Losing Me, Finding You (8 page)

Austin slides his fingers slowly out of me, drawing my breath along with them until I'm left feeling tight and empty all at the same time. There's this brief moment of hesitation where my conservative upbringing rings loudly in my ears and promises eternal damnation for what I'm about to do. But then Austin is pressing his warm hips against me, grabbing me with both hands in a bruising grip and thrusting the hot, long fullness of his body inside of mine.

Eternal damnation? This is so worth it.

I try to stay quiet, but Austin's heat is searing through me, spreading me open, breaking down walls both physical and mental, and I just can't stop the sounds that burst from my lips as he cuts through me with this horribly delicious dichotomy of pleasure and pain. His fingers wrap in my hair and pull my head back as a scream threatens to break from my throat, stopped only by the warmth of his hand cupping my lips and silencing me as he pulls out just enough that I swear on all that is holy that I'm going to die. Just when I'm starting to think about casket colors, he comes rushing back, filling me and slamming me so hard into the pool table that it shakes and screeches across the floor.

Austin releases my hair and mouth and grabs onto the edges of the table for support, cursing heavily under his breath, voice husky and thick.

“Fucking Jesus H. Christ,” he whispers as he slams into me again, hitting something deep inside that sends tingles up my spine and causes my fingers to curl violently around the edges of the wood. Austin moves his hands over the top of mine and grabs on with force, grunting as he pulls out and slides in, teasing me with this horrible give and take that I've read about but never understood. Not really. Not until now. Not until him.

Austin Sparks.

Being with Amy is like nothing and nobody I've experienced. I don't just want to fuck her once and call it a good time. No, I want her to be mine, wholly and completely. It is a weird as fuck experience that makes me question my own sanity.
All of a sudden you want to run off to some church and marry the girl?
But no. That isn't it either. Some shitty piece of paper is not going to give me what I need; I think about the only thing that'll soothe this ache is having Amy's hot, tight body pressed up against mine.

I close my eyes and try to move past the thoughts. I've never once had an emotional breakthrough and a life changing experience in the middle of sex, and I'm not about to start doing it now. No asshole in his right mind would want to have a conversation with himself with Amy Cross wrapped slick and wet around 'im. 'Specially not me.

“You close, baby?” I ask her as she tenses around me and arches her back, throwing that cinnamon hair over her shoulder as she lifts her chin up and shakes her head violently like she has no idea what I'm talking about. The sight's about enough to make me go, and it takes all I got to hold back and keep going, thrusting in and out with slow, controlled strokes while my thigh muscles start to cramp and my fingers twitch. And then I'm getting all pissed off at the friggin' condom, wishing I could tear it off my dick and spill myself inside of her.

“You're going to kill me,” she groans, too loud maybe since I swear to God, it feels like we're being watched. When I glance over my shoulder, there's nobody there that I can see. “I'm going to die.” I try to slow down, leaning forward, so I can run my hands up her sides, wishing I had time to tear off every inch of clothing and explore her breasts, her soft belly, her thighs. Except for Mireya, I usually don't get to sleep with the same girl twice, so I'm getting anxious, wondering how I'll feel if I let Cross get away from me before I'm done with her.

“Relax there, sugar,” I tell her as she bites down hard on her lower lip and squeezes her eyes closed, clamping down around me so tight, I can hardly move my hips. “Relax and let it happen.”

There are some things that translate perfectly from real life to writing, that dance from the author's fingertips like petals on the wind, spinning a bit of prose that is just as good, if not better than seeing it with one's own eyes.

Orgasms are not one of them.

Oh, believe you me when I tell you that I've read lots, hundreds, thousands maybe. I've read explosions of light and sound, convulsions, fireworks, pleasurable bursts of unstoppable energy that transcend this very realm of existence as we know it. None of those are accurate. I believe the French are most on point with the term
la petite mort –
the little death.

“Stop,” I tell Austin with force, trying to cull this building feeling in my belly. With every thrust of his Austin's hips, I feel it spiral up from down below and infuse my body with this sense of urgency, like if I don't stop now, I'll really, truly be done for. “I said
stop,
” I repeat, but my voice only comes out in a weak whisper. “Please.”

“I can't,” Austin groans through clenched teeth, letting his head fall back while his hands tighten so much around mine that they hurt, trapping me like steel cuffs against the table as his body slams into mine, erasing twenty-one ridiculous years of pious virginity and countless hours of reading romance novels by the truckload.

I'm sore and I'm aching and I'm wanting all at once, but I can't make him stop. I'm trapped, and I want to be trapped. I like the feel of Austin's hot, sweaty body against mine, owning me, opening me, burning me. It feels
good
, and it's likely one of only a handful of things I've decided to do all on my own, against everyone else's wishes, just for me. But I say it again because it's the only thing I can think to say, and I'm pretty
fucking
(wow, that feels good to say) sure that I'm just about at the end of my rope. “Austin, stop!” I think I'm shouting, but I'm not really sure because my body chooses that exact moment for the wave of pleasure to crest and knock me silly, dropping my body flat against the felt, burning the soft skin of my stomach against the green fibers as Austin continues to move inside of me until my eyes tear up and my heart stops beating for one, small, infinitesimal second.

I think I could fall in love.

And then a second thought, just as quick, much more practical.

With this man? That, that would be a very bad idea, Amy.

