Just before one o’clock, Mick enters the classroom, chatting with one of his teammates. He directs a sizzling smile at me that heats up my entire body. His eyes catch the folded paper on the corner of my desk and he discreetly slips it into his palm as he passes by.
“Good luck,” he says with a wink.
While Mrs. Harrison hands out the biology final, I angle a covert glance to watch Mick out of the corner of my eye reading my note. The look that comes over his face says he’s thinking of biology of a whole other kind. I blush and turn my attention to the test sheet, trying to concentrate on entering my answers correctly instead of counting down the hours.
At seven fifteen, I pull into our usual meeting spot, the back lot of an office building deserted for the night. I park my mint-green Volkswagen Beetle, the car Papa T fixed up for me as a birthday present. Mick’s already there in his Mustang, with the engine idling.
“Hi,” I say, sliding across the leather passenger seat. My heart gives a pleasant thump at the sight of him.
“Hi.” He leans over and kisses my lips, startling me. “I missed you,” he says after another quick but hungry peck.
We never share any intimacies until we’re at the lake. There, our safe bubble shelters us from the real world and the guilt of our secret. We’re just two people in love, and no one can touch that, taint it, or take it away.
As we make the drive out of town, he holds my hand on his thigh, breaking the connection only to change gears. We talk about our day and exams. What we don’t talk about—what we never talk about—is what happens to us after he leaves for NYU.
At a stop sign, Mick leans over for another wet kiss. “I want you so bad,” he murmurs against my lips.
When we finally get to the lake and he parks behind the soaring cliffs to conceal us from the road, my body is buzzing. He drags me into the backseat. His lips seeking mine, his hands everywhere. Mick’s always ardent but tonight there’s no build-up. And that’s fine by me. I don’t want slow. Or to think. Just feel.
Our climb is clumsy and we land with me on top of him in a tangle of limbs. Mick makes fast work of removing my shirt and bra. His hot hands close over my breasts. “Mm…” he groans before rolling us over.
Together, we manage to get him out of his shirt, but he doesn’t give me any time to explore. He’s tearing at the rest of my clothes with reckless abandon. I suck in my gut as a futile attempt to disguise the additional five pounds among all the others.
I envy the model-thin girls with no hips and small, perky boobs. The only thing remotely unfat about me is my proportionally smaller waist.
“Beautiful,” he whispers, smiling down at me before his lips caress mine and rescue me from my insecurities. “This is what I dreamed of last night.” His fingers rake my hard nipples and then his mouth is there, hot and wet. His tongue flutters over the sensitive tips and trail down my torso.
“You taste so good,” he murmurs, and I lose the rest of his praise to my escalating moans.
Just when I think I might die from being pleasured to death, I feel the warmth of his breath on my lower belly and then lower, on my most private area. He’s not really going to—
Mick nudges my legs open with his broad shoulders and, curling his arms beneath my thighs, dips his head.
Oh God
, he is. I think to tell him to stop, but at the first intimate flick of his tongue, the only sound that comes out is a heartfelt “Ahh!”
My head thrashes against the back seat as his mouth, avid and furnace-hot, goes to work on my aroused flesh. All shyness gone, I arch my back and tunnel my hands through his hair, gripping the roots to press him closer.
He moves one of my heels to his shoulder to take me more fully into his mouth, drawing on me with a suctioning pull that catapults me into an orgasm so explosive I fear I’ve snatched him bald.
My unbridled response might have embarrassed me if it hadn’t inflamed his desire. With lightning speed, Mick peels off his jeans and tight briefs. My breath catches as I take in the hard length of him.
Beautifully naked, he kneels and I wrap my legs around his waist. It’s heaven on earth when he lowers his head to kiss me, his tongue driving into my mouth as he drives hard into my body. There’s no gentleness. Only urgency.
His hips pump like pistons, and his fingers dig into my flesh. Moans of pleasure spill from my mouth, and Mick devours each one.
It’s frenzied and chaotic. An edgy ache of need. I hadn’t known what it was to crave like this and to be craved in return.
“Say you’re mine,” he rasps, pounding into me, the slap of damp skin against damp skin rending the air. “Say it, Dee. Say you’re all mine.”
The glint in those dark eyes holds my gaze. “I’m yours, Mick…always,” I cry out, just as another climax consumes me. Possesses me and brands my very soul.
