Chapter 17 Ethan #2
I hear him whisper my name, then he’s moving, his head sliding down from right in front of my face to my crotch.
This, this very thing, his mouth around my dick was what I’d fantasize about and it’s finally happening now; although, it’s years later in a random motel far from home.
It shouldn’t matter, and in one way it doesn’t, but I’d missed Shane.
Will this be the first, last, and only time we’ll ever do this?
Those intrusive thoughts make it hard for me to enjoy it. Shane can tell.
“I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing my thigh. “I should’ve asked you first. I don’t want you to be…overwhelmed.”
I open my eyes. I hadn’t realized I’d closed them. “Let’s just lay here for a minute.”
Shane pulls me into his arms, sealing his warm, naked body against mine. For the first time in a long time, I feel…safe. Minutes pass. I almost think he’s gone to sleep, but he says. “Remember prom?”
“Absolutely.”
“I wanted to dance with you so bad,” he says, his tone dreamy. “I almost did. Ev would’ve shit a brick, but I wanted to hold you like this. In front of everyone.”
I remember all that now. It was hard for me to not get distracted by him and pay attention to Jenna.
I remember Jenna kept getting closer and closer to my face as we danced, hinting around for me to kiss her.
Every time I’d look over at Shane he was looking over at me.
I believed so much—or maybe I just wanted to believe—that we were in love.
Turning away from Jenna and going to him would have been so easy, but one of the hardest things I’d ever have done.
I wonder if other people saw us. I wonder if they could see how badly we wanted each other.
There’s one person we can’t ever ask.
And the truth is, that magnetic pull is still between us even now.
I kiss Shane and it gets heated, and I roll over him so he’s on his back. We’re rubbing our hard dicks against each other, and I know what I want. I ask him if he wants the same thing, and he tells me he does. I get the condoms and the lube. I don’t want to waste any more time.
For a while, I’m in some kind of disbelief that Shane is going to let me fuck him. That he’s going to let me lube up my fingers and slide them inside him. That he’s actually going to let me pump those fingers in and out of him over and over until he says he wants my cock.
We’ve already had sex, so I don’t know why I’m so clumsy with the condom this time. I don’t know why my knees bump against his while he’s trying to position himself for me, or why I can’t seem to lay over him just right so I can watch his face.
But when we’re both where we want to be, I sink myself inside him, inch by inch.
And then I’m not so clumsy or clueless anymore.
I’m in love.
I’m consumed.
I’m consumed with so many emotions and sensations that once I’m all the way inside him, I can’t move or even breathe.
Freshman year of college, I'd dived right into all the sex I’d missed in tiny, backward Port Leyden. The sex I could’ve been having with Shane but didn’t get to because he'd peaced out without a word. I remember thinking it wasn’t such a big deal. Maybe I hadn’t missed out on that much after all.
But none of those guys had been Shane Carraway.
None of them felt this good and none of them held me this tight when I was inside them.
It’s almost excruciating, rocking my hips against him, chasing after a feeling that was always just out of reach when I was with him.
Moving toward it faster and faster, but not too fast, because… what happens when I catch it?
“Oh, God,” Shane gasps. “Ethan…”
I slow my pace. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” His arm comes up around my neck. “I want you, please. Don’t stop.”
Curses spill out of my mouth as I start thrusting into him faster this time.
Will I ever get to hold Shane like this again? Will I ever get to kiss him like this and tell him how good he feels?
And it’s in this moment, when my lips brush over his chin and neck, that I want to start saying things. Filthy things. Poetic things.
Truthful things.
But all I can manage is a strained whisper against his skin, “You feel so good. Oh, God, Shane.”
“I missed you,” he moans. He repeats it and his words get lost in my mouth as I kiss him and pound into him, harder and harder, giving him everything I’ve got.
I don’t think it was ever possible for me to love anyone else but him.
One of my hands fumbles with one of Shane’s hands as we both try to grab his dick at the same time to get him off.
But I brush his hand away. “Let me take care of you.”
It really doesn’t take much and his cum is spilling all over my chest. I thrust into him as deep as I can and come so hard I think I see the edge of the universe.
His arms are around me, hugging me tight, hugging me close to him.
