Gorgeous Rotten Scoundrel (14 page)

But he was large and he was on top of me, and part of me felt like he was doing this on purpose as part of some little mental game. So I came up on my elbows, signaling that he should release me before he fell into some sort of post-sex coma. He rested his chin on my chest. All that was left of the accident on his face was the tiniest cute scar above his lip, which I was sure would fade away within the coming months.

"Before you go. I need to know."

"Know what?"

"Who was it? What did he do?"

I knew exactly who he was referring to. I had him pegged from the start, but he pegged me too.

"Just tell me one thing. So I can understand: Who was the asshole who made you hate assholes like me?"

I thought at least it gave us something to discuss, and it was my key to freedom. Strangely, I also felt he had a right to know. The truth was, there were quite a few assholes, as I seemed to have an unhealthy addiction to the attractive, cocky type. But there was the one man who I thought was different. The other guys, I knew what I was dealing with, but the one who really fucked me up was the person I allowed myself to fully trust. I foolishly thought he would change for me, but instead, he broke me.

I sighed, trying to blurt it all out quickly in one breath, but it took at least two. The faster I got it out, the less it would hurt to tell, I hoped. "His name is Kenny--Kenneth. I had known him since high school. We were close friends, he was popular and a huge flirt. He didn't see anything in me other than friendship. That is until we got older and I wasn't a tomboy any longer. And finally, the guy I wrote about in my shitty diaries wanted me. I thought that because he had known me as a friend for so long it would be different. And I reeaaaally believed that for the nearly two years we were together," I said over a sarcastic laugh. "But I made the mistake of borrowing his phone and I learned of the women he had been seeing through almost the entire course of our relationship."

Heath's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped.

"I appreciated the extra dose of humiliation when I thought back to all the company parties I went to with him, where everyone but me knew he was sleeping around. Oh, I forgot to mention, we were planning our wedding when I found out. So, like I said, I know the type and I know people never change." The tone of my last sentence indicated I was done speaking about it.

"Wow. I don't know whether to be insulted or honored that you would put me in the same category as that caliber of asshole," Heath sighed groggily.

"Take it how you will. That's just the truth. Now you answer me one question."

"What's that?"

"How the hell did you lift me up like that without sending yourself back into the hospital?"

He laughed under his breath. "My tibias were fractured, not my femurs. And if you were impressed by that, you have no idea."

I snickered as he leaned over to the side, releasing me so I could continue my little ritual of forgetting this ever happened.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A few days later, I returned from a quick visit to my Nonna. I hadn't seen her in person since I came up to the Hamptons, but I spoke to her for a few minutes almost daily. I planned on bi-weekly visits, but with Heath being all broken, I couldn't just leave him locked in the bedroom for a few days while I headed to NYC.

During my time away, I pretended to check in on Heath on a professional basis with courtesy texts. But really, I wondered if he was starting to call up all those people who had conveniently vanished now that I had left and he was alone in the house. I took solace in the fact that I knew him well enough to know he wasn't going out into the world in that way until he didn't need the moon boots and crutches to move around.

I thought a few days away from Heath would be like some form of detox, but I found myself missing my life in the Hamptons. I chalked it up to the house and the beautiful beaches, but I knew there was a lot more to it than that.

I dreamt about him every night.

I headed back early that morning, convincing myself it was so that I could get back in time to grocery shop and catch up on things, but really it was because I just wanted to get back to the place that now felt like home. I arrived at about 8:30am, my heart beating through my chest as I drove past the bamboo and water fixtures. The day of Heath's cast removal was the last time we did anything, mainly because I was gone, but I was still really proud of this non-accomplishment. When I was in NYC, I spoke to Mindy briefly and I lied like a terrible human being. I emphatically told her how I regretted hooking up with Heath so much, and how it wasn't even worth it. But I was beginning to wonder if it wasn't. I mean, who needs dignity, right?

I entered the house quietly, as we set up a downstairs bedroom for him in my absence so he could avoid the stairs and I thought he might still be asleep. As I tip-toed into the living room I heard the strum of an acoustic guitar and a voice singing outside somewhere behind the house. The voice was raspy and melodic. I assumed Heath must have a guest over. At least it was a dude this time.

