Mark sighs heavily and walks past us, reaching out and putting a hand on Carly's shoulder which she touches gently. She turns to look at him and fresh tears spill over the corners of her eyes. He drops his head and continues through the doors.
Carly walks to me and puts her arms through mine and around my waist. I rest my chin on her head as she buries her face in the folds of my jacket. I stroke her hair and a tiny sob escapes her.
"I'm sorry I'm crying," she says, using the sleeve of her sweater to wipe at her face.
"Don't ever apologize for crying, Carly. Not to me." I hold her face in my hands and in her sadness I can see the hurt little seven year-old who's nursing a new broken heart. She tries to smile, but her face only allows her half of one.
"I never cry," she sniffles. "I figure it's not right to spend tears on yourself, not when there are people who have problems so much worse than yours." She pulls both arms up and gently wipes her face.
It's a sound, if almost impossible code to live by. "Come here," I say and pull her back into my arms. I hug her around her shoulders and kiss her temple.
"God, Jack. She looks so bad. They came in and told her she needs to take it easy for a few days, but it was like she didn't even hear them. She wasn't even a month along yet and she didn't even know. She's blaming herself. Saying if she'd known, she wouldn't have gone to yoga this morning. Like doing yoga caused this."
I hold her as she talks and hope she can get it all out.
"I tried to tell her there was nothing she could do, but she's convinced she caused it." Carly wraps her arms tighter around me and lets a heavy breath out into my chest. "Can we leave now? I need to get out of here. Visiting hours are long over, so there's no point in us staying."
“
You wanna come to my place?”
She leans out and looks up at me, her arms still holding me tightly around the middle. “Will you come to my house?”
“
We’ll go wherever you want,” I say, kissing her forehead. She climbs in my vehicle and looks toward the hospital before dropping her eyes to her sleeve again.
§
Carly curls up next to me on her bed, her body so tense and drained. I wrap my arms around her and hold her.
"You know what?" she says with a voice so hushed I almost don't hear her.
"What?"
"I've never been in love," she says.
I wait for a second; trying to sort out if this is the right time to tell her how I feel.
"Not even once?" I ask, squeezing her to me. She turns her body toward me and drapes one arm over my shoulder. I study her face and wait for her cue as to what comes next.
"Maybe I felt something, but I don't think it was love." Her eyes are still red rimmed, but her face is almost devastatingly beautiful.
"Don't you think you'd know if it was love?" I ask.
"I have a rule against the 'L word'," she says. "It's something you can't take back, but it can end up hurting worse than telling someone you hate them. Which I've felt a lot."
I run my fingers up and down her back, thinking about her words.
"I guess I'm thinking about this stuff because of Claire," she says, playing with the button on my shirt collar. "Because she's the only person I know I've ever really loved. Other than our grandma. Claire's the only person who's been there for me my whole life, when no one else was."
"Where were your parents?" I ask, though I already know a little.
"My dad left with an 18 year old girl when I was seven. He tried to get my mom to take him back, but she’d already found somebody else by then and wouldn’t even talk to him. I don't know where he is now. I think maybe Phoenix. That's where he was the last time anyone talked about him. My mom is up in New Jersey. She has a new husband and a couple of step kids. I don’t talk to her. I have nothing to say to the bitch."
The hatred in her voice is so out of character for her and it takes me by surprise.
"I have no one other than Claire. I know now how I got to be the way I am, how I've hardened my heart. I've only got one and the people I should've been able to count on more than anyone else didn't give a shit about it, so I walled it up. Kept everyone out." Tears appear at the corner of her eyes and one slips down her cheek. I put my hand on her face and gently wipe it away with my thumb.
"I know all about walls," I say. "It's easier to hide inside yourself when you're sure no one can get in and pull you out." I take her hand in mine and curl it between us. "But you pulled me out. And you have me, for as long as you want me." I feel the words rising up in my throat, feel my inner clock telling me the time is right to say what I've wanted to say almost since the moment I met her.
She turns her face up to meet mine and gives me a smile.
"I love you, Carly. I love you like I've always loved you," I say, catching another tear as it rolls down her face. I push her hair back and rest my fingers underneath her chin. "It's more like I've been in love with you forever, we just hadn't met. Everything I've been through, even the shit I did to cause my own problems, all of it put me where I am so I can be with you."
She sobs then, but I can't tell if it's happy or sad.
"Hey, hey," I say, trying to comfort her. "What's wrong?"
"Jack, I love you, too. I love you more than I can even understand." A smile turns up the corners of her mouth and it's like the sun came out, warming her small bedroom and my heart at the same time.
"Well, look here, we just broke another of your rules," I say, nuzzling my beard into her neck. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"I couldn't help but love you, Jack. You've changed me, deep in what I've always guarded so closely and called my heart. I never want anyone else, could never even think of not being with you. You're my Sexy Jack." She grins through her tears and she's my Carly again.
