East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) (5 page)

My eyes rolled back. Dorian
pumped his hand. I was lost to him. Nothing else existed. The waves
had disappeared. He pushed in and out. Rubbed. Pushed.
Rubbed.
Thrust!

I held him. I held his big body and big
torso and this big man and I let him pump me with his hand. My legs
tensed. My nails dug deep into his back and I gripped his traps
with my teeth and fucking bit!

My body shuddered against his, the sides of
the wall buried themselves into the insides of my knees as I came.
I pulled him and tugged at him and he just kept pumping, pumping,
pumping, back and forth, letting me ride the last moments of
pleasure right to the end, giving me every little bit of it that he
could.

I let go of the base of his neck — vampire
marks now on it — and I pushed against the bottom of it with my
forehead. The last trembles of satisfaction escaped me as Dorian
slowed the back-and-forth motions of his hand, rubbing me slowly,
in and out, pushing his thumb up against me. Massaging me. Right to
the end.

And, still, I held him. As I sighed and took
in deep breaths, feeling his warmness against the counterpart of
cold on my back, I held onto him, my eyes closed, my head easing
down to his chest.

And then I said it. And it came out just
wrong. And I wish I could take it back. But I fucking can't. And I
couldn't then either:

I said, "I love you, Conall."

And before I knew it Dorian's fingers were
out of me.

How do you apologize for
something like that? You can't. So I didn't. I sat there, looking
down. A stain marked my pants, between my legs. The sticky remnants
of an erstwhile pleasure. Dorian —
not
Conall! — had really gotten me
all worked up for him.

I turned my head, mortified, over toward the
ocean, hoping, by some miracle, that I'd be able to atone for this
— somehow, someway...

I got my miracle.

"I'm sorry," said Dorian.
Not me.
Dorian
said it! Yes, he apologized to
me
!

Huh!?

My head fired toward him. I was scowling for
some reason. He was still holding his two fingers up, sort of
dangling in nowhere, the two which had been inside me. They
glistened. Slowly, he curled them inwards, made a fist, hefted it.
"Yeah, um, I'm sorry, that was really rude of me."

I gave an incredulous laugh. A relieved, and
unbelieving, sort of "hah!"

"Care to explain?" I said.

"I mean, taking my hand out of you so
quick..." He shook his head. "That was really, well, shit of
me."

Heck, that had been the last thing I'd been
thinking of!

"I call you by my
ex-boyfriend's name after you make me come and you apologize
to
me
?"
I think you're going to make me start falling for
you if you don't watch it, Big Boy in a Man's Body...

"Yeah, well. It's not like
we're dating or anything." He'd never said the T in "not,"
and
anything
came
out as
anyfing
...
He continued: "Why should I be upset with you? If we'd been dating,
and then you called me by this Donald — "

"Conall."

" — Conall, sorry. If we'd been dating,
well, then, maybe I'd have been upset."

There was a pause. I
realized he was throwing a rod out, seeing if I'd bite.
If we'd been dating...

I waited.

"But, of course," he said, "we're not..."
Another pause. "So, it's fine."

I smiled appreciatively and put my hand on
his. Mine was so small in comparison. "Do you work with your
hands?" I asked.

"Yip. Longshoreman. My uncle got me a job on
the docks at Newhaven. But I haven't started yet. I start in a few
days."

"You'll be here permanently?"

"No, the job's three months long. Then I'm
off to Hastings." Hastings was about forty-five minutes away.

"That's not far from
here."
What are you doing,
Leora?

"No, it's not."

Another pause. I didn't
want to commit to anything. And I didn't want to bar all
commitment. Heck, I didn't know what the hell I wanted! That guy —
that
other
guy! —
had fucked me up so much that —

It hit me. That "something" I'd been feeling
when Dorian had been touching me, pressing his fingers against me
from outside my pants. It was the Fear of Falling. That's what it
had been. And, thinking aloud, the following words came out:
"Getting physical always complicates things, doesn't it?"

