Yank

Chapter Ten

I was supposed to meet Julie at the club and she was standing outside waiting for me when I got there-decidedly late.

She didn’t see me at first and I looked at her, leaning against the side of the building, her head turned the other way. Her dark hair fell in long, loose curls around the curve of her face in profile and it naturally led my eyes downward to the curves of her body. She was slender and soft, the size of her breasts a delightful surprise, a continental shelf-the woman had two delicious, sizeable sweater muffins under there!

I was amazed she didn’t seem annoyed I was late. She wasn’t tapping her foot or pacing. She didn’t even look bored-she was just there, in the moment. There was even a half smile on her face.

“Hey Jules!” I slipped my arm around her waist and she turned to me, that half-smile filling and brightening immediately. Even her eyes smiled.

“Hey sexy!” She turned her face up for a kiss expectantly, not doubting for a moment I would give her one-and I did, a long, soft kiss that deepened into something else as I pressed her against the wall, leaning my weight fully against her. She gasped when we parted, her eyes shining. “Wow! I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Let’s not go in.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not go in?”

“I want to be with you.” I nuzzled her neck, feeling her melt against me, the soft press of her breasts against my chest making me ache to touch them without any barrier between us. “Just you.”

“Well…I was going to surprise you…” Her breath moved across my ear, making my cock twitch. “Joanna’s gone to stay at her mum and dad’s for the weekend. She’s standing up in a wedding.”

I perked up-in more ways than one. “We have your whole flat to ourselves?”

“That’s right.” She waggled her eyebrows.

“What are we waiting for?” I kissed her again, harder this time, sliding my thigh between hers and wondering if she was wearing knickers-she still hardly ever did. I pushed her skirt up a little with my hand, feeling the impossibly soft skin of her thigh. She sighed and shifted against me, not protesting at all, even though people were all around us.

“Hey, ya randy bloke!” The sound of a voice behind me made me stop any further exploration. “Get a room!”

“We’ve got one!” I called back over my shoulder and then turned to Julie and whispered, “Let’s go use it.”

Julie shared a nice flat with a former classmate of ours, Joanna, on Forest Road. I didn’t fathom how they could make enough between them to afford it, but I think Julie’s mum and dad helped her out with groceries and such. We walked from the Tube, Julie swinging my hand and banging on about her late hours, and how hard her employer was working her lately. I paid only peripheral attention, the question of what was going on at home knotted like a viper in my belly.

“David, are you listening?”

“Huh?” I glanced at her as she unlocked the door to her flat and let us both in. The place smelled like roses and cats, a strange combination. They had a cat, even though they weren’t supposed to have any pets.

“What can I do to get your mind back here?” Julie pondered, shutting the door and tossing her purse and keys on the foyer table. Her tone was teasing as she shrugged off her jacket and let it drop to the floor. She was dressed to the nines, ready for a night of dancing, and the sight of her breasts pushed up in some silky material transfixed me for a moment.

“That helped,” I said, leaving off my shoes and stepping over her discarded jacket.

“What did?” She slid up onto the arm of a big, cushy chair, unbuckling the little straps on her heels and letting them clatter to the floor. “Oh, you mean this?” Her fingers worked the buttons on her blouse, pulling it free of her skirt to get the lower ones. Her blouse was sheer and black, her bra the clear decoration beneath. She stood and let her shirt drop to the floor too, and went to work on her bra. “Is this helping get your mind back on…things?”

“More than my mind…”

The bra joined the growing pile of clothing on the floor and I stared as her breasts bounced free, their small, dark nipples already hard.

“Unzip me?” Julie turned, bending over the arm of the chair. Their cat-he was named something-Seymour? Simon? I couldn’t remember-jumped up into the chair and mewed at her. She pet him, cooing and making soft noises that made my cock jump. I moved closer, running my hand along the smooth curve of her back as I slowly worked the zipper of her skirt down. She had a terrific set of arse antlers on her lower back, a tattoo like black lightning that met in the middle to form a heart-shape. I hadn’t noticed it the first time we were together in my bedroom in the dark, but we’d managed to find other times this week to fuck like bunnies, squeezing it in between her work schedule and her flatmate’s. I’d only seen Joanna a few times-a startling shock, since they were identical twins. But Joanna didn’t have that hot tattoo on her back where Jules did.

