Remembering Us (21 page)

I sit next to her on the top of our cement steps and wrap my arms around my knees. I’m shaking, but I don’t realize it until we were outside. My whole body is buzzing with adrenaline.

“I did come to see you,” she says while I stare out at the fountain in the middle of our turn around driveway. God my house is pretentious. “When you were in the hospital.”

“Why did you tell me before you haven’t?”

She makes a face and looks away out to our perfectly manicured lawns. We actually have bushes that look like animals.

“I don’t know. Because you weren’t awake.” She shrugs. “Because I didn’t know if you’d even want me there.”

“You’re my sister.”

A thick silence fills the small space between us. I don’t even know what to say to her. How can my family be this screwed up?

“You were always the strong one, you know.”

“What?” I ask, confused by the sudden subject change.

She smiles lightly. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Ever since you were a kid you fought against what Mom and Dad expected of you.” She laughs, but it sounds sad. “I always admired that about you. Your ability to not care what she thought.”

Adam’s words from our trip to campus float through my mind.

She will always be disappointed with you.

“And you?” I ask.

She releases a shaky breath. “I like my life. I always did. I really do love Roger, and I have two great kids.”

“But?”

“But sometimes I wish I would have toe-ed the line a little bit; lived a little more before I followed the master plan and settled down.”

“And I toe-ed the line?”

She snorts. “Please, Amy. You jumped the fence. Mom just doesn’t know how to handle you.”

“That’s why she hates me?”

“She doesn’t hate you. She just doesn’t do well around people who are stronger than her.”

I let those words seep into my bones. They warm me from the inside out. This may be the first real conversation I’ve ever had with my sister. And it sounds like she actually cares about me.

“Adam scares me,” I tell her after another stretch of silence.

She nudges my shoulder with a happier smile. “He is a bit rough around the edges.”

“But?” I ask, again.

She shakes her head. “I’d give anything to have Roger look at me the way I’ve seen Adam look at you.”

I wrinkle my nose. “How’s that?”

She wraps her arm around my shoulder. I’m not sure my sister has ever touched me like this except for the obligatory hug at family gatherings. I like it, and I sink into her embrace.

“Like he sees nothing else,” she tells me, and smiles wistfully.

As if she’s imagining what it would be like to be seen like that by someone.

“Where were you?” I bristle at Adam’s rough tone as soon as I walk in the door to our apartment.

It changes as soon as he sees my red, puffy eyes. I don’t even know when I started crying, but I was wiping tears away in my car ride home from my parent’s house. I’m not sure why I’m so upset. Maybe it’s emotional overload.

His hands are on my shoulders and he’s looking at my intently. “What happened today?”

I push his hands away and walk to the kitchen.

I don’t know how to begin explaining everything that went on today.

“I went to see Dr. Jamison today,” I tell him, and reach for a bottled water in the fridge.

“I thought you said it was cancelled?” he asks.

I shake my head and sit down on the couch. “I just had to talk to her about some stuff, and then I ended up at my parent’s house.”

He sits next to me. His lips are twisted into an odd shape and his eyebrows are pulled in.

I can feel his confusion and concern radiating from him. I don’t know how to begin to tell him about my dream last night or about what Dr. J. suggested or about my family.

That my sister actually cares about me. That might have been the strangest of all.

“How’d that go?” I look at Adam, his black hair wild from running his hands through it.

I shrug. “Did we ever go to my parent’s house for dinner or anything and have it end well?” I know the answer based on his amused expression. “I talked to my sister, though. That was weird. Nice.”

I shake my head and roll my water bottle back and forth in between my hands. “My sister and her family were in town and my mother didn’t invite me to dinner, Adam. It hurts.”

“What did she say to you?” His voice sounds strained, almost upset on my behalf.

I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about her anymore.”

“Come here,” he says, and pulls me to him.

He positions me so I’m tucked under his arm and my legs are draped across his lap. He holds me silently with one hand around my shoulders and his other hand resting on my hip.

It feels warm and comforting. He turns on a movie and just holds me.

I can’t see the movie without turning my head, so I stay where I am, somehow feeling safe and protected even in the arms of a man who sometimes scares me.

But yet, like this, feeling his warmth all over, it’s so easy to forget that. It’s easy to lose myself underneath the feel of his muscles and his warm breath that whispers across my skin.

I’m barely paying attention to the laughter in the movie when Adam’s thumb on my hips starts moving. I don’t know if he’s aware he’s doing it or if he just can’t help himself.

Slowly, I can tell his breathing has become heavier, slightly deeper, as the pad of his thumb finds the space on my skin just above my hip bone where my t-shirt has ridden up a little bit. The small warmth from his skin on mine sends pleasure throughout my entire body.

There’s no way that I could physically react to him the way that I do if I was truly afraid of him. The realization shocks me and I tense in his arms.

His thumb stops moving and his hand moves away, but I stop him.

“Don’t.”

I turn my face so my lips are inches from the skin on his neck. I don’t know what kind of cologne he wears, and I don’t care. All I know is that he smells absolutely delicious. But I’m terrified to make the first move again, scared he’ll reject me and walk away all over again. That he won’t be able to handle seeing my scarred skin.