I quietly followed the music past the pool and over to the rock garden. As I got closer, I recognized the song. I loved that song. I arrived to the entrance of the rock garden and peered over the fence, and to my surprise, it wasn't a guest at all.

He was sitting on a bench, the same bench where we started these shenanigans, his legs crossed out in front of him. He was barefoot--sans moon boots (
bad Heath
y)--and his eyes were closed as he belted the crescendo of the song, his body rhythmically rocking as he strummed the strings of the guitar. He sounded...beautiful. I was a little embarrassed watching him like this and considered leaving him to have the moment alone, but he spotted me, and without missing a beat in voice or instrument, gestured for me to come over by cocking his head.

I sat in the sand and raked my fingers through it as he finished the song. I have to admit, it was nice. Really nice.

"Was that King?"

"You like Weezer?" He seemed surprised.

"Yeah, I especially like that song. Your rendition didn't make my ears bleed." That was about the nicest thing I could muster.

"Thanks."

"I didn't know you played guitar."

"You've barely known me with two functioning hands. I'm using guitar playing to get my dexterity back," he said making spirit fingers. "The PT said it was a good idea."
Shit, from what I could tell the other day, his dexterity was just fine and dandy.

"How's Nonna?"

He remembered I called her that.
"She's doing well. Still sharp, but her hearing is going slowly."

"So she wouldn't mind my singing then," he said with a smirk. He leaned towards the guitar, into the path of a ray of sunshine, and the way the sun reflected off his golden locks and his freshly sunkissed skin took my breath away.

"Well, I am going to run errands. Do you need a ride to the PT?"

"I extended a car service figuring you would be back later today."

"I would've done it for you if I wasn't going to come back in time," I said. I hated when he did things I was supposed to do. It threw me off and also gave me the underlying assumption that he didn't think I was on top of things. This feeling was now amplified by the fact that he had stuffed one of his body parts inside of one of my body parts and I didn't want him to think I was taking advantage of the situation.

"Don't worry about it."

I was trying to be adversarial, but he wasn't having it, he was enjoying the freedom of his functioning limbs and his guitar. "You need to put on your moonboots!" I scolded.

"Two weeks and I'll be running marathons," he shouted as I walked back to the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Heath surprised me with the news that his best friend was flying in from Milwaukee. That's right, Heath is a good ol' fashioned cornfed Midwesterner. I didn't know much about this person, I only knew about the poshy socialites Heath gallivanted with when I met him, but apparently Josh was the biological son of the last foster mother he lived with. He stayed with that family until he was seventeen, when he was discovered (it was his foster mother who insisted he send in pics to agencies). She had since passed away and Josh was the only trace of his childhood that he cared to remember and the closest person he had to family.

He rarely saw Josh, who worked at a plastics molding injection company, but Josh took his few days vacation to see his "bro" as they called each other. This was good, I told myself. It would give us time to go back to the pre-sex days and then we could just, ya know, kind of stay there.

Even though Josh was in no way related to Heath, in my mind's eye I expected them to look a lot alike, but he was nothing like Heath: prematurely balding, a small belly affixed to a body with skinny limbs, and maybe about five-foot-eight or nine. He was also ever the gentleman. He shook my hand, didn't give me the eye-fuck the way Heath did when we first met, and didn't walk around like he was the heir to Earth's throne. My plan was to leave them alone, but they invited me to spend the evening outside with them under some tiki torches with some beer so I obliged.

Apparently Josh played the guitar too, in fact he was the one who taught Heath. Much of the night was not spent talking, but singing along to random songs they tried to piece together from memory.

"Any requests, toots?" I don't even have to tell you who asked that question.

I rolled my eyes. "Hmmm. I'm going to make you work. How about Yesterday from the Beatles?"

"She's tryin' to get us all teary eyed!" Josh joked.

"Okay, okay, I got this," Heath said. It's actually a very simple melody."

"But you gotta put your soul in it. No fucking around Heath," Josh chided.

