The Years After (10 page)

She ran her hands over his shoulders and her fingertips trailed down his chest and over his flat nipples. He drew in a breath. He’d never had a girl who took so long to observe him, or used her hands so innocently to palpate his chest. He wasn’t hairy; no, mostly smooth, and his skin was quite dark, but his nipples were darker. Her hair fell past her shoulders and over her chest, covering her breasts except for the points of her nipples, which peeked in and out as she moved her head. He couldn’t remember another moment in his life as erotic as this was. Olivia was touching him so innocently, yet to him, it was the deepest and most scintillating touch of his life.

Placing her hands along his bare shoulders, she pulled herself closer so they were chest to chest. He responded by burying his hands in her hair and her bare skin brushed against his. Strange chills coursed through his body at the unexpected contact. Affection? Whatever; he’d never had such a thrilling contact with anyone else before. Sex wasn’t as good as touching like this. She ran her hands up into his hair and brushed the strands through her fingers before their lips met again. As they kissed on and on and on, he soon lost track of reality. He was engrossed by the silken strands of her hair, and her thin chest pressing against his, as well as her delicious mouth.

Strangely, it never occurred to him to lay her down and keep undressing her. He didn’t try to touch her intimately or invite her to touch him. He just… kissed her. And kissed her. He couldn’t get enough of her kisses. Finally, she pulled back and rested her head on his shoulder. He could feel the flush on her skin with his hands as her heart began beating harder.

His hard-on was trapped miserably, and rubbing against his jeans. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t even try to relieve it. She sat far enough off him that she wasn’t being molested by it. But still… he could probably have pressed her. She just might have given in, being so overwhelmed by what was so obviously new to her.

But damn. It was all new to him too. Shirtless kissing? That’s all they’d done, yet he felt more drawn and tied to Olivia than he had to anyone else in the world. It was the most erotic experience of his life.

He stayed off the grid the entire night and day, and his phone reported twelve missed calls. He needed to check in. Quentrell always knew where and what he was doing. He was like a freaking mother hen when it came to keeping track of Derek. But today? He pretended his real life didn’t exist. It was the only way he could live with himself and see Olivia.

It was close to eleven o’clock at night, and he needed to go home. He had to get out of there.

She finally released her arms from his neck and her shy, sweet expression came into his view. “I have some homework I still have to finish.”

Somehow, he knew not many things could make Olivia lose track of her responsibilities, not even raging hormones. “Yeah, I should go.”

He pushed her back and tried to resume his normal personality, the cold, asshole he so easily embodied. Grabbing his shirt, he ducked into it, as did Olivia. She began fumbling around, and her obvious anxiety and embarrassment were hard to miss although she kept her face turned away from him.

He stepped towards the door and she followed. With a deep breath, he got ready to stop this. He had to end it. Sure, it would become a bad memory for Olivia, but at this point, a relatively harmless memory.

Time for him to say something cold and callous before walking out of there.

Only… how? How could he? She was looking up at him with a clear, honest, hopeful expression. And then
she
leaned towards him and her arms encircled his waist as her head lay on his shoulder.

“And tomorrow? What happens? You don’t show up? Or you don’t know me?”

He stepped back, completely blown away by her quiet statement. There was no whine or even an angry tone in her voice.

She smiled. “I know you figured out things about me, like I’m not all that experienced. But I know how guys like you work.”

“Who says I’m a type?”

“Am I wrong, Derek? Did I read you wrong?”

He shook his head. But crazily enough, his hands stayed on her waist. “No, you’re not wrong, usually. But…” he paused and blew out a long breath of air, “but I’ll be there tomorrow. Saving a seat for you.”

She leaned back and a small smile tilted up the sides of her mouth. “Okay, a seat tomorrow.”

She stepped back and let him go. That was it. That was all she demanded of him. He thought perhaps there would be tears and recrimination and nasty words. Certainly not, “S
ure
,
Derek that sounds fine.”
Not after the intense weekend they’d just shared. Being a virgin, this should have meant a lot more to her than it did to him. But… what? She could so easily let him go with no more than a smile and a wave? Where did she learn to be so casual?”

