Inside Out Read online

  “Is that what you think?”

  “You seem to have managed just fine.”

  “If I had managed, I wouldn’t have driven by your place every night. I wouldn’t have gone to the ANM every night hoping you would show up there. I wouldn’t have followed members of your study group around the library hoping they would lead me to you. Hell, I wouldn’t have begged you to come get me tonight.” Tracey didn’t mention that he’d never actually begged her to do anything. Rett was not the begging sort. “What I’m telling you, Trace, is that I can’t stay away from you. And I have this feeling that it may be the same for you.”

  “That’s pretty conceited of you.”

  “Deny it,” he dared her. She hated when he was like this. So aggressive, so smug, so…sexy.

  Tracey loved diversionary tactics. “You hungry?”

  “No, but I haven’t eaten all day so I guess I should have something.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen. He followed her.

  “Why aren’t you eating?”

  “I don’t know, I guess I’ve just had a lot of stuff on my mind.”

  She glanced at him, then opened her refrigerator and stared, not really seeing the contents. She just needed somewhere else to focus her attention. She grabbed a beer.

  “Can I get one?”

  She tossed him a bottle. He tapped the top before he opened it. He still stood there staring at her. Staring at her and drinking. “What is it?”

  “What?”

  “Why do you keep staring at me?”

  “I can’t help it.”

  Tracey ignored this. “What do you want,” she hesitated, “to eat?”

  He paused for a millisecond. His eyes were lazy on her. He smiled. “Doesn’t matter. Like I said, I’m not really hungry.”

  Tracey thought about the pre-packaged tortellini in her cabinet. Quick and easy. The problem was that Garrett was standing beneath the cabinet and she wasn’t too keen on being close to him right then. The way he watched her was downright feral.

  “When you asked me if that was all I wanted to apologize for—Charles, that is—was there something else you had in mind?”

  “Nope,” she answered.

  “Was it my absence?”

  Tracey shrugged.

  “Did you miss me?”

  She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.

  “Was it the way I touched you?” he prodded gently. She didn’t look at him. Her stomach tied itself in knots and she developed an obsessive desire to wipe the blurry spots off the side of her chrome toaster.

  “No.”

  “I think it was.” His voice was low, caressing. “I think the way I touched you made you nervous, the same way I’m makin’ you nervous right now.”

  “You’re not making me nervous,” Tracey retorted. And, as if to prove it, she decided to go for the pasta. She didn’t care how close she got to him because she was not one to back down from a challenge. She should have been. When she brushed against him, her breath caught for the nth time that night and her eyes sought his.

  “You’re surprised?”

  She could barely speak. Her whole body sang with electricity and she thought she was going to melt into a warm puddle any second. She stared at him a tense moment and finally said, “How long have you been like that?”

  “I think maybe ever since I met you. I know I’ve been like this ever since that night. You remember, don’t you, Tracey? The next morning we woke up and pretended to be asleep. Or that other night, the night when you finally let me touch you after I had waited for so long. The same night I wanted to make love to you so bad I could taste you.”

  Mute, Tracey just stood there with an ache and fire building between her legs.

  He moved closer to her and she waited for him to kiss her. “Can I, Tracey?” he begged. She looked up into his beautiful eyes. “Can I taste you?” Tracey began to shake her head, but he didn’t allow her to. He chose that time to kiss her. His mouth was so warm, too warm, hot. His hands, however, were cool. He laid one on her back beneath her sweater, and the other beneath the waist of her skirt. He was trying his luck at a surprise attack. It was working. His soft tongue flicked, then teased. His lips sucked softly on hers. His teeth nibbled gently, and then he sat back and looked at her expectantly.

  Tracey finished the rest of her beer, then, spying his on the counter behind her, finished that one, too. He grinned slyly. “What are you afraid of, Trace? I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  “You sound like a pedophile. ‘Come on in, little girl. I’ve got some candy.’ ” He laughed again—she was glad to know she was amusing him—but Tracey was a little terrified. “I mean, do you really want to do this?”

  He pressed the whole length of his body against hers. “Can’t you tell?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean, I mean, you know what I mean…I mean this is not… You’ve got a girlfriend.”

