face with wet leaves and almost bowled her
over.  Audrey grabbed the door handle to stabilize herself just as it popped
open.  She stumbled into Liam’s house as she clawed the mushy debris off of her
cheeks.

“What
are you doing?  You do realize that that’s a hurricane out there, right?”  He
slammed the door shut and stood a few feet away with his arms crossed as he
waited for an answer.  “Audrey?”

She
pushed the hair out of her eyes and tried to smooth it down.  When she met
Liam’s reserved stare, the terrible pangs of guilt in her body intensified.

“I
wanted to tell you,” she said breathlessly.  “I wanted to say all of it but
things went so far, so fast that I didn’t even know where to start.  I never
planned to come down here and get attached and I certainly didn’t intend to
hurt you.”

Liam
eyed her and adjusted his arms tighter around his stomach.

“Okay.”

“And I
came all the way over here to say that I’m sorry.  I’m probably flying back
home once all of this passes and I couldn’t leave things with you the way they
were.”

He
nodded his head but didn’t say anything.  Although Audrey didn’t expect him to
forgive and forget, his cold silence cut like a razor blade through her fragile
spirit.  Everything that needed to be said was laid bare and hung in the
painful quiet that lingered between them.  In the wake of it, she rested her
shaking finger tips on the front door’s brass handle.

“I’m
sorry for coming like this,” she said and flung the door open.

The
first thing that hit was the powerful wind, which sustained enough speed to
make Audrey nearly lose her footing as she ran out of Liam’s house.  As soon as
she started down the steps, a blinding flash of lightning popped not far away
and was followed by a deep rumble that she could feel in her bones.  Soon
after, a deluge of rain fell as the skies opened up.

Sheets
of pouring rain fell from the black clouds and soaked through her hair in an
instant.  The warm, heavy drops covered her skin and washed away the salty
layer of tears on her cheeks while a snap of lightning gave her just enough
light to fumble with Kim’s keys.  Night was officially in effect and it was,
without a doubt, the blackest night that Audrey ever saw.

She
walked with arms stretched out in front of her, feeling along the car’s warm
hood to guide herself around to the front.

Liam
grabbed Audrey’s wrist and spun her around.  Once there, he pinned her body to
the driver side window and cupped both sides of her face.  Without an exchange
of words, the two locked in a passionate kiss that told Audrey she was momentarily
forgiven.

The rain
continued to pound down onto their locked lips while another bolt of lightning
tore a path just over their heads.

“Come
inside,” he pulled away and yelled over the following clap of thunder.  “You
can’t go back now.”

“I can
make it.  It’s okay.”

He
grabbed both of her hands.

“This
isn’t about time.  You can’t go back because I’m not going to sit here and
watch you walk out of my life.  I won’t let you.”

“But
what about-”

She was
interrupted by another flash of lightning that lit up the hellish landscape. 
It was close enough to leave faint, fleeting impressions of spider webs in
Audrey’s vision.

“Fuck
all that,” Liam said loudly over the pouring rain.  “I can get over a lie, but
I would never forgive myself if I let you go.  Please come inside.”

Audrey
wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her around his waist as they
marched back into his darkened home.  Once they were out of the increasingly
savage elements, Liam gently lowered her down to her feet and kissed her again. 
He wiped away the wind-whipped chunks of her golden hair with both hands.

His
tongue slipped over hers and his hands did the same.  They moved over her
glistening shoulders and sopping wet tank top.  As their bodies huddled
together more tightly, the water in their clothes was pressed out and made a pattering
between them as the murky water formed a small puddle at their feet.

Liam
grabbed the bottom of her shirt, peeled it off and tossed it to the side
without ever taking his eyes off of her heaving chest.  With each deep breath
that Audrey inhaled, her full breasts pushed closer to his silky lips as he
leaned in to meet them half way.

With
small, slow kisses, he moved from her shoulder to her collarbone and then
followed that until it left him between her soft peaks.  Liam paused there to
jerk down the straps of her bra, exposing her perky, rain-tickled nipples to
his hot palms.

Audrey
felt like she was melting into him as she reached down and pulled off Liam’s
shirt.  It was heavy with water and made a soggy little splash when she threw
it onto the floor.  After that, she shimmied down his shorts and exposed the
one part of him that she couldn’t forget.  Even though it wasn’t her first time
with him, her hands trembled with eager anticipation.  Their relationship was
different now.  With the lingering burden of secrecy gone, every bump and tug
made her feel closer to him.

Liam
went right back to her breasts and ran his tongue over each of her pink points,
one at a time.  His pace was almost painfully slow, but it was a hot, tingling
kind of pain that made Audrey press her hips into him as she silently begged
for more.  She felt each of his hot hands cup her and squeeze from the bottom,
lifting her to the tips of her toes with a soft moan.

He
released her breasts and slid his hands over her stomach.  When he reached her
hips, he kneeled down and carefully pulled down her dripping jeans.  He stopped
to kiss a trail that followed them down to her knees.  Audrey stepped out and
ran her hands through Liam’s soft, wavy hair.  Near the back, she grabbed a
handful and squeezed.

His face
landed just beneath her belly button, where he continued the barrage of pecks. 
With two fingers, he hooked into her panties and pulled them down to her
ankles.

