Maybe Once, Maybe Twice(49)
“Are you sure your parents are okay with me staying in your room?” I asked, my eyes still on the bed.
Asher walked over to me and pulled me close to his warm body.
“They don’t care. They both have trials going on right now—they won’t even notice. I doubt they’ll be home before midnight.”
“You got taller,” I said, measuring the top of my head to the base of his strong jaw.
He took my hand off his jaw and clasped his fingers in mine, studying all sides of my face.
“Hi,” he said softly.
My lips stood ajar, my heart pounding in my throat, and suddenly my mouth was on his mouth, his tongue was on my tongue—our chests racing against each other, our hands knotted in each other’s hair. He helped me remove the cotton shirt from his body, and I tugged the tank top off my chest. Lips back on mine, his fingers fumbled with the clasp on my bra, finally yanking it off me—my breasts now against his solid torso. His skin on my skin was like riding a wave at sunset—it untethered me. I felt the wooden bedpost hit my spine, and he slowly pulled back from my lips, staring down at my flushed face and sucking in air.
I sidestepped away from his disarming stare—my shaking fingers searching the CD tower. He watched, shirtless from the edge of the bed, a soft grin on his face.
“Your mix is in the CD player,” he said.
Asher wasn’t a big music guy, so once a month, I sent him a mix CD in the mail, hell-bent on shaping his taste in music. I turned on the CD player, to the “I Fucking Miss You” mix I had sent him two months prior. My cheeks reddened, hearing Deana Carter croon. It was kind of cheesy, but I loved it. Yet, I wasn’t sure it was the right song for a guy to get naked to, so I went to change it on his behalf when I felt Asher’s hand around my wrist, pulling me back. “Strawberry Wine” thickened the air as the heat of his mouth went onto the curve of my neck, warm musk radiating off his olive skin and into my lungs, his fingers slowly grazing the side of my breast and sending a pulse through my entire body. His hand clenched over my hip bone, spinning me around so that my mouth could find his, so that I could feel him harden against me, so that our helpless bodies could find the bed.
His lips were on my throat, his hands up the side of my ribs, my fingers knotted in his thick hair—knuckles clenched as his mouth traced my shoulder, moving all the way down to my breast. I arched my neck back—eyes closed, heart racing. We’d been here before, many times the last summer, but sex was off the table.
I could feel him throbbing against me, and my hand moved down his chiseled stomach, settling around the belt loop on his jeans. He hovered over me, arms stretched past either side of my face as my finger grazed his leather belt, as if it were a question.
“Hey. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said softly.
I could feel his brother’s cold necklace dangling on my chest—an antique gold medallion with a lion etched onto it. Asher wore it like a scarlet letter, so that the scar on his heart wasn’t just buried underneath his skin. I knew almost everything about the guy I loved. I wanted to know absolutely everything. I opened my mouth to say three words, but his golden eyes pierced through me, and those words tightened like a knot in my throat. I was too in love to speak. I wasn’t sure what made someone ready, but I wanted every inch of his body to understand mine, the same way our souls already felt like extensions of each other, and if that wasn’t ready, I’d never be ready.
“I want to,” I finally whispered.
He exhaled, a smile on his face. “Me, too.”
A short while later, the setting sun poured in through his window, painting our salt-soaked bodies in a blood-orange hue. My flushed cheek lay on his racing heart, and I was bathed in peace that I didn’t know my body could find. I felt my eyes getting heavier, as he pulled me tighter to his naked body.
“What’s your mom going to do when she finds out your dad let you go off to California?” Asher asked. His fingers traced aimless lines up and down my spine.
“I mean, they live in two different states and she can’t tell him what to do anymore. So she’ll probably take it out on me.”
“I’m sorry that she doesn’t understand you,” he said, kissing my hair.
“She knows exactly who I am. The problem is: I’m not her. I think it’s upsetting to her that I’m so much more like my dad.”
I shifted my body, so my chin was on his chest. He ran his hands through my hair, mouth searching for the words.
“Do you think maybe—maybe you expect your mom to be a little more like you, and she expects you to be a lot like her—and neither of you have gotten your way?” Asher asked.
I shrugged, even though the question made my insides feel heavy. Leave it to Asher Reyes to walk around in everyone’s shoes. My mother was nineteen when she fell in love with my father. She was only a couple years older when she closed her heart off from ever letting another man in. She got swept away by my father’s charm and was devastated by the outcome. The added weight in my chest swirled, knowing that I had also been left heartbroken by my father. But I kept going back for more, hoping the next time would be different. I was filled with hope, because the opposite was too dark and lonely. It’s not the heartbreak that defines who we are, it’s how we react to it. My father left scars on my mother’s heart, but my mother let the pain keep her from making new ones. Norah put up thick walls—walls that made her appear like a tower of strength, when really, she was too weak to allow herself to give up an ounce of control.