If she was wearing knickers-and you never knew with Julie-I thought they would be black. Instead, they were white cotton with a little lace edge, quite prim. They made me smile. It was somehow even more alluring, those little girl-like panties underneath all the sexy outerwear. I slid her skirt down her slim hips, watching it pool at her feet.

“Nice knickers.” I pulled them down to reveal all of her tattoo. Damn, that was hot.

“You like ’em?” Julie hooked her thumbs in and pulled them all the way off, turning and letting them dangle from her finger. “You can have ’em!”

I laughed as she tucked them into my jacket pocket, pressing herself against me. She was completely naked and my cock was uncomfortably hard as I grabbed onto her arse and pulled her close.

“Well, you’ve succeeded.” I took her hand and placed it over my crotch, letting her feel how hard her little striptease had made me.

“I said I wanted your mind back.” Julie giggled, squeezing the length of my cock through my trousers and making me jump. “Oh wait! I guess I did succeed, didn’t I?”

I snorted. “All men think with their dicks, is that it?”

“What are you thinking now?” She sank slowly to her knees in front of me, letting every inch of her naked body rake down my fully clothed front and I watched her, feeling dizzy with lust. She unzipped me quickly and I was in her hand before I could even take another breath.

“Thinking?”

She giggled again and then ran the tip of her tongue around the head of my aching cock, making me groan. We’d squared away the sucks-like-a-Hoover issue on our second “date”-and she had made great progress in the blowjob department since. I loved the way she looked up at me when she did it, stopping now and then to ask, “Like this?” or “Good?”

All I could manage to respond was, “Fantastic! Fucking fantastic!” closing my eyes and letting the pleasure take me completely out of myself. She was actually making my knees weak!

“Jules,” I gasped, pulling my cock out of her grasp. “I need to sit down or I’m going to collapse!”

She laughed and pushed me back toward the chair. I shrugged off my jacket and stepped out of my trousers on the way while she followed me on her knees. Her mouth seemed to follow my cock and she latched on the moment I sat down, working up and down with a fervor that was going to make me blow way too soon for my liking.

“Wait.” I reached for her, pulling her up so I could kiss her. I could taste myself in her mouth as she splayed herself between my legs. I couldn’t help grabbing her arse and grinding my cock against her belly as we kissed. Julie wriggled and moaned when I spread her open with my hands.

“You didn’t like my mouth?” she whispered, sucking on my neck-damn, she had a hard suck! I was going to have love bites in the morning. If she could only learn to use her powers for good!

“I love your mouth.” I kissed her again, sucking at her lips, running my tongue along the sweet open flesh of her mouth. “But my cock is in the mood for some…brain food.”

She giggled at my attempt at a joke, my fingers eagerly probing, her pussy hair soft and curly, giving way to the wetness beneath. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment than to be buried inside her.

“Come on, luv,” I urged, helping her up so she was fully in my lap, straddling me. “Give my poor cock some nourishment.”

“Only if you promise to give my little clitty some too.” She smiled again as she positioned herself, her hair a dark curtain around us as she grabbed hold and aimed me. I was falling in love with that smile.

“You couldn’t keep my hands off it if you tried,” I murmured as she sank down onto the length of my cock-fuck, that was good! Her breasts swayed slightly as she began to rock, balancing herself on the arms of the chair-they were ripe and luscious and I wanted to cup them but I restrained myself, using one hand on her hip to steady her and the other to find and focus on her clit.

“Ohhh yes.” Her eyes closed, her hips pushing forward, making my cock shift to a delicious angle inside of her. “Rub it faster, Davey…faster…”

Hearing her call me Davey made me instantly think of Dawn and I didn’t want to go there. I tried closing my eyes against it, but that brought her nearer-I could see Dawn’s eyes glinting, the turn of her mouth and that mischievous smile. I’m not fucking Dawn. I said it over and over in my head. Not Dawn. Julie. Julie. Julie.

