Run (14 page)

       He shoved his boxers down, boosting his ass off the couch to get rid of them completely before catching me around the waist, kissing me as I settled onto his lap once more. The lift and drag of my sex along his cock, slicking it with my arousal, left us both panting and scrabbling like eager teenagers, beyond ready for the main event.

       Smart man, he’d come prepared. He ripped open the condom and rolled it on. A tilt of my hips, a slow, steady thrust, and he was inside me. Waiting for my next move. The world disappeared as I began rocking, body hot and aching, my skin tight. More sounds filled the room, slick sounds borne of our undulations, his grunts echoed by my whimpers. Close, close sex, the distance between us inches and growing smaller by the second. He slipped his thumb in my mouth, and I laved the tip, smiling at his renewed growl. Down, down, gliding over my chest, my belly, arrowing in on my clit and rubbing it.

       The first waves of release rippled outward, each one stronger than the last. I chased after it. I had to have it. Had to have
him
, had to bring him with me. I tightened my inner muscles as I lifted my hips, gasping at the spike in sensation.

       “Fuck, McKenna, you’re gonna kill me.” He urged me on, faster, harder, his hand getting smashed in between us as I leaned forward and took his mouth, needing the connection. The spark it set off triggered release, and it burned through me, bright gold and blinding. It took
everything
—sight, sound, thought. Trevor’s touch was the only thing tethering me to Earth, his own low groan barely audible over the rushing in my head.

       I slumped against him, boneless and sticky. He brushed his lips over my temple, breathing harsh as his chest shuddered against mine. “Told you my idea was a good one.”

       I found the energy to laugh. “Won’t argue with you there.” Our skin stuck together in places, and I wrinkled my nose. “Need a shower.”

       Dropping a quick kiss on my nose, he shifted his hands under my butt and stood, carrying me down the hall to his bedroom over my protests. He let my legs slide down his body as he set me on my feet, then reached into the shower stall and turned on the water.

       The cool water felt amazing. He teased water droplets from my nipples, cursed as I lowered to my knees to suck him into my mouth, pinned me to the tile and took me, demanding it all and giving it back, tenfold.

       I slept like a baby.

       He woke me with a whispered good morning, his face buried at the crook of my neck, breath hot on my skin. He didn’t question when I bucked my hips, begging for more, just slipped inside and brought me to the edge so fast and quick that falling over was like plunging off a cliff I couldn’t see.

       Snug in his bed, covers pulled up against the cool of the air conditioning unit, the words spilled out. “I thought it was a little weird, at first. Deirdra’s behavior. It started out like she was an eager to please student, asking for help, wanting more guidance than she got in class. She didn’t have many friends, and I felt bad for her. I figured a little extra attention couldn’t hurt. Maybe it’d boost her confidence, you know? She took it and ran with it.

       “She was…fixated.” I stared at the wall beyond him, his chest rising and falling under my cheek. “My therapist thought she may have developed some sort of unhealthy attachment. I thought calling her out on it, by informing someone when I couldn’t be sure what was going on, would only make things worse for her, so I tried talking to her. I even brought in the school counselor once, and that was a disaster. She started crying and raving I didn’t care about her at all, and ended up running out of the school. Elise, the counselor, spoke with her parents and they swore Deirdra didn’t have any problems at home.

       “After that, I tried to reason with her. Encouraged her to try new things. And when that didn’t work, I started avoiding her. She wasn’t in any of my classes. I taught 11th grade English and creative writing, and she’d already taken the creative writing class.”

       
Drip.

       
Drip.

       
Drip.

       I shuddered. “She slit her wrists. She broke into my classroom before school one morning and slit her wrists, knowing I’d be the one to find her. I’m not sure if she intended for me to find her before she was beyond saving or not. It divided the community. I got plenty of dirty looks and malicious whispers for months afterward, and they always resurfaced as the local media brought it up. There was an investigation. I was suspended, then let go. After a while, most people forgot about it, but the damage had been done.”

       Trevor said nothing. What could he say, anyway? That it wasn’t my fault? It was, and it wasn’t. That it must have been horrible? It was.

