Following Isaac (12 page)

Chapter 20

Isaac

We were finally a-fuckin-lone!

Ivy brought her nosy butt over to see Becca the very instant I text to tell them she was here, and they came in before she got out of the shower. All I wanted to do was get my hands on my girl, but my neighbors just had to see her. I made sure they only stayed for a second, but they didn’t leave before Ivy spoke her mind to Becca.

"They're crazy, but awesome," I said, when the door closed behind my neighbors. "You'll really like them once you have the chance to get to know them."

"I like them already," she said, turning in my arms to face me. "I love that she's so protective of you. It makes me happy to know you have people who care about you."

"You know why that makes you happy?" I asked.

"Why?"

"Because you love me."

She smiled up at me. "Oh, you think so?"

"Yep." I stared into her eyes with a small smile. "Deny it," I said.

"What?"

"Say you don't."

She laughed.

"You can't say it," I said with a challenging smile.

"I don’t want to say that," she said.

"Because you can't."

"Then
you
say it," she said.

"Say what?"

"That you don't love me either."

"I can't."

I stared into her eyes as a few silent seconds passed. Each of us knew how the other one felt, but neither of us knew where to start.

"Come here," I said. I took her hand and led her to the bedroom. I was dying to get inside her, and I prayed for the patience to be as gentle as she deserved. I stood her on the platform that extended past the foot of my bed—our bed—before standing back to look her over.

"I wasn't planning on it going like this, but given all of our conversations this evening, I think it's appropriate that I tell you just what I think about your body."

Becca got a deer in headlights look that made me smile.

"Take off your clothes," I said with a deadpan expression.

Her eyes widened adorably, but I just stared at her like she better get a move on, and that's what she did. She pulled off her pants and threw them on the ground before doing the same with her shirt. She stood up straight, and took a deep, resigned breath. She was definitely uncomfortable, and it touched my heart. I came to stand next to the platform where I was almost touching her. I took a few seconds to get undressed, taking off my shirt first and then my pants.

"What's good for you… " I said, straightening to stand next to her.

We were only inches apart—not touching, but almost close enough to feel each other's body heat. We both had on underwear, but otherwise we were face-to-face with each other's naked bodies. The platform made her a few inches taller than me, so her lips and neck were right at my eye level.

"I love everything about your body," I said. She'd been avoiding eye contact with me, but glanced at me when I spoke. "Your eyes were first, but then came your lips, and your chin." I took my fingertips and starting at her neck, ran them down her, listing all the body parts I loved as I passed. "…And your neck, and your chest." I paused to kiss her adorable breasts. I wanted to do unspeakable things to them and then fall asleep with my face there. She whimpered when I kissed her there, and I glanced up to see her eyes were closed. "…And I love this spot right here," I said, kissing the spot at the center of her chest before bending to work my way down.

I continued to openly explore her body. The room wasn't dark, and I knew she was uncomfortable about the lighting at first, but she didn't ask me to stop. I touched her with my fingertips and placed gentle, sporadic kisses all over her for what must have been half an hour.

After the first little while, she got comfortable and finally seemed to accept the fact that I loved her body just how it was. By the end of it, she was aching for me. I could hear it in her breathing. She took short, hitching breaths every time my lips touched her. She was still on the platform, and I stood in front of her and put the side of my face between her breasts. I leaned into her, and just as I started to wrap my arms around her, she wrapped hers around my shoulders. She put a hand on the other side of my face, holding me in place on her chest.

"Becca?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for scheming a way to get me, baby."

I felt her chest shake with laughter and I smiled, but didn't move to look at her. "You're welcome," she said.

In one quick motion, I fell onto the bed, pulling her down with me as I landed. We both laughed as we bounced and then settled in next to each other.

"With all the other girls in the world, how am I the one who ended up here?" she asked.

"I'll assume that's a rhetorical question since I've already told you."

"Told me what?" she asked with a smile.

I looked her over as if I was about to eat her alive, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

"That it's uncontrollable," I said, widening my eyes as if she was in for it.