Dorian frowned, a little confused.

"Never mind," I said. "I was just thinking
out loud."

"You really love this Conall guy, don't
you?"

Damn it! Why did he have
to go there!?
"I'd rather not talk about
it."

Dorian straightened, his chest bulging. He
really was large. "Me neither. Ex boyfriends are always such an
ugly topic..."

Conall had said the same things once, sort
of...

"So, if this Conall or Donald or whoever the
fuck he is, isn't around, I might come over to the pub there and
ask you out for another drink."

He wasn't asking for permission.

"OK," I said,
noncommittally. And then I took a long shot. I said something to
him that you only say to people when you're getting close to them.
And I didn't want to get close to him, but I felt myself naturally
doing it. I said, "Dorian,
if
we do this again, you'll need to take it a bit
slower in the beginning, OK?"

I looked him straight in the eye, my hand
still on his. And he blushed!

"Yeah, sorry about that — "

I put my finger to his lips. I guess, if
this had been a simple romance, I would've kissed him. But it
wasn't, so I didn't.

"It's fine," I said.

And there I'd done it again. Acting all
experienced up in here and being the one in control (at least in
this little microcosm of an event...) When had that occurred? When
had I become this?

"Dorian, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"Hmpf!"

"What?"

"No, um, I'm — well, I mean, with" — damn
it, how to approach the ex-boyfriend subject — "the other guy, you
know, I'd guessed his age at twenty-seven. But I'd been wrong. He
was twenty-four when I met him. With you, however, I got it
right."

"I see. And you? Eighteen or so, right?"

My eyes widened. My mouth opened in awe. I
looked much older than I was...

"Don't get your knickers in a knot. Troy
told me."

I punched him in the shoulder. He swayed a
bit with the force (no doubt to humor me) and then he did something
very unexpected. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. He hugged me.
He put his right arm around my shoulders, pulled my left leg from
over the edge so we were now facing the street, pulled me into him,
and hugged me. And my head fell to his chest. And that's how we sat
awhile. Hearing nothing but the soft ocean breakers and the tugging
wind.

Damn it. This was so not good.

On the way back to my place (he walked me
home) we spoke about random shit. Nothing important. The kind of
stuff you tell people when you want to impress them but don't want
to tell them anything truly important. Every now and then he'd bump
into me as we walked, and then I'd fall onto the street. I'd push
him as well but ended up only bouncing away myself.

Dorian made me feel small,
protected. And I wasn't small. I wasn't small by a long shot. I'd
stopped pumping weights as regularly (and picked up a little
"smoothing-out" fat) but I was still pretty stocky.
Shapely
, I preferred to
call it.

We avoided the subject of ex boyfriends. And
I avoided the subject of ex girlfriends. We were two people talking
over a neighbor's fence, neither willing to step fully into the
other's backyard.

It had been so different with My Long Lost
Love. I'd opened myself completely to him. And him to me. No
reservations. Just pure honesty.

Pure — and I hated to admit it —
naïveté.

When Dorian dropped me off we stood and
chatted briefly, again, chatted about shit. We parted without
kissing. I liked it that way. No commitment.

Is this what life would be like for me now?
Would I eventually settle down with someone in whose yard I never
dared to step, fingering myself behind that neighborly fence while
I thought about The Man I Truly Loved? The only one who ever really
meant anything to me?

I needed to talk to Kayla. Dani was cool.
She was good for laughs. She was good for more than that, actually.
But Kayla, my best friend, the love of my life, was different. As
far as girlfriends go, we were so deep into each other's yards that
you wouldn't be able to take us out of them with a demolition
permit.

I texted her when I got to my room.

Leora: Need help. Met a guy. Made me come.
Now I'm so fucking confused.

Knowing Kayla, I expected
something like
Finally!
in return. Instead, I got:

Kayla: Damn it! Why confused!? That's it.
I'm coming over!

