Breathe Again: A Love Story Read online

  “Fuck Mellie, you are the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I want to be inside of you so badly it hurts,” he moaned into my mouth, kissing me yet again. I jutted my hips upward, grinding them against his pelvis, which was still covered in a layer of jeans. It was too much. There was still too much between us, and I reached down to undo the button on his jeans, but his hand stopped me.

  “Wait,” he said gruffly, pulling his lips from mine. “I want to see you.” I frowned, wanting him desperately, but he pinned my hands above my head. I swore every inch of me was fire when I felt his gaze move down the length of me, from my too-long toes to my too-skinny legs, up my too-flat stomach and over my too-small breasts. I’d never felt sexy before, never been told I was sexy, but he made me feel it. He made me feel it and he didn’t even have to say it.

  He moved both of my small hands into one of his, and let the other roam over my body. I didn’t even try to stifle loud groan that escaped my throat when he reached the edge of my lace-lined bra. He let it linger, slipping it underneath to tease my nipple, before letting it wander farther south, caressing my hip and slipping his fingers into the top of my panties.

  Finally, he let my hands go, and I explored his body as well, though I wasn’t nearly as confident as he was. My fingers stroked his back as he pulled his face down to mine again, kissing me roughly but with such passion that it left me feeling intoxicated. Having his hands on my body was like no drug or drink I’d ever encountered. It was fucking addicting.

  He kept whispering sweet notes into my ear, while assaulting the rest of my senses with all of him. I refused to let my insecurities or fear get in the way of the perfect moment. It was impossible not to lose myself with Jackson; not with the way he was worshipping my body. I didn’t let myself think of all the tens of thousands of women who would have given anything to be in my place with him. He wanted me, and he made sure I knew it.

  Eventually he moved back to my neck, which he kissed and bit and sucked in ways that I’d never even considered. And when he did, I knew that there was no going back. I reached down, my hands shaking only slightly, and unbuttoned his jeans. Realizing what I was trying to do, Jackson quickly moved his hand from where it was on my breast, and pulled them off.

  “You are absolutely incredible,” he mumbled against my neck, moving his back to where it was before. “I want you so badly.”

  I nearly moaned in pleasure at his words, knowing exactly how much he wanted me.

  “Let me get a…” he trailed off, distracted by the way my lips were now moving against his own neck. “I mean, we should be safe…” Knowing that my touch affected him the same way that his affected me was thrilling. I didn’t know what I was doing, necessarily, but he made me feel confident. He made me feel safe. My hands no longer shook, and I let them work their way down his back, clutching it tightly as I kissed right below his ear.

  “Oh my God,” I heard him murmur against me. “Please Mel, I can’t take this much longer.”

  I moved my lips from his neck, to only millimeters from his ear. “Don’t worry. It’s safe.”

  I could feel him clench at my words, and he immediately reached behind me to unclasp my bra and threw it across the room. I wrapped my legs around his hips, and pulled him even closer to me. He rocked against me, and I was all too aware of the fabric that still kept us apart. I loosened my legs slightly, and he took advantage of the movement by nearly ripping my panties off while I pulled his briefs down his backside. My position didn’t let me get them all the way down, so he quickly pulled them off himself.

  There was nothing left in between us, and I could feel him in between my legs. He nipped at my ear, and I almost hummed with pleasure as he slid into me so slowly it was almost painful. I pulled his face back to mine, and kissed him again. The kiss was so different, as he rocked back into me again, so passionate and sweet and fulfilling. I squeezed my eyes shut, overwhelmed by the emotion of the situation, and moved my forehead to rest against his neck.

  We both lost track of time, concentrating only on each other. After what seemed like hours and minutes and maybe only a few seconds, Jackson slowed, wrapping one of his arms around me. He kissed my neck, my hair, my forehead, and I couldn’t help but smile at the sweetness of the gesture.

  He pulled out of me, and I frowned. I knew he wasn’t done, and I already felt empty without him. Before I knew what was happening, he slid underneath me and pulled me on top of him. I froze, unsure of what to do. I knew that some couples made love this way, but I wasn’t familiar with the position. Even in the passion of the moment, I let my insecurities get a hold of me. I felt so naked, so exposed.

  But like he could read my mind, he guided me. He touched my face, my hair, and I felt safe again. And when he slid into me for the second time that night, I nearly collapsed on top of him. But the pleasure of it far outweighed any anxiety I had about the position, and it wasn’t long before I found a rhythm that made us both cry out, and cling to one another. We moved slowly after that, but with an urgency that neither one of us could hide.

  Chapter 10

  I lost my virginity on my fifteenth birthday. I’d always been taught, like most young women in Selden, that I should wait until marriage before having sex, but nobody ever did. Especially not when their boyfriends at fifteen were expected to one day be their husbands. Such values were more of a formality than anything even close to a reality.

  My mom had made pot roast for dinner and a chocolate cake for dessert. I’d been allowed to invite my two best friends over, but Daniel had to work. It wasn’t until nearly midnight, long after my parents and siblings had fallen asleep, that I heard the tap at my window.