She giggled and shielded her face. In one motion, I turned to lie on my back, pulling her on top of me. She put her hands on either side of me, propping herself up so she could stare down at me. Her hair was pulled back, and I reached up to free it. Once I did, she shook her head, letting her dark locks fall onto her shoulders. She stared down like a lioness that was about to devour me, and I instantly felt my already hard piece strain and pulse against her thigh.

Gone were all her reservations and insecurities. The girl hovering over me was the real Becca—the empowered one—the one who knew she was right where she needed to be instead of assuming she'd gotten lucky and landed here accidently.

"You know what else is uncontrollable?" she asked. Then she continued without giving me the chance to answer, "The way my body needs you." She used her hips to work a circle, which made the soft, tender flesh of her upper thigh move on my throbbing package.

I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over my face in an effort to reign in the desire to roll her over, mount her, and bury myself inside her. I absolutely
could not wait
to be inside her—to feel her around me. She thrust her hips forward again.

"I think you want me too," she said.

"You have no idea."

"Oh, but I think I do." Again, she circled her hips, using her body to give gentle pressure to my painfully hard erection.

I couldn't stand it any longer. I grabbed her hips and held her in place as I thrust upward. The pressure of our bodies coming together only added to the pressure of my erection.

"Yep, I'm gonna have to go ahead and get out of these boxers," I said, wiggling underneath her to take them off.

She left her panties on and I reached down and grabbed the front of them. I gave a little tug, and just like holding the reigns of a horse, her hips moved where ever I steered them. The strip of fabric went down past the surface, and I used my finger to follow the line of it. I wanted to rip it away and replace it with my piece, but I held back. I knew I wouldn't be able to for very long now that I'd touched her. She was hot and wet, and I let my finger slip past her panties and into her. She let out a little high-pitched moan and leaned into my touch.

It was from this point that our bodies began the erotic dance that would end in climax. We started moving in a slow rhythm that gradually increased. We both struggled to control our breathing as our hands roamed and our limbs intertwined. We pulsed and writhed as the wave of ecstasy crescendoed to the point where neither of us could stand it any longer.

"Isaac, pleeeease." Her voice came out more like a desperate whimper. That sound, combined with her golden eyes and precious, soft face had me reaching to the bedside table for a condom. I glanced up at her as I opened it and she was regarding me with a satisfied smile.

"I'm not wearing this shit for long. I'll do it tonight, but we need to figure out birth-control or get tested whatever needs to happen to do away with these fucking things."

She smiled at me as if she knew it was the first time I've ever said something like that. She was right. Never before was I more concerned with feeling my girl then with protecting us both with a condom, but I wanted to feel Becca so badly that I almost went without it.

"We'll figure it out," she promised, smiling sweetly at me.

"You ready?" I asked.

She smiled and nodded, and I made a split second decision that her panties would be in the way and I didn't want to wait for her to take them off. I reached down and carefully ripped the strip of fabric that was blocking my way. I did it quickly and quietly, and she didn't really even know what happened until she glanced down.

"Did you just rip my panties off?" she asked, wide-eyed.

I smiled and nodded and she scrunched her face up.

"That's so hot," she said, making me smile again.

Within seconds I was inside her. She was on top of me, but I controlled the pace using my grip on her hips. I pulled her onto me slowly and heard every little whimper as I buried myself inside her.

"Isaac, it's so gooood. It's exactly what I needed," she said weakly. She collapsed her upper body onto mine, forcing the full pressure of her body onto me. Her hips began moving, and before long, the pace went from slow and measured to sharp and desperate. She crashed into me with bed-shaking force about ten times before her body seized up and began to writhe. "Oh shiiiiiit, Isaaaaac," she whispered. Her muscles began to contract around me as she came, and I was simply unable to stop myself any longer. "I want to feeeeeel yooooou," she said. "Isaac, pleeeease!"

I held her securely in place, pushing into her relentlessly as I came to completion with her. I grunted and moaned with the effort as if it were the first time I ever had sex in my life. It felt like the first time. Becca was unlike any other and I knew there was no going back.

We stayed like that for a few minutes as we both came out of the sexual haze. Then we got cleaned up and situated before returning to the middle of the bed where we stretched out comfortably next to each other.