Leora: Ha ha. Very funny. How's Brad from
Bushwick?

Kayla: Still doing me like a rhino on
Viagra. What a man...

Oh, brother. There was nothing like Kayla's
horrifically disgusting foul mouth to make me both cringe and
smile. But, after what she'd been through, she was allowed to say
whatever the fuck she wanted. At least in my books!

Leora: Thanks for the image. Chat
tomorrow?

My landlady was long since asleep. As much
as I wanted to chat to Kayla now, I couldn't. It would wake her
up.

Kayla: Yes, chat in person.

Leora: Ha ha. Stop teasing. It's enough that
u let me down on the whole Europe trip.

Kayla: I never let u down. Europe should be
travelled in the SUMMER, dumbass!

Leora: Yeah well... What time should I
call?

Kayla: Like I said, see u tmrw.

Yeah, I finally got the hint. And I couldn't
fucking wait! I called.

"You're shitting me, aren't you?" I
whispered.

"Well, hello to fucking
you, too, BFF," said Kayla. It was
so
good to hear her voice! I hadn't
heard it in weeks. My heart melted like I'd seen a long-last
lover.

"Stop screwing with me, what's happening?" I
asked.

"Yeah, well, you
will
see me tomorrow.
Only, it was supposed to be a surprise. But after you told me about
your unholy and promiscuous behavior, I figured I'd give you a
heads up."

"Oh, my God!" The
words
squeaked
out
like a bath-toy. I was so excited. I almost damn-near jumped on my
bed! "I can't believe it!" I heard some floorboards creak. I'd no
doubt woken up my landlady. "Damn it!" I whispered. "I gotta
go."

"Yeah, do me and lose me, that's how you
play it, right?"

I rolled my eyes. And I knew that Kayla knew
I was doing it!

"What time do you arrive?" I asked.

"Do you even
know
what a surprise is?
Anyway, don't panic about accommos, I've got a place... I hope.
You
are
in
Seaford, right? Not that I end up living in some place in Ireland
or something."

"Yeah, Seaford, East Sussex. Damn, I'm not
gonna be able to sleep tonight!"

"Yeah, I know you're hot
for me. The day I kissed you is still on my top-ten list of hot
moments with guys
or
girls... If only you'd been into it. Imagine the
romance..."

"You told me I suck at kissing."

"Oh, right, I remember. 'Wet fish' I think
were my exact words. Right, sorry, I was thinking about Brad."

I let out a laugh.

"I miss you, babe," I said.

"I miss you, too, Leo. More than you can
imagine."

Suddenly everything was OK.
All of it. I wondered how she and Brad were doing — I mean,
really
doing — but I
didn't ask. My best friend, my closest friend, was coming over
tomorrow!

I decided to call in sick,
or get someone to cover my shift, or quit my damn job. There was no
ways I was going to miss out on spending the next three days —
at
least
— with
Kayla, every minute of them!

Not only did I get my shift covered, but so
did Dani. And there we were, all three of us, sucking down creamy
coffees at Starbucks. As I'd hoped, Dani and Kayla hit it off big
time.

Kayla's hair was still
shaven on the one side, but it was now green. She'd gotten two
extra piercings, one on each ear, bringing the total to
nine
on the right and
eight on the left. "And I also got another piercing...somewhere
that would make Leora embarrassed if I showed it to her." She'd
also gotten a new tattoo. "Brad" it said, across her left breast,
on the side. "Hurt like a motherfucker!" she said as she pulled her
shirt down to show us — never mind that we were in freaking
Starbucks! I felt myself blush as a prim English woman looked over
at us.

Dani showed her her own tattoos: A rose-stem
across her lower back, covered in thorns; a spirally, rough,
colorful thing above her belly button. "Then I have another one in
a place very few people get to see. And you have no fucking idea
about pain until you get one of them there!" she said.

"So, I guess you're the only virgin here,"
said Kayla, looking up at me knowingly. I knew very well she
intended the double-meaning.