Believe

Chapter Seven Phoenix

The very minute I knew I was done for? When Robin asked me if I loved Angel. Because when a girl asks that, she wants to know if there is room in your heart for her. I knew that not only was there room for Robin, she could probably work her way through it until she was in every single crevice, spreading like octopus ink across the ocean floor. I got in to octopuses in fourth grade, checking out every book I could at the library about them and featuring them in all my reports and art projects. The teacher wrote a note to my mother about my obsessive behavior, which I never gave her. But I remember thinking, what is so wrong with digging octopus? They have eight legs and suckers and spew ink, is it any wonder I was fascinated?

But there is a fine line our world dictates between an appropriate and healthy interest in something and obsession. If you express too little interest in anything in particular, you’re lazy, a slacker, lacking in hobbies and liable to fall in with the wrong crowd. If you show too much interest, then clearly you’re obsessive-compulsive, unnatural.

I had already been fixating on Robin, I knew that. But when she made it clear that she was interested in having me fall in love with her, or that she wanted to know if the possibility was there, I knew that I had moved into octopus territory. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her—I wanted to see her all the time, touch her, smell her, unlock the mysteries of her body.

There would be disapproval from somewhere—maybe everywhere—but I didn’t give a shit.

I walked her to her class after she mostly didn’t eat her lunch, holding her hand, which felt small and delicate in mine, ignoring everyone who glanced at us. “So what are you studying?” I asked her. “Art?”

“No. Art isn’t practical. Graphic design. It’s a way to be sort of creative and actually make a living.”

“That makes sense.” Still, I had a hard time picturing her in an office or whatever. I thought of her head bent over the kitchen table or her sketching in the park. That was when she seemed happy. “Did you ever wonder why you were born with a talent if you can’t fully use it? I mean, we can’t all be Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, so why are we born with this burn to draw?”

“Maybe because we’re people and we’re flawed.” She glanced up at me, her hair tumbling around her face wildly as we walked down the path, students rushing past us on bikes. “For every ten thousand people who have that talent, only one will fully realize their potential.”

Sad but true. I didn’t know anyone who had reached their full potential. Most gave up long before that when the daily grind beat the crap out of them. “Life has a way of doing that. I mean, look at you and me. Neither one of us can pursue studying art. We have to be practical.”

“Yeah. I used to want to run off to Italy or France and study the masters or at the very least have the courage to set up a stall in New Orleans or some place like that and sell my paintings. The starving artist’s life. But I’m too . . . I don’t know. Afraid, I guess. Plain and simple.”

“It’s harder to let go of fear when you have something to lose. Being fearless is easier if you have nothing to risk.” In my case, I had absolutely nothing to lose. But I’d never had particularly grand ambitions. “I suppose I could just as easily be homeless in New Orleans as I can be here, so if I really wanted to do something like that I could, if I could figure out how to get there.”

Her hand squeezed mine tighter. “You’re not homeless.”

For the moment. “Riley politely asked me to leave as soon as I can. He’s worried about his custody of Easton. You know, the whole felony conviction thing.” I was glad I had told Robin about why I’d been in. I didn’t want her to find out from someone else, and I didn’t want secrets between us if we were going to have a shot at a relationship. Granted, I hadn’t told her the full truth, how I had found Iggy raping my mother, but she knew that yes, I was in fact guilty of the crime I’d been in jail for. I had nearly killed him, and I had done it for my mother, whether she appreciated it or not, because no man should be allowed to use his physical power over a woman.

Robin still had a secret, I knew that. Something had happened the night she had blacked out and she knew what it was. She just wasn’t ready to share, and that was okay. I was about 99 percent sure it had something to do with Nathan, because that made the most sense. It wasn’t that hard to imagine she was wasted, his girlfriend was gone, he pushed her mouth down on his dick because everyone is always after what they can get.

I was going to get the truth, and then I was going to make Nathan pay for it.

But that was for later.

Right now, I just wanted to sit back and let Robin work her way inside my heart with her shy smiles and her big, brown eyes.

“Oh,” she said, and she bit her lip. “I guess I can understand that, but it still sucks.”

“I don’t blame Riley or Tyler. They’ve done a lot for me.” More than I had actually expected. But it did feel like with our mothers gone, the bond between us was stronger. “I’ll figure something out.”

“You can stay over with me whenever you need to,” she said.

I smiled. The words were said casually, like she was being polite, but I knew better than that. She wanted me there. I wanted to be there. “Cool. Thanks. But I don’t get off work until eleven and I don’t want to keep you up.”

She stopped walking. “This is my building.” She gestured behind her to a glass monstrosity. “What are your days off work? Do you know yet?”

