by Jewel E. Ann
The house.
The view.
The woman. God … the woman. I don’t even know if she’s real. Maybe she’s this ethereal creature sent to tempt me then punch me in the gut again for my epic mistake.
“I feel like I should ask you about …” I let out a long breath—one that holds a lot of something. A very heavy breath.
“It’s a good night. Don’t feel obligated to do the small talk thing with me. I rather like us without it.”
Yeah, she’s not real.
“Us …” I say the word like I need to test it out.
“Bodhi and Henna.” She unties her shoes and slips them off, tucking her feet under her. “And Alice.”
“Who’s Alice?”
“Duh. Our blue baby with big round eyes and an awkward but adorable little VW emblem nose. Unless…” she digs her teeth into her lower lip “…you already named her. Didn’t you? That’s cool. Alice could be a middle name.”
I stare at her mouth, desperate to taste it. If this is a dream, I’m going to fight to never wake up.
The longer I stare, the more she squirms. Henna grabs another California roll and shoves it into her mouth. My gaze shifts to her brilliant blue eyes. She knows I was staring a bit too long at her tempting lips.
I grin. “I didn’t name her.”
“Aw … see?” Henna mumbles over a mouthful of food. “You were waiting for me.” She wipes her mouth and sets the napkin on the table. “Are you good with Alice? We can discuss this, but I’m not gonna lie … she totally looks like an Alice.” She pulls a package out of her pocket. “Gummy?”
I frown. “I’m good.” She’s ethereal, sexy, and as close to perfect as she could be while still being a pothead. Okay, that’s not fair. Maybe she really does have pain from whatever caused that scar on her back. Either way, I can’t go down that road again. But she can’t be a road in my life because my life is a dead end.
Henna stares at her gummies with a contemplative look then slides them back into her pocket without eating one. Now I feel like a dick. What if she’s in pain?
“Just pot?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I can get you some beer or really probably anything you want from downstairs.”
I shake my head. “I mean, is pot the only thing you use?”
“Oh …” she laughs. “Yes. I was getting dependent on opioids. Juni suggested I try marijuana instead.”
“Juni?”
“My mom.”
“You call your mom Juni?”
“Yes. She’s my best friend. Juni makes me feel open to share my darkest secrets. Mom makes me clam up.”
Juni? I cock my head to the side. “I think there was a model or actress with that name. Juniper? Tall, blond …?”
“Oh …” She nods several times. “Yes. Juniper Carlisle. She was an international supermodel; now she has a fashion DIY show on cable.”
“I don’t watch much TV.”
“No?” She mirrors my head-cock. “I had minimal TV growing up. Basically National Geographic for kids. My parents were very liberal about most things, then ultra conservative about other things. But … lately I’ve been bingeing on Riverdale.”
I nod toward her pocket, unable to shrug the nagging feeling that I came across as a condescending jerk. “If you need that … don’t let me stop you.”
Her hand covers mine between us, closing her eyes for a few long seconds. “I think I could take one Bodhi before bed every night and never lose sleep over pain again.”
Well, fuck me …
“I should go.” I stare at her hand on mine.
“There are probably a bunch of crazies on the road. You could fall asleep driving. And I’d hate to see anything happen to you and Alice.” She grins and so do I. “Besides, I want you to tell me what it’s like to be a surfer or a cowboy.”
I bark out a belly laugh and melt into the back of the sofa, running my hands through my already messy hair. “Oh … wow.” I lace my fingers behind my head.
Her gaze drops to my chest. Curiosity and something even more intimate flashes across her face.
“Funny you should mention those two things. I love to surf, and I can ride a horse with the best of them.”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit? Why are you calling bullshit when you brought it up?”
“I was joking. Just being stereotypical. Naked, you look like a surfer, but dressed in these jeans and boots, I can totally see you in a cowboy hat, mounted on a horse.”
“Wait. When have you seen me naked?”
Her skin turns pink all the way to the top of her ears. “I mean your actual physical appearance looks like a surfer.”
“I see.” I scratch my chin. “Hmm … what do I think you look like?”
Her entire body seems to come to life as her back straightens when she rearranges herself so she’s sitting on her knees, facing my side.
“You have an artsy-ness to you. I’d bet you did your own henna tattoos. But you’re young … I’m not sure I really want to know how young.” My nose wrinkles a bit. It hits me. This girl could be sixteen.
She rolls her eyes. “I turn nineteen … soon.”
“Fuck …” I still cringe, running my hands through my hair again. “Young.”
She grabs my wrists and throws a leg over my lap, straddling me.
“Henna—”
“Finish telling me what your first impression of me was.”
I shake my head slowly. “I can’t.” Swallowing hard, my gaze slips to her mouth.
“Why?” She interlaces our fingers and curls our hands around her back, forcing us closer together.
“I think you’re trouble.”
“Some say I’m Hell.”
“Hell?” I whisper as she inches closer to me, finding my mouth just as mesmerizing as I find hers.
“Yeah.” She searches my face. “Henna Eve Lane. H.E.L.”
I grin, the kind that grows by the second. “Perfect.” I lean in toward her lips.
