Текст книги "How to Fall"

Автор книги: Rebecca Brooks

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

There were times to step out of your life and jump off a cliff and trust that the rope would hold you. And then there were times when the only thing to do was board a plane in Santiago and go home. Chris would know the difference, when the time came.

“I guess,” Jamie sighed as he threw down the last card in his hand.

When Jamie picked up the cards and asked Blake if he was up for one more, Blake knew he’d better turn in.

“Big day tomorrow,” Jamie said as he gathered up the bottle and glasses to bring inside.

“Gotta get to the bus station early,” Blake said.

“Don’t forget to enjoy it.”

“What?” Blake had no idea what he meant.

“The bus ride. Argentina. Wherever you go. You’re supposed to be enjoying it, remember?”

“You got it,” Blake said. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

The last thing he thought of before he fell asleep was Kelley’s face, lips parted, eyes flying open at the sound of the door. And the anger—the shock of that anger she held in her eyes. How had he missed that she’d been so angry with him?

But no, that wasn’t the last thought. Not really.

The last thought was Julia and her lips on the straw, eyes widening in pleasure and surprise as she sucked up sweet pineapple juice.

Chapter Ten

Wednesday

The sky was turning a deeper blue when the bus pulled out of the Foz do Iguaçu station, heading east for Rio. Julia bunched up a sweater to use as a pillow and tilted her seat back, closing her eyes. She would not be nervous. Still, it was going to be a long night.

She couldn’t believe she was really doing this. She was really going to another huge and unfamiliar city by herself, this time carrying not only the memory of her loneliness in São Paulo but what was, she had to admit, the most incredible chemistry she’d ever experienced in her life. She wanted to hate Blake, to kick and scream and yell and cry and tell him off for puffing her up and then cutting her down without so much as a good-bye.

But he’d been gone by the time she woke up that morning. And anyway, she had no words for him. Not really.

It wasn’t that she was angry so much as resigned. What, did she think that after he fucked her twice, he’d want to stick around and keep doing it again? A night and a day playing at being somebody else wasn’t going to turn her into the kind of woman who didn’t find herself alone.

The bus jerked out into traffic and shuddered to a stop. She heard the clank of the door opening, muffled conversation, footsteps coming up the steps—some last minute passenger. There were plenty of empty seats. She didn’t open her eyes. A whole day convincing herself she was having the time of her life on the Brazilian side of the falls had left her exhausted.

But there were other adventures ahead, she reminded herself for the millionth time that day. The whole point of a fling was that it ended. Period. Full-stop. Poof into memory, like a drop of water spiraling away. Like a cloud.

And now it was time to move on.

As if the driver heard her thoughts, the bus lurched forward again. She settled back in to sleep, only to be interrupted moments later by a tap on her shoulder.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

The voice was low and close to her ear. Her eyes flew open and her heart almost stopped.

Then she frowned.

“What are you doing here?” she said crossly.

“I don’t even get a hello?”

“You’re kidding.” Was she supposed to immediately fawn all over him because he had suddenly—what? Felt guilty? Wanted another piece of her ass?

“Well then, don’t mind if I do,” Blake said like he hadn’t heard her and sat down. “Plans change,” he added as he reclined the seat and stretched out his legs. “Don’t they?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one who suddenly had to get to Buenos Aires, after acting like you were completely free.”

“I didn’t.”

“Didn’t say that?” She practically laughed in his face. Julia may have wanted people to get along, but if Blake thought she was going to be some meek, mealy-mouthed pushover grateful for his dick and his non-apologies, he obviously didn’t know what it took to make a room full of tenth graders pay attention.

“No, I did, I just mean—” He was getting flustered now. It was incredibly satisfying to watch.

He tried again. “I mean that I didn’t have to get to Buenos Aires. I didn’t have to be anywhere. I don’t know why I said that I did.”

“I want to be clear, Blake. I’m not making you go anywhere. You can go to Rio, you can go to Argentina, you can go to the moon for all I care. But on Saturday I leave for Chicago, and that’s one plane ticket that’s not going to change.”

“I know,” he said. “Which is exactly why it would be so stupid of me to let you get away before then.”

