“I want grandchildren,” she replies. “Let’s not get in their way.”
Drew hears it and laughs. “I think your mom might be getting ahead of herself.”
I picture Drew pregnant, and I picture the child we might have. I smile and tug her closer. I’m not sure my mom is all that far ahead of herself, but I’ll take baby steps for now.
49
DREW
When we get to the hotel—Ben somehow arranged this too—I help him remove the shirt over his bandaged shoulder. Standing there shirtless, scrubs hanging low around his waist, he looks so good I can hardly bear not to touch him.
“I need a shower,” he says. He comes closer, his mouth at my ear. “I might need help. You know…bum shoulder and all.”
I let my palms rest against his chest. “Yeah?”
He nods. His eyes have gone all hazy, the way they do when he is not thinking about cleanliness, and there’s a bulge distorting the front of his scrubs. “The doctor said you should rest,” I remind him.
He leans down, finding my mouth. “Even he knew that wasn’t realistic. It would take a lot more bullets to make rest a priority right now.”
He strips me of my hoody and the t-shirt beneath. It’s not easy with only one good arm, but with my help he manages just fine. I push the jeans down myself. He tugs me against him then, like he can’t stand not to touch me. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I sigh. More than I would ever have let myself admit. His nipple is level with my mouth. My lips close over it, taking it between my teeth.
“God,” he groans. His hips reflexively arch toward me, seeking friction. “Shower.” It comes out more as a plea than a demand. I let him lead me, shedding my bra and panties on the way, watching with breathless anticipation as he tugs the scrubs down over his narrow hips.
His cock is thick and long and shows no sign of needing any rest whatsoever. It needs the opposite of rest. I reach for it but he evades me, stepping into the spray with a laugh. I follow, taking the hotel soap and lathering it in my hand.
“Hmmm…where should I start?” I ask.
He laughs again. The last time I saw him this free, this unburdened, was the day we reached Kalalau Beach. It’s as if he’s suddenly got everything in the world he wants.
“You’d better start at the top,” he replies. “Otherwise this will be a very brief shower.”
I lather his neck first, letting my hands run over his chest and his back, avoiding his shoulder. I don’t miss his small intake of air every time his cock slides against my stomach, the way he tenses as if it’s so good it hurts. My core clenches in response. I go down to my knees to get his legs, slowly working my way up and over his skin.
“You’re torturing me right now,” he says.
Finally I rise, moving behind him, running my hands from his back down to his ass, reaching through his legs to cup his balls while my other hand roams over his hip to stroke his cock. Air hisses between his teeth at the contact. I move to face him and when I reach for him again, he stops me.
“Fuck,” he groans. “No condoms.”
“I’m…clean,” I whisper. “And I’m on birth control.”
This is something I never, not once, gave his brother.
His eyes slowly close. “Drew, I’m not gonna last two seconds without one.”
I smile. “If memory serves, you’ll be ready for round two fast enough. I can wait.”
He moves us so I’m completely out of the spray, my back against the wall. “You’re going to get your bandage wet,” I warn.
“That’s okay,” he says with a half grin. “I know a guy.”
His palm glides down my leg, hooking his fingers under my knee to pull one thigh around his hip. He bends his knees to get the right angle, rubbing his hardness over my core, hitting my clit with just the right amount of pressure and then he’s inside me, hissing at the feel of it. “Oh God, that’s so good,” he whispers. I arch to get closer to him as he tugs my hips toward him and begins sliding in and out, the tempo even and perfect.
I didn’t think it would be so different. After all, it’s the same amount of friction, the same amount of force. But it’s slicker, hotter, more real. When he thrusts inside me hard for the first time, my feet nearly leave the floor.
One of his hands is on my hip as the other trails over my neck to my breast, then my rib cage, then lower. His fingers slip between my legs.
I laugh. “This is going to end so fast if you do that.”
He groans. “This is going to end so fast in either case. That’s why I’m doing it.”
He is stiff with the effort to restrain himself, to not push faster and harder and take what he needs.
“Faster,” I demand.
“Drew,” he says with a warning in his voice but I arch toward him and he complies, his hips bucking hard and fast, almost involuntarily. My blood heats and leaves my brain entirely. That thing in my stomach starts to wind tight and tighter. “I’m close,” I warn him.
“Thank God,” he grunts, and his next thrust is pitiless and entirely selfish and it sends me right over the edge. I cry out and then he pushes once more, hard, and I hear his own muffled cry as he buries his face against my neck.
Eventually, we dry off and find our way to the bed where we repeat everything at a more leisurely pace, sleep like the dead for a few hours, and then wake and do it again.
It’s dark when he rolls toward me and says, “Tell me about the numbers.”
I frown. We’re happy now and it’s not a happy story. “Was I talking in my sleep again?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “No. Not here. But in Dooha, you were. All night long.”
I try to think of a way I can distract him, a way I can turn it into a joke, but I guess the time for that has passed. At this point, failing to answer would feel like a lie.
“They’re bus lines,” I tell him, staring at his chest. “From the last time I went to see my dad.”
He stiffens. “I thought he died when you were young.”
“He did,” I reply, and then I close my eyes and let the story spill free, each piece of it a little uglier than the one before it.
My father was distraught after that bottle hit me in the face. I told my mom the truth because a stupid part of me thought she’d understand how lost my dad was, how much he needed us.
“She said she was taking away his visitation rights, instead,” I tell Josh. His hand slides over my arm, encouraging me to continue. “And he said he was going to do his best to fight it.”
I believed him, little idiot that I was. I believed him and I packed a bag and memorized the bus schedules and left New York, alone. And I was so scared the whole way. I’d never taken a city bus in my life and I was sure someone was going to ask why I wasn’t in school, or that I would get off on the wrong stop, or forget which bus came next. M7 to the 199 to the 88. And I dream about it again and again, those moments before I knew how it would all turn out, when I still was full of blind, stupid hope.
“Did you make it?” I hear concern in his voice, as if this is a story that’s still evolving, that can still change.