Don’t be afraid? He makes it sound so easy but it’s not. Not for me and it never has been. There are times I feel like I’m possessed by my fear, paralyzed in my life, unable to manage anything because I am afraid.
“I want to go to Seattle. I’m afraid,” I confess.
“I know, Chrissie.”
He brushes the hair from my face and kisses my cheek.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life, Neil.”
He kisses my mouth. Against my lips, he says, “I know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life either. I don’t think anyone knows for sure. I think we all just do.”
His mouth lightly trails down my neck and I can feel him starting to work the t-shirt from my body. In a minute, I’m naked and lying staring up at Neil.
“You don’t have to be afraid. Everything is going to be OK, Chrissie.”
Neil stays balanced above me, reclined on a hip, his body angled. Those long fingers start to touch me everywhere. Up my arms very slowly, then my collarbone, to roam my breasts and then everywhere. He doesn’t kiss me. He gently touches and stirs me until I am languid and aroused and he is fully erect.
I stare up at him. For the first time in many weeks, I want him. I want him now.
“Make love to me,” I whisper.
He turns me in his arms until I’m straddling him and consumes my mouth in quiet, thrusting kisses, his tongue dancing and playing, fucking my mouth with the same unhurried glide as his fingers moving on my flesh.
I feel his erection between my legs, touching me there, but he keeps us separated. He lifts my hair and his lips are on my neck. A hand brushes feather-light up my back.
There is something different in me. I can feel something different in Neil. I am impatient inside and he is slow, achingly slow in this. He spreads me on the bed, his tongue running over my breasts and I can feel his fingers between my legs and then in me. As he cups my sex he teases me with the lightest of contact.
“I love you, Chrissie,” he whispers, and I feel myself tighten and grow wet there.
I melt into his touch, wanting him hard and moving inside me, but he continues this controlled erotic play on my body and it is unlike Neil.
He has never made love to me this way. Not ever. A light kiss on my neck. A finger brushing my flesh. A kiss on my stomach. It is slow and tender and loving. I start to cry and I really don’t know why. The tears roll down my cheeks and I can’t stop them.
His lips tease my ear. I inhale a deep breath. “It’s going to be OK, baby,” he murmurs against my flesh.
A part of me aches even as all of me turns to mold into him. Baby? Why did he call me that? Neil has never called me baby before. Only one guy has ever called me that: Alan.
His tongue moves on my breast, circling my nipple before he takes it slowly into his mouth. I arch up into the play of his lips as his fingers move downward spreading me there.
He enters my body in achingly slow degrees. Inch by inch until he’s buried all of his erection in me. He doesn’t move. He holds his body still, breathing raggedly, kissing and touching me.
My senses swirl even as my emotions scatter with my thoughts. Why is he having sex with me this way? It’s almost as if he thinks I can’t take anything too passionate, too physical, too intense. Or maybe what I’m feeling is him, is his own reaction to all the shit I put him through with me. Maybe he’s afraid to touch me. Maybe he’s unsure he wants this, after having gone through that with me. I don’t know what is happening here between us, but the quiet of his body is unnerving.
I realize the last month has changed us both. Death lingers in your flesh. It’s metaphysically altering. It changes you.
Why didn’t I remember this? I should have remembered that before I went to the clinic. I feel vacant inside, hollow. Such a simple thing, Rene said. Quick. No big deal. Life goes on.
Only it’s not a simple thing. Death, in any form, changes you. And I definitely should have remembered that before I let Neil go with me to the clinic.
I start to cry harder. Everything around me, inside me, inside Neil, no longer feels familiar and I know it’s my fault. I just want to feel good somehow, any way again. I need him to fuck me hard like he always does, physical without the emotional convolution. I want only to feel in my flesh. I don’t want to think. I want not to hurt. I want my heart and mind to go mercifully blank and I want Neil to fuck me until I’m numb in my flesh.
I start to writhe beneath the tight cocoon of his body, my hips rising up in a frenzy, plunging him deeply within me as I devour his mouth with my kisses. His hands move and try to steady me. My nails cut into him as I run them up his back and bite his lower lip. I force him deep within me again. He fights it. I arch upward into him, rougher this time.
Over and over, until I feel the excitement build in his flesh, his muscles growing tauter, the skin across his face straining in the way it does when I’ve pushed him to come and he doesn’t want to.
I wrap my arms and legs around him, and he starts raging in my body. The thrusts are gloriously painfully and I lay pliant beneath him, wanting it harder, deeper, always deeper. He is pounding in me in a way that numbs me.
“Oh fuck, Chrissie,” he groans, pulsing within me as he spills into my flesh. He collapses against my body, sex-damp and quivering. And I don’t know why, but I now know I’m going to leave Berkeley with Neil.
CHAPTER FIVE
We stand at the international departure gate at Oakland Airport. Rene clutches me against her in a firm and breezy hug.
“You stay sweet,” she orders, tapping my chest with an index finger.
“You stay cute,” I reply automatically, but our ritual banter hurts me today.
Her enormous brown eyes fix on me intently. “I’ll be back from Costa Rica in a month.” She makes a face. “That is if I can survive that long with my mother. I’ll call when I get back. Make sure I have Neil’s tour schedule. I want to see you both before I start medical school.” She laughs, sparkly and excited. “I won’t have time after.”
I nod, trying hard not to break down here in the airport.
She pulls Neil against her. “You be good to her, jerk, or you’re going to have to deal with me.”
Inwardly I cringe, because it almost feels like I’m a baton being passed on in a relay race, as if by giving me over to Neil she can walk out of my life with a clear conscience. Christ, Rene, I’m a person not a thing.
I smile as Neil hugs her. She rushes toward the gate, pausing to do a swish with her hips and a whoop, her arms stretched above her head. “We survived University of California Berkeley.”
That was said loud enough to pierce the sound barrier. And then she disappears down the ramp, her laughter trailing behind her. I roll my eyes. Everything works for Rene. Almost every set of male eyes on the ramp lock on her to watch her go.
Once she’s out of view, I turn to Neil and he gives me a gentle wraparound hug.
“Someday, Chrissie, you’re going to have to explain to me why you’re friends with Rene.”
I laugh and peek up at him sheepishly. Neil knows exactly when and how to make me laugh. My emotions begin to settle and the anxiety of seeing Rene leave starts to fade.
“She’s not that bad,” I reply.
Neil shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “OK. She sort of cares about you in her own warped way.”
I rebuke him with my eyes, but I am not in the mood for a snappy comeback. I am silent as we walk from the airport terminal.
Neil opens my car door. “How much longer will it take you to be packed up and ready to go?”
I shrug. “Not long. I just want to leave a note for the management company so they know what to do when the movers arrive.”
Neil leans against my open door. “High-rise condos. Management companies. Boy, you are definitely going to be slumming it in my place in Seattle. It’s a good thing we’re only going to be there a few days. You’d probably leave me if we stayed more than a week.”