Waking Olivia (24 page)

H
is mouth comes
down on mine, obliterating my pathetic attempt to object. He seizes it thoroughly, with such certainty, as if he’s spent his entire life practicing for this precise moment—his hands raking back through my hair, his tongue finding mine as he presses against me. It’s so good that for a moment I forget my objections.

His mouth moves over my neck, gentle and harsh at once, soft tongue contrasting with the rasp of his skin, the pull of his lips.
Oh that’s perfect. Perfect.
Heat pools in my belly, sinking lower.
But no, wait … there was something
… he did something …
His teeth graze my skin and he groans, a noise of despair and satisfaction.
I want this, I don’t care what it was …

And then I remember: he and Jessica tonight, the way he walked out my door last week.

“No,” I hiss, clinging to my anger, trying to push away though I don’t budge an inch. “You didn’t want me a week ago but now you do? It doesn’t work like that.”

He loosens one hand, palming my face, turning it toward his. “Olivia, it was never about not wanting you,” he says, his eyes burning, flickering toward my mouth in a way that makes my legs weak. “I just don’t want you stuck in a shitty small town when you graduate. I don’t want being with me to mean you’re giving things up.”

“But—”

“Later,” he growls. “Argue with me later.” And his mouth descends again, melding with mine, hot and rough and perfect. I know there are things I’m supposed to remember, other reasons why I’m supposed to object, but they escape me. I am only this—my body ripe and raw and overexposed, pain and pleasure at once. I’ve wanted this too long, his hands on my skin, my body pressed against his and his mouth creating a trail down my neck.

It’s right.

I’ve known nothing in my life with such certainty as the fact that what’s happening right now is the thing I want most.

His hands move from my hips to my breasts, cradling their weight in his hands, and then he pulls one strap of my dress down, trailing slow, open-mouthed kisses over my shoulder and collarbone, almost reverently. Nipping at my skin and soothing it with his tongue. He pulls the dress down to my waist, unclasps my bra with a single hand. He cups my breasts, bringing his mouth to them in the same way, sharp and sweet at once and creating a need in me so intense that it borders on pain. I gasp and arch toward him, submitting entirely as my head falls backward against the wall.

He pulls back just enough to see my face. His eyes are such a vivid blue as he searches mine, looking there for something he desperately needs. Permission. He wants permission. As if I’d ever tell him no.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”

“You’re sure?” he asks, his voice gravelly.

And when I nod he pushes the dress over my hips and allows it to slide to the floor. His hands follow, skating over my hips, down my thighs, and I stand before him now in nothing but panties and heels.

“That fucking dress nearly did me in,” he says, smoothing my skin as he kisses me again. He pushes against me, his suit against my bare skin, his erection pressed hard against my stomach, a quick pulse there as if he is desperate for friction.

He slides his index finger under the elastic of my panties. The moment he touches me, my whole body jolts. “Fuck,” he hisses, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “You’re already soaked.”

His finger slips back and forth, lightly, in torturous circles before it pushes inside me.

“Oh God,” I whisper, my body bowing toward him. He adds a second finger and this time his groan is louder than mine.

“Jesus, Olivia,” he growls. “You’re going to be the end of me.”

I unclasp his belt and unzip his pants, reaching down to pull him from the confines of his boxers. He is thick and heavy in my hands, hissing as my fingers wrap around him, tugging gently. “Stop,” he exhales after a minute. “I’m not gonna last if you do that and there are so many things I want to do first.”

He pushes my panties down and lifts me up almost simultaneously, turning to deposit me on the table beside us. He kisses me once, hard. “Lie back,” he commands.

He drops to his knees, spreading my legs so I’m displayed before him, the slide of his fingers making me arch off the table. Suddenly, his fingers are joined by quick swipes of his tongue.

“Oh my God,” I gasp. “Will … just—”

His mouth and tongue lick and brush and pull, creating tiny flames that begin there and spread all the way to my toes. I try to scoot backward, but his free hand clamps down on my thigh, holding me in place.

“I’ve dreamed about doing this every goddamn night for months, Olivia. So let me.”

I can’t even nod in agreement because suddenly everything inside me is swirling together, muddied, building so quickly that I can’t tell where I am or where I’m going.

“Oh,” I gasp. It’s so insufficient, that word. It doesn’t begin to explain to him that this is completely uncharted territory for me. That if sex were running, I’d be the girl who makes such slow progress you can barely tell she’s moved at all, yet right now I’m moving at a pace that defies logic.

