Breathe Again (7 page)

I obviously hadn’t anticipated that we would get this far, so
I mentally thanked myself for actually wearing sexy underwear. The black lace
bra and panty set was a splurge of mine, and a big change from the white cotton
underwear that I usually wore. Apparently Jackson appreciated it too, because
the groan that came from his mouth when he saw me lying there underneath him,
in all black, was pure animal.

“Fuck, Mellie, you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I
want to be inside of you so badly it hurts,” he moaned into my mouth, while
kissing me yet again. I jutted my hips upward, grinding them against his
pelvis, which was still covered by a layer of jeans. There was still too much
between us, and I reached down to undo the button on his jeans, but his hand
stopped me.

“Wait,” he said gruffly, pulling his lips from mine. “I want
to see you.” I frowned, wanting him desperately, but he pinned my hands above
my head. Every inch of me was on fire as his gaze moved over the length of me,
from my too-long toes to my too-skinny legs, and over my too-small breasts.

He moved both of my small hands into one of his, and the
other roamed over my body. I didn’t even try to stifle the loud groan that
escaped my throat when he reached the edge of my lace-lined bra. He let his
hand linger, slipping his fingers underneath to tease my nipple, then wandered
farther south, caressing my hip and slipping his fingers into the top of my
panties.

Finally he let my hands go and I explored his body as well,
though I wasn’t nearly as confident as he was. My fingers stroked his back as
he lowered his face to mine again, kissing me roughly, with such passion that
it left me feeling intoxicated. Having his hands on my body was like no drug or
drink I’d ever encountered. It was fucking addicting.

He kept whispering sweet notes into my ear while assaulting
the rest of my senses with all of him. I refused to let my insecurities or fear
get in the way of this perfect moment. It was impossible not to lose myself
with Jackson; not with the way he was worshipping my body. I didn’t let myself
think of all the tens of thousands of women who would have given anything to be
in my place. He wanted me, and he made sure I knew it.

Eventually he moved back to my neck, which he kissed and bit
and sucked in ways that I’d never even considered. And when he did, I knew that
there was no going back. I reached down, my hands shaking only slightly, and
unbuttoned his jeans. Realizing what I was trying to do, Jackson quickly pulled
them off.

“You are absolutely incredible,” he mumbled against my neck,
moving his hand to my breast. “I want you so badly.”

I nearly moaned in pleasure at his words, knowing exactly how
much he wanted me.

“Let me get a . . .” he said, trailing off, distracted by the
way my lips were now moving against his neck. “I mean, we should be safe . . .”
Knowing that my touch affected him the same way that his affected me was
thrilling. I didn’t know what I was doing, but he made me feel confident. He
made me feel safe. My hands no longer shook, and I let them work their way down
his back, clutching him tightly as I kissed him right below his ear.

“Oh my god,” I heard him murmur against me. “Please, Mel, I
can’t take this much longer.”

I moved my lips from his neck to only millimeters from his
ear. “Don’t worry. It’s safe.”

I could feel him clench at my words, and he immediately
reached behind me to unclasp my bra, and threw it across the room. I wrapped my
legs around his hips and pulled him even closer to me. He rocked against me,
and I was all too aware of the fabric that still kept us apart. I loosened my
legs slightly, and he took advantage of the movement by nearly ripping my
panties off while I pulled his briefs down his backside. My position didn’t let
me get them all the way down, so he quickly pulled them off himself.

There was nothing left separating us, and I could feel him
between my legs. He nipped at my ear, and I almost hummed with pleasure as he
slid into me so slowly it was almost painful. I pulled his face back to mine
and kissed him again. The kiss was so different, as he rocked back into me
again, so passionate and sweet and fulfilling. I squeezed my eyes shut,
overwhelmed by the emotion of the situation, and moved my forehead to rest
against his neck.

We both lost track of time, concentrating only on each other.
After what seemed like hours but could have been only a few seconds, Jackson
slowed, wrapping one of his arms around me. He kissed my neck, my hair, my
forehead, and I couldn’t help but smile at the sweetness of the gesture.