"Okay, okay," Heath said, putting a finger up to his lips to shush us all. Josh chose to sit this one out. As Heath tucked his chin down, closed his eyes, and started playing the familiar chords; my heart sank involuntarily. I instantly regretted the decision to request the song. Heath couldn't have possibly known, but my dad used to play Yesterday for me while my mother sang along. It's one of the only memories I have of them. And Heath didn't know it, because I told him his voice was just okay, but his voice wasn't just okay, it was really lovely and he sang with his heart, not just reciting the words like he was some empty vessel. Occasionally, between looking down at the guitar and rocking his head back as he hit some of the more difficult notes, he even looked me when he sang the words.

And then, shit, it started to happen, the lump in my throat and the moisture in my eyes met their saturation point. I hoped the night sky would hide it, but I knew from the way the glow of the tiki torches casted on Heath's flawless face, that they would only make my tears glisten. When he sang the last note, I felt like the silence that followed shone a spotlight on my emotions. Even Josh was quiet, because that song does that to people when it's sung beautifully. Josh reached over for a beer from the cooler behind him which gave us a few seconds of privacy.

"Are you okay?" Heath mouthed. I didn't want him to see me like this. I nodded and walked into the house, discreetly using the sleeve of my cardigan to wipe the tears away. I couldn't say anything because if I did, more tears would flow than just the two or three resting on my cheeks.

I grabbed a water from the fridge and fuck, I heard Heath come in through the sliding doors.

"You okay Sadie?"

"Yup. Fine," but my throat was clogged with emotion, my nose stuffy. It was obvious I had been crying.

"What's going on?" I couldn't take it: His concern, his kindness. I couldn't open up that side of myself to him. It wasn't safe for me to do so. I had already given him too much. "Sadie, you can talk to me." If there was anyone I knew who might understand, who might know what that absence is like, it would be him.

"I'm fine. Just go. Leave me alone please."
I'm such a bitch.

He looked down and nodded and I think I truly saw what hurt feelings looked like on Heath's face. I never really thought he cared about anyone or anything other than himself. "Okay...Okay," he said under his breath. "We'll be outside whenever you're ready."

"Thank you," I said, quietly. When he left, I clenched the edge of the counter, my heart ached and not just from the emotions of a song I hold so closely to my heart, but because of Heath's reaction to my tears.
We have to tread lightly.
I reminded myself.

***

I lay in bed, trying to think of anything but Heath's face when he sang so passionately, but any stray thought wouldn't last for more than a few seconds. After the crying incident, I hung out with the fellas for another hour or so, and acted all fine and dandy, as if Heath didn't see my tears. Eventually, I retreated to bed. I was tired from the early wakeup and I wanted to let them have some bro-bonding time.

But my heart ached, it ached and I couldn't exactly identify why. I think it was because I was angry with myself. After Kenneth, I nearly swore off all men, and dated Velveeta exclusively. I vowed only to consider the squarest, nicest guys. A guy that would really appreciate what he had. But I was never interested in that type. Shit, even Brock was a little too dull for my tastes. I tried to armchair diagnose myself as I lay there: it must be abandonment issues because of my parents. But, there had to be some guy out there who was attractive, interesting, funny, exciting, and loyal? Is that really too much to ask? My heart jumped in panic. Maybe they were already all taken. Maybe the last one was married off over a year ago and now the world was full of dull, flavorless squares, and hot guys who pushed your buttons.

I must have worn myself out with all this deep thinking, because I dozed off and I dozed off hard. I didn't hear my bedroom door open, or the sound of crutches against the floor. What woke me up was the feeling of warmth against my back, a tender hand on my hip and of Heath's lips grazing my ear as he whispered: "
I want you
." For a fraction of a second, I thought it was another one of my dreams, the ones I had been having all week when I was in NYC. In my hazy half-awake, half-asleep state, the sound of his voice, his smell, his touch, it all had a dream-like quality, but it wasn't a dream. This felt so much better than a dream. Sometimes I would touch myself in this state of being, just before falling asleep or when turning over in bed, when a sudden urge overtook me that was not of the conscious mind. Everything felt so light, so otherworldly, every touch hypersensitive as the sleep hormones cloaked a soft haze over the intensity of my own touch. And now Heath was here, next to me, during this very rare twilight of the mind, and it felt even better than when I touched myself. My heart still ached, and I wanted to make the ache stop, and I knew he could do that. I didn't say anything and I didn't go through my normal ethical debate; if I did, it would fully wake me up and I would lose the feeling of limbo.
Just this last time
.
This is too rare to pass up.