“Julie!” I grabbed her hips, surprising her I think. She was catching a good rhythm and losing herself and I had stopped that. “I…my…” What the hell was I going to say? Stop, because I keep thinking you’re someone else? Christ! “I’m getting a cramp…can we…?”

“Oh!” She moved off me quickly, still startled, looking like she didn’t know where to go, what to do, whether she should kneel or stand. She crossed her arms over her chest, biting her lip, and looked at me. I realized I was supposed to have a cramp and started rubbing my thigh.

“How about the bedroom?” I suggested, standing too, and pulling her against me. She looked so awkward and alone, and I wanted one of us, at least, to feel at ease. “Soft bed…soft music…soft skin…”

She grinned, reaching down to grasp my length. “As long as I get a hard cock.”

“One hundred percent guaranteed.”

“I’ll meet you in my room.” She kissed me softly on the cheek. “I have to use the loo.”

Her room was twice the size of mine with a bed big enough for three. I turned on a lamp sitting on the nightstand, tossed my shirt aside and flopped on. I heard the sound of water running in the washroom next door and wondered what she was thinking. I wondered if she was thinking about what I was thinking. Hell, I didn’t even want to be thinking what I was thinking.

I put my hands behind my head and closed my eyes, willing Julie to come back, because I was afraid to be with my own thoughts. I kept seeing the disappointment on Dawn’s face when I left, the strangely catatonic look in Mum’s eyes as I passed by. The guilt filling my chest threatened to choke me and I wanted to throw open a window and yell until my lungs felt free of it. I felt some sort of huge pressure, something weighing me down. It felt like everyone wanted a piece of me, wanted me to be something or do something for them. My head hurt. It felt like it was going to explode.

“Hey, luv.” Julie sat on the edge of the bed on the other side. She had put on a t-shirt, a long one with Betty Boop on the front. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I stared at her, feeling a lump growing in my throat. “About how I keep all my brains in my dick, you mean?”

“I suppose.” She smiled when she turned to look at me, but it wasn’t the Julie smile I’d come to recognize. It was sadder, and full of a deeper understanding than I’d experienced with anyone I’d ever known. “She told me, David.”

My heart stopped. Literally fucking stopped. “Who…what?”

“Dawn.” Julie sighed, crawling up next to me and resting her head on the pillow beside mine.

I didn’t want to know. I asked anyway. “She told you…what?”

“She told me she was fucking you.”

“Oh Christ.” I covered my eyes with my arm, my stomach lurching. This couldn’t be happening. What in the hell was Dawn thinking?

“And she told me to leave you alone.”

“Oh…god…” I remembered my jealousy about Ken, how I’d fantasized about killing him. Had Dawn really felt the same? “You must think…”

She touched my arm. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

She was. The woman knew the worst possible thing I’d ever done (it isn’t, it isn’t, you love her, you know you do, admit it, you love her and it isn’t just a sisterly sort of love) and still she was here. The next question that came to me made me sad: Why?

So now I was judging Julie for not judging me? What was wrong with me?

“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure who I was apologizing to-her, me or…everyone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked again.

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t we just lie here, then?” She reached over me and turned out the light, snuggling up to my side. Her breath smelled like toothpaste and I realized she’d brushed her teeth.

”All right.”

“Things might look different in the morning.”

Morning? That was my last thought before I drifted off.

* * * *

It wasn’t quite dawn yet when I woke from terribly conflicted dreams filled with painfully archetypal unseen monsters and long quests. I knew immediately I wasn’t home in my bed, but for a moment I forgot everything entirely, the disorienting feeling of being in nothing, lost, not knowing where or even who I was, completely overwhelming. Then I felt her shift beside me, her breath against my shoulder, her arm folded in behind me like a soft wing, and I remembered-Julie.

“Morning, sexy.” Her arm unfolded and she slid a hand down my belly.

I swallowed, afraid of my own voice. “How can you even look at me?”

”How could I not?” Her hand snuck slowly south, petting my skin, making me shiver. “You’re a mighty fine sight in my bed in the morning.”

