With This Heart (26 page)

He was watching my reaction with such sincerity that I had to say something. Something to douse the flames before he pressed me back against the bar and took me in front of all the nice patrons.

“
You probably only love me because I’m a rock star now,” I quipped, sort of mumbling over the “love me” part for fear that I was being presumptuous.

A dimple appeared next to his mouth and I focused on that as he started tugging me out of the bar. We left the newsletters in the booth— in the city where they belonged. The city that missed their golden boy enough that it wasn’t my burden to hold onto him any longer. As Beck pushed through the bar’s doors, I pressed my hand to the jagged scar above my heart and closed my eyes. I would carry Colby with me forever, right where it mattered the most.

…

“
Have you ever had sex in a seedy motel before?” I asked as Beck and I laid down staring at the popcorn ceiling above our heads. Beck chuckled next to me and reached to grab my hand. I smiled and then rolled over to straddle him. His eyebrows shot up and I internally applauded myself for taking him by surprise. His brown hair hung sweet and disorderly against his pillow.

His hands pressed against my back, just under my bra, and I rocked my hips over his, getting a slow feel for him beneath me. My hands tugged his shirt up so I could skim my fingers along his abs, memorizing each ridge that belonged to me. I kept tugging higher until most of his upper body was revealed to me. My hands roamed everywhere.

“
That tickles.” Beck wiggled beneath me as I roamed too close to his underarms.

“
Oops, sorry,” I smiled, and dragged my hands back down to his lower stomach. I traced the V that pointed to my end goal. Beck’s hands ran under the top of my dress, skimming over my skin until he found the clasp of my bra. With a quick flick, he undid it, and I mashed my lips together. That feeling of him dragging his hand around my torso to cup my breasts beneath my dress sent a delicious shiver down my spine.

“
Beck,” I moaned, not realizing I’d been rolling my hips onto him the entire time. That was all the encouragement he needed. He hands cupped around each breast. My nails dug gently into his torso, letting the sensations take over. A moment later, he pressed up so that I could push his shirt over his head. He tugged my dress off and then threw it across the room. His pants followed.

His hands wrapped around my back so that when he laid back down, he took me with him. Our chests were pressed tightly together. Warm skin on skin as our mouths found one another. It felt empowering to straddle him like that as his hands gripped my hair, keeping us melded together. We ground our hips together in a sweet rhythm.

I pressed my hand to his warm chest. “Could I be on top?” I asked with a crooked smile. I had no clue if I’d enjoy it that way, but I wanted to try. Beck licked his lips and nodded, grasping me on top of him. I pressed my hands to his chest to support my weight as his fingers dipped down my body, rubbing me gently for a few moments.

I reached down and clasped over his hand, aligning us perfectly. Then I bit my lip and started to sink down, unsure of how painful it would be. My weight wasn’t enough to push me all the way down onto him. I hovered in limbo, adjusting to his size. My fingers gripped his chest and my head fell forward with the weight of the pleasure. But then Beck’s hands gripped my waist and in one fluid move, he simultaneously bucked his hips up and pressed me down so that I was filled completely by him.

“
Beck!” I cried out as a flood of sensations came over me. His hands gripped my hips as his thumbs dipped lower. The feel of him inside of me as his fingers moved over my inner thighs, touching flesh that was overly-sensitized, felt like too much for my brain to comprehend.

I couldn’t remember to breathe or to move my hands from their death-grip on his chest.

We hung there, unable to move for a few more seconds. Then Beck moved his hands up to my face. He brushed my hair away and titled my chin with his thumb so that our eyes locked in a sweet gaze.

Our eyes told each other everything. They said ‘I love you’ even before we could verbalize the phrase. He started rocking his hips below me, slow and sensual at first. I leaned back, resting my hands on his knees so that I could roll my hips and feel every inch of him inside of me.