I slowly arched my hips to him, to let him know I consented, but that was all he would get from me. I wouldn't say a word, I wasn't going to think. I just wanted to be one body intertwined with another.

"I want you baby," he said again. And this time, it didn't feel angry or defiant, it was something else, I didn't let my thoughts wander to what that would be.

His hardness rubbed against my back as he glided his hands over my cotton slip, playing with my nipples through the fabric that provided a soft barrier for his firm touch. His face hovered over mine as he propped on his elbow, his hand slipped underneath me, cupping my cheek. Using a slight turn of the wrists, he pushed my face towards his so that the corner of my mouth reached his and he tugged on my lips, and then he peppered my neck and shoulders with lush kisses.

"Your skin is so soft. Your smell...nothing smells better than you. Nothing tastes better than you." He snaked his hips back and forth against my behind. I felt for the hem of my nightie and pulled it up to my waist so that the only barrier between him and me were his boxers. I reached to feel for his smooth, hard phallus...I just wanted him in me, the feeling of his cock inside me as I tightened around would be the only thing to make the ache stop. He took my hand and guided it to my clit. "Touch yourself and I'll take care of the rest, baby."
He called me baby again.

And I did what he told me to, under the lavender hue of my dream-like state, I rubbed my clit as he pushed himself inside of me slowly, so that I could appreciate every inch of his generous firmness. My nipples hardened to the point where just the soft cotton rubbing against them was its own form of foreplay. He tilted my face up further so that it would be close to his, kissing and sucking, some of which I knew would leave marks, but I didn't care. I felt like he wanted to swallow me the way I wanted to swallow him and it made me feel less alone. The ache had disappeared, now all I could feel was him inside of me and I wanted more of him inside of me, but there was never enough. There never would be enough because every time I got another bit of him, I wanted even more.

With every thrust into me I pushed my hips back towards him so that we would collide together. My thighs quivered each time, and he squeezed them vigorously, causing a sharp jolt of pain. The pain was good, it made me believe he might ache the way I had been aching.

His moans might have been the most beautiful song I had heard that day. And I felt myself coming both from inside where his cock rubbed against me, and on the outside, where I touched myself. The dreamy state made me feel as though he and I were floating away and I uttered the only thing I would say to him that night during our intertwining: "Hold onto me, don't let go."

"I've got you," he said to me. He gripped my face tighter, his other hand traveled up my thigh and wrapped around me, keeping me close so that I felt grounded to him. I could feel my insides clenching around him, and my clit electrifying, and I sharply tilted my head back and arched my spine. Heath knew what that meant, and he covered my mouth to muffle the groans and the cries. My entire body felt like it had exploded into a million little stars. And as those millions of little particles of stardust floated back down to earth, I recognized Heath's moans becoming more labored and the way he pressed his lips against the nape of my neck. I wanted to be there for him too and I reached for his head behind me grasping for tendrils of his golden silk and crossed my other arm to meet his hand which was still gripping me tightly. And he shuddered when he came, his body quaking against mine, stifling his groans of ecstasy into my neck.

This was okay, because it wasn't real. I could tell myself it was a dream happening in some other dimension, a place where reverie, fantasy, and deep desires floated out of reach to live in the stars somewhere. This didn't really happen, not this tenderness, not this closeness. Those people weren't Heath and Sadie, they where phantoms.

"You should go back to your bed," I said, with my back still turned to him. Now I was awake and this was real. We were Heath and Sadie. And we were not a thing.

I felt his breath hitch and the subtle caress of his head nodding. He slipped out as quietly as he could.

And the ache set in again.