Chapter Six

HE STAYED.
THAT WAS all Olivia could think about during the three hours she spent doing homework. She finally drifted off to sleep around two in the morning. But it was nearly impossible with all the butterflies taking flight inside her stomach. All she could do was relive every moment of the last twenty-four-plus hours. Derek Salazar actually slept with her. Next to her. He kissed her. And that was it. He didn’t expect anything more. He didn’t act as if she owed him anything either, almost like it never even occurred to him. There was an intense connection between them. She was waiting for the weirdness to start. Surely, one of them would say something stupid, thoughtless, or rude and the spell that seemed to envelop them would vanish. At least, she could go back to being herself.

But that never happened. They both nearly forgot about anyone else. It felt to Olivia as if nothing existed before Derek, or after. Everyone around him turned invisible. There was just
Derek
. And the stranger part still, was that she could have sworn he was every bit as captivated by
her
as she was by him. She was not a vain person. Her ego rarely made itself known, and only for good reason, but she felt nearly one hundred percent convinced he was getting into her as much as she was getting into him. Something like that could not have been imagined or simply wished to be, could it? Whatever was between them had to be real. Those strange feelings, so deep and new and beautiful and scary… They had to be real, right? So they must have also been mutual. They simply had to be.

She kept expecting Derek to leave. She was totally prepared for him to swagger out of her life. But he didn’t leave. And as he eventually held her when they did say goodbye, it felt to Olivia like he had to tear his arms off her.

She rolled over and hugged the pillow tightly when she heard Kylie entering the dorm at three am. She hadn’t been home since that morning. Olivia didn’t care just then where Kylie had been, or what she was doing. She didn’t want to hear Kylie’s drama and darkness, real or not. Nothing negative was allowed to tarnish her new, unprecedented daydreams.

She worried all the time what was going on with Kylie. After living with her, and witnessing her lifestyle, the observation of her habits began to gnaw at Olivia incessantly. But she was Kylie’s best friend, not her jailer. If her cousin wanted to lose herself in parties and multi-gender sex, wasn’t that her business? As long as she wasn’t doing anything unwillingly, Olivia had no cause to run tattling about her comings and goings to their family. It just wasn’t her way. Besides, for the first time in her life, she had her own drama, and something much more interesting to think about.

Like that kiss! It was long and lasted forever on her bed. For hours, they just lay there, kissing and touching with only their shirts removed. She loved each second of it. His hands were smooth as silk and she relished the radiant heat when they slid over her chest before combing through her hair. He made her feel worshipped and beautiful and special and alive; and that was only in one make-out session. Was that normal? Not from the way her own cousins talked about it. Although they frequently laughed, mocked and gossiped, they never referred to it like the religious experience it felt like to Olivia. Was she so innocent and stupid that she didn’t know what a typical make-out session was? Or what “hooking up” meant? And if that were the case, how could it feel so ethereal?

****

Scarcely a minute later, her alarm woke her up. She groaned and tried to throw it off her bed until her addled brain remembered it was Monday. She had a class, and Derek would be there. Flipping on the light switch, she deftly jumped out of bed only to hear Kylie mumble and groan in her sleep as she turned over. Olivia ignored her as she flew around the room, getting dressed. She gathered her stuff with minutes to spare before half-sprinting/half-speedwalking across the campus to her first class. Her heart seemed to swell so huge, it was hitting her rib cage.
Would he be there?
She could have started dancing when she spotted him. Yes, he was here! And sitting in the same seat as last Friday. How could that have been only three days ago? After the wonderful weekend they spent together, it felt like years, not days. She always scoffed at girls who started acting all clingy or needy or possessive over guys. How could one date be enough to tell them everything they needed to know about the guy? Or identify their own feelings and decide if he was even worth it? Now and here, Olivia was thinking all those things.