“Wednesday and Thursday. Weekends are big for tattoo walk-ins.”

Her face lit up. “Those are my days off, too. Well, and Mondays and Tuesdays. I work Friday through Sunday.”

“That works out then.” I glanced up at her classroom building, knowing she had to go, not wanting to let her leave. I had never felt this, the compulsion to be with a girl every second I could, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

“Have a good first day at work,” she told me. “This is going to be a great opportunity for you.”

“Thanks,” I said, surprised. It was just a standard thing to say, I guess, but it wasn’t what I usually heard. What might just be politeness sounded an awful lot like caring to me, and I was hungry to hear that. It might be what prompted me to say, “Tonight I’ll probably be really tired, but can I stay over tomorrow night? What time do you go to bed?”

“I don’t usually go to bed until midnight.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Yes, you can stay over.”

It was there again, that intriguing shyness she had, where she met my eyes, then glanced away, as if she were embarrassed by her willingness. I can’t lie. I found it fucking adorable. It also increased my confidence in her feelings for me.

God only knew what she was seeing when she looked at me, but she was willing to give this a shot, and that was all I could ask for.

“Okay, cool. I’ll text you later.” I tucked her hair behind her ear after it sprung free again. She had thick hair. “Now you’d better go.”

“Right. Talk to you later.” She turned and jogged up the steps without looking back at me, her dress swirling around her feet.

At work as I booked tat appointments and watched artists doing ink on customers, I felt pretty goddamn grateful.

Exactly one week earlier I had been sitting in my cell in a jumpsuit praying my release didn’t get messed up or delayed.

Now here I was, working at a cool shop where no one judged me, my cousins at my back, and a new girl who didn’t seem to care where I’d been, just about who I was.

Pretty fucking awesome.

When I showed up at her house on Tuesday night around eleven thirty, Robin let me in with a smile. “Hi.”

She was wearing pj shorts and a tank top that made my mouth water. Her nipples were clearly outlined beneath the cotton, and I wanted to suck each of them into my mouth and listen to her groan softly in my ear. We’d barely even kissed so far, but I had every intention of changing that in the next twenty minutes if she was down with that. I kept thinking about how it felt to lie in bed next to her, hearing her steady breathing, and I wanted to do that naked, her body as close to mine as it could be.

“How was work?” she asked.

“It’s going good. I mean, it would be better if I could ink customers myself, but I can be patient. And maybe I can talk Riley and Tyler into letting me practice on them.”

She was about to jog up the stairs to the third floor, but I pulled her to a stop in the stairwell and drew her into my arms. Her breath caught as I rested my palms on the small of her back, giving her a smile. “Hey.”

“Hey what?” she asked, though she obviously knew what I was after. Her eyes were wide, and her fingers had crept onto my chest.

“How about giving me a kiss? I think that’s a standard greeting.”

“Not for just anyone,” she whispered, but she went on her tiptoes and kissed me, her eyes drifting shut.

She kissed the way I liked, with soft lips and little sound, just the quick increase in breathing as her grip tightened on my chest. The kiss dissolved into a sigh, and she pulled back, her mouth still close to mine. “Is that a good hello?”

“Very good. Now show me how you say that you’re glad to see me.” I nuzzled into her neck, kissing her tender flesh there, my thumbs slipping under her waistband.

Her body shifted closer to mine, and I felt the press of her breasts on my chest, her tight nipples scraping across my T-shirt. Goddamn it, I wanted her so bad. When she kissed me again, pulling my mouth to hers for a deep kiss with a hot tangle of our tongues, I buried my hands in her hair to hold her against me. To keep her with me.

But when I started to grip her ass to rhythmically bump our hips together, she turned her head with a groan. “Phoenix. We should go to my room.”

I took it as a green light, and my dick got harder in anticipation. Before work I had stopped at the drugstore and bought condoms with my under-the-table pay from the day before, and they were in my back pocket. Hopefully she was on the Pill for a double dose of birth control, but I still wanted to use a condom to show her that I cared about her and wanted to keep her safe. I didn’t think I had anything skeezy, but it wasn’t like I really knew that for a fact.

“Sure.” I kissed her softly and took her hand. “Unless you want to watch a movie or something.”

But she said, “No. I’m ready for bed.”

There was a double meaning there, I was sure of it. She was telling me she was ready, if going braless hadn’t already been a clue.

Or maybe I was reading it all wrong.

I was debating that as we went up the stairs, me leading her by the hand and into her tiny room. The answer was obvious when I went to turn the light on and she shook her head.

“Can you leave it off?” she whispered.

