Five Days Until You Read online

“Good. Now grow a pair and get back out there. Love you.”

  Fable’s gone before I can tell her I love her too.

  Owen comes back to the table ten minutes later, still looking a little stressed out, which worries me. What’s wrong? Is he not feeling well? I really wanted our last night together to be perfect and so far it’s been pretty great. Until approximately fifteen minutes ago when he fled from the table in a full on run, looking like he wanted to throw up.

  At least he doesn’t look pale and queasy any longer.

  “Sorry about that.” He settles back in his chair, offering me a wan smile. “I don’t know what happened.”

  He’s lying. I can tell. After being with him for so long, I think I’ve got him pretty much figured out. And right now, he’s not being honest with me. I don’t know why either.

  “Did you want to finish your food? Or are you ready to go?” I ask, my gaze locking with his. I stare into his eyes, practically willing him with my mind to tell me what’s really wrong with him. But he just keeps that fake smile firmly in place as he pushes his plate away from him.

  “I’m ready to go if you are,” he says. “I just need to pay the bill.”

  “I already did.” The waiter dropped it off when Owen was gone and I took care of it, not wanting to just sit there and wait for who knew how long. I toss my napkin onto the top of my plate and grab my purse, pushing myself out of the chair. “Ready?”

  I hardly wait for Owen as I leave the restaurant but I feel him fall into step behind me, and for once, his presence isn’t so reassuring. No, more like I’m pissed at him. Pissed that he ran away from the table like a weirdo. Angry that he came back and looks like shit and this is our last night together before he leaves. He’s the lucky one who gets to go back home like no big deal while I’m left here all alone, worried I somehow won’t measure up.

  Who knows how long it’ll be until I see him again? I’m freaking out. Panicking. I can feel it. I’m thinking irrationally and acting like a selfish brat.

  But I can’t help it. I’m scared. Nervous. I don’t know if I can do this alone. And the only way I can find out is if I stand on my own two feet and act like a damn grownup instead of a silly baby.

  The moment we hit the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, I turn to Owen, stopping us both from walking any further. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  The shocked look on his handsome face doesn’t surprise me. I bet he didn’t expect me to call him out on his crap in public. I usually save that for when we’re alone. “Nothing’s wrong, I swear—”

  “Don’t lie to me.” I take a step closer to him as another couple tries to pass us by and he slips his arm around my waist automatically, holding me close. Reminding me that no matter what, he is my rock. My support. My love.

  My Owen.

  He sighs and hangs his head, his hair falling over his forehead. I reach out and push it away, causing him to glance up, his tortured gaze meeting mine and my heart cracks at the sight of his expression. “It hit me in the middle of dinner, how much I’m going to miss you,” he confesses, his voice low and kind of scratchy.

  And here I am getting mad at him. All my anger evaporates at hearing his words. “I’m going to miss you, too,” I whisper. “So much, I’m afraid I could start crying right now in front of this stupid restaurant just thinking about it.”

  He kisses my forehead, then steers me toward the parking lot. “Let’s get out of here, Chels. I don’t want to have this conversation out here. Swear to God I might start crying and we know I can’t fucking have that.”

  I can’t help it but his words make me giggle. He takes my hand, flashing me a grin as he leads me down the sidewalk. “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are.” I squeeze his fingers and he tightens them around my own. “This is not a night for tears.”

  “Tell me about it. I want it to be a night for nakedness.” He drops that statement just as an older couple holding hands walks by us, headed in the opposite direction.

  “Owen,” I chastise, my cheeks warming because I know they heard what he said. Although, I actually heard them both laugh.

  “What? It’s true. And you know it.” He stops and whispers close to my ear, “I plan on giving you as many orgasms as possible tonight, Chels. So you won’t forget just how good we are together.”

  “I could never forget.” I reach for him, slipping my hand around his nape so I can tug him down for a brief kiss. “Ever.”

  “I feel the same way.” He squeezes my hand harder, like he never wants to let it go. “Exactly the same.”

