Stay Until We Break (6 page)

He digs a cigarette pack out of his backpack and pulls out three fat joints and passes the first to Shen. Shen lights it, the smoke billowing out of his mouth and floating upward in the candlelight. Cole lights the second joint and passes it to Emmy. She takes a hit and then coughs it out as she tries to hold it in. She passes to Travis, and who are we now? We never smoke pot at home. We’re by no means straight-edge, but it’s just not a thing we normally do. It feels so surreal, it’s like we’re not even us. Or maybe we are. Maybe being here with new people in a new place lets us be some other side of us we don’t get to be at home. The thought makes something in my brain tingle with curiosity.

Cole lights the last joint and turns to me.

“Open your mouth, Sunny,” he says.

My mouth drops open in surprise. My heart races. His smile is far more sly than I’ve ever seen it, and I think this bad-boy stoner Cole might be my favorite yet. He takes a hit off the joint and shotguns it into my mouth. I suck that hit all the way down and hold it in before I exhale and then proceed to cough for about thirty seconds straight.

“Em, give Sunny some of your water,” Cole says, and Emmylou hands me a bottle of Poland Spring and wags her eyebrows at me as I take a nice, long drink.

“What?” I say, though I know exactly what she’s thinking.

“Uh-huh,” she says, nodding. “Stoner.”

“You are.”

“No, you are.”

We both laugh like idiots, and already I feel my buzz come on like a dream rolling slowly in. Travis starts kissing Emmy’s neck as she’s laughing and it strikes me as absurdly hot, like I can’t look away. Now Shen and Jeremy are making out on the other couch, and good lord, it’s like a high school party in here tonight, which is surprisingly a lot better than it sounds. I turn to look at Cole, whose glazed-over, relaxed smile feels like an open door to bliss.

“Want more?” he asks, those big, brown eyes of his shining, all happy and dreamy in the candlelight. I nod that I definitely, most positively do. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I say. He hands me the joint and I take a hit and lean towards him. He smiles and opens his mouth so I can exhale into it. He breathes it in and touches his forehead to mine, then exhales off to the side.

“Had enough yet?” he asks.

“No,” I whisper, so quiet I’m not sure I really said it at all.

Before I have a chance to take another hit, he kisses me, slips his tongue into my mouth, and we start to make out right there in front of everyone, not that anybody is paying attention by this point. It feels so raw and exposed but I don’t even care. All I care about is the way his lips work over mine, the feel of his hand on my neck, his fingers lacing into my hair as he cradles my head. I climb into his lap and straddle him in my dress, my bare legs against the fabric of his pants. I kiss along the edge of his jaw, over to his ear and whisper, “Want to show me the very good, wrong things you can do to me now?” He exhales sharply, slides his hands up my thighs, under my skirt.

“Travis,” Emmylou stage-whispers as loud as she can, all baked, and just the sound of her giggling makes me grin. “I think Sunny is going to fuck Cole. Maybe right here.”

“Hmm . . . do you think exhibitionism is on their checklist?” Travis says.

“Cole, you beast!” Emmy lobs her pillow at us. “Unhand the tour manager. She’s mine!”

“Shut up, Emmy,” Cole says. “You can’t have her—you already stole Trap from me.” He wraps his arm around me possessively and then flings Emmy’s pillow back at her and Travis.

“Oh, if only Henry Rollins were here, what a party we would have,” she says and falls into Travis’s lap, laughing, and I have no idea what the hell they’re talking about but I can’t stop myself from laughing anyway.

“I’m not high enough for wherever this conversation is headed,” Travis says. He takes another hit from the joint and tosses the keys our way. “Cole, take the van, all right?”

“Take the van where?” I ask, and okay, now I’m definitely high.

Travis and Emmy laugh even harder. Cole picks the keys up from the floor and pulls me to my feet. He looks high but his hand in my hand is solid and sure as we walk to the barn door and he opens it onto the warm, starry night. When he looks down and sees I’m barefoot, he crouches down and says, “Hop on.”

“Like, on your back?”

“Yeah,” he says. “C’mon, cowgirl.”

I climb onto his back and he stands up and hooks his arms under my legs and I giggle like a kid because I’m high as hell and it strikes me as hilarious to be riding him like a cowgirl while we’re on an actual farm.