He pulled out of me, and I frowned. I knew he wasn’t done,
and I already felt empty without him. Before I knew what was happening, he
rolled over onto his back and pulled me on top of him. I froze, unsure of what
to do. I knew that some couples made love this way, but I wasn’t familiar with
the position. Even in the passion of the moment, I let my insecurities get hold
of me. I felt so naked, so exposed.

But as if he could read my mind, he guided me. He touched my
face, my hair, and I felt safe again. And when he slid into me for the second
time that night, I nearly collapsed on top of him. But the pleasure of it far
outweighed any anxiety I had about being on top, and it wasn’t long before I
found a rhythm that made us both cry out. We moved slowly after that, but with
an urgency that neither one of us could hide.

I lost my virginity on my fifteenth
birthday. I’d always been taught, like most young women in Selden, that I
should wait until marriage before having sex, but nobody ever did. Especially
not when their boyfriends at fifteen were expected to one day be their husbands.

My mom had made pot roast for dinner and a chocolate cake for
dessert. I’d invited my two best friends over, but my boyfriend, Daniel, had to
work. It wasn’t until nearly midnight, long after my parents and siblings had
fallen asleep, that I heard the tap at my window.

We’d been dating only a few months at that time, but we’d
known each other almost our entire lives. We’d grown up next door to each
other, and his older brother was a best friend of my older brother. And while
Daniel was a year older than I was, my parents encouraged our relationship. The
walls in the Devlin house were thin, and my parents’ bedroom was right next to
my own, but if they heard the window open and close that night, they never said
anything. They didn’t say anything for the next eight years either.

According to nearly everyone in town, Daniel and I were a
perfect match. We both came from families that had lived in Selden for
generations, and our fathers had gone to school together. Our mothers were even
cochairs of the women’s council at church. It seemed inevitable that we would
marry someday.

We walked to the creek behind our houses, where he gave me a
charm bracelet for my birthday. He told me he saved his paycheck for two months
so that he could buy it for me, and had driven almost three hours to the
closest mall so that he could pick it up from the jewelers. It came with three
charms on it already, and had plenty of space left for me to collect more.
There was a heart with the date on it, an
M
for
Mellie, and a hummingbird for my grandmother. For the next six years, until he
proposed, it was the most precious piece of jewelry that I owned, after my
grandmother’s pearl necklace. It was now buried in a sock drawer in my bedroom
at my parents’ house, next to my engagement ring.

He had spread out a blanket on the riverbank, and had a
cupcake and a bottle of stolen champagne waiting for us. I’d never tried real
champagne before, just a glass of white wine once at my cousin’s wedding. When
he popped open the bottle, I was afraid for a moment that someone would hear
it, but everyone was asleep and we were almost a mile away from home. I didn’t
like the taste of the alcohol at first, but it wasn’t long before the bottle
was almost gone. And when he kissed me, I didn’t stop him.

The first time wasn’t anything like the fairy tale I’d always
dreamed it would be. It was painful and awkward, but we were both young and had
never made love before. So, even though the night was cold and the champagne
was warm, it was amazing to me. I’d found someone who loved me, and only me, in
every way possible.

I wasn’t really sure what I was
expecting after it was all over. We’d been going at it for nearly three hours,
finally stopping when we were both too exhausted to continue. He just wrapped
me in the blankets and held me close before falling asleep. I could feel his
heavy, even breathing on my neck, but I couldn’t sleep, no matter how safe and
right it felt in his arms.

The air was a little chilly, so I pulled the sheet off of the
bed when I got up, making sure to wrap it around myself. I padded into the
front room, hoping to find a glass of water. I considered calling myself a cab,
but I didn’t have a phone and I wasn’t sure where Jackson kept his. It would be
too cruel to leave him while he was sleeping, anyway.

I rummaged through his cabinets quietly, and found a water
glass next to the fridge. There was a bench near the window in the kitchen, and
I sat down on the padded seat. We were so high up I could see almost the entire
west side of the city. It was beautiful.

