Clearing my throat, I reached up and pulled her hand from my cheek when I turned to look her in the eyes.
Speaking quietly, I confessed, “Because you are a dream and someone once told me that if I had a dream, I should chase it.” It was a simple explanation, but somehow I knew Ellison would understand the honest weight of what I’d said.
Her eyes blinked slowly as she studied my face and as usual, she did something unexpected. She laughed. The corners of my lips turned up when I tried to suppress my grin. Her laughter sounded fragile, as if something so tiny could come along and break it apart - but it was there and my heart raced against my chest to hear it.
“That is probably the strangest thing I’ve heard you say yet.” She sighed and pushed herself up so that she could sit beside me rather than in my lap. The cold wind stung the parts of my body that were exposed when she moved away and it made the loss of contact more painful to bear. “You’re crazy for following me out here. You can get sick in weather like this.”
I nodded. “Same goes for you.”
Chuckling again, she quietly responded, “Yeah, but I have an excuse for being crazy. What’s yours?”
My hands grabbed the side of her face so I could hold her stare when I answered. “I fell in love with a crazy girl.”
Her responsive laugh was a short burst, but then she pulled away and her eyes drifted to look out into the distance. “I think we should get going home. We’ll both develop pneumonia from being wet and cold.”
“Oh, fucking thank you, because I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to sit out here before I froze.”
She laughed again and I smiled to hear it.
It felt like, finally, the storm had passed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Florida winter came and went and spring was emerging in late March. In the time that had passed since Christmas, things had returned to a comfortable calmness within both houses. I still hadn’t spoken to my parents, and when I returned to my apartment up north for a week to vacate my apartment, I sent them an email, letting them know.
Standing out in the driveway at the asscrack of dawn, my hiking packs were weighing me down while I waited for Ellison to get her ass outside. Her door opened and I was met with the familiar barks of the dogs as they charged down the stairs in my direction. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out two small pieces of bacon that Lily had given me before I left the house. Ellison noticed me handing it to the dogs and laughed.
“I knew it. I knew there was no reason for those dogs to like you as much as they do. You’ve probably been giving them bacon since the first day you met them.”
“Nope. It’s like I said,” I wrapped my arms around her as she approached me. “That was my sparkling personality … plus I think Sasha kind of has a crush on me.”
Ellison slapped at me playfully before pushing up on her toes to kiss me. Softly, at first, her lips brushed across mine and my tongue flicked out to taste the strawberry lip gloss she wore. Her mouth opened slightly and I took the opportunity to deepen the kiss while pulling her tight against me. She let out a small squeal and her hands came up to grip my hair. I couldn’t help but smile when I kissed her. We’d slowly come back together after that night in the field. Although we spent almost every minute together, and fell asleep almost every night holding each other, I hadn’t rushed having sex with her again. I didn’t want to take advantage of a girl whose world had been ripped out from beneath her. That’s not to say that it wasn’t the hardest thing I’d done, but somehow I’d found the strength to abstain and keep my physical needs in check while I was with her despite the raging hormones that took hold of my body when I was around her. Even with something as simple as this kiss, I had to arch my hips away so she didn’t feel my pants tightening against her hip.
She slowly pulled away from me after a few minutes. The small rays of light that broke through the tree limbs above us caused her blue eyes to shine when she looked at me. “Let me put the dogs up and we’ll get going,” she said.
I was surprised. “They’re not coming with us?”
“Not today.” She smiled.
“Why not?”
Her hands came to my chest and she pushed away from me to walk to her house. Looking back over her shoulder, she answered, “No reason.” When I saw her wink after saying that I didn’t know if I should applaud to have her back or run like hell because those words meant trouble. I groaned at the sight of the way her body moved as she walked away from me and decided that I’d be brave and tag along to see what she had planned.
After the night in the field, Ellison and I had fallen back into a pattern of hiking much like we’d maintained during the summer. It was as cold as a bitch most of the time, but something about those walks was therapeutic for us both. I assumed that during the quiet parts of those walks Ellison was working through the loss of her dad, while I was devising a plan on how to finish school and afford graduate school. Becoming a doctor wasn’t cheap and I refused to ask my parents for help; I had cut up the credit cards once I’d used them to get my stuff. I’d taken a job bartending at The Tavern and worked two nights a week to help chip in on food and other bills at the house. The job wasn’t that hard actually. I only worked Tuesdays and Thursdays and the place was always dead when I was there.
“Think it’ll get hot enough for us to go swimming today?”
I looked at the back of her head like she was insane. “There’s no way in hell I’m jumping in that water, El. I’m sure it’ll be fucking freezing.”
She stopped and turned to look at me. “Oh, come on.” A mischievous smile touched her lips. “Stop being such a baby. I’m sure the fish miss us.”
Laughing, I walked up to her and put my arm around her shoulder. Continuing up the path with her by my side, I answered, “Well they can keep missing us at least for another few weeks.”
