by Lauren Rowe
I’m blown away. “Not once?”
He shakes his head. “I think there might be something wrong with me.”
I make a sad face.
“So, anyway, I got sidetracked. I was supposed to be telling you how Miss Westbrook got Jonas to talk, right?” He shifts his body underneath me and I’m treated to the unmistakable sensation of his hard-on poking me in the crotch.
“Oh,” I say. “Hello.”
“Hello.” He grins.
“What’s that for?”
“You’re sitting on my lap.”
“That’s all it takes?”
“Apparently.”
I grin at him. “That’s all it takes for me, too,” I say.
“I’m addicted to you,” he whispers.
“I’m addicted to you,” I whisper back, my heart racing.
He nuzzles his nose into mine. We kiss gently for a few minutes, listening to the music. My crotch is absolutely burning.
He pulls back. “What were we talking about?”
“Miss Westbrook.”
“Oh, yeah.” He lays a quick peck on my lips. “Jonas became Miss Westbrook’s after-school helper, and to make a long story short, she did this crazy, amazing thing he hadn’t experienced in a really long time: she was nice to him.” He shrugs. “And that’s pretty much it—well, and she was smoking hot, too.” He grins.
“But how do you think she convinced him to speak? A year’s a long time.”
“I don’t know exactly what she said or did to him when they were all alone in that classroom, but whatever it was, he adored her. She could have asked Jonas to fly and he would have figured out how to sprout wings.” He sighs. “All I can say is it’s a good thing Sarah’s not some kind of evil madman bent on destroying the universe because if she were, we’d all be screwed. The boy would figure out how to do it for her.”
“I think the feeling’s mutual.”
Josh nuzzles my nose again. “Don’t tell Sarah, but Jonas is gonna pop the question.”
I’m floored. “What?”
Josh grins broadly. “He’s been sending me photos of rings this whole past week. Hang on.” He rearranges me on his lap so he can grab his phone from his pocket. “See?”
I look at his screen—and sure enough, Jonas has texted Josh countless images of diamond rings, all of them bigger than my head.
“Holy Hope Diamond, Batman,” I say.
Josh laughs. “Which one do you think Sarah would like the best? Jonas won’t leave me alone about it.”
I scroll through the images, shaking my head. “Hell, if I know. They’re all freaking spectacular—oh, wait. No. This one. Wow.” I point to a princess-cut dazzler that, for whatever reason, screams “Sarah” to me. “She’s gonna totally freak out.”
“Bless you.” Josh grabs his phone from me and shoots off a quick text to Jonas. “You just saved me from hours of torture, Kat. Thank you.”
“When’s he gonna ask her?”
“In two weeks—he’s taking her on a surprise trip to Greece right after her final exams.”
I gasp. “He’s gonna ask her in Greece? Oh my God.” I clutch my heart. “Oh my shit, Sarah’s gonna crap her pants. Greece?”
“You ever been there?”
“No, remember? I’ve only been out of the country to Mexico and on a cruise to the Caribbean. I told you about the cruise and you said the only way to travel by sea is by private yacht.”
Josh laughs. “I said that? Oh my God, I’m such a douche sometimes.”
I laugh.
He nuzzles my nose. “So get this, babe. Jonas is planning to make poor Sarah hike to the top of Mount Olympus—because, he says, she’s ‘the goddess and the muse’”—he chuckles happily—“and then he’s gonna make her jump off the mountain and paraglide down to the beach—and that’s where he’s gonna ask her.” He laughs heartily. “So fucking Jonas.”
“But Sarah’s deathly afraid of heights.”
He touches my hair. “Well, sucks to be her, then. He wants to create some kind of metaphor.”
My brain tells me I should smile and laugh, but my eyes unexpectedly fill with tears instead. Oh my God, I’m a hot mess. I cover my face with my hands. What the hell is wrong with me lately?
“Kat? What’s wrong?” He looks genuinely concerned. “Why are you crying?”
I shake my head and laugh at myself through my tears. “I’m just so happy for Sarah,” I say, but even as I say it, I’m not sure if this completely explains my sudden (bizarre) tears (though, of course, I am insanely happy for Sarah). “I dunno, maybe I’m just so freakin’ relieved Sarah’s okay—I was so worried about her when she was attacked.” Another true statement—but, again, I’m not sure this is the source of my tears. “Or maybe I’m just sloppy-drunk. That was a really strong drink, Josh.” I half-smile.
Or maybe finding out Jonas is gonna propose to Sarah made my heart pang for myself, if I’m being brutally honest. Maybe my heart clanged so forcefully inside my chest cavity when Josh said those words, the sensation literally brought tears to my eyes.
Josh looks at me funny for a long beat.
I feel like I’ve said something wrong. Or, at least something awkward. I didn’t just now say my deepest thoughts out loud, did I?
After a moment, Josh grabs my face and kisses me passionately. Whoa. This is quite a kiss.
