Authors: Amber Scott
He waited for my answer, or maybe for some sign that where he’d go, I would follow. My free hand went to the locket. Maybe holding it would prove something. I suspected that if it was Crew, he couldn’t stay here forever. “You know, I made a wish the other night.”
He glanced around us, leisurely, his gaze going to our clasped hands, to the moon in the sky, and back to me. “I like wishes.”
Words like magic and wish and love spread tiny wings inside me. If he was Crew, I’d stumbled onto magic that couldn’t possibly last forever. I pushed his hand in mine to tell him,
go. I’m in.
That crooked, boyish grin of his just about tickled my toes. He set off and led me through a myriad of graves flanked by tall trees and concrete blocks. I should have shivered despite the warmth of the night. I always had before. That summer night of our third week together, we’d trekked up to peer over the cliff at midnight. My belly hadn’t quieted ’til morning light. How were rows upon rows of the dead any less scary?
I didn’t have time to analyze the thought. Crew stopped near another gate. His gaze held mine. A part of me wanted him to admit who he was, but I feared breaking this spell between us. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. Still, he hesitated in opening the gate. I stepped forward and wound my arms around his neck. I pressed my lips to his. I’d wanted this for so long, and for so many years. When his mouth parted for mine, I leaned my hips to his. Memories flooded in. Familiarity wrapped around me. I knew these lips. I knew this hand in mine. I knew the curve of the jaw my other hand cupped.
“Sara,” he murmured against my lips. I savored the sound of my name on his lips. Branches creaked around us as twilight fell. He eased away from me. “I want to show you something. Okay?”
I nodded.
The gate’s whine made me realize just how quiet the night had become. Again, I followed him through. The gate clanged shut. His hand let go of mine. Fireflies blinked in the tree, above the patch of grass. Two large urns overflowing with yellow daisies flanked the small stone bench. Daisies. The pungent scent tickled my nose, and my mind flashed an image of a clawfoot bathtub filled with them. His Granny’s backyard.
We’d lain under stars—on an old sleeping bag, and I’d pointed out the three constellations I knew. He’d kissed my belly button ’til it got sore. “Crew,” I whispered.
His gaze jerked to mine, making me wonder how long we’d been standing there, hand in hand, silent. But he didn’t correct me.
Crew.
“How long do I get?” I asked.
He searched my eyes a long moment. So long that I thought he would never answer. Not that it mattered. I’d gone beyond good sense. The longer he took, the less I wanted to know his answer, though.
“I don’t know how long I have,” Crew said at last. His deep, smooth voice cracked.
All the little wings fell still. He really was Crew. I wouldn’t ask. I didn’t need to. He didn’t know how long he had.
How long we had.
I closed the space between us and pulled at his shirt. The words wouldn’t come. All I had was the feelings pushing and pulling inside of me. All I ever wanted was this. And all the things I swore I would say, I couldn’t fit into my mouth.
“God, Sara. Do you have any idea what you do to me, looking like that?”
My breath hitched. “Tell me.”
“You really don’t know?” His mouth met mine, hard and sweet.
My belly flip-flopped. I melded my body against his, wanting to disappear into the flurry of attraction no other man ever triggered in me. I smooched his lips and squeezed my eyes, winding my fingers into his hair. I didn’t even care about tongue. I wanted nose to nose. The soft feel of ear lobes and the nudge of his hip bones at mine.
“Look at me,” he whispered, pulling back.
I obeyed, ready to do anything he asked. His gaze grew hot and hard. It thrilled me and scared me all at once. Like before. He was the everything I knew I wanted. He was here again. And would be gone again.
But not yet.
“I don’t get a lot of words,” he said and drew his brows together. He sat down on the bench.
Like it took energy if he spoke? Like he didn’t know what to say? “Okay.”
I sat down on the grass in front of the bench. Coldness—maybe wetness—seeped in my jeans. If he couldn’t speak, I wouldn’t force him. “I have about a million questions.” I took one of his hands. I just need to touch them. The long, tapered fingers. His wide palm. The hill of each fingertip. A million questions. I couldn’t think of one. No. That was a lie. I could think of plenty. Why did you have to go? Why does it still hurt so damned much?
Did you ever really love me?
