Never forever calico cov.., p.7
Never Forever (Calico Cove), page 7
I fucking wanted her. I needed her.
“Hey,” she breathed as I kissed my way down her neck.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go to your truck.”
“What?”
“Your truck. I want you.”
I leaned back, her words not totally registering with me.
She smiled shyly. “Let’s have sex.”
“In my truck?”
“It’s either that or there is the buoy closet. But that would smell really fishy.”
Right. Yeah. Of course. “Oh, okay. Are you sure?”
“So sure,” she nodded.
8
When They Made Love
Matt
We ran for the truck. I couldn’t do it in the parking lot of the ferry, so I drove us to a special place. A place that was ours.
The bandshell.
“Where we started,” she said, when she realized where I was going.
I didn’t know what I was doing. My experience was Carrie and Carrie only. And while I didn’t know a ton about sex, I knew everything about Carrie. I knew how she liked to be kissed. How she was ticklish at her waist, but at the top of her hips, right where the bone was ridge under the skin, she would gasp and moan when I kissed her there. She liked my fingers inside of her, my thumb against the hard nub it took me such a long time to find.
She wasn’t sold on me going down on her.
But tonight…I wanted everything. Every part of her. I didn’t think I’d ever have her back in my arms and now I was never going to let her go.
I pulled out the box of condoms I kept in the glove compartment and together we laid down on the bench seat of the truck.
I kissed my way down her breasts. Across her stomach, which was trembling and soft. I licked her belly button. I could feel the heat between her legs. I could smell it. Fuck. I’d never been so hard in all my life.
She wore black silky underwear which drove me insane. I kissed the skin right above the lace, and then, in a move so bold I couldn’t believe it was me doing it, I kissed the satin over her pussy. It was wet and salty and I licked it because I couldn’t stop myself.
She jumped, but I put a hand on her chest to hold her still.
“I have to,” I told her. “Let me.”
I looked up and found her eyes wide. Still watching her, I leaned down again and licked that damp spot, that salty sweetness. She exhaled so hard, her body curved. Her eyes went unfocused.
That’s good, I thought.
Somehow I managed to put the animal in me on a leash. All my wants right now got pushed aside and I made this about her.
In porn it looked so easy, and when I looked it up on Reddit, guys said some girls didn’t like it. I thought the guys who said that probably weren’t very good at doing it.
I was suddenly very invested in being great at going down on Carrie Piedmont.
Even if it took all night.
I tugged down her underwear until I could see the deep auburn curls between her legs. They were damp, dark. I groaned, so turned on by the smell of her I could barely keep that leash on what I wanted to do.
She still looked unsure.
“If you really don’t like it, I’ll stop,” I said.
“I’m just…embarrassed,” she said.
“Oh my God, if we’re talking about being embarrassed, I have you beat in that category.”
When we were together, I’d come in my pants. Twice. In her hand a dozen times. That one time on the windshield.
Once, on her mouth as she was about to go down on me. She said she loved it because it told her how much I wanted her. Which, yeah. Of course. She was the most beautiful woman in the world. But a little staying power wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I told her, kissing her belly button again. “I love it. I love all of this. I…love you.”
She looked at me over her pretty black bra and her gorgeous tits and her perfect stomach.
“I love you too,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears and I felt like a sword had run right through my guts.
“No. No. Why are you crying?” I asked, lunging up from between her legs to kiss the tears from her cheeks, licking the salt from my lips.
“Because what I feel for you…it’s so big. And I thought I’d lost you.”
She took a deep breath that shuddered and I held her as close as I could, as hard as I could. I couldn’t imagine loving anyone the way I loved her right now. I wanted to love her like this forever.
“I’m never letting you go again,” I said. It was a promise.
A vow.
She wiped away her tears and I kissed my way back down her body, sucking her nipples through the lace of her bra. Which she loved. She loved it more when I bit her. Just a little.
“Oh my God, Matt,” she sighed, her hips lifting against my thigh.
I got down between her legs again. Her underwear gone. I lifted one thigh so it rested over my shoulder and I spread the lips of her pussy wider. She whimpered.
“Good?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
I could see everything. All of her. The opening of her body. Her clit. She was pink and perfect and I licked and sucked every bit of her. She twitched and moaned and I figured out what she liked best. What worked for her and what didn’t.
“Yes. Matt,” she gasped, her hands on my shoulders and then my hair. Then she was holding me still while she lifted her pussy against my face. Like she was out of control. Like she was using me.
Part of my brain went dark. I felt like a feral animal. She cried out, shaking against me.
“Yes,” she cried. “Oh my God. There. Right…fucking there, Matt.”
There was my tongue against her clit and my finger in her pussy. She came.
She came and I could taste it.
“God, Matt,” she said when her body had stilled. She lay, sweaty and crumpled on the seat of the truck. Flushed and…pornographic.