Don’t do it, Julia scolded herself, but the heat was rising to her cheeks. It was like her blood vessels were completely disconnected from the rest of her. They went whooshing along for all the wrong reasons, straight from her heart to her thighs, with no concern for her brain.

“I didn’t ask you to come with me,” she tried again.

“You should have.”

“Why, so you could say no to my face in front of everyone?” This time it wasn’t hard for her to summon her irritation.

“No. So you could tell me I was being an idiot and to get over myself.”

“Yeah, like that would have gone over well,” she said, and now it was his turn to blush.

“Okay, I deserve that. I’m just not sure how to do this whole, whatever it is that we’re doing. Where it’s more than a night but in the end we still leave.”

There it was: honesty. Julia turned and looked out the window, where the last bit of light was slipping away. Behind them was the town, ahead of them nothing but dark fields and the deep purple silhouettes of the trees. Every so often the black was punctured by a beacon of light from a lone dwelling or a small cluster marking a village farther off the road.

“I didn’t think that was a reason not to enjoy it,” Julia said as she squinted at the lights whirring by. She wondered what it would be like to live in those houses—to live anywhere that wasn’t the life she’d always known.

“Yeah,” Blake said quietly. “That’s kind of what I was thinking, too.”

He didn’t need to know that Julia was never the one who talked about enjoying the moment and seeing what happened. She decided, like everything else on this trip, to just go with it.

His hand brushed the back of hers, as if trying out how her touch still felt. “How were the falls?” he asked.

“Okay,” she said, and then laughed. “No, that’s a lie. Spectacular, obviously.”

The endless chasm, the hurtling spray, the overpowering drumbeat of the falls matching time with her heart had reminded her that she didn’t come to Brazil to find a man. She’d come for this: the chance to live a few unscripted days overpowered by something so much larger than her own tidy corner of the world.

If Liz found out that she’d even thought about wallowing in the hostel dorm room eating bad melted-and-refrozen ice cream bars and reading about curriculum development, she’d drag her to the nearest Chicago singles bar and force her to dance, stat. It was only the thought of the depressing neon lights and terrible beats that had made Julia fill her water bottle and hail a cab.

And she was glad she did.

The view from Brazil emphasized the panorama of the river, crowned by the thundering Devil’s Throat. A walkway extended out over the river, and from there the waterfalls looked like slices of white through the lush green trees, piling one behind the other in a never-ending stream. Wringing water from her hair from the spray, the roar of the world in her veins, the rest of her life felt like a far-away dream. It was hard to imagine ever going back to Chicago, bundling up in warm layers, sliding on the ice, surrounding herself with stacks of papers at work, at home, in her bag, constantly reminding her of all she had to do.

And, okay, there was another truth, too. “It was also a little sad,” she finally admitted, and gave Blake a shrug as though apologizing for breaking the agreement where they both went their separate ways and neither one cared.

But he had broken it first, by getting on the bus. And then he broke it again, when he gently grazed his lips to her forehead.

“Sad is watching your ride to Argentina pull up.”

“That doesn’t sound bad.”

“And then watching it pull away while you’re still stuck on your ass in the station.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is pathetic,” she joked.

“I went to the roadside market that stretches across the border into Paraguay, a hundred and four degrees on the road in the sun and everyone’s trying to sell you broken radios from 1993 and refrigerator parts and hashish and, I don’t know, probably a child if you wanted. There’s no law enforcement there.”

“Another word: depressing. Aren’t you the writer? I should get you a thesaurus.”

“I thought that I could wander around by myself until I passed out from heat stroke and no one would find me or know who I was.”

“They’d see your passport.”

“I went back to the hostel to leave it in the safe.”

“Then yeah, that’s a lousy way to bite the dust.”

“That’s what I figured. So I came back to the station and cashed in my ticket for the bus coming here.”

“Rio with Julia: Better than Roadside Death.”

“It has a certain ring.”

“Thanks. But you were almost late,” she said. “You’re lucky the bus stopped for you.”

“It was a risk,” he said. “But a good friend once told me that everything’s a chance.”

“Everything?”

“Something like that.”

She thought it over. “I wasn’t planning on coming to the falls in the first place,” she said.

“But you’re glad you did.”

Julia frowned. “How would you know?”

“Your eyes,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I told you they give everything away.”

“What am I thinking now?”

