Bend Read online

  I don’t even know if I can go back in there.

  “Hey,” Angela says, and I open my eyes and meet hers across the counter. She’s watching me gravely, her head tilted. Tears are pressing behind my eyes.

  Reaching across the counter and putting a hand on top of mine, Angela says in a low, urging tone, “Go. Go in there and hold her hand. You can do this.”

  I swallow hard. Give a quick nod. And do as she says.

  I wake up as the sun is going down, opening my eyes to find my apartment murky and gray from the waning light of late afternoon. My head feels stuffed with cotton, groggy and heavy and aching. The vacuum-like silence from my earplugs creates a sense of disconnect from the world, like I’m trapped inside myself.

  Sometimes I see myself twenty years from now, still pulling night shifts in the ER and still hating this part of the job.

  Then again, that’s not really the path I’m planning my life to take. Working in the aid camps run by Relief International will be anything but routine. And I won’t have to deal with people demanding that I give them antibiotics whenever they have the sniffles.

  Rolling over on my back, I stretch and yawn. I’m pretty relieved that I have tonight off. Sleeping during the day is hard, but the worst parts are the biweekly transitions between day and night shifts.

  This past week has been rough, with a lot of bad cases and a lot of unhappy endings. The worst was a toddler near-drowning victim, a dark-haired little boy with chubby cheeks and chubby hands who came in breathing but unresponsive and is now in a coma in the ICU. He’d fallen into the neighbor’s pool. Cases like that are the ones that leave me shaken and frayed, and the memories of that tiny, limp body won’t fade from my mind for a long time, maybe never.

  Plucking the earplugs out and dropping them on my nightstand, I pick up my cell phone and hit the power button, squinting against the glaring light from the screen. No missed calls or messages.

  It’s been eight days since I left Mia falling asleep in her bed. The bed where, minutes before, I’d been on top of her, between her legs, my cock buried inside her. Fucking Mia. Drowning in Mia. Never wanting to stop. I’ve made some seriously bad decisions before in my life, but none of them felt even half as good.

  And I haven’t seen or talked to her in a week. Maybe I am insane. Not sure what I’m waiting for—or why it’s been total radio silence from her end, too. What is she doing? What is she thinking? What does she want?

  With a low growl, I kick off my blankets and swing my legs over the side of my bed, planting my feet on the floor. I fucking despise drama. This tentative, awkward thing we have going on has to stop. It’s turning out exactly as I told her it would. Being right all the time can be so exhausting.

  Well, enough. I open my messaging app and send her a text that simply says, Busy tonight?

  Then I set the phone back on the nightstand and cross my apartment to the bathroom. Take a piss. Wash my hands and splash water on my face. I need a shower, and I need to shave, but both sound like way too much work right now.

  Did my phone just buzz? I leave the bathroom and make my way back to the bed to check, finding the screen lit up with a text from Mia. Not really, why? it says.

  Okay, here goes. Cradling the phone in both hands, I tap on the keyboard with my thumbs: Want to go out to eat?

  It sounds like a good idea. We can go someplace quiet. So we’ll be in public and forced to make normal conversation.

  Why don’t you come over and I’ll make you dinner? comes her response almost instantly. She’s got some mad texting skills. She’s probably got a lot of other skills, too. Stuff I don’t know about yet but am willing to discover. For science.

  I reply: It’ll be breakfast for me.

  A few seconds tick by before a new message pops up. It reads, That’s fine. We can have breakfast for dinner.

  All right. Decision time. If I go to her place, then at some point tonight we’ll be naked again. I’m cool with that. No, not cool—excited. Like a teenager-about-to-get-laid-for-the-first-time excited. Like I’ve thought about it for half a second, and I’m already more than halfway to a full, urgent hard-on.

  We’ll be eating first, though, so that’ll give us a chance to clear the air. Figure out what we’re doing and maybe lay down some rules.

  Yeah, that’ll work.

  Be there in about an hour, I text her.

  And then I go back to the bathroom to shower and shave.