I blinked, stunned. “You’re quite something.”

“Thank you.” Her hand moved lower, finding me at a quarter-mast-I was always at least a little hard in the morning. “Now, I think I remember someone promising me a hard cock and a little attention on a certain part of my anatomy…”

“That’s right, isn’t it?” I turned and kissed her, trying to put every grateful feeling I had into that kiss. She arched and sighed and pressed her naked thigh between mine, like the slide of satin, her breasts full against my chest.

”I dreamed about fucking you,” she whispered, her hands in my hair, leading me-as if I needed leading-to the rising mounds of her breasts. Her nipples were hard already and I licked and sucked them, listening to her moan as she told me about her dream. “I was bent over the kitchen table and you were spanking me, telling me what a bad girl I was.” The thought made my cock spring to full attention and I traced faster circles with my tongue around her nipple. “And every time you spanked my bottom, I felt it in my pussy.”

I groaned, slipping my hand down to her mound, rocking it over the fullness of her pussy. She moaned too, getting a little more breathless, but she didn’t stop telling me.

“You kept saying I needed to be punished,” she murmured, pressing with her hips against my hand, begging with her body for more. “And then you spread my legs and put your cock inside me.”

That thought had my cock throbbing and I reached a hand down to quell the ache a little.

She didn’t stop. “You fucked me hard, right from the first.” Julie sighed and opened wider when my fingers found their way through her wet, pink flesh, parting the dark, curly hair and probing. “And every time you…oh!” My fingers slid in deep and she shuddered, clutching me. “Every time you shoved into me, you said ‘Bad!’… mmmmm… like that…” She moved her hips in circles, her pussy squeezing my fingers. “Just like that… you kept saying, ‘bad, bad, bad’…”

“I’m the bad one,” I confessed, feeling somehow connected to her dream. Had I been punishing her somehow for what I had done with Dawn? “Julie, I wish she hadn’t told you…”

“I’m glad she told me,” she insisted, putting her hand over mine between her thighs. “I don’t want to have any secrets between us.”

“Christ!” I shook my head, blinking at her. “This isn’t a secret, it’s a… betrayal. Don’t you feel betrayed?”

“No.” She rocked, rocked, her eyes half-closed. “Our future starts now, not then.”

“You don’t find me a horrible person?”

“Rather not…” She smiled. “I just want to know one thing.” I knew what the question was and I didn’t want to answer it. I was afraid of my response. “Do you want to keep on with her?”

Fuck. Did I? My head was filled with Dawn’s mischievous smile, her full hips, her nasty talk and hot fucking ways…

“No.” I lied. I lied and tried to make myself believe the lie. “I don’t want her.” The truth was a little deeper than that. I can’t have her. “Especially with you in my bed.”

“My bed,” she reminded me. “But I don’t see why it can’t be yours too.”

I understood immediately what she was proposing. “What about your roommate?”

“My roommate’s easy…in every sense of the word.” Julie smiled, leaning in to whisper into my ear. “And she bats for both sides…”

It took me a moment to understand the full meaning of what she was saying. Joanna liked fillies as well as blokes? My eyes widened and I stared. I was gob smacked.

“Yes,” Julie nodded, her eyes bright, her hand still rocking over mine, driving my fingers into her wetness, and I knew she was answering my unasked question, not just exclaiming over the sensation between her legs. Feeling stunned, my cock harder than it had ever been in my life, I slid between her thighs to reward her for her understanding, her acceptance. I licked her pussy like I was begging for absolution, seeking redemption, and in part, I was.

“Oh yes, yes!” she murmured, reaching down to spread her lips wide so I could delve deep with my tongue, my nose rubbing against the nub of her clit. Her taste was darker, stronger-god, I didn’t want to keep comparing them. I shoved the thought out of my head, just focusing on her clit, watching her belly undulate as her hips rolled, her hands cupping her own breasts, pulling at her nipples. My cock pressed hard against the bedclothes and I fucked them slowly, watching her and imagining my cock sliding into the wetness my fingers were probing.

