Calico (24 page)

I stare down at the ground, eyes locked on a black smudge staining the toe of my red Chucks. “Thank you for getting my mom’s things for me, Callan. I’ll have to swing by with my car later on and grab them. I hope that’s okay.”

“Don’t be such a fucking pussy, Coralie. I know I shouldn’t have sold that picture. It was the shittiest thing I’ve ever done, but I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was seventeen, and it felt like the world was ending.”

“It was never about that stupid fucking photo, Cal!” I gasp for breath, fighting to hold myself together. “I didn’t leave because of that.” The words are out before I can stop them. I clamp my mouth shut, wishing I could rewind the last few seconds so I could take them back. It’s too late now, though. I’ve already pulled the trigger, and Callan’s looking like he just got shot.
 

“What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t…
shit
.”

He leans forward at the waist, staring me down. “What do you mean by that? Tell me right now or I’m gonna lose my mind.” I can see that he’s telling the truth. There’s a wild light in his eyes that’s brand new to me.
 

“I just said it was the photo,” I murmur. “But I didn’t care. The whole of Port Royal had seen my black eye. At the time, it didn’t matter if the whole world had seen it. I just said I was upset about it because…because I didn’t fucking love you anymore, Callan. I didn’t want to be with you!”

Standing up straight, Callan blinks at me. He sets his jaw, his head jerking back after a moment, like what I just said finally reached him. I wait for him to look crestfallen. Or something. The moment never arrives, though. He continues to stare at me like I have two heads. Gradually, steel forms in his eyes. He holds his hand out to me, palm up.
 

“Come with me, bluebird.”

“No, Callan. I have to go.”

“Do you want me to throw you over my shoulder? At this point, I’m not past doing it.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Okay, then I guess we’re doing this here.” He rushes me, steps in close before I can stop him or move away. I’m still waiting for him to be crushed by my flagrant lie that I’m unbalanced by his sudden closeness. His presence is huge, engulfing me, making my body hum with energy. The smell of him floods my senses. The heat pouring off his body lights me up, has my head spinning. He’s so close, I can see his pulse beating frantically in the dip of his throat.
 

“I’m not your fair weather boyfriend back in LA,” Callan growls. “I’m not Friday. I’m not Shane or Tina. I’m not someone who’ll swallow something, simply because the words tumbled out of your mouth. I
know
you. I see into you. Your heart is my heart. Your breath is my breath. Your soul is my soul. Your pain…your pain is
my
fucking pain. So don’t expect me to believe you when you say you stopped loving me, because I looked you in the eye when you said goodbye to me, bluebird. My heart broke when yours did. My lungs stopped breathing when yours did. My soul hurt when yours did. My pain felt like it was killing me, just like yours did. You loved me then. You never stopped. You still love me now, the same way I still fucking love you.”
 

His mouth comes crashing down, his lips pressing hard against mine, and I feel it all at once—everything he was talking about. Our souls, hearts, bodies and minds truly as one, breaking and sealing together all over again. I can’t move as he kisses me. My feet feel like they’re encased in cement. I want to stumble back, to slap him across the face, hurry out of the kitchen and slam the door behind me, but I can’t. My entire being is combined with his in this moment, lost and found at the same time, caught in a riptide that can’t be fought against. This is a force of nature. I’d have more chance of withstanding a hurricane.
 

I feel small. I feel vulnerable. I feel saved.
 

Callan wraps his arms around me, pulling me to his bare chest, and he holds onto me tight. My breath catches in my throat as I gasp, trying to catch a breath around his kisses. My mind is swimming, seesawing wilding from fear to relief as he bruises my mouth with his, proving his words to me.
 

I already know the truth of them, though. I’m fully aware that without Callan, I am only half a person, emotionally disfigured and displaced in the world. Eventually, something snaps inside me. I can’t fight this anymore. I don’t want to. Being without him is too hard. It’s like I’m trapped, running on train tracks. There’s a high-speed bullet train on the horizon, growing closer and closer no matter how fast I sprint. There is no escape. No matter how fast I run, the train is always going to catch up with me. Callan is
always
going to be there, and I am always going to love him. So what’s the point anymore? What’s the fucking point in keeping things from him?