Clasping me tightly and burying his face in the crook of my neck, Mick follows me over, growling my name. We collapse together. My body: sated and wonderfully abused. My tie to him: irrevocable.
When our breaths even out, he whispers against my ear, “See what you do to me. I was planning on talking first.”
“You talked.”
His mouth travels my cheek to my lips. “Not that kind of talking.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“I wasn’t too rough?”
“I like you rough.”
“Jesus, Dee,” he groans and slowly pulls out of me.
The emptiness left behind is predictive of what my life will be when he’s gone. As he tries to sit up, I tug him back down, nipping at his throat, running my fingers over his chest and the pebbled copper nipples. I want more time. More of him.
But he restrains my roaming hands and lifts them above my head.
“Baby, you need to stop, so I can talk to you.”
“We can talk later.” I move against him, enjoying the power of arousing him again so soon afterward. “You got to do all the good stuff. Now it’s my turn,” I add with a daring grin.
He arches an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”
“What you did to me.”
His eyes dart to my mouth. “We definitely have to talk first. Because once you put that pretty mouth on me, I won’t be coherent.” He drops a kiss on my lips and releases my wrists.
I see Mick’s serious, so I follow suit, cleaning up and getting dressed. He’s no longer at ease. There’s a tension in his shoulders and a strain in his jaw. What could he
need
to talk to me about that would make him go tense? Was all that “you’re mine” stuff just sex talk? Is it bad news? Is he leaving sooner? His exams are over. Was this our last time? Farewell sex? That would explain his intense passion. My mind is racing and I feel my anxiety build.
Mick helps me from the car and takes my hand as we walk along the sandy shore. Overwhelmed by uncertainty, the kind I constantly lived with as a child, I’m six years old again. We were in a nicer place than before. My mom had a job and said she was going to keep me this time. Dumb kid that I was, I actually believed her. Until Social Services came knocking on our door, like the last time she called them. “Please, Mommy!” I screamed hysterically. “Please don’t send me away!” But her eyes had that blank look, and I knew she wasn’t even seeing me.
“Dee?” Mick’s voice penetrates my memory, and I realize we’ve stopped walking. “Where’d you just go?”
I don’t ever divulge much about my past. He’s told me the details of his childhood, but I can’t quite bring myself to tell him mine.
“Come here.” Mick pulls me into his arms. I sink into him until he chases the ghosts away. “You back?” he asks, pushing my hair from my face.
“Yeah, I’m here with you.”
“Good. That’s where I want you. No more worrying, okay?” Though Mick’s not privy to the details, he understands it’s the uncertainty that triggered the dark moment. “There’s nothing bad waiting for you at the end of this.”
With his reassurance, I relax.
“Sit there,” he says, indicating a large boulder jutting out of the sand. It’s close enough to the water that we can see the roll of the waves, but far enough back that we can stay dry. “Wait.” Mick raises his jersey over the navy T-shirt he’s wearing underneath and lays it down on the rough surface to cushion a seat for me. It’s such a gallant gesture, I get all tingly inside.
He crouches down and looks at me with those hot-velvet eyes. “I know it’s not candlelight, but I hope my words will make up for that. I love you, Dee. Will you come to New York with me?”
If he had asked me to jump off the Michigan Avenue Bridge, I couldn’t be more shocked.
“Okay,” he says, brushing a hand over his hair. “I can see you weren’t expecting that.”
“Uh…no.” Not even close.
Mick’s rarely unsure of himself but he is now. “Do you…um…hate the idea?”
I’m scared. Confused. Excited. Elated. Terrified. But nowhere among that mix of emotions is hatred. “N-no. You just caught me off guard. I’m supposed to go to Amherst and you’re supposed to go to NYU. I’ve never let myself hope for anything more or different.”
“I have,” he says, caressing my cheek. “I can see my future so clearly in my head, Dee. And you’re in it.”
But how we can do this? There are too many obstacles. The tapes start playing about me not being good enough...lovable enough. It scares me to even think of stepping outside the safety of this world we’ve created, where only the two of us exist. “If I follow you to New York, everybody will know.”
“I want everyone to know, Dee. I’m tired of sneaking around.”
“I thought you were worried that Papa T wouldn’t approve.”