       “You can’t stop blaming yourself.”

       I boosted up on an elbow and looked down at him. “It’s not just that. I lost a job I loved partly because of her. It pisses me off that she attached herself to me for no logical reason. Then I feel guilty I’m angry with a dead girl. I don’t know for sure that Deirdra would still be alive if I’d made more of an effort to get someone else involved, but now I don’t even have that
possibility
that she could have gotten the help she needed.”

       He lifted a brow. “Are you the only one to blame here? Did no one else think there was something wrong? Her family? Other teachers? Why didn’t one of them speak up when you didn’t?”

       “I don’t know!” I sat up fully and propped my elbows on my knees, clutching at my hair. “I’m stuck in this horrible pattern of ’what if’ and I can’t get out of it. I’ll never teach again. No one would hire me after that. All I want is peace, and I don’t know if I’d even know what that feels like anymore.”

       A lie. The last week was proof of that. I’d been happy, actually enjoying the life I’d started building for myself. I wanted it back.

       “Can you fix it?” I whispered. “Do you know how? Because I can’t take much more of this. I can’t take these doubts waiting to pounce when I’ve just started getting comfortable.”

       The heat and weight of his body on mine, his arms circling me and bringing me flush to his chest, weren’t the balm they normally were. “I can’t fix it for you,” he said quietly. “I hate that I don’t know how to help you. But fuck, McKenna, you don’t have to hold it together all the time. Just trust me enough to know I’m not going to pull some sort of disappearing act if you break.”

       I turned my face into his neck, breathing in the sharp, clean scent of his soap. “I know,” I murmured. I’d had strong shoulders and people to lean on before. There was something about Trevor, though, that made his
more
. Made it better. The certainty he meant what he said did what his embrace couldn’t, and the anger and frustration ebbed. I pressed my lips to his jaw. “C’mon. You’ll be late for work.”

Chapter Fifteen

       Night insects are creepy things. How they chirp and whirr and you can’t see them, hidden amongst the long stalks of grass. But night was when the heat dulled to a tolerable beast. And if you drove out far enough, night was when the sky descended and covered you in its icy, shimmering beauty.

       The truck bumped and jolted over the rutted track, and I kept my mouth shut rather than attempt conversation. I’d probably end up biting my tongue in half if I did. Trevor had spotted the road on the edge of the highway, almost an hour and a half outside of Austin. The glow of the city had long since disappeared from the rearview, and I leaned forward to stare out the windshield.

       He stopped the truck. I climbed out and tipped my head back. The stars were an arm’s length away and completely unattainable, scattered across the sky like a little kid had too much fun with the glitter. Big ones, small ones, winking and flickering by turns.

       We’d come prepared. Trevor snagged a couple of blankets from the back of the cab and started laying them out in the truck bed. He shooed me away whenever I tried to grasp a corner to help. When the bed was sufficiently padded, he grasped me around the waist and boosted me up, smiling when I snorted out a giggle.

       “This what you wanted last night?” he asked, once we were lying down. He’d tugged me into a position that had me sprawled over most of the truck bed, my head on his chest, knees bent so my feet were flat.

       “I felt guilty, using you like that,” I admitted. “That first night, I was on edge, afraid I’d fall apart and do something really dumb. I’ve tried medication. I’ve tried therapy. I’ve tried yoga. It’s anxiety. That was the official diagnosis. Generalized anxiety coupled with mild posttraumatic stress disorder. The therapy got me to a point where I understood what was going on, and the medication dulled the worst of it, but it didn’t do a damn thing to stop the guilt. They don’t make a medication for that. I tried pot. I’m not much of a toker, though. Drinking helped for a while, except the hangovers were a bitch to deal with. Sex, when you do it right, requires this sort of absolute focus that just pushes everything else from your mind.”

       “Don’t know that I’ve ever heard of sex as medication.” He ran his fingers through my hair, the tips ghosting along my neck.

       “I was surprised when it worked, to be honest. I went home and actually slept. I got a few good nights and days out of that.” I twisted my head and pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand.

