Crossroads (22 page)

Why does he have to be so sweet and caring?  Why does he have to make this so much harder?  I could feel
his emotions, feel his love, when he was looking at my drawings.  He meant what he said.  He thinks I’ve got talent.  Hearing Nick say that meant so much more to me than anyone else.  I have had positive feedback before, but Nick loving my work means the world to me.

Nick
means the world to me.

One week.

In one week Nick will be gone, our arrangement will end and I will have a gaping hole in my heart.

One week
.

I know now that I love her.  It’s nothing I have ever experienced before
, I don’t know what I’m doing but I at least know that.

I don’t want to be apart from her for even a second, and when I am she is always on my mind.  I have fa
llen in love with Em and I know there is no recovering from the heartbreak I have set myself up for.  I feel like I’m dying inside.  Instead of getting excited about my trip, each day my impending departure kills me that little bit more.  Every day, I am silently willing Em to reciprocate my feelings, for her to say she wants me to stay, that she loves me too, and every day I am disappointed.

***

Waking up to find Em in my arms is the best feeling in the world.  I sigh happily and I feel her stir.  She rolls towards me.

“Good mor
ning,” she says with a smile I will never forget.

“Good morning,” I reply, planting a small kiss on her mouth.

That polite kiss quickly turns into a not so polite one.  Before long I’m pulling Em on top of me and she’s pulling off her singlet top, baring her breasts.  Our frenzied pace reeks of desperation, passion takes over and common sense, like the fact we’ve got all day, goes straight out the window.

We lay panting side by side.  I don’t know what’s gotten into me.  I am so desperate for Nick to crawl inside of me that I’m all ready to go at it again and I haven’t even caught my breath from the first time.  I roll onto my stomach and kiss Nick’s shoulder.  He smiles down at me and I gently bite him.

“
Oi!” he says.

I lightly trail my hand down his chest, onto his tight abs,
and further down… He grabs hold of my hand and tangles his fingers with mine, stopping me.

“And you say
I’m
insatiable!”  He laughs, the movement causing my head to rock against his shoulder.  “I need a minute or two.”

I groan.  “
Well, I guess I can make us some breakfast while you rejuvenate.”

I don’t bother putting my clothes on as I leave the room. 
Let him see me naked, it might make him ready sooner.
  I shake my head. 
How did I become this person?
  Parading around bare-arsed in front of a sex god like Nick and actually feeling confident about it.  That man does things to me, makes me feel so different about myself, he makes me feel free and more alive than ever.

I set about making some pancakes.  I’m mixing the batter and staring at the flowers on the bench, and trying my damnedest not to think about Nick’s fast approaching departure.  I wonder if I will ever feel like this again
, with anyone.  If I can’t be with Nick I don’t know what will happen to me.

I’m
so caught up in my thoughts I don’t notice him until his arms come around my waist and he kisses my shoulder.  I feel, rather than see, that he is naked too.  He sweeps my hair over one shoulder and kisses his way from right to left, along my shoulder blade.  The sensation is overwhelming to say the least - the moisture and heat from his mouth combined with the scratch of his stubble and the feel of his hands holding me to him…

“I’m making pancakes,” I whisper, distractedly.

“A-ha,” he mumbles against my back.  His breath warms me from my head to my toes, desire swarming through my body.

Nick’s hand
moves to between my legs and he slips a finger inside me and I forget all about the pancake mixture in front of me on the bench.  The arm remaining at my waist pulls back slightly, my back arches putting me on the right angle for Nick to bob down and rub his cock along my folds.  He uses his hand to take a hold of himself and basically masturbates us both at the same time.

My hold on the mixing bowl slips and pancake mixture spills on the bench, the bench that Nick suddenly decides I should be sitting on.  He flips me around and lifts me onto
it.  I feel the cold stickiness of the batter under my left butt cheek, if Nick is aware he doesn’t show it.  His intense focus is on me as his mouth moves from mine to my neck, and from my neck down my chest, then to my nipple.  He gently nips it with his teeth and I feel it all the way to my core.  I am already so high, I’m on the edge of the orgasmic abyss and it almost causes me to fall.

“I need to be inside you,” he
says gruffly, kissing his way back up to my mouth.  My hands reach down to guide him to my entrance.  He thrusts hard and so deep it’s painful, yet it still doesn’t feel deep enough because I am frantic with need.  I move my hands around to his back, clawing him with my nails.  He groans.

“Oh god,” I gasp
, when he pounds into me harder and faster.  He fills me completely and the look on his face as he thrusts into me is an erotic one that I could never have enough of.  “Nick!”

I feel myself falling backwards
with the motion, so I put my hands behind me on the bench to secure myself.  My left hand finds the puddle of pancake batter.  Nick steadies me and his hand gets caught up in the stickiness too.  Neither of us care when our desire for one another is so strong and out of this world, our need so desperate and out of control.

“Oh baby,” Nick croons in my ear.  His deep, sexy voice pushes me over the edge and I climax with an
enormous shockwave of emotion causing tears to form in my eyes.  A couple of thrusts later, Nick is pouring himself into me with his own orgasm.

I suck in air when his hand takes hold of my side, the cool pancake batter touching my skin.  Nick finally notices what’s on his hand and he laughs.  I feel the jutting movements of his body shaking all the way through m
ine, he’s still inside me, and it feels so good.

“Like I said, I’m making pancakes.”  I find it hard to speak through my own laughter.  Nick slips free from inside me.