She pulls back. “Take your shirt off. I can’t stop thinking about the ketchup on the back of it, and I need to know if you have any tattoos.”
“No tattoos.”
But yes, I will take off all of my clothes for you if you just ask.
“Good.”
“Good?” I cock my head to the side.
“Yeah. They’re too permanent. I don’t know if I could be into a guy who feels so strongly about something that he makes a permanent mark on himself.”
“Interesting.”
She nods. I lean in again.
“I’m serious. I need you to take your shirt off.” She curls her fingers around the hem of it, waiting for me to give her permission.
I lift my arms without a second’s hesitation.
“Damn …” she whispers. Then her gaze shoots to mine as if she just realized she said that aloud.
She folds my shirt one way, then another, and yet another.
“I can put it back on.” I take it from her shaky hands.
*
Henna
THIS IS THE part where I’m supposed to confess my virginity, but I don’t want to be a virgin with Bodhi. I want it to be us. Henna and Bodhi. I want a weekend of living—a weekend of not being judged by my past or my family. But more than anything, I want to enjoy the incomparable high that I feel with Bodhi. It’s a high greater than anything in my pocket.
I reach for my braid, but he stops me, sliding off the hairband and setting it on the sofa next to us. He loosens my braid, and as wavy auburn strands fall around my shoulders, he threads his fingers through it.
A playful smile tugs at his lips when I shiver. Bodhi makes me feel vulnerable and so alive. “I think I could like Bodhi and Henna,” he whispers, pulling me to him, ghosting his lips over my face, touching me with his mouth everywhere but on my mouth.
I feather my fingers along his abs, closing my eyes to just feel us.
No pain.
No past regrets or future worries.
We’ve known each other for hours. This is insane, but my compass has never pointed directly north, so I just don’t give a shit. This attraction is something stronger than just physical. Bodhi is a force greater than anything I have ever felt. We were meant to meet, if only to share a few days. I’ll never be able to explain it with words. We are a feeling.
And when it happens—the kiss—I feel it like a lost part of myself finding its way back home. His kiss is slow, and just like when we hold hands, it feels familiar and so right.
He pulls back, keeping his hands threaded in my hair. “Bodhi and Henna,” he whispers, brushing his nose against mine. It feels like a promise, but I don’t think it is because there’s too much pain in his voice.
“Henna and Bodhi,” I whisper back a breath before my mouth finds his again.
We kiss for what feels like hours. His hands caress my face, my hair, down my arms, and occasionally they find the curve of my butt, pulling me closer to him. I feel him hard against me, and I would give Bodhi everything, but for this night, that isn’t Henna and Bodhi.
After our lips are thoroughly swollen and the morning hours approach sunrise, he removes his boots and socks and lays us down on the sofa—my face buried in his neck. My hands mold to his bare chest, our legs scissored together, and his arms encase me in something so unexpected I can’t imagine the inevitable goodbye.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bodhi
FIVE DAYS OF freedom. Not guilt-free freedom, just freedom. My expectations reached no further than a weekend of immersing myself in the life I once loved so much. Until …
Henna.
She blinds me with a light I haven’t seen in years. Eighteen is young. Even when I round her age up to nineteen, it still plagues me with guilt, but there is something she has that I need.
Air.
It feels amazing and unfamiliar to breathe again, even if for only a couple of days.
“Who did this?” I trace the lines of her temporary tattoos as the sun climbs up the horizon over the desert. My lips press to the top of her head, and she leans into me, her back flush to my chest.
“Me.”
Elation settles into my chest. I was right—she’s artsy. There’s a part of her no one will ever understand unless they see how she expresses herself without words.
“Well, that’s disconcerting.”
Her body shakes with a soft chuckle. “Why?”
“I called it, which means I must be right about you being trouble.”
“You only have to deal with me for two more days. Unless …” She rolls over to face me.
I pretend that her wild hair, sleepy eyes, and smattering of freckles don’t make my heart hurt for a few seconds when it really hits me—we are going to go our separate ways. I let myself enjoy a glimpse of the life I could have had before I messed up.
My mind wants to go there so badly because Henna isn’t some girl I met at a concert, she’s the girl, and every part of me knows it. When I hold her, my arms know it. I kiss her and my lips know it. When I look at her, something behind my ribs knows it too.
One day.
Henna made her mark on me in one day.
“Unless?” I palm her butt with one hand to keep her from falling off the edge of the sofa.
Her eyes widen. Yeah, I have a severe case of morning wood. Totally her fault, but I don’t mention it and neither does she.
“Unless you’re tired of me. I know you probably have to work today. I’m not clingy. Really, I just—”
I silence her with a kiss. She hums and slides a leg between mine which doesn’t help my situation down there.
“When do you leave?” I ask after leaving her breathless.
“Monday.”
“What time is your flight? Do you need a ride to the airport?”
“Um …” She chews her lower lip. “Sure. What time are you leaving?”
I chuckle. “I’m driving. My schedule has some flexibility. What time is your flight?”
“Where are you driving to?” It’s the first time she asks something that could link us beyond this weekend.
After the night we’ve spent together, I want to know where she lives, who waits for her at home, and if she feels the same ache in her stomach and chest that I feel knowing our time together is about to expire.