"I love your body," she said. Her head rested on my shoulder, and I absentmindedly played with her hair.

"It loves you too," I said. She ran her fingers over my stomach and up onto my chest.

"Do you have to work out tomorrow? I'd like to see your gym."

"My next workout is Monday morning."

"I'm leaving first thing."

I was annoyed at the news. I hated to see her leave. I thought about what happened to her in the bathroom. In spite of the fact that I was probably the cause of it, I felt aggravated that she'd be living across the country where I couldn't protect her. I ever so gently ran my thumb over her sore cheek.

"I can't wait till you're back over here with me for good so I can make sure nothing stupid ever happens to you again."

"Even in women's restrooms?" she asked. I could hear the smile in her voice.

"If I need to," I said.

"I'm gonna do a better job of knowing the dangers of jealous girls. There were some things I could have done differently to avoid that situation."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like maybe back up next time when someone yells, 'dump it over the top'."

She was making light of the topic, but I hated the thought of that happening to her. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. "You're starting MMA when you move over here so you can kick some ass if you need to."

"I almost looked into kickboxing back home," I said. "I might still do it since I have to find another gym, uh, anyway." She stiffened slightly when she said it, and I got the feeling it had been an accident.

"What's wrong with your old gym?" I asked.

"Mark was my trainer."

It took me a second to realize what she was saying—to put the pieces together. I sighed at the thought of that prick trying to steal her out from under me like he did. After that first night we spent together, I knew there was no way he got her to write that letter without some major manipulation. I cringed at the thought of her being in the same city with him, even if it was short-term.

"You're not going to see him again, right?"

She smiled. I could feel the movement of her face against my shoulder. "I like it when you're jealous."

I laughed. "Well, that works out."

Chapter 21

Becca

The next morning was Sunday, and I knew the plan was to have no plan. We kept each other up quite a bit Saturday night, but once I finally went to sleep, I was out like a light.

I went completely unconscious until 10:30AM, at which point, I picked my head up off the pillow, only a little confused about where I was. At first glimpse of the fluffy white softness around me, I placed myself in Isaac's glorious bed.

There was only one problem.

I was in there alone.

It sounded like there was a fan going in the bathroom, but the light was off.

"Hello?" I yelled, without getting out of the bed. I was doing it to be playful, but I regretted it instantly.
What if he had company or was on the phone? And there I was, yelling across the apartment
.

I was holding a hand over my mouth and staring at the bedroom door when it opened. His face broke into a huge grin the second he saw me. He ran across the room and dove onto the bed. I watched his perfect, athletic body complete the maneuver in awe, but couldn't help but crack up at the impact as he landed next to me.

He pulled back the covers and cuddled me aggressively. My heart felt so full of love for him that just closed my eyes and held on to him, soaking up the embrace.

"I've been up for two hours," he said. "I got some work email taken care of so I can ignore my phone for the rest of the day."

"I can't believe you've been up so long," I said. "I slept like a rock."

"I did too, but once I'm up it's hard to get back to sleep. It worked out since I had a few things to take care of."

"What are we doing today?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," he said.

We ended up staying in most of the day. It might sound silly, but we were just too happy and in love to waste time getting out of the house. It was out of sheer guilt that I went to a few stores souvenir shopping for something for Naomi and Uncle Greg. I was mad at myself for putting it off, but I had to get it done. I hesitated to limit myself to what I could find at the airport since I thought that might be obvious. I'd come out here on short notice, and both of them helped me tremendously. I owed it to them to find a real souvenir.

Actually, I'm not sure if a snow globe qualifies as a good souvenir, but that's what I got. I went with a snow globe because I happened upon a whole store dedicated to them and I just couldn’t leave without buying something. They were all so beautiful that it was literally impossible for me to walk out empty handed. I decided to get one for Greg and Naomi since they were both weird and would appreciate something like that.

Isaac carried the bag with the snow globes and we walked a few blocks to get a bite to eat at one of his favorite burrito places. He ate a high-protein diet and apparently this place knew how to make it just right. He said it was one of his top five places to eat and I was glad I was getting to try it.

