Fighting to Breathe (Shooting Stars 1)

Setting my bag and keys on the table near the door, my step falters and my heart begins to beat hard. I haven’t had a lot of time to think about my mom not being here since she’s passed away. There has always been someone around to distract me from the silence, but walking into the quiet house and coming face-to-face with nothing, I realize she will never greet me again. We will never have another conversation. She is gone and I am alone. My breath chokes out as I slide down the door to my ass and bring my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, and cry. I don’t know how long I sit there crying, but I hear a car pull up outside, a door slam, and feet on the wood of the porch before a knock on the door. I wipe my face with the inside of my shirt and stand on shaky legs, opening the door.

“Baby, what the fuck happened?” Austin asks, and before I know it, I’m up in his arms and wrapping myself around him, wanting to crawl inside his skin to hide from the pain.

“It’s so quiet,” I whimper into his neck. “She’s gone.”

“It’s okay, baby. Let it go; I’ve got you,” he says, and I cry harder into his neck as everything I have been holding in boils to the surface.

“I’m so alone,” I tell him as his body doubles and he sits on the couch with me in his lap.

“You’re not alone,” he grunts, settling his hand on the back my head, sheltering me.

“Please don’t leave me.” I beg.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, making me cry even harder. I don’t deserve him, not after leaving him. But I can’t help myself from desperately begging him not to leave me. “You have me always, Little Lamb.” His arms wrap tighter around me, anchoring me to him as I cry until I can’t cry anymore.

By the time my tears have dried up, my body is exhausted and my eyes feel like they have sand in them. Austin carries me to bed and crawls in behind me, hugging me until I fall asleep.

I wake up with a headache from crying and the room lit with sunlight. I take a moment to lie there, then hear voices coming from somewhere in the house. Getting up, I pull off my sweater, leaving me in a thin shirt and my jeans, and walk into the living room, where Ken and Austin are sitting, talking quietly. I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing them in the same room.

Austin’s head comes up, our gazes connect, and his face goes soft. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I repeat then look down at my sock-covered feet, feeling suddenly awkward after the way I broke down earlier.

“Dinner’s almost done. Are you hungry?”

I nod then wrap my arms around my waist as I bring my head back up, but looking at Ken this time as I feel his eyes burning into me.

“I got an earlier flight. I just stopped by to tell you I’m leaving, and when I get home, I’ll sign the papers.”

“I appreciate that.”

His face goes soft, and a look I haven’t seen from him since we first started dating fills his eyes. “E-mail me sometime, just to tell me you’re okay.”

“Sure,” I lie, knowing this is the last I will ever talk to him again. He gets up off the couch and walks to the door, stopping and turning back to me. My body stiffens, expecting him to embrace me, but instead, he leans in, kissing my forehead.

“Take care of yourself, Lea.”

“You, too,” I murmur, watching as he opens then closes the door behind himself. My heart doesn’t even tug knowing I will never see him again.

“How are you feeling?” Austin asks, wrapping his strong arms around me from behind.

“Okay…better.”

His lips brush over my temple then my ear before settling on the curve of my neck, where he mutters, “Good.”

“Sorry about earlier.”

He turns me in his arms and his eyes search mine. “I’m not.” His hands come up and he holds my face gently, and my hands move to his sides. “Next time, you call me when you feel like that.”

“It happened suddenly,” I say, looking away from him.

“I know, but if it happens again,” he gives me a slight shake, “you call, and I’ll stop whatever I’m doing to come to you.”

“I don’t want to burden you.”

“You’re not a burden, and don’t spew that shit at me, ’cause all it does is piss me off, baby.”

I feel a frown form on my lips and my eyebrows pull together. “How does me not wanting to burden you piss you off?”

“As your man, it’s my job to take care of you, Lea, even if that means I’m just a shoulder for you to cry on when you need it.”

“Oh,” I whisper, because he just said he’s my man, and that statement causes my whole body to light up from the inside out.

“Yeah, oh,” he says, still sounding annoyed.

“Umm…” I look over his shoulder, and his fingers pressing in on my cheek bring my eyes back to him. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know that you’re mine.” He asks and I nod.

“You’ve always been mine but you gotta help me take care of you, Lea.” His tone and the way those words wrap around me have my body melting into him, pressing my chest to his, and sliding up on my tiptoes to get closer to him.

“I like that you want to take care of me,” I say and he grunts, pulling me closer to him, then lowers his mouth down to mine, licking across my lips while coasting his hands over my backside, palming my ass and pulling the lower half of my body tighter against his.

“You need to eat,” he groans, ripping his mouth away from mine, but instead of stepping back, one hand fists a handful of my hair, pulling back, and his mouth travels down the side of my neck, causing wetness to spread between my legs. My fingers clutch onto his biceps, trying to keep balanced as a deep wave of desire pulses through me.

“Austin,” I whimper as he kisses back up to my mouth.

“I’m here, baby,” he growls, lifting me off my feet. My legs wrap around his hips and he turns my back to the wall, the hard outline of his erection hitting me right between the legs as he presses against me.

“Yes,” I moan loudly as his head bends and his teeth scrape against my nipple through the material of my shirt and bra. My hands that had been on his shoulders scrape through his hair, pulling at the roots.

“We gotta slow down.”

“Yeah,” I agree, dropping my mouth down to his, biting his lowe

r lip, and pulling it hard.

Then he’s gone. I blink a couple times and lean back against the wall, trying to catch my breath as I watch him stand a few feet away, breathing the same as I am, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.

“Fuck,” he groans, palming himself through his jeans and shifting his erection to the side. “Go into the kitchen, baby. I can’t look at you like you are right now, so I need you to go into the kitchen and give me five minutes to get myself under control.”

Swallowing, my eyes drop to his bulge again, and his growl echoes through the room, causing me to jump and scurry out through the doorway to the kitchen. I press my back to the wall, closing my eyes, willing my body to calm down, and thankfully, when Austin comes into the kitchen five minutes later, we have both calmed enough that we are able to sit together, have a quiet dinner before moving to the couch to watch a movie. I don’t ask Austin to stay the night again, but don’t complain when he takes me to bed and gets in with me.

I wake with Austin’s breath brushing my ear, his hand wrapped around my breast, my leg cocked out at the hip, with his leg tangled with mine. Ken never held me at night, even after sex. He would roll to his side and fall asleep. He never cuddled unless he was using it as a form of foreplay, so waking up having Austin wrapped around me two days in a row gives me a glimpse at what my life would have been like if things had been different.

Wrapping my hands around his arm I try to lift it so I can fix my tank top, which only gains me a squeeze from him, making my core tighten in response.

“Go back to sleep.” His words brush against the shell of my ear, making my nipples harden into sharp points below his palm and my lips part on a gasp.

Hearing the sound his breathing changes, becoming deeper, he drags my tank top off over my head. Then his thumb slides over my nipple, causing my back to arch and his hips to press into my side, where I feel his erection.

“Austin,” I breathe.

He grunts, giving me another swipe over my nipple before slowly sliding his hand up, wrapping it around the column of my throat then down, covering my other breast, palming it and pulling my nipple between his fingers, giving it a gentle tug. The roughness of his palm traveling down over my stomach, causes my muscles to contract and my nails to dig into his arm.