What Brings Me to You by Loralee Abercrombie

"No. Saw him a couple times. He plays the trumpet at this jazz place downtown called the Sinatra Bar. That's how he and my mother met. He dresses like a vagrant. I know he's broke."
                  "I just don't understand. You're surrounded by all this and you live in a prison cell."
                  "Teddy, it could be a lot worse, believe me."
                  "How? How could this be worse?" I crumpled onto the edge of her bed in a heap, sitting with my head in my hands.
                  "Until a few moments ago it was." She gently sat down next to me. Her voice sounded so young, so vulnerable. I just wanted to take her in my arms and make everything better for her. To save her. "No one, I mean, no one in the world knew this. I was all alone. Now, I have someone to talk to. A...a friend. I've never had a friend before."
    When I turned to look at her, her big brown eyes were brimming with tears. All the sadness, strength, and vulnerability I'd seen in them since the first day we met seemed to be bubbling over. I held her tiny, delicate face in my hands and brushed the tears away with my thumbs as they fell. When there were too many, I started to kiss them away gently. The warm, salty liquid hydrated my lips until I was giving her chaste, salty-wet kisses all over her face, her neck, her shoulders. When I reached her collar bone with my lips she let out the tiniest sigh. Like it was what she'd been waiting for -for me to kiss her, to claim her. She wrenched my head from her chest and forced me to look into her eyes. She wasn't crying anymore. There was something else; passion, lust,  love ?
                  "Don't hurt me," she whispered. "Please. Don't hurt me."

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
    Charley
     
                  I told you, you were my first, babe. I didn't lie. We barely got to second base that afternoon. He was very sweet with me; gentle even. He kept his hands on my face or my lower back and his eyes locked on mine between kisses. I'd never felt wanted that way, and Teddy made me feel wanted, beautiful.    Please, don't hurt me, is all I could think. It played on a loop in my mind over and over while he kissed my nose, my cheeks, behind my ears. Please don't hurt me     while I let my hand explore his face, his chest, his biceps with abandon .     I slipped my hand under his tee shirt to run my fingers along his taut stomach. In one swift move he whipped off his shirt and I saw his body for the hundredth time, but it was different now because it was in my bed, underneath my hands. His pink and cream skin contrasted so beautifully with my brown hand. I placed my lips in the divide between his pecks and I heard him make a sound that could only be described as pure desire. He used his knuckles under my chin to lift my head so we were eye to eye and he touched his mouth to mine again, grazing his    tongue    over my bottom lip. I shivered at the light touch; at the sweet taste of him. Instinctively, I opened my mouth for more, and he carefully eased his tongue inside letting it glide over my lip and onto my own. I breathed in quickly through my nose. The sensation was so different than I ever thought it’d be. I mean, honestly, when you think about kissing like that , on a purely physical plane, it’s kind of gross. Except with Teddy it wasn’t. It was phenomenal: his hands sweetly on either side of my face, holding me steady; his deep, soft moans vibrating against the back of my throat; his sweet lips whispering against mine. I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of his hands running from my hair down to my neck and shoulders. God , I thought, I could do this forever. When his hand grazed my breast I flinched slightly from surprise, but he bolted up to his feet as if he'd been shot.
                  "Oh god, I'm sorry. Fuck !" and he ran his hands through his deliciously mussed up hair, letting them rest,