Seven Days (19 page)

“Why are you waiting?” she asked, looking confused. “We don’t have much time before someone stumbles on us, Ryan,” she pointed out. “Take me, please,” she begged, circling her hips and letting her legs fall open giving me an interrupted glimpse at her soaked panties. Shit. I was a fucking goner.

Swiftly, I unbuttoned my shorts and pulled out my painfully hard cock, stroking a few times before grabbing the condom and rolling it over my length. “Are you sure you want me to take you like this? Are you sure you’re ready?” I asked, tracing a finger over the top of her underwear and feeling her shudder underneath me.

“Why don’t you check?” she invited, her eyes flashing with lust. I didn’t need any more encouragement to move her panties to the side and plunge my fingers into her slick passageway. Her pussy grabbed at my fingers, pulling me deeper, coating them in her own brand of syrupy sugar. I let my fingers pulse in an out of her for a few minutes, adding my thumb as pressure on her clit until she started to circle her hips again, seeking more friction. “Please,” she begged as I yanked my fingers free and replaced them with something far more satisfying for both of us.

“Shit,” I gasped. “You destroy me, every time,” I told her sucking my soiled fingers into my mouth as I pushed into her slowly.

“Faster,” she begged, moving the bottle from her chest to grab my shirt and pull my weight more fully on top of her. “Harder,” she encouraged, bucking up to take more of me inside her. “I need you to make me come so badly. I’m so sorry we didn’t get to do this earlier, because FUCK,” she growled in a harsh whisper. “I’m dying right now.” Her face was flush as she ground her clit against my pelvic bone from below.

Was there anything hotter than watching her lose control like this? If there was, I’m not sure I could handle it. “I’ll take care of you,” I promised, thrusting into her with hard, sharp movements, her walls swallowing me deeper with every pass. Soon, we were both so out of control that the only sounds were moans and skin making contact with skin. All pleasantries and dirty talk had been thrown over for complete surrender to the sensation.

“Gonna come,” she choked out just before her body shook with release. I bent down to capture her cries with my lips as my own orgasm barreled through me. Stars burst behind my eyes as I unleashed everything into her clenching heat. I was grateful to be wrapped up in our kiss as three little words formed in my head. I wanted so badly to share them with her, but I knew that would have to wait until she made her decision. She might not believe their sincerity otherwise.

Taking another moment to savor our connection, I inhaled the scent of lavender and our sex before I pushed off of her and helped her right her clothing. Tying off the condom, I shoved it into the bag I’d anchored for just this very moment and brought her attention back to our catered tryst.

“I think I’ve worked up an appetite again,” I joked, handing her a container of cheese and crackers.

“I don’t think I’ll look at watermelon the same ever again,” she blushed, grabbing another cube from the container at the edge of our picnic. “It’s never tasted so sweet before,” she winked.

“I know,” I nodded, opening the bottle of water and taking a long drink. “Next time, we’ll have to see what other fruits we can turn into our naughty little playthings. I’ve never experience more delicious foreplay.”

“Ditto,” she agreed, just as the sound of an approaching speed boat with a ranger emblem on the side came into sight. “Wow, perfect timing,” she laughed as we nodded to the ranger with our sex rumpled clothes and hair before returning to our afternoon snack.

I felt an odd sense of déjà vu wash over me as I settled against Ryan’s chest to look at the night sky. It was the same sky we’d watched our first night together, but somehow, it looked different. Maybe it was brighter? Maybe the stars seemed to shine even more? I wasn’t sure. Even the pile of sleeping bags in the back of his truck, the ones that barely masked the ridges earlier in the week, felt like the most comfortable bed in the world. The mild weather and cool breeze from the lake seemed to bring a peace to the evening that I needed. I was trying really hard not to freak out about the fact that we were less than twenty-four hours from what could be our final good-bye.

As if he could hear my thoughts, Ryan’s arm tightened around my shoulders, pulling me even closer to the heat of his body, as he placed a kiss on the crown of my head. “Here we are again, looking for pictures in the sky,” he said.

“I still don’t know how to find anything besides Orion. I mean, I haven’t been cramming in astronomy lessons secretly during the last couple of days or anything,” I glanced up at him, lounging with the arm not around me tucked behind his head.

“Since we’ve basically been glued together, I didn’t expect that you had,” he assured, “let’s find our own constellations and make up our own myths to go with them,” he suggested, a silly grin on his face.

“How would we do that?” I lifted up on to my elbow to face him more fully. I had to admit, his idea was intriguing.

“First, you don’t move from where you were,” he scolded before arranging me back in my position, plastered against his side. “And second,” he said, shifted to free the hand from behind his head, “see that group of stars right there? The one with the really bright one in the middle?”

“Yeah?” I squinted, trying to figure out the shape he saw before he told me.

“That’s my truck,” he informed me, soliciting a burst of laughter from me. “I’m serious! And it represents a journey—”

“Real fucking original, Romeo,” I rolled my eyes, cutting off his attempt to over-romanticize our time on the road. The layer of sand, fast food wrappers and energy drink cans that littered the floor boards in the cab of his truck told a more cluttered story than any fake constellation.

“Oh yeah? You think
you
can do better?” he challenged.

“I think that group is a snake. Those two really bright stars are its eyes, hiding in the darkness, just waiting for the right moment. It’s hunting that group right there, a girl,” I told him, weaving a story that would tell him about my life without giving him all the details. “She’s just trying to get to the other side of the sky, but that snake is right on her tail, stalking after her. By the time she turns around to notice the danger she’s in, it’s too late. The snake is already lunging for her and she has no choice but to succumb to the venom he pumps into her with his bite,” I described.

