15 Julia
Julia
Westport, Connecticut
I watch Wendy’s borrowed car disappear into the night. I wish I had gone with her. Just driven away and never looked back. When I can no longer hear the sound of the Mercedes engine, my surroundings close in on me.
The woods wrap around me in a wide river of darkness threatening to swallow me up. Where is the moon? I search the sky, but the murky clouds have everything obscured. There is nothing, only me and the night sounds that suddenly feel louder, threatening.
I turn to my driveway. Having Wendy drop me at the house might have woken my parents.
My father is a very light sleeper. Not to mention it’s nearly four a.m. He might even be up by now.
I just need to get inside, shower and change, and then grab a couple hours of sleep.
I’ll sneak back out here and wait for a ride to school.
There are a couple of boys who will gladly give me a ride in hopes I’ll finally agree to a date.
Not happening.
Headlights in the distance punch matching holes in the blackness.
I stop. Is Wendy coming back? A grin rolls across my face.
I should go with her. We could find a place to hang out, eat, and then just wear our racy outfits to school—still smelling like cigarettes and alcohol.
We would both get sent home for sure. My parents would really freak out.
I step back onto the road, right in the path of the car, and shield my eyes from the headlights with one hand.
As the car nears I realize it’s not Wendy in her foster mother’s Mercedes. The sound is different. It’s like a soft rumble . . . a lion quieting its ferocious roar to a satisfied purr after a lethal battle.
Rather than run, I freeze. I can’t breathe. Maybe it’s all the liquor I consumed. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep. But I can’t move.
The car stops a scarce dozen or so inches from me. So close I can smell and feel the heat rising from the engine. But I can’t see the driver. The headlights have me blinded.
A door slams, and I tell myself again to run.
Then the driver is standing between me and the car. His scent is the first thing that seeps into my senses. It’s him. Casey.
“What the hell, Julia?”
His voice is rough, angry. And he’s so close he must feel my heart beating against his chest.
“What’re you doing here?” The words sound like a child’s. He’s never been this close to my house. I had no idea he even knew where I lived.
“Get in the car.”
The memory that he stood me up hits like a lightning strike. Outrage rushes through me. “No.”
He doesn’t repeat himself. Instead he yanks my backpack from my shoulder, tosses it aside. Then he grabs me around the waist, lifting me off my feet, and carries me to the passenger’s-side door. When he has closed me inside, he goes around to the driver’s-side door and gets in.
I wait as he turns the car around, using my own driveway to do so. Good thing it winds through the woods before reaching the house. My heart is thundering, and there is so much I want to say—to demand—but my voice won’t work.
The silence inside the car expands and thickens.
I dare to glance at him. The dash lights outline his stony profile.
He is seriously pissed. I think for a moment that I should be afraid.
Wendy’s suggestion that he is a psycho echoes in my ears.
Then he looks at me, and I know damned well I should be terrified.
I’m not sure how far we drive or what road we turn onto. Exhaustion, fear, or the alcohol residue has me disoriented.
Then the car stops moving. The engine goes quiet. I stare out the window at the darkness. “Where are we?”
The sound of my voice startles me. I didn’t realize until then that I said the words aloud.
“What the hell were you doing tonight?”
I blink and my anger returns full force. “What the hell were you doing? You stood me up, you asshole.”
“Something came up.” He says this without looking at me. Not that it would matter since it’s so fucking dark with the dash lights no longer casting a glow. I can barely see the shape of him.
“You couldn’t call? I stood around at that Starbucks until I looked like the town whore waiting for a john. What the fuck, Casey?”
“I said”—he leans across the console, putting his face in mine—“something came up. Work. I didn’t have a chance to call.”
I glare at him, hope he can see it. “That’s a shit excuse.”
He reaches across me and does something to the seat. It jerks backward, and suddenly he’s on top of me.
“It’s a shit excuse,” he agrees. “But it’s the only one I have.”
I swallow, try to reason what to say next, but he kisses me before I can think how to reply.
