17. Sara #2
His hand pushed under the hem of my top and slid up my ribs, rough callouses dragging across my skin.
He found my breast and palmed it, squeezing until I gasped and arched up into him.
And then he shoved the bra up without bothering to unclasp it and closed his mouth over my nipple.
The heat of his tongue pulled a groan from my lips as I spread my legs and let him nestle between them deeper.
He sucked harder and my fingers dug into his hair. My hips lifted off the ground, grinding up against him because the ache between my legs was unbearable and I needed friction, needed pressure, needed anything he'd give me.
He gave it to me.
His hand slid down my stomach and popped the button on my jeans and worked inside my underwear, and the moment his fingers touched me, we both groaned.
"You're dripping, Sara." His fingers slid through the mess soaking my folds, parting me open and spreading the wetness up and over my clit. "Did I do this to you?"
"All of it," I breathed. "Every bit."
Garret circled my clit with two fingers, pressing just hard enough to make my thighs fall open wider.
I was swollen and sensitive and every pass of his fingertips sent electric shocks radiating up through my belly and down through my legs.
He watched my face while he worked me, studying every twitch and gasp and adjustment of my hips, learning me all over again.
"Tell me how that feels," he said.
"It feels—" I couldn't finish because he slid two fingers inside me and curled them forward, and my brain shorted out. My back bowed off the ground and my hand shot down to grip his wrist, not to stop him but to hold him there.
He pumped his fingers slow and deep while his thumb rubbed circles on my clit. The sensation built a pressure inside me that felt volcanic. It was so fast and sudden I couldn't hold back. He had barely touched me but I was on the edge that fast.
"Garret, I'm going to?—"
"I know you are." He curled harder and pressed his thumb down flat. "Let go."
Little twitches started first, in my belly and thighs, that spread to my neck arching back, and my toes curling inside my shoes and then it snapped.
My body unfurled like a coiled spring that burst loose from its confines, unwinding outward so hard I writhed and jolted.
Garret continued working me, thrusting and rubbing as he bit down on a nipple and grinded his dick on my outer thigh.
It was so powerful I found myself moaning and grunting through clenched teeth, spitting on myself until his lips covered mine in a heated kiss and swallowed the sounds. And when he growled against my mouth, it made me shudder from my head to my toes.
Slowly the convulsions slowed and waned, and Garret pulled his fingers out.
I watched him bring them to his lips and slide them into his mouth, tasting me with his eyes locked on mine.
The intimacy of it, the hunger on his face while he did it, made my stomach flip and my core clench with fresh lust even though I was still trembling from the aftershocks.
"You taste the same as always. Delicious," he said. "I used to think about that. How sweet you tasted. Drove me out of my mind."
I pulled him down and kissed him, tasting myself on his tongue. If he kept talking about how much he missed me I was going to cry. He seemed to understand what I needed without me asking, and he kissed me back until my lips were raw and his dick insisted on more attention.
I slid my hand into his jeans and gripped him, though there was little room to do much other than let my hand rest there, but it encouraged him more.
He pulled back, undoing his jeans first to let me pull my hand free.
Then he tugged my shoes off and set them aside before shimmying my jeans lower and lower until they were piled on the grass beside us and his hands were memorizing my curves.
His thumbs traced along the creases where my thighs met my valley, teasing my edges without touching where I was swollen and aching. I squirmed under his hands.
"Don't tease me, Garret," I told him.
"I'm not teasing," he coaxed, unbuckling his belt, and then he freed himself. My chest swelled and my groin screamed for attention as I looked down at his dick. "I'm savoring."
I reached for him and wrapped my hand around his length, stroking him slowly from base to the tip, running my thumb over the bead of wetness gathered there and spreading it down his shaft.
His eyes closed and a growl rumbled up out of his chest. "Sara, if you keep that up I'm going to lose it."
"Then get inside me."
He settled between my thighs and lifted one of my legs over his forearm, opening me wider. I felt his dick press against my entrance, and then he pushed forward in one slow, devastating stroke that stretched me open around him inch by inch until he was buried completely.
The fullness of him inside me made my eyes roll back and my lips part on a moan that I couldn't control. He filled every part of me, pressed against every wall, and the sensation was almost too much to bear.
I squeezed around him and his breath stuttered. Then his hips twitched forward involuntarily, pushing even deeper.
"Look at me, Sara." His hips pumped slowly as our gazes locked together. It was probably the most intimate we'd ever been together and now after all this time. It wrecked me. I wanted to cry.
"I want you to stay away from Lightning, okay?" he said, and I wanted nothing more than to do just that. I bit my lip and nodded, then pulled him down for another kiss.
Now when he slid into me I felt consumed and whole. My chest burned with emotion, and I held him against my body hard. Garret continued thrusting into me and with every pump of his hips his pelvis rubbed my clit. I felt myself building again.
"Yes," I whimpered, clawing at the sides of his hips.
"You're mine, you know… You always have been." His words tangled up in my chest making me want to cry and pushing my arousal at the same time. It was conflicting, but hearing how possessive he felt over me made me want him more.
"God… It's so good, please…"
"Squeeze me now, come on, baby. Show me how close you are."
The way his breath dusted my cheek and danced across my ear pushed me right over the edge again.
I convulsed and clenched on him, bucking under his weight until he growled and nipped my earlobe.
Then I felt his heat surge through my core and moisten his thrusts.