I kiss him back, my heart skipping out of my chest, my hands shaking as I reach up and dig my finger nails into the broad, muscular planes of his back. His skin is hot and slick with sweat under my palms. As I open my mouth wider, allowing Callan to dip his tongue past my lips, he shudders, groaning. It’s enough to make me light headed. I slide my tongue into his mouth too, tasting him the same way he’s tasting me, and I can barely keep my legs rigid beneath me. Cal’s grip on me tightens, as if he senses me weakening against him. He bunches my hair in his hands, gathering it into a knot at the back of my head so he can tip my head back and move swiftly down, kissing at the line of my jaw, my neck, my collarbone.
 

“Fuck, bluebird. You’re the only thing I want in this life.” He pants, his hands working their way down my neck, my arms, my ribcage, until he’s tearing at the material of my shirt, trying to get underneath it. “I need you. I need to be fucking inside you right now.”

Before I met Ben, I had a few boyfriends. A couple of them nearly made it to the twelve-month mark before I freaked out and broke up with them for one reason or another. I knew it was never going to work out with them, because none of them ever made me feel like this. None of them ever felt like they were bringing me back to life, giving me something I could never find by myself. I just gave up caring with Ben, it was the only way I could stay with him, but now that I’m feeling this powerful, impossible riot of emotions with Callan, I know there’s no way I can ever go back.
 

He makes a frustrated sound as his hands work their way over my bare stomach, up toward my breasts. His fingers skirt along the edge of my bra, digging in a little as my back arches, curving my body into his. He knows how to touch me. He knows how to make me hungry for him. In fact, right now I feel like I’m starving for him.
 

“God, Callan. Fuck,” I gasp. His eyes meet mine, deep and dark and disturbing. He stops moving. Doesn’t say anything. The silence between us is miles deep and miles wide, and feels like it could be miles further still if either one of us lets it. Callan gives me a look that would have terrified seventeen-year-old me. “We’ve been through so much,” he whispers. “You were my first, and I was yours.” His voice is strained, controlled, like he’s having trouble keeping it together. “But we’re adults now, Coralie. Back then I loved you like a kid. Now I plan on loving you like a man. Do you know what that means?
Do you think you can handle that kind of fucking?
”

Truthfully, this is already too much for me. I couldn’t back down or turn away now even if I wanted to, though. It’s too late for me. I feel so out of my depth most of the time; the difference right now is that it feels okay to be out of my depth. Callan’s got me. I know he won’t let me drown, hurt, suffer, even if it seems as though that’s all there is for me to do.
 

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I can handle it. I want to find out, though.”

Callan’s mouth quirks up at one side, forming that dimple deep in his cheek again. “There she is,” he says quietly. “See. You think you’re not brave, but you are. And bravery is rewarded, bluebird.” He scoops me up into his arms, and I’m pinned against him, trapped, as he carries me over to the kitchen table. In one swift movement, he knocks the stacked boxes containing my mother’s clothes to the ground. He swears under his breath when he realizes what he just dumped on the floor, but that doesn’t stop him from lying me down on top of the worn wood.
 

“I want to use the Leica, bluebird,” Callan growls into the crook of my neck as he licks and kisses at my skin. My hands are buried into his thick hair, my fingers wound tight around his hair. I pull a little harder when he says this. “Ahhh. I want to show you everything I see. I want you to see how fucking beautiful you are.”

He drags his thumb across my bottom lip, pressing the pad of it against my lower teeth, pressing my mouth open a little. He trails his tongue over my bottom lip then, fastening it between his own teeth and pulling.
 

“Why the hell would I let you take photos of me?” I gasp.
 

“Because…apparently you didn’t care about the last one I took. If it’s true, you won’t mind me taking some now. You can keep every single one of them when they’re developed. You can have the negatives, too.” He bites at my lip again, hard enough that I cry out. The sound of my pleasure mixed in with pain seems to drive him crazy. His hands are everywhere, pulling at my clothes; they find their way underneath my shirt again so he can pinch and roll my nipples through my bra. My body responds in kind, my back arching up off the table, my feet flexing, my thigh muscles contracting. Callan shifts himself so that he’s standing in between my legs. He takes hold of me by the hips and jerks me toward him, so that my pussy is pressed hard up against his erection. “What do you say, bluebird? Willing to pose for me?”

