Sideswiped, page 3
I look around. “Seriously. Dónde estamos?”
He flings open his door. “Seven Mile Beach.”
This is so random. “Got an urge for a hike?”
“Not exactly.”
“What—”
“I’m going to fuck you, Captain.”
“Oh, well. Okay, then.” My body explodes with the same mindless high-kicking joy displayed at National Cheerleading Championships. “Right now?”
“Yeah.” He climbs from the car.
Thank sweet baby Jesus I swapped underwear. Beth bullied me into purchasing a whole new sexy set at Victoria’s Secret last week. I’m sporting a black thong with more lace than cotton—a massive departure from my usual plain-Jane jockeys.
I unbuckle my seat belt as the passenger door flies open and Bran scoops me out.
“Whoa, Tiger.”
“Couldn’t wait another second.” He eases me against the hood and a sound escapes him, like he’s being strangled but in a good way. “Thank you,” he mutters, brushing a stray hair from my face.
“For what?”
“Coming back—and wearing this very tiny skirt.” He slides his hand over my thighs and pauses when he reaches the lace. “Hello, what do we have here?”
I cock my hip. “A little somethin’ somethin’.”
“I gotta see.” He hikes my jean skirt to my waist.
“It’s so dark, how can you possibly—Holy, wow.”
Bran didn’t mean a quick peek, but an up-close-and-personal inspection.
My God, what if someone comes? I’m arched against his car like a vintage pinup girl and there’s a gorgeous guy with his face buried between my thighs. I grapple the windshield wipers because his tongue is all over the place, and his fingers everywhere else. Oh, wow, okay, someone is coming. Right here, right now. My inner muscles seize, seconds from frenzy.
“Not yet.” He heaves back and fists his shirt, tearing the thin cotton free of his head. “Gotta be in you.” He jerks on his buckle. I fumble with his zipper, more hindrance than help. Seeing him is still a shock. Before Bran, I’d believed penises were totally bizarre. The shape, the head, the slack mouth-breathing way dudes behave when you get within three feet of one. But my life is divided into two epochs: B.B. and A.B.—Before Bran and After Bran.
To the Before Bran Talia, penises were a necessary evil, a body part to tolerate.
The After Bran Talia is a convert—I drop to my knees, can’t get him into my mouth fast enough.
He rocks, once, tentative. This okay? I grab his hips and urge him harder. He growls, grabs fistfuls of my hair, and fucks my mouth; there’s no other polite word. He takes, I give, or maybe I’m taking, he’s giving—by this point coherent thought is impossible.
“You. Now.” I push myself to standing, press my hands on the hood, and hoist myself up.
He digs a foil from his back pocket and tears it open with his teeth.
“Stop.”
“What?” His voice is a hoarse rasp.
“We…” I hesitate, a little shy. “I’d planned on announcing this in a slightly different way but I got on birth control.”
He blinks and his abs flex in one hypnotic motion. “No condoms?”
“Nope,” I whisper.
Within the span of a second, my pretty undies dangle from one ankle. He’s right there, nudging against me.
I pass my hand down his face and his eyes close.
“Talia.” He grinds out my name like he hurts. “I love you. You know that, right? I fucking love you.”
“I love you too.” I’m so wet that he enters me with zero effort.
“To feel you, like this.” He groans. “Bloody intense.”
I dig my heels into the bumper to find purchase, angle my hips up and back until he sinks to the hilt. His moan is thickly unintelligible. I grab his ass and slam him that last centimeter home. We freeze with the realization we’re closer than ever before. I don’t want this second to end but an instinctive drive takes hold. We start to move, the rhythm set by the distant, inexorable waves. He takes me hard, each thrust a pounding crash. I grapple his chest and he responds to my hunger, angles his length to hit my clit in exactly the right way, urges me closer with every stroke.
“Can’t. Hang. On.” He bites my shoulder.
“S’okay.” My fingers lock on his hard triceps as the rest of me falls apart. “I’m coming.”
