Page 54 of The Summer I First Saw You
“Fuck,” he hisses and then he leans over me and lets his orgasm spray out across my stomach in three long bursts, his hand still flying over his cock.
My thighs clench. I just came, and I’m so turned on again that it’s as if I haven’t finished in a year.
He’s still breathing fast when his eyes open. He takes in the design he’s just painted all over my stomach as if he’s never seen anything hotter.
“Well, it’s a good thing we didn’t have sex,” he says with a quiet laugh.
“We could have,” I reply.I know you want to.“We still could.”
His gaze meets mine. There’s so much indecision there, and though I desperately want him to crawl over me and end the torture, I’m not at all surprised when he rises from the bed instead.
“I can’t,” he says. “You have no idea how much I want to, Daisy, but I can’t.”
He walks out of the room, and nothing feels finished. I’m every bit as worked up as I was before I went to him, but I suspect he’s pretty worked up too.
And I haven’t even put on the blue yoga pants yet.
I blink awake.
For a second, I wonder if I dreamed last night, but no…there’s still a trace of him on my stomach, and it was way too good for evenmyvery active imagination to have fabricated.
It’s still early. I consider heading out to surf, which seems easier than sitting through the inevitable lecture from Harrison about how sorry he is and how it shouldn’t have happened,especially as I plan to derail his good intentions as fast as humanly possible.
Except…if he doesn’t get the tedious lecture out of the way, will he spend the entire day going into a tailspin over it? Will he feel guiltier and guiltier? That won’t help my cause either.
I brush my teeth, throw on a sweatshirt, and leave my room…only to discover that his door is open, though it’s not even seven, and he’s never up this early unless we’re surfing. Downstairs, there’s a coffee cup in the sink and his keys are gone.
My stomach knots. The only reason he’d be gone this early is if he was trying to avoid me. And if he can’t even face the conversation we need to have, it sure doesn’t bode well for what that conversation will entail when it happens.
I didn’t want to listen to him apologize—but it never occurred to me until now that he might ask me to leave.
I surf just to clear my head before I go into work, but it doesn’t help as much as it should. I keep expecting a text from him. Some version of “Hey, sorry, I know we need to talk, but I had a meeting”…anything to explain why he wasn’t there, but it doesn’t come.
The more I wait, the more disturbed I am by his silence. My waitressing skills—never laudable—are worse than ever. I can’t focus on anything but the question of what he’s thinking and why he’s gone dark. People angrily ask for drink refills and that side of mayo they requested ten minutes ago, and I don’t care. If Harrison’s this quiet, he’s either apartment hunting for me or he’s fled the fucking country.
Griff, the artist, is the only one who doesn’t mind my substandard serving abilities. Today, he’s drawn me in a micromini with black stars covering my nipples—I’ve noticed that I’m wearing fewer and fewer clothes in these drawings of his—and the breasts he’s given me exceed anything a human female could carry while remaining upright.
“If you ever wanted to come pose for me, I could do a much more detailed one,” he says as he pays the check.
I force a smile. “I’d have to ask my boyfriend.”
The excitement in his face dims a little, as I’d hoped it would. “It wouldn’t have to be a big deal,” he offers. “Not necessarily nude or anything if you weren’t comfortable with it.”
I know exactly how Harrison would react if his girlfriend or wife was asked to model in a strange guy’s home, notnecessarilynude. I guarantee the words “that’s not fucking happening” or “over my dead body” would be uttered. I can’t think of anything I’d love more than to be the person he wanted to keep for himself, something he was determined to protect, and a tiny part of me last night dreamed it was possible. Sure, I knew he’d feel guilty and might backtrack a little, but I figured he’d give in again. And then he’d give in more. And eventually, after weeks or months of giving in, maybe he’d see that the age gap isn’t that big a deal.
But there’s not been a peep from him by the time my shift ends, so that’s definitely not happening. Is he going to ask me to leave? Or is he going to fabricate something that calls him out of town until the summer’s end?
I fish my phone from my pocket as I close out my tables, no longer able to stand the suspense.
Are you coming home to surf?
He doesn’t answer right away, which could mean nothing but bothers me anyhow. And the answer—which doesn’t arrive until I’ve already biked home and changed into my bikini—bothers me more.
Harrison
Baker is on the warpath. Not sure when I’ll be back but it’ll be late.
I stare at the phone. So, not only is he avoiding me…he isn’t even going to reference what happened. I’d bet a hundred bucks when he finally gets in tonight, he’s going to tell me this just isn’t going to work out. My heart is already splintering at the thought.
