The Years After (17 page)

She nodded and he finally had the guts to raise his eyes to hers. Her breath caught and almost suffocated her. What Derek said was so simple, yet so profound. It was like nothing she ever pictured anyone saying to or feeling for her. However, it described what she felt about him in every detail.

“I think that would pretty much be what love is, Derek,” she finally said, still holding his gaze.

He swallowed before replying, “Then, I guess… yeah.”

They looked at each other, and the awkwardness, and newness of their mutual feelings made each of them blush and quickly turn away. When a small, tiny smile curled up Olivia’s lips, she saw that one had also appeared on his face. “I love you, Derek. I think I did from the first time you kissed me.”

“Can I kiss you now?”

“Depends on where.”

“Your lips, you little nympho. I’m not declaring love right before having sex with you! It’s too… weird. Like I said it just to get that from you.”

“Maybe I’m saying it to get it from you. You were the one who hesitated.” She countered his smile, and her flirting and newfound confidence were intoxicating to him. If he loved her, things would be raised to an entirely new level. A high level. A maybe she wanted to have sex level.

He groaned and shut his eyes. “You can’t encourage me. I’m really not that noble.”

“Quit being noble then. Please.”

He laid her back down, his gaze fixed on hers the entire time. Leaning back towards her hips, he took her legs in his hands and spread them a little wider, appearing still bold and taunting before he dropped his eyes on her. He stared intently and she squirmed under the scrutiny. Raising his head, he grinned and asked, “Can I kiss you
now
?”

She shut her eyes and nodded before his face disappeared between her thighs. The scruff of his unshaven chin and cheeks scraped her inner thighs. He touched his lips on her and then his tongue and she forgot her shyness. Dropping her knees even wider, her moan of pleasure nearly surprised her when it came from her lips. She opened her eyes long enough to see his dark head sandwiched between her legs. Closing her eyes tightly, she waited while his mouth made her explode with new sensations.

He kissed her, tongued her, and touched her until she came. Crying out, she clutched his bed covers between her fisting fingers. He kissed his way back up her body until he arrived at her lips. She could taste herself on him and opened her eyes instantly. He grinned wickedly and seemed to realize what shocked her.

Pulling her into his arms, he rubbed her back and shoulders and kissed her face and neck. She was almost asleep, lying naked beside him when he leaned down and whispered, “I love you too.”

She would soon learn that was the only time he could say it to her: in the dark of night, lying in his arms. Only then could he whisper it, and always when she was almost asleep. Never while looking her in the eye, or flippantly texting, or ending a phone call with “love you,” as if it were a casual goodbye. To Derek, it was always a profound, quiet, solemn vow he wanted to share with only her.

Chapter Nine

DEREK WOKE UP TO an empty bed. He glanced down from the loft towards the kitchen to find Olivia, in his t-shirt, eating a donut. She stood next to the counter, munching while staring at the screen of her phone. When she bent over to lean on the counter, he was treated to the shocking revelation that she still wore no underwear.

He rolled flat onto his back.
Love.
How could he have told her he was in love with her? So what if he might be?
If
there was such a thing as love, and
if
that described what he felt towards her, then maybe, yeah, sure, he was in love with her. But how could he simply tell her that? Everything about him was wrong for her and would end up devastating her. And to do that? To go so far as to claim he loved her just so he finally got his mouth and hands on her, as he’d been angling to do all along? So not what he meant to do. For once in his lousy, ridiculous life, he wanted to do something decent. Or at least, kind of decent; but
no
, he couldn’t even stick to that. He’d kept his hands above her waist for weeks. And never even asked for more, as the longer he knew her, the more he realized what a gift she was. Anyone would have known that. Her smiles were always fresh and real and heartfelt. She was happy. Being around her was like hearing music for the first time, or spotting a rainbow after days of rain. She was that engaging, charming, sweet, funny and decent. The most decent person he’d ever known in his life.

And he would, no doubt, ruin even that, now wouldn’t he?