"Why do you call me that?"
"Remember when we met? In the sex shop?" she smiles a little to herself at the memory. I can't help but smile, too. She looked so sexy that night that I almost followed her out of the store and begged for her name.
"Well, I didn't know who you were, obviously, but the guy called you Jack and the next thought I had was to call you Sexy Jack. And I bought that vibrator," she confesses then hides her face in her hands. She shakes her head in embarrassment.
"What? Why are you hiding your face?" I ask as I try to pull her hands away. “I was there, I saw you get it,” I say. She laughs and finally looks at me again.
"It's embarrassing," she says, rolling her eyes. "What's even more embarrassing is that when I used it that night," the image of her on her bed with the vibrator excites me and makes me jealous all at the same time, "I thought about you."
Her eyes are mischievous and sexy.
"And what did you think?" I ask.
"I fantasized about you, fucking me. I have to say, you're the only man that could ever beat my fantasies."
"So I'm better than your fantasy? I'll take that any day," I say. I move my hand down her abdomen and rest it on her hips, waiting to see if she's in the mood to let me do more.
"You know exactly what you do to me," she whispers.
"I know what I'd
like
to do to you," I mumble in her ear. I kiss behind it and down her neck before biting gently. She breathes in deeply and her body stirs.
"And just what would that be?" she asks.
"I'd like to make you scream my name so loud it wakes the neighbors." Carly giggles against me and I catch her eyes. "
In the next building over
."
I start to kiss at her collar bone until she puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me apologetically. "I'm so sorry to tell you this, but there'll be no screaming from me. At least for the next three days."
"Are you serious?" I groan. "Forget blue balls, mine are gonna be fucking purple."
She laughs against me again and sticks her lip out in a mock pout. "Poor baby." She pulls my lip down with her finger. "Don't you remember my text from this morning?"
Suddenly I do and I see where she's going with this. I can't hide my smile or my hard on.
"Lay back," Carly orders. I do as she says and she reaches out with her nimble fingers, unbuttoning my shirt. She undoes the first two buttons, and then decides to straddle me. She's about to make me not care that she's out of commission.
I push myself up on my hands and let her continue to unbutton my shirt. I free my arms of it and she pulls her own shirt over her head. Damn, how I love this woman. Every single part of her. Everything she tries to hide, I think is beautiful. It's all fucking perfect to me and she has me hooked on her in every single way.
Carly unbuttons my jeans and pulls them down around my hips. She leans in and gently tugs at my boxer shorts with her teeth.
I reach out and stroke her hair as she struggles to fit my dick through the hole. "I don't think that's gonna work," I chuckle. I push my boxers down underneath my balls. She eyes my semi-erect dick and then smiles. My eyes travel from her mouth down to her tits. I've always been a breast man, but hers make me crazy.
My cock stiffens fully as she traces a line around the head her tongue. She strokes me slowly, sucking on the tip and moving her tongue in circles. I wanna watch her mouth slide up and down me, but it feels so good that my eyes close against my will. She moves her mouth down as far as she can, getting most of my dick down her throat. She sucks hard and slow, making me shudder. How I wish I could bury my dick in her and fuck her until we both can't move.
I twist my fingers in her hair as she starts to move her mouth faster. I can feel her tongue as she runs it back and forth and up and down. Her mouth is hot and wet and I can feel my balls clench as she sucks me off. Her mouth is almost as good as the rest of her.
"I'm gonna come, Carly."
She sucks harder and faster in response, never ceasing the movement of her tongue while I'm inside her mouth. I feel it rising from my balls, throbbing through the shaft of my cock before it finally explodes in her mouth. I groan as she sucks at my dick, the beating of my heart echoed in the pulsing of my balls. My body tenses and I push her head down just a little more.
"Motherfuck, do I ever love you," I say, gritting my teeth.
Carly slowly pulls me out of her mouth, gives the head of my dick a gentle bite and then smiles. "I take it you enjoyed that?"
Fuck. She swallowed my cum.
"Let's just say I'm not quite so disappointed you're on your period," I say as I pull my boxers and jeans back up. My dick is still hard, but I know I'm spent.
She grins at me, then hops off the bed and disappears out of the bedroom toward the bathroom. I put my hands underneath my head and look at the ceiling. I want to do something for her, something to show her how much she means to me.
Carly finds me on the bed, still thinking about her coming surprise. She kisses me and her breath is minty fresh.
"Thank you for that," I say.
"It was high time I repaid your for eating my pussy," she says as she scoots in next to me.
"Listen to that dirty mouth," I say, kissing her again.
"Not dirty anymore, I brushed my teeth," she says, licking at my lips with her minty tongue.
"I have something to ask you," I say.
She turns her attention to me fully.
"My mom usually cooks a big Thanksgiving dinner, though it's just the two of us, and I thought maybe you'd like to come with me."