Authors: Ever McCormick
But then Michael had shown me that maybe none of those things I
wanted were real enough things—because what were clothes and a job? They were exterior things that could change, that could slip through my fingers if I said the wrong thing. It was like those were the symptoms I wanted, but not the disease.
The main thing was that I wanted to be appreciated and needed and loved. The main thing was that I wanted to be something I could be proud of.
"Ina," he said one more time.
I still couldn't answer. N
o words would come. I sensed that he was becoming impatient and I had to say something. And I knew what had to be said—but what had to be said was a huge, complex, confusing understanding that I couldn’t put into words.
But it all drilled down to one thing. If I could just say that one word, I could kick-start myself into killing another fear, taking hold.
I knew what I wanted. If I couldn't ask for it, how did I expect to get it?
I dropped the ba
ckpack, jumped down the stairs of the porch, and sprinted to him. "You!" I screamed. It sounded loud in the forests and set off an explosion of birds taking flight and animals scurrying away from the sudden noise.
I
threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. He didn't respond at first, out of confusion or surprise. His hands cupped my arms tentatively as he searched my face. I could feel him trembling, panting under his breath. He tried to form words, but they only came out as one-word questions, whispered into my hair. "What? Why? How?"
T
hen he broke through the invisible barrier that had restrained him. His arms gripped me tight, the muscles solid and protective. He kissed me back. He grabbed my butt and lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around him. He didn't seem the least bit burdened by my weight. He welcomed it. He kept me hoisted with one hand while he deeply kissed me, and pulled my face closer with the other.
W
e kissed there for I don't know how long, outside in the green, in the fresh air, natural and meant to be. Every time my over-thinking brain pushed in with some annoying critique, my raging hormones took over and told it to shut the hell up.
"Are you sure, Ina? Are you sure?" Adam asked between kisses. The words sw
um around us, biting at us. There was so much hope and confusion in his voice, but what an impossible question. I didn't know if I'd ever be sure of anything again.
But then I wondered if all these times we’d asked each other the
se same questions, it was also because we were also asking ourselves, so I told him, and I told myself. I declared it for both of our sakes.
"I’m so sure, Adam. I want you. I want to hide with you out here and lock ourselves away from
the world. I want you, Adam, only you." I pressed against him, tried to show him with my movements that I was completely his—body and soul.
H
e didn't ask for any more assurance. He carried me closer to the cabin and I figured he’d take me straight to the bed. Instead, he walked right past the porch and carried me to the hammock. He laid me down gently and then leaned over me, kissing me on the lips, as he stroked the side of my face. The dress bunched up below me and cool air struck my body everywhere, reminding me we were exposed.
He stared at my face for a moment. Then
he kissed me deeply stopping only to pull me up so he could unzip my dress and pull it over my head and toss it in the grass. The sight of that expensive, beautiful dress splayed across the ground, half in the green weeds and half in the dirt reminded me of Adam. It was just like him, exclusive and expensive, but also wild and carefree.
Lying before him in only my bra and panties, swinging slightly
back and forth on the hammock in the breeze, I didn’t feel nervous at all. I felt way too amped to be held back by fear. Adam’s eyes trailed down my body, and he slowly, carefully, slipped off my shoes and then worked his way up my body, feeling each curve as he went.
He had dressed in his
mountain uniform—flannel shirt and jeans. The materials scratched against my bare skin. The fresh bright light of morning meant I was completely exposed, but I didn’t care. The way his eyes burned into my skin, his thick fingers pawed at my curves had me so hot I couldn’t think at all. My skin begged to be against him.
His eyes changed over the next few minutes from the deep pale blue I was used to, the vulnerable windows to his heart, to a more vibrant, darker blue. It reminded me of ho
w the sky could change from calm to downright sinister in the moments before a brutal storm.
I bucked up against him, physically begging for more.
I closed my eyes as his hand moved between my legs. I fumbled with the fly on his pants, and he took just a few seconds away from rubbing me to push them off as if they'd grown horribly uncomfortable on his skin.
We explored each other's bodies for a long time.
We used the hammock in creative ways until we spilled in sexy laughter into the grass and got serious. We kissed and touched, eyes open most of time, except when I closed them in embarrassed pleasure. We pinched and bit and moaned. We whispered secrets too. That he’d wanted me since we first touched. That I'd never felt something so amazing, so deeply satisfying. He told me things I didn't quite believe. And at one point, so quietly I could hardly decipher the words, he whispered, "Don't hurt me."
At those words, I'd squeezed him in the strongest embrace I could muster, trying to create for him that feeli
ng of being enveloped in desire, that feeling he created in me.
S
weeping the hair away from my face, staring down into my eyes, he clenched his muscles as he poised above me. I felt him between my legs. Neither of us needed to say it. He was ready. So was I.
As he plunged into me, he groaned, an
d a high-pitched moan emerged from my lips at the sudden quench of desire. I couldn't think after that. I could only be led by my body and his.
17
Before my eyelids opened in the morning, I ran my legs over the soft white sheets of my cabin's bed and grinned. For the first time in a while, I wasn't confused by where I was. I didn't feel unsafe or confused. But
only for a split second. The cabin was completely silent. Adam was not in bed with me and, as I lay still again for a minute listening for any movement at all, I realized he was not in my cabin.
