Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TATUM
The drive to Nevada is almost a blur. You know those moments when you’re driving, and you come to? Not remembering how you got where you are, just driving mindlessly until your brain comes out of its fog, and you’re somewhere else? That’s how ninety percent of this drive is for me.
I know that isn’t safe. Anything could happen while my head is so far away, and I should focus, but it’s almost impossible. Everything feels impossible right now.
We’ll get to Seattle tomorrow, and every mile closer makes the dread loom heavier over my head.
I feel like I’m driving toward my death sentence, but it’s not mine.
There’s an inner turmoil in my chest when I think about speaking to my mother again.
I want to hear what she has to say, but I’m so sure in my gut that whatever it will be, it’ll be disappointing.
I want her to die, but I don’t. I want to help her, but I don’t.
Why am I so torn? It should be the easiest decision in the world.
The panic settled into my bones the moment she called me, and it never left.
I was so nauseous this morning when I called her doctors to figure out where we needed to go and what needed to happen, I had to throw up before we left the hotel.
I told Maeve I had to use the bathroom before we hit the road, but it was a lie. I had to puke my guts up.
Maybe it was a combination of things: the conversation I had with Maeve this morning, the phone call to the doctors, and the inevitable reunion with my mother. All of it was throwing me off, making me feel…awful. Thinking about it now had my stomach churning again.
Maeve doesn’t talk much during the drive, it’s like she knows I just need to sit with this for a while. Be in my own brain.
I wish I had the energy to appreciate her the way she deserves right now. To thank her. To hug her. To explain how much all this means to me. But I’m just so tired.
When we finally get to the hotel in Ely, Nevada, I’m relieved when Maeve goes into the bathroom to take her shower first. I just want to lay here on the bed, staring up at the ceiling for a while, preparing myself for a conversation I know will happen when she’s done.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I want to talk to her, but I don’t want to be a zombie when I do.
Explaining feelings can be so mentally taxing.
So, I lay here, listening to the sound of the shower until it eventually shuts off, before pushing myself from the bed and taking a deep breath.
It’s a few minutes before she opens the door, and my entire body relaxes when she does.
Maybe she’s what I need. After all that space to be alone in my head, I didn’t feel better, but seeing her…
“You should let me drive tomorrow,” Maeve says as she comes out of the bathroom, towel drying her hair. “You know, if you’re okay with me driving your truck.”
I’m shaking my head before she even finishes. “You don’t have to drive.”
She gives me a skeptical look. “You’ve driven this whole time.”
“That’s okay.”
Maeve raises a brow, dropping her towel on the bed before crossing her arms over her chest. “Let me drive. Please? Just one day.”
She probably observed me in my funk the entire drive and decided for herself that it wasn’t safe, either. I guess I hadn’t thought about how obvious it might’ve been, written all over my face.
“It’s ten hours,” I say, as if it’ll sway her.
“Okay.” She shrugs.
My head drops slightly as I cock my head tiredly at her. I just don’t have the strength to argue with her, especially not when she’s looking at me with those eyes.
“Please?” she says again, the corner of her lip twitching with a sweet smile.
There’s a direct correlation between depression and negative moods, increasing the sex drive, just as much as there is a correlation between depression and decreasing your libido.
It can go either way. I guess, in my case, my body is leaning into it as a coping mechanism, because all it takes is one little pout from this beautiful girl, and my cock is twitching in my pants.
I hope she doesn’t think this is always what I want from her.
It’s just…so good. It’s turning into something I crave, she’s turning into something I crave.
Walking over to her, I wrap my arms around her waist with a heavy sigh before leaning down and pressing my lips to her neck. Her arms fall from their crossed position as she melts into my hold, and I can feel her heartbeat thumping harshly against my mouth.
“You don’t trust me to drive your truck?” she asks on a laugh, craning her neck so I can kiss down further. “Is that it?”
“No, I do,” I murmur against her skin. “It’s just… I’m the one taking you on this road trip. I’m driving.”
“And I’m so grateful for that,” she says, pulling back just as I’m about to kiss her neck again, “but now it’s my turn to help you.”
I stare down at her, mouth hanging open a bit. “You don’t have to do tha—”
“I want to.”