He leaned in close, peering at her in mock concentration. “That you’re so lucky to have crossed paths with this dead sexy Australian guy.”

“Don’t quit your day job,” she snorted in his face. “Your mind reading skills need some work.”

But still, as the ride wore on and the bus lulled them with its steady motion, she found herself resting her head on his shoulder. His hand stroked her hair, a sort of absent-minded reflex. Like he was reassuring himself that she was there leaning against him, her fingers idly tracing the contours of his stomach, trying to remember this is real, this is real with each strike of her heart.

“I thought maybe I wasn’t going to find you,” he whispered in the dark.

“When?”

“When I got on the bus and didn’t see you anywhere. The best views are in the front, through the windshield, but you weren’t there.”

“It’s nighttime,” she said. “I wanted to rest.”

“And here I thought it was because all over the world, the cool kids universally know to sit in the back of the bus. How do they figure that out? Is there some code that’s implanted in everyone’s brain when they turn thirteen?”

Julia didn’t know. She’d never been the cool kid. She and Liz always sat together when they took the bus to school, too engrossed in their own world to care what anyone else was doing.

Until Liz decided she wanted to know the secrets of the boys who clustered in the back of the bus, behind the bleachers, under the stairwell after the tinny echo of the last bell faded through the halls. Julia had hovered on the outskirts of those cliques. “Somewhere in the middle of the bus” was how she would have described herself. Neither cool nor uncool. Neither here nor there. She’d gone to the back because she’d wanted to be alone, and now she was grateful for the cocoon of silence that covered both of them as the night rushed past. Even if she didn’t understand everything that was happening with Blake, she wanted him here, if only for this moment. For the time that she had.

The bus system in Brazil was well established and the ride surprisingly comfortable. It wasn’t crowded for the overnight and the seats were spacious, with plenty of legroom between each row. They reclined far enough that it was possible to get a decent night’s sleep without feeling packed in like a sardine. And the scheduled stops along the way offered the chance to walk around and see the countryside, which kept the bus cleaner, too. Julia thought Greyhound could learn a few tricks.

“Are you comfortable?” Blake asked. Julia nodded against him. The lights were off in the bus and everything was quiet except for the sound of the engine and the subtle snores of the people in the front, already nodding off. He pulled up a blanket to cover them and Julia lay against him, trying to sleep.

But despite the rocking of the bus and the soothing, quiet sounds of nighttime rolling by, it was impossible to doze off. It was too weird, this whole rollercoaster twisting inside her. She had no idea what to expect in Rio or what she and Blake were going to do the whole time. She’d barely been able to think about what she was going to do there on her own, telling herself she’d take it one step at a time. What if, without the rest of the group around them, they didn’t have anything to talk about? What if they got tired of each other after the first day and then she was left alone yet again? What if Blake decided he’d made a mistake in coming with her? What if she was making a mistake in spending any more time with him at all?

He kissed her forehead, as though to quiet her thoughts, and as if on instinct her lips searched his. The first kiss was tentative. Then searching. Then it was too much and Blake groaned.

“You’re not supposed to be able to do this to me,” he whispered, shifting in his seat.

“I didn’t know that I came with a rulebook,” Julia said, and then had to laugh at herself. If anyone followed the rules, it was her.

And she was pretty sure that her rulebook didn’t say “get ditched by your fling and then fall back into his arms on an overnight bus of all places.” The thought made her face burn. What would people say if they knew?

But what people? Who was she living for?

No one else was in her shoes. They weren’t hurtling through the Brazilian countryside at night, feeling the press of a warm body and making absolutely zero plans for what came next. It was scary to think that there weren’t any right answers here.

But that also meant that there weren’t any wrong answers, either.

This wasn’t a classroom. It was her life. There were no rules to follow. Everything was up to her.

It was like Blake had said in the pool. She really could get what she wanted. She just had to know what it was.

For once that part was easy, though. Julia knew there was no option of getting attached, but she was desperate to feel him again. A persistent ache was building between her legs, and knowing that Blake was feeling the same didn’t help. Every time she looked at him, every time his fingers brushed hers, she could feel it soft and wanting, a need that couldn’t be ignored.

They would finally be alone in the city, and she wasn’t sure how much she could hold on and pretend to be in control before she had to give up and throw herself at him completely.