“Wait, wait, I forgot the yellow bag,” I say after the door closes behind us.

“What, you need aspirin already?” he teases me. “Are you trying to tell me you have a headache?”

“No, no, but what about the condoms?”

“Oh,” he says as he walks in the direction of the van. “Don’t worry about that.”

“But . . . I’m not on the pill or anything.”

“Well,” he says, and I can’t tell if he coughs, chokes, or clears his throat. “That’s good to know.”

“So what are we going to do about protection?”

“Sonia, honey. I’m not going to fuck you in the back of Steady Beth.”

“You’re not?” I say.

“Don’t you think it’s a little fast?”

“Well I thought we’d make out first,” I say. “I can give you a blow job, but I’m a little out of practice.”

“Oh my God, Sunny,” he says. “Did you put that on the tour schedule or something? ‘Blow Cole: Monday, four a.m.’”

“Are you normally the kind of guy who takes it slow? You have a reputation, you know. Ask Joey. Or anyone.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not some girl I can just fuck in the back of the van, okay?”

“Hey, I’ve done it in a van before,” I say. “I’m no van virgin.”

“What?” He stops walking and tries to look at me over his shoulder. “When?”

“Last summer.”

“Who with?”

“Um . . .”

“Who was it?”

“It was Hank,” I say, as much as I don’t want to be thinking about the social debacle
that
hookup was right now. “But just that one time.”

“Not Hank Hanley. Red Hank?”

“Yeah, at the Brighton Bar.”

“Hank Hanley fucked you in the Betty Ford? He couldn’t just wait until he got you home?”

“God, please don’t tell him I told you that. It wasn’t that great and I didn’t even come.”

“Well now, that’s pretty tragic.”

“Pretty typical, though. At least as far as my track record with guys goes.”

“Okay, now that really is tragic,” he says. “We’ll have to fix that.”

Oh, hell yeah.

Cole opens the driver-side door and I climb in. The van is stuffy so I put down the windows and decide to turn the radio on. Hank Williams sings softly into the night and it seems right so I leave it.

“Meet you in the back,” Cole says and hits the locks.

I scramble over the console, onto the bench seat, and open the side door for him. All the quiet sounds of a deep country night mingle with “I Saw the Light.” A lonely cow, crickets, all amplified by my growing buzz. Cole leaves the door open so there’s a little bit more breeze, and I’m grinning so hard when he sits next to me on the bench my mouth hurts. I feel completely absurd and I laugh.

“You’re baked,” he says. “Well done.”

“Sorry,” I say, not sorry at all. “But it’s your fault, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grins as he leans over me, trapping me against the van window. “I take full responsibility for your actions tonight.”

“That’s good to know.” My breath comes quick and shallow as he kisses the corner of my mouth. “Because I might find myself in a pretty compromising position out here.”

“Let’s hope so,” he says.

Cole takes my glasses off, puts them on the console before he puts his lips to mine again. The feel of his hand on the back of my neck, his fingers, long and strong as they thread into my hair, over my skull, relax and ignite me all at the same time. I open my mouth and there’s his tongue, so gentle and sweet against my lower lip. He moves his lips along my jaw, up to my ear as my breath quickens and he whispers, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to . . . to do this.”

“No way,” I say, in disbelief, but when I say that he stops kissing me and looks at me, unsure, like maybe I’m saying no, don’t do this. But that’s not even close to what I mean. “I mean, really?”

“Yeah,” he says, smoothing my hair out of my eyes.

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because,” he says and then pauses. “I didn’t want to mess things up.”

“Mess what up?”

“This,” he says, and then leans down and kisses me again, so lightly it drives me crazy but it’s enough to stop me from asking any more questions. Our lips touch and touch again and I feel like he’s air and I just can’t get enough of him no matter how deep I breathe. I slide my tongue over his teeth, and those sweet kisses of his turn into something far more demanding. He pushes his tongue into my mouth and I go weak everywhere with how bad I want him. He groans into my mouth as I palm him through his pants and oh, God. Oh God, oh God he really is hard as can be and as huge as I thought.

“Cole, do you have a condom?”

“Sonia, I’m not fucking you in here,” he says. “Really.”

“But . . .”

“I’m really glad you want to,” he says. “But this isn’t how I want this to go down, okay? I want to make it good for you.”