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Do you see me, Sara?”
I nodded fast, and rose to wind my arms around his neck. His put arms around me, his hands flat on my back grounded me, and yet I could drown in the want welling inside of me. Skin on skin. Mouth on mouth. Please, Crew.
“No, are you really looking, Sara?” Stubble and jaw. He smelled clean. “Can you see what you mean to me?”
My mind focused on his words, on his face as he cupped mine. This really was Crew. Every pore, every cell of me knew it to be true. Even the logical part of me that at first refused it. The words I held onto for so many years poured out. “Crew, I know you. I miss you like a part of me is gone. Like I’m not whole without you.” A sob clogged my throat. “I will love you ’til the day I die.”
He grinned. I laughed. My deepest wish had come true. My Crew.
I wiped my eyes. “Now, tell me how to make you stay.”
~~~
Chapter Six
Crew sat me down on the grass and pulled me onto his lap. He buried his face in my hair and inhaled. He gave a frustrated groan, but when he looked up, he was grinning.
“Feed me,” he said, his breath warm on my belly.
“What do you mean, feed you?”
He peered up at me with a boyish grin.
“Guess I’ll have to settle for silence, huh?” I ruffled his hair. “Why’d you bring me here if you wanted food?” And why didn’t he want me, me, me?
He responded by tipping me back and bulling into my belly. His mouth traced a line down my stomach. I grabbed his head. He tugged my shirt up and kissed my stomach. Settling me onto the grass, he had my fly open before I could think ‘zip’. Anticipation coiled inside of me.
Okay. Okay, food first.
I wondered if Mrs. Devine had leftovers stashed anywhere. Or cookies. Mmmm. Shortbread cookies and milk would be delish. My stomach growled. “Can you make it a few blocks?”
He gave me a look that said, “hell, yes.” It was my turn to lead him. I walked out of the graveyard, feeling a little nostalgic but also slipping into a delicious sense of normality. Back on the street, the world became ordinary again. He and I back in it, walking easily together. Silent, but sending each other looks and nudges that spoke volumes.
I eased the front door of Mrs. Devine’s gorgeous home open and pitter-pattered up to my room, heels dangling in one hand, and Crew holding the other. As we trucked up the stairs, he let go and grabbed hold of my jeans back pocket instead. Midway up, he tugged. I paused, turning to him. He nodded to the kitchen.
“Oh, sorry.” I held up my shoes as if that explained. “Habit.” I set the platforms under a little table at the ground floor and led him in to forage.
We rummaged as quietly as we could and took our makeshift picnic up to my room. Crew spread a spare blanket from the closet on the floor and we sat cross-legged and munched on sourdough bread and butter, baby dill pickles and a slice of the most toe-curling good pecan pie. The tart pickles and sweet pecans went down so good with milk.
All I could do was chew and watch and grin back at him. Or roll my eyes. Or wink when he did. We were back to ourselves, like any old stuffy afternoon at his mom’s, sending signals across a room full of her country club pals, all over again.
His plate empty, Crew pulled his T-shirt over his head, wiped his mouth with it and crawled over to lick crumbs and pie filling from my fingers. My heart skipped and soared all at once. “Don’t go,” I said.
“Where would I go?” He could talk again.
“You know what I mean.”
He looked down at the chunk of bread he poached off my plate. “I don’t think when I go is up to me.”
“Then who decides?” His abs looked so good—so tight—as he sat back, elbows on knees, slouched ever so slightly. I bit into my last crisp little pickle.
His gaze roved the room, then came back to my face. “You?”
I half-laughed. “Psshht. If it were ever up to me, you’d never have left. Or you would have come back far sooner.” But then I noticed he wasn’t laughing. “Why would it be up to me?”
“It was just in dreams before. Back there, wherever that is, if I get enough energy built up, when you are missing me the hardest, I can come through.”
“And can’t ever stay,” I said, as though I could finish his thought.
He nodded.
Worry poked around my chest. “If that’s true, if I got you here and it really is up to me, what happens if I want you to stay forever? Will you reincarnate or something?”
He put both hands up. The scar on one knuckle reminded me of our making out while prepping food incident. “Whoa,” he said. “Way too much. Answers I don’t have. I’m only guessing here.”