But instead of telling him these things, I only utter these nonsensical words, sounds that tear from my throat involuntarily. And then his fingers push unexpectedly inside of me and I explode with a cry of pleasure and surprise, arching against his mouth.

He doesn’t pull back, but instead slides his hands beneath my legs and tugs me closer, buries his face to create wave after wave of something I never thought would happen in the first place.

When it finally begins to recede, when the small of my back rests on the table once more and I’m capable of speech, he finally stands, his face contorted with longing and triumphant at the same time.

“Holy shit,” I breathe. I’d like to be more eloquent right now, but I’ve got nothing.

He leans over to kiss me and when he does I wrap my legs around his waist, bringing him against me so suddenly that he gasps in my mouth. “Olivia,” he groans.

“Please,” I whisper. It seems impossible for anyone to be more satisfied than I am right now, yet I still need the very thing he wants most, the thing he is so certain he shouldn’t give.

He looks tortured and pulls back but I tighten around him, pressing him against me. “Don’t even think about stopping right now.”

He shifts his hips just enough that he is pressing right there, not inside me but mere seconds away from it. In a single pulse, he could be buried inside me. “Is this okay?” he asks, his voice tight. “Do we need …”

“No,” I beg. “Just do it.”

He pushes in, barely. He’s so thick that already I’m stretched to the point of pain.

“Oh God, Liv,” he flinches. “God, that’s so good.” I squirm impatiently, overwhelmed and yet needing more all at the same time. He bites his lip. “Just give me a minute,” he rasps. “Or this is going to be over before it starts.”

Finally, he begins again, going slowly, a low noise deep in his chest as he finally shoves all the way in. “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice strained.

I nod as I lay there adjusting to the size of him, pain still outweighing the pleasure. It’s when he starts to withdraw that the margin shifts, that the pain recedes as a burst of pleasure crawls up my spine, sucking the air from my lungs. It feels
too
good, something so vast and all-consuming it can’t possibly end well. I
never
finish this way but
oh my God…

If it were ever going to happen …

His next thrust is faster, more certain, but he stops entirely at my sharp inhale. “Did I hurt you?” he asks.

“No.” I’d laugh if I were capable. He didn’t hurt me. He
stunned
me. His strokes come slow and rhythmic then, as he leans over, finding my mouth with the table bracing his weight, his arms taut.

“I’ve wanted this for so fucking long,” he says, holding still inside me.

“Keep going,” I beg. “Don’t stop.”

“Patience,” he croons. “You have no idea how hard it is not to come right now.”

I grab his ass and push upward, ignoring his warning, thrilling at the low grunt he makes as he bottoms out. “Liv,” he growls, “goddammit.” His hips jerk back and then forward, almost involuntarily. It’s all I need.

I cry out, my neck craning back as it happens again, everything inside me bursting into color. He thrusts quick and hard, desperate now, and then stiffens with a single guttural noise as he pushes in one final time.

He takes a few last slow thrusts after he’s come, bending low to kiss me, to bury his mouth in my neck. It’s only when he removes his weight that I open my eyes, feeling dazed and sated and
dizzy
with happiness, to find him staring down at me.

And he looks horrified.

W
hen I finally open my
eyes, it’s a little like waking from a dream. I imagine it’s a little like when Olivia wakes from hers, a moment of wonder followed by a much more sickening moment of
what the fuck have I done?
She’s still stretched out before me, and I know that I’ve messed up before I’ve even pulled out, yet I already can feel that twinge, the growing impulse to do it all over again.

The best sex I’ve ever had and the biggest mistake I’ve ever made just occurred simultaneously. The guilt and astonishment twine around each other, leaving me unsure what I think or feel about anything. It was wrong. No matter what other considerations there are, I just slept with a student. I slept with someone who looked to me for guidance and protection, even if she’d never admit it was the case. She would argue that it was okay because she has feelings for me, but how can she possibly know? As fucked up as her life has been, and with all the ways she’s needed to lean on someone this semester, how can she tell the difference between love and need, or between love and gratitude? She can’t. Somewhere inside I knew that, and because I wanted her and I was jealous, I chose to ignore it.

She looks up at me and something changes on her face. “What are you thinking?” she asks, with a small note of dread in her voice.