My mind flashes to this morning, when she was adamant that if she wanted to do something, she would. It’s a nice reminder, because my brain likes to trick me into thinking otherwise sometimes.
“Right.” I laugh weakly, and I feel my face heating.
Maeve smiles, but it drops into a more serious observance as she cocks her head up at me. Reaching up to put her palm to my cheek, I lean into her touch before I can even think twice about it, like my body just naturally gravitates toward her.
“Do you wanna talk about it at all?” she asks, searching my features for her answers, as if I may lie to her now. “About your mom? About any of it?”
No, I don’t want to ruin your image of me.
I don’t want you to see how tainted and smeared I am.
But I don’t say that, I just say, “Maybe…after? After Seattle, after processing. Maybe then.”
Her fingers sift through my hair as she nods, her tongue darting out to lick her lips, which isn’t helping how horny I’m feeling right now.
Now is not the time.
“I just…want you to know that you can, always. About anything,” she says. “If I can help at all, I want to be able to. You know, for moral support or if you need to run away, I’ll be the—”
She’s rambling now; I love when she rambles.
It’s not often that she does that, but it’s one of the cutest things I think I’ve ever seen, and like there’s a natural pull in my body, I’m cutting her off as I grab her face and smash my lips into hers.
It’s instinctual, like I didn’t even have to think twice about the movement.
“This,” I mumble into her lips, smiling for the first time today as she giggles against me, “this is good. I already…feel much better.”
Maeve pulls away again, and I swear, her cheeks are tinged a slight pink.
Did I do that? Make her blush like that?
The thought has me reeling because she’s beautiful like this.
Pupils dilated, dark eyelashes batting almost nervously against her lifted cheeks, that smile on display just for me. God da—
“Clark,” she faux gasps, “are you being cheeky?”
“Yes,” I breathe, pulling her right back in, relishing in the sound of her laugh that echoes around the room. “Is that okay?”
She pushes up onto her tiptoes to kiss me again, practically falling into me as I walk us over toward the bed until the back of her legs bump into the mattress.
“I like it,” she breathes into my mouth, sliding her tongue inside right after, making a groan leave my lips.
“I like you,” I counter in a pant.
I don’t know how that came out of me, but I’m glad it did, because she puts her hands on my shoulders to twist me around just before planting them on my chest and giving me a firm shove.
I fall back onto the bed with a slight huff, not expecting her to be able to do that so easily, or at all.
She towers over me for a moment, a sly grin on her face before she’s climbing on top of me, straddling my hips.
“You like me?” she repeats, and there’s a teasing tone to her voice that has my cock hardening underneath her.
“Yes,” I rasp, and it falters a bit as she lifts her shirt up over her head, discarding it on the floor. My breath catches in my throat to see that she’s not wearing a bra, her hardened peaks turning me on tenfold.
“Yeah?” she taunts. “How much?”
I’m nearly speechless as I gape up at her, unable to speak as she grasps my hands and brings them to her breasts, and I waste no time palming them as I sit up to press a wet kiss to her sternum.
That earns me a heady sigh as she runs her fingers through my hair, holding me there as I lick over toward her tit, taking a nipple into my mouth and listening to that sigh turn into a moan.
My hands slide down her body until they’re holding onto her waist, pulling her further against me as I lap and suckle on her.
Her fingers tighten in my hair as she rocks her hips, grinding against my abdomen, chasing that friction she needs to soothe the ache between her legs.
And just as her thighs start to squeeze me harder, she’s shoving me back down on the bed, my chest heaving as I stare up at her, wide-eyed and a grin spreading along my lips.
“I asked how much,” Maeve says firmly, her hand splayed out on my chest, fingernails almost digging into the skin.
Oh shit.
That’s hot.
That’s really hot.
“A lot,” I tell her breathlessly.
She hums, reaching up to pull my glasses off with her other hand, tossing them away to the end of the bed. “A lot could mean a lot of different things,” she tsks, unbuttoning my jeans and pulling the zipper down, “I think you’ll have to be more specific, Clark.”
I swallow, my cheeks heating from being put on the spot.