I felt so small up there in that massive apartment. Life was
going on just as it always did down below, but my heart was all over the place.
I knew that I liked Jackson. More than liked him, if I were being honest with myself.
I guess I’d just convinced myself that it was just for fun, that I could have a
fling. But this didn’t feel like a fling, and now I felt like an ass for
keeping it all inside. Jackson didn’t deserve that. He was too kind, too open
and sincere, and here I was, dragging him through my own personal drama.

I sat there for a while, just looking out at the city below.
This wasn’t my home, but neither was Kansas. Not anymore, at least. I closed my
eyes and just let myself be.

I’m not sure when I had fallen asleep, but I was woken up
when a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around me.

“Mellie Rose,” Jackson whispered in my ear. “My bed is too
empty without you. Why are you out here?”

I didn’t respond immediately, just let myself breathe in his
scent, the one that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

“We need to talk,” I said, finally turning toward him.

“Of course,” he said quietly. “You’re cold, though. Can I get
you a blanket?”

I didn’t say anything, just stood up from the window and made
my way to the couch. He followed me and sat as close as he could without
actually touching me.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, turning toward me.
“But I want you to know that I don’t care. I don’t care what you’re about to
tell me, I just want you. We all have pasts and we all have baggage, but that
doesn’t define who we are now. I know someone hurt you back in Kansas, but
you’re here now, and you have me.”

I sighed softly. “There are a lot of things that I haven’t
told you about my life, Jackson. I’m sorry about that. I haven’t told you
because I didn’t know if it would ever get to this point. But it obviously has,
so I have no other choice.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke.

“I’m sorry if I did something to upset you. I thought it was
what you wanted,” he said softly.

I couldn’t not touch him—not when I was about to lay bare my
past—so I took one of his hands in mine and started playing with his fingers
absentmindedly.

“You are only the second person I’ve ever slept with in my
life,” I finally said. He didn’t say anything, so I just kept going. “I’ve been
terrified that if I did sleep with you, I would become just another girl to
you.” I could see him trying to say something, but I held my hand up to stop
him. “I’m still not sure that I’m not, but you can reassure me another time.
Right now, I need to explain myself.”

He nodded, but kept his mouth shut. “At this time last year,
I was planning my wedding.”

That simple confession was one of the hardest things I’d ever
had to say out loud. Up until this point, I’d never had to explain myself; I’d
never felt the need to.

“I started seeing Daniel when I was only fourteen years old.
We’d known each other forever, but it wasn’t until my freshman year of high
school that he noticed me. We were together all four years of high school, and
I waited for him until he graduated college. I wasn’t allowed to go to college;
my parents thought it was a waste of time and money. I didn’t need a college
degree to be a wife and mother.

“I can tell you exactly when I fell in love with him, but I
can’t tell you when I started falling out of love. We were always the token
couple, the two people who were going to stay together forever. My friends
always said that they were so jealous of me, but I couldn’t help thinking that
I was jealous of what they had. They were able to go out and have a real life,
but I always had to think of someone else when I did. They belonged to
themselves, but I belonged to someone else. I never got to make my own
decisions; my father and my boyfriend made them for me. It was how I lived my
life.

“Looking back, it’s not that I was opposed to being in a
serious relationship. I think it was just the wrong person and the wrong time.
And we were so young. Regardless, he proposed to me during his senior year of
college. I tried to convince myself that it was the right thing to do. I did,
eventually, and I threw myself into our wedding plans.

“It took him almost six years to graduate, but I refused to
marry him until he had his degree. I couldn’t go to college but I wasn’t about
to marry someone who didn’t have that security. A week before he graduated, I
got an email from a friend of ours. She confessed to me that she and Daniel had
slept together one night after they’d been drinking. Reading those words on the
computer screen was more painful than anything I’d ever experienced before.
Later, other people kept asking me how I knew it was true, since I never asked
him. The truth is, I didn’t need to. Those first few days of being without him
were some of the hardest days of my life. I had no idea what it was like to be
single and I was terrified and humiliated. So I ran away.”