“That was the most amazing, most intense sex I’ve ever had,” I tell her, “and I can’t believe it happened.”

“You regret it,” she says, her voice hard.

“Olivia,” I sigh, pulling her to my chest. “It’s not that. I just need to figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“What happens next. I mean, it shouldn’t have happened. We both know that. I took advantage of—”

“No,” she snaps. “You didn’t. Did you hear me saying no? Probably not because I was too busy begging you to keep going. You did
not
take advantage of me.”

“Even if you said yes, you’re in a vulnerable place right now and I was in a position—”

“Do
not
say you were in a position of authority. We moved past that a long time ago. Are you really going to let the way it looks to everyone outside this room dictate whether or not this is wrong?”

Except it’s not everyone outside this room. It’s me. I didn’t do this after careful thought, after balancing my duty to her and the school with the things I want. No, I let my anger and my need obliterate every reasonable thought. I gave in to something I’ve exerted unholy restraint to avoid until now. And in doing so, I’ve put her scholarship at risk.

“I don’t know, Olivia. I can’t think. But I do know they’re going to notice we’ve been gone,” I sigh. “We should get back out there.”

“You want me to go back and continue my date with Evan?” she gasps. She snatches her dress off the floor and begins sliding it back on.

“No.
Fuck
. Olivia, your scholarship and my job are both on the line here. I just … I’ve got to figure this out, and until I do we both need to make it through the rest of the banquet as if nothing happened.”

“And then what? Are we leaving together? Am I going to see you?”

I look at her in that dress with that smudged lipstick just like I envisioned and I want—no,
need
to do it all over again. I want to take her back to my apartment and do a hundred different things to her.

“We can’t leave together, you know that. Peter is out there. Jessica is out there. Hell, Peter’s boss is out there. The most important thing either of us can do for the next hour is act like nothing is wrong.”

She slips her heels back on and moves to the door, her head high and her posture rigid.

“Olivia, wait—”

“For
what
?” she demands. “You just fucked me on a table and now you’re sending me on my way. What more could you possibly need to add to that?”

I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose. She’s so far from the truth, and yet I can totally see why she believes it. “Look, that’s not what is happening. But we did something unbelievably rash, and I want to make sure the steps we take next are determined by reason and not,” I gesture between the two of us, “
this
.”

I approach her and she steps back. I hate that. I know already, based on the wary look on her face as she watches me, that I’ve hurt her.

I pull her to me, but she remains rigid in my arms, uncertain. “I just need a little time to think, okay?” I ask.

“No,” she says, pushing away. “If this wasn’t enough to make up your mind, nothing is.”

She starts down the hall before I’ve even finished dressing. I call after her, but she never turns around.

By the time I get back to the auditorium, she and Evan are gone, which is both a relief and a worry. I excuse myself as soon as I can and head to my apartment, wondering how I’m going to tell Peter and my mom what I did, and how the hell I’m going to pay for Brendan’s last semester with no income other than a farm that’s still operating at a loss.

I could solve those issues by lying to everyone, but how will I live with myself if I do? How will I face Olivia every day knowing what I did, how I sacrificed her for my mom and the farm and the school all over again?

There’s a dull pounding in my head. I eventually lay down, hoping sleep will make the answer clear. But I just lay there, alternately appalled at myself for my bad decision-making and reliving it in my head, wanting it again so badly that I find my hips pressing into the mattress.

It’s nearly daylight when I give up on sleep, and decide to do the one thing that has ever successfully cleared my head.

I go climbing.

In spite of my rustiness, I choose a difficult climb, knowing I need something so consuming that it will obliterate all other thought. I scramble up the rock, hammering the first pin in, and scramble up again. Twisting and straining, moving quickly until my shirt is sticking to my back and sweat begins to drip into my eyes. I clip into the next bolt and pull my fleece off, throwing it to the ground before I keep going.

I’m halfway up the mountain face when a single thought occurs to me.

I wish Olivia were here
.

This was once my sweet spot, climbing alone, and now it’s shifted and expanded to include her. It feels
empty
in her absence. The farm, my job, my
life
were once central but now are merely white noise that surrounds her.

I stall, clinging to a small handhold, only a single foot making contact with rock, realizing that she isn’t just a part of my life now. She is
all
of it. And even if I made a mistake, even if it means that I will gravely disappoint Peter and mess up things with the farm, she is non-negotiable.

She is the thing I won’t give up.