She climbs off me as she looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer as she slides her pants off, standing in only her underwear now. They’re a nude lace, and her tattooed body is a stark contrast to them, making my mouth dry as I take her in.
“I like you so much that I…” I trail off, licking my lips as my eyes travel up her body to meet her gaze. “I feel like I can’t breathe, s-sometimes.”
The penetrating gaze softens marginally as she takes a tiny step toward me, looking me over for a moment before grasping at my jeans to pull them down. My cock is already straining against my underwear, and yet, she doesn’t even bat an eye. She’s still just looking at me.
“I’m gonna ride you now, okay?”
My eyebrows raise as I shakily manage to say, “O-okay.”
Maeve climbs on top of me once more, crawling over my hips as she yanks my underwear down with ease, freeing my hard cock.
I’m in a lust-filled trance as I watch her position herself until she’s hovering just over the tip, pulling her panties to the side and gathering some saliva in her fingers before reaching down to lube me up with it.
“Are you ready?” she breathes, teasing her entrance with the tip of my cock as she asks.
“Yes.”
Oxygen ceases to exist as she sinks down onto me, her head falling back as a groan leaves her lips, her grip tightening on her panties as she holds them against her inner thigh.
She’s already squeezing me so tight with her cunt, I can’t help the raspy whine that fumbles from my mouth as she slides up and down a few times.
“Do that again,” she pleads, her other hand on my chest to balance herself as she rides me, “I want to hear you, Tate.”
She wants to hear you.
Stop holding your breath, stop holding back, she wants to hear it.
My hands grip her hips, helping lift her up each time she bounces on my cock, not wanting her to work too hard.
I do as she asks, letting every moan and whimper leave my lips without restraint, each one louder than the other, because I love the way her eyes roll back into her head at the sound of them.
“Just like that,” she growls, quickening her pace as her hand leaves her panties to circle her clit.
I’m a goner, I think. If my racing heart, which somehow has to do with nothing that’s happening right now and only because I’m gaping up at her, watching how beautiful she is like this, isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what is. I look at her, and my heart reacts every time.
What does that mean?
I want to drive her crazy. I want her writhing so much on top of me that she can’t take it anymore.
I need to hear those breathless moans leaving her lips.
The feeling overpowers everything else in me, making any anxiety or lack of self-confidence fizzle away as something else takes its place.
Something so all-consuming, I feel like I’m going crazy.
“You’re so hot,” I whine out, one of my hands letting go of her hip to travel up her body, caressing every curve it can find before gently taking her neck in my fingers and pulling her down to me.
Her lips smash into mine with a whimper, and as I swallow it down, I lift her up, thrusting into her and giving her a little break.
“Oh, fuck,” she squeaks, gritting her teeth as she takes every inch of me. “Fuck baby, yes. Harder.”
Baby.
God, I love that.
I waste no time doing as she says, pistoning into her as hard as I fucking can as I press gentle kisses to her lips, which fall open as she struggles to catch her breath.
She’s clenching around my cock in no time, and that alone has me twitching with an orgasm in seconds, spilling inside her just as she reaches her climax.
Maeve collapses on top of me, her face pressed into my neck as our chests heave in sync with each other. Wrapping my arms around her, I brush her hair away from her sweaty neck, running my fingers through it as I press a lazy kiss to her forehead.
“I…”
My eyes widen as my throat constricts.
“What?” she asks softly.
How could I even begin to tell her my head and my body weren’t communicating properly and I was just about to blurt out that I love her? I can’t say that. I didn’t even know I did until I… Until I almost blurted it out, like it was nothing. Like I say it all the time.
Is that how you know?
When the words just want to pour out of you?
“I don’t know,” I backpeddle. “My mind is mush.”
Maeve just laughs, a melodic sound that vibrates against my chest as she cuddles up to it, and I blink up at the ceiling, wondering if I’ve actually fallen in love with her.
Statistics, facts… None of that helps when it comes to this.
None of that can tell me what I’m feeling right now.
I have nothing to prepare me for dealing with this, this overwhelming weight that feels good, and for the first time in my life, not having that control doesn’t send me into a spiral.
Instead, it feels like something just clicked into place.
Something that wasn’t there before. I feel… whole.
I feel like I may be in love with Maeve Gray.