“Not anymore,” he says with a laugh.  “How about I take you out for pancakes instead?”

“What about not leaving the apartment?”
I whine.

“We won’t be gone long, I promise.  I’m not done with you yet, you know.”

He helps me down from the bench.  I turn around to survey the damage and find there is only a minute amount of batter left in the bowl.  I frown at the mess.

“Okay
, let’s go out.”  I look down to the batter dripping from my side where Nick’s hand was.  I can feel it dripping down my butt and onto my thigh too.  “Maybe a shower first though.”

“Good idea.”  Nick picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder causing me to squeal. 
He walks with his sticky hand holding my upper thigh and my head upside down against his back.  I reach out and smack his arse when he squeezes mine and we laugh all the way to the bathroom.

“Have you ever considered doing an art course or something?” I ask
, before shovelling another forkful of pancake into my mouth.  We are sitting under an umbrella at a table outside a little café.  It’s warm and sunny and a perfect place to be with my girl.

“Yeah maybe, it would have to be a night class or something because of my job.”

“You never know, maybe having some qualifications under your belt would help you find a better job.  I think you’re wasting your talent.”  I chuckle when I realise how ridiculous I sound.  “Yeah, look at me doling out the advice, like I’m a bloody success story!  I have no idea what I’m doing with my life!  I don’t even have a decent job.  I work in a frigging train station and live with my parents!  Who am I to talk?”  I shake my head.  “You enjoy your job though don’t you?”

“Not as much as I thought I would,” Em says
, picking up the milkshake that we are sharing and slurping it loudly.  She shrugs, placing the drink back down and adding, “Anyway, at least you know what you want Nick.  You want to travel and you’re going for it.  I wish I was that brave.”

“To go overseas?”

“Maybe.  Honestly, I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“You know
… you could always come with me.”

Em’s
eyes go wide with shock, and then she smiles.  When she laughs, I join in, passing off the idea as a joke.  Then I realise I was only half-kidding.  The words may have spewed through an unfiltered mouth but it’s actually not a stupid idea.  It would be amazing to experience the world with her.  God knows I don’t want to leave her.  We sit in silence for a moment and the more I think about it I realise this could be the perfect solution to everything.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.

“So anyway
, I forgot to tell you Kat and Luke can’t make it tonight.  Kat has a work function to go to.”

“That’s a sha
me,” I say, annoyed at the change of conversation.  “Did you hear me Em?  You could come with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”  She laughs.  “I’m going to the bathroom, be right back.”

I watch her back retreating to the restrooms and swallow hard.  It’s not ridiculous, not by a long shot.  Now I’ve just got to convince
her
of that.

When Em returns to the table
, she doesn’t look me in the eye.  She stays quiet and seems tense.  I give her thigh a rub under the table, meaning to comfort her, but she pulls her leg away.  She drops her head down, tucking in her chin and fiddles with her bracelet for a moment.  Then she turns to me with a strained smile.

“You about done here?
  Wanna head home?  Or do you want to do something else?” she asks.

“Let’s go home.”

We collect our belongings, pay the bill and head to the car.  All the while Em talks to me as if the awkward moment at brunch never happened.  As if I never asked her to come overseas with me.  She’s in denial and ignoring my suggestion, just like the way she ignored it when I told her I loved her.

***

By the time we get back to the apartment it’s afternoon.  It’s getting hot out and the place is stuffy.  Em turns on the cooling and gets us both glasses of iced water.  We relax on the couch, chatting for a couple of hours.  She avoids the topic of travel and it begins to piss me off.  Every time I try to talk about anything to do with my travel plans she changes the subject.

As the afternoon wears on
, I get even more annoyed with her.  She wouldn’t go to my gig last night, she won’t tell me she loves me, when I am so sure that she does, and now she won’t even discuss the possibility of travel.

“
So you wanna play a game of Uno?” she asks unexpectedly, with a wiggle of her brow.

“Nah,” I answer, distracted by my own thoughts.

“Well what do you want to do?”

“I’m not sure.”
As angry as I’m feeling, I struggle with it when she looks so delicious.  I can only think of one other thing I’d like to do.  If she won’t talk to me I guess we can amuse ourselves in other ways.  I lean forward to kiss her, but when our lips connect, I find I cannot switch my brain off. 
Well, that’s never happened before.
I’m kissing Em, the girl I love, and I can’t stop thinking about how mad I am that she is still keeping herself at a distance from me emotionally. 
Me?  Wanting more of an emotional connection?  I really am a love-sick fool!

I end our kiss and grab the empty glasses from the coffee table.  I feel
Em’s eyes on me as I stand in the kitchen pouring us both another drink, but I can’t look at her for some reason.  When I bring our glasses back to the couch Em has her head down and she’s playing with her bracelet again.

“It’s getting late, maybe you should start getting ready for di
nner,” I say to her, knowing that she will want to shower before we leave the apartment.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

She looks up at me with an expression I can’t decipher, sadness, confusion, anger… I’m really not sure, but I don’t ask her.  I’m not sure I want to know.  She looks back down to her bracelet again and fidgets with it.  I don’t know what is on her mind, but she seems deep in thought.  Suddenly I get a flashback of watching her fidget with that bracelet not so long ago, when we were at the pub for her birthday.  Then I remember the jewellery was a present from Seth.  Instantly I’m put even more on edge. 
Why is she even wearing that?