I knew I had fallen asleep in his arms,
not self-conscious at all about the fact that I was falling asleep naked next to Adam. How could I feel shame now after what we’d done outside yesterday? I grinned at the memory. I’d screamed his name as he made me come and pulled grass from the ground as he joined me. My body still tingled with aftershocks of yesterday’s lovemaking.
We’d spent the day together, touching, kissing, talking like a couple who wasn’t fighting against anything. Late at night, a conversation on the couch easily shifted into an intense kiss that set us on another round—him sitting on the couch, while I straddled him. Oh my god, I had been forward.
I swallowed, blushed, and closed my eyes. Where was he? After the couch, he’d carried me into the bedroom and we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms. I thought we'd turned some kind of corner. I got out of bed, slipped on clean panties and a fresh t-shirt, and checked the large open space of the cabin, thinking maybe Adam had gotten up earlier.
The room was lit
up a little differently than usual, but that wasn't the most noticeable difference. The room was freezing. I wrapped my arms around myself and walked to the hooks by the door where my hoodie hung. Pulling it on, I noticed the door was open.
Adam wouldn’t
leave the door to me unlocked, let alone open, given everything that had been going on lately.
I swung
open the door and scanned the woods. Nothing seemed out of place. Each tree along the tree line had become as familiar to me as the houses of my neighborhood.
I stood on the porch searching,
feeling slightly ridiculous. My bare feet reminded me it was even colder outside than it was in my apartment. I turned to go inside and stopped immediately when I heard a man yell. It was unintelligible, but desperate. He needed help.
I spun around instantly as if my eyes could help me ferret out where the sound had come from. I heard it again,
along with another voice—fighting, although I couldn't make out what they were saying.
My mind went
straight to the most likely. Adam had finally managed to capture Roadsie. I didn't know whether to be scared that I was about to have a standoff with a criminal or relieved that Adam was going to take away the one thing that kept me from fully enjoying my time on the mountain.
I couldn't decide whether to run or stay still
. And where would I run? Behind the cabin? In the cabin? I pictured the gun, its exact location, how I would take it from the drawer, how I would grasp it and aim.
The yelling grew louder. O
ne of the voices was definitely Adam, the other muffled. I was grateful to know that whatever happened, Adam would be here.
A
flash of white appeared on one of the trails that cut through my clearing. I focused on the trees in that area, trying to make out what I saw. My jaw dropped to the ground.
Adam held the man's hands behind his back as if he had them in cuffs, but I could see that he just held them in one of his broad fists. The difference in size between the two men made it easy for Adam to dominate him. Adam seemed to revel in it a little bit; his eyes were fiery and alive and I almost felt that I needed to approach him the way he usually did me
—like a wild animal that might react out of instinct and fear rather than logic.
Adam's arms tightened, the muscles flinching as the man in his grasp struggled to get loose as he was being dragged toward my cabin. I wanted to speak, but I couldn't. I was that much in shock. As they got closer, Adam broke the tense silence in the air.
"Found this prick sneaking around the trails, scoping out your cabin." Adam's arms strained again, putting more pressure on the hands of the man he held captive. "He says he knows you."
Finally my voice managed to break through the barrier of shock in my throat.
"Michael?" It came out as a question for several reasons. The situation was so absurd. I had no reason to think Michael would show up here. I'd never even given him the exact name of the place I was going. But the biggest reason was that Michael looked different from the last time I had seen him. His clothes looked decidedly more expensive and he'd replaced his old familiar glasses with trendy chunky black frames. His hair even had product in it. Polished dressy shoes rounded out his new professional demeanor.
Adam had shoved a greasy rag in Michael's mouth, whic
h he now pulled out so Michael could speak.
"Ina, what the fuck
!" he screamed, trying to turn his head and get a look at the man who had him in a full body lock. "Will you tell this guy to let me go?"
I couldn't help it.
I smiled. Michael continued to beg for release. I threw my hands to mouth. "Oh my god," I whispered into them.
"She knows me, all right
?" Michael stood up a little straighter and Adam allowed it. "Now let me go."
Adam glanced at me before releasing Michael
, who scooted away from Adam and over to my side, where he put his arm around me possessively. I stared unbelieving at his arm around my shoulder, over to Adam reassuringly, and then back to Michael.
"W
hat are you doing here?" I asked.
"I had to see you. I didn't like how we ended things on the phone." He tightened his arm around me. "Can we talk inside?" He nodded to my porch and then let his eyes drift over to Adam to show me what he wanted to get away from. Adam noticed.
"Are you sure she wants you in there?" Adam asked in a husky, scary voice I hadn't heard from him before. I shivered.
"M
an," Michael started, sounding more like his cocky old self, "this is my girlfriend and I'm visiting her. I don't know who the fuck you are, so just leave us alone, all right?" Michael pushed me behind him as if he were protecting me. Maybe I would have felt that to be endearing a month ago, but right now it just felt annoying. As if I needed protection from Adam.
I poked my head around Michael and had to do a double
take. Adam seethed. His body fidgeted as if he were ready to strike. He was using all of his strength to hold himself back.
As much as it turned m
e on, it also scared me. Adam’s feelings for me were animalistic. Michael lived in a completely different world. He didn’t know what he was messing with.
I stepped around Michael and walked right up to Adam, rubbing my hand over his cheek. I knew it was a strikingly intimate way to interact
—for the two of us who were only just easing into coupledom, and also for Michael. But I felt like I needed to do something to defuse the situation, to break the tension before it exploded into violence.
Adam blinked. His glare loosened and his eyes shifted to mine.