Teach Me To Live (Teach Me - Book One) (9 page)

Tugging my hips forward over the counter, I felt his hips settle between my legs—and I felt the hardness of his arousal through our jeans. My brain snapped me back from my lust filled haze and I pulled away from him, my face flaming.

“Austin,” I gripped his shoulders beneath my hands before dropping my forehead over the back of my right palm where it rested on his shoulder. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“Move farther—than—a kiss.” I stuttered, still hiding my face from him.

He didn’t allow me to hide for long. Leaning back without removing his hands from my thighs, he forced me to once again meet his eyes. “Who said we were moving any farther?”

“I,” I stuttered as humiliation at my presuming he wanted to do more than kiss me flooded my body. “Oh, God.”

“Madison,” he caught my chin in his hand once again. “I’m never going to push you for anything more than what you’re ready for.”

“But you were—um,” I stumbled over my words once again. I hated the childish way I sounded.

“Hard?” He raised a brow, grinning a half-cocked grin.

I nodded. My face was flaming red now. It was so hot it was almost painful. “Yeah.”

“I can’t help that,” his eyes were laughing, but he was being so honest. “I want you. I’ll never be able to kiss you, like that, and not fucking ache for you. But that doesn’t mean anything. If you’re never ready for more, I can respect that.” He winked. “We’ve only just met, remember?”

“Oh, my God!” I slammed my eyes closed. “You must think I’m so easy.”

“Open your eyes.” His low growl stunned me and I obeyed instantly. “You are not easy. I never once thought you were easy, sweetheart. You stopped me, remember?”

“But I let you kiss me like that—and we’ve only just,” I paused. “We’ve only just met, Austin.”

He nodded. “And I know you’ve never been kissed, like that, before.”

“Are you mocking me?” I demanded.

“No, sweetheart. Just stating the obvious.”

“Did I kiss badly?”

“You kissed wonderfully,” he chuckled. “Or can’t you tell?”

“What?” I was having difficulty keeping up with him.

“You were the one who pointed out that I was hard.”

Again, I blushed fire engine red. “Austin!” I closed my eyes again, sighing heavily. “Please . . .”

“Please what, sweetheart?”

“I’m so embarrassed right now. Please, stop teasing me.” I opened my eyes to pin him with a firm stare.

“You’re so beautiful when you’re embarrassed.” He tipped his head forward and before I knew it, his lips were against mine once again. This time, his kiss was slow and gentle—and it ended much too soon.

When he pulled away, I felt his hands settle against my hips. He gripped me tightly before lifting me from the counter to place my feet once again on sold ground.

“What now?” I asked, breathlessly.

“It’s getting dark,” he sighed. The words sounded on a regretful breath. “I should probably be getting you back. Unless you’re game for borrowing a t-shirt and claiming half my bed.” He winked and I felt my eyes widen in shock before he announced. “Just playing with you, sweetheart.”

“Oh, my goodness,” I placed my cool palms against my heated cheeks. “I thought for a moment you were serious.”

“I know you’re not that kind of girl.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’ll bet I’ve got a few months before I get you in my bed.” He grinned. Once again, I felt my eyes grow wide.

“Austin!” I shook my head. “You’re really something else, you know that? We’ve only just met.”

“And in a few months we’ll have gotten to know each other so much better.”

“I had no idea you were all for timelines,” I smirked. “First, you were putting in a good days work for a kiss. And now you’re planning, quite presumptuously, that with a few months of good working, you’ll have me in your bed. Who would have thought you were all about plotting and timelines. Where’s the spontaneity?”

“Sweetheart,” he placed his hands on the counter on either side of my body, caging me within his arms. “If there is one person in this world who says fuck you to timelines, it’s me.”

“Oh,” I breathed in, very aware of how close he was to me, and how close his lips were to mine. “Why is that?”

“One day you’ll figure it out.”

“But not today?”

He shook his head. “No. Not today.”

I pulled up to the house at half past ten. The lights were all on, including the lights in the pool house. I knew my parent’s were worried, because I’d never left home in a rage to not return until dark. I could only imagine the fight I had waiting for me within the walls I called home.

These walls had always been my home.

They’d always felt like home.

Until now . . .

I avoided the front door of the main house, walking like the coward I was around the side, to where the pool house sat, in all its glory. I was praying, hoping, and wishing, that no one was waiting for me within the walls I had been praying I could consider a sanctuary of sorts, when I’d been given the go-ahead to move in.

“Where have you been?” Mom’s voice sounded in the darkness and I startled as my eyes searched the night. It didn’t take me long to locate Mom sitting in one of the poolside chairs. She’d been waiting for me in the shadows. Like a crazy person.

“Mom!” I gasped, plopping my open hand against my chest. My heart raced hard and quick beneath my palm. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

“Where have you been, Madison?” She asked again. I watched as she rose from where she sat to close the distance between us.

“I was out.”

“Where?”

“At the coffee house.”

“Your car was at the coffee house,” she shook her head. “But you weren’t. So, I am going to ask you one last time. Where were you?”

“I was with a friend.” I could hear the nerves climbing up from my stomach, into my throat to taint the sound of my words. I’d never been particularly good at confrontation.

“What friend?”

“You don’t know him.”

