Fall Into Forever (22 page)

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “I’ll get you the key. Just make sure to wash the sheets in the morning.”

It takes us a little over an hour to get to the beach house that James’s parents bought as a vacation property when he started at PSU.

On the way down, we stop at Subway and pick up some sandwiches for later. The weather is pretty decent, so as soon as we arrive, we drop off our stuff and head for the beach. The house is on a bluff overlooking the water, so we zigzag down several flights of steps, which dump us right onto the sandy beach.

We spend a couple of hours just walking, picking up broken shells and rocks that Ivy says are pretty. My pockets are filled with her finds.

“I still don’t feel like I know you, Jon,” she says, as she examines a small, mustard-colored stone.

“What are you talking about? We just bared our deepest, darkest secrets to each other.”

“Yeah, but do I know your birthday? Your favorite color? Your favorite kind of animal? No.”

I laugh. She does have a point. “November 13. Navy blue. Ocelot.”

She makes a funny face. “Ocelot?”

“Yeah, they’re these really cool small leopards. Plus, I like the name. Say it three times really fast.”

“Ocelot, ocelot, ocelot,” she says, laughing.

“See what I mean? Ever since I did a report on them in the third grade, I’ve liked them.” I grab a stick and start writing our names in the sand. “Except for your birthday—January 14—I don’t know those things about you, either. Unless a lemur is your favorite animal,” I add, remembering her stuffed animal.

“It’s one of them,” she says. “I also love meerkats. I’ve watched every episode of
Meerkat Manor
.”

I nod. “Flower was cool.”

She knocks me in the shoulder. “Get out. You watched it, too?”

“I can’t say that I’ve watched
every
episode, but, yeah, sometimes. And your favorite color?”

“I switch off between teal and purple.”

Given what she was wearing the first night I met her, I should’ve known.

Once we get back to the house, we have a fancy dinner of Subway sandwiches and Diet Coke. It’s too cold and windy to be out on the deck, so I grab my guitar and sit on the couch. Ivy stretches out on the other end, with her head on the armrest and her toes—in matching socks this time—tucked under my leg. As I pick at a few random chords, she props a book on her chest—a collection of poems—and starts reading.

It feels good to just hang with her. Doing nothing. Saying nothing. Just being in each other’s company.

“Can you play me something?”

I look over and her book is laying facedown on her chest.

I start playing one of my father’s lesser-known hits. I can play all his songs, but this one is my favorite. I stop when I realize what I’m doing.

“Nice,” she says, smiling. “Is that something you wrote?”

I’m glad she doesn’t recognize it. “No.”

I change chords and a different melody fills the room. This time, it’s a song I wrote. Or I should say, am writing. I’ve never been able to get the ending right. And I’ve never played it for anyone before. Ivy is the first.

They say you’ll always like the music you listened to in high school because it takes you back to a time when things were simpler. When everything was new. First kiss. First love. First time you have sex. You’re standing on the edge of your whole life with the world stretched out before you. Everything and anything is possible.

For me, that time wasn’t simple. I don’t have fond memories that I relive when one of those songs comes on the radio. It’s when a lot of bad things happened. Plus, my father had a top ten hit at the time that everyone was listening to. I couldn’t get away from it. Hell, the marching band even played it at halftime once. I lost my shit during the second half and ended up getting kicked out of the game.

So I started writing my own music. Not to take after my father, but to get him out of my head. This song calms me, takes me away from all that.

The air around me stirs. I open my eyes, not realizing I had closed them. Ivy is sitting on the floor at my feet, her chin tilted upward, listening. I put my palm against the strings and the sound fades away.

She frowns. “Don’t stop, Jon. It’s…it’s beautiful. I want to hear the rest.”

I’ll tell you what’s beautiful. The girl in front of me. I exhale a long, slow breath, hoping I’m not in the middle of a dream right now.

“Tell me you wrote that one, because—”

“How did you know?” I ask, curious. She wasn’t nearly as confident when she asked the same thing about my father’s song.

She shrugged. “I don’t really know. It…it sounds like you, I guess.”

The initial chord sequence came to me while I was living in the basement of my foster family’s home. I’d sit down there for hours, often stoned, and play it over and over. Ivy’s right. It
is
a part of me.

“Mmmm.” She closes her eyes. “Keep playing.”

So I do, starting from the beginning. After the third chorus, when I get to the part I usually struggle with, the song changes slightly. For some reason, I reverse the chord sequence.

I stop, replay that part. It’s…it’s perfect. I can’t believe it didn’t come to me until now. I play it again, start to finish. Holy shit. That one little change has made all the difference.

Suddenly, I’m staring down into her warm green eyes, and she’s staring up at me. Something shifts between us. An awareness. A shared secret.

Without saying a word, she moves closer. With the song still echoing in the air, she removes the guitar from my grasp and sets it on the floor beside the couch. Her eyes are dark with need, echoing my desire. She hooks her thumbs under the waistband of my sweats, so I lift my hips and she slides them down. My erection springs free.

“Jesus, Ivy.” I can’t get inside her fast enough. I start to pull her up on my lap, but she stops me with a hand on my chest.

“Not yet,” she says and pushes me back in my seat. She frees my feet from the sweats and tosses them behind her. Which leaves me sitting on the couch, naked from the waist down, my cock jutting out at her. “I admit I had that in mind, but seeing you like this—” The tip of her tongue darts out. “—makes me want to do something else first.”

Holy fuck.

I’m pretty sure I just got harder.

“Is that okay with you?” she asks, a smile tugging at the corner of her luscious mouth.

“Of course.” She could ask me to do anything right now and I’d gladly do it.

She positions herself between my knees, leans forward and takes me into her mouth.