  To the sound of crickets buzzing and chirping in the bushes, I jog up the stairs to Mia’s apartment. At her door, I bang the knocker twice and lean against the wall while I wait. It’s full dark now, and a moth flutters about the porch light above my head, hitting the glass casing with a dull thump each time it tries to fly into the lamp.

  What most people don’t know is the moth isn’t attracted to the light; it’s confusing the light with the moon, which it uses to navigate. Thinking it’s following a beacon that’s showing it where to go, the moth has no idea it’s actually trapped in a futile and sometimes fatal quest.

  There’s an appropriate metaphor in that image, but if I’m the moth right now, the difference is I know the light is a dead end. And I’m flying into it anyway.

  The deadbolt clicks, the door opens, and there stands Mia.

  “Hey,” she says almost shyly, her head tilted as she watches me, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

  I mean to respond in kind, but the intention turns to smoke and blows away as I take in her appearance. Her hair is wilder than usual, the strands falling in teasing waves over her shoulders, looking rumpled in a just-rolled-around-in-bed kind of way. And I’m not sure, but it seems like she’s wearing more makeup than she normally does, the dark lines around her eyes accentuating their color so they look a brighter, more vivid green.

  But it’s her dress that fries my brain. It’s a sleeveless navy dress with small pink flowers, ending at mid-thigh, and it’s just begging me to slip my hands up and under it.

  Wait. This isn’t how Mia looks when she’s just hanging out at home by herself. What the hell?

  “I’d just got back from running some errands when you texted me,” she says as if she’s reading my mind, or maybe my confusion is showing on my face.

  She steps back to let me in. I walk inside, shutting the door behind me and locking it again. Her apartment smells like cooking, a heavy and savory aroma that causes a twinge of hunger pains in my stomach. The slow, somber music streaming from her living room stereo is kind of strange—more to my taste than hers, since she usually listens to fast-paced and peppy stuff. What’s up with that?

  “What kind of errands?” I ask dubiously.

  “Grocery store, library,” she says with a shrug. “Ready to eat?”

  I can only stare at her and picture the variety of guys who were probably checking her out while she was waltzing around in public like that, undressing her in their minds and fantasizing about what they wanted to do to her. It’s easy to know what would’ve been going through the heads of those faceless men, because it’s exactly what I’m thinking, too.

  But goddamn it, she’s not theirs to ogle and eye-fuck.

  She’s mine.

  Tightly, I ask, “Food’s done?”

  “Keeping it warm in the oven,” she replies with a nod.

  “Okay, good.” Cutting the distance between us in one long stride, I grab her head with both hands, burying my fingers in her hair. I catch a whiff of something sugary on her lips as I crush them against my own, and while I’m kissing her hard and with an urgency that feels like it sprouted from nowhere, I realize she’s wearing some kind of scented lip balm.

  She actually tastes like candy.

  And I’m discovering the sweet tooth I’ve never had.

  Responding with a throaty whimper, Mia wraps her arms around my waist, pressing herself into me. She pulls up my T-shirt, and I shudder as her soft and smooth palms start trailing up, down, sideways, and all over the skin on my back. When she opens her mout
h, I accept the invitation greedily, stroking my tongue against hers. Consuming her, getting drunk on her.

  I let go of her head and drop my hands down to grab her ass, bunching the flimsy fabric of her dress. I’m pushing her into my groin, where behind a couple layers of fabric, my dick is hard and straining and aching, my balls tight and drawn up high into my body.

  Goddamn. The need to be inside her is like a violent itch, a burning fire. I want it now, now, now—so badly that my arms are shaking and my skin feels too small.

  “Bedroom,” I rasp out against her mouth, and I start steering her that way.

  “No,” she says, hooking her fingers on my belt and tugging me a different direction. “The couch.”

  I’m backing up while she’s undoing the belt on my shorts, yanking on the button, and dragging the zipper down. The backs of my knees connect with the couch, and I take hold of her hips to turn her around and lay her down. But she wriggles out of my grasp and gives me a shove so that I’m the one who ends up on the couch, sitting there while she stands above me with rosy cheeks and dark eyes.

  I like sex.

