She rolls over and brushes her lips against mine, just barely touching them. I don’t deepen it though. She needs something right now but I don’t know what it is, so I let her set the pace. When her tongue flicks against my bottom lip, I decide to screw that idea.
I pull her to me more tightly and run my hands down her hair and the length of her back. My hands spread out across her back almost covering her entirely. She’s so small in my hands.
I end the kiss and move to kiss her jaw and then her neck. I want to explore every inch of her, but I don’t want to take advantage of her tonight.
“You taste so good,” I choke out against her throat, “and I want to taste every inch of you right now.” I smile against her skin when I feel her shudder. She wants me – it’ll happen soon enough – and I can wait.
I pull back just enough to raise her face so she can look me in the eyes. “But not tonight. Let me hold you and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“I want you, too,” she whispers right before sleep claims her. I don’t even know if she realizes she said it, but a smile explodes all over my face and I think my heart skipped a beat.
I’m such a pussy.
I rub my hand through my hair roughly and take a deep breath. She feels absolutely amazing in my arms when I finally close my eyes.
***
Nicole
I wake up in the morning, gasping for air, as the last words Mark spoke to me in my dream resonate throughout my entire body.
“We will always be right here. Nothing or nobody will ever take our place, and you will never forget, but be happy, Nic. For me….and for him.”
I look around and realize I’m alone. I don’t know what happened the other night, but Zack and I have spent every night in his bed or mine since then. I never told him about the dream – when I saw Mark’s car flip and I saw the entire scene play out in front of my eyes while I screamed in agony, watching everything. I woke up crying and didn’t want to be alone. I was too sad to care about being embarrassed when I crawled into his lap like a lost kitten.
I felt like one.
And he did exactly what I needed. He held me and kissed me, and somehow, took away my nightmare. I want him. I know he’s struggling with not taking things too far with me, and I can’t tell him how much I want him, too. But something keeps holding me back from taking that last step.
Last night’s dream was different though. It wasn’t like the nightmares I had for months after the accident and it was completely different than the one I had last week.
It felt so real when I was standing at the baseball field at our old house watching Mark and Andrew throw a baseball around. It felt like a typical Saturday afternoon. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the late spring sun was quickly warming everything around us. I’m shaken by the dream, not because of what I re-lived through it, but because it didn’t hurt as much as it used to. I filter through the images I saw and the words I hear spoken. I feel nothing but peace. I can sense Mark giving me his blessing and it warms me to the depths of my soul.
Was this what I’ve been needing?
I climb out of bed when the smell of coffee becomes too strong to ignore and do my best to shake off last night’s dream while I shower and get dressed.
I fill a cup of coffee and grab my laptop, hoping to get lots of photo editing done this morning before the band wakes up and we have to get ready for another concert tonight. I’m getting better at photographing their concerts. Since my new lens arrived last week when we were in Detroit, the concerts have been much easier and more fun to photograph. It’s been ten days since I boarded this bus, and I try to spend my time ignoring the fact that in less than two weeks, I’ll have to say good-bye to Zack.
The thought alone causes my chest to clench up. I don’t want to say good-bye to him.