“I told you to jump to the left.”
“I know.”
We were silent, the same pictures of blue sky and clear water running through our heads. I knew we were both recalling exactly when and where I’d gotten that scar. It was during a vacation in St. Barts, with Callum, Caroline and my grandmother, Elena. We were fifteen. Callum had just dislocated his shoulder during wrestling so when he spotted a gorgeous thirty-plus-foot cliff, he dared me to jump off of it for him. My pride refused to let me back out. I always ached to prove that I was just as good as he was – just as good as any of them. But I psyched myself out on the edge and because of that, I forgot Callum’s advice to go left when I finally jumped.
Every second in the air had been pure, exhilarating bliss but I shrieked in pain when I landed. Not from the impact with water but from the jagged rock scraping my entire right side. I muffled the sound with my hand but Callum heard it and in seconds, against doctor’s orders, had jumped right in after me. “I told you to jump to the left!” I could hear him shouting it again, so angry but worried about me as he wrapped his bad arm around my waist and swam us to shore. I could’ve limped back to the villas but he refused to let me. He carried me the whole way and as I bled on him, he went back and forth between cursing me out and murmuring into my hair that I was fine, that I did awesome and everything was going to be okay.
He took the fall when both my grandmother and Caroline screamed at me for doing something so dangerous. I cried my eyes out because while I was used to it with Elena, Caroline never yelled at me. I was her perfect girl. So Callum spent that night with me in the villa, taking care of me and keeping me distracted with funny stories about Theo and Logan and the shitty things they did to the other guys in the locker room after wrestling.
By the time we were home, the only scar I had left from that ordeal was on my hip. And in the years that I was away, I grew kind of grateful for it. There was something oddly comforting about looking down and seeing a memory of Callum marked onto my body. I liked carrying it with me wherever I went. It was my reminder that we once existed.
See? I stared at him. Still the same Lake.
Callum caught my look as I recalled the memory. My eyes were wet, brimming with tears for the way we were but I didn’t let them fall. I stood there and waited for his next request. “Move your hair,” he finally said, standing squarely in front of me.
I did as I was told, the backs of my hands brushing my thick waves past my shoulders. As I cleared the view for him, Callum’s eyes fixed on my breasts. I watched his mouth part just slightly, the tip of his tongue wetting the inner part of his bottom lip. His gaze traced the shape of each full mound, his head shaking so slightly I barely noticed it. I knew he was mesmerized and yet he still wouldn’t let himself touch me. He hadn’t touched me once since I’d come back and it was starting to drive me insane. I’d missed it so much. It felt like I’d been waiting a couple different lifetimes to feel it again.
“Lift your hands in the air,” he demanded.
I didn’t question. I arched my back and crossed my arms behind my head, my elbows pointed at the ceiling. I was a million times more naked in that position, tits lifted up and pushed out for Callum’s eyes to feast on. It felt vulnerable, erotic. I was bared naked for him, my breathing short and ragged, bouncing my breasts in a way that demanded his unyielding attention, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. Callum was silent but I knew he was swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as my bare chest rose and fell with each hard breath. I could taste the thick air between us as he came forward to me, his eyes filled with intent. The closer he came, the tighter his body stiffened. I wet my lips, watching his shirt stretch taut over his broadening chest.
And then he touched me.
I let out a faint moan as his warm hands brushed my skin to cup the bottoms of my breasts, his fingers spreading wide to form over their size. I soaked in the heavy sound of his arousal as he let himself squeeze, soft at first but then harder and harder till he let out a throaty groan. “Fuck,” Callum hissed. He bounced the weight of my breasts in his hands. His tongue lolled as he watched my nipples pebble for him. They ached to feel his lips wrap around them and he knew it so he stared for a predatory second. Arms still over my head, my fingers dug into my hair.
Take it. Please. Take what you want. I was ready to tell him but he did it without me. I gasped as he jerked my waist, arching my back like a bow. My hair spilled like a waterfall as he presented my tits for his mouth. They begged for him, as close as they could possibly be without touching his lips. Please, please, pretty please. The hot air he breathed onto my peaks blasted me with sensation that shot straight to my core. My skin spread with unbearable heat as I waited for the relief of his mouth, his lips, his tongue. I could see it, practically feel it ready and watering, just waiting to claim me. I didn’t need him to be gentle – I just needed him to take my body and treat himself to whatever he wanted.
However he wanted.
But with a curled lip, he tore away.
Fuck! My eyes fell shut. I shattered to silent pieces as his hands promptly went elsewhere. They traveled with a purpose to my ribcage, running down my side and stopping at the third bone down from my breast. Yes. I opened my eyes and the breath hitched in my throat as his right thumb ran over the little tattoo usually covered by my arm. I watched his wolfish gaze move over the black ink – the promise I had made to him a year before I left.
We were twenty years old and so fiercely in love.
So we’d decided to get tattoos of each other’s names on our bodies. Mine on his, his on mine, both in the same spot. They warned me how it would hurt but I liked that it was the rib right next to my heart, so they started. And ten seconds into the needle on bone, I passed right out. Embarrassingly enough, the pain was too excruciating for me to get past the letter “C.” So Callum left his at just “L,” but not without teasing me. When I said I’d have it finished someday, he laughed and said he didn’t believe me. So I made the promise that on my next birthday, I’d have the tattoo completed. “Yeah? No matter how much it hurts?”
“No matter what happens. Even if I lose consciousness.”
He laughed. “That’s crazy. But I dare you to do it.”
“I know. And I accept.” It was appropriate. My love for him was crazy and his love for me was the same. So I swore I would do it and he followed suit.
I’d already disappeared from New York by the time I turned twenty-one but at a parlor near Richmond, despite the fact that Callum had no clue where I was, I’d gotten the remaining five letters inked. They hurt like hell so I felt a sense of pride as his fingers traced them now. C-A-L-L-U-M. Every letter burned into me forever, just like the scar on my hip. The only difference was that this scar had been a choice. The balance represented us well. Neither Callum nor I chose each other. We were thrust into one another’s lives. But we loved each other so hand in hand, we chose to fight every hurtle flung our way. We’d been apart for awhile by the time I had my tattoo finished but I’d sat through it convinced that it was part of my fight to stay close to him – to prove to myself that when it was safe, I’d return to him.
“You really did it.”
“I promised I would,” I murmured as he touched the letters. I felt so damned satisfied about the disbelief in his eyes that I forgot about his end of the promise. Suddenly, I backed away. Callum gave a quizzical look but I stared into him. “Let me see yours.”
Standing straight, his lips became a hard line.
“Take your shirt off, Callum.” I shook my head at him because I already knew. “Let me see,” I demanded, the words barely escaping my tight throat. “At least let me fucking see,” I pleaded angrily, the tears coming back.