Collide

  “Only if you want to tell me.”

  He turned. “Ed went crazy. We all fell apart. I guess I went a little crazy, too. I let what other people said about me, what they wanted, get in the way of what I knew I should be doing. So I went away for a while to get my head on straight.”

  I thought of the Johnny-then I’d made in my own head. Could he have lost it all? Become overwhelmed, lost his shit, gone away? Maybe.

  “To rehab?”

  He shook his head. “No. Loony bin. Straight-up state hospital, no private fruit-loop facility for me. They took me away on a stretcher. I couldn’t have paid for something fancy even if I had the sense to put myself away. By that time, the money had disappeared up my nose, down my gut, whatever. My mother was the one who did it, finally, God bless her. I’d probably have died myself, otherwise.”

  It hurt to hear this, though he said it in a matter-of-fact voice without shame, the way he’d said everything else. I wanted to hug him tight. Kiss him all over. But I wasn’t sorry I’d asked. I needed to get these things straight in my head. The real from unreal.

  “How long were you there?” I asked.

  “A year. Got out in ’79. Cleaned up, sobered up. Maybe still a little crazy.” He smiled.

  “You weren’t crazy to begin with.”

  His smile became a little sad. “No. I know that. But being in that place was good for me. Yeah, it was hard. ‘Love the sinner, not the sin’ sort of place, not that it was religious. I had a great doc, really got my head on straight. Made me think about a lot of things that had happened that summer. Made me see a lot of truths.”

  “About Ed?”

  “No, babe,” Johnny said. “About—”

  The door to his office opened and his assistant, Glynnis, stuck her head in. “Johnny, that guy from—oh, sorry. Didn’t know you had company in here.”

  She looked back and forth between us with a curious stare, but since we weren’t touching, weren’t even on the same side of the desk, at least she couldn’t have thought she’d interrupted anything embarrassing.

  “It’s okay,” Johnny said. “What guy?”

  “From that website. The blogger guy?”

  “Oh, that guy,” Johnny said with a facepalm. “Yeah, I told him I’d do an interview with him about the new show. Glynnis, can you just…fuck, I dunno, entertain him or something for a few minutes? Show him around the gallery?”

  “Sure, Johnny.” She gave me a timid smile and ducked out.

  “Sorry,” Johnny said. “I need to get back to this stuff.”

  “It’s okay. I’m glad we talked. I’m glad…well, just that we got some things out between us.”

  He gave me a curious look. “Was it that bad, Emm? Were you really that upset about it? I’d have told you anytime. I just didn’t think you’d want to really get into it. It’s all old history.”

  “I just wanted to hear it from you, that’s all.”

  From outside the office we heard voices. Johnny came around the desk and kissed me thoroughly. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Fine.”

  “Good.” He kissed me again, longer this time.

  I forgot where we were. Not a fugue, just lust. I laughed when he pushed his erection against me.

  “You’d better tame that thing before you go out there, or Bloggy McBloggerstein will have a lot more to say about you than he expected.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time my cock was all someone could talk about,” Johnny said as he walked backward toward the door, my hands still held in his.

  Our fingers touched until the last possible second, and then he let go.

  Chapter 27

  It was different looking at pictures of Johnny with him instead of giggling over them with Jen or even sighing over them by myself on the internet. He had a thick album full of prints, some kept neatly in place by sticky corners, others falling off their pages. Some were signed, not just by him but by others in the photos. Some had names and dates scribbled on the back. Some were formal, some were snapshots, some eight-by-ten and others in smaller sizes.

  “I haven’t looked at it in a long time,” Johnny said when a fistful of photos slipped from between the bulging pages and fell onto his thick carpet.

  I picked them up, sorting carefully. The paper was thick, the colors a little faded, but compared to shots I’d flipped through in my parents’ albums over the years, they were really well-preserved. “Why not?”

  “Do you look at old pictures of yourself naked?”

  “My mother has some hanging up on the wall,” I answered drily. “Bathtub shots. Totally embarrassing, yet there they are, for everyone to see.”