Derek was talking to that kid, Carter Esland. Carter went to a few of the parties Kylie formerly dragged her to. He seemed a little too arrogant and sure of his ability to get inside any girl’s pants. She nearly missed a step when she saw some money flashing between their hands. Then Carter turned on his heel and nearly stomped away as Derek tucked the money into the front of his hoodie pocket. He had the hood pulled up so that it blocked his face from her. That was… weird.

She slipped into the seat next to him, her hands suddenly sticky from sweat while her nerves spiked with awareness. What seemed so magical in the dim glow of her dark, private dorm room, now, in the middle of a busy, ordinary classroom, had all but vanished. She was once again the band geek. Someone he would run circles around with his mind games, and she’d never even catch on. She was so out of her league with sex. How could she dare to think she was sophisticated enough to be attractive to someone like Derek?

He shifted towards her, and she stared down hard at her book bag. She made it seem like pulling out her stuff required her undivided attention and care. When she finally had to look towards him, her entire body felt weird.

“You look tired.” His gaze was fastened on her, but his hood was still up.

“I was up until three.”

“Me too,” he mumbled. His fingers tapped out a rhythmic pinkie-to-index finger pattern.
What was he doing up at three?
She didn’t know anything at all about him. Not where he lived. Or what his family was like. Not even what
he
was like. She knew zilch about him. But already, she worried how he felt about her. She hated that about herself; or letting someone besides her determine her level of comfort.

“Surprised you showed up.”

“Me too,” he mumbled again. Okay, it was not the intense, crazy kind of connection they had last night. She licked her lips and strained her mind for something to say. When she could think of nothing, she went with something really lame. “So you’re friends with Carter Esland?”

His spine stiffened and his legs shifted. No longer spread out before him, he changed his position, and somewhat nervously said, “Uh, something like that. Why? You know him?”

Now, she pretended that flipping her hair off her shoulder required intense concentration. “Yes. From Kylie. He hangs out with Kylie sometimes.”

“Tell her not to. He’s a scumbag. Don’t you hang out with him either.”

“Why did he give you money?”

“We bet against each other on last week’s football game. I won.”

Oh, that made sense
. So they must be some kind of friends. Why was he warning her to stay away from him? And for that matter, himself?

The professor came in and Olivia was relieved. She finally stopped obsessing over Derek’s reaction to her this morning. She scrawled through pages of vigorous notes and tried her damnedest to listen and absorb the class material, instead of wondering about the boy sitting next to her. His chin fell down to his chest and, at one point, she was sure, even though his hood blocked his eyes, he was sound asleep. He linked his arms over his chest and stretched his legs out again, crossing his feet at the ankles.

He was not her type. Didn’t she know that? Yes, she sensed it. She was savvy enough to deduce he wasn’t looking for the same things from life that she was. He was floating, unsure, and probably just hoping to get laid and party. She hoped never to become the girl that boys used when they did that. She remained focused and determined in her desire to perform well at school and pursue her music career. She wanted to do what everyone expected of her and do it well.

So what if last night they kissed? That’s all it was. Probably nothing to him, and the reason he showed no reaction to her today. She, however, feared she might melt into a puddle of gooey feelings whenever he even glanced her way. It was so out of proportion with what he felt.

She grew unreasonably annoyed with him falling asleep. So what? It didn’t reflect on her, or did it? Just then, the idea that it emphasized everything she valued, which apparently wasn’t too important to him, entered her mind. Like last night wasn’t the most monumental night of her life. He probably went home and laughed until three in the morning with one of Carter Esland’s friends. Or maybe, he had another girlfriend over, or several, and they all laughed to hear about her kissing him shirtless, which was all she did.

Class finally ended. She was almost fully convinced she was right, and the weekend had only been some kind of intense anomaly Derek would pretend never happened. He’d, no doubt, act like it didn’t happen at his instigation, even though it did. He’d deny sharing the deep, strange feelings they discovered far too quickly. He was already doing it. The withdrawal. Acting like seeing her was no big deal.