Tasting, Finding, Keeping: The Story of Never (15 page)

Ty's hot mouth is on my neck, and I find myself taking short, sharp, little breaths as I press my shaking hands to his chest. If I sleep with him again, I'll be making the biggest mistake of my life. He's the first real friend I've ever had, and I don't want to cheapen the feelings that are simmering between us. We made that mistake once before, and we survived. We've been through a lot since then, and I know that if I lose him now, I will never be whole again. Ty is my other half, lover or no, and just being around him is enough for me.

“Ty,” I say, trying my best to sound stern. Instead, my voice comes out like a butterfly, flutters against Ty's hair and swirls it gently against my lips. I moan and find that my fingers are now curled in the fabric of his T-shirt.

“Never,” he says back to me, the word like fire against my skin. In those two syllables, I hear how he feels about me. He thinks he's in love. Ty McCabe thinks he's in love with me. He doesn't say it aloud, but I can tell. Sex isn't the best way for me to show my feelings; I've abused it for so long that it has somehow lost some of its meaning. I try to tell Ty this, but I can't speak with his lips on my throat and his hand sliding across the nape of my neck.

I run my own hands down his chest and put them beneath his shirt, on the hard plane of his belly. His muscles contract as I press my fingers into them, touching, feeling, absorbing the man, the complication, that is Ty McCabe. All the while, my mind is racing in circles trying to talk me out of this.

“Kiss me,” Ty says and it's not a question, it's a request, albeit a gentle one. His voice is softer than I've ever heard it. His words are naked, stripped of all the bullshit that's happened to him, all of the horrible things that mirror my own life. Ty and I are like twins, like two halves of the same whole. They say that opposites attract, but Ty and I are very much the same and the attraction between us burns brighter than the sun. “Kiss me,” he says again and I do.

Our lips touch and the darkness that's always made up my life, parts like a curtain, opens up wide and flashes me the sun. Ty's kiss, his touch, his words, our friendship, all of it runs over and through me, and suddenly, I'm pulling away because I can't breathe.

“Ty,” I say as he follows after me, and I sit down hard on the edge of his bed. “You mean more to me than sex.” It's kind of a weird thing to say, but I know he gets it, and I hope he feels the same way.

“I know that,” he tells me as he puts his hands on his hips and tries to breathe.

“So let's not do this,” I say as I fall back into the messy covers and try not to think about how many girls Ty might've fucked in this apartment. “I like things the way they are. You're my best friend, my reason for getting up in the morning, the only thing in this world that convinces me that it's worth the effort to breathe.” He sits down next to me and sprawls out on his side like he's done a million times in the blur of afternoons we've spent together. When Ty brushes the hair from my forehead, the feel of his fingertips against my skin is like torture. He doesn't mention Noah. Neither of us mentions Noah.

“Why do you say things like that?” he asks with a smile. “It makes it hard for me to one-up you.” I roll my eyes and try not to think about how tender my lips feel.

“At this point,
not
having sex with you is about the best way for me to show that I care. Besides,” I reach into my pocket and pull out my celibacy chip. It's bright blue and shimmers like a gem in the small shaft of sunlight that's managed to penetrate Ty's heavy, black curtains.
One Month.
“You don't really want to miss out on next month's, do you? I hear that it's purple.”

“Never … ”

“And anyway, I stopped taking the pill after that first meeting, and I don't have any condoms around. I never used them anyway.” I stop talking and almost choke on the feelings that sweep through me. I dodged so many bullets that it's not even funny. For Ty and I both to be free of any STDs is a miracle that defies the statistics of our current world. Ty knows me too well now. He knows that I'm babbling because I don't have anything real to say. “You're supposed to be my sponsor, you know. This is like asking an alcoholic to come to a bar with you.”

“You're not a fucking alcoholic,” Ty says as he pulls the celibacy chip from my fingers. “Let's use a different comparison. What if you were a food addict? You can't just stop eating. You just have to stop eating
everything,
right?” I try to reach for the chip, but Ty throws it across the room where it hits the wall and falls to his dresser. “And fuck purple, Never, I want you.”

“Ty,” I say, but I don't know what else should come after that word, so I just stop talking. I try to turn away from him, but he grabs my hips and pulls me back.

“You can't run from this forever,” he says as he leans down and presses a series of warm kisses to my neck, working his way down to my collarbone. I grab him by the hair and pull his face up to mine.

“Taking me to that meeting was your idea, and now you're pissed because I'm actually following the rules? I thought you wanted me to stop having sex. I thought
you
wanted to stop having sex.” Ty laughs and scoots forward, so that his hip is partially atop mine.

“Wrong,” he tells me as he gives me a dimpled smile. “My goal was for us to stop having sex with people we didn't know, didn't like, didn't care about. My goal was to stop you from having sex with other guys.”

“Why?” I ask defiantly, reaching up and putting a hand between Ty and myself. My fingers splay open against his chest. Ty smiles and uses one arm to prop himself up and the other to brush the hair from my forehead.