“Sure, baby, sure.” Something shifted inside me and I didn’t even want to think about what it was. So instead, I peeled off my shirt and kissed her in the dark, feeling my way across her body for the first time. Exploring her breasts and her ass and the hot V between her legs with my thumb, listening to her soft sighs and sounds of encouragement.

When my finger slipped inside her shorts and panties, into her wet heat, she gave a sharp cry of excitement and it almost undid me. After stroking her for a few minutes, learning the angle she liked best, finding her clit and brushing over it, I stepped back and lifted her tank top off over her head. She had breasts the perfect size, just enough for me to cup while I sucked at her nipple until her nails clawed at my bare back and her breath came in short gasps. Not wanting her to come just yet, I moved up and kissed her deeply, the taste of her flesh still in my mouth, as I took her hand and slid it across my cock over my jeans.

“Are we going too fast?” I asked her when her fingers jerked reflexively. “I can slow down.” Unless it was good for her, it wasn’t going to be good for me.

“No,” she whispered, and I could feel her warm breath on my neck. “It’s just that I don’t have a ton of experience, and almost none of it was sober. It’s stupid, but I’m nervous.”

That she was trusting me to be the one here with her, totally sober, made me want to do anything to protect her, to make her happy, to please her. Love wasn’t something I knew, or had felt much of before, but I was starting to wonder if it was possible for it to happen this fast, because what I felt for Robin was . . . more.

“Babe, it’s fine.” I kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’m glad you told me, and it’s not stupid. What you feel is never stupid. We’ll just do whatever you’re comfortable with, okay?”

She nodded, and I felt the movement more than I saw it. Her hands were clutching the waistband of my jeans and I felt a complete wave of tenderness come over me. God, I was actually grateful for the dark myself because if the lights came on she was probably going to see me staring at her like a total jackass.

“Can I feel it first?” she whispered, her fingers teasing across the snap of my jeans.

Oh, hell, yeah, she could feel it. “You can do whatever you want.”

I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw, getting control as she undid the snap and pulled my zipper down with trembling fingers. When her hand went into my pants and she brushed down the length of my dick, I was pretty sure it was right up there with the top ten best moments of my life. She stroked me softly, and I resisted the urge to close my wrist over hers and have her squeeze harder, stroke faster. I let her do what she wanted, and her exploration was slow and thorough.

At one point I did reach back and pull the condoms out, then shoved the jeans down so they fell toward my knees, but other than that I just kissed her, my hands stroking in her hair while she stroked me, my dick, my chest, my ass. I’m not going to lie, I liked that she said she didn’t have a lot of experience. I liked the idea that as I maneuvered downward, over her breasts and across her stomach and pressed my finger inside her, that somehow my stamp on her would be greater than any other guy’s. She responded by gripping me tighter, and I felt a hot rush of urgency.

“Come to the bed,” I said, encouraging her forward and pushing her down on her back.

In a second I had her shorts and panties off. Before I climbed up alongside her, I got rid of the rest of my clothes, too, and fumbled for the condom. “Are you sure?” I asked her as I moved over her, teasing at her hot opening.

“Yes.”

Good. I rubbed the pad of my thumb over her clitoris, then I pushed inside her. Her breath caught, and her nails dug into my arms. I stopped short, an agony of pleasure crashing over me. Holy fuck, she was tight and hot, and I was in desperate need of control. Holding on, I stilled my whole body except for the throb inside her and counted to five slowly. Then I started to move enjoying the way she let her hips fall apart further and the way her fingers relaxed with each push, until she was holding me with a whispery touch, her sighs and moans of pleasure relaxed and beautiful. I wished I could see her expression, but it was too dark to see much more than the outline of her body, her face.

When I started getting too close, I pulled out and went down on her, feeling her body jerk at the first touch of my tongue.

“Phoenix,” she said, and I had never heard my name like that. For the first time ever, I didn’t despise it, the way she said it when she gripped my hair and had an orgasm, her thighs shuddering on either side of me, her sweet taste on my tongue.

When I moved back up and inside her, she was even more relaxed, her body wide open to mine, and I didn’t last long, exploding inside her with a hot shudder.

Collapsing beside her, I pulled Robin onto my chest and tried to breathe. With my right hand I peeled down the condom, left hand firmly wrapped around her. “Babe, you’re amazing.”

She didn’t say anything, but I didn’t mind. Too much pointless talking made me uncomfortable. But it seemed like everything Robin said was important. Her fingers spread over my chest, and the soft touch matched the pace of my breathing as it evened out.

I kissed the top of her head.

And long after she fell asleep, I lay there wide awake, naked.

Wondering if I had finally experienced the one high I couldn’t resist.

Falling in love.