Harder (Caroline & West #2)(91)

I guess that’s all the provocation he can take, because what he says next is, “Spread your legs wider,” and then he’s moving inside me, hard and harder.

Fast, with his fingers sinking into the flesh at my hips.

Wow.

Breathless, I say, “You weren’t kidding about wanting this.”

“I was thinking about coming over to see you at the library.”

“For how long?”

“Since lunch.”

I laugh, and then I can’t, because he’s thrusting into me so hard that my whole body turns into a bow, arching up, tensing, tight. My mouth falls open.

West kisses my neck, my jawline, my throat.

The world smells green and new.

I close my eyes, and when I open them, the stars are a careless spill of diamonds decorating the night.

His thumb finds my clit and moves in slow circles in time with his thrusts.

Into me. Into me. Into me.

He eases his hand over my shoulder and down my arm, over my hip.

Pulls up my knee. Looks in my eyes.

We go deep and then deeper, falling, spinning.

When he’s with me, I’m never lost.





Caroline


There are few things in life as fantastic as tackling another human being.

Like, at the top of my list of physically enjoyable things I want to be doing as much as possible, it’s basically orgasms and tackling people. And sometimes I think tackling people is better, although I’ll admit it also comes with a higher likelihood of getting kicked in the face.

The first time I brought down another woman on the rugby pitch, I felt like I’d cracked a code. Stolen a secret men had been keeping from me. Because the thing is, guys make it seem difficult, as though tackling requires either blind rage or shoulder pads to be even doable.

We women watch from the stands, sipping hot chocolate high in the bleachers, and there is never any suggestion that this activity might be for us. That we might have what it takes to get this job done, too.

I used to be a good girl. I sat in the stands. I followed the rules, worked hard to get straight A’s, dated a nice boy, and made him wait a long time for sex.

It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was in the right neighborhood, and it seemed like the thing at the time.

There is a way in which smart girls, good girls, grow up thinking that if we keep following the rules, the world will hand us what we want.

So we line up, and we wait. But no one ever shows up to deliver the goods. And the longer we wait in that line, the more likely we are to take receipt of one ration of shit after another.

Being a good girl didn’t work out for me.

At the end of my junior year at Putnam, I’m not that girl anymore. I’ve stepped out of the line.

I’ve become someone else.

I am engaged, every day, in the process of becoming myself, and one of the things I understand now that I didn’t used to is that every possible activity is for me. Anything and everything I might want is available to me if I’m willing to do what it takes to claim it.

Sometimes it will be f*cking unpleasant.

Sometimes people will hate me for it.

That’s okay.

It’s okay, because on a Sunday morning in April on the Putnam College rugby pitch, I can feel the softness of the earth beneath my cleats. I can smell manure, sharp and sweet, in the wind that whips the hair out of my ponytail.

I can look to the sidelines and see Krishna and Frankie and West sitting on a blanket. The white of Krishna’s smile. The light in Frankie’s face when Krishna teases her and West ruffles her hair, tickles her until she’s collapsed, laughing, over his legs.

I can look to my right and see my friend Quinn, big and solid, wickedly funny.

I can look to my left and see my friend Bridget, slight and freckled and redheaded, nervous because this is the first time we’ve managed to get her out on the pitch to give rugby a try.

I told her not to sweat it. Tackling another human being is easy. All it requires is a willingness to throw yourself at their legs and a complete refusal to let go.

That’s it.

Swear to God.

I’m not big, and I’m not strong, but I could bring down a three-hundred-pound woman through the sheer force of my will. I could bring down a f*cking elephant.

Facing off across the line from us is a team of strangers in red-and-black jerseys, stern mouths and ruddy cheeks and wind-whipped hair, and they’re going to do this, too. We’re all going to do this.

We’re going to throw the ball, catch it, and run as fast as our legs will carry us.

We’re going to get a bead on the carrier, sprint after her, launch ourselves through the air until she’s down and we’re breathless, sweating, tangled up in limbs and dirt, grass stains and grit.

I have what it takes to claim what I want. I always did.

All of us do.

That’s what I tell West when he loses faith. That’s what I’m always going to be here to tell him.

It’s what I’ll tell Frankie when she asks me, when she doubts herself, when she needs to hear it.

It doesn’t take anything special to fight back against the world and all the ways it wants to box you in, hold you down, limit you, and keep you from thriving. You just have to know what it is you want to accomplish. You have to know who you want to be with and what you’ll give up to get them.