Page 19 of All the Way
“Is that your friend from the tree place?”
“Yeah,” I reply, slipping the phone back into my front pocket. “It’s nothing.”
“No. What’s going on? Everything okay?”
I guess the look on my face betrays my concern. Josh might be a good guy, but the last thing I want right now is to go to some party at his place. Anything that’ll remind me of falling asleep under a porch with a tall boy of shitty domestic beer is not for me. Not anymore.
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s nothing. He’s having a little get-together at his house tonight and wants me to come out.”
“Oh?” she says, checking the time on the dashboard. “This late? It’s already almost midnight. This is the time I would usually be getting home from a party, not going out to one.”
I think back on all the stupid, wasted nights I’ve had over the past year. Her innocence is so sweet.
“We should go!” Jess brightens up and flips down the visor to check herself out in the mirror. “Do I look like I could go to a party right now? I know I’m just wearing a sweater and jeans, but why not?”
My eyes drag up and down her body. “You look like you just got fucked by a guy who really fucking loves you.” The words come out of my mouth before I can think about my answer.
I’ve never said that to anyone. She’s the only person I’ve even come close to saying it to. She’s the only person I’ve ever felt it for. And it’s not just a feeling. She fuels me. And every time I woke up alone over the course of the past year, I wanted her. I was grateful that I had the memory of her. It was easy for me to say no to any other girl. I didn’t want any of them.
I look her up and down again. Her breasts are straining against her grey sweater, and her chest is moving up and down steadily. In the whiteness of the moonlight and snow, she’s glowing. I want to keep her. Keep her here and keep her now and forever.
“What does someone who just got fucked look like?” she says, biting her lip. “What do you see when you look at me?”
I know it takes a lot of fucking courage for her to say these words to me. She always wanted everything to be perfect. She wanted her first time to be perfect. She didn’t want it to be on some dirty mattress in a spare room at a frat house where the pledges would take their girls to screw. Maybe she thought all that shit would rub off on her. But it never would. It never could.
“I see someone strong, Jess. Someone sexy and beautiful. And powerful. The way you beat that pancake batter into submission this morning was incredible.”
She laughs, leans over and steadies herself with one hand against the dashboard, brushing her lips against mine. Gliding a hand up her shirt, I catch one of her nipples between my fingers, causing it to get hard against my touch.
“Give me your tongue, baby,” I say to her, capturing her lips with mine and forcing myself into her, pulling her onto my lap. “This is starting to become my favorite position. I never knew you’d always want to be on top.”
“I guess it’s just logistics,” she breaths, pushing her pussy up against my cock. She quivers in my arms as I push my hand down into her panties and slip two fingers on either side of her clit, pinching it and pushing it side to side slowly.
“Fuck, Chris,” she moans into my ear. “If I’d known how good this was going to feel, I would have done it years ago.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, dragging my fingers along the sides of her clit. “I touched you like this back when we were together before.”
“I don’t mean the sex part, although that’s pretty awesome.” She looks up and into my eyes. “I mean letting you in here.” She puts a hand over her chest and presses herself against my chest. My heart is about to explode, and I need everything to always be just as it is right now. It’s not negotiable.
“Baby, I know this wasn’t the perfect way for this to happen,” I start, “but when I saw you run over to me in that blizzard and the way you wanted that tree so badly, I couldn’t help it. The ironic part of all of this is how we came together. The storm, and the tree, and the way all of it just came together. It was like all the bullshit in the world just pushed us back together again.”
“I know,” she says in a small voice. “I feel the same way. I couldn’t say no this time. I thought about you so many times over the past year. When I saw you again, I was relieved when we didn’t go all the way that first night. I was afraid it would just end badly. And I thought it did when I woke up and didn’t see you. But when I saw you again, I knew. When I saw you in my house,” she says, pushing the palms of her hands flat against my chest, “I knew that I couldn’t say no to you ever again. And for the record, this was perfect.”
My heart and cock flicker with life. “You’ll never say no to me again?” I ask, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Never.”
“Okay, then I have to ask you something.” There’s fire inside her eyes as I cradle her face in my hands. A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, and I can’t stop it. “Can I borrow a thousand bucks?”
She giggles and punches me in the arm playfully. “You were always the king of jokes. I thought you had a real question to ask me.” Jess flops off my lap and back into her seat. “Very funny.”
“Look,” I say. I kind of do feel like showing up to Josh’s party now, if just to show off my girl. He can keep all the girls at the naughty or nice party. I want the world to know that Jess is mine. “Let's go to the party, if you want. It’s totally up to you.”
“Ohh,” she says, “maybe I can drink a beer. Be one of the guys, you know?”
“That’s impossible. You’re my woman.” I’ve got a big, goofy smile plastered on my face as I shift into gear and back up out of the parking space and take off north up the freeway.
“And you’re sure I’m dressed okay for a holiday party?”