I could feel Jackson studying my face as I spoke. I was
almost too afraid to ask him what he was thinking, so I just kept going.

“It took me a while,” I continued, “but for the first time in
a long time, I felt like I could finally breathe on my own. I just didn’t know
how. For weeks I was so low that I could barely feel anything at all. It was
like I was suffocating, but could taste the air on my tongue. I could taste
freedom. I was so close to getting exactly what I needed in life, but I still
didn’t belong to myself there. I needed to leave Selden. I needed to get away
from that life.”

I saw Jackson nod from the corner of my eye, and I risked
looking up at him. He was watching me carefully, but I couldn’t read his face.
I scooted a bit closer to where he sat on the couch. I needed the nearness of
him to keep going. He made me feel brave.

“Moving here was the first time I felt like I had ever been
in control of myself. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, without
constantly looking over my shoulder or asking permission. And eventually I
learned how to breathe on my own. But I was still so scared. I don’t know how
to live like this. My entire life I was told that to have a purpose, I needed
someone else. So I tried to find someone to be with, someone who respected me
and who was safe. Someone who wouldn’t break my heart. I thought I found him,
but nobody’s perfect and he hurt me too. And then you came along.”

“And how do I fit into all of this, then?” he asked. I could
hear his voice waver.

I thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. I
knew who you were immediately, of course, and I knew you weren’t the man I was
looking for. That’s why I said no to you the first time, but you were
persistent. Eventually I figured that I could at least just have fun. I never
expected anything serious to come out of it. I made myself a promise that
tonight would never happen, but it did, and I can’t say that I’m upset over
it.”

I knew that he wasn’t happy about what I just said, but I
needed to get it out. He opened his mouth, but I stopped him again and dropped
his hand.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen from here, but I need
you to know that my heart can’t break anymore. If this is it, if this is all
you wanted from me, please just let me know now.”

I sat completely still, waiting for him to kick me out, for
him to tell me that I had it all wrong. I was afraid he was going to tell me I
was reading too much into it, that he really was just having fun. I wasn’t
expecting him to pull me into his arms and press his lips to mine. I was
hesitant at first, but I eventually gave in, again. I used the opportunity to
pour every emotion I was feeling into the kiss. I didn’t know if he felt it or
not, but it was all I had.

After a few seconds, he pulled away and cleared his throat
before speaking. “I don’t know what’s going to happen either. And I didn’t know
what would happen when I made the decision to come find you, but I always knew
that you weren’t going to be just another woman to me. Regardless of where this
goes, I swear to you that I will never hurt you. I’ve been with a lot of women
and there is nothing I can do to change that now, but I swear that you are something
different. I have never felt anything like this with anybody else, and I would
like to see what happens next, if that’s okay with you.” He looked into my eyes
and I knew he was trying to find my answer before I could say it out loud, but
I pulled my gaze away from his and laid my cheek on his chest instead.

“I would like that,” I said softly. He tightened his hold
around me, kissing my hair as I yawned. He held me for a long time, refusing to
let me go. There really was nothing left between us now but honesty and
nakedness and vulnerability. I wanted it to last forever.

I was about to doze off in his arms when I heard his voice in
my hair.

“It’s two in the morning, Mellie.”

“Mmmmmm,” was all I said. I was far too comfortable in his
arms.

“I can take you home if you want, but I’d really like to take
you back to bed with me. To sleep.”

I pulled myself away from his chest and looked him in the
eye. He really did look like he wanted me to stay. “I’ll stay,” I said quietly.

“I can even sleep on the couch, if you want,” he offered. I
just kissed him then, and wrapped my arms around his neck. For the second time
that night, he picked me up off the couch and carried me to his bedroom.

I started to fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow,
but not before I felt his lips against my hair, and heard his whisper in my
ear.

“My Mellie Rose. What am I going to do with you?”