To be in a hotel room, on a bed, no need to be quiet or to worry about being seen… The thrill of being caught had added an urgency to their fucking that reminded her of everything she loved about this trip—the danger and excitement as she tried to be somebody else.

But she couldn’t deny that now that she’d been given this last chance with him, she didn’t want any constraints. No worrying about time or other people or dirt on her hands and knees. She’d never been adventurous like this, had never done anything unconventional. She didn’t have sex standing up, or bent over, or in any way outside of a bed, lying on her back, looking up, wondering what the big deal was. It wasn’t that it had ever been unpleasant. It just hadn’t been anything special.

Now she wanted to know what else Blake could bring to the bedroom. What would it be like to have him on top of her, as she lay back into fluffy hotel pillows and let him go to town?

What she really wanted, she thought in the quiet darkness of the bus, was so surprising to her that she bit the inside of her cheek, wondering if she really craved what she thought she did. Did she really want to taste him, or was she telling herself that because she thought she should? It was possible that was simply something she wanted to do to check off her “Things Julia Doesn’t Do” list. Something reserved for this getaway that she wouldn’t otherwise seek out.

But the Julia she wasn’t was becoming more and more of the Julia she wanted to be—fun, sexy, spirited, alive. She didn’t just want to give Blake a blowjob. She wanted to want it, the way she wanted sex with him, period. The full giving in she felt when she stopped thinking about what she should and shouldn’t do, whether it was right or wrong, how silly she looked, how inappropriate it was, how much she was bound to get hurt. The giving in when she wanted more and more and still more of it, until she was no longer herself—but not because she was somebody else.

The thought of what was in store for them was making Julia’s pulse leap. In the darkness, she could barely make out the outline of Blake’s profile, resting with his eyes closed, his lips slightly open, the faint stubble down his jaw. She wondered if he was sleeping, but when she shifted against him, trying to force her reckless body to stop fixating on sex all the damned time, he opened his eyes to peek over and she felt the thrill that his gaze still had on her.

“I thought maybe you were asleep,” she murmured, trying to keep quiet enough not to disturb the other passengers. But none of them stirred.

“Not yet. Just resting. What were you thinking about?”

Julia couldn’t stop a smile from escaping, even though he couldn’t see it in the dark. “You,” she whispered.

The word hung between them, full of the longing she felt.

“I like the sound of that,” Blake finally said. “What about me?”

“Good things.”

“Such as?” He held her tighter. Teasing. Playing.

Julia glanced up the aisle. There were several rows between them and the next person, an older Brazilian woman traveling by herself. Her seat was back, and she wasn’t moving. Soft sounds came from her seat. She was definitely asleep.

Beyond that, Julia could only make out the shapes of heads reclining back, scattered with empty seats between them. She didn’t know if anyone spoke English, or whether they’d be able to hear over the hum of the engine, which was louder in the back and drowned out their words. She decided she could risk it.

“Such as everything I’m going to do to you once we’re in Rio,” she leaned over and whispered in his ear.

She felt him tighten against her. She knew the effect the words had. Her own body was equally on edge.

“Like what?” He shifted, trying to get more comfortable, trying to keep his voice low and relaxed like they were chatting about anything—sports or the weather or the waterfalls.

Anything but how they really felt.

Gently Julia leaned over and bit his bottom lip. That move had been the first thing she’d done that had really surprised herself, showing him that she was game and wanted more. Except that jumping in the pool with him in the first place had shocked her to her core.

Now she felt that same power pulsing through her, flirting and teasing, building the pleasure and anticipation so that by the time they arrived in Rio, there’d be nothing to do but find the nearest hotel room and throw off their clothes.

“Everything,” she breathed in his ear. His arm clenched around her.

“Don’t promise a man that unless you mean it,” he groaned quietly and Julia tried not to stir as she brushed her lips against the sensitive spot on his neck. She paused, but nothing changed in the night except the subtle shifts of their breathing. The bus drove on. The night rolled by.

“There are some things we haven’t done yet,” she whispered, sure no one was looking at them.

Blake shifted in his seat to face her and slid his arm across her stomach, under the blanket that covered them. His fingers grazed the top of her shorts, finding the edge of her panties.

