Page 48 of A Summer Thing

Chapter Twenty-Five

Declan

A week later, it’s hot, peak summertime.

Sunlight washes in through the small window above my bed, heating my skin, but the air conditioner is on, too, hitting the same stretch of my body and almost cancelling out the warmth.

Almost.

Raspberry and vanilla flood my tastebuds as I slide my popsicle over my tongue and pop it into my mouth. I suck on it, letting it slowly melt on my tongue.

When I glance over at Jude, he’s watching me, a heated look lighting up his gaze. He has a vanilla and orange popsicle, and is sucking on it just the same, so I admire him just as freely.

The shape of his full lips curved around the orange and cream. The striking gray hue of his eyes reaching into me. The small dimple curving into his tanned cheek as he smiles.

How our summer is almost over, I don’t know. It’s felt more like six days than six weeks.

I still remember that first day at the airport, and how nervous I was.

How many questions I had where there aren’t any now.

And that day Jude picked me up at work and took me to his brother’s tattoo studio.

All the tension that stretched between us like a taut rubber-band, and all the uncertainty, too.

How that band finally snapped and drew us together.

The day in Central Park. How calm and grounding Jude’s presence was.

His quiet words, and his palms at my cheeks, the severity of his stare smoothing my anxiety away.

That first kiss we shared. How it stopped time.

Stopped the chaos of everything. The panic of my thoughts, and my racing heart, and my shaking limbs.

And the day I met Jude’s family.

His sweet mother and his tough-as-nails but just as kind father, and his hilarious brothers. The balloon ritual we all did together. How deeply it touched me.

I still can’t quite believe I got to be a part of that. That he wanted me there, in his home, meeting his family, sharing in an experience that felt so personal, so… beautiful. I felt safe, there, with a porch full of people I’d only just met but already wished I could know forever.

Emotion constricts my throat just thinking about it, a subtle rush of tears burning behind my eyes.

If I thought saying goodbye last summer was hard, this time might break me.

But we still have tonight. And already, time has slowed, defying its own laws, allowing us to exist in its midst just a bit longer.

Or maybe that’s all Jude.

He’s always been able to slow time without trying. When I’m with him, it feels like the entire world is on pause, and the only things that exist are him and I. Only our breaths, only our hearts beating, only our words passing through the world between us.

He leans over and picks up the book that’s been sitting unread on my nightstand for too long, and then he begins to read it out loud.

And time pauses and stretches a little bit more.

______

Hours pass, the sun dipping below the horizon, and the moon shining brightly through my window as Jude reads us pages from A Little Life.

My head rests on his outstretched arm, my knees bent and my feet flush with the mattress, my finger twirling small pieces of my pink hair as I listen.

His low, gravelly voice hums words about life, and loss, and the irrevocable way things break, but how sometimes, life will shift and conform itself around those losses, around those broken moments, and leave us with something else a bit wonderful in their absence.

I’m not sure I agree with those words entirely, but it’s a beautiful thought, nonetheless.

The promise that when one flower wilts and withers, another will bloom again.

Kind of like how Jude and I managed to find each other in a world that had already been shattered by our own losses. How we managed to plant a few new seeds in the garden of our futures, together.

The crinkling of the book’s pages echoes in the small space of my dorm room as Jude sets the opened book down onto his stomach, his ankles crossed and his feet resting on my windowsill, where moonlight spills onto his body, bringing life to the swirls of black and gray covering his legs, his stomach, his chest, and his arms.

Shifting upward, he rests his head in his palm, his elbow dipping into the mattress below him, and his stare meets mine. Gray, as wild and severe as a summer storm, penetrates through the chaotic emotions raging within my own.

I’m not ready for you to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye. I’m not ready to hope this works out between us from over a thousand miles away.

His smile says the opposite, though.

Slowly moving. Slowly tilting. Slowly rising on one side, and then the other. A hundred promises written in the stretch of its curve.

I crane my neck to kiss him, and let out a sigh as my lips meet his.