“Good for me?” Is he crazy? Does he not see that this is already the best it’s ever been for me? “Good for me how?”

He takes my hand off his dick and holds it, running his thumb softly over my palm, and that only makes me want him more.

“Behave and I’ll show you,” he says.

He moves his lips down my neck, along the neckline of my dress in a trail of warm, soft, and painfully slow kisses, his teeth, his tongue against my hot skin. I run my hands through that thick head of hair of his as he fingers the halter tie of my dress. He loosens it, then unties it and drags his teeth over my bare shoulder. I shudder when he slides his hand into the top of my dress and brushes the side of my breast with his thumb. I reach my arms around his neck and bury my face in his shoulder, unable to stay quiet or still as he teases my nipple with those fingers I love so much. And now I pant, and maybe plead a little, “Cole . . . please . . .”

“Yeah,” he says, breathing as heavily as I am. “I know. Me, too.”

I feel his other hand on my leg, sliding up my thigh until it rests at my hip, his fingers spread out against the skin of my lower back. He hooks his thumb around the leg of my panties.

“Can we take these off?” he says, kissing the corner of my mouth.

“Yeah,” I whisper and then shift so he can pull them down, all the way down my legs and off. He holds them in his hand, rubbing the fabric with his thumb, and I’m sure it’s very, very damp. He puts my underwear in his pocket and grins.

“Mine,” he says.

“Hey, I only brought so many pairs . . .”

“Damn, it would be such a shame if you had to wear those sexy little dresses of yours with no panties.”

“Cole . . .” I’m about to protest but stop when I feel his hand back under my dress, now between my legs.

“What?” he asks, but I can’t speak, all I can do is breathe because he’s stroking me there, just the tips of his fingers so light, much too light, but it still makes me feel like any second I’m going to come. I want, no, I
need
more of him, so I reach for him again, tug at the button on his pants until it pops open, but he takes my hand in his and pulls it gently away again.

“Why won’t you let me touch you?” I ask.

“Because.” His voice is low and strained as he speaks. “I’m trying not to fuck you and it’s difficult enough as it is.”

“But I
want
you to fuck me,” I say.

“Yeah?” he says. “Let me hear you say it again and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

“You will?”

“No.” He smirks, the wiseass. “I just want to hear you say it.”

I’m blushing now, so I pull him to me and kiss him as hard as I can, hard enough to wipe the smug fucking smile off his face. I ram my tongue into his mouth and feel his dick hard against my leg.

“I want to feel you inside of me,” I whisper.

“That’s not what you said.” His voice is rough as I feel two of his fingers sink slowly into me and I have to catch my breath. His eyes narrow as he watches my face. “You said you want me to fuck you.”

“I do,” I say, panting, practically begging. “I do want you to fuck me.”

Now he kisses me harder. His tongue fills my mouth as he slides his fingers all the way inside of me. It’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone that I’m shaking from the feeling of it.

“And I would really love to fuck you, Sonia,” he says. “Believe me. Just not yet.”

I want to ask why, what is he waiting for? But his kiss muffles the sound I make as he strokes his fingers deep into me. I protest when he pulls them away, but then he wets his thumb with his tongue and puts it right on my clit, sliding it so gently back and forth until I can’t stand it.

“Cole.” I can barely whisper his name.

“Like this, babe?” He circles my clit harder, rougher, with just the right pressure as he slides his two fingers back into me. I can’t even answer him,
Yeah, Jesus, just exactly like that, that’s exactly what I meant holy shit oh my God,
because my brain can’t form the words right now. For an instant I’m watching him on stage, watching his hands on the bass, and then I’m back here again, where those hands hold me and move me and make my body feel so, so good.

“What do you sound like when you come, Sunshine?” he asks, his breath hot on my ear. “I’ve always wanted to know.” His thumb presses to my clit as his fingers curl and stroke something way up inside of me, reaching all the way into that sweet ache I remember but haven’t felt in so, so long. He touches that place again and again and again until every muscle tenses. I’m right there on the edge, whimpering helplessly when he says, “Come on, Sunny, come on my hand,” and then slides a third finger inside of me. I cry out and then bite his shoulder to keep from screaming as I come and clench around his fingers, clutching him as he strokes me all the way through it. “That’s right,” he says. “Just like that. Fucking perfect.”