Behind his head is a kaleidoscope of stars but there’s an entire universe in his eyes. “Fuck, Talia.” The whisper breaks from him like a violent devotion.
We explode in our own private big bang.
* * *
Bran back-kicks the front gate closed and I stumble up the walk, delirious but blissful. He opens the front door to the weatherboard cottage—our first place. The idea shoots a thrill through my core. The porch light reveals nail marks scoring his neck, scratches I put there. I don’t want to imagine how I look. My mouth feels puffy and between my legs, a sweet soreness lingers. We didn’t go easy on each other.
I didn’t realize our separation would be so difficult. At times, I worried I’d become an addict, desperate for a fix. We Skyped multiple times a day, exchanged instant messages, and traded saucy pictures over Snapchat. Nevertheless, the contact was the equivalent of doling methadone to a junkie.
He drops my gear to the polished hardwood floor. The golden buttery color complements the creamy wallpaper. I didn’t waste much time pondering the specifics of the place Bran rented us, at least not beyond the bedroom, but I expected more squalor.
This is an adult palace.
A stainless steel fridge and pot rack gleaming with copper cookware shine from the kitchen at the end of the hall. I’m not great at math but it doesn’t take long for me to conduct a dismal tally of my personal finances.
“Whoa, this place… so not what I expected.”
“Great, hey? I thought you’d appreciate that the house is heritage listed.”
Uncertainty gnaws my stomach. I refused to acknowledge when Mom’s monthly allowance dried up in my bank account this summer. To have done so would only play right into her passive-aggressive hands. Dad’s career change is an opportunity of a lifetime but one that comes with a sharp pay reduction. No way can I hit him up for cash. For the first time in my life, I’m on my own to sink or swim. Sunny wrangled me seasonal cashier shifts at New Leaf, the health food store she works at, but the depressing fact cannot be ignored. My economic circumstances are sharply reduced.
“The house is gorgeous but rent’s got to be insane, yeah?”
“Mind-boggling.” Bran takes my hand and leads me up the wide staircase.
I swallow hard as we reach the landing and he tugs me through open French doors. From the wide windows, Hobart’s lights twinkle down the hill, reflecting on the waterfront like a fairy kingdom. “I don’t think I can afford—”
“It’s free, Captain.”
“Huh?” My jet-lagged brain is unable to produce anything close to an intelligent response.
“Free ninety-nine.”
I don’t detect sarcasm but the facts aren’t computing.
“Did you perform gigolo services for a cougar pack?” I’m totally kidding, except not.
Seriously, how the hell did he pull this off?
“My uncle Chris hooked us up with a house-sitting gig. He qualified for long-service leave and he and his new boyfriend, Xavier, are on a grand tour: Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America. They’ll be gone six months, and Xavier didn’t want his house unoccupied. He also didn’t fancy the idea of renting the place to strangers.”
“Aren’t we exactly that?”
“Chris worked his magic.” Chris is Bran’s uncle, estranged from the rest of the family. He lives in Hobart near the harbor, where he’s employed as a federal bureaucrat by day but is blossoming into a genteel cross-dressing mystery writer by night. Bran is the only person in his family still on speaking terms with him. They are very different but have a strong bond forged through their mutual black sheep status and appreciation for black humor.
“We owe him, big-time.”
“Chris digs you, Captain.” He plucks a twig from my sex-snarled hair and his eyes catch a distant streetlight. “He’s not the only one.”
“Ready to go another round?” I nod at the massive four-poster bed.
“You know it.”
We pounce on each other, punch-drunk with promise.
Chapter Four
Bran
Talia passes out hard from the travel and epic reunion sex. I’m too amped for sleep, so I lie in the dark and trace her spine. Can you love someone too much? No point being afraid, might as well jump in it with both feet. I press my mouth to her neck and she undulates, responsive even from her dreams. If miracles were real, I’d swear we were designed to fit together.
I loop my arm around her waist and hold fast, until our breathing syncs. I’m drifting off when she jerks—hard—once, twice. Her body recoils as she unleashes a lung-tearing scream.
“Talia, wake up. Come on, sweetheart, talk to me.” I clamber over her, hunching protectively. “Open your eyes. It’s Bran. I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.” I keep talking while she flays my chest like she’s drowning under ice, desperate to find a break in the surface.
“Can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I… where am… oh God. Bran.”
“I’m right here.” I cradle her while she draws another unsteady gasp. Her hair plasters her forehead in sweaty wisps.
“Give me a minute. I’ll be fine.” She pushes herself to a half-sit and sways with disorientation. “This… this happens sometimes… panic attacks or night terrors… whatever. They seem to come when I drop my guard. Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s the meds. Those pills make me feel like a toxic waste dump.”
“Have you been bad this summer?” The muscles in my neck cord. It shreds my guts to see her hurting. I’d do anything, any fucking thing, to carry her pain. I don’t fully understand the inner workings of OCD but she’s explained that for her, the condition comes in waves. Everything will be rolling along fine, more or less, and then bang—a giant squid grips her brain. She fights hard for recovery, a warrior even when she believes she’s nothing but a coward.
“No, not really.” She grinds her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I kinda danced around the edge of the rabbit hole a few times but never fell inside.”
My muscles release some tension. “Try to go back to sleep. You need the rest. Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch, okay?”
“I’m sorry to be such a psych job. It’s totally shaming.”
“Shhhhhh.”
Her chin tips down. “Can you talk to me for a little while? Get me out of my fuckball head?”
“Hey now, I got mad love for that head, Captain.” I kiss her brow, acting chill even though I’m scared. How can I get her to settle? Then it hits me. “I want to take you surfing again.”
“Mmmm, that’d be nice.”
“Picture yourself out there, in the water, on a board, under the shooting stars.”
“With sharks eyeballing me from the depths?”
“Nah, they’re all busy hunting sea lions or some bloody mischief. This is you, the sea, and the sky. A set rolls in. You can’t make out the wave. The board lifts and you feel the momentum building. There’s fear deep in your belly, sensible, because you can’t see what’s coming or where you’re going. You fight the self-protective instincts, give yourself over, and the next thing you know—you’re having the ride of your life.”
“Thank you.” She flips in my arms so we’re belly to belly. “I mean it. That was beautiful, really, really beautiful. I’m so excited to be here, for right now—to live in the moment. But it’s like I have this… this weird mental stutter. My thoughts keep skipping over the same annoying question like a scratch on vinyl: What will we do?” Tears spill from the corners of her eyes, course silently toward her chin. “My visa.”
Talia’s been granted a three-month student visa to complete her senior thesis in history. In all its benevolent generosity, the Australian government expanded her time in the country by an extra month.
Four months—the sum of our allotted time.
“They’ll make me leave.”
“Don’t believe everything you think.” I wipe her damp cheeks.
“Can you tattoo that on my forehead?”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the brass alarm clock on the dresser clicks louder.
Another second gone.
Another second gone.
“I’m not losing you to some shithouse immigration policy, Captain. We will be all right in the end.” I’ve no idea how the hell I’m going to solve this drama but I will figure it out. “We have to hope, otherwise we’re sunk.”
She jerks with surprised laughter.
“What?”
She hiccups and covers her mouth with her hand, shoulders shaking. It takes me a second to realize she’s giggling.
“I’m funny to you right now?” This girl drives me every sort of crazy.
“I’m not laughing at you.” She works her lips together and unsuccessfully smothers the smile. “It’s—”
“Forget it.” I instinctively stiffen.
“Bran the Optimist.” She grabs my wrists, lifts my palms to her face, and plants a kiss in the center of each one. “I like this side of you.”
“Never mind. I was being dumb.”
“You were awesome.” She pecks the tip of my nose. “And for the record, I love your stupid face.”
I give her a begrudging kiss back. “I love yours too.”
Love isn’t enough of a word.
I wasted almost an entire year of my life implementing a scorched earth policy, not caring who I left burned and broken in my path.
Talia was my oasis. My salvation.
“Don’t give the visa a second thought.” I nestle her against me, rubbing her lower back in easy circles. “I’ll sort this out, I swear to you.”
Even if I don’t have the first fucking clue.
* * *
I rouse to the oily rich smell of fresh-brewed coffee. Talia perches on the edge of the bed wearing nothing but my ratty Wilderness League T-shirt. “Morning, sunshine,” she chirps, and hands me a ceramic mug. “Time to wakey wakey.”
I take a tentative sip. “Ouch, bloody hell.”
“Want to hear a joke?”
“No.” I hand her back the mug with a grimace.
“How did the hipster burn his tongue?”
The clock reads seven-fifteen. I slam a pillow over my head.
“He drank his coffee before it was cool.”
“What have you done with my girlfriend?” From memory, Talia is not a dawn riser.
She wrestles the pillow from my clutches. “I’m not wasting our time sleeping.” Her smile is over-bright, like she can deal last night’s shadows a knockout punch through sheer force of will.
I squeeze her bare knee before walking my fingers up her inner thigh. “It’s okay to relax, Captain. We’ll be all right.” Captain America is my pet name for her. I can’t believe I’m in a relationship with nicknames and shit. It’s good. Better than good.
“Yeah, I know.” She averts her gaze. “Get up and at ’em. I wanted to fix you a home-cooked breakfast but the cupboards are bare. How about a run and then a trip to the grocery store?”
“A what?”
Her ears turn pink. “I thought we could go running. I mean, you do that, right?”
“Sure, but you?”
“I’m no ultramarathoner but I’ve been known to pound a little pavement.”
I pull her onto my lap. “You’re full of surprises.”
She nestles against me and her hair is soft on my cheek. “Well, I’m normally more of a walk-jogger but if push comes to shove, I could take you down faster than a shin splint.”
“Sure about that?”
“Careful—I’m scrappy.”
“Little trash talker.” I nip her neck. “When we were apart, how much did you miss me?”
“Well, I was pretty busy. You know, running super fast and stuff.”
“That’s it. You’re going down.”
One hilarious footrace later, we square off in the produce aisle at Hill Street Grocer.
“Wait a hot second.” She grimaces at the bottom of the basket. “Zucchini is a hard limit for me.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It’s a BDSM term—means a mutually agreed upon prohibited activity.”
I can’t hold back a snort. Jesus, the shit that comes out her mouth sometimes. “And when exactly were you ever into BDSM?”
“I read a certain book about a Mr. Grey like everyone else on the planet.” She plucks out the zucchini.
“I don’t read shite.” I playfully wrestle the vegetable from her grasp.
“Maybe you should.” Her coy over-the-shoulder grin slays me. “Could pick up a trick or two.”
“Bloody hell.”
She sashays closer; the way her hips swing gets me hard in a heartbeat. “Although I must confess—you have mad skills.”
I drop the shopping basket and my hands migrate to her hips. “Flattery gets you everywhere.”
She tugs my belt loop until we’re hip to hip. “So no zucchini?”
“Fine, you win.” I shove the veggie back onto the produce stand.
“Bran!”
I turn around and there’s a chick with intricate sleeve tattoos all up in my space. “Hey?”
She smiles too wide, flashing a tongue stud. “You’re coming to the department barbecue this arvo, right?”
The girl looks vaguely familiar. Oh, right, what’s her name? Jacinda, or Jessica—one of the conservation ecology mob.
“Shoot, we have plans. Sorry.” Talia plasters to my side, her teeth bared in a faux friendly grin. It’s like watching a David Attenborough documentary where a cute, fluffy animal reveals razor-sharp fangs.
“O-okay, no worries. Another time maybe?” Jacinda/Jessica stutters an awkward good-bye and hightails it to the freezer section.
“Look at you, Captain.”
“What?”
“Play nice.” I grab for her hand.