  “Come on, Tracey. Kim is sleeping with Charles, for one thing, and I don’t even care. And why is that? Because I don’t want her. To be honest, I haven’t wanted anybody but you for God knows how long, and I know you want me.”

  “I don’t,” she lied. He responded by licking a moist line from her collarbone to her throat up all the way to her chin and over her lips. Tracey felt like she was having a heart attack. There was no other explanation…well, maybe a stroke. A chill ran right up her spine, she could barely stand, and her breath was ragged. Something had to give. She tried to ignore him, just not respond. Maybe then he would leave her alone. No such luck. His hand tangled in her hair and he kissed her again, making her altogether dizzy.

  This time, she had the strength to pull away. “Listen.” He started in on her neck. Her neck was her weak spot and he seemed to know it. “What’ll we say?”

  “Nothing, it’s our business.” He did not let up on her neck and she found herself squirming. Tracey was not being very assertive. She didn’t want to be assertive. She wanted everything he wanted. She wanted to be a consenting adult. “Don’t make me stop,” he murmured, “please don’t.”

  Tracey didn’t answer him. She just led him by the hand out of the kitchen and into her bedroom. Inside, she turned and slipped his shirt over his head. Garrett didn’t hesitate to put his arms up and allow her. When she dropped it to the floor, her lips pressed to the chest she had wanted to touch ever since she’d first seen him without a shirt. Her fingers caressed the hard muscles lined up and down his stomach, and electricity seemed to leap from them into her hands as she felt them contract involuntarily at her touch. And those arms, those beautiful arms. Tracey slowly sank her teeth into the firm flesh, running her tongue over the skin trapped between them. She crawled over him as he lay back on her bed. Then she slipped his pants down his long, pretty legs. She decided that they were actually more like soccer legs than tennis legs, either one just as appealing. She slid back up towards him, letting her hands explore the silky down covering him. She stopped midway and gave him a delicate lick.

  He groaned and his hips flexed.

  She slithered up his body and kissed him softly, tentatively. Without hesitation, his lips responded to hers and his hands clasped her face to his. Again, fear roiled hotly in her stomach. He rolled on top of her, and there was nothing tentative about it.

  Slowly he started to undo her shirt, and that’s when she started talking, “I cannot believe we’re doing this. I don’t even—”

  “Quiet, Tracey,” he grated and slipped the shirt off her shoulders. He unbuttoned her pants and pulled the zipper down. “Lift up,” he said in a sort of doctorly tone. She closed her eyes. He pulled her jeans and panties down. Then he ran his hands reverently over her legs.

  “You have gorgeous legs, baby. You should wear skirts every day.”

  He slipped up her body, kissing her belly, then the skin above the line of her bra while he pressed his thumb into her heat. “Scratch that. Your whole body is so sexy, you should stay naked.” He reached over to his pants, which wer
e lying on the floor, and pulled a condom out of his pocket.

  “I see you came prepared.”

  “I haven’t come at all yet,” he returned huskily. He kissed her stupid while a hand slipped between her legs to promote liquid acquiescence.

  When she moaned out loud, unable to stop the sound from bursting from her lips, he smiled widely. If she weren’t already lying down, her knees would have buckled and Tracey would have fallen down. She felt her stomach wobbling.

  Within seconds he had covered her body with his, and she burned and stretched as he pushed inside her slowly, filling her. She let out a moan; it felt so good she couldn’t help it. Then when he moved, God, she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, she couldn’t do anything but feel it. It was like nothing else in life. In a single moment of clarity, her eyes widened and she could see him lick his lips, could hear the rush of his breath. Reflexively, she started to wind her waist and hips, meeting every delicious gift of his body with passion. His pale skin pressed into her dark skin and she saw that she still wore her bra. That erotic picture playing in her mind made it difficult to breathe. Every time he retreated, only to bury himself deeper and harder within her once more. He tore her soul apart and all she could do was make it easier for him to do it.