“Oh fuck, fuck, that’s it! That’s so fucking it!” Her hips shot up against my mouth and I had to grab her with both hands, lashing my tongue over her pussy with great fervor, working hard for her come, wanting it, and she gave it to me in hot, rolling waves, her whole body shuddering with pleasure. She came down slowly, whispering, “Oh… oh… ohhh,” her head going back and forth on the pillow. I was dizzy with lust, blind with it, and I sucked my fingers, drenched in her juices.

“I want to fuck you,” I told her, grabbing her hips and rolling her quickly to her belly. I wanted to see that tattoo, watch it while she fucked back against my aching cock. She gasped but acquiesced, lifting her arse in the air, using two fingers from underneath to spread her lips, showing me the way-but my cock already knew. I let him lead, closing my eyes and just driving forward, finding that sweet, wet hole and thrusting deep.

“Oh god!” She moaned, and I felt her fingers stay there, rubbing at her little clit. I knew I wasn’t going to last long and I grasped her hips for leverage, my thumbs rubbing over that black lightning tattoo, massaging and spreading it as I began to fuck her. She was hot inside, very tight and oh-so-sweet, like driving into wet silk, and I rolled my hips, trying to hold out a little. The head of my cock felt the size of a football shoved inside her, rubbing into the soft niches of her flesh.

“Ahhhh yes,” I groaned, feeling her pussy squeeze my length. “You feel so fucking good!”

“You like that?” She rolled her hips in circles to match mine, squeezing her pussy and releasing, driving me batty. “Feel good all over that hard cock?”

“Fuck!” I tried to hold it, I tried, but her pussy clenched and clenched, milking me.

“I love you fucking me,” she moaned, slapping back against me, my balls brushing her hand where she was furiously rubbing her clit. “That’s it! Harder! Fuck that pussy hard, baby!”

Oh, bloody fucking hell. There was no holding out. I couldn’t possibly.

“Julie!” I cried out her name, reassuring myself, knowing it was Julie’s body writhing against me, Julie’s cunt squeezing me and on the verge of coming again too. “Oh fuck, Julie, you’re going to make me come!”

She moaned, reaching back to feel my cock plunging into her. “Come all over my arse!” she begged me. “I want to feel it!”

Oh damn. I was right there! I jerked myself quickly out of the wet warmth of her cunt, and the first blast hit the fingers she was using to bring herself off. She gasped in surprise, then moaned and began to shudder, her arse rolling with her orgasm. I knew she was coming too, because she told me.

“Oh yesss! Coming! Coming!” She shook with it. I watched her body roll and grabbed my spurting cock, aiming it last-minute at her arse, shooting thick, white streams over the hot splash of her tattoo, watching it drip down in clearish white streams, my cock jerking, my balls so tight, drawn up to empty their load completely, every spasm bringing a delicious shudder of pleasure.

The first thing I wanted to ask, once I could breathe and speak normally again, was if Julie had really been trying to tell me that she’d had a threesome involving her roommate. But I couldn’t get up the nerve. Instead, we took a long, hot shower, soaping each other up. It was sexy and sweet, but I was too hungry and too worried about what might be going on at home to think about having another go.

“What do you want for brekkie?” Julie stood on one foot in front of the open refrigerator when I came in wearing just my trousers and drying my hair with a towel.

“Food,” I replied, sitting at the table. “Hungry!’

“How about a fry-up?” Julie starting pulling things out of the refrigerator. “Eggs and sausages?”

“Sounds fantastic.” I glanced over at the phone, knowing I should call, but not wanting to. It was ten in the morning and my mum was going to be furious. I was surprised she hadn’t rung already, off her head. “Can I use your phone?”

Julie glanced over, smiling. “Got to call your mum?”

“If I don’t, I’m gonna be completely jaspered.” I didn’t tell her I was worried maybe Mum had seen or heard something she shouldn’t have. As comfortable as Julie seemed about knowing I’d slept with Dawn, I still just wasn’t all that used to the idea yet.

“Mum?”

“David? Oh good,” she said. I blinked at the phone. She didn’t sound mad at all. “Are you at Julie’s then?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Good again? What in the bloody hell was going on? “Just be home at a decent time tonight.”

