Carter (7 page)

We took off down the streets, the rain pouring down all around us, instantly soaking me to the bone. He held my hand tightly the entire way, and it was his grip that helped push me forward when my lungs were hurting and the cold winter air became hard to breathe in. I couldn’t understand the hurry. What was the damn rush? Why couldn’t we have planned this better than just abruptly leaving it all behind?

Blocks away from the trailer park, we slowed down in front of a motel. The Vacancy sign wasn’t on so I wasn’t sure why Carter had turned in.

“Wh-where are we going?” I asked him through chattering teeth. “D-do you have a room?”

My questions were answered when we began moving through the parking lot. He went to every old car and tried opening them.

Oh, my God, he was going to steal a car, wasn’t he? He was officially going to become a thief and I was going to be his dumb-as-a- knob accomplice.

Immediately I began to panic. I turned my face toward the motel, waiting for signs of someone watching us.

“Carter, no,” I told him with a strain in my voice. “Please, no!”

He didn’t listen. He found an unlocked sedan and opened it. He unlocked the backseat and pushed me inside with him. My heart was racing and the fear of being discovered had me pulling away from him.

“Leah, don’t,” he ordered.

He wrapped an arm around my waist and forced me on the seat. He shut the door behind us and we both sat there in the dark, drenched, cold, and panting. To say it was miserable was a severe understatement. We were beyond that word at the moment.

“I’m not stealing the car,” he then told me quickly. “Just sleeping in it for tonight.”

My eyes bulged out of my bed. “Sleeping in it? Are you insane?”

“Would you rather sleep out there in the rain?”

“I’d rather be sleeping in my bed!”

“Why? So guys could come and go in there as they please?”

I didn’t say anything. He had a point there. I brought my legs up to my chest and stared out the window. The streets were completely deserted, the wind tore through the rain, slamming sheets of it against anything in its path. Including the car. This was completely surreal. I wondered if I’d have time to go back home and slip through the window and nobody would know about any of this.

“Lay down,” Carter told me.

What choice did I have? The guy was going to get his way whether I liked it or not, and it wasn’t as though I could escape him because a) he was strong as hell and I was a weed, and b) I was going to die of hyperthermia if I went out there for another minute.

The seats were only small, and they smelled like smoke. Laying down was a mission, but I managed it. We were both on our sides, his legs bent to accommodate his length. He spooned me against his chest, holding me tight across the waist. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and the space was a little claustrophobic, but it beat being out in that storm.

I sighed and shut my eyes. “This is insane.”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he just held me tighter to him. I couldn’t understand any of his behaviour. It wasn’t like him to touch me like this. To hold me at all. He hugged me every now and again, sure, but he was very careful to keep a distance. What changed all that? Why was he holding me like I was the only thing in his life that mattered? I was so confused.

“You didn’t have to take me,” I told him quietly, staring straight ahead at the seat in front of me. Whoever owned the car was a fan of zebra print. It was absolutely everywhere and I began to wonder if the car owner was just as disturbing as their taste in interior car design.

When Carter didn’t answer once more, I made the uncomfortable choice of turning around to face him. He let me turn, his hand sliding down a little so that it rested just above my bum. Despite my soaked hoodie, his touch felt warm. I stared into his guarded blue eyes and waited for him to speak. His silence was a little out of the norm.

“You gonna tell me what happened?” I asked him.

He shook his head slightly. “Not right now.”

“Is it bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

I frowned. “Is your father okay?”

He shrugged. “He’ll be in one piece, I guess.”

What the hell did that mean? I raised my brow in question, but he didn’t open those beautiful lips to explain some more. It would have been the courteous route letting his best friend know the exact details of what pushed him out the door until we were here, sleeping inside a vehicle he’d sort of broken into. But no such luck with Carter. He decided to take the mysterious route and leave me hanging.

“I think you should take me back,” I whispered to him.

His grip around me only tightened at that, and I felt like a balloon on the verge of popping if he squeezed a little more.

“No,” he responded solemnly. “We discussed this.”

“We’re homeless now. Are you aware?”

“Perfectly aware.”

I swallowed, feeling my body tighten in fear. “I can’t do this, Carter. This is freaking me out. I’m absolutely terrified.”

“I know you are, but we’ll figure it out.”

I shook my head. “We’ll figure it out? That’s your response? I want to know the plan. I want to know what you expect is going to happen from here on out. Where are we going to sleep? What do we eat? Where will we shower? What about my school? Some of us haven’t graduated high school, you know.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he repeated calmly.

The last thing I felt was calm though. I was already thinking of the future. I didn’t want to be those window wipers on the side of the road, begging for some loose change. Or have to wear a sign that read “Homeless and hungry” in the hopes someone would pity me enough to give me a hot meal. Or have people judge me as some druggie in the streets because of an addiction I didn’t have. I didn’t want to pee in alleyways or shoplift at the stores. I wasn’t strong like them, and now I wished I’d hugged every freaking homeless person I’d come across because this shit sucked. I wanted my life back, even if it meant living with an evil man and a whore in a dingy area. It was safer than this, and I was opting for the lesser of two evils.

“You’re letting your fear get to you,” Carter said, pulling me away from my thoughts. “I’ve got some money stashed inside my pocket from my previous job, enough to see us through for the next while. You don’t need to fear anything, Angel. I know deep inside you’d rather be here with me than at that shithole. You say I didn’t have to take you, but how could you think I could just walk away? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing you were under that roof with all those men coming and going, especially when one of the sick pricks went into your room.”