I choke back my own scream, dig my fingernails into the wood of the pool table and wait until it's over, until I've died a bit and come back to life with this strange rush of endorphins and hormones poisoning my blood in the best way possible, leaving me both a wreck and a solid statue at the same time. I know then that I'm going to need time to figure this out. A little might be okay, or a lot, I'm not sure, but in all reality, I have no idea what it is that I've just done.

And then Austin is pulling away from me and stepping back, leaving this cool rush of air that's as uncomfortable as it is embarrassing, leaving me open and exposed to the (as of now) empty room. I hear a zipper being pulled and then Austin's rough fingers are grazing my skin, tugging my skirt back into place and spinning me around to face him.

I choke on words that won't come, standing there with my back ramrod straight and my nails still gouging the wood. I know that my eyes must be round as marbles and my lips pursed. I can't seem to move at all anymore, not even to pick up my panties. I watch as my chest rises and falls quickly, like I've just run a marathon or something.

Austin grins at me with his big, white teeth and reaches out to brush away some hair that's gotten stuck to my lips.

Literally, a second later, the doors swing inward and Christy's blonde head appears, mouth set in a questioning 'O'. I try to smile at her, but I can't. I can't even move. All I can do is look at Austin and try not to notice the sheen of sweat on his muscles, the way his sandy hair complements the sun weathered bronze of his skin. I feel … electrified, like maybe I could conduct a whole symphony of energy with my fingers right now. Surreptitiously, I kick my panties under the pool table. Let somebody else find them later and wonder why someone with very tasteful, very dull, laceless, nude panties was back here doing something even G-string wearers rarely do. As the British might say –
shagging.
In public.
Oh bloody hell.

“I was thinking of going,” Christy says, eyebrows bouncing up and down as she tries to signal to me that she wants to leave. “It's getting a little … weird in here. There's some chick dancing on the bar … ” Christy pauses here as if for emphasis. “
Shirtless.
” I watch Austin's throat as he swallows and then groans, not like he did just a few minutes earlier, but like something Christy said bothered him.

Like a ghost materializing out of thin air, the redhead (Beck was it?) appears behind my friend and slaps a tattooed hand on her shoulder, flashing me knuckles sprinkled with big, blocky letters. HOPE. I wonder briefly what's on the opposite.

“I could walk you, if you want,” he tells her, but already, I'm shaking my head and looking around for my purse. I can't find it anywhere, but I figure it doesn't matter; it didn't have much in it anyway. Well, not much except for poor Adam, but I figure after the time I just spent with Austin, that he might be pretty angry with me anyhow.

“We're fine,” I say, starting to walk away, feeling a curious tickle between my thighs that's one part throbbing, swollen need and two parts aching soreness. It rubs when I walk and feels both wonderful and terrible all at once. I pray that it goes away quickly.

Austin grabs my arm in a vise-grip, squeezing but not hurting. He doesn't want me to go. I stop resisting and look over my shoulder at him, eyes even bigger and wider and rounder than they already were. I imagine that I look something like a deer caught in the headlights with that stare. Austin doesn't seem to mind.

“We're?” he asks, like he doesn't get it. “You're leaving? But you just got here.” He looks perplexed, like he can't figure me out, can't even figure himself out.
He doesn't want me to go.
I swallow hard and try not to notice the curious way that Christy's staring at me, like she can
smell
me or something.
Oh God, is it that obvious?
I wonder, going back to my romance novel knowledge for comfort. Quotes come flying into my brain, unbidden.
'He could smell it on her – sex and lust and longing – like sweat and mangoes ripening in the hot, hot sun.'
Lame as said quote is, it begs the question: Can they
fucking
(ah, I love you F-word; you are my new best friend) smell me?

I look up at Beck and see that he's looking between me and Austin with a big, fat, perverted grin on his scruffy face. Pardon my language, but he looks like a bit of a
whore
anyhow, so maybe he has that sense. Clearly, from her next words, I can tell that Christy does not.

“What were you guys doing back here anyway?” she asks, sounding genuinely confused. I open my mouth and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, just to keep Beck quiet. He'd been about to say something crude; I could tell by shimmer in his green eyes and the laugh lines crinkling up his face. I'm not ashamed of what I've done, but that doesn't mean I want Christy to know yet. Soon, I'll tell her. I'll tell her and I'll tell everyone else because I won't care, because soon, I'm going to be leaving this town for good.

“Just asking a question,” I say nonchalantly. I watch as Austin releases my arm, leaving a tingly spot where his flesh was touching mine. I watch his face, his lips, his eyes, desperate for some sort of hint on the answer to my previous question.
How do I join? How do I get a one-way ticket out of here?
I had no delusions of grandeur when I came here. This was a desperate ploy at best, and I never expected Austin Sparks to get down on his knees and ask me to marry him, but I do hope that he'll help me. I'd hoped that even before I'd had sex with him – and that was not why I came down here in the first place. It just sort of … happened.

“Give me some time and I'll see what I can do, sugar,” Austin says and I notice that Beck's red eyebrows have climbed halfway up his forehead. Christy glances at Austin and then at me and then over her shoulder with a frown. I hear breaking glass from the area of the bar and use that distraction to move away from Austin. I'm afraid of what might happen if he touches me again, of what I'll do to actually get him to touch me again. Down below, something stirs.