I had a flash in my brain of all the things I wanted to do to her. I wanted to fuck her tits. Come on her chest. Her face. I wanted to flip her on her stomach and touch her asshole. I wanted to drive my dick into her mouth…
It was like sex on steroids, but I knew I couldn’t do any of that. I had to go slowly. This was the first time for both of us and I wasn’t an animal.
“Here,” she breathed, and sat up. She tore open the condom and I pulled off my shorts and boxers. I clenched my teeth and my fists hard, praying for control as she figured out how to put the condom on me.
“Oops,” she said and rolled the condom back up. “I don’t think…”
I pushed her hands away, bit my lip and got the condom on myself. This was happening. It needed to happen.
“Are you okay?” I asked, clinging to whatever control I had left.
“Yes. Matt, it’s good. I’m ready. Are you?” she asked and laid down.
Her eyes were bright, that smile on her lips made me want to make her come again. Made me want to show her all the ways I could make her come. Make it so no one in her life would ever make her come like me…
“I want to…”
“Fuck me,” she said.
Control snapped. I spread her legs out wide and pressed the head of my dick to that sweet tender opening of her body. That heavenly fucking…
She whimpered.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, my eyes screwed shut. My hands in fists beside her hips.
“No. No…it’s good. Just…”
It was too late. She said good and it was all I heard. I shoved myself inside of her. It was like being clutched in a hot wet fist. I couldn’t breathe. My brain was empty.
“Carrie,” I breathed, my eyes still screwed shut. I pulled out a little and pushed back in. There was nothing ever in my life that would feel as good as Carrie’s body. She was hot, wet, tight heaven. “Carrie,” I kept saying. I pulled out again and thrust harder, feeling her shake against me.
“Matt,” she said, and put her hand on my shoulder, her fingernails, painted a bright red for the dance, sank into my shoulder and that was it. That bit of pain mixed with the pleasure of my first time with the love of my life, pulled me under.
Explosions filled my body. My brain. I lifted her thigh again so I could press all the way inside of her. My hips tight to hers. I came so hard, I worried about the condom.
I came so hard I worried I might never be able to walk again.
When I could, I opened my eyes.
She was crying. Tears running in a stream from her eyes into her hair.
“Carrie! Fuck, did I hurt you?” I breathed, horror filling the places the pleasure had carved out of me.
“It’s okay,” she said with a smile. “It’s supposed to the first time.”
“No, I fucking hurt you.” I pulled out and there was blood on the condom. Blood on her thighs.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. With my fingers shaking I touched the blood. Tried to rub it off but only smeared it. I grabbed my boxers. “Carrie, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Stop,” she said and grabbed my hand. Her smile was huge and I wanted to believe it but… the blood. “Matt. Honestly. Stop. Sometimes girls bleed. And sometimes it hurts. But I loved it.”
“You didn’t come.”
“I don’t think that ever happens the first time. Besides, you already made it happen for me before. It was good, Matt. It was amazing.”
“No, I’ll make it better for you. Every time,” I told her. “I’ll never lose control like that again.”
She smiled. “What if I want you to lose control?”
Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t survive hurting her again.
We cleaned ourselves up and got back to the ferry. We were a solid twenty minutes late for the last ferry run, but no one was waiting. Carrie was the only one who needed to be taken home.
I drove us across the open water and she stood behind me with her arms around my waist, her head pressed to my back.
“I feel different,” she said.
“Me too,” I said.
“How?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. Tried to think about how other people talked about love. All the ways the books I’d read described it.
“I feel whole.”
“Yeah. That’s how I feel, too.”
It didn’t matter what happened, I decided. What her mother did or didn’t do. What my dad thought or not.
Carrie was mine and I was hers. This wasn’t just some high school romance. This was it for me. I knew it deep in my soul.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to change that.
9
When It All Started to Fall Apart
Senior Year
Matt
“You won!” Carrie cried directly into my ear. “You freaking won, Matt!”
I was dimly aware of some pictures being taken.
But most of my attention was on Carrie’s legs wrapped around my waist and trying to get my breath back. The 1500 was my strongest event, but I’d run it like I wasn’t already ten points ahead of the guy behind me. I was shooting for a personal best.
“That’s a new state record!” The announcer cried, his voice crackling over the PA. “Matt Sullivan of Calico Cove just set a new state record in the decathlon, thanks to that epic run. With his time he would have placed in the top three for that single event. For his senior year, Matt Sullivan is really going out with a bang. I can’t wait to see what he does at Boston University ”
Carrie dropped her legs from around my waist and would have stepped back, but I hung onto her.
“Just…give me a second,” I whispered into her hair. Just a second to catch my breath and get a handle on my emotions. Holding her helped.
“Oh, Matt,” she sighed and hugged me tight.
My event had been the last of the day so the meet was officially over.
Much of the crowd had already left and it was just the friends and family of the athletes left. The giant stadium was quiet. Almost peaceful.
I was kind of floating above my body, the pain in my hips and calves were distant. Something I’d deal with later. For now it was just me and Carrie and a really big victory.
