Chapter 6Nick
Chapter 6
Nick
JULY | Tarot: Six of Cups
Annie’s hand was in mine as we scurried to the dance floor of someone else’s wedding. I could have died from the unbridled joy in her expression: two dimples popping, her nose wrinkling and drawing up her upper lip, those green eyes sparkling.
I’d taken the girl from hollow eyes and crying to radiating joy. That’s the best kind of magic I could think of.
We got there in time to get a little bit softer now, and a little bit softer now, laughing our heads off at our little heist. Stealing someone else’s good time. It was worth every second.
Annie boogied down with somebody’s uncle behind her, who seemed all too thrilled to be dancing with the pretty woman.
Pretty’s an understatement. She was beautiful when she was sad. She was out of this world gorgeous when she was carefree like that.
I had to cut in when the next song started, a slow dance. “May I have this dance?”
“Of course,” she said, swinging into my arms and looping hers around my neck. She felt nothing short of perfect, the magnet perfectly coordinated with my body. Her breasts wedged below my pecs, her hips slotting in with mine and my hands wrapping around the curve of her waist. Annie giggled when she met my eyes, the slight awkwardness of what we didn’t know about each other meeting the quiet comfort I felt with her. She broke our glance by looking over at the bride and groom, completely smitten with one another. Longing settled over her expression.
“Never would have guessed you’d have been the person to say ‘fuck love’ just a few hours ago,” I said.
“ You said ‘fuck love.’ I just didn’t disagree,” she said. “The truth is that I really want all of this. I want the big wedding. I want to get a dog as a warmup for having kids. I want the fights and the commitment and the sick days and traveling the world and reading until we fall asleep together. I want to stick it out with somebody.”
If I were being more of a jokester, I’d have mimed stabbing myself in the chest and blood gushing out. But her statement was too vulnerable for jokes. She was opening up to me. I could do to give a little of myself to someone else.
“I have a dog,” I smirked.
“Instead of kids?”
I looked to the top of the tent. “For now.”
She sighed. “If only you lived in Nashville.”
“Or you lived in L.A.” I pulled her closer, training my gaze on her eyes. “Do you believe in signs, Annabelle?”
Her brow furrowed and her eyes searched my face. “I used to.”
“I did too,” I said. “But I think maybe it’s time we started believing in them again.”
She laughed softly. “I don’t know. I think life is just life at this point.”
“What about for tonight? Will you believe for tonight?” I gestured out past the dance floor. “None of that exists. Everything real is right here. The future has infinite possibilities. There are no geographic or personal limitations. We could be that couple considering eloping. Will you make-believe with me, Annie?”
She seemed captivated, entranced, waiting for more.
“Just for tonight, Annie.”
“What will we do?” she asked.
“No questions. Just trust the process.”
I dipped her back as the song ended, holding her eyes.
“I’ll make-believe.”
I beamed, taking her hand in mine. “Come with me.”
Annie trailed behind me, tethered by our joined hands. I plucked a half-empty champagne bottle off the bar. The bartender yelled after us as we took off for the golf course, but I just waved a thank you.
“Where are we going?” Annie giggled. “What if Kitty needs me?”
“She has her fiancé. This is our night now.”
She tugged on my hand. “I can’t run in these heels!”
I crouched down in front of her. “Climb on.”
“Are you high?” she laughed.
“Not yet, but we could if you want,” I said, pulling a vape pen out of my pocket and passing it back to her.
“How much stuff do you have in that Mary Poppins coat?”
“It’s magic,” I said, flourishing my fingers. “Come on, climb on. We don’t have all night.”
“This is absurd,” she said.
“You’ve gotta lighten up, Miss Attorney. This is make-believe time.” With a sigh, she bent to arrange herself across my back and I hoisted her into a piggyback position. I handed her the champagne bottle, and she took a long pull as I started walking.
“Where are we going? Aren’t we far enough?”