  We’d been dating only a few months at that time, but we’d known each other almost our entire lives. We’d grown up next to each other, and his older brother was best friends with mine. And while Daniel was a year older than I was, my parents encouraged our relationship. The walls in the Devlin house were thing, and my parents’ bedroom was right next to my own, but if they heard the window open and close that night, they never said anything. They didn’t say anything for the next eight years, either.

  According to nearly everyone in town, Daniel and I were a perfect match. We both came from families that had lived in Selden for generations, and our fathers had gone to school together. Our mothers were even co-chairs of the women’s council at church. It only seemed inevitable that we would marry someday.

  We walked to the creek behind our houses, where he gave me a charm bracelet for my birthday. He told me he saved his paycheck for two months so that he could buy it for me, and had driven almost three hours to the closest mall so that he could pick it up from the jewelers. It came with three charms on it already, and had plenty of space left for her to collect more. There was a heart with the date on it, an M for Mellie, and a hummingbird for my grandmother. For the next six years, until he proposed, it was the most precious piece of jewelry that I’d owned after my grandmother’s pearl necklace. It was now buried in a sock drawer in my bedroom at my parents’ house, next to my engagement ring.

  He had spread out a blanket on the riverbank, and had a cupcake and a bottle of stolen champagne waiting for us. I’d never tried real champagne before, just a glass of white wine once at my cousin’s wedding. When he popped open the bottle, I was afraid for a moment that someone would hear it. But it was too late at night. Everyone was asleep, and we were almost a mile away from home. I didn’t like the taste of the alcohol at first, but it wasn’t long before the bottle was almost gone. And when he kissed me, I didn’t stop him.

  The first time wasn’t anything like the fairy tale I’d always dreamt it to be. It was painful and awkward, but we were both young and had never made love to another person before. So, even though the night was cold and the champagne was warm, it was amazing to me. I’d found someone who loved me, and only me, in every way possible.

  Chapter 11

  I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting after it was all over. We’
d been going at it for nearly three hours, finally stopping when we were both too exhausted to continue. He just wrapped me in the blankets, and held me close before falling asleep. I could feel his heavy, even breathing on my neck, but I couldn’t sleep, no matter how safe and right it felt in his arms.

  The air was a little chilly, so I pulled the sheet off of the bed when I got up, making sure to wrap it around myself. I padded into the front room, hoping to just find a glass of water, or something. I considered calling myself a cab, but I didn’t have a phone and I wasn’t sure where Jackson kept his. It would be too cruel to leave him while he was sleeping anyway.

  I rummaged through his cabinets quietly, and found a water glass next to the fridge. There was a bench next to the window in the kitchen, and I sat down on the padded seat. We were so high up, and I could see almost the entire West side of the city. It was beautiful.

  I felt so small, up there in that massive apartment. Life was going on like it always did, down below, but my heart was all over the place. I knew that I liked Jackson. More than liked him, if I were being honest with myself. I guess I’d just convinced myself that it was just for fun, that I could have a fling too. But this didn’t feel like a fling, and now I felt like an ass for keeping it all inside. Jackson didn’t deserve that. He was too kind, too open and sincere, and here I was, dragging him through my own personal drama.

  I sat there for a while, just looking out onto the city below. This wasn’t my home, but neither was Kansas. Not anymore, at least. I closed my eyes, and just let myself be.

  I’m not sure how long I sat there, but I was woken up when a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around me.

  “Mellie Rose,” Jackson whispered in my ear. “My bed is too empty without you. Why are you out here?”

  I didn’t respond immediately, just let myself breathe in his scent, the one that made me feel all the warm and fuzzies inside. It just wasn’t fair.

  “We need to talk,” I said, finally turning toward him.

  “Of course,” he said quietly. “You’re cold though. Can I get you a blanket?”

  I didn’t say anything, just stood up from the window and made my way to the couch. He followed me, and sat as close as he could without actually touching me.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, turning toward me. “But I want you to know that I don’t care. I don’t care what you’re about to tell me, I just want you. We all have pasts, and we all have baggage, but that doesn’t define who we are now. I know someone hurt you back in Kansas, but you’re here now, and you have me.”

  I sighed softly, and brushed an invisible tear from my cheek. “There are a lot of things that I haven’t told you about my life Jackson. I’m sorry about that. I haven’t told you because I didn’t know if it would ever get to this point. But it obviously has, so I have no other choice.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke.

  “I’m sorry if I did something to upset you. I thought it was what you wanted,” he said softly.

  I couldn’t not touch him, not when I was about to lay bare my past, so I took one of his hands in mine and started playing with his fingers absentmindedly.

  “You are only the second person I’ve ever slept with in my life,” I said finally. He didn’t say anything, so I just kept going. “I’ve been terrified that if I did sleep with you, that I would become just another girl to you.” I could see him trying to say something, but I held my hand up to stop him. “I’m still not sure that I’m not, but you can reassure me another time. Right now, I need to explain myself.”

  He nodded, but kept his mouth shut. “At this time last year, I was planning my wedding.”

  That simple confession was one of the hardest things I’d ever said out loud. Up until this point, I’d never had to explain myself, I never felt the need to.