Should I let him do what he’s suggesting? Should I allow myself to be vulnerable for him again? Giving him my body is one thing, but letting him take pictures of it is another thing entirely. I wasn’t lying just now. I really wasn’t bothered by the photo. Sure, it would have been much better for me if thousands of people hadn’t seen me battered and bruised, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I would have forgiven him easily enough. My injuries are all internalized now; they shouldn’t show up on a photo, but I get the feeling that Callan will somehow manage to manifest them in print. His art always has that quality to it. The people in his portraits seem broken, elated, delirious or downcast. Whoever the subject, the photo always conveys their inner most hurts or joys almost perfectly, no matter if they’re expressing themselves in the image or not.

He leans back a little, shifting my loose shirt up to expose my bra. He pulls the right cup down and begins to circle his tongue around my peaked nipple, his eyes fixed on me the whole time. Slowly he bares his teeth and bites down on the small, pink bud of flesh. The pain that follows is exquisitely unbearable, yet I accept it, riding the high of the contact as the sensation rises and rises through me.
 

“Okay,” I say, closing my eyes. “Okay, you can use the camera. But I keep everything.”

Callan’s eyes are filled with fire as he steps back to grab the camera. “Take off your shirt,” he commands. It’s almost already off anyway, hitched up high, exposing my breasts. I carefully sit up, eyes on him as I slip the cotton material over my head. My bra is plain and black, but Callan’s greedily staring at my chest like my tits are encased in Victoria’s most expensive, most sexual secret. “Tip your head back,” he says.
 

I comply, angling my head back so that my chin is lifted high. The position makes me feel confident, filled with desire. Callan holds the Leica up to his face and quickly snaps off a shot, making a deep rumbling sound in the base of his throat. He seems to like what he sees. “Slowly slide your bra straps down your shoulders, bluebird.”

I do.
 

“Good. There.” Callan quickly takes another picture, nodding. “You’re amazing,” he tells me. “The most perfect creature I’ve ever seen.” I’m so used to feeling nothing when I have sex. So used to feeling comfortably numb whenever Ben touches me. This blazing furnace that’s been sparked into life as Callan points the lens of his camera at me is a shock to the system. “Now your skirt, Coralie,” he says. “Slide it up. Let me see how perfect you are there. Show me.”

Taking the hem of my skirt into my hands, I slowly adjust it, pulling the light fabric up my thighs, exposing inch after inch of flesh as he watches with a look of pure lust mastering his features. His eyes are dark, tense, filled with want. His hands remain steady as he lifts the camera up one more time, but I can tell this affects him. “Your panties, Coralie. Take them off. I need to see.”

God damn it. My heart is thrumming like a bird trapped in a cage, batting against my ribs at an alarming pace. I am outside of myself, above myself, looking down on the scene below, watching my hands as my thumbs carefully hook underneath the lace over my hips and I tease the material over my skin, down my legs. I don’t recognize myself. I would never do this for Ben. There isn’t another man alive that I would do this for. I kick out of my underwear, heat flooding my cheeks, undoubtedly staining them red.
 

“God,” Callan groans. “Open them. Open your legs for me.” His hand reaches down, where he cups himself, the outline of his erection hard in his hand. He squeezes, and my own hands twitch, as if I can feel him myself—how rigid and urgent his body has become. I want to suck him. Lick him. Tease him with my mouth. Taste the sweetness of him on my tongue. Feel his cock growing harder and harder as he tiptoes closer to the edge. My need for him surprises me, almost takes my breath away. I spread my legs wide, angling my hips upwards so he can see me properly, and Callan takes a deep breath. He holds it in his chest as he takes three steps toward me and readies the camera.
 

“I’ve never forgotten,” he says. “You were the first girl I ever touched. The first girl I ever tasted. The first girl I was inside. Every single woman I’ve been with since has been a shadow of you. They’ve never been this perfect. I’ve never wanted to exhaust myself making them come with my tongue the way I’m about to do with you. I’ve never wanted to feel them tighten around my dick as they scream out my name. I’ve never wanted to feel them come all over me as I seal my body with theirs. It’s always been mechanical. My heart hasn’t been in it, because it’s been with you all along.” He’s close enough to reach out and take my hand now. He guides me down, so that I’m touching myself between my legs, my fingers wet and slick as I realize how turned on I am. “I want to watch,” he breathes. “Stroke your clit for me, Coralie. Show me how badly you want me.”