It was hard to keep our hands off of each other. Even when we were out shopping or eating, he was almost always touching me, and I loved how affectionate he was. Three people stopped us while we were out, one of them asking for a photo with Isaac. Then someone with an oversized lens took a picture of us through the window at Burrito Boy and it only registered after it happened that it might have been the paparazzi. I asked him about it and he said he wasn't famous enough for that, but I still wondered what else that could have been.

Anyway, it was a fairly mellow adventure, and we were back in the apartment less than two hours after we left. Shane dropped by for a few minutes later that afternoon, and Eric and Ivy peeked their heads in again as well. I liked his friends—at least what I knew of them—and was glad they seemed to be okay with my presence there.

He wasn't shy about telling them where we stood. He shared our plans for me to visit between semesters and move to New York in six months once I graduated. He gave them the news like it was a done deal and none of them protested or told him it was a bad idea—a fact for which I was very grateful. Honestly, I didn't care if anyone thought it was a bad idea or not. I couldn't wait to get back to him on a permanent basis and was over the moon that he wanted the same thing.

I got in my cab Monday morning at 6AM. My flight was at 9, and Isaac said I needed to be in the cab three hours early. He wanted to push back his workout so he could ride with me, but I wouldn't let him. I knew I'd be fine on my own and would be back to see him soon.

My flight was long and uneventful, aside from turbulence that was severe enough to make a few people cry. Fortunately, the guy sitting next to me was a frequent flyer, and he talked to me the whole time about how normal it was and how the amount we were experiencing wasn't even that bad.

I had to wait at baggage claim for what seemed like forever, but Naomi was waiting in the loading zone when I finally got my bag. I'd given Uncle Greg enough airport rides to know my way around the loading zone at LAX, and I had a pretty easy time finding Naomi's car.

"Did you see what your man posted on Instagram?" was the very first thing she asked when I opened the door.

"No, my phone's dead. Pop the trunk so I can put this in there. Then you can tell me all about it."

I heard the airy sound of the trunk popping open and I hustled around the back of the car, lifted the trunk, and swung the baggage in quickly.

"Do you have a charger?" I asked sitting in the passenger's seat. She started digging in the console while I fished my dead phone from my purse.

"Hi," I said, remembering just then for the first time to greet her.

"Hi," she responded. We glanced at each other with a smile before she took her phone off her lap and handed it to me. "Look at my Instagram," she said. "He posted it a few hours ago."

"What is it?" I asked, opening the app and scrolling through all of the recent photos.

She didn’t answer me since all of her concentration was focused on merging into traffic. She was following a ton of people on Instagram, and it felt like I had to scroll forever to get to the ones that had been posted a few hours ago. The name @newyork_nicky popped up on her screen and I stopped scrolling immediately. It was a video and I clicked on it to watch. Since so much of his job was about fitness, he often posted video montages of a workout. Instagram had a fifteen second limit on videos, and Shane would put together clips of his workout and set them to rap music.

I watched the full fifteen seconds twice before asking the obvious. "Are you talking about this workout video? He posts those all the time."

She cut me a confused look. "Did you even read the caption?"

The instant she said that, my eyes went to the bottom of the picture where he'd written a caption. It was mostly blocked, and I had to scroll up to see it.

He wrote: Lonely for my baby. #shesonaplane #wantherback #gonnamarrythisgirl Tears stung my eyes as I quickly read it about ten times in a row. My eyes welled, and I looked up, trying to blink them away.

"Did you read it?" she asked.

"Yes." I said, doing my best to steady my voice.

"He's talking about you!" she said.

I squealed. I just couldn't hold it in. We both cracked up as she maneuvered through traffic headed for the freeway.

"Did you read all the comments?" she asked.

"I don't know if I want to."

She smirked at me. "Why not? I think it's funny. It's not like they can do anything."

"They can smack my face with a door and pour a drink on me."

She took her eyes off the road just long enough to glance over at me. "Really? What the heck happened?"

"It's not really a big deal, but I have to be aware that some haters have more than just keyboards for weapons."

"Somebody poured their drink on you?"

"Yeah."