Ellison reached down and grabbed my hand and pulled me onto a small path that I barely recognized — most likely because it had been dark the last time I’d followed her down it. To see it during the day, I wouldn’t have recognized it as anything more than an area that was thinner than the rest of the brush that surrounded us. After a few more scraps and slaps to my leg from the overgrowth, we walked out onto the field where Ellison had broken down.
I stopped in my tracks and was stunned silent to see the size of the field. I looked around at the amount of space that surrounded us. Above us was a boundless blue sky and beneath us was grass as far as I could see. There was nothing else and for some odd reason I felt unnerved to be standing in what felt like a sea of nothingness.
“It’s scary isn’t it?”
I wasn’t surprised she knew what I was thinking — she always did. Walking up from behind, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against me. “Yes.”
She nodded and said, “I found this place on accident. Bear had run off after a squirrel and by the time I caught him, I was at the edge of this field. It was frightening and awe-inspiring all at the same time. But I couldn’t figure out why I was scared. I know a lot of people can’t handle closed in spaces, but I think it’s the wide-open ones that scare me the most. I feel exposed to the world and to myself, opened up so that I realized just how insignificant one person is in such a massive place. Despite how much this place scared me, I visited it often. It’s a place for me to think.”
She turned around so that she was facing me. “I don’t want to be insignificant. I don’t want to die and have that be it. I want to think that we go on, that there’s a reason for all of this, and that by some grace we’ll understand our purpose when we die.”
She paused and rested her head against my chest. “But, it’s different with you here. I noticed on Christmas night when you followed me out here. After the storm had cleared and we sat there freezing our asses off, I wasn’t scared, I didn’t feel small and I didn’t feel alone — and I don’t feel that way now.
She looked up at me again and when her eyes met mine
a small spark ignited within me. I could never look into her eyes enough even if I did so for the rest of my life.
“You were right, Hunter. When you called me a liar … you were right.” Her voice grew quiet and she looked away quickly before her gaze locked back with mine. “I fell in love with you that first night in my room. You were the only person who could give me shelter, whose touch was enough to chase off all the pain I had inside me. I’ve never known anything like it. I feel it again now, out in the middle of this big ass field that normally scares the shit out of me. I feel grounded, like I’m not going to just float away when the Earth turns on its axis, you know?”
I laughed softly. I’d missed the weird shit that came out of her mouth and my heart was doing a happy dance to hear her talking like she had when I’d first met her. But even more than that, my heart danced to hear her tell me for the first time that she loved me.
Grabbing my hand, she walked us out onto the field in the direction of the small group of trees in the center. I was too busy watching her to notice that in the middle of those trees was a blanket spread out on the ground and a cooler set to the side. However, when I did notice, I did a double take before turning my confused expression to her and finding a beaming smile spread across her face.
“Surprise!”
I laughed out a broken and shocked chuckle while motioning to the blanket. “What’s all this and how the hell did you get it out here?”
She pulled me down onto the blanket and crawled over to open the cooler. Pulling out sandwiches, fruit, drinks and chips, she placed them in front of us. “Lily and Ryan helped me haul it out last night. You’d fallen asleep, so I snuck out while you were snoring away.”
I actually did wake up when she’d left the bed. I just thought she was going to the bathroom and I fell back asleep waiting for her to return. Grabbing a sandwich, I pulled it from the plastic bag and took a huge bite. It was absolutely perfect and we finished off the food pretty quickly. Lying back on the blanket, Ellison and I looked up into the tree canopy above us and noticed a small group of squirrels that were chasing each other, chirping their little hearts out in the game.
Ellison laughed. “Well, there’s a sure sign of spring. Those little guys can’t have sex with one another fast enough.”
My lips twitched when I realized I knew exactly how the squirrels felt. Eventually they moved on and the trees were quiet above us. Rolling over, I pushed Ellison to the ground and crawled over her. She laughed when I kissed her all over her face and I pushed up to look down into her twinkling eyes. “What’s so funny?”
She reached over and snagged the strap of her bag. “Got another surprise. It’s not as fancy as butterflies, but I think you’ll understand.”
My brow arched over my eye curiously and I took the bag from her grasp.
She smiled. “Open it up.”
Without taking my eyes from her face, I unzipped the bag and reached in to find a cardboard box. Pulling it out, my eyes settled on an unopened box of condoms with the words “next time” scribbled over the box in permanent marker. Choking on my own shock, my eyes flicked back to her face and she shrugged her shoulder.
“When I asked you what that meant before, I actually knew the answer. I just wanted to see if you would admit it.”
My face hurt because my smile was a mile wide. The dimples were in full force and effect, the sudden blush to her cheeks giving away the fact that they still affected her. I pushed up so I was hovering over her and my eyes traveled down her body before slowly working their way back up. “Oh, you are asking for it now.”