“Because you're mine,” he says and then he leans down, forcing my arm out from between us and around his neck. I'm weak when it comes to Ty McCabe. I don't know when it happened or why but somehow I've been roped into falling for one of these dark boys with the angry pasts, one of these boys that I've always fucked but never loved, one of these boys who is more than capable of burning me if I let them. But how can I say no with his mouth pressed against mine, hot and hungry? What can I do when my body, my brain and my soul all cry out for his touch, his words, his look? I've never had so many parts of my being in agreement before. Always there was something telling me that what I was doing was wrong. Everything about this feels right. It's like I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've been in darkness for so long that it's easy for me to recognize this burning color, this brightness that I've been denied for far, too long. Ty McCabe has brought it out of me, and I can't say no. He won't let me say no.
I
don't want to say no.

Ty and I brush our lips against one another, rubbing the heat of our tongues together as our hands touch, explore each other's bodies like we've never touched before. And we haven't, not like this. I've
never
been touched like this before. Not by Noah, not by anyone. I reach my fingers under Ty's shirt and he sits up just enough that I can pull it over his head. I've been wanting to do this for a long, long time. I run my fingers up the hard lines of his belly, tracing his abs with my nails, feeling them contract beneath my touch. He groans and arches his back like he can't stand even the barest brush. I love knowing that I can have this much effect on him, and smile.

“You think you're clever?” he asks me as he reaches down and grabs my wrists, pushes them out to the sides and kisses me on the jaw. He works his way down, towards my neck and breathes heat there, drips molten lava across my skin with every exhale.

“Ty,” I moan because I've never had the chance to moan someone's name before. Usually, I don't even know it. “Are you jealous of Noah?” I ask on the tail end of a gasp. Ty is nibbling my skin, biting the soft flesh of my throat, squeezing it between his teeth with just enough pressure that I swear it's going to hurt. It doesn't.

“Fuck Noah,” he says as releases my hands and grabs the edge of my shirt, tugging it up and over my head and tossing it across the room. Admittedly, I didn't expect to be in this situation, so I'm wearing an ugly, beige bra with thick straps. Ty grins as I cross my arms over my chest to hide it. “If you hate it so much,” he says as he bends down and breathes in my hair. “Why don't we take it off?” Ty slides his hands under my torso and miraculously, it only takes him a second to undo the clasps.

“You've had practice,” I say with just a hint of jealousy. Ty's grin relaxes into a smile, but he doesn't say a thing. Instead, he grabs the bra with his fingers and slides it down my arms, dropping it off the edge of the bed while his eyes take in my breasts and the sprinkling of freckles along my chest and shoulders.

“God,” he says as he bends down and breathes on my nipples, caresses the flesh around them with his warm hand. “You really are fucking beautiful.” I grab his hair suddenly, tangle my fingers in it and pull his mouth to mine. Some cultures believe that a person's soul is in their breath and that by kissing, we're exchanging the deepest parts of ourselves. I'd always thought that was a load of shit. Until now. Until Ty. I wrap my hand around Ty's neck, moaning into his mouth while his hand dives lower and starts at the buttons to my jeans.

I don't fight him, letting my fingers explore his back and shoulders, slide across the nape of his neck. It's such a high for me that I groan in disappointment when he moves away, stands up and drops his pants to the floor just like that.

“No fair,” I tell him as he slides his hands up my legs and wraps his fingers around the waist of my jeans. “I wanted to take those off.”

“Next time,” Ty says as he yanks my pants off and tosses them to the floor, leaving me in nothing but a pair of thin, white cotton panties. They're boyshorts, so they're not terribly hideous, but if I had known I was going to be on my back in Ty McCabe's apartment, I would've worn lace. When Ty climbs back on the bed, he sits up for a moment, lets me a get a full, glorious view of his muscular body, the curves of the muscles in his arms and thighs, the smooth skin of his chest and belly and the sweep of dark hair around his cock.

“Guess what?” I tell him as he positions himself between my legs and presses the heavy weight of his body into mine. The bed creaks, shifts, makes this little nest where it's just me and Ty and a bundle of sheets and pillow. “You're fucking beautiful, too.” Ty bites my lower lip, sucks it between his teeth and pulls back.

“That's it?” he jokes. “Just beautiful? Not handsome or hung or – ” I bite Ty's lip ring, tug on it and twirl it around in my mouth while he groans and reaches down, pushes my panties aside with his ringed fingers. Ty and I are stupid, but we're also infatuated with one another, so we don't bother to use a condom. When he pushes into me, all I can see are stars, and I forget about the things I've learned in our meetings, the fear I felt sitting on those plastic chairs in that clinic, all I can think about is Ty. Ty. Ty.