She was coming up the stairs and not being particularly quiet. She never was. She stomped and thumped the moment she got up and began moving. She could no more sneak up on someone than a young colt could. She came to the top of the landing and smiled when she realized he was awake. Her smile was sweet and goofy as she came over and sat on her knees near his head. Her legs were tucked under her like a kid might do. The t-shirt covered all the interesting parts. She was still working on the donut. She ate atrociously. Sweets, donuts, cookies and candy. How they hell she stayed so skinny was a testament to one of the miracles of having a good gene pool. She might have had worse eating habits than even he. She leaned down and kissed his lips, and the sugar on her lips was sweet and sticky. He poked his tongue out to lick it off her lips. She started to pull back, but groaned as his tongue touched hers and leaned in closer for more. His hands slid to her bare legs and bottom. She leaned her weight into his hands.

He finally pushed her back. “We should stop.”

She glanced down at the covers, and her eyebrows rose curiously. “Does it really happen every morning?”

He almost choked on his own spit at her question. She didn’t often acknowledge
it.
“With you here? Yes.”

She bit her lip. “Is it uncomfortable?”

“It’s… needy.”

“Can I… touch you?”

He groaned at her soft, sweet voice and turned on his side, away from her. “I think we went far enough for one time.”

Her hands slid around his shoulders. “Are you going to keep this up?”

“Keep what up?”

“Acting like I’m some kind of fragile package you’re afraid to ruin. I’m not ruined just because I have sex with you. This isn’t the eighteenth century. I’m allowed to be curious and eager to have it just as much as you are.”

He paused only when her lips caught his in a kiss that further inflamed the subject of their discussion. One of her hands slid to his waist and he eventually lay flat. She slid the sheets off as she worked his jeans open. He closed his eyes, slightly ashamed, but also unable to tell her no. He nearly jumped when her cool hands touched his bare skin as she slipped beneath the elastic of his boxers. He kissed her mouth harder as she kept kissing him while her hands drifted lower, until they were right over his erection. He held her jaw in his hands, trying to resist the urge to reach down and show her exactly what he wanted her to do. She lay her hand over him, and left it just kind of sitting there. The anticipation of her barely-there pressure nearly killed him. She slipped a hand into the opening of his shorts, and he groaned into her mouth when she made a fist around the shaft. He hadn’t been touched there by anything but his own hand in months. He jerked off to fantasies of her doing just this, so he knew it wouldn’t take much.

Finally free of clothes, he watched her hand slide up and down his length. He had to grit his back teeth to not simply come right there in her hand. Her face suddenly was unavailable for him to kiss as she headed south. He fell back onto his pillow, and his eyes slammed shut. His jaw was growing sore from his efforts to keep himself from coming all over her. But her lips,
fuck!
were on his stomach, then right above his dick, and then, right on it. He aimed his hips towards the heat of her mouth as soon as she barely put the tip of him inside it. He longed to hold her head still and push as far inside as he could. He ached to encourage her to move her mouth up and down. But she didn’t seem to know exactly what to do. Her lips slid off him and he was pretty sure she was looking at him intently. He dared not look at her, lest he lose it. Her hair swept over his stomach as she lowered her lips on him again and this time, her tongue touched the end of him. She did it exactly how he’d often seen her lick an ice cream cone. Kind of slow and soft. Lapping at him like a cat drinks a saucer of milk, one hand went back along him and her other hand rested flat on his stomach.

It was not like any blow job he’d ever gotten. She didn’t totally move or devour him like some girls tried to do. But having
Olivia’s
mouth on him, there was nothing special she needed to do to make him come. He finally opened his eyes and what he saw made his head flop back onto the mattress with a loud groan of appreciation. She was huddled up next to his hips, on her knees, with her dark hair spread all over his dark skin. Her head moved and tilted over him. He grabbed her shoulders and dragged her towards him before rolling to the side and coming into the covers instead of her mouth. He kissed her without thinking as the aftershocks rumbling through him kept his eyes shut and his body strumming.

Pushing her away from the wet spot on his bed, he was afraid to actually make eye contact with her. What if she got grossed out or shocked by it? What if… well, hell! He didn’t know what a virgin might think of anything. That’s why he treated her like a fragile package he dared not touch. He was afraid to shock her, hurt her, or lose her.

