Page 86 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“Lina,” he called to me. He held out one hand.
I stopped spinning. The petals drifted toward him and circled around him lazily in the air.
“I need you,” he said. “I’ve always needed you.”
“I need you too,” I whispered.
I took his hand. He pulled me into him like we were on a dance floor, not alone in the middle of an empty field surrounded by petals that were, for lack of a better word, alive.
Suddenly, the petals all fell to the grass at our feet, forming a bed of yellow silkiness.
Cal took both of my hands and went to his knees, pulling me down with him. The air smelled like freshly cut grass and roses. I breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. Cal breathed in unison with me.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“I missed you too.”
“I’ve missed you for fifteen years.”
“Me too.”
He kissed me. Deeply.
I melted against him and gave in to the need burning up inside me. The petals rustled softly beneath us as he pushed me down on my back and pinned me there with his hands on either side of my head. The kiss became wilder and freer, and I looped my arms around his neck, pulling myself up toward him, putting all my feelings into the way I kissed him.
I needed him to know that I loved him. Needed him. Missed him. Craved him.
Wanted him.
It was as simple as that. Everything else was just background noise.
Cal lifted the skirt of a dress I didn’t notice I was wearing. I was naked underneath. I gathered the dress up around my waist, holding it up as he hurried to pull his pants down. He left them around his knees, resting upon the petals, and dropped back down on top of me. He kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, and my lips.
Then he was kissing the side of my neck and working his way across my chest as he lowered his hips to mine and slid his cock inside me.
I took all of him on his first deep, slow thrust. We melted together and became one. I ran my fingers up his sides, over his shoulders, and down his arms. Then I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and held on as he made love to me upon the petals.
“I love you,” he whispered. His voice was hoarse and ragged. Each breath he drew was quick and sharp. His skin burned beneath my fingers.
“I love you too.”
Cal smiled. I felt his smile part the clouds that had darkened my soul. The light inside me burned bright and illuminated things I thought I had forgotten forever.
Cal pulling into my driveway in his first pickup truck when we were kids. It was a beat-up old thing, with torn-up leather interiors, missing floor mats, and an interior light that only worked some of the time.
Cal waiting for me outside my classroom when school ended. As soon as I emerged in the hall, he’d take my hand and pull me down the hallways. Then we would break free, rush outside, and get into that busted-up old truck and head to the ice cream parlor.
Cal telling me for the first time that he loved me as we lay in his bed one night after his dad had gone to sleep. He hadn’t known I was spending the night.
Cal telling me he was going to Harvard.
Me hating him.
Tears streamed down my face. Cal wiped them away and kissed my cheeks with incredible tenderness. He eased my sorrow, one kiss at a time, and I buried my face in the groove of his shoulder.
“Deeper,” I whispered.
He pushed himself deeper inside of me. My body opened up to him, like a flower.