  She wasn’t kidding. It’s obvious Mia wants me just as much as I want her, and it’s such a mind-bending turn-on. My cock is pulsing and thrumming with anticipation, the wait killing me.

  And then—holy hell—she hikes up her skirt, slides her panties down and lets them fall around her ankles. She does it so quickly I can’t even tell what they look like. Not that I give a shit what they look like. What matters is she took them off and is stepping out of them and kicking them aside.

  Bracing herself on my shoulders, she straddles me. Her lips are on mine again, and she reaches between us, clawing at my boxers. I help her, arching up off the couch and pushing my shorts and underwear down, and I release my breath as my erection springs free. So close.

  My blood is rushing through my veins. I’ve never felt like this with a woman before, so damn near unhinged. Cupping her naked ass under her skirt, I guide her toward me so that she’s right above my dick. She rubs herself against me, and when I feel how wet and swollen she is, how ready, it takes all my willpower not to jerk her hips down and thrust myself inside of her.

  “Why does this feel so good?” she murmurs, still grinding her slick pussy on the tip of my cock.

  I groan. What the hell kind of question is that? And why is she torturing me? “You want an anatomy lesson?”

  “No. I understand the mechanics, thank you.” Looking so serious, so unlike the playful Mia I know, she holds my gaze as she says, “I just want to know why it’s so fucking amazing with you.”

  Wow. I suck in and hold my breath, her words burrowing into my chest. I don’t know what to say.

  And I don’t get a chance to even try before she sinks herself down, drawing me inside her. I release my breath with a hiss. Jesus. It’s like plunging into a hot tub, her heat wrapping itself around me, swallowing me up.

  She raises back up, repositions herself with a small wiggle, and then she lowers herself all the way. I moan, and she moans, and I grab hold of her hips just below her waist. Digging my fingers into her pliable flesh as she moves on top of me, surging up to meet her with each of her downward thrusts.

  “I know why.” She lifts one hand off my shoulder to run her nails up the back of my neck, into my hair, scraping and massaging my scalp.

  I close my eyes as sparks shoot down my spine, hot and cold at once. “Why?”

  “Because we’ve wanted it for so long.”

  Our eyes lock. Slowly and sweetly, she keeps fucking me. I meet her movements, perfectly in rhythm, like it’s a dance we’ve rehearsed. And I realize she’s right. I still can’t really believe this is happening. This is Mia. It’s Mia. And I’m inside her. She feels hot and tight, and it’s incredible and ridiculous and exquisite.

  And I’d better hurry her along, or I’m going to leave her behind. So I reach down and find her clit with my thumb. Her breath hitches, her back bending, and she squeezes her eyes closed. She picks up her pace, grinding herself down on me and letting out small, breathless whimpers that grow louder each time she buries my dick to the hilt. Ready to explode, I clench my jaw so hard it feels like a zap of electricity through my skull.

  “Oh, my God,” she gasps, over and over at a higher and higher pitch, and then her pussy spasms around me as she starts coming. Groaning and gritting my teeth, I manage to hang on while she rocks on top of me, her face flushed and frozen in ecstasy, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful or stunning sight than that of Mia having an orgasm while she’s riding me.

  It’s watching her that jerks the control away from me, pushes me over the edge. My own climax builds so fast and washes over me so suddenly that I feel like I’m bursting out of my skin. Clutching her hips with both hands again, I push her down and drive myself into her until I can go no further, pinning her there while I’m emptying inside her.

  Jesus Christ.

  Her elbows on my shoulders, she collapses against me, and I’m sitting there with the full weight of her, holding all of Mia in my arms while I’m trying to recover my breath and my senses. It’s like when I ejaculated, my brain shot out of there, too. The release is so complete and absolute that for a while, I just am. I’m just existing.

  Near my ear, her breathing starts to slow, puffs of heat fanning the skin on my neck. I’m still inside her, still holding her, and I close my eyes and inhale her scent. Memorize it. And I know that, no matter where this is going, no matter what happens between us and how far apart we are, I’ll remember it and think that this, this is the smell of heaven. It’s the smell of joy and sex and satisfaction—and of Mia being mine.