  “I’m going to have to take a good look when I go over there.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, not really the same thing, is it?”

  Johnny looked at the pictures in my hand, then took one. I recognized it as one of the famous Roman statue photo shoot. I’d seen them on the internet and, of course, in my own convoluted fantasies. They looked different in his hand. He shook it a little.

  “No. It isn’t.” He leaned closer to look at the others I had in my hand. “What do you see when you look at those?”

  “I see a beautiful man,” I told him quietly.

  Johnny snorted. “Yeah.”

  “I mean it, Johnny.”

  He looked at me. “And what do you see when you look at me?”

  I kissed him. “Same thing. Just better seasoned.”

  The kiss deepened. He pulled me closer. His hands moved down my back to cup my ass, and he pulled me up tight against the front of him.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  His gaze cut to the album, then to me. “I see a kid. A young kid with his head up his ass, didn’t have a clue about life, what to do. I see a fuckup ready to show off his cock for a coupla bucks.”

  “Was that what you were?” I pushed onto my tiptoes to find his mouth with mine, then to hold his face and look into his eyes. I thought of Johnny-then, who’d been young, brash, a bit arrogant, but not a fuckup.

  Johnny’s gaze got harder for a second before he smiled. “Sure.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He studied me, something moving deep in those hazy green-brown eyes I thought I should be able to figure out but couldn’t quite. “You…didn’t know me.”

  I lowered onto my heels and took his hand, pulled him toward the couch so we could sit and snuggle. “You know what I think? It’s not really what someone says about themselves that matters, it’s what other people say about you. And what people say about you, Johnny, is not that you were a fuckup. Not that you had your head up your ass, without a clue.”

  “People,” Johnny said, slightly derisive, “don’t always have a fucking clue.”

  I dug into the box of memorabilia he’d brought and pulled out a folded movie poster. I’d seen ones just like it selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars, and this one was signed by the entire cast. “‘To Johnny, with love, Marguerite. To Johnny, always ready with a joke, Bud. Johnny, thanks for all of it, you know what I mean, Dee.’”

  I looked at him. “People liked you. They gravitated toward you. And you were a generous friend.”

  “Too generous, maybe,” he said after a second, looking over the poster.

  I wondered if he was thinking about Ed but didn’t ask. “You keep in touch with them, don’t you?”

  “Some of them, yeah. Off and on.”

  “You all went off and did your own thing, you all became successful at it.”

  “Some of us more than others,” Johnny said.

  Again, I wondered if he were thinking about Ed or Bellina, or about Candy, with his own megamillion-dollar television show and cookbook empire. Or about himself.

  “I’m going to own up to my internet stalking. I read a lot about you.” I laughed when he rolled his eyes, but put a finger to his lips to keep him from answering. “A lot. From famous interviews to lowly blog discussions, and the consensus is the same, sw
eetheart. You’re not only gorgeous, but smart and talented, too.”

  “You obviously missed all the bad reviews,” Johnny said. “And anyone who praises some of that shit I did back then is just blowing sunshine.”

  I laughed again. “Yeah, well, it’s true that you weren’t always at your best. But that doesn’t matter. Who is? Where it counts, your talent shows. Your art.”

  Again, his gaze flickered and I wanted to know what that meant. “It saved me.”

  This wasn’t the answer I was expecting. “Did it?”

  In answer, he kissed me again. Long, slow, sweet. The pressure of his mouth urged mine to open, the sweep of his tongue encouraged mine. I loved kissing Johnny. All mouth and breath. Teeth and tongues. I found myself on his lap, straddling him, my knees pressing deep into the couch cushions and my crotch pushed against his.

  His hands cupped my ass, moving me in slow circles against him. His kiss deepened. His cock got hard between us, and I shivered, thinking of how it would feel in my mouth. Between my legs. Inside me, deep.