  “I started seeing Daniel when I was only fourteen years old. We’d known each other forever, but it wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that he noticed me. We were together all four years of high school, and I waited for him while he graduated college. I wasn’t allowed to go to college; my parents thought it was a waste of time and money. I didn’t need a college degree to be a wife and mother.

  “I can tell you exactly when I fell in love with him, but I can’t tell you when I started falling out of love. We were always the token couple, the two people who were going to stay together forever. My friends always said that they were so jealous of me, but I couldn’t help but think that I was jealous of what they had. They were able to go out and have a real life. I always had to think of someone else when I did. They belonged to themselves, but I belonged to someone else. I never got to make my own decisions, my father and my boyfriend made them for me. It was how I lived my life.

  “Looking back, it’s not that I was opposed to being in a serious relationship. I think it was just the wrong person and the wrong time. And we were so young. Regardless, he proposed to me during his senior year of college. I tried to convince myself that it was the right thing to do. I did, eventually, and I threw myself into our wedding plans.

  “It took him almost six years to graduate, but I refused to marry him until he had his degree. I couldn’t go to college, but I wasn’t about to marry someone who didn’t have that security. A week before he graduated, I got an email from a friend of ours. She confessed to me that she and Daniel had slept together one night after they’d been drinking. Reading those words on the computer screen was more painful than anything I’d ever experienced before. Later, other people kept asking me how I knew it was true, since I never asked him. The truth is, I didn’t need to. Those first few days of being without him were some of the hardest days of my life. I had no idea what it was like to be single and I was terrified and humiliated. So I ran away.”

  I could feel Jackson studying my face as I spoke. I was almost too afraid to ask him what he was thinking, so I just kept going.

  “It took me a while,” I continued, “but for the first time in a long time, I felt like I could finally breathe on my own. I just didn’t know how. For weeks I was so low that I could barely feel anything at all. It was like I was suffocating, but could taste the air on my tongue. I could taste freedom. I was so close to getting exactly what I needed in life, but I still didn’t belong to myself there. I needed to leave Selden. I needed to get away from that life.”

  I saw from the corner of my eye as Jackson nodded, and I risked looking up at him. He was watching me carefully, but I couldn’t read his face. I scooted a bit closer to where he sat on the couch. I needed the nearness of him to keep going. He made me feel brave.

  “Moving here was the first time I felt like I had ever been in control of myself. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, without constantly looking over my shoulder or asking permission. And eventually, I learned how to breathe on my own. But I was still so scared. I didn’t know how to live like this. My entire life I was told that I needed someone else to have a purpose. So I tried to find someone to be with, someone who respected me and who was safe. Someone who wouldn’t break my heart. I thought I found him, but nobody’s perfect and he hurt me too. And then you came along.”

  “And how do I fit into all of this then?” he asked. I could hear his voice waver.

  I thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t know. I knew who you were immediately, of course, and I knew you weren’t the man I was looking for. That’s why I said no to you the first time, but you were persistent. Eventually I figured that I could at least just have fun. I never expected anything serious to come out of it. I made myself a promise that tonight would never happen, but it did, and I can’t say that I’m upset over it.”

  I knew that he wasn’t happy about what I just said, but I needed to get it out. He opened his mouth, but I stopped him again and dropped his hand.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen from here, but I need you to know that my heart can’t break anymore. If this is it, if this is all you wanted from me, please just let me know now
.”

  I sat completely still, waiting for him to kick me out, for him to tell me that I had it all wrong. I was afraid he was going to tell me I was reading into it all too much, that he really was just having fun. I wasn’t expecting him to pull me into his arms, and press his lips to mine. I was hesitant at first, but I eventually gave in, again. I used the opportunity to pour every emotion I was feeling into the kiss. I didn’t know if he felt it or not, but it was all I had.

  After a few seconds, he pulled away and cleared his throat before speaking. “I don’t know what’s going to happen either. And I didn’t know what would happen when I made the decision to come find you, but I always knew that you weren’t going to be just another woman to me. Regardless of where this goes, I swear to you that I will never hurt you. I’ve been with a lot of women, and there is nothing I can do to change that now, but I swear that you are something different. I have never felt anything like this with anybody else, and I would like to see what happens next, if that’s okay with you.” He looked into my eyes, and I knew he was trying to find my answer before I could say it out loud, but I just pulled my gaze away from his and laid my cheek onto his chest instead.

  “I would like that,” I said softly. He tightened his hold around me, kissing my hair as I yawned. He held me for a long time, refusing to let me go. There really was nothing left between us now, but honesty and nakedness and vulnerability. I wanted it to last forever.

  I was about to doze off in his arms, when I heard his voice in my hair.

  “It’s two in the morning Mellie.”

  “Mmmmmm,” was all I said. I was far too comfortable in his arms.

  “I can take you home, if you want, but I’d really like to take you back to bed with me. To sleep.”

  I pulled myself away from his chest, and looked him in the eye. He really did look like he wanted me to stay. “I’ll stay,” I said quietly.

  “I can even sleep on the couch, if you want,” he offered. I just kissed him then, and wrapped my arms around his neck. For the second time that night, he picked me up off the couch and carried me into his bedroom.