  The minute we enter my dorm suite, Owen’s wrenching the lock into place and pushing me against the door, his hands at my waist pinning me, his mouth fused with mine. His kisses are slow and purposeful, his tongue circling mine in the most erotic rhythm. I’m quivering deep inside, between my legs, and when he pushes his leg between mine, his knee rubbing against me I’m whimpering, practically begging for more. We had sex not even two hours ago and I want him all over again, the urgency taking hold of me and making my blood pound with need.

  We’ve been voracious ever since I agreed to take on this job, like we’re trying to fit in as much sex as possible before we’re separated. I cherish the sexual connection we share. How he makes me feel. How patient he’s always been with me, and everything he’s taught me too. I knew nothing. I was the most ignorant virgin on the planet when I first met Owen. I mean, I knew how it worked, I wasn’t that stupid, but I had zero experience with boys beyond a few really bad kisses.

  From that first moment he kissed me on top of his car—and what a kiss it was—it was like Owen made it his personal mission to show me everything he knew about sex. And he knew a ton of things. He still surprises me, too. Like how only a few months ago I realized that I like it when he dirty talks me.

  A lot.

  Now, he’s always been a talker. He can’t help himself and I love it. But he’s been extra crude lately and I…love it. Me. The girl who never curses, who somehow ended up with the guy who drops F-bombs on a regular basis, gets off on my boyfriend’s extra filthy mouth.

  Go figure.

  “This dress is driving me insane.” He’s cupping my breasts, his eyes widening in surprise when he makes his discovery. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

  I slowly shake my head, my eyes falling closed when he rubs his thumbs across my nipples. The cotton fabric of my dress is thin and there’s only a band of elastic holding the top in place. One tug and he’d completely expose me. “I forgot to bring a strapless bra with me,” I murmur, sighing when he draws the backs of his fingers across my exposed collarbone, just before his hands drop back down to my breasts.

  “Lucky for me then.” He kisses me, stealing my breath, his busy fingers squeezing and kneading my breasts. He curls his hands around the straight neckline and pulls the dress down, exposing my chest completely. “I like this. Easy access.”

  A shuddery breath escapes me as I watch him bend his head to take a nipple into his mouth. He sucks and licks it with his wicked tongue, teasing my skin and making me moan. I close my eyes and toss my head back, gasping when he grabs hold of my butt and lifts me. I have no choice but to wrap my legs around his hips, anchoring my body to his.

  He pins me to the wall with his hips, reaching for the bunched fabric of my skirt between us and shoving it out of the way. “I want it off. Lift your arms,” he demands and I raise my arms above my head, shocked when he yanks the dress off of me and tosses it onto the floor.

  I’m only wearing a lacy pair of panties, hot pink and totally see through and he dives a hand between my thighs to cup me, pressing the fabric tight against my skin, creating a delicious friction that makes me tremble and gasp. God, I already feel close to coming, just by how he’s touching me, using my underwear like some sort of sex toy.

  “Fuck, you’re soaked,” he growls, his words and the way he says them making me even wetter. “I need to be inside you, baby. I can’t wait.”

 
I’m so weak with wanting him all I can do is watch helplessly as he tears at his belt buckle and undoes it, the metal clanking together loud in the otherwise quiet of the room. His ragged breaths and my gasping ones mingle in the air as he shoves his jeans open and pulls his rigid cock out, pushing aside my panties and thrusting inside me before I can even prepare for it.

  A cry escapes me and I close my eyes, my arms resting across his shoulders as I cling to him and he brutally takes me. I let him have his way, let him do whatever it is he wants because he seems a little wild, lost in me, lost to the pleasure as he thrusts and thrusts. So hard, my head knocks against the door. The inside of my knees and thighs feel raw when they rub against his jeans again and again.