“Fine,” I conceded, lowering her to the ground. We sat side by side on the hill overlooking the Greenbrier, the wedding tent in the background. I swiped the champagne bottle and took a drink. “If you fell in love right now, what would you want?”
She blew a raspberry. “Well, if I believed in love—”
“You do, this is make-believe.”
“Alright. Most of all, I’d just want to be their only person. Learned that the hard way.” She took the bottle back, sipping with her hand close to the rim.
“Been there as well.”
She cocked her head, turning to look at me. “You’ve been the other woman too, Obi?”
“You could say that.” If only she knew just how much I was the other woman.
“Two evil people come together by chance,” she said, reading it like it was a headline. “I never thought it’d be me, you know. Being the other woman. As a little girl, I wasn’t like, ‘Can’t wait to be somebody’s mistress!’ But I spent so much time and energy being perfect, that I thought maybe I deserved to be bad in just this one thing.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”
“No,” I said. “It’s a familiar story. Being the golden child gets old.”
“Exactly, Nick Oberbeck,” she said, pointing to me with the bottle. “Exactly.”
She handed the vape pen back after a pause.
“You wanna hit it?” I asked.
“I don’t really smoke much,” she said. “I don’t like losing control.”
“The Tom Petty enthusiast doesn’t smoke pot?” I laughed. “Maybe this is where we need to lose a little control.” I took a puff.
“Fine, give it to me,” she said. I held it to her lips, watching as they circled the thin tube. Even in the dim light, their delicate pink color fascinated me. The tip lit up and she coughed. I tucked it back in my jacket pocket.
“Easy, Markham,” I teased.
She hacked out something like “shut up,” then laid back on the grass, her golden hair fanning out around her head. Her eyes went worried. “Nick, are the stars . . . watching us?”
“Are you wigging out already, Annie? Maybe I shouldn’t have let you smoke.”
“No, but—” she started, her voice choking up.
“Let’s have a nice, easy time out here.” I laid back next to her. “Let’s breathe. Come on. In?”
She sucked in a breath, waiting on me to instruct her more. She was giving me so much power. I felt so honored that she was letting me have this make-believe time. “Out.”
She pushed the air from her lungs.
“Look again at those beautiful stars,” I whispered. “Not so scary, are they?”
“Space is too big,” she said. “Gives me the creeps. Like somebody could be watching.”
I hummed. “What would you be if nobody was watching?”
Her eyes went sad. “Free.” She sat up a little and sipped the champagne, wiping her lips with the back of her hand before putting the bottle next to her in the grass. “What would you be?”
I took a deep breath. I loved to pose big philosophical questions to other people, but it was more to decide if those answers fit me. I didn’t like to answer them myself because I wasn’t fully sure who I was. “Understood.”
Annie’s hand found mine in the grass. I turned on my side to face her and nudged her to do the same. Her green eyes walked up my chest to my face. “I think I’d like to learn more about you, so I could understand.”
This sweet, beautiful person. I let go of her hand and slid my arm under her head, giving her a pillow. “I want you to be free.”
She laced her fingers with my other hand, looking at our joined hands together. No rings. No commitments. Just two souls finding each other in the grass under the stars.
The weed took some of the edge off, but I was still nervous getting this private time with her. I worried that my questions were too philosophical, too personal. And still, I went on. I’d only be around her a couple more days. I could try out a version of myself that I wished I could be.
“What would make you free right now, Annabelle?”
Her fingers untwined from mine, moving to touch my cheek. Her thumb passed over my jaw, fingers caressing under my ear. “This?”
I nodded, and slowly, softly, so delicately, we met in a kiss. I couldn’t believe how silky her lips were, how much I could feel what was her and what was me, and what was somehow shared space. My hand moved into her hair as we deepened the kiss, still so very slowly. Her tongue was tentative, just barely crossing the threshold of my lips until I returned the taste.