I can feel his heart pounding, his breath in my hair, and I want to be mad about it.
I want to be mad at him for making me wait this long to be with him this way, to show him how much I loved him, and love him even now.
I want to be fucking livid. I attempt to conjure up some rage toward him for making me feel this way.
For making us wait this long to be together.
But I can’t.
There’s not a single piece of anger left in me now.
And I want to be mad at him over that.
Shane moves underneath me, sliding away and off the bed. He returns with a towel to clean us up. I remove the condom and throw it away.
When I get back in bed with him, under the covers he holds open for me, it’s like it was always supposed to be this way.
As if those five years never happened at all.
It’s late morning when we drive up to the gravel road that I remember.
I expected the locked metal gate, since it’s off season, but we’re not going to let that stop us. I get out the backpack I’d brought and start cramming as much stuff as I can into it; food, water, extra gloves and then I finally, gently, take the urn from the backseat.
“How far away is it again?” Shane says.
“I’m not really sure,” I say, wrapping the urn up in some T-shirts and putting it inside my backpack. “I think it’s kind of at the edge of the whole camp. From what I remember.”
I don’t want to put Ev in my backpack, but I’m afraid I’ll drop him or leave him somewhere again. But just so it’s not too dark for him, I leave the top of the backpack unzipped so there’s some light.
During the drive down, I had enough faith in my memory to be sure that once I was here, I’d easily find the way.
But it’s been years now, and last time I was here, the trees were green, and it was hot as hell.
Now, most of the trees are bare and a couple of inches of snow line the gravel road.
But if memory serves, that meadow should be right on the other side of the camp, behind a creek.
We leave the car parked on the side of the gravel road, hidden slightly from the main road by some bushes.
We climb over the locked metal gate and start walking.
I remember the gravel road and how it turned into a dirt road.
Right now, it’s muddy from melted snow and our shoes make squelching sounds as we walk along.
After we pass through some trees, there will be some cabins on one side of us, likely closed for the winter, and there will be an open field on the other side where we played kickball and dodgeball.
The field where Everett fell one time and sprained his wrist.
We’ll be going right past that field, some more cabins, and some tents, a couple of giant trampolines, and past a rope obstacle course.
I take note of each thing we pass as the dirt road starts to narrow into a dirt path.
We walk past a gravel parking lot where Everett once caught a toad under a car, and it peed on him.
I snicker at this memory and, Shane, walking alongside me, looks over at me. “What?”
“Just remembering something funny. Ev picked up a toad and it pissed on him. I guess because it was scared, but he got all grossed out.” I laugh again. “We took it down here to this creek to let it go and Ev had to go around with toad pee on him all day.”
Shane laughs. “Poor Ev.”
“Yeah.” I laugh again. “It was kinda cool, though. The other guys were telling him to kill it and throw it against a rock, and he wouldn’t do it.
” I remember the look of shock and indignation on Everett’s face when one of the other boys started yelling about toad guts.
I hadn’t wanted him to kill the toad either.
So, instead, Everett walked all the way from the parking lot to where we’re walking now to that creek and set the toad free.
It hopped away across some rocks and disappeared.
“You know,” Shane says. “I don’t think I ever saw him even kill a bug.”
The path starts to narrow even more, so Shane has to walk behind me. We pass the cabins and kickball field. Shane stops to stare at it.
“What’s up there?” he asks, pointing to a trail on the far side.
“That went up to the dining cabin,” I say. “We’d have to wait outside in a line before each meal with the boys in one line and girls in another.” Snow falls on me from above, and I look up to see a blue jay hopping around on a branch above me.
Shane looks up too. “Thought they were hibernating or whatever.”
“You mean migrating? Yeah, sometimes some of them stay behind.” The blue jay hops along a branch then flies away. “We’d see all kinds of birds here in the summer. The counselors would try to point them out to us.”
We keep walking in silence for a while, passing more cabins and tents, and I feel more confident that we’re going the right way.
I look around and remember this place as a kid.
I had a crush on Shane when I was here. I’d think about him and miss him.
I hit a growth spurt one summer and when I got home, I’d hoped he’d see me and see how tall I’d gotten.
I wanted to impress him. I wanted his attention so badly.