  We’ve had plenty of wild sex before but this moment seems particularly raw. He grabs hold of my chin and I open my eyes, staring at him as he continues to fuck me—truly there are no other words for what he’s doing to me and I can’t hardly believe the word just flittered through my brain. But that’s the only way I can describe it. He’s just…taking. Fucking and taking and not caring whether I’m enjoying it or not but I am. Oh God, I so am and just when I think it can’t get any better than this…

  I’m coming, his hand still curled around my chin, his cock buried so deep inside my body I feel like he can touch my very soul. I’m shaking, everything within me is trembling and hot and falling completely apart. A helpless, strangled moan falls from my lips and then he’s kissing me, his mouth so soft and gentle compared to the still brutal pumping of his hips within my body. “I love you,” he whispers and I grab onto those words tight, holding them within my chest, within my heart. “I love you so much, Chels.”

  He rarely says it so when it happens, it’s like this rare and magical moment I never want to forget. Like I want to etch it across my memory so it’ll always be there. I know I’ll never forget the night in my new dorm room when my boyfriend took me against the door and whispered how much he loved me.

  Never.

  I’m a pig who lacks control but Chelsea’s not protesting so I guess she doesn’t mind. I can’t believe I couldn’t keep it together long enough to get her to the bed but I felt…desperate somehow. Like this might be the last time between us for a while.

  Which is probably the case though I don’t want to admit it. Not now. I can face that ugly fact later. When I’m back home, all alone in my bed while she’s still here.

  I had a plan in place for tonight, damn it. A seduction. It would’ve started with me undressing her slowly. Kissing her everywhere, every little bit of skin I exposed, I planned on covering with my mouth. Coaxing that orgasm out of her body with my lips and tongue and fingers. I would’ve worked her into such a frenzy, she would’ve been a trembling, agonized mess, begging me to let her come already.

  Instead, within minutes if not seconds of locking the damn door, I’d torn off her dress and fucked her hard, not even bothering with much foreplay beyond groping her breasts before I became too desperate to have her. I couldn’t focus on anything else.

  Just her. Just being inside Chelsea. Feeling her squeeze around me, hearing those low moans of hers, the little whimpers. All the shit that drives me absolutely crazy and causes me to lose control—that was all I wanted. All I needed.

  That desperate feeling I still haven’t shaken, though I’m trying to slow down and enjoy this. Enjoy Chelsea. She already came and she’s clinging to me, her mouth on mine as she whispers how much she loves me. Right after I told her exactly how much I loved her.

  I don’t say it often. It’s hard. Mom rarely uttered the words. Most of the time she could only complain about us, what a pain in the ass we were and how we dragged her down. Such a great mother.

  Fable told me she loved me and I believed it. It’s one of those situations where she had to love me though, you know? She’s my big sister. I was her responsibility. She could’ve taken off and left me with Mom but she didn’t because that’s not Fable’s style. When she loves, she loves fiercely and with her whole heart. Drew Callahan didn’t stand a fucking chance when she started to fall for him. She’d figured it out fast that he belonged to her and she had zero plans on letting him go.

  I belonged to Fable too, but it’s different. I’m her brother. She didn’t have a choice but to love me. It’s ingrained in her. She chose Drew. She brought him into her life despite all the bullshit and loved him anyway.

  Just like I chose Chelsea and she chose me. I always thought I got the better end of the deal.

  Anyway.

  Deep philosophical thoughts about love and choices while still buried deep inside Chelsea’s velvety hot body is kind of out of the ordinary for me. More like totally not normal. I need to focus on the fact that my dick is throbbing and I’m gonna blow at any minute. That I can feel her squeezing her inner walls around my dick every few seconds and I close my eyes, clench my teeth, hiss out a harsh breath in the hopes that I can gain some semblance of control.

  But it’s no use. I can feel Chelsea’s warm breath against my neck just before she presses her mouth there, kissing and nibbling my skin and making me groan. Damn, I love it when she does that, her mouth on my skin, the sensation of her tongue licking me…fuck. Her arms tighten around me and she sort of hitches herself up, her thighs tight around my hips. The movement sends me deeper inside her and we both moan as I sink even further.

