Logic tells me to let her go, but my heart tells me she can’t fucking drive like this. So, I reach out, take her hand, and pull her back.
When she turns around and looks at me, I nod toward the house. She shrugs then uses her sleeve to wipe her eyes then under her nose.
I walk in the house, holding her shaking hand, and she shuts the door behind us.
“Give me a minute?” She sniffs. “I don’t want to tell them I’m sorry until I can do it without looking like this.”
“You thought my parents were home?” I ask, a bit shocked because of the whole doorbell ringing before nine on a Saturday morning and the whole parents thing.
“They’re not?” she asks then sniffs.
“No.” I turn and walk toward the stairs. “I need sleep, and so do you. I don’t want to talk about shit. I wanna sleep.”
“My shoes.” She sniffs.
“Kick ’em off.”
As soon as we hit my bedroom, she shrugs off her coat and pulls off her hoodie. Then she slips in my bed and shimmies around a bit. Her socks and leggings come out from under the covers.
Savvy’s in my bed, in a tiny-ass tank top, braless, as per her norm, and underwear. Well, I think she has on underwear. And then it dawns on me—that’s all I have on, too.
Fuck it. I hit the blinds, and they close, and then I slide into bed.
Lying on my back, I stay on one side, but she doesn’t. Her head goes to my chest, her arm across my waist, and her leg over mine. She’s still shaking, too.
“Savvy, what are you—”
“You said you’d know when I was ready to be hugged or held.” She sniffs. “So, in case you forget or couldn’t tell, because I’ve been a mess, because everything I thought was progress for the first time, I’ve ruined … I’m showing you I am.”
“Savvy …” I sigh.
“Tell me to leave, and I’ll go.”
I don’t say a fucking thing, and I don’t think it’s because I shouldn’t tell her to go. I know I should. I just can’t.
“I understand if you’re not ready. I understand that you may never be. But I can’t sleep, and I can’t eat, and I could really use a friend right now.”
Chapter 21
"There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."
~Virginia Woolf
Savvy
I woke up warm, calm, and feeling grounded for the first time in weeks. I knew I didn’t deserve those feelings, but I chose to be selfish.
I would lie here forever, watching him sleep, and I would have lay here a thousand more forevers, if allowed.
“Do you want me to leave?” I ask when he finally opens his eyes.
He inhales deeply, his sleepy eyes staring into mine, as if searching for an answer, one I think we both know we will never get.
Not in this lifetime.
He grips my waist, a tender gesture, one of comfort that I’m sure we both need.
I’m not sure when he pushed his arm under and around me. I assume it was one of the times he adjusted his positioning while we slept.
His response is a simple head shake—no.
Without thinking, without permission, and without apology, I kiss his chest, causing his whole body to tense, and then I lay my head upon that spot, the spot above his heart that I just kissed, hoping to seal it there forever.
He exhales and kisses the back of my head, and I know I’ll remember that for just as long.
My body’s response is to immediately press against him firmer, and his hips move ever so slightly in reaction.
I try to lie still, but something inside me begins to hum, and my nipples begin to tighten, pressing against the thin fabric of my tank top, as a sweet ache begins to pulse deep inside of me.
With his arm stretched across his body, he begins to very softly run his fingertips up and down my bare arm at a nice, slow pace, as if he’s attempting to calm me.
I try and fail at an attempt to keep still, but something inside me won’t allow it. That something carries the same soft vibration, a hum through every cell of my being.
My fingertips itch to trace the hard planes of his chiseled abdomen, and they do, slowly tracing the dips and turns like a finger on a map that follows the path to the deep V leading to his waistband. He grips my bicep, and I reach for it and, with ease, place his fingers over my lips. He immediately begins to trace them as I press my lips against them in a soft kiss, one right after another.
His chest vibrates in a silent, strained reserve, and I feel my body absorb that energy, fueling the flame slowly burning deep inside my core. Then the sweet ache builds, and I feel wetness pool, slickening my insides, as if readying me for what’s to come, what I so desperately want.
He lifts my chin, and our eyes meet for just enough time to inform each other, to give permission to each other, to communicate wordlessly the desire that has us both burning, a desire not built on a physical level but a spiritual one. Yet, he is hesitant.
“I want this,” I whisper. “We want this.” I press a kiss to his shoulder, his neck, and then move to his other shoulder, while I stretch my leg across him so I am lying on top of him. For the first time, I feel his cock, hard and pressed against my wet core.
“Tell me what you want, Savvy.”
“You.”
“I think we both know you have me, Savvy,” he says with a tinge of resentment in his voice.
“And I