“Yeah,” I repeated, knowing my voice sounded strange, rather strangled, but I couldn’t help it. I’d already stayed out all night long, and not only was she not pitching a fit, she wasn’t insisting I come home immediately to accept my punishment! Who was this woman, and what had she done with my mum?

“Bye, then!” With that, Mum hung up.

That was it? I stared at Julie, bewildered. The thing in my belly that had been there since Dawn and I had started up was churning.

“How did it go?” Julie was frying up eggs.

“Mum wasn’t upset.” I stared at the phone in my hand, still incredulous. “Said I should just get home at a decent hour tonight.”

“That’s rare, then?” She reached for the salt and pepper, and I couldn’t help notice how her t-shirt rode up, showing me the curve of her bottom.

“Rare as rocking horse shit,” I agreed. There was something wrong with this picture. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

”Well, then, we have all day.” She winked at me, stirring the sausages in another pan. “Joanna won’t be back until late tonight.”

I put the phone on the table and went over to her. “Maybe we should kick her out for the whole week,” I said, kissing her neck. She turned her head to let me, and I swear if she was a cat, she would have purred. “Just stay in bed.”

She laughed. I loved that laugh. “You’re going to get me sacked! Just because you don’t have a job…”

“I’m going to have to find one.” I sighed, burying my face in and breathing the scent of her clean hair. “Dad’s threatening to cut off my pocket money starting next week.”

“You’ll find one.” She flipped the eggs. “You’re resourceful.”

“That’s true.” I peered over her shoulder, sliding my hands around to cup her breasts and thumb her nipples. “I’m also hungry. Let’s eat!”

“Mmmm!” She shivered, pressing her bottom back against me. “Hold your horses, sexy. Everything in due time.”

Everything.

That’s what I wanted.

Everything.

And that’s just what I couldn’t have.

* * * *

“Mum?”

She was sitting on the sofa when I came in, flipping through the telly. I could count on one hand the times I’d seen my mum just sitting in front of the telly.

“Oh, there you are.” She smiled at me, but she seemed distracted. “Did you have fun at Julie’s?”

Fun? What I’d had at Julie’s couldn’t be called anything but, I suppose, but she said it like I was five and coming home from a play date at a friend’s house. She had to have known what we were doing.

“Uh…yeah.” It was a Sunday evening and I expected my dad to be the one on the sofa snoozing in front of the telly, Dawn to be up in her room playing music loud enough for my mum to tell her to turn it down while she read a book in the chair next to my dad… “Where is everyone?”

Mum shrugged. “Out.”

I decided not to press my luck and went upstairs, glancing at Dawn’s room at the end of the hall just out of habit as I opened my bedroom door. What I saw made me stop and stare.

Her door was open, but there was nothing in it. Nothing-her bed, her desk, her computer, her stereo, even the posters of Sting on the wall. It was all gone. I had to check for myself I wasn’t hallucinating, going past Mum and Dad’s closed bedroom door and pushing Dawn’s door fully open.

The carpet was blue, the walls covered with a shiny white wallpaper, like striped satin. The curtains were the blue roses my mum had picked to make the office “look pretty.” It looked like just any old room now that her stuff was out of it.

And just what was her stuff doing out of it?

I bounded down the stairs, and Mum turned her face to me as I stopped in front of her. “Mum? Where’s all Dawn’s stuff?”

She didn’t even blink. “Oh, she’s moved into Laurie’s flat.”

My heart sunk and I just knew…Mum had heard. Had heard, and had acted, quickly and cleanly, kicking Dawn out of the house. No wonder she hadn’t cared how long I stayed at Jules’!

“Is she there now?”

Mum shook her head, going back to the telly. “She’s at the health club, giving her notice.”

“Her…” Notice? She’s quitting her job?

Mum ignored my confusion. “Laurie’s got her in. They needed another shop assistant.”

“I’m going out.” I couldn’t think. I needed to see Dawn, talk to her…

“Again?”

“I’ll be back in an hour.”

At least, I thought I would.