“I know,” he whispered, his breath hot in her ear, making her want him even more. His touch wasn’t helping her calm her thoughts, but she had only herself to blame. She had started this. Now the ache between her legs was so intense, she wasn’t sure she could take it. Involuntarily she spread her thighs, sliding one leg over his.

“There are things I want to do to you,” she said softly, trying to meet his eyes in the flicker of lights from the road and the soft spread of the moon coming through the window.

It seemed like Blake tried to speak but all he could do was groan. Inwardly, Julia danced with delight at the thought that he wanted her like she wanted him. It wasn’t that she didn’t like giving head; it was more that she’d hardly had the occasion to practice. It always seemed so fraught with her and Danny. He didn’t want to do anything that he feared would seem degrading, or that she might not enjoy. No matter how much she insisted that she wanted to—and she did—he remained convinced that she was only doing it because she thought she had to please him. Nothing she could say would convince him that she knew her own desires and was capable of acting on them.

They’d gotten together when they were so young, Julia realized, and he treated her like a child the whole time. Like someone breakable, who might suddenly change her mind.

She realized later, of course, that it wasn’t only because of his fears about her. It was also his fears about himself. His fear of pleasure. Of letting go. Of enjoying her body too much. It was only now with Blake, as the night rolled by, that Julia knew how much she and Danny had both missed out on by holding themselves back. Now it was the letting go that she wanted, the loss of control, the terrified, elated surrender of their bodies that was wonderful, not wrong.

She had given Blake her body, had taken him inside her, had felt the pleasure pushing through her so strong it made her scream. She wanted to see how far they could go together, how they could push each other. She wanted to know what he would feel like in her mouth, taste like on her tongue. Under the blanket, she spread her legs wider for him.

They were resting side by side like any two people sitting on an overnight ride, but underneath, Blake’s hand was moving. Slowly, imperceptibly, he undid her button and slid her zipper down. She glanced up at him, at his smile, and leaned her head back in the seat. His hand slid under her panties, his knuckle grazing her open fly. She worked her shorts down slightly over her hips, enough to give his hand free reign. Her clit jumped immediately to greet him. Once she had been so shy, so difficult to find, but it was hard to feel anything but open with Blake. He exhaled at her wetness and kissed her ear, sliding in, sliding out, forming the small circles that made her hips dance.

Julia lay back and closed her eyes. She felt nothing but the night wrapping her in darkness and the fine pressure of joy that snaked all the way up her belly, her spine, down her limbs, straight to her heart. Blake had found that perfect spot that kept her at his mercy, and he was working it with a steady, even rhythm, down the sensitive side and over the top, fast enough to build her pleasure, slow enough to make her toes curl.

Her thighs tightened, her leg pressing down on his. Her breath caught and she exhaled, then held her breath again. She gripped the side of the seat, eyes pinched shut, trying to keep her breathing quiet and even. Like someone sleeping, even though she was very much awake.

The circle of pleasure tightened and tightened until it was a pinprick at the very tip of her clit. It felt as though time stood still, the bus stopped moving, her heart stopped pumping, and she floated away. The darkness took her and she gave herself to it. For one brief timeless second she was a drop of water hurtling over the edge, suspended.

And then she crashed.

Into the rocks, into herself, into the night, and into Blake’s hand.

He kept circling, vigorously now, holding nothing back as she tightened and jumped against him. Her legs clenched, she held her breath, and she came so hard and so silently it felt like everything turned inward, the waves redoubling on themselves, the pleasure so hot it was searing.

He worked his finger over her clit as the waves came, and when she finally subsided, slack in the seat beside him, he cupped his palm gently over her. She could feel the heat radiating as her pulse leaped between her legs.

After a while, she lowered her leg down from where it had been draped over him and he slid his hand out, resting it on her belly. She rolled her head to one side, trying to keep her breathing steady like she was sleeping. Trying not to keep smiling into the night.

“Did you come?” he asked, so soft the words were more of a shape than a sound in her ear.

She turned toward him, holding his arm, her shorts still unzipped, his hand on her hip, and tried not to look too incredulous.

“Couldn’t you feel me?” she asked.

“Yes,” he admitted. “But was it good?”

She let a laugh escape. She felt lightheaded, her limbs like jelly from how hard she had clenched—and then unclenched. “I don’t think yes is a good enough answer for some things.”

