Page 101 of The Crush
He moves down my body, his whiskered cheeks scraping delicate skin. Heat licks through my veins as everything builds, builds, builds, so much that I don’t think I’ll ever comedown.
“Look at me.” He’s on his knees between my thighs, his hand framing my face, his eyes on mine. “I love you, Isabel.”
“I love you,” I say back, the feeling of it so familiar on my tongue even if it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. “I love you.”
He grins, dimples appearing that I kiss while smiling, too, as he joins his body with mine and we find our rhythm again. We stay like that for either hours or minutes, until he can’t support his weight above me anymore and rolls to the side, taking me with him.
I’m drifting then, wrapped up against his chest, the steady, slowing beat of his heart lulling me to sleep. “Danny?”
“Hm?”
“Stay with me.”
He shifts, situating himself so that we’re nearly nose to nose, nowhere left to hide. “I will.”
Eighty-One
Daniel
Thursday, November 3, 1994
I sleep. So deep that I don’t even dream. Or if I do, I don’t remember.
I don’t really remember any of it until the moment my eyes first open, and I am not sure what even woke me as I peer into my fully sunlit bedroom, borderline disoriented by the sensation of feeling…rested? But also as if I could sleep fordaysmore after—
Everything comes back as abruptly and painfully as a slammed bedroom door. Isabel’s father. The DEA. Yesterday’s full series of fuck-ups in all their explicit detail.
I carefully adjust enough to see Isabel, to take in her sweet face as she sleeps burrowed against me. Neither she nor I apparently have moved much at all from the way we’d fallen asleep.
I skim my lips across her brow while murmuring a silent prayer of gratitude that I somehow hadn’t lost her completely, trying to keep myself from waking her so I can be sure. I end up doing it anyway.
A loud clanging sound from down the hall makes me sit up, makes me listen to the sound of animated voices, and I have onlyenough time to realize that a similar noise is what woke me before Isabel is stirring at my side.
“Morning,” she mutters sleepily. “Did you sleep?”
“I did.” There’s more sounds from down the hall, cabinet doors opening and closing in quick succession. “What is that?”
“Reinforcements,” she says with a yawn, not seeming remotely concerned by the disturbance.
“Isabel,” I say slowly, continuing to listen and trying to pick out distinct voices from the din. “What do you meanreinforcements?”
“She insisted.”
“Whoinsisted?” I repeat, trying to clear my head enough to determine the level of threat.
Isabel presses her lips together, not quite apologetic but certainly sympathetic. “She knows you went to the DEA office, and when she called later to check in, you still weren’t back. She’s been very worried, so I told her she could—well,really, I asked her to—” There’s more noise from the kitchen, and Isabel pats my leg before stealing my pillow. “Anyway, best of luck.”
Even without her sleep-muddled explanation, one of those voices is the only one I know on this earth that can manage to conveythat muchauthority by tone alone. “Is your mother in my kitchen?”
She looks over her shoulder toward the door, cocking her head to listen. “Pretty sure Gabe and Eli are back, too.” When I stare at her, she sighs, pushes herself up, and moves to situate herself in my lap. Given neither of us had bothered to put clothes back on last night it’s hard not to notice she is now in a veryidea-inducinglocation. “They’re here because they were worried and becausethey care about you. Everyone was upset when they found out what happened. Not evenAaróntook my father’s side.”
I roll my eyes, but I feel a bit of satisfaction at the thought of Aarón Sr.’s prize son failing to provide him backup. “Really?”
She nods. “They only want to help. They care about you, too.”
I sigh, feeling a fresh rush of regret for the previous day’s decisions. “I’m sorry, Isabel. I just kept thinking, what if your father was right? What if I couldn’t take care of you? Make you happy?”
“We take care ofeach other,” she tells me, before adding, “And youdomake me happy. When you’re not trying to flee the country.”