His groans told me how turned on he was. I fed off them, letting my eyes flutter closed as we found a sweet, fast rhythm. His thumb found the spot that had me imploding only after a few quick rubs. But then we were shifting, Beck was rolling me onto my back and spreading my legs out wide so that he could pull out of me and then thrust back in with unadulterated passion. Our love-making was on his terms; he took what he needed and gave me everything in return. My second orgasm came quickly, too quick for me to even grasp on for dear life. I was gripping his hair. He was biting into my shoulder, and we were coming together, breathing each other’s names and praying for the moment to never end.

I was in the hotel’s bathroom the next day, showering and taking my medications. Everything seemed normal and I felt fine, but when I took my temperature, it was slightly higher than usual. 100.9. I made a mental note of it so I could let my mom know, but then Beck knocked on the bathroom room and distracted me by stripping down to his skivvies so that he could hop in the shower.

“
Hey! I’m trying to get dressed here,” I joked, watching him push his boxers to the floor and turn on the shower. Oh how I loved that rock-hard tush. I’d never considered myself a butt girl, but if you were there you would have checked it out, too. It was just so sexy.

He turned to give me cheeky grin and then stepped inside the curtain.

“
So are we going to Marfa?” I asked, stuffing all of my toiletries back into my bag.

“
You remembered?” Beck asked, poking his head so that his damp hair left drops of water on the floor.

I shrugged, moving to leave and so he could have privacy. “It was your one request this entire trip, and Odessa wasn’t quite what I expected it to be.”

“
To Marfa it is!” he called out playfully.

…

Marfa is in the middle of nowhere, but only about three hours from Odessa. We’d driven through stretches of desert with no end in sight when finally we spotted a tiny oasis of sorts. It was the holy grail of pit stops. The mecca of road trip pilgrimages. There was a fast food restaurant, a gas station, a souvenir shop, and then a smattering of things that you would never in your life need in the middle of the desert: rubber snakes, astronaut costumes, and quilt patterns.

“
So why did you want to go to Marfa?” I asked, handing him the bag of candy we’d purchased at the rest stop. He picked out three green Sour Patch Kids and then handed it back over. He knew to leave the orange ones for me.

Beck drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and thought for a moment. “I’ve heard it’s a cool town, but I mainly wanted to check out The Lights.”

I stared out the window, trying to discern the meaning of his sentence, but I eventually gave up. “The Lights? Of the town?”

Beck’s mouth hung open like I’d just fessed up to the fact that I didn’t know the name of our current President. Hello, Mr. Obama, if you’re reading this.

“
What?” I asked with a smile.

“
Abby. The Marfa Lights! They’re famous! No one knows what they really are. Some people think they’re aliens and skeptics argue that they’re just car headlights really far off in the distance, reflecting off the hills.”

I nodded, trying to imagine what he was talking about, but all I could picture were little UFOs flying around. “So we’re going to check them out?”

“
Absolutely,” he answered with confidence.

I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I’d never heard of such a thing. “Are they small? What if we go and we can’t see them?”

Beck shot me a skeptical glance. “We’ll see them, Abby. I bet they’ll be there.”

But what if they weren’t?

The remainder of our drive went by quick, and by early evening we were pulling into a camp ground that had come highly recommended by the owner of one of the gas stations in town. He said we had to rent one of the teepees. So we followed his directions and pulled into El Cosmico Campground. It was like a hipster’s wet dream. There were genuine teepees set up next to propped up tents. Abstract sculptures dotted the landscape and punctuated the fact that we were
not
in a run-of-the-mill campground. There was a communal kitchen and an outdoor shower that had a rock wall for privacy. We lucked out. They had one teepee still vacant and we snatched it up before someone else could.

After we’d parked our car outside the campground, we trekked with our backpacks toward the center of the desert oasis. The sun was setting behind the shrubbery and cacti, illuminating the teepee in a golden glow. We untied the flap and hesitantly stepped inside. The decor was minimalist and awesome. There was a simple bed with a multi-colored quilt sitting on top of an animal hide rug. A vintage American flag hung over the bed. Some hippie architects had definitely designed the place.

“
This is the best place we’ve stayed so far,” I grinned, spinning in a circle in the center of the teepee. There were massive poles that merged at the center, almost twenty feet above my head. The sun was shining through gently, creating patterns across the pale canvas covering the entire space.