“She doesn’t have to succumb,” he denied, intensely. “She doesn’t, Carrie,” he repeated like he was trying hard to make sure I was listening. “She just has to call out for help and the boy, right over there,” he reached toward another grouping of stars just above the one I named after the girl, “and he’ll drop everything to make sure her heart continues to beat, even if it means that it won’t beat near him for a while.”

“Wow,” I breathed out, “that’s generous of him,” I looked up at him to find his eyes already on me. Suddenly, his body was shifting down so that we were face to face.

“That’s just the kind of guy he is,” he whispered, not letting me look away from him, even though the moment was quickly becoming too real for me. I wasn’t in love with him yet, but I knew that I was already more than halfway there. Was halfway enough to stick around? Especially knowing everything I would have to do to make it happen.

I don’t know how long we laid there like that, just looking at each other in the darkness. It felt like he was preparing himself to say good-bye the same way I was. That was something I didn’t want right then, not on what was possibly the last night we would spend together. Without a word, I moved closer into the head of his body. If he was surprised by my boldness, he didn’t let on. His gaze stayed completely steady on my approach.

“I want you,” I invited, fisting my hands into his t-shirt and pulling his mouth to mine. I let his familiar taste wash over me as he took over the kiss, slowing it from the heady, reckless encounter I was craving to something much sweeter, much more about intimacy than sex. I knew I couldn’t let this continue without falling for him wholly. It would overwhelm my senses and wreck me forever. “Why?” I asked, pulling back slightly to question his change in tempo. We’d been ravenous for each other earlier, but now, it felt different, like I was about to have, yet another, new experience. I wasn’t sure if I liked it, because I didn’t understand it, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t need it.

“Because I don’t
just
want you, Carrie. I’m fucking starting to need you. Right now, I need to feel every Goddamn inch of you. I want to worship every single part of your body until you never forget that it was me that made you feel this way, until you promise that you’ll never leave,” he avowed, sending my heart crashing through my toes and my hands up to clutch his face, bringing his lips back to mine. If it weren’t for the words he just spoke, I would’ve been increasingly frustrated by the tenderness in his kiss, but I couldn’t take this moment from him, from us, even if I wanted to.

Slowly, he rolled me onto my back and fit himself between my legs as I pushed his shirt up his torso until he got the hint. Sitting up, he reached behind his head and pulled the offending cloth off in a way only guys could do. After his torso was exposed for my groping pleasure, he grasped the hem of my tank and gave it the same treatment. Both shirts ended up somewhere near the tailgate, but I didn’t see where before his lips closed over one of my achingly erect nipples. My back arched into him and a warm hand traced my ribs, leisurely, as his other hand pressed into my lower back to urge my chest closer to his. The skin on skin contact, the warmth of him heating me from the inside out, was something I needed to savor. My hands flew into his hair, clutching his head to my breast as I fought to keep from drowning in him.

The silky feel of his hair gave way to coarser terrain as my fingers explored the slight beard on his jaw and neck. I wanted to memorize every single square inch of him so that I would be able to conjure up this moment anytime I wanted for the rest of my life. Sliding one hand to his back, I traced the ropey muscles that were straining as he held himself above me, while my other hand snuck between our bodies to find the button of his shorts.

As much as I wanted to get lost in this, in him, I needed to remember that one week, that seven days, that 168 hours did not amount to a lifetime. I didn’t know if we could survive outside of our little vacation bubble. The real world included work and friends, not to mention family. Aside from Britton, he knew almost nothing about mine.

“Shit,” I expelled when his lips continued downward from my breasts, licking and nibbling at the skin on my flat stomach until he reached the button on my shorts before I could open the button of his.

“Show me how much you need me,” I begged, lifting my hips to let him strip me of the rest of my clothes. “I’ll return the favor,” I looked down at him, pushing his hair from his eyes as he positioned his face right where I wanted it. From the first swipe of his tongue, to his last plunge into my body, he spent the next few hours trying to show me, trying to prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that we needed each other, that there was no way I could leave him. I knew every single moment was designed to convince me to stay, and even though my heart was begging me to listen, my head was telling me I needed to get as far away from the town he was tied to as possible.

**

“
It’s all your fault, you know,” my mother’s voice said from where she sat on the plaid couch in the living room. Her face was pale, like she wasn’t alive. That couldn’t be true, though, because there she was- right in front of me.

“
What’s my fault?” I asked, looking around the clean and bright house, knowing that I had to be dreaming. There was no way this living room would ever be anything but a mess of beer cans and empty chip bags. The walls and carpet looked brand new, but nothing about my mother’s company indicated that I was dreaming. The only thing that made me feel like it wasn’t real was the lingering aura of lurking monster.

“
All of it,” she cackled. “Your father, what’s happening to your sister, what happened to me,” she shrugged as if it weren’t any big revelation. “If you hadn’t been sick that night, your father would’ve been forced to deal with the cleanup, forced to own up to his own addiction. You
were
, though, you were home and so he pushed it off on you. His fourteen year old daughter had to call in her own mother’s supposed suicide. He didn’t have to face anything, he got to run. He keeps running, Carrie and he’s going to end up just like me. Only, it won’t be an accident.”

“
What do you mean? What’s going on with Britton?” I asked, disregarding her other accusations. Then I heard it, the screaming coming from the back of the house.

“
CARRIE!!!” my sister’s frighten voice echoed down the hallway and I tried to turn in my seat, but found that I was paralyzed, stuck.

“
Britton,” I tried to scream back, but it came out of my mouth with less volume than a whisper.

“
You can’t stop it, Carrie,” my mother explained, sitting back on the couch and examining her nails. Turning her head toward the direction of my sister’s screams, I could see the hole that the path of the bullet had left behind just before blood started to flow down her face.