I couldn’t help myself. My hands fisted in her hair and I was on that girl before she had a chance to change her mind. My mouth hungrily sought hers and when a small moan escaped her throat, I growled in response. Every nerve ending in my body was instantly alive. It felt like electricity sparked across my skin and I used my legs to force hers apart.
“Holy shit, Hunter! Aggressive aren’t we?” Her words came out breathless and broken because I wouldn’t stop kissing her as she talked. I responded with another feral growl and she laughed like I’d been kidding. When my hands released her hair to grip her shirt and pull it off her body, she realized how much I was NOT kidding.
I ran my mouth along the tops of her breasts and back up to her neck. When her body arched in my hands I became unglued. There was nothing stopping next time from happening and I wasn’t taking any chances that something would come along and fuck it up. She writhed beneath me, seductively moaning and her breath caught with every new part of her skin that my mouth came in contact with. My fingers gripped roughly into the soft flesh of her body. Instinct and desire had cancelled out my ability to think and I was operating by pure need to dominate and conquer.
Within minutes I had Ellison naked beneath me. She reached down to remove my shirt, and I helped her by reaching up and ripping it over my head. My shorts were next. When I was stripped down to my underwear, I mentally surveyed her body again before touching, licking and kissing every inch of her skin. My hands got busy removing what little bit I had left on my body and when we were skin to skin, I groaned out of desperate want and frustration. Her taste was fucking fantastic and I could smell the traces of coconut from the sun lotion she’d put on for the hike. When I licked down her stomach and kissed her bellybutton, her hips bucked up in welcome. I moved farther down to bite along the insides of her thighs when she grabbed me by my hair and pulled me back to face her. “Inside me — now.”
Her hand reached down and grabbed me and an almost painful jolt shot out from where she touched me. I grabbed the next time box, tearing the entire side off in my attempt to get a condom. Finally snagging one from the box, I ripped the package open with my teeth and Ellison laughed. I flashed her my dimpled grin and watched her melt beneath me.
Lifting her hips, I pulled her up while burying myself within her. Her head fell back and my mouth fell on the taut skin of her neck. The salt taste to her body drove every primal need I had into a frenzied state. Pushing myself up, I moved slowly inside her and watched as she wriggled beneath me. My mouth found hers again and we moved against each other in perfect unison igniting an inferno within me. Her fingernails trailed down my back and my hips bucked forward when she reached my lower back.
My mouth found her ear, “Fucking love you.”
I felt her get off on those words, her muscles gripping at me hungrily and my name tearing from her swollen lips. I pumped into her, pulling her legs damn near up to her chest, and when I joined her in her release, my forehead rested on hers as my eyes locked with her gaze.
In a voice so soft and breathless I could barely understand, she responded, “I love you too.” A tremor of ecstasy rippled along my spine at those words and my body floated in a void of everything good and pure and raw because she was the one who spoke them. Our hearts beat against each other, our chests collided from our labored breath.
Rolling to her side, I pulled her against me and we lay there together, our bodies calming, small bits of sunlight illuminating our skin where it broke through the cover of the trees above us. My face was buried in her hair and my hands couldn’t stop traveling softly over her skin. She rolled over eventually, facing me, smiling at me and I grinned at her, my dimples standing proud. “Thank you … ” I tapped her nose with my finger. “ … for next time.”
Her smile brightened but I covered it with my mouth and tasted her once again. Coming up for air, her eyes were opened wide and her beauty beamed out at me.
“Well, um, we should probably get dressed and head back … we are naked in public currently and it would be bad if someone found us.”
I groaned at having to let her go. Eventually we were dressed again and packing up the picnic to carry back home. Once everything was shoved into the basket, I grabbed my pack and starting walking out onto the field.
“What the hell? Aren’t you going to help me carry this stuff back?”
I turned back to her and winked.
> “Not a chance.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Another few weeks flew past and I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but I fell for Ellison harder each day. She still had days where she broke down over her father and others where she wasn’t actively upset, but quiet and reserved instead. I didn’t push her on those days, but I paid attention to her triggers. Sometimes it was something as simple as what a person said, and others, she’d run across something that her father had used often. There was one day in particular where we were driving — thankfully with me behind the wheel — and a James Taylor song started playing over the radio. She doubled over in her seat and I pulled over worried that she was sick. She crawled over into my seat, curled up in my lap and cried. I tried to turn it off, but she grabbed my hand and shook her head, silently asking me to let it play. So I held her while it played, let her seek shelter in me like she’d told me in the field that day.
“This sucks, Hunter! Why are we doing this again?”
I looked over and laughed as Ellison’s whole body shook from scraping at the old paint on her house. I’d noticed on the many days that I stood outside in the driveway waiting for Ellison to start our hike that the two houses didn’t match. One stood proud — sanded and repainted, the porch rebuilt, the roof repaired and the landscaping trimmed and maintained. The other — well, that house still remained haggard, forgotten, damaged by the elements and time. I’d spent a summer fixing up one and I’d decided to spend the next summer fixing up the other.