Audrey’s
knees buckled as Liam pulled her waist toward his waiting tongue and licked the
very edges of her sensitive folds.  Feeling her legs about to give out, he stood
up and kissed the side of her neck.

“Come
on,” he said and moved so that he stood behind her, his throbbing meat pressed
into the small of her back.  With both arms wrapped under hers, Liam cupped her
breasts and pushed her toward his bedroom.

The rest
of the house was almost pitch-black.  All of the home’s modern storm shudders
were latched tightly shut and most of the lights were off in anticipation of
the inevitable blackout.  In their place, battery-powered candles flickered
from random shelves and tables.  It gave each room a differing set of shadows
that evoked something new.

Audrey
reached behind and cupped his hot neck in her hands.  From there, she could
feel the passing twinges and tugs of his muscles as he moved her into the
bedroom and explored every inch of her naked body with his fingertips, groping
her as if he was in slow motion.  She yearned to have him again, but this time
more than the first.  Every nerve ending screamed for him; for a physical sign
of his inner feelings.

She
bumped into a tall, wooden post at the foot of the bed and grabbed onto it as
Liam’s warm hands slipped between her thighs and started to massage slowly
upward.  Audrey hung from the cool wood with both hands as his fingers slipped
in from behind.

“Oh
god,” she cried and threw her head onto the post.

She felt
him inside of her, gently slipping in and out as she rocked her hips.  His
other hand crept up and tickled her soft breasts at the same time.

Outside,
the storm’s first real weather slammed into the house with a gust so powerful
that both of them could feel the house as it shifted and groaned under the
sudden change in pressure.  Wind screeched through the cracks and spaces,
causing a kind of screaming whistle that made goose bumps pop up from Audrey’s
arms to her stomach.

Liam
pulled his hand out and spun her around.

“Are we
safe here?”

He
leaned over and softly bit the sensitive flesh just below her ear before he
responded with a whisper, “You’re safe now, Audrey.  Just let go.”

The
loudest crack of thunder yet ripped through the house and shook the glass in
even the heaviest mirrors on the walls.  Through the small gaps where the storm
shudders were pulled shut, the light from four or five flickering bolts leaked
through.  They landed like a white slash across Liam and Audrey’s naked bodies.

She
closed her eyes and whispered, “You’re sure?”

“Yes I’m
sure,” he said.  “What are you so afraid of finding when you do?”

She
squeezed her eyes shut tighter.  In reality, there were a lot of things that
she was afraid of.  But as the storm outside raged and tore up the surrounding
landscape, her lover’s delicate caresses did the same thing to her reservations
and fear.  All at once, Audrey let the walls she built come crashing down and
finally allowed him in to the one place that needed his healing most: her
heart.

“Make
love to me,” she said to him as a single tear--one forged by an overwhelming
sense of relief--rolled over her cheek.

Liam
kissed and pulled her against his hard, naked core with both hands that cupped
her rear.  He finally peeled her away from the bed post and guided her back,
eventually lowering her onto the edge of the bed.

Audrey
sat, spread her knees apart to invite him in and finally lifted her lids.  Just
before she felt his hot, throbbing tip, their eyes locked together.  Though he
didn’t say anything more, Liam’s look told her everything that she needed to
know.  There was no judgment or anger in his gaze, only the soft look of
adoration.

She
glanced down between her thighs just in time to watch him slide in.  Then, leaving
his cock buried inside, Liam leaned over and locked lips with her.  Audrey
could feel his thumbs in her hips as they closed tighter and pinned her to the
soft bed.  Through all of it, Liam took his time and drew out each subtle
movement with a careful, determined precision.

He
slowly began to pump in and out, ending each thrust with a hard, quick bump
forward that made Audrey’s breasts bounce under him.  She moaned after every
one, but the howling winds outside drowned her out.

Still
positioned on the side of the bed, Liam lifted Audrey up into a sitting
position and pushed in once more before he threw her back onto the middle of
his plush bed.  He climbed up after, but stopped between her thighs to give a
slow lick and tickle of the tongue.

By the
time that he made it back up and pushed back through her entrance, Audrey felt
like her head was spinning.  She closed her eyes again and paid careful
attention to the way that his flesh felt against hers; the way that she could
sense the tops of his thighs while they slapped against her body as his pace
started to quicken.  Without looking, she could feel him on his knees between
her legs, where he sat up and watched her every pant and cry of pleasure.

Liam
reached down and, with just one thumb, started to stroke the quivering, rosy
flesh that surrounded her clit.  After waiting so long, it didn’t take much to
push Audrey over the edge.  She snapped her eyes open and reached out, digging
her nails into Liam’s rippled abs as every last nerve in her body erupted like
fireworks.  Her body trembled and shook while she screamed for him and rocked her
hips over his thrusting pole.

When she
started to come back down, the throbbing in her delicate walls made Liam’s
increasingly powerful movements feel even better than before.  Every tiny hitch
and bump was magnified and rippled through her pumping blood like a tsunami.

Not long
after, Audrey watched him tightly close his eyes and bite the bottom of his lip
as he came and planted his hot, sticky seed deep inside.  She gasped at the
warming sensation and pushed her hips onto him to accept everything that he
gave.

With
Liam still perched over her, Audrey reached up and combed his hair with her
fingers.