“Never,” he says as my eyes tear up. I don't know why. I've never cried during sex before. Ty kisses the drops away and moves his body in a gentle rhythm, slides into me with long strokes that cut right to the core, but in a good way, a better way. This isn't a frantic fuck in the back of a frat house. This is me and Ty getting to know one another, touching, feeling, embracing. I look up at the ceiling and wrap my hands around his neck, certain that there won't be another day that I feel like this. It's too good, too perfect. Nothing like this ever lasts; I know that better than anyone. I want to tell him to stop, to get off of me, to go away, but I can't speak.

When the pressure breaks, when I clench Ty's body with mine and listen to him cry out, when I feel his body relax into me, the world gets flipped upside down and won't go back the other way. Something inside of me has changed. If I can accept that, I'll be okay. If not, then I might as well have stayed the way I was, never bothered to try, because if I try to go back, I will break.

“Never,” Ty says as he looks down at me and tries to get my attention. I think I'm sobbing but just a bit, just because I'm confused and lost. This is all new territory for me. Fucking and making love are different things, I can see that now. “Are you alright?” he asks me with a small laugh. When he sees that I really am upset, Ty pushes my hair from my face and locks his dark eyes with mine. “Hey, you,” Ty says with a wink and a kiss to the cheek. “Promise me you'll never be sad for me or about me.” He brushes my tears away and kisses me hard and possessive on the lips. “Promise me that.”

“I promise,” I say as I take Ty into my arms and into my heart. From where I sit, there's no going back now. My life is now in the hands of fate.

I'm sitting on Ty's couch, still naked, with my phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. I have
never
felt like this after sex before, so … fulfilled. I've been seeking it out since I left Noah sleeping in my bed at my mother's house, and I haven't found it, not even close. Until now. Until Ty fucking McCabe. I'm staring at the text message, debating whether I should delete it or not. Debating if I should go home or not. If I do, I might be able to heal some of the rifts in my heart, get to know my sisters, have a family again. I might be able to tell Mom the truth with conviction, and if that bastard is still around, maybe I can finally find justice for my dad? At the same time, there's a lot of room for error there, a lot of chances to fuck things up royally. Besides, if I go home now, I'll have to see Noah. I'll just have to. And I'll have to leave Ty, here, alone. It might only be for a month, but a lot can happen in four weeks. I set my phone aside and take a deep breath. Honestly, it's hard to be stressed when I feel so good, physically, emotionally, even spiritually.

“I'm in love with a guy who wears a nose ring,” I say aloud and chuckle. He's dead asleep right now with his tight, little ass peeking out of the blankets, the smooth muscles of his upper back lit up with the silver light from the moon outside the window. Or at least I thought he was.

“Did I hear the word
love
?” Ty asks as he moves into the living room, stark naked. He's beautiful, chiseled and hard, masculine and strong, like a statue of Apollo or some other virile, young god. It's a strange thought to have, but I can suddenly imagine why he worked as a prostitute. I can see why people would be clamoring to pay him for his time. Ty is the most flawed, most tortured, most beautiful human being I have ever met.

This scares me.

I watch him come around the edge of the couch and sit next to me.

“I think you just misheard me,” I try to tell him as he yawns and rubs his hand down his belly.

“Did I?” he asks, but he doesn't sound like he believes me. I glance over at the phone and sip my wine.

“What would you do?” I ask Ty as he rubs his eyes and looks at me with sleepy satisfaction. He scoots closer to me and can't seem to keep his hands off my bare skin. I don't know what to think about it because I've never really had a
lover.
I've had sexual partners galore but never a lover, never someone that wanted to hold me, possess me, consume me. Ty wants all of these things and more. “What would you do if the people you loved betrayed you?”

“I've never been in love before,” he tells me with a yawn. “So that's a bit outside my range of knowledge, but if you're talking about your family, I think you should go see them.” I stare at him, and I wonder if I'm reading too much into his words.
He's never been in love?
What about now? What about the way I'm feeling? Doesn't he feel that way, too? My heart clenches tight, but I try to keep smiling. Ty doesn't notice any of this. He kisses my neck and whispers in my ear. “Come to bed with?” I nod, but my mind is going a hundred miles an hour. When he gets up, he tries to drag me with him and I hold up my wine like it's some kind of stupid fucking explanation.

“Let me finish this, and I'll be right there,” I tell him, and he's so cute and naked and tired that he just nods and leans down for a kiss. I wrap my hand around his neck and make it last, burn it into my brain and my heart and my soul. When Ty pulls away, I keep a smile plastered to my face. When he disappears, I frown. I'm having a crisis of character, as Ty would say. Maybe it's because of Noah? No, that's just a convenient excuse. I'm panicking because I'm in deep, because it has just hit me how important Ty has become, and he's the only thing I have now. If something goes wrong, I don't know what I'll do. I know as soon as I start to cry that I'm not thinking clearly, that I'm making a terrible decision. I've been making all the right ones lately and now I'm having a relapse. It happens, with alcoholics, drug addicts, food addicts. It's happening because I don't know how to handle my feelings properly. Of course, like with everything, it has to get worse before it gets better.

I finish my wine, get up, get dressed and leave.