  I unbuttoned my blouse and my flesh humped into goose pimples at the touch of chilly air—Johnny kept his thermostat lower than mine. It felt good, though. Like phantom fingers, urging my nipples into tight, hard peaks. I shrugged out of my shirt, unhooked my bra and let it slide along my shoulders, though not off. I cupped my breasts with the satin still covering most of them, pushing them together to create cleavage.

  He took my offering, moving his mouth from mine and down my throat, over my collarbone. His tongue traced the swell of my breasts. I let the satin fall away, and Johnny closed his mouth around one tight nipple, sucking gently until I moaned. Every gentle suck echoed in my clit. I’d always loved having my nipples played with, but my few other lovers had never spent much time there, preferring to dive straight between my thighs.

  Johnny took his time.

  I let my head fall back, my hair tickling my skin as I rocked against his crotch with the barrier of layers of denim, cotton and silk buffering the sensation. He sucked slowly, gently, on my nipples, one and then the other. When he bit down on the flesh around them, denting it, I bucked against him and cried out.

  He laughed against my skin, and I laughed, too, though mine was breathless, panting, sodden with lust. Johnny nuzzled against me, lightly, smoothing over the small marks his teeth had left with his tongue.

  I arched my back, giving him my body, and he took it. He put his hand flat on my back, between my shoulder blades, the other one under my ass. Before I knew what he was doing, he stood. My legs went automatically around his waist, my arms clinging as he gripped me.

  I gasped. “Johnny—”

  “Shhh,” he said. “Bed’s only a couple steps away.”

  I clung to him as he walked us over. We half fell onto the bed together, rolling until I was beneath him. His shirt scratched my bare skin. We kissed. We rubbed. We got his shirt off, mouths fused as we fumbled with buttons. Then his jeans, half-undone, pushed just over his hips while I slid out of mine and lay before him on the bed wearing only my silk panties.

  His eyes gleamed. He got on his knees, looking down at me, my legs spread wantonly, my chest already flushed with arousal I could feel as heat spreading upward. I could see the jut of his hips, the dark gold fluff of his pubic hair, the delicious spot on his lower belly I wanted to kiss.

  I drew in a deep breath suddenly, almost a gasp, certain this wasn’t real.

  “Emm?”

  I ran my hands over my body, cataloging the feeling of my fingers moving along my flesh. I was real. I was here. The bed moved as Johnny did. That was real, too.

  “Touch me,” I whispered.

  My eyes wanted to go half-lidded and heavy, but I forced myself to look at him full-on. Keeping him in front of me. All of this, centered. Anchored.

  Johnny licked his lips and ran a hand back over his hair to push it off his face. He nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to touch you.”

  Nerves tingled at that, the accent I adored. The sentiment. Mostly the masculine, slightly arrogant tone that should’ve made me roll my eyes.

  I spread my legs wider, lifting my hips. My panties were damp, my cunt already slick. My clit rubbed at the silk when I moved.

  Johnny drew a fingertip down my belly, over the lacy hem of my panties, and across my clit. He circled there for a second, pressing just hard enough to make me bite my lip on a moan. The material between his finger and my flesh didn’t deaden the sensation, but heightened it.

  “How you want me to touch you, huh, Emm? Like this?” I had no trouble reading his expression now. Nothing in his gaze was hidden from me.

  “Yes, Johnny.”

  He rubbed a little faster. “I can feel how hot you are. You’re wet, too.”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  “You’re wet for me.”

  I grinned. “Yes, Johnny. For you.”

  He slid a finger under the leg band of my panties and pushed it inside me. Then another. Before I could thoroughly revel in this, he drew them out and over my panties again, working the wetness into the silk.

  “Take these off,” he said.

  I eased them over my hips and down my thighs, and he moved aside to let me push them down the rest of my legs. When I lay back again, every inch of me exposed, I had a moment’s hesitation.

  Johnny saw it. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I didn’t want to think about or dwell on how many beautiful, gorgeous, tight-bellied women with tiny asses and huge tits Johnny’d fucked. I especially didn’t want to tell him I was thinking about it.