It was quiet, gentle. It wasn’t slamming someone against a door. We weren’t tearing each other’s clothes off. We were feeling everything. Every careful stroke of her lips was more tender than the one before it. Her hair felt so wonderful in my fingers, but I caressed down her shoulders to pull her closer to me. Music from the wedding droned in the distance, providing a delicate soundtrack.
I tugged her waist and she rolled me to my back. As she settled on top of me, she gazed down at me. “Okay?”
“Hell yeah.”
I’d never made out with a woman. I’d kissed one, but never this soul-consuming, fire-stoking variety. Annie was everything. Her knees in the grass on either side of me, her arms leaning against my chest, and her hands cradling my face. My hands made the journey down her back to the hem of her dress, sliding to touch her smooth skin.
“Okay?” I asked.
“Fuck yes. Touch me.”
Her hips writhed on top of me as I squeezed the backs of her thighs, then up to her firm ass. Her hand trailed down my body, cupping my cock through my pants.
“Big boy, huh?”
I chuckled, feeling self-conscious. “Uh, yeah. Maybe? I guess?”
Her eyes were wild in the low light as her fingers stroked me through my pants. “You like that?”
I moaned out some sort of affirmative. I couldn’t believe it. I was maybe going to have sex with a woman. And not just any woman, because I could have been having sex with any woman if I wanted. I got enough offers.
It was Annie. And Annie wasn’t just any woman.
I knew it was ridiculous. After all, I hardly knew her. Yet, there was this inexplicable bond between us, an unspoken connection that seemed to transcend words. It was something I sensed the moment our heads collided at the airport, a bizarre intimacy born from accidentally hurting each other. And she was Kitty’s best friend, so that had to be some kind of endorsement.
I also knew I was foolish to have any sort of feelings after twenty-four hours, particularly for a woman who was fresh off a heartbreak. Really fresh.
But it was a wedding weekend, and maybe for this one time, I could just go with it and not worry about what came next. It was make-believe for me too.
Then she gave a frustrated growl. “I’m sharing my room with Kitty.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “And I gave Leroy my key.”
Annie sat up, still straddling me, and adjusted her hair. Determined, she scanned the area around us.
“Come with me.”
She dragged me toward the edge of the golf course, where it met the woods. She stopped me before we passed through a set of rhododendron bushes, tugging me in for a hot kiss. Grinning, I ducked under some taller branches and held them back for her to come after me.
Under the cover of the bushes, I sat on the ground, smacking my thighs to invite her to sit. Annie straddled me, my lips exploring her neck and shoulders. To answer my prior question, freckles didn’t have a taste, but Annie’s skin did. I couldn’t get enough.
Her long legs wrapped around my waist as my hands glided up her thighs again. “What do you need, Annie?” She pressed my face to her chest, unzipping the top part of her dress and lowering her dress’s straps. “Tell me, Annie. Please.”
She smirked and nibbled my neck, stopping by my ear to whisper, “I want you to go down on me.”
My cock throbbed at her words. I’d never eaten a girl out. I’d obviously seen it in porn, but I really wasn’t 100% sure what was for show and what actually might feel good for her. Here goes nothing.
I shoved the top part of her dress down, finding her braless underneath. Annie’s breasts were the first I’d ever encountered but I swear I struck gold the first time. They perfectly filled my hands, her perky nipples pressing into my palms. I dipped my head as she raised up on her knees, sucking the rosy bud of her nipple into my mouth. She moaned out my name and I decided that was the only sound I ever wanted to hear in my life.
I covered her breast again as I slid off my jacket, laying it on the ground behind her. I shifted her to her back, her legs coming up to cage my torso.
“You are such a fucking angel,” I breathed, taking in the sight of her, golden hair splayed out, pupils dilated, her lips begging for mine.
I sat back on my heels, coasting my hands up her thighs until I found her panties. “These off?”
“Please,” she whined. I drank in her delicious legs with my eyes as the flimsy fabric passed over them, but I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful she’d be when she dropped her knees open, inviting me in.
“So gorgeous, Annie,” I whispered, then realized I couldn’t delay it anymore. I had to get to it.