“Him?” She pursed her lips. “You were out until half past ten with a boy?”

I cursed myself for not thinking quicker on my feet. The last thing I should have admitted was that I had been out until dark with a boy. Surely, she was moments away from losing her very mind.

There wasn’t much in the way of an extraction now, so I nodded. Admitting truth once again was really all I could do. Although I had become quite the liar over the years, I wasn’t much for storytelling when it came to Mom and Dad. I know you probably don’t see much of a difference between lying and storytelling, so I’ll explain it for you. Lying is the blatant opposite of truth. Storytelling is an elaboration or twisting of events or truths to turn them into one’s favor. Storytelling is a brand of complex lying I’d never bothered to master. Hiding who I was from my parent’s was one thing. Blatantly lying to my Mother to protect myself, was another. So, being that the only thing I seemed capable of lying about was my emotions, again, I nodded. But this time there was a verbal admission that went with it. “I was.”

“Madison,” she shook her head disappointedly before gesturing to the pool house door. “We’ll finish this conversation inside.”

“You mean I still have a place to sleep?” I snapped, remembering Dad’s harsh words.

“Don’t demand to be treated as an adult, Madison, and proceed to act like a child.” Mom bit back just as pointedly.

Swallowing my retort, I turned on my heel to walk into the pool house. The lights were on, and I knew I hadn’t left them on. So I knew my Mom, and or, Dad had been snooping. “You were in here?”

“You left me little choice but to snoop through your space when you neglected to answer your cell phone.”

Crap. I hadn’t even thought about my phone. “I didn’t even notice you called.”

“I don’t believe you.”

There was a big part of me that wanted to tell her I’d been too distracted by tattoos and piercings and motorbikes to notice her name flashing on the screen of my phone. The words were bubbling in my throat, begging for release. They burned like acid and were just as annihilating. Yet, if I spoke those words, disaster would be inevitable. So, I thought better of the words I wanted to say, as I remembered the way Austin made me feel inside. I didn’t intend to ruin the possibilities of my seeing him again by demolishing the good inside of him by shedding light on what Mom would more than certainly consider a rotten exterior.

“Did you find anything to help you in your search?” I asked acidly. I felt, in a way, violated. I was almost nineteen years old and my parents had snooped through my bedroom after our fight as though I were little more than twelve years old. I had a right to be out past 10:00 pm. I had a right to see a boy, and if I wanted, to create a relationship with said boy. I had a right to live, and by all that’s holy, I have a right to happiness.

If I make a mistake, then it’s mine. I’ll live with it. And I will learn from it. And I will become better for it.

If I fall in love and my heart is broken, then I’ll live with that, too. I’ll live with that love that was once mine, and I will cherish it because what was once love can never be all bad, even after heartbreak.

If I fail and break, then that failure is mine and it is for me to decide when the pieces of me need to be rebuilt. It is for me to decide how those pieces of me are rebuilt.

It’s not up to my parent’s. It’s not their job anymore. I’m a woman. I’m growing up and the tether they have me on needs to be cut. I’m aching, so deeply inside, to fly.

How can they not see how truly caught I am within their protective snare?

Again, I glanced around the caged freedom that was the pool house. A little bit of the elation that began to burn in Austin’s presence dimmed until it was little more than a simmer.

Anger took its place.

My eyes took in the open door of my bedroom and I knew they’d been searching for my journal.

Hurt bloomed and resentment flared.

She thought I was acting like a child, but I felt as though I were being belittled like one. It was all I could do to keep myself from losing my head and the little sanity that lived there. It was all I could do not to scream at her. Not to stomp my foot in rage and betrayal—like a child would.

But I didn’t. I simply stood there with my face drawn in an impenetrable mask. My hurt and anger and resentment were pushed so far down, I had a feeling that they weren’t even shining from my eyes. For so many people, the eyes were a window to the raw truth in a soul. But for me, my eyes displayed no secrets. My eyes were under lock and key. Impenetrable.

I glanced once more around the space my parent’s had offered me. The space that wasn’t really mine, and repeated, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“If I had found something, you would have been home before half past ten.”

I thanked the heavens that I took my diary with me wherever I went. If I had left it here, she would have read all about the blue eyed, tatted creature, who claimed my every thought for the last eight days. Yes, I knew eight days was a little much to be obsessing over some man I met in a coffee shop. But if you had seen his eyes . . .

You would be obsessing too.

I shook my head of thoughts of Austin. “What do you want, Mom?”

“I want to know more about this boy you were out with.” She folded her arms over her chest and I knew she was deflecting in fear of the words I was about to say.

“I don’t want to tell you about him.”

“What’s his name?” She asked, as though I hadn’t just told her I wished to keep him from her.

“I just said,”

“Madison, I’ve spent the day arguing with your Father, my husband, on your behalf. The least you can do is answer the questions I’m asking you.” Her voice was sharp and I knew without question that she wouldn’t let this go. And then her words hit me, like a bullet to the heart.

She’d been fighting with my Father, her husband, on my behalf. Mom and Dad didn’t fight. They just didn’t do that. But today, they’d fought because of me.

My voice was so quiet when I spoke. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I sounded ashamed. I wasn’t ashamed. At least, I wasn’t ashamed of Austin. “His name is Austin.”