He pulsed inside me, grabbing my outer thigh hard, and kissed me again.
When he slowed and finally stopped, his heart was pounding, and my breathing was ragged. I felt him draining out of me onto the grass, and I swore I heard noise up at the house. But the moment was too intense to interrupt.
"What's happening with us Garret?" I asked, not intending to upset him, but he pulled out and rose to his knees, tucking himself away.
Then he found my pants in the darkness and laid them over my thighs.
I felt like I'd upset him, but he didn't say that.
"I mean," I mumbled while I tried turning my jeans out.
"You told me you don’t want a relationship but you also tell me to stay away from Tony, like you're claiming ownership or trying to protect me. "
He was quiet for a while. I got my jeans sorted and pulled them on while he sat in the grass beside me, staring out across the meadow with his elbows on his knees.
The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable but it wasn't easy either. He was choosing his words carefully, which meant he either didn’t want to hurt me, or he didn't know the answer to my question.
"I don't know what this is, Sara," he finally said. He sounded tired and defeated. "I'm not going to stand here and lie to you about it."
"That's not really an answer." I sat next to him and picked a blade of grass, preparing my heart to shatter all over again. I didn't assume he'd have changed, and I let myself hope for something again when I knew better.
"It's the only one I've got right now." He rubbed both hands over his face and exhaled. "All I know is that as long as you're in town, I don't want this to stop. Whatever this is. I want to keep seeing you."
"And when I leave? Because my life is in St. Louis now…"
Garret didn't have an answer for me but his inability to speak was the answer. I knew that. We were so addicted to each other and still so far apart. There was no way this would work. He couldn’t make the commitment, and I had a secret I could never tell him.
It didn't matter that we both felt helplessly drawn to each other.
We would only continue to hurt each other over and over.
I opened my mouth to speak but the lights behind Dad's shop flicked on flooding the meadow in yellow light that almost reached us. I shot to my feet so fast I almost fell over, and Garret stood up, helping me steady myself.
"Sara?" Andrew's voice cut through the darkness. "Sara, where are you?"
My blood went cold. I grabbed Garret's arm and we both froze, but it was too late. Andy was already marching into the darkness, and his sharp silhouette showed he was carrying Dad's shotgun, held up in our general direction.
"Oh, my God," I hissed at Garret. "Go. Now."
But instead of panicking, Garret let his head drop and backed away. When his hand broke contact with my arm, I felt a knife go through my chest. He didn't have to say a word for me to know how he felt. He slunk directly toward my brother who held the gun on him from a distance.
"Who the hell is that?" Andy shouted.
"Andy, put the gun down," I spat, as Garret stalked into the glow of the floodlight and kept walking. When the light revealed him fully, I saw his head down, and his shoulders drooping. Garret was as upset as I was.
"Is that a Gravehound? Sara, is that a goddamn Gravehound on our property?"
Garret didn't turn around. He mounted his bike and kicked it to life, and the engine roared loud enough to wake every neighbor within a mile as he revved it up.
Andy kept the shotgun trained on him as he pulled out of the shadows and onto the gravel path, and I watched his taillight disappear down the road before I could even think about breathing again.
Andy lowered the gun and turned on me. "Was that Crank?"
I didn't answer because my voice wasn't cooperating and there wasn't a lie in the world convincing enough to cover what this looked like. I had grass in my hair, and Garret's cut on the ground next to me where I stood shoeless and heartbroken.
"Are you kidding me, Sara?" Andy's face was red and the vein in his temple was pulsing. "You're out here rolling around in the dirt with a biker? With him?"
"Keep your voice down. Kip is sleeping." I snatched Garret's cut off the ground and stomped toward him, hoping to walk right past and into the house and put this behind me. I'd really done it this time. Andy would tell Daniel and Mom and I'd have to hear it from them now too.
"Don't tell me to keep my voice down. Dad's lying in a hospital bed dying and you're out here spreading your legs for a man twice your age? You know what Dad wants, Sara."
The words hit me and I flinched, stopping a few steps from him where I could see his angry glare in full detail. "You don't know anything about Garret."
"I know enough. I know he's forty-three years old and you're twenty-five and he's patched into a gang that sells drugs and breaks bones for a living.
What else do I need to know?" He gestured at the cut I was wearing.
"You're literally wearing his colors, Sara.
Do you understand what that means in their world? "
"I know what it means."
"Then put it down." I ignored him, moving toward the shop.
"Dad would lose his mind if he saw this.
You know that, right? After everything he did to keep Danny and me away from those people, his daughter is out here having sex with one of them behind his shop.
While he's on life support." Andy's voice cracked on the last part and I could see his eyes glistening. "What are you thinking?"
I didn't have an answer for him because he wasn't wrong. Everything he was saying was everything I'd already told myself a hundred times, and hearing it come out of someone else's mouth didn't make it easier.
"I'm going to bed," I mumbled, and didn't bother turning over my shoulder. The ache in my chest was too raw to stand here fighting with my brother.
"Sara—"
"I said I'm going to bed, Andy."
I slipped inside and went straight to the bathroom and locked the door. I peeled off my clothes and turned on the shower and stood under scalding water and cried.
Andy was right. Dad would've lost his mind. Mom would've cried. And if either of them knew the full truth, that the man I'd just been with in the grass was the father of the little boy sleeping down the hall, it would've been so much worse than a lecture.