Reclaiming the Sand(57)

“Do you still play the guitar?” Flynn had asked me and it hit me that I hadn’t thought about playing music in years.

Not since I was sixteen. Not since going to juvie.

It was yet another thing I had lost and had made myself forget that I had enjoyed.

So of course the next time I saw Flynn, he handed me a battered guitar case and gave me a shy smile.

“What’s this?” I asked, slowly reaching out to take it.

“Open it,” Flynn grinned and I could only shake my head. I set the case down on his living room floor and bent down to release the clasps. I opened the top and stared down at a very used, but still beautiful, Taylor acoustic guitar.

“Shit, Flynn. This must have cost a fortune. Taylor guitars are expensive,” I exclaimed, hardly able to believe he had done this. He paid attention to absolutely everything. There wasn’t a thing about me that he hadn’t catalogued away and remembered.

Why did he care about me so much? What had I ever done to deserve it?

“Don’t cuss, Ellie,” Flynn reprimanded flatly. I chuckled and apologized.

I ran a finger down the worn neck. It was a lot nicer than the beater I used to have when I was fifteen. That one had a broken neck I had tried to fix with super glue. After my shoddy repair job it would never stay in tune. The frets had been cracked and chipped and it had been missing a couple of tuning pegs.

This one, while obviously second hand, was gorgeous. I carefully picked it up and sat down cross-legged, with the guitar resting in my lap. I wrapped my left hand around the neck, pressing down. I ran my fingers along the strings.

“I used to like listening to you play. I liked it when you taught me. I want you to play again. It made you happy. You used to smile a lot when you played,” Flynn said, sitting down beside me and watching my hands as they fumbled through the few chords I could still remember. It had been a long time, so I was rusty.

“I can’t believe you did this for me, Flynn.” My voice cracked and broke, the emotion strangling me. My tears embarrassed me.

But Flynn had reminded me that it was okay to cry. That tears didn’t make me weak; that letting them fall didn’t have to mean that I was broken. It could mean that I was coming back together.

Flynn placed his hand on my leg. I looked down to where he was touching me and then up at his face. He very rarely initiated touch. Physical and emotional intimacy on any level was a new thing for both of us. He wasn’t used to touching anyone. I wasn’t used to being touched by someone that actually cared about me.

But when he did touch me, my heart would with swell with the force of my feelings for him. To him I was precious and wanted. I had never, in all my life, been adored the way he adored me. Not when I was a child being shuttled from one foster home to the next. Not when I was a teenager using sex as a means to connect. And certainly not as an adult when I had come to accept my emotional isolation and stopped trying to feel anything at all.

“Play something for me,” Flynn urged, his fingers pressing into my thigh. The warmth of his hand burned me.

I reached up and brushed his hair from his forehead. He stiffened but allowed it.

“Can I kiss you first? To say thank you?” I always asked him if I could kiss him. I was still feeling out his comfort level. And every time I asked, I held my breath until he consented. Waiting for that time he would finally reject me and turn away. I didn’t want to think about what I would do if that ever happened.

Flynn nodded and I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him toward me. His eyes were already fluttering closed and I kissed the tip of his nose before melding my mouth to his. He opened up his lips instantly. He had become quite adept at using his tongue. He was also learning to become more vocal.

When my tongue swept into his mouth he groaned and my belly tightened in response. A deep, glowing warmth spread throughout my body. I ran my fingers through his hair and he seemed to enjoy that. He groaned again, the press of his lips becoming more frantic.

I tried not to wince as he bit down on my lower lip a little harder than I would have liked. He was still trying to figure out what I liked and what he liked. “Not so hard, baby,” I whispered into his mouth, making sure to tell him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, running his tongue along the skin he had just bitten. I gave him my own moan to encourage him.

I almost pulled away when he suddenly put both of his hands on my breasts. I hadn’t been expecting that.

He didn’t move his hands. He didn’t rub or knead. He just held his palms over my nipples, his fingers spanning the expanse of my boobs. Should I show him what to do? Would he freak out and pull away?

We were still kissing but I was fixated on his hands that sat, unmoving on my chest. Finally I pulled back and looked down pointedly at his hands. “Uh, what’s going on here?” I asked.

Flynn followed the direction of my stare and quickly dropped his hands. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, folding his hands together in his lap.

Oh shit, he was starting to rub them. He was gnawing on his bottom lip, another sign that he was upset.

“Flynn, it’s okay. I was just surprised is all,” I tried to reassure him. Flynn had closed down. He wouldn’t answer me. He had gone inside his head. Things had been going so well and then I had opened my stupid f*cking mouth and ruined everything.

“I wanted to touch you. I’ve seen it before on television. It looked nice. I thought I’d touch you like that,” he said, still rubbing his hands furiously.