       He moved his hand to curl around my throat, thumb stroking the curve. “I don’t know that you used me last night. I was the one who started it. And if I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have participated, right?”

       “True.”

       The conversation lapsed, the two of us content to watch the sky, his hand warm at my throat. His chest rose and fell in a steady, soothing rhythm. Minutes melted into one another. I wanted to freeze this moment. Save it, trap it so I could take it out and relive it when I needed it most.

       A breeze rustled the grass, and I shivered. Trevor’s hand stilled. “Cold?”

       “Mmm. Not really.” I shuffled around and scooted up so my body was parallel to his, enabling him to wrap his arm around my shoulders. “I think this is the first time since high school that I’ve done this with a guy. Though we didn’t spend a lot of time staring at the sky.” I snuggled closer. “There were a couple of roads that had turn-outs facing the water. Great in the summer, especially on those days when the high temperature was way up there. If we got really lucky, the moon would be out and reflecting off the bay. It’s one of the prettiest sights I’ve ever seen.”

       He tensed next to me, though his next words were curious enough. “You miss it? Where was it? Bellingham?”

       “Yeah.” If he’d asked me last night, in the heat of the moment, I would have said yes. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I haven’t spent much time there since I left for college. Sometimes I wonder if I miss the idea of it more than the place itself.”

       He didn’t respond, and after a while we got up, folded the blankets, and climbed back into the cab. Trevor didn’t seem inclined to talk, so I kept my mouth shut. His question following on the heels of the tension bothered me, only I couldn’t figure out
why
.

       I must have fallen asleep on the drive into the city, because when he kissed me awake, I saw the parking lot of his building. I smothered a yawn. “Ugh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

       “You needed it.”

       We made our way up the stairs to his apartment, the chill of the air conditioning washing over my bare skin. I thought of asking him about that moment under the stars. The words wouldn’t come, though. Maybe I’d imagined the tension. Maybe he’d been quiet because there simply hadn’t been anything else to say.

       Curled up in his bed, Trevor holding me against him, his body relaxed, I was almost positive it was all in my head. We had nothing to talk about. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.       

* * *

       “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” Celia thumped her tub of silverware down on the table and slid into the opposite side of the booth. “You’ve gone beyond glowing, Ken. You’re about as bright as a fluorescent bulb now.”

       I wrinkled my nose. “Gee, thanks? I think? Fluorescents tend to make me look washed out.”

       “Hush your mouth.” Silverware clanked as she dug into the tub, a stack of napkins in front of her. “You look even happier than you did a week ago. I didn’t know that was possible, because you looked really damn happy then.”

       The smile threatening to spread across my lips likely would have been smug, and I’d never been one for flaunting my gets in front of others. I bit the inside of my lower lip instead. “Time, grasshopper. All you need is time and for the boys to grow up a little.”

       She flipped me the bird, and then I did laugh. “No, I’m done with men. I’m gonna use them for sex and get a cat or something to keep me company.”

       “Pretty bold declaration. You’re only what, twenty two?”

       “Twenty one,” she confirmed. “And I’ve been chasing bad boys since I was old enough to know what a bad boy was. I’ve yet to meet this mythical ‘bad boy with a heart of gold.’”

       We rolled silverware, and I tried to convince Celia she was too young to write off dating and falling in love. “At least wait until you’re thirty or something,” I suggested.

       She gave me a sour look. “At thirty, I’ll be making a shit-ton of money and won’t have time to date anyway. No, better to do it now and give myself time to get used to it.”

       Gwen hollered for us to stop jabbering and work faster, cutting the conversation short. I scooped my silverware bundles back into the tub and got out of the booth, carrying the tub to the counter as the bells jingled over the door.

       That was the last bit of quiet I had for the shift.

       The place buzzed with noise. In the little under two months I’d been working there, I’d never seen it so busy. My break consisted of a hurried sandwich eaten hunched over a counter in the kitchen, using one hand to text Trevor back that I had to stop at my place for clean clothes before I headed to his.