It’s hard and deep, and my body reacts with such need that I cry out.
His hand goes to the hem of my skirt. He pushes it up and drags my panties down my thighs.
I reach for his fly, but he beats me to it, and then he’s out and plunging into me.
I scream. My hands can’t get enough of touching him. My lips search for his. I’m coming and I need him to hurry . . . to make it happen before I lose my mind. And then I’m arching into him, crying out with the release.
I melt into the seat, but he isn’t finished yet. Somehow he twists around and I’m on top. My head bumps the top of the car. He’s moving my hips back and forth over him. Just as I get the rhythm, that urgency starts to build again. He’s got me charging toward climax once more.
This time we both come and I collapse onto his chest.
I can feel his heart pounding in time with mine, and I smile. Even though we’re both damp with sweat and still joined like the perfect parts of a puzzle, I want to laugh with happiness.
“I watched you,” he murmurs.
“What?” I lift my head and stare at him, though I can scarcely see him no matter that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness. I make out the angle of his jaw, the square chin and perfect lips.
“My business was at that club—the one you and your friend showed up at.”
My fingers fist in his shirt, and I wish it was his skin. “Why didn’t you say something?”
He makes a sound, a sort of laugh. “I was having way too much fun watching the two of you make out on the dance floor.”
I pull away from him, my head hitting the top of the car again. “We were not making out. We were just having a good time.”
“The way your bodies were pressed together and moving . . . the way you touched each other. Hmm. Looked like sex to me.”
And just like that he is hard and throbbing inside me.
“You should have joined us.” I move, forcing him deeper. He groans.
“Couldn’t. I was working.”
I start to move into that perfect rhythm.
The sounds coming from him as I do make me feel strangely powerful.
I keep going, and he’s breathing faster and faster.
His hands grip my hips so hard I’m certain I’ll have bruises, but I don’t care.
I can barely breathe. I couldn’t speak if my life depended on it.
The tension deep in my body is twisting into a frenzy.
I press my hands against the top of the car.
I feel as though I’m about to erupt into flames.
We both come again, screaming into the night with the impact of it.
This time we lie together in silence for long minutes after we’re done . . . until our hearts have slowed. I trace the nipple I exposed while ripping at his shirt. I love every part of him. He is my everything. If I had any doubts, this has confirmed it’s true.
I cannot live without him.
“I’m still mad that you stood me up,” I whisper. I feel petulant even after his thorough fucking. It’s childish, I know, but I can’t help myself. “Wendy said you’re a psycho, and I should stay away from you.”
He cups my face, lifts it to his. “You think she’s right?”
I try to look away, but his hands tighten. “No,” I admit.
“Good.” He nips my lip with his teeth. “You have no idea what it’s like to want something so badly it feels like you might die without it.”
“Yes, I do! That’s how I felt when you didn’t show up. I can’t live without you.”
He breathes a sound, too subdued to be a laugh. “You’re a rich girl with the whole world in front of you. People like you can’t even imagine how it is for people like me and your trashy friend.”
“How do you know what her life is like? You’ve only met her once.”
He shakes his head. “But I know people like her. Desperate people who only have what people like you toss their way. She doesn’t want to lose you. That’s why she’s trying to turn you against me.”
“It won’t work.”
He crushes me against his chest once more. “I have never needed anyone the way I need you . . . the way I want you. But that’s the tragedy. I can’t have you—not the way I want to. Maybe that’s what makes me want you so much.”
“Then take me.” This time I bite his lip, lick the spot. “Let’s just drive away from here and never look back. We can go wherever and do whatever we want. I want you just as much as you want me. You have to know that.”
“That only happens in the movies, baby. Escaping like that takes money. Lots of money.”
I make him hard again, and this time we take it slow, so slow it’s almost painful. It’s as if this might be the last time, and he wants to make it last as long as possible. As if he knows this can’t be. Ever.
But I won’t allow that ending. I will find a way.
I will never let him leave me.