Her face was buried against his neck until his breathing finally returned to normal. His hands rubbed her thick mass of hair. She tilted her head up and kissed his cheek. “Was that okay? I obviously—”

“It was perfect,” he said softly. He gave her a smile that, God help him, seemed shy. How could he be embarrassed when she was the virgin and new to this all?

“You could have… you know, come in my mouth.”

His stomach clenched and his dick half hardened at hearing those words from her. “Maybe we could work up to that. Did you like it? I mean, you don’t have to. It doesn’t do much for some girls.”

She leaned into him as always and rubbed up against him, as if she sought his heat and wanted his arms around her. “It does things for me.”

He slid his hand between her legs and found her wet. She responded immediately to his touch. He sighed with hatred at himself, but accepted her invite. They spent the rest of the morning exploring each other’s bodies and pleasures while trying to avoid the wet spot on the mattress that was soon joined by another.

It was evening before hunger finally drove him out of bed with naked Olivia. The longer they were there, the easier and more natural she became when she was naked with him. He never spent a day like it. They kissed and touched and sucked and licked each other for
hours
on end. There was no actual sex, but by the end of the day, he was too tired to even care. It was hotter than any sex he’d had with anyone besides Olivia. Sweet and shy, then not so shy, and suddenly eager, that was Olivia. He kind of hated himself for stealing that innocence from her. But he also loved to wallow and bask in the radiant love she provided whenever she went near him.

“I need to eat; my donut left me hours ago.”

He laughed. She just finished blowing him, and now she was sprawled, and spread-eagled, but totally at ease in his bed, and announcing how hungry she felt. He kept staring at her because he could not believe she was actually there.

“I guess we could get up for a little while.”

“And you were the one who resisted bringing me here.”

“I was not aware it would include things like this.”

“Well, be aware now.” She slipped on a t-shirt and his socks before shuffling down the stairs and disappearing into the bathroom. He heard the shower go on. He paused from digging for clean clothes in the duffel bags. He threw some dirty garments aside as he realized she was bathing in his shower. No girl had ever showered at his place before.

He found some clean boxers and a shirt and tugged another pair of jeans on. She was just coming out of the bathroom with his towel from yesterday, the one he discarded on the floor, which she wrapped around her head. She had his sweats and t-shirt on also. She walked towards him and wrapped her arms around his waist as he leaned her head against his back. She mumbled, “How about we order a pizza?”

He started to answer when the clang of the door made him freeze. Olivia froze too. She started to say, “Who—”

But there was no chance to finish her thought before Max ducked into the loft and slammed the door and the locks nearly with the same movement. He turned and stopped dead when he found Derek there with a girl more or less wrapped around him.

Olivia made a strange sound, almost like a strangled cry. He realized why. Max’s face was bashed in. His eyes were black and his cheek was scraped. His clothes had bloody spots and his fists were bruised and appeared pulverized.

He almost panicked and pushed Olivia out. Or…
Well, shit!
He didn’t know what to do with her, or what to say. He finally stepped away from her, but took her hand.

Max came closer, and his face was completely puzzled as if wondering who the hell she was? Derek never had anyone come there. “Uh, Olivia, this is my brother, Max. Max, this is my girlfriend, Olivia.”

She dropped his hand and stepped forward, “Oh my God! What happened to you? There’s no time for proper introductions! Jesus, Derek! Call the police!”

“NO!” Max shouted, just as Derek tried to calm him down.

She stepped back as her gaze flipped from him to Max. “What? Why? What happened?”

Max threw his backpack down. He usually carried a pathetic bundle of clothes and some strange trinkets. Max had less than even Derek that he cared about in this world. Derek directed his question to Max. “Fight?”

Max nodded. Derek pointed to the bathroom. Max disappeared inside. He stared after the closed door. He did not want to turn towards Olivia. He knew she’d leave now. She’d realize the circumstances, the violence of his life, and leave him, as he should have left her so long ago.