I taste like raspberries, and he tastes like oranges, and the flavors mix together between our tongues.

Time moves like molasses, syrupy, and sweet, like our kiss.

Standing from my bed, he finishes undressing from where he started hours ago, the heat of the day seeping into my dorm leaving him in only his shorts and socks and underwear.

The soft ruffle of his shorts meets my ears as they hit the floor, quickly followed by his socks.

And then his tattooed fingers dip into the waistband of his dark boxer-briefs, and a thick swallow travels through my throat as he slides them down his legs and bares himself to me.

With only a single dip of his head, and a crude, delicious promise in his stare, he demands that I do the same. I pull my oversized shirt from my body with a sharp breath. Unclasp and untether my bra. Slip my underwear down my legs.

His gaze heats, ashes and embers swirling in his stare. I’m certain it matches the heat in my own as he reaches down and wraps a fist around his length. His mouth parts in a silent oh with his stroke, his hand slowly sliding up and down his shaft before squeezing at the tip.

His cock is angry, and swollen, and so big in his hand, and I’m too aware of the way my body responds.

The heat between my legs.

How wet I already am.

I ache.

The veins in his arm pop from their shadowed background as his fist continues to work his length in shallow strokes, his eyes painting an even slower path over my naked body. They settle on the space between my legs and flare, before pinning on my own.

I swallow thickly.

He’s beautifully naked and stunningly bare, and he’s stalking toward me, climbing onto the bed and on top of me.

Without taking his eyes away, without a word, his hands slide up my legs and spread them, and he guides himself inside me with only the sound of our heavy gasps of pleasure filling the space between us.

“God, Declan. There is nothing like being inside you. You feel so fucking good, baby. So fucking good,” he coos above me.

The thickness of him drags through my walls, the sight of his naked, art-covered body on top of me driving me wild. My pierced nipples rub against his tattooed chest, my thighs bracketing the canvas of his torso, and he’s right, nothing has ever felt this good. This right.

My emotions are a thin blanket over my skin, every touch of Jude’s brushing against my heart, every soft-spoken word and shared breath burrowing deeper into its core.

He’s inside me, and he’s fucking me, and his eyes still haven’t left mine.

And I don’t know if this is love, but it feels like love, and I don’t want to let it go.

______

The next morning, I stare deep into Jude’s eyes, overwhelming feelings building inside me until I’m not sure my body can contain them any longer. I open my mouth to say… something. But nothing feels good enough. No words feel quite right.

The end of our summer is here, and I don’t want to face it.

Jude forces us to, though, as he strides forward, his arms falling down around me, dragging me into him and crushing me against his chest in the middle of the busy airport where our summer began.

He squeezes me so hard I’m sure it’ll leave a bruise—if not on my skin, then without a doubt, on my soul.

I wind my arms around him and hug him even tighter, tears stinging behind my eyes and burning at my nose. I inhale a deep breath from where my face is pressed into his shirt, willing them away.

“Hey, Little D,” he says, lifting my face with it framed between his palms.

“Hey, Brooklyn,” I smile.

And it’s like no one else exists, the world silencing and pinpointing in on this moment.

It squeezes at my heart painfully, and yet beautifully, too. Because I’ve never felt it aching for the sake of something this good, for the sake of something this real, until Jude came along.

A crackling voice darts through the speakers in the airport, but the words go in one ear and out of the other.

Jude’s scent—spice, and warmth, and thunderstorms—invades my senses as he drags me impossibly deeper into his pull. And then he’s tipping my chin upward, bringing his lips down to meet mine.

A rough groan slips over my tongue, and I’m not sure which one of us it belongs to as it dips down my throat, but when his grasp on me tightens, pulling me flush against him and deepening our kiss, I leave the curiosity behind.

The warmth of him winds through me, around me, cocoons me in its hold.

“Goodbye, Jude,” I say softly against his mouth.

His low growl slips over my tongue. “This isn’t goodbye, and you know it.”