I groan loudly, grabbing the armrest to keep from holding onto her hair. Instinctively, I know that could make her panic. And believe me, stopping is the last thing I want her to do right now.

What is it about Ivy that hits all the right notes with me? She makes me laugh, makes me feel good about myself, and I’m not just saying that because she has my dick in her mouth right now. She has this amazing ability to drive away the darkness that has always been a part of my life.

At this rate, I’m not going to last much longer, and as much as I want her to continue, I want her to experience this, too.

Wordlessly, I lift her to her feet. She lets out a surprised laugh when I scoop her into my arms, carry her to the bedroom, and set her on the mattress. My mouth crashes over hers as we strip off our clothes. Without breaking our kiss, I grab the box of condoms I brought. Goddamn it. You think they’d know people don’t want to spend much time trying to figure out how the box works. I wrench myself away from her, rip it open, and little foil packages go flying.

“Fuck!”

She laughs.

I tear one open with my teeth and quickly roll it on. Her hair spreads over the pillow, her lips slightly swollen and parted. I fall on top of her, my mouth finding hers again as I guide myself like an arrow. There. The tip slides in, right between her folds, and I stop.

“Baby, you ready?” I ask against her lips. “After what this naughty mouth of yours just did, I’m about to explode.”

“Yes,” she whispers, kissing me back.

That’s all I need to hear.

With my weight braced on my forearms, I flex my hips and push into her. She hisses in a breath. I still myself briefly, allowing her a chance to get used to me being inside her. She’s so hot. So damn tight. I’m not going to last long.

“Fuck me, Jon.”

Oh shit. My mouth crashes over hers and I thrust into her. Once. Twice. Three times.

“God, Ivy,” I groan into her hair. “I hope you’re close.”

She cries out my name and arches her back, allowing me to slide a fraction deeper. Her inner muscles tighten around me. Guess that’s my answer.

I’m…I’m there, too.

I need this.

I need Ivy.

She’s mine.

My release rushes over me with a force so strong that, I swear, my heart stopped beating for a second. I hold her tighter, wishing this could go on forever.

“Yes,” she whispers softly in my ear. “I need you, too.”

chapter sixteen

You are the candle that lights the whole world,

and I am an empty vessel for your light.

~ Rumi

Ivy

The next day we get up early because I have to work at noon. I strip the bed, wrap myself up like a burrito, and head to the laundry room to start a load. Jon laughs at me and the little steps I’m taking. (It’s hard to walk like a burrito.) I yelp when he grabs the other sheet from me and puts it over his head like a ghost.

“I’m coming for you,” he says in a spooky voice, holding out his arms.

I scream, hitch up my sheet, and run down the hall, but before I reach the laundry room, I hear a
clunk
.

“Ouch.”

I turn around. Jon is rubbing his head. Not being able to see were he was going, he bumped into the corner of the door.

“Let me kiss your boo-boo.”

We end up leaving a little later than we planned.

My shift at work literally drags on forever. Everyone’s talking about what happened to Maddy. When they find out I live in the same dorm, I’m bombarded with lots of questions. Because I hate being the center of attention, I keep my answers vague and manage to avoid telling them that I was the one who discovered her. I’m sure it’ll get out though. Things like that always do.

Now, I’m finally back at the White House, sitting in the family room with Jon and his roommates.

“Let your goddamn cousin sleep in your goddamn bed!”

With my eyes downcast, I try to keep a straight face and let Jon handle this.

Cassidy got back from Portland a few hours ago. The police still haven’t caught the guy who attacked Maddy, but they have a few leads. Even though they’ve rekeyed the entire residence hall, including all the dorm rooms, Jon insists I stay here with him, which is okay by me. However, I don’t want Cassidy to stay at the dorm alone and since Tate is her cousin, it only makes sense that she should stay here, too. It was Jon’s idea, actually.

“Then where am I supposed to sleep, huh?” Tate adjusts his PSU ball cap, pulling it lower on his forehead. “Didn’t anyone think about that? Why doesn’t anyone seem to care about me or my needs?”

I glance at Cassidy. “Is he always this way?” I mouth.

“Baby of the family,” she whispers.

Rick, whose grandmother owns the house, claps Tate on the back. “We love ya, buddy. But she’s your cousin, which means you give her your bed.”

Tate gives him the evil eye. “Thanks for the support, ass-wipe.”

Jon points his beer bottle at him. “I’ll bet if you’re really nice to James—you know, make him dinner or something, rub lotion on his feet—he’ll let you sleep with him.”

“Fuck you, Priestly.” James props his long legs on the coffee table and clicks the remote.

“That’s okay,” Cassidy says. “I can sleep on the couch. No big deal. I’m just happy I’m not at the dorm. Half the girls on our floor have moved out until they catch the guy.”

Jon sets down his beer with a bang, his face stern and angular. “This is Tate’s problem, Cassidy. He needs to fucking man up and take the goddamn couch.” He glares at his roommate. “It’s not like you’ve never passed out and slept on it anyway.”

“Dude, he’s right,” James says. “Quit your whining and do the right thing.”

“This sucks.” Tate stomps out of the room and heads toward the stairs. “You guys are all ganging up on me.”

“Take the sheets and the pillowcases off the bed,” Jon calls out to him. Tate doesn’t answer, but his footsteps in the upper hall get louder.

A short time later, with Cassidy busy doing laundry and cleaning the disgusting upstairs bathroom, Jon and I are in his room. I grab my sports bra and head to the bathroom. I’m not used to changing in front of him yet.

“Thanks for going to bat for Cassidy,” I tell him.

“I’m glad Tate finally agreed. I was getting ready to give up my half of this bed to her.”

I hesitate in the bathroom doorway and turn around. “Good thing you didn’t have to do that, because I’m kind of thinking I might want to hook up with you again tonight. Just sayin’.”