“East.” I slide my hand from her butt to her lower back while my other hand fists her hair so I can kiss a thousand tomorrows out of her. When I have to release her, she forces something resembling a smile—the brave kind. I recognize it because it’s the same one I have on my own face.
“Let’s eat before we leave. I’m sure there’s quite the spread downstairs.”
“Rich people breakfast?” I ask.
She furrows a brow for a few seconds. “Yes. I suppose so.” Rolling away, she swings her legs around and stands up, stretching like a cat.
“Do you eat rich people breakfast every morning?” My curiosity has been piqued.
After a long yawn, she cocks her head to the side, lips slightly twisted. “Shredded Wheat with cut-up banana and almond milk. Is that a rich person’s breakfast?”
I sit up, doing a bit of my own stretching, loving the way her gaze roams along my bare chest, her lips parting ever so slightly. “No. I think that’s a solid middle-class breakfast.”
“Middle. That’s average. Average is good, right?”
“There’s nothing average about you, Henna.” I stand, following her into the bedroom.
“I’m going to shower quickly, and by quickly I mean I need an hour. Do you have an hour?”
“To shower with you?” I try to play it cool, like I’m serious.
I’m a little serious.
The color leaves her face. “Oh, um …” She twists her fingers together, drawing her shoulders inward.
“I’m kidding.”
A little kidding.
Henna’s posture relaxes as her cheeks pink up again. “We could.” Her gaze darts around the room before landing on mine for two seconds only to wander around the room again.
“My clothes are at my hotel. I’ll shower there. I need to get going.”
A slow sigh deflates her chest as she tries on a smile that misses the confident mark by a few centimeters. “Okay.”
“But thanks for the offer.” I wink.
More color paints her cheeks, and it looks stunning on her. “I kinda sorta thought we’d have sex last night, but we didn’t, and that’s fine, but now I don’t know what comes next.”
Does that make me the world’s biggest idiot for not taking what she was planning on offering? Or does that make me a gentleman? I’ve already fucked her a hundred different ways in my head, so I’m going to shy away from the gentleman label.
“How about you put my number in your phone and I’ll call you later today? That feels like a good next, don’t you think?”
Henna nods and turns, walking toward the bedroom door. Digging through her purse, she retrieves her phone. When she pulls it out, a string of three condoms comes out with it. “Oh jeez.” Quickly snatching them off the floor, she shoves them back into her purse.
I don’t respond because I’m not sure what the correct response should be.
“I was conceived at Coachella.” She hands me her phone with the contact screen open, ready for my information.
Taking her phone, I give her an expectant look, but she withholds all elaboration.
“And by conceived, you mean physical conception, not merely an idea kind of conception?” I hand her phone back and give her mine.
“In the shadows behind a stage. I know more details than most people should actually know about the moment they were conceived.” She lifts a shoulder in a small shrug. “But Juni is my best friend. She’s the absolute coolest mom ever, and the story of how she met my dad is my favorite story ever.”
I nod as she keeps her chin tipped toward the screen to my phone. “Why is that?” I take my phone back when she holds it out to me.
/> “Yin Yang. Opposites. Laws of the universe.” She wears a satisfied smile. “My parents were temporary. I was permanent.” Holding out her arms, she inspects her henna tattoos as if seeing them for the first time. “My mom had henna tattoos on her body when she met my dad. Henna grows in intensity over a few days before fading to nothing. It’s magical and beautiful and then it’s gone. My parents say that about their love for each other. It grew quickly into something deep and intense, but over time it faded. Their love—like most everything in life—was temporary.”
“We’re temporary.”
Her empty stare shifts to meet my gaze and she nods. “Don’t sweat it. Everything is temporary. But today…” she walks into my chest, and my arms wrap around her as she looks up at me “…we should be at our brightest, our most intense.”
“Intense?” There is a hyperawareness of every feeling in my body—my heartbeat, my quickening breaths, a tingle in my fingers eager to touch her in new places.
“Intense.” She lifts onto her toes, wrapping her arms around my neck and guiding my mouth to hers.
Our kiss grows into something demanding. She hums into my mouth as my hands slide down her back to her ass, grabbing it with both hands to bring her body flush with mine. Her fingernails claw at my neck, my back, and my chest. Filled with desperation from many months of not being intimate with a woman, I lower my grip on her backside and lift her up.
“Bodhi.” Her breathless voice unravels me as her mouth devours mine.
I walk us to the nearest wall, letting my itchy hands explore the rest of her body. When her back hits the solid surface, she releases the sexiest grunt and rocks her pelvis into me, grazing the head of my swollen cock uncomfortably confined behind my jeans.
“Henna …” I come up for air, but she fists my hair and pulls me back in for another mind-blowing kiss. With her pinned to the wall, I let my right hand slide under her top and cup her braless breast. It’s so fucking perfect.
Latching her ankles behind my back, she grinds herself into me again. I’m ready to die right here on the spot. I pinch her hardened nipple.
“Bodhi!” Her head falls back against the wall as I suck and lick the skin down her neck to her bare shoulder. “Condoms … I have lots of condoms …”