I softened a little by his concern. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one fearing them. I mulled his words over, and he was right, I suppose. I was letting my fear get to me. I guess it was the unknown that frightened me. I liked to be in control of what tomorrow brought with it. I wanted some predictability because it meant stability too. But was I prepared to continue that lifestyle among criminals? Because that’s essentially what Russell and Cheryl were at the end of the day. If I had a choice whether to live neglected and unloved with the certainty of a roof over my head, or live in the unknown with a man that I reserved a special place in my heart, the answer came without thought.

Carter.

He would always come first.

I sighed and told myself to be calm. I trusted him. That’s all that mattered at the end of the day. He seemed to feel my mood shift and he relaxed further in the seat.

Relaxing too, I brushed my fingertip over his bruised lip. “Does this hurt?”

He shook his head. “Not so much.”

“Even when we…?” Heat rushed to my cheeks as I thought about the kiss he gave me in my bedroom – well, my old bedroom now if we were going to be technical.

He just stared at me for a moment, his eyes roaming over my face while his lips flinched upwards. “No,” he whispered.

I swallowed hard and managed a nod. I tried to say the word good but I couldn’t seem to find my voice. I just looked at him and his mouth, my need already so evident in the way I gazed at him. He could see it, couldn’t he? Surely he could see the love pouring out of me for him, it was as real as the rain pounding the roof of the zebra print interior car.

His fingers briefly touched my face, and this time there was no denying the effect he had over me. My body went still, even my breathing stopped. He lightly brushed his fingertip along my jaw and gently over my bottom lip. He was gazing at my mouth with this beautifully dazed look in his eyes, and it had my heart bursting inside my chest.

His hand travelled down my neck and along the side of my body. He settled it lower than before, right on my ass this time and pulled me closer to him. His warmth radiated into every inch of my body, and it felt so good.

“Carter,” I whispered out.

“Yeah?” he replied, eyes on mine.

I didn’t know. I just wanted to say his name, wanted him to do what he did in that bedroom. I wanted that mouth on mine so I could feel all those delicious things again.

Knowing exactly what I wanted, he leaned in closer to me. Our breaths collided as he took my bottom lip in between his teeth and tugged gently on it. I squirmed a little, completely at a loss for words. He totally just bit me, didn’t he? Dear God, it was sexy. He let go of my lip and next I felt the wet brush of his tongue between the seams of my lips. He licked all along my lip before closing his mouth over mine. It was the softest kiss I’d ever felt – not that I had much experience – and it was almost too good to be real.

Homelessness? Sleeping in cars wasn’t so bad. Food? Whatevs, I could totally dumpster dive. School? One could get street-wise instead.

None of that mattered if it meant him kissing me with those lips every night.

I kissed him back, showing him the opposite of gentle. I was the passionate one, baring it all, not hiding how eager he made me feel for his taste. He pulled me even closer to him, until he was forced to move over top of me. It was a tight fit, he almost would have crushed me if he wasn’t supporting his upper weight on his arms he’d rested on either side of my head, but it was the best make out session of my life, hands down.

I grabbed a fistful of his jacket to me, determined to keep him there. I needed that connection. I didn’t want him to break free of the kiss and forget all about this. I’d tasted that bitter rejection three years ago and refused to relive it again. No, not this time.

Our tongues clashed and our breaths were short and fast. I spread my legs wide. Maybe it was a natural thing the body just knows to do, or maybe my horny mind knew exactly what he might do. It didn’t matter. He settled himself in between them and I could feel how hard he was. Goosebumps broke out and I shivered against him, teeth chattering more from desire than from the cold.

Immediately my thoughts revolved around sex. I thought of him naked and pressed against me like this. I wondered if that was the direction we were on now. Were we both going to strip and lose ourselves in one another? Was I prepared to lose my virginity in a car covered in zebra shit? At this point, sure. Absolutely. I could do it. What the hell did it matter where we were anyway? That lovey-dovey romance shit was overrated. Bring on the car sex and rid me of this damn virginity so I could call Carter mine and end this friend-zoned disaster!

He abruptly pulled back from the kiss and rested his forehead against mine. He was breathing hard, and his eyes were closed. I skimmed my lips over his and he turned his face away so it was out of reach.

“Christ, you’re bewitching me,” he panted. “Let’s not get too carried away, Leah.”

“I want to get carried away,” I protested.

He chuckled and climbed off of me, and away went my satisfaction. It was okay, somewhat, because he still wrapped his arm around me and kept me flushed against him. I stared at him for a while as he tried to calm his breathing down. With eyes still firmly closed, his chest rose and fell rapidly. He was getting himself back under control, ready to retreat into his reserved state. The Carter State I’d aptly called it.

I smiled, thinking just then of his words from a moment ago. I was
bewitching
him. “You’re totally into me, aren’t you, Carter? Is that why you’re breathing all hard? I know I’m irresistible, but this kind of knocks even that word out of the waters.”

His mouth spread into a wide grin. Those perfect teeth, those plump lips, the way he peeked at me for a brief moment, these were the small little things that cemented my absolute love in him. They twisted my insides in the best way possible.

“You just taste good,” he finally muttered when his chest returned to normal.

“Likewise,” I replied. “I think our lips were made for each other.”

“Yeah? I think lips are just lips.”

“You know you’re made for me, Carter. You just don’t want to admit it.”

His smile slowly faded. “Nobody’s made for anyone, Leah.”

I rolled my eyes. He was such a hopeless guy. “Maybe you’re right, and maybe you’re wrong. Time will tell. Now kiss me again and don’t climb over me because I’m sure you’ll tear my clothes apart, and I’m not ready for that kind of molestation in the world’s most unromantic place.”