“I am, but I’m hoping after he hears how serious I am about you, he won’t disown me.”
I doubt that would ever happen. Papa T loves him like a son, but Mick’s fear is real. “Victor already knows,” he says.
“What?” Panic crowds my stomach. “You told him?”
“Yesterday he pressed me about it. Seems he had suspected for some time. When Victor came right out and asked, I couldn’t lie.”
That explains the strange looks Victor was giving me yesterday over dinner. But I don’t understand.
“Then why hasn’t he said anything to me?”
“I asked him to let me tell you first. And to let me…us tell Papa and Mama T.”
My head is whirling like it’s on the spin cycle. “What was Victor’s reaction?”
“He agreed that we should be the ones to tell them.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not that. What was his reaction to finding out about us?” I’m not close to Victor the way Mick is, but I love my foster brother, and his opinion is important to me. When Mick remains silent, the panic pushes harder. “Tell me.”
“He’s not crazy about it, I guess.” Mick shrugs vaguely and stares off toward the lake.
“You guess?”
“It doesn’t matter, Dee.”
“What your best friend thinks doesn’t matter? Your best friend who’s like a brother to you?” I balk at that.
His dark eyes crawl back to mine. Whatever Victor said is still there. “Okay, it matters,” he admits. “But not as much as this. I’m not just asking you to change your college plans and move to New York without some kind of commitment, Dee.” He reaches into his back pocket and produces a blue velvet box.
Speechless, I’m floating in a dream as I watch him open the lid. It’s as if this surreal moment were happening to someone else. Only it’s not someone else. It’s me.
Inside sits a gold band with a diamond-encrusted heart in the center. He lowers one knee to the ground. “This is my heart, Dee, and it’s yours forever.”
Maybe I’m hallucinating. “You want to marry me?”
“That’s generally what it means when a guy’s on bended knee with a ring in his hand,” he says lightly.
But I can’t joke. “Are you sure, Mick?” I have to ask. The cautious side of me that’s been hurt too many times insists.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything. I want this, Dee.” He sobers. “I want you.”
I frantically search his face for any signs of doubt, but all I see is the love I always see there.
“Do you believe me?”
“I want to, but...” The tears I’m fighting bubble up and spill over. “I’m sorry.” I swipe at them, but they won’t stop falling.
Mick sets down the box and brackets my face with his hands. “But what?”
“It seems so sudden. It’s happening right after Victor found out. I know how much you love and admire Papa T. I don’t want you to do this because you feel pressured to gain his approval. You’ll come to hate me for it.”
“Dee, baby,” he says, his gaze unwavering. “I could never hate you for any reason. I love you. I have since I was fourteen and didn’t even know what love is. From the day we met and you looked at me with those big, beautiful eyes, that was it for me. You had my heart right from that moment.
“But you were the daughter of the man I revered. He expected me to look out for you as a brother should. But I didn’t feel brotherly toward you. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about what it would be like to kiss you or put my hands all over you,” he says, almost shamefacedly. “I tried to be your friend. But it was hell. Even when I started dating, those girls were just substitutes. It’s always been you, Dee.
“Throughout all my shit at home, the Torreses gave me a safe place to come to, but you saved me.”
“Oh, Mick.”
“It’s true, baby. I survived the worst of my father because of you. And it was that afternoon when you bandaged my cheek and I confessed my secret that I stopped fighting myself. I had to kiss you. And then kissing you wasn’t enough. I should have told Papa T before it went any further. But I was afraid to tell him until now.”
“What’s changed?” I ask, needing to understand his motivation.
“That’s easy, Dee. I thought telling Papa T was my biggest fear, but it wasn’t. My absolute biggest fear, more than anything else…” He pauses. I know he means his father. “It’s living without you.
“I’m not proposing because Victor found out. Or because I think it’s the only way I can earn Papa T’s approval. I hope I’ll have his blessing, but even if I don’t, I’ll still want to be with you. I love you more than anything, Dee. You’re my life. My future. Come to New York. I promise to always be there for you, baby. I’ll make you happy. Please say yes.”
My tears trickle over his hands, and my heart is pounding with so much love for Mick I could burst. He’s strong and kind. Protective and devoted. Perfect and scarred. He has that touch of vulnerability that makes me want to take care of him.