  His hands paused in pushing his jeans over his hips. “Emm. Talk to me.”

  I ran my hands over my body again. “Nothing, really. Get to touching.”

  He took his jeans off and instead of moving over my body to enter me, the way I’d hoped, or even sliding down between my legs to use his mouth the way I’d have also enjoyed, Johnny stretched out beside me and propped himself on one arm. His cock pushed my hip. He looked down into my face while his other hand rested flat on my belly, too far from my clit for my taste.

  “You know you’re beautiful, right?” he said, quietly.

  I wanted to point out to him that this wasn’t the question of a man with a head up his ass, one who didn’t have a clue. Maybe it was the years that had changed him, made him grow up. It happened to everyone. I thought it would probably happen to me, too.

  “I’m glad you think so.” I turned a little onto my side to look at him. “You are, too.”

  Johnny’s hand slid a little lower, tracing the edge of my trimmed pubic hair but again not moving against the spot I really wanted him to touch. “I mean it, Emm. Not just your face or body. I don’t want you to think it’s just that.”

  “Hmm,” I said, pulling a frown. “Are you going to tell me it’s my inner beauty? Because that sounds kinda like saying I have a great personality.”

  He chuckled and kissed me, rubbing my lower belly in smooth, slow circles, inching closer and teasing me. “It means I’m not just fucking you because you have great tits or a fine ass.”

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it. I should’ve been annoyed, maybe even angry. I knew other women who certainly would’ve been with a statement like that, said in a moment like this. “So, what is it, then?”

  Johnny didn’t laugh, though he did smile. His hand, at last, slid lower, stroking through my curls and finding the sweet spot so desperate for his touch. “You want a list?”

  “Yeah,” I breathed. “I kinda sorta do.”

  His fingers moved at just the right pace, just the right rhythm. We hadn’t been together for very long, but he knew my body so well. Just how to touch, and when to pause. Where to press. How to stroke.

  I closed my eyes and drifted on his voice and under the sweet pressure of his fingertips on my skin.

  “You don’t take shit,” Johnny said. “Not from anyone, but especially not from me.”

  Slowly, slowly, his moving hand was bringing me close to th
e edge. But it was his voice that pushed me faster. I listened. I gave myself up.

  He kept his voice low, not distracting, just loud enough for me to ride the way I was starting to ride his hand. “You don’t let anything keep you from doing what you want. You’re stubborn that way, Emm, and I admire that. You’re good to your friends. Good to your family. I like that you still like your parents.”

  I laughed, breathless. “Let’s not talk about my parents…right…now.”

  Johnny chuckled, low, fingers slowing, then moving faster. Making me crazy. “I like the way you wear your hair.”

  “Better.”

  “I like the way you do that thing with your mouth when you’re thinking hard about something and you’re not sure what to say.”

  I sighed, arching.

  “I like the way you cried when you came into my office that day, because you were embarrassed something bad had happened.”

  I cracked open an eye, hovering too close to orgasm to pull back, but still not quite there. “Dude. Sexy things! Talk about…sexy…”

  He could’ve talked about the price of tea in China just then, and I’d still have tipped toward coming, but Johnny bent to kiss my mouth. He sucked my tongue in time to the stroking of his fingers, which had gone maddeningly slow. I wanted to push my hips upward to force my clit against his hand, but I steadied myself.

  “I like the way your nipples get hard when you pull your shirt off over your head on the way to the shower. How’s that?”

  “Much better…”

  “I like the way you taste when you’re coming on my tongue. I think about the way you taste and I get so fucking hard I think I’m going to break.”

  I murmured his name. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Could only listen. And feel.

  “The first time I saw you in that coffee shop,” Johnny whispered into my ear as his hand drew me ever closer into ecstasy, “I knew you, Emmaline. I had to keep walking past you because I didn’t have words to say what I already knew, that we’d end up like this. Together. I didn’t have a choice, and it pissed me off.”

  My eyes flew open, my body tense and hovering, ready to burst into pleasure. “It…did?”