  And when she felt it start—when she felt herself reaching that precipice, her cries shrill and broken, every nerve in her body singing with glory—she tried to slow it down, she tried to hold out, but she couldn’t. She dug her fingers into the small of his back and rocked against him as hard and as fast as she could.

  He wrapped her hair in his fist and pumped harder, taking everything until she arched like a bow, every muscle in her body squeezed, paralyzed, until she started to shake from the violent climax. But he didn’t stop. He kept going until he grunted hard and his movements became shallow. Then he collapsed over her from his own orgasm.

  Moments later they were lying side by side, breathing heavily, and sweating. “That was… I haven’t… I mean, it’s been a while.” Tracey didn’t know what she was saying.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  They lay there for more moments than she could remember. The silence didn’t break until she got the giggles.

  After giving her a brief, lovely kiss, he asked, “What’s so funny?”

  “Whatever happened to foreplay?” Laughter bubbled all the way up out of her stomach.

  Garrett scratched his head and licked his lips. “Hell, Tracey, I thought that’s what we’ve been having for weeks.”

  He rolled over onto his side to face her. He studied her intently before bending his head toward hers and pressing his lips to her lips, softly, as if he were kissing a baby or some other something that was more precious and more fragile than Tracey ever imagined herself to be. And she felt her eyes close, the breath ease all out of her again, and her limbs became warm liquid. He kissed her long, without the hurry of only moments before. His hand found its way up to lie against her cheek. His gentle licking and sucking made her want to—at once—show him how much he was making her want him all over again and to be still so as not to upset this tenuous, surreal atmosphere. Just as gently as they came, his lips retreated and for hushed seconds he only looked at her. Then one hand, one smooth hand was placed flat against her stomach. It stroked her flesh, leaving tingles in its wake. Slowly, that hand moved down to fit over the curve of her hip, down further to grasp her thigh as he slid it up to lay over his. They both watched his hand there playing against her sensitive skin.

  His lips found her collarbone and gently traced it. They moistened a path down the center of her chest as he unhooked her bra. Her breasts were heavy and sensitive, anticipating the attention he would pay them. Reverently he pressed his cheek against them. His bristly jaw was rough, causing her skin to prickle. She felt her nipples growing taut, and he saw it. It was as if that was all he was waiting for. His tongue flashed out over one tip, then the other, making her back arch involuntarily. With torturous focus, his tongue circled each nipple, still not taking them fully into his mouth. He raked his teeth over her overly sensitive peaks and the gasp slipped out before she could stop it. Her hands automatically clung in his hair and finally, finally he stopped teasing her and kissed her, creating a new throb. As he drew her in with his mouth, his deft fingers slipped beneath her thigh and he cradled the heart of her in his hands, frustrating her as his palm moved tightly against her. Her thigh slid higher on his hip to give in to him even more. Then his mouth left its torturous post at her chest and came again to claim hers. He held her tightly as he kissed the life away from her and performed black magic between her legs. Tracey groaned when he pulled his hand away and stopped kissing her.

  He turned her over so that he was presented with her back and moved close enough to her for her to feel the lines of his body against hers. She felt his love bites all over her shoulder blades. She felt his moist, hot tongue travel the length of her spine, moving low against her body. She felt his kisses on the backs of her knees, on her calves, and she found that she could no longer be still.

  When he moved up her body again to kiss her neck, she raised her body up to meet his. In a motion as natural as time, he slipped inside of her and she arched from the pleasure. He pushed again and she tossed her head back. One hand slipped beneath her to cup one of her breasts and he bent low to kiss the back of her neck. She tilted her hips back against him more, so that she kept him with her. She twisted her head and he captured her lips in a quick kiss before he pulled back and grabbed her hips. His next stroke was so deep that she shrieked. The next was still deeper. Tracey closed her eyes and bit her lip, sucking in at the pleasure ricocheting through her body, at the feeling of Garrett within her.

  * * *

  “No,” Tracey breathed, moving his hand from her hip. She couldn’t be touched anymore. She felt like she had no skin. Her whole body was a bundle of raw nerves and every touch, no matter how light was too much to process. She put a hand to her forehead, smoothing her hair away from her sweaty brow. Her whole body was hot and sweaty and Tracey had a feeling that those sheets were just as damp as she was. Finally, her breathing returned to normal.