“
I agree,” Beck answered, tossing the stuff down on top of a vintage trunk at the foot of the bed. “I think I saw a bar and grill on the drive over. Should we check it out and see if they serve dinner?”

“
Yeah, but do you mind if I freshen up a little bit?” I felt light headed and I wanted to change into something more appropriate for a bar. I hadn’t put make-up on once since meeting Beck, but I’d packed a few random things in case the occasion called for it. Tonight seemed like as good a night as ever, especially considering the fact that a headache had developed in the past half hour and I felt less than sexy. But maybe if I freshened up and put some makeup on, my body would get the hint.

Beck went to scope out the campground while I got ready. I pulled out a wrinkled, but still pretty, aqua dress that had thin spaghetti straps. The cut was low in the front and normally I skipped over it so that my scar wouldn’t be on display, but I didn’t seem to mind that when I was around Beck.

I pulled out my bag of makeup that was stocked full with no help from me. My mother had done her best to provide me with things she thought I should use, but most of it looked like foreign torture devices. I skipped over the eye shadows and opted for some mascara, a touch of bronzer, and some cherry-red lip stain that brought out the bright red tones in my strawberry-blond hair. Mostly I felt like a little kid playing dress up, but I tried to talk myself up as I slipped on my strappy sandals.

When I pushed the flap of the teepee open, I didn’t see Beck right away. The sun had dropped lower toward the horizon, finally allowing the temperature to hit a
tolerable
ninety degrees. My sandals clapped against the rocks and dirt as I wandered toward the center of camp and spun around looking for him. The abstract sculptures and teepees blurred by and then I saw him walking toward me. I stopped my spin and waited for him to get closer. He must have snuck into the teepee after me and changed because he was wearing a vintage Dallas Cowboys shirt that hugged his chest, over a pair of worn, sexy jeans. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and his eyes were locked right on me. That crooked grin was ever present.

When he stepped closer, he whistled, low and sweet. “Wow.”

I looked down at my dress. There was a hint of cleavage and the bottom cut off well above my knees.

“
How’d you sneak in without me seeing you?” I asked with a bemused smile.

Beck winked and shrugged before placing his hand above my heart, right over my scar. He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss, and I could feel my heart fluttering beneath his hand. “You look beautiful.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

We walked hand in hand to the Camper and then Beck drove us to the bar. I couldn’t tell if it was the heat clinging from earlier or just me, but I grabbed a glass of cold ice water as soon as we walked into the bar, trying to lessen the headache forming behind my eyes.

The bar was a casual place; mismatched tables and chairs dotted the floor. A stage was set up on one side of the room. A guy was singing softly while playing an acoustic guitar.

Beck and I propped ourselves against the bar and ordered some appetizers. It was too loud to try and have an actual conversation, so we munched on our food and Beck sipped his Fat Tire beer. I didn’t mind the crowd. In a small town like Marfa, it seemed like most of them knew each other. I people-watched until the bathroom called.

“
I’ll be back,” I murmured to Beck before sliding through chairs to the bathroom. There was a long line of girls chattering, but as I stood against the wooden paneled wall, I closed my eyes and just rested. I realized then that I never told my mom about my fever. I wet some paper towels and dabbed my forehead and neck, telling myself I was overreacting, that it was just the desert heat. After using the bathroom, I fluffed my golden waves into submission and then pushed through the crowd to find Beck. Except the sight I was greeted by made my stomach drop.

The spot I’d been sitting in for the past hour was now occupied by a much prettier girl with her head dipped low to Beck. He was smiling and nodding. Her long blond hair fell pin straight down her back, and when she threw her head back and laughed, I thought the appetizers I’d just consumed would make their second appearance on the bar’s floor.

I stood there for a moment, watching them talk animatedly to one another. It was a strange feeling. I’d never had a boyfriend, or even a boy I cared about. Before meeting Beck, I’d never experienced that tight twist in my stomach. The death grip of jealousy.