Chapter 42
My ears ring as we go from the loud bar and out into the night, past the smokers, to his truck. As it roars to life, he says, “I gotta be honest with you, Didion. I’m not sure I can wait for it until we’re back at the house.”
“We got it. We can do this.”
His bedroom eyes drag away from mine. “Uh-huh.”
He throws the car in reverse, peeling out from under the kudzu. It’s then that I realize the storm has stopped. When did it stop? Did it just transpose itself inside me, so that now thunder and lightning course through my body?
It feels possible.
The silence isn’t awkward. It’s charged.
I stare straight ahead, aware of every movement he makes. He reaches over and puts a hand on my bare thigh, squeezes it, and says, “Goddammit, Didion. What do you do to me?”
It’s hard for me to reach out and touch him. His past rejections have made me a coward. But I fight through it and put a hand on his neck, touching the warm skin there, then run my fingers up into the waves of his hair.
He turns and looks at me with those hooded eyes again, and shakes his head one time. I know he’s not telling me to stop.
“Fuck it,” he says, repeating my words and sentiment from earlier.
He pulls off down a side road, to a stretch of empty beach, where there never is and never was anyone, except for people trying to find a way to be alone.
On this particular night, it’s just us.
He throws the car into park, reaches a hand across me, and pulls me toward him by the back of my neck, hand in my hair. Then, his lips are on mine. Fast. Starving.
I kiss him back, both of us ravenous for each other. His kiss is like water after countless days in the desert. I drink him in like he’s saving my life, and he does the same to me.
We’re clumsy with the gearshift and console between us.
I reach across him, grasping for bare skin, coming up against the ridges of his muscles under his shirt and touching the absurdly fatless stomach beneath.
My hand glides down to the sharp hip bones that I’ve ridden so hard in the past that they left bruises on my inner thighs.
He unhooks my bra with the same ease he might snap his fingers, and then reaches under it, his calloused fingers on my softest skin.
I whisper his name, and he whispers mine back, my real name, not the nickname he so often uses.
“Jesus, Didion.”
He pulls away and I’m left panting beside him.
“Don’t stop,” I beg.
Austin gets out of the car, walks around the front, and then opens the passenger’s side door.
I turn my body toward him, and he stands between my legs, shifting me so my jean shorts are on his and I can feel him, and I bet he can feel how bad I want him too.
He unbuttons my jeans, and then gives me a look to make sure it’s okay. I wet my lips and nod, heart pounding.
He pulls them off, while I lift myself up by the handle above the window to help him. He throws them to the footwell and moves me to the edge of the seat, where he shifts the gusset of my underwear to the side and then, with one more glance of approval, puts his mouth on me.
I let out a cry that echoes in the emptiness around us before being swallowed by the sound of the waves. I keep one hand on the handle above me and put one hand on his head as he demonstrates why exactly I’ve had so much trouble forgetting him.
I have no idea what he does. It’s not overly complicated, no performative techniques, and it’s not lazy, either, no dull repetitive motion.
It’s just a wash of sensation followed by another wash of sensation until finally it builds and builds, my toes curling, my back arching, and then my own wave is cresting and he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow, doesn’t pull away until my breaths are shuddering and my legs are shaking, much of the power to hold my body upright having vanished.
He kisses my neck, groans against me, and I reach for his jeans, undoing his button fly and pulling him toward me.
And look. Size doesn’t matter. But size can be hot. And in Austin’s case, it’s really hot.
The feeling of him inside me overwhelms my body and I’m no longer aware of what noises come out of my mouth or his or what I’m saying.
If people were to walk up to us now, I’d simply keep going and wave them away.
Nothing matters more than feeling Austin completely.
Against me, inside me, kissing me, touching me, pulling my hair gently and using just enough force to make me feel like I’m in steady hands, but not so much that I ever feel urged in a direction I don’t want to go.
He whispers in my ear, and even the feeling of his words sends a shiver through me that begins to crescendo inside me again. He’s almost there, and I’m almost there, and then suddenly we’re there together, and he asks if he should pull out.
“Fuck it,” I say, one last time. He doesn’t hesitate.
He goes deeper and we finish at the same time, my body clenching around his until the internal noise in us starts to die down and we’re left breathing there together, limbs weak.
Austin looks at me before we fully disconnect, and he lifts my chin, kisses me without a word. It’s gentle and long. Unhurried. So much is being said as we linger in this raw moment.
I don’t know who pulls away first, it seems to happen in unison.
“Want to go in?”
“In?”
He gestures in the direction of the ocean.
“Into the water?”
He nods.
“I’m pretty sure I was recently a real dick about people swimming in the middle of the night.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to stop taking your own advice.”