  “Is it okay to touch you now?”

  “I don’t think so,” she teased. His response was to lay his big, wet body on her and nearly crush the life out of her. She gleefully pushed him off.

  “Don’t ever ask me for foreplay again. Ever. You don’t really want it. I mean, I was just getting warmed up and what did you do?”

  She put a pillow over his head and turned her back to him. It wasn’t long before his arm snaked over her and he pulled her close. In the perfect fit, it didn’t take long for sleep to set in. The last thing Tracey remembered was Garrett pulling the covers over them and turning out the light. The next thing she knew, it was four-thirty in the morning and he was gently nudging her awake.

  “Tracey,” he whispered. “I need to go back to the apartment.”

  She turned over groggily, trying to make out his features in the dark. “Why?”

  “I don’t have a change of clothes, for one,” he replied. Then, adding venom she didn’t know he possessed, he added, “And I know you’re not going to want to take me to school in the morning.”

  That sound, the sound of his voice, the edge of anger, glazed her over in ice. She shook away that feeling and the quick stinging in her eyes and sat up. She slowly nodded. Even in the dark, she could feel his eyes. It was a timeless moment as he pressed one hand to her left breast, rubbing a thumb gently over her puckered nipple. Tracey moaned. He leaned down to taste it once more. She slipped her fingers into his hair.

  “Damn,” he grunted before he pulled away. Then he stood, and seeing his beautiful body again—that perfect V from shoulders to waist—Tracey felt her own response. She balled her hands up into fists as her fingers itched to touch him. She needed him again, but for the life of her, she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t let him know how much she wanted him, couldn’t move those few feet to touch him an
d be touched. It was ridiculous, she knew. They had just been as intimate as any woman and man could be, and yet there she was, in the grips of a psychosomatic paralysis. And Tracey knew what it was that held her back: she had no right to promise something for which he’d been wise enough not to ask. And that was the very moment, she could pinpoint it, when her heart started breaking.

  Chapter 12

  They didn’t say anything to each other on the way back to his apartment, nor when he got out. Tracey watched him go. He walked into the building without turning back. She didn’t pull off right away, thinking he might just get inside, then come right back out again to come home with her. Foolish thought. She pushed back in her seat. Thoughts came and went. She rolled down her window and smoothed her hands over her face. The air was frigid, the sky featureless, the moon and stars having been pocketed by the late autumn dark. Tracey could still feel him in there. Inside her. Soreness and lingering pleasure combined at her core. She listened carefully. There was a train somewhere. Its soft moaning lulled her. She heard cars purring softly into the lot.

  Flashes of that evening ran through her mind: the phone call—specifically, the sound of him calling her baby—the way he’d shielded her from his roommates, the way he didn’t allow her to deny herself. The force of the first time they came together, the sweetness of the second, and the way falling asleep in his arms felt like forever. But she couldn’t stop the chorus looping in the back of her mind. I don’t want this to be forever. This cannot be my forever.

  Finally, it seemed to dawn on her that in all probability, someone was out there wondering what she was doing. She pulled off. By the sheer grace of God, Tracey was able to fall asleep once more that night when she got home.

  She didn’t see Garrett at all that next day. Usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays she would at least see him out on the lawn, but that Thursday it was raining harder than it had in a very long time. Heavy, swollen drops pounded down on her car as she tried to ease her way home through heavy and relentless after-school traffic. When she got home, she was soaked but didn’t change right away. She sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor in her damp clothes with the window open, enjoying the scent and sound of the rain. Tracey tried to ignore her skin, cold and raw and wrapped in the wet and abrasive cloth. She tried to lose herself in the perfume of wet earth and bark, the constant drumming, like a mother’s heartbeat. She needed to accept that she had officially crossed a line with Garrett and that it was best they never make love again. Is that what they’d done? There was a part of her that had been wondering where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with all day long. But she didn’t text him, and she found herself depressed that he hadn’t texted her. This was making her nervous, not nervous as in anticipation but nervous as in breakdown.