“Matt!”
Carrie stepped back only so my dad could come up and bear hug us both. “What a run, boyo!”
“Thanks Dad,” I said. Wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing the top of his head. “Means a lot.”
He kissed my sweaty head and Carrie’s beautiful one and stood back and beamed at us both.
After the dance, and once Dad understood that I was serious about Carrie, he’d dropped all the warnings and opened the door to her. The bottom line was, I loved Carrie, so he loved her. One night he insisted Carrie come over for Sunday dinner and she had been at every Sunday dinner ever since.
“Matt?”
It was James Johnson, the head coach from Boston University. The man who, at the beginning of the season, had come to see me compete. The man who had changed my life by offering me a scholarship.
He would be my coach next year and I was still a little star struck by him. Still a little unbelieving that I’d made the series of decisions that would take me out of Calico Cove and right into the heart of Boston.
“What a run!” He shook my hand, a grin splitting his face.
My high school coach, Coach Jenkins, came trotting over with the two other guys from our school who qualified for state. There was back slapping and hugs and it was officially too many people standing around me. I was raw and emotional, and it was an overload situation.
“Hey!” Carrie said. “I’m going to walk with Matt to the locker rooms. He needs to get in an ice bath pronto. We’ll see you all at dinner?”
Dad grinned at Carrie, knowing what she was doing. And maybe the coaches did too, because they let us walk off without a problem.
“What would I do without you?” I asked her, squeezing her hand.
“You’ll never need to find out,” she said.
Because we had a plan. She was coming with me to Boston. We put a down payment on an apartment on Ivy Street. Her agent was going to try to get her local work in plays and maybe some ad spots, while I went to school and ran track.
Neither of us could believe how lucky we were.
“Matt,” she said later that night in the bed of the truck. We were parked out behind the bandshell. It wasn’t that we needed to hide our relationship anymore. At least from my dad. This was just our spot. Our peace of heaven.
My hip flexor was killing me, so if she wanted sex we were going to need to be creative, but I would have to be dead not to want to lay with her in the back of this truck. Her arms around me. Her legs tangled with mine. The rest of my team were all off getting drunk.
I was getting drunk on her.
“I’m really proud of you.”
“I’m proud of you,” I said and kissed her head.
She laughed. “What in the world are you proud of me for?”
“Because you’re amazing. You’re smart, funny, brave...”
“Stop it. You’re ridiculous,” she said. She tapped her fingers on my shoulder, tracing the edge of my muscle where it ran into my bicep. I put my hand over hers.
“What?” I asked. Because that little tapping thing was her tell. She was nervous about something. Working up the nerve to tell me something.
“I’m not brave. At all,” she said quietly. “I…haven’t told my mom.”
“About what?”
“About…Boston.”
Slowly, I sat up. She had no choice but to sit up too. Her eyes were miles from mine.
“What do you mean?” I asked her. “We’re going to be living together.”
We had an apartment. We signed a lease. We put money down.
“She knows I’m going to Boston but she doesn’t know I’m going with you.”
I blinked, stunned. I didn’t know what to say. We were literally leaving at the end of the month.
“Don’t be mad,” she said in a rush.
“What should I be?” I asked her. Because I was mad. Hurt, too. And now worried. If Cecelia didn’t know about us going to Boston together, then she hadn’t been actively trying to talk Carrie out of anything.
Once she did know, that would change. I had assumed Carrie had already had that battle.
But you didn’t ask her. Not directly.
Was that because, deep down in my gut I didn’t want to know how it went? Or because I knew that Carrie was telling the truth, that after all this time her mother still didn’t know about us. That we were in love, that we were fucking, that we were moving in together and I was going to marry her the minute we were ready.
“You know how she is,” Carrie whispered.
After the dance junior year, Carrie told her mom we were dating, and it had been an epic battle. She’d tried to send Carrie away for a billion auditions. She insisted on a curfew. The night of Prom she went to the hospital with mysterious stomach pains. Annie called Carrie and we went rushing to the emergency room.
Cecelia Piedmont tried over and over again to break us up, and yet, here we were. Stronger than ever.
Or so I thought.
“Yeah. But this is serious now. We’re serious.” We were starting our life and if she couldn’t tell her mom, what did that say about her faith in us? “Her opinion doesn’t matter. That’s what you said.”
“I know,” she said, rushing to try and hug me. I caught her hands, not ready to be hugged. “And it doesn’t.”
“Clearly it does. You need to tell her.”
“I’m going to tell her. I will. Tomorrow.”
I didn’t believe her. It was shocking, but I didn’t.
“Carrie? Are you embarrassed being with me?”
“No! Matt. God. No. Please don’t be mad,” she whispered. “It’s just hard with her, you know. I love her and I don’t want to upset her. But it seems no matter what I do, I can’t make her happy, either.”
“It can’t always be about her. You have to live your own life,” I said. I slid off the back of the truck. “We should get going. It’s getting late and she’ll worry.”