Not what I wanted to hear, and yet a big part of me knew I was taking for granted I got him again at all. I should be grateful, eat up every extra minute I had with him. In fact, that’s what I meant to do. I’d tell Moira and Kim I was staying a few extra days rather than leaving tomorrow afternoon like we’d planned. I’d exchange my ticket for a refund or credit or something with the airlines. Mrs. Devine would have a room. How many times had she said, “You girls stay as long as you like. We’ve got rooms aplenty” at just about every meal.
I felt better. Resolved. And the food had definitely rejuvenated me. I pushed my plate and glass aside, and crawled toward Crew. He regarded me with twinkling eyes. “What are you up to, Sara?”
“Nothing,” I said, all innocence, pushing his plate aside.
He leaned back onto his elbows and watched me ease onto his lap. The locket swung between us. Lord, his hips felt nice under me. For the hundredth time, I lost the need to pinch myself. Just feeling him was enough. Because I remembered this lap. I remembered this face. I knew it like none other. “Wish I had some music.”
With a grin, he clapped his hands twice. When nothing happened, he shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to make our own.”
A ripple tickled up my stomach, from the comment or the way his abs bunched under me, I couldn’t say. Had he always been so fucking cute? So damned hot? No wonder I’d gotten hooked. There was a dare in his eyes. I didn’t need live music. I would hum one in my head. A nice, gritty blues song I couldn’t remember the name of. But all I needed was a beat.
I pushed him down to the ground and rose to my feet. His gaze went to my hands as I unbuttoned my jeans and shimmied them off. I arched my back and eased my shirt up, up, up—and off. Determined not to chicken out, I swayed in place for two full counts and inched my way back down to sit on his lap.
Crew groaned. “Were you always this perfect?”
Nowhere near, but I wasn’t about to argue. I loved it. I let the pants fall to the floor, stepped out of them, and straddled him again.
“Fuck, Sara.”
His voice did things to me. As did my bare skin feeling his jeans, his skin, his arousal.
His hands trailed up my thighs, blazing a trail of tingles but his gaze held to mine. “I don’t know how much time—”
I put my hand up. “I never showed you enough. I didn’t let you in. I want to now.”
“You never let me in?” he said, his voice raspy with desire, his eyelids heavy.
Goosebumps raced over my skin. “I held back. I thought I’d scare you off if you knew how much I cared.” I moved my hand up and down his hard flesh. My mouth watered over what I wanted to do.
“You could never scare me off, Sara. You loved me. I loved every second of us. I knew then as much as I do now, that there’s no one in the world like you.”
Was that true? No one?
Afraid I’d cry, I retrieved a pillow for his head and settled between his legs. “Maybe I wasn’t sure you felt the same way.”
“Do you now?”
I nodded, forcing myself not to look away, even though tears threatened my eyes. “You came back, didn’t you? What more proof could I possibly need?” I took a steadying breath. “A lie detector test?”
He chuckled deep in his belly. His eyes flashed with recognition and heat. His breathing came out ragged from his parted lips. “Am I lying now?”
I grinned, wiggling my hips against the erection under me. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
He sat up, leaned me back and buried his face against my ribs. He inhaled and exhaled a loud puff. I wound my legs around him, feeling so much need I thought I’d lose my mind. My heart ached. My body ached. My soul ached for more.
I couldn’t say the words out loud again.
Don’t leave me, Crew.
With another gasp of air, he pulled away, coming up to look at me. He cupped my face. “You make it hard to go slow, Sara. I don’t want to walk in the rain. With you, here like this, I want to run. But I also want to stand still and get drenched.”
“Jesus,” I breathed.
“It’s difficult, but I will, Sara. You deserve it.”
With a determined gleam in his gaze, and a lopsided grin, he laid me onto my back. One tear did slide down into my hair. He kissed my shoulder. His breath warmed my chest. His hands remained splayed under me, strong and solid. If only they’d never let me go.
My heart beat faster.
He teased kisses down the valley of my breasts, down my navel, to the edge of my panties. He bit the hem and snapped them. My thighs got hot. I moved my legs just to feel his body. Again, he picked the hem up in his teeth, this time at my hip, and let go.