  She stirs and presses her lips against my neck. Shuddering, I tighten my hold on her, closing my eyes as she kisses a trail upward and takes my earlobe between her teeth, gently grazing.

  Her voice intimate and teasing, she whispers, “Now are you ready to eat?”

  “Wow,” Jay says after he takes the first bite of the food on his plate, the sweet potato breakfast skillet with veggies and bacon and sunny-side-up eggs that I’d made before he came over and was keeping warm in the oven. “This is really good.”

  We’re sitting across from each other on the tall chairs at my round, counter-height dining table, our plates on rust-colored placemats with matching cloth napkins, white wine in our glasses, and the flames from taper candles casting a soft glow over the corner just beyond my kitchen.

  No, the candles aren’t to set a romantic mood. The recessed light in the cathedral ceiling above burned out a few days ago, and I haven’t worked up the energy to change it, so without the candles it’d be way too dark in here.

  “Thanks,” I tell him. “Found the recipe on Pinterest, and I just modified it a little.” I glance at him as I say it, and I’m pretty sure I sound sincere. Praise for my cooking is really praise for my grandma, who started having me help her in the kitchen as soon as I could hold a spatula, but it still warms my heart. Especially when it comes from Jay.

  But tonight, and for the past two days, it’s been hard to feel much of anything besides tired and weighed down, like I’m dragging an anchor around. Getting that text from Jay earlier was the first time the load lightened since Wednesday, possibly the shittiest day of my life—maybe surpassed only by the day Matt smashed my heart to pieces.

  When Jay showed up on my doorstep, looking so big and solid and fuckable, and when he started kissing me, I forgot everything except him. And that worked so well, but it didn’t last. The funk returned as soon as I climbed off of him and put my underwear back on. Which kind of made me feel like I was using him, like Angela was suggesting.

  Not that he wasn’t perfectly willing to be used.

  “Guess I should have you cook me breakfast for dinner more often,” he comments between mouthfuls, and my smile in response is just a twitch at the corners of my mouth.

  “How about just breakfast for breakfast?” I scoop up a heap of food and lift it to my mou
th. It feels like a lump of nothing on my tongue. I know it has a good flavor, but my taste buds aren’t in the mood to acknowledge it.

  “Yeah.” Jay sets down his fork and takes a quick drink of wine, his glacier-blue eyes sharp on me while he tips the glass against his lips. “That reminds me. We should probably lay down some rules.”

  I swallow a sigh. Why does he have to make everything so complicated?

  “Like what?” To my own ears my voice sounds testy, which isn’t intentional.

  “If this is going to work, we need boundaries.” He looks at me intently while he says this, elbows on the table and arms spread out, not touching food or drink—not doing anything except focusing on me.

  I guess that means this is important, and I need to pay attention.

  So…boundaries? What does that even mean?

  “Like a Fight Club thing?” I ask, squinting at him. “But it’d be Fuck Club, wouldn’t it? And the first rule is—”

  “You don’t talk about it,” he interrupts. His brows are pinched and his eyes hard.

  Yeah, he didn’t think my comment was funny. That’s okay; it wasn’t really a joke.

  He drops back in his chair. “That’s actually a good place to start.”

  Don’t talk about the fact that I’m sleeping with Jay? Fine. Whatever.

  Except I already did, didn’t I? Crap.

  “Oops,” I say, wincing.

  “Seriously?” he bursts out after a short silence. “Who did you tell?”

  “Just Angela. From work?” I throw him an apologetic look. “Sorry. But she doesn’t know anyone you know, so there’s that, at least.”

  He just stares at me, stares so long that I start feeling like I’ve got needles in my stomach, and then he delivers a flat, “Yeah. Great.”

  Ducking my head to avoid his obvious disgust—which I suppose I deserve—I notice that somehow I’ve managed to eat most of my food. I set my fork down, deciding I’m full enough, and take a drink of wine. The Pinot Grigio glides smoothly over my tongue, light and tangy with a hint of citrus, and it’s the only thing that tastes good to me right now.