* * * *

She was coming out as I was going in. We stood there for a moment, just looking at each other, the weight of what we’d done, how we felt, what we knew, hovering over us like an anvil. And then it fell. She threw her arms around me and I held her, right there in front of the health club with people walking in and out around us.

“I’m so sorry, David,” she whispered against my neck, and I felt the hot wetness of her tears.

“We need to go somewhere.” I meant away from the entrance of the health club-at least, that’s what I meant out loud. What I really meant was we had to go away together, run away somewhere, live happily ever after.

“Come on.” She took my hand and led me around the side of the building. Parking was in back, so it was quiet here, and she squeezed my hand as she stopped. “Your mum knows.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “What did she say to you?”

“She told me she and your dad had talked about it and decided I needed to find my own place.”

I stared at her. “Did she say…she heard…or saw…?”

“Your mum?” Dawn snorted. “She’d never. No…she just said she’d already talked to Laurie, who said I could move in with her. Your dad rented a truck and helped me move my stuff. It happened…very fast.”

“Overnight!” I shook my head, shoving my hands into my pockets. “She told me to stay at…”

“Julie’s.” Dawn swallowed, looking at me. “David, I did an awful thing…”

“More awful than what we’ve been doing?”

“That hasn’t been awful!” She slipped her arms around me, resting her head against my chest. “Do you think it’s been awful?”

I didn’t want to tell her how amazing, how beautiful, how incredible… “I know you told Jules.”

“Oh, David, I’m so sorry.”

I kissed the top of her blonde head. “She doesn’t care.”

“She’s…” I felt her sobs. She was doing it silently, as if I wouldn’t know. I wanted to make it all okay and I just couldn’t. She gave a hitching breath and said, “She’ll be good for you.”

She smiled, a brave-girl sort of smile, the kind she always gave me whenever my mum and dad were fighting when we were little and she was trying to cheer me up and let me know it was all going to be okay.

“I don’t want…” I lifted her face in my hands, kissed the tears off her cheeks. Her eyes said everything and I knew mine must too. “Oh Dawnie, I want you. I can’t help it, I do.”

“I want you too,” she whispered. I kissed her, tasting the salt of her tears, licking it from her lips. I didn’t want any evidence of pain left when we were through. “But I have something else to tell you. I’ve been so stupid. My parents are moving to Turkey and I thought I could stay here if…if…”

“What?” I stared at her, the puzzle pieces falling into place. “Oh my god, Dawnie. Is that what all this was about?”

“At first, I guess it was.” She trembled in my arms as if it were cold outside instead of a warm summer evening. “But it isn’t anymore. Not anymore.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had to say it out loud. “You were fucking me so you could stay in the country?”

“It was stupid, I know. I thought maybe if someone would marry me…” She bit her lip. “You or Ken maybe…”

“Ken?” I scoffed. “You would have married Ken?”

“I was desperate!” She moved away, wiping at her cheeks with her hands, trying to compose herself. “And now I’ve ruined everything. You hate me. Your parents hate me. Study Abroad is going to kick me out for sure…and I’m going to have to move to Turkey!”

“I don’t hate you.” I was too full of emotion not to confess it. “Dawn, I love you.”

“You do?”

“I’d marry you tomorrow if it would keep you with me.” I reached out to clasp her hand, wanting more of her and afraid to ask for it.

“You would?” She squeezed back.

“I don’t even care if you don’t love me. I don’t care.” It was true. I loved her and it was all that mattered.

“But I do.” Her eyes tilted up at me. “Oh David, I’ve always loved you.”

“Then marry me.” I reached for her without thinking, wrapping her up in my arms.

“But…” She gaped up at me at this proposal. “You don’t even have a job!”

“Oh bloody hell!” I rolled my eyes. “Are you going to start in on that too?”

She grinned. “You know, I gave my notice here and talked you up quite a bit. My boss was very interested. The job’s probably yours if you want it.”

“So I can slut around at the health club all day and call it working?” I pulled her into the saddle of my hips, seeing her eyes light up.

“I don’t care what you do,” she murmured as I kissed her breathless. “As long as you come home to me at night.”