“It felt nice.”

I watch him swallow and his hand tightens on my hip, but still not where I want it. I want his hand back on my skin, warming me in a way that only he can seem to do.

I take a deep breath of my own and lean forward, brushing just a hint of a kiss on his skin. His breath hitches and his hand moves back to my waist, his full hand on my skin as he pushes up my shirt a little bit further. His hand rests there, not moving at all, but even still, I shift underneath his touch.

It’s a silent, but brave invitation, that I want more of him.

“You feel good,” he whispers into my ear. I shiver underneath his husky rumbling. “You have no idea how amazing it felt to wake up this morning with you in our bed, curled up next to me.” His tongue darts out and licks my ear lobe, and then he presses a gentle kiss on the sensitive skin right behind my ear.

I moan softly into his neck. It comes out before I can stop it, and yet I’m not embarrassed or afraid of my response.

“Thank you for giving that to me.” He pulls me close to him, shifting me so I’m straddling his lap, facing him.

I see lust and desire all over his face. And apprehension. Like maybe he’s still afraid to push me too far. I wonder if my own expression mirrors his because I feel the same way.

My hand moves to his chest and I feel his heart beating rapidly under my skin and his shirt. He looks down at my hand on him then back to me. Both of his hands move to my hips and he rocks me once into him. My thighs tighten and relax and I stifle another moan as I feel his arousal underneath the crotch of his jeans. Hard. Wanting me.

I want it. I need it. I need something good to replace all of my fears.

Something to fill the emptiness that settles inside of me when I spend too much time alone, my mind wandering to all of the unknowns and holes in my memory.

Maybe I’m using him. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I truly want him and love him with all of my heart.

Right now, I just want to feel him. I want that connection with him.

One of his hands come up and gently brushes my cheek, cupping my cheeks.

He pulls me closer so I’m inches from his lips. “I want to kiss you. And I don’t want to stop.”

My tongue licks my suddenly dry lips. “I want you to kiss me,” I tell him, with a voice that must be mine, but I don’t completely recognize. “And I don’t want you to stop. Not tonight.”

He studies me for a moment before he pulls me to him. Our lips join timidly at first, but he quickly takes control when he sucks my bottom lip into his and nips it lightly. I rock my hips into him involuntarily, and we both groan at the same time. My hands go to the back of his neck and I pull him to me, letting him know that I want this. That I’m not afraid of him.

“I need you, Amy. It’s been too long,” he tells me with a rough voice when he pulls away.

Without warning, he stands up, pulling me with him so my only option is to wrap my legs around his waist.

He walks us to his room – our room – and places me gently on the bed. I have a feeling, based on the tension in his arms and the veins I can see protruding from his neck, that he’s holding back and being gentler with me than he normally would.

And so I tell him. “You’re holding back on me. Don’t.”

He shakes his head as he crawls over me, lifting my shirt and taking it with him as he moves closer to me. “I don’t want to push you away. Not when I have you back in this bed.”

I shake my head. “You won’t.”

He regards me for a moment, almost debating if my words are true. They are. At least for now. I only hope that I didn’t just make a promise that I can’t keep.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he tells me as he looks down over my body. I see him flinch when he gets to my scar, but I pull his face back to mine.

I see pain written all over him.

“You hate my scars.”

He drops his head. “I hate that I didn’t protect you.”

I have no idea where my bravado comes from, but I lean forward and unclasp the back of my bra. The last thing I want is for him to leave me alone again, not when my entire body is coiled tightly with a sexual tension I never remember experiencing before. His eyes watch every movement as I remove my bra and throw it onto the floor. I smile coyly.

“Then make it up to me.”

He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. It’s such a rare thing to see on him so I soak it all in, knowing I’m doing this to him.

I’m unraveling his self-control, and a part of me that I don’t understand loves it.

He leans forward and kisses me. This time there’s no gentle start-up, no timidity or uncertainty. His mouth attacks mine like he’s been starving for me. He drinks in every corner of my mouth like he owns me, possesses me. I move underneath him, shifting and pushing against him to relieve the tension that grows with every passing second.

Before I know it, my hands are on the back of his shirt, fisting it and pulling it off as fast as I can, but not nearly fast enough.

He breaks the kiss only to remove his shirt, and then his mouth is on my neck, his hands roaming and pressing all over my skin. His warm hands cup my breasts and he pushes them together, pulling them, and massaging them. His fingers play with my nipples at the same time, bringing them to hardened peaks, and it sends a fire down to my lower stomach.

“Adam,” I moan, and throw my head back. I need him. I need more of this.

His lips and tongue press against my skin as he moves down. His lips cover one of my breasts while his other hand continues kneading and teasing my other. I cry out, throwing my head back. I feel full of pressure. Full of something that is dying to be released.

“More,” I moan, grinding against his crotch, needing the friction, but needing so much more at the same time.

My hands fight to get in the space between us and I’m unzipping his jeans and reaching into his boxers. Adam groans as I wrap my hand around his thickness.

He feels like the softest of silk over steel. I squeeze around him lightly and he bites on my nipples. I cry out again, rocking into him, and he pulls back away from me.