“You’re a good friend,” Josh whispers into my lips, his passion obviously surging all of a sudden. “I like that about you.”
“Josh,” I breathe. His kiss has ignited me.
He rises off the couch, taking my fluttering, swooning, aroused body with him—and I throw my arms around his neck.
“Okay, Party Girl with a Hyphen,” Josh says, his eyes blazing. “Time to finish the tour of my house. Next stop: my bedroom.”
Sixty-Seven
Kat
“Wow. Katherine Ulla Morgan’s finally gonna be in my bed,” Josh says gleefully. “Glory be.”
I giggle, peel off my clothes, and crawl into Josh’s luxurious bed, my skin on fire. “Hurry up, Joshua William Faraday. Don’t keep Katherine Ulla Morgan waiting.”
“I’ll be right there. Just getting some music cued up.” He glances at me from across the room, his blue eyes smoldering. “Another one from James Bay. I can’t get enough of this album.”
As the song starts playing, Josh joins me in bed, his erection straining as he crawls over me—and in a flash, his warm skin is covering mine.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says softly, his muscles bulging as he rests his forearms on either side of my head. “Welcome to my bed.”
“Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.”
The song is swirling around us, filling the room with words that seem to have been written especially for us—especially for this moment. Did Josh select this song as some sort of coded message to me—or is it just coincidental that James Bay is singing to us to “Let It Go” and reveal our truest selves to each other?
“I love it,” I murmur as Josh’s lips gently press into mine.
He moans his agreement into my mouth. “Me, too.”
Goose bumps erupt all over my body. These words are making my heart pang.
Josh raises my arms above my head, pins my wrists together with one of his large palms, and proceeds to slowly kiss and touch his way down my arms all the way down to my mouth, where he sucks my lower lips and teases me mercilessly for a while with tender kisses, until finally leaving my mouth for my breasts. Oh God, I’m already writhing with pleasure and we’re just getting started. His lips leave my breasts and trail down to my belly, where he swirls my belly ring in his mouth, and then moves on to laying soft kisses on my hip bone and pelvis.
“You smell so good,” he breathes. “I’m rock hard for you.”
I’m on fire.
When his lips finally move to the sensitive folds between my legs, I let out a long, low moan, already on the cusp of climax, and when his tongue finds my clit, I grip the sheet and arch my
back, my body clenching and releasing forcefully.
“You’re amazing, baby,” he says, his mouth lapping at me. “I love the way you get off.”
When my orgasm subsides, he works his way back up my body, kissing, sucking, caressing, massaging, and licking me into a frenzy.
I’m enraptured.
His face is suddenly in mine. Oh God, I could stare into those blue eyes forever. The room is spinning. He cups my cheek in his palm and presses his warm skin into the full length of my body. “I can’t get enough of you, baby,” he says.
“I’m addicted, Josh,” I reply. “I’m totally addicted to you.”
He slides his fingertips between my legs, brushing my wetness gently until I’m squirming and yelping with arousal, and I return the favor, touching him exactly the way he’s touching me—adoringly. We kiss and kiss, caressing each other gently as we do, until both of us are trembling and making sounds of extreme arousal.
I feel transported. I can’t think. I can only want. I wrap my legs around him, pressing my body into his. “Please,” I breathe. I’m trembling with desire. “Please. I want you, Josh. Please.” I’m using a phrase I’ve used with him before: I want you. But this time I mean it in a new way. This time, I’m telling him the bare truth: I want him, not just sexually. I want him to be mine in every way. I’ve never ached like this before. My heart hurts. “I want you, Josh,” I say again. “I want you so much it hurts.” Oh my God, I feel like crying, I want him to be mine so, so much.
“I’m all yours,” he says. He parts my legs and slides his hardness inside me, burying his shaft deep inside me, kissing me deeply as he does, stroking my hair, sucking on my lower lip again, thrusting his body slowly in and out of mine—and all of it as “Let It Go” continues to swirl around us.
I caress his ass and dig my fingers into him and he responds by thrusting passionately into me. “Why do you always feel so fucking good?” he asks, his voice strained.
“Josh,” I breathe. But that’s all I can manage. I’m feeling too overwhelmed to say more. With each thrust of his body, each time his chest rubs against mine, each touch of his lips, my heart feels like it’s physically reaching outside of my chest to join with his.
Sex with Josh has never been like this before. He’s fucked my brains out many times, made me literally pass out with pleasure, but this feels different. It doesn’t feel so much like he’s fucking me, it feels more like he’s... what was that word he used when he talked about the way Jonas loves? It feels like he’s worshipping me.
I’ve no sooner had the thought than I’m jolted with a palpable electric current. Holy hell, it’s like someone flipped a switch on our mutual circuit breaker.
“What the fuck?” Josh says softly, his body moving with mine.
Oh my God. He feels it, too?
“What is that?” he asks, his voice ragged.
“I don’t know,” I choke out.
He touