Page 34 of Winter Break Up
My thumb circles her clit, once, twice, and then she’s gasping as she spasms on my dick. I follow mere seconds after, her orgasm milking my release as I shoot up into her. My vision is stolen, and all rational thought left behind as my existence is nothing but feeling and Emily.
Even though we’ve been playing around all night in bed, this release feels more intense. When I come back to myself, she’s hunched over me, her eyes blinking sleepily at mine. My hand strokes up and down her smooth back, her body still connected to mine as she sprawls all over me.
The games we’ve been playing and the rules we set out, they’re all for naught. With every touch and every look, we both know this is way more than a winter break fling.
After a quick trip to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, I crawl back into bed and scoop her into my arms. She’s an addiction I haven’t fed in too long, and now that I’ve felt her skin under my fingers, I can’t get enough.
“Will you come tubing today instead? I worry about your knee,” she admits quietly, snuggling into my chest.
“That’s sweet, Em.” I kiss her temple.
“Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not. I miss you worrying about me.” She has always been one of the only people to do so.
“I know how much you want this next portion of your life. I don’t want to see you do anything to risk that.” Her nails rake up and down my chest gently, and even with how sore my dick is, it twitches with interest.
“It’s already been risked. It’s already been messed with. I don’t know … it feels like not much else could get in my way if that makes you feel better?”
I can practically feel Emily’s frown. “It doesn’t. And I know it’s just a lie you tell yourself. You really forget that I know you too well, Mercer.”
Unnerving. That’s how it feels to have her call me out for such a bold-faced fib. Because Em and I don’t even need to go through the motions of having a discussion about my injury, about the draft, and everything that followed, for her to know my innermost thoughts. She can just look at me and know where my head is at.
Right now, though, I’m not thinking about that part of my future. What I want to tell her is how nothing in this next chapter will matter if she isn’t next to me. That without her, I’ll never be happy. But I’ll devise my own plan to make her see that. Right now is not the time to get into all of that.
“Yeah, I’ll come tubing. But only if you let me get you in the hot tub later.” The idea of Em all wet and nearly naked with a tiny scrap of bathing suit has me drooling, even with her in my arms.
“You’ll have to control yourself around other people.” Her voice holds a hint of something I can’t quite read.
“Or maybe you’ll have to.” Em yawns, and I squeeze her impossibly closer. “Let’s fall back asleep for a while. I want to dream about you while you’re in my bed.”
Em makes a happy, exhausted noise, and I run my fingers in her silky locks, the action lulling me back into a deep sleep.
It’s the best night of sleep I’ve gotten in forever, and only because, finally, after years of seeing her only in my dreaming hours, I have Emily by my side.
15
MERCER
Something smells like it’s burning as I walk into the faded yellow kitchen of my grandfather’s house.
“Grandpa, what are you cooking?” I plug my nose as I search for an oven mitt or something to swat away the fumes.
“Ah, shit!” My grandfather comes around the corner from the living room.
In his red checkered Christmas flannel pants and a Miami pro soccer team sweatshirt, I sent him last year, he quickly heads for the oven and pulls out a pan containing something that’s now black.
I’ve only been home for two days from the tubing trip, and it hits me that I haven’t spent enough time with Grandpa while I’ve been home. His hands are shakier than they were when I was home in the summer, and I’ve witnessed him forgetting more. Guilt hits my gut because while I was busy spending every second of the trip with Emily, mostly in bed, Grandpa was here fending for himself.
Em is expecting me to meet her tonight for a drive up to Starlight Hill, and I’ve been thinking of nothing else. Except now, I’m not quite sure I feel comfortable leaving Grandpa to go.
“I was trying to make hazelnut pie, but I guess I forgot to put the timer on.” His thin gray hair blows around as he opens the window, letting in an icy blast.
Together, we wave some oven mitts at the smoke, and it dissipates slightly.
“Are you feeling okay?” Eyeing him warily, I wonder if he forgot or if his mind is going.
Worrying about Grandpa has become second nature. He’s cared for me my entire life, and now that he’s getting older, it’s only natural that I want to take over caring for him. I know my life will take me away from my hometown, and he won’t be able to come with me. It scares me to think about him here alone as he grows frailer or needs someone to remind him to take his meds.