  “I’m not gonna last,” I tell her, my voice gruff, my thoughts hazy. My orgasm is barreling down on me, my insides tensing up, the familiar tingling at the base of my spine is the definite warning that it’s about to happen…

  “Let go,” she whispers against my jaw. “I want to feel you come inside me.”

  She talks like that, says a few simple, slightly dirty words—for her—and I’m a goner. My muscles seize up, my heart feels like it just rolled over on itself and I start to come. I grip her waist hard and slam into her one last time, filling her up as I press my forehead to hers. She curls her fingers around my nape, tangling them in my hair and it all drains out of me as the orgasm takes me over completely. The worry and the heartbreak and the stress until all that’s left is my girl with her body wrapped all around me. Completely naked while I’m still pretty much dressed.

  “Owen.” She whispers my name close to my ear and I shudder, a shaky breath leaving me. My heart is pumping triple time and my head is spinning. “My God, Owen…”

  “What’s wrong?” I open my eyes and lift my head away from hers, staring into her hazy gaze. “Did I hurt you?”

  She shakes her head, a closed-mouth smile curling her lips. “No. I was going to say that was…amazing.”

  I start to laugh, the sound rusty. My lungs fucking hurt. What I just experienced was like the most intense orgasm of my life. “That was me moving too fast and screwing you against a door.”

  Her smile grows. “I love it when you screw me against a door.”

  “Perv.” I drop a kiss to the tip of her nose and slowly withdraw from her, feeling my semen drip out of her as I do so. Wincing, I set her down on her feet before I stuff my dick back in my jeans. “Sorry, baby. You better go clean yourself up.”

  There’s nothing better than having sex with my girl without a rubber but sometimes, it’s messy.

  “I’ll be right back.” She dashes off to the bathroom and shuts the door. When she’s gone I go to her bed and sit on the edge of the mattress, running both my hands over my hair until I’m clutching the back of my head. I glance around her room, taking it all in. The pale blue walls remind me of jail. Not that I’ve been in jail thank God, but I imagine it looks just like this. Her bed is small. There’s a rickety looking desk sitting just below the window along with a matching dresser along the opposite wall. Her suitcase sits on the floor wide open, the only bursts of color in the room coming from her clothes that are nestled within.

  That’s what she’s like. In a sterile, cold world my baby is sweetness and lights. Smiles and laughter. Love and comfort.

  All things I used to l
augh at and mock. All things I never believed I needed, let alone deserved. I thought I could make it through this world never really needing anyone by my side.

  I was wrong. And now that the girl I’ve always wanted by my side is about to stand on her own two feet and do something that belongs only to her, I wonder where exactly I fit into her new world.

  And if she would still need me when it was all said and done.

  “Coach wants to talk to you,” Wade says the moment I walk through the front door. He’s sprawled on the couch in a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else, the TV on though the sound is on mute. His cell phone sits beside him and I can see it’s blowing up with an endless list of texts.

  “What does he want?” I ask as I shut the door behind me, letting my duffel bag drop to the floor. I’m tired. I stayed with Chelsea for as long as I could despite her wanting me to leave at a decent hour so I wouldn’t be driving too late at night. She didn’t want to worry about me.

  Considering it’s past one in the morning, that plan didn’t work. I texted her the minute I pulled up in front of the house, praying like hell she wouldn’t answer because if anyone needed a good night’s sleep it was her. But she responded with a kissing Emoji and a bunch of x’s and o’s.

  Cute.

  I figured Wade would be sleeping. Or hooking up with some chick like he usually does. The guy never gets tired of it. He has access to more pussy than any other guy I know, including myself back in the day when I was just like him.

  Not that I’d ever admit it.

  “He didn’t say. Mentioned he tried to call you but you didn’t pick up so he called me instead.” He grabs his phone and makes a face, then taps out a quick text before dropping the phone again. “Told me to tell you that you need to call him first thing in the morning.”

  I withhold the groan that wants to escape and flop onto the opposite end of the couch. “Great. Maybe he wants to rip me a new asshole.” Why, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Coach in a while. But I feel like every time he wants to talk to me I’m in trouble.