“As long as it was good.”

She kissed him on the mouth. Slow, wet, deep. “I want you,” she whispered in his ear.

“You’ll have me,” he assured her. “In Rio.”

She shook her head. “I can’t wait that long.”

Blake laughed quietly. “You’ll disturb the old lady in row seventeen.”

Julia paused, taking the temperature of the night once again. The woman in row seventeen wasn’t stirring anytime soon.

Julia slid her hand under the blanket. He was hard as a rock, straining against the front of his shorts.

“Wait,” he hissed, grabbing her wrist. But Julia shook her head adamantly. If this were Danny, she would have listened. Sat back demurely in her seat. Held his hand. Done the things good girls were supposed to do instead of taking charge and taking what she wanted.

But this wasn’t Danny. And she wasn’t the same Julia anymore.

She strained her arm against him, and he had to work to keep her from touching him. “You can’t stop me,” she whispered. “I want to.”

The bid for power over whether her arm was snaking down his shorts or sliding back to her side was turning her on, reminding her of how strong he was when he let go and drove his weight into her, and yet how gentle he remained afterwards.

“I just meant wait a second,” Blake whispered, letting her hand drop onto his rock-hard cock. “Switch places so I’m on the inside, away from the aisle.”

“Oh. I was afraid you were trying to deny me.”

“I know better than to stand in your way.” He grinned, and in the cover of darkness they shifted places in the back of the bus. Nothing untoward, should anyone happen to see. Just a woman who wanted the aisle seat, or a man eager for the window instead.

Would the people who saw them think they were dating? A long-term couple traveling, like Jamie and Chris? The thought was sort of exciting. Yet another way she was fooling the world into thinking she was someone she wasn’t—or at least had never been before.

Blake settled into the window seat and she sat down where he’d been. Now if anyone looked back, they’d see only her leg visible from the aisle, not anything having to do with his lap.

Julia wondered how much experience Blake had with these sorts of public encounters. She’d certainly multiplied her own several times over. But she pushed the thought from her mind. It didn’t matter what either of them had or hadn’t done in the past. What mattered was that they were both here, now, and that she was about to give him a surprise.

Julia slid her hand back down his shorts, and this time he didn’t stop her. Instead he spread his legs slightly and leaned back as she had done, preparing to enjoy what was to come. She worked him out of his shorts, marveling at how bringing her to orgasm had made him so incredibly hard. She stroked his shaft, running her thumb across the sensitive tip, and then worked her hand down to cup his balls, bringing a sigh to his lips.

“Shhh,” she whispered, teasing, flicking her tongue over his ear while she stroked him. A broad smile spread over his face, his eyes still closed.

And then she bent over and lowered her mouth to the head of his cock standing straight up in his lap. She kept her eyes glued on his face so she could fully appreciate the look of surprise as his eyes flew open at the unexpected pressure of her tongue.

He tried to pull her shoulder up, whispering, “What are you doing?” as he strained to see whether anyone in the bus knew what was going on.

But if the old lady in row seventeen had stirred, it was only to sink lower into her seat as her breathing deepened in sleep.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said as he caressed her cheek.

“I don’t have to do anything,” she said, mocking him for what he’d said to her the first time they met, when she’d tried to stop him from carrying her bags. He rolled his eyes at his own words thrown back at him. “I want to,” she whispered, just as he’d said to her.

“Is this where I learn about your desires?” he asked, stroking her hair, reminding her how she’d called him strange that afternoon.

“Mmm, this has been a desire of mine for quite some time,” she whispered, ignoring the fact that “quite some time” meant the two days they’d known each other—and half that time she’d been convinced she was never going to lay eyes on him again.

But in a way, it could also include all the years she’d longed to find someone she wanted to do this to, to lick and suck and nibble and stroke with the full enthusiasm of her hands and mouth, so eager to taste there was no way she could be stopped. She’d never, ever wanted it like this. Wanted it like it was for her own pleasure, not only his. Wanted it like she couldn’t wait another second more.

“You and me both,” he murmured, and a thrill coursed through her at the thought that he’d been wanting this, too. She lowered her mouth back to his cock, and he arranged the blanket over her. She lay down like she was his girlfriend sleeping with her head in his lap. A perfectly appropriate thing for a couple to do.