"For being with Isaac?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"When I surprised him at the club that Saturday night."

"Did you kick her ass?"

I laughed. "I wish. It surprised me so much I was pretty useless."

"What did Isaac do?"

I shrugged. "He came to check on me, but there wasn't much else he could do. We left right after that and he was so super sweet. I made him take me to a restaurant so we could have the fat talk before I went home with him."

She laughed and shook her head. "I can't believe you did that."

"I had to," I said. "I would have constantly lived in fear that he would have found out, and I honestly thought it would be a deal-breaker."

"I told you it wouldn't," she said.

"I know, but I had to do it."

"Are you moving over there?" she asked. She seemed in good spirits when she said it, but I knew the news would make her sad.

"Probably," I said. "I told him I'd finish school and we'd see about it next summer."

"Does he want you to move in with him?"

"Yes." The word and the assurance with which I said it sounded weird coming from my own lips, but Isaac left me with no doubts that I was the one he wanted. In fact, he made me promise
not
to doubt. That was easier said than done, but I was slowly starting to realize that I wasn't going to wake up from this dream.

"I'm so proud of you, Becks." She reached over and punched my leg. "You saw what you wanted, and you went after it. It's amazing. I'm gonna miss you, but I'm so happy for you."

"I told him I lost weight specifically to meet him."

She slapped her hand to her forehead. "I thought you were just gonna tell him you lost weight. Why'd you have to go ahead and tell him all that?"

I laughed. "I don't know. I guess I got nervous."

"What'd he say?"

"He didn't even care. He just blew right past it in the conversation, saying something about being relieved I wasn't an axe murderer."

"Okay, that's all you're telling him," she said. "You can't push your luck with confessing all your embarrassing shit. There are some things better left unsaid. He's a famous model, for crying out loud Becca, you've got to hang on to a shred of mystery."

"You mean I shouldn't tell him I get really bad yeast infections every time I take antibiotics," I asked, pushing her buttons.

She put the back of her hand to her forehead like she might swoon. "Please oh please don't ever tell him that."

"How about the time I got scabies from a movie theater seat?"

"Nope."

We laughed and gave several more examples of things I should never in a million years tell my boyfriend, including a few things she'd seen me do or say.

Naomi and I walked in to find Uncle Greg in the living room putting together some sort of contraption that looked like you might eventually drop a marble onto it and watch it roll down a series of events.

"I said you'd either come back married or crying, so which is it?" he asked without looking up from his project.

"Hey Uncle Greg," I said.

"Hey Greg," Naomi added.

"I'm neither," I said.

That caused him to glance at me. I could tell he was taking in my appearance, so he could figure out what exactly happened if it was neither of his suspicions.

"More to the married side," Naomi said, to ease his curiosity.

He raised an eyebrow at me, and I smiled and threw my hands up. "What? I can't help it if he mentioned wanting to marry me on Instagram."

He smiled. "Oh he's famous on Instagram, you know," he said, quoting me. "He's got almost a million followers."

"He
does
have a million now," I said. "Over a million."

"Yeah, and all of them want to have his babies," Naomi said. "You should have seen some of the comments when he said that bit about wanting to marry her."

We talked about that this weekend," I said.

"About what?" Naomi asked.

"I told him I didn't expect him to come out with our relationship on his social media since so many of his fans were girls."

"Obviously he didn’t listen to you," Greg said, before turning back to his project.

"I have souvenirs for you guys," I said. I hadn't checked to make sure the snow globes made the trip, and I hoped I'd find them intact when I opened my bag. They made it fine, and one by one I handed them to their new owner.

Naomi's was a sculpture of the New York skyline with the Statue of Liberty as the main focal point. It was a beautiful scene with fine snow that floated down like the real thing. She was still staring into it when I handed Greg the one I got for him. It was equally as nice, but his was a New York skyline scene built from card houses. He stared into it for several long minutes. In fact, I went to my room to put my bag down, and when I came back they were both still staring into them.

"How serious are you, Becca?" Uncle Greg asked when I came back into the room.

"Pretty sure I'm moving there in May."

"Wow," he said. "She wasn't lying when she said closer to married."