“I’m having fun,” I counter. “And since when do you care? I thought I was ‘too young’ for you.”
“You are too young for me,” he says, nostrils flaring. “I’m staying away from you for your benefit. Not mine.”
I narrow my eyes. “Well, guess what? I’m not ‘too young’ for my new friend out there, even though he’s your age. And his lap was pretty freaking comfortable, so I’m going back to it.”
Before I can even inhale he’s backed me to the door, his body pressed against mine, his hands pinning me at the hips. His mouth comes down on mine hard, equal parts anger and desire, his hands digging into my skin, and I am only my response, a whimper in my throat as I open to him, the hard assault of his lips, of his tongue. There’s nothing gentle about it. It’s an angry, desperate kiss and my response is a desire I feel everywhere, emanating out from my center to the tips of my toes.
His mouth moves to my neck, and I gasp, leaning into him. His body coils in response, our hips locked together so that I can feel the hard weight of him against me. His hands are inside my shirt, unclasping my bra, pulling it low. He groans as he cups my breasts, the tip of his index finger brushing against me, eliciting a small, shuddering cry.
Things are happening too quickly and yet not quickly enough. We are not like a new couple, tentative and unsure. It’s as if we’ve been like this many times before, so far beyond the point of uncertainty that there is only action without thought. I’m thinking of nothing but the need for more, for the things that come next. He pushes my skirt up around my waist and I tug the top button of his shorts open with a single hand, my fingers sliding beneath the waistband of his boxers.
And then someone tries to open the door behind me, the knob gouging my spine and sending me flying forward. James somehow manages to catch me and slam the door shut at the same time, but the moment it latches he jumps away from me with a look of horror on his face that makes me want to cry and throttle him simultaneously.
“Goddammit,” he hisses. He digs his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” I whisper.
“Don’t,” he says harshly. “Stop. You’ve got to stop doing this.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Torturing me,” he says. “Jesus Christ I wish you hadn’t come down here this summer.”
His words take everything I feel for him and twist it tight in my chest, make it so raw that I want to clutch at it, this phantom pain that hurts more than any injury he could have inflicted.
He looks up and sees my face, the wound he’s created as plain as day. And then he buttons his shorts, throws the door open and walks out of the room.
Chapter 32
I don’t have the heart to go back to Justin after James leaves. And I don’t have the heart to return to my house, to the place James no longer wants me. Instead I find Kristy and crash on her bedroom floor. As tired as I am and as much as I’ve had to drink, I don’t collapse into unconsciousness right away. There’s an ache in my chest that prevents sleep, that seems to spread without ever diffusing. I lay my hands over it as if it’s a strained muscle I can massage.
Nothing helps. I’m guessing it’s going to stay put until the day comes that I’ve forgotten about James. And how long will that take? I haven’t been able to forget about him for the past 16 years.
I wake feeling bruised and raw. My lips still kiss-swollen, my face abraded. I can’t even relish the memory of how it got that way because I’m too busy remembering the look on his face when he left last night: whatever else he might feel for me, the part of him that was angry and disgusted far outweighed the rest.
It seems entirely possible that he’ll ask me to leave, and maybe I shouldn’t even wait for him to ask. I want to go back to sleep: for hours, for days. Anything to avoid what’s ahead.
Kristy wakes as I sit up. “You want to get breakfast?” she asks groggily. Matt, asleep beside her, doesn’t budge.
I frown. “You don’t have to do that. You guys should sleep.”
She looks back at Matt and rolls her eyes. “He’s gonna sleep until it’s time to go in to work. It’ll be good to have some company during the day for once. And besides, I want the dirt on what happened. James looked like he was gonna kill someone when he came back outside last night.”
We walk to breakfast, and it’s only as the story spills from my mouth that I realize just how much I miss having someone I can tell these things to. I miss Ginny, I miss my mother. And I miss James the most, though I never really had him in the first place.
“It doesn’t sound over to me,” Kristy says. “Not by a long shot.”
“He pretty much begged me to just leave him alone, Kristy,” I tell her. “If he feels that strongly about it, I’m done trying. I should just go back to DC.”
“I think you’re giving up a little early,” she argues. “Think about it like this: how many years have you waited for him to kiss you?”
I laugh ruefully. “About 16.”
“And it took you that long but it finally happened, right? Don’t you see the way the tide is turning in your favor? He didn’t like you and now he does. He wouldn’t kiss you and now he’s done it three times.”
“Yes, and each of those things he’s done unwillingly. So what’s my best-case scenario? To get him to unwillingly sleep with me?”
“No,” she says. “Your best-case scenario is making him realize he wants you more than he cares about his dumb rule.”
I head home and see James waiting on the front stoop, his long legs spread in front of him, hands clasped between his knees. I’ve never seen him sitting there before, and I’ve never seen him look so dejected. His head lifts suddenly, as if he’s sensed me there, and he watches me approach.
His face is still, his anger held entirely in his dark eyes. “Where were you all night?”
I smile acidly. “I’m not sure how that’s really any of your business.”
“Just answer the question,” he says.
“I was out.”
“No shit!” he storms. “With who? And where did you sleep?”
“Not your concern,” I say. I try to pass him on the stairs and his hand wraps around my ankle.
“Who were you with? And it’d better not be that dickhead from the party.”
“Am I still too young for you?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“Then it’s none of your business where I was.”
**
I go to the beach again solely to avoid seeing anyone. I try to read but I’m exhausted, and I can’t focus anyway: the decision about returning home weighs on me. I know I should go. He doesn’t want me here. Hell, Ginny probably doesn’t either. And no one wants me in DC. If I’d crafted a plan last spring to destroy every relationship that mattered to me, I couldn’t have done a better job.
I don’t want to leave him. And I think I need to.
I give into the pull of sleep, and when a voice rouses me I am dreaming of James, and I don’t want to wake. I’m dreaming of the night he came home drunk, except in my dream he’s absolutely sober, with his hands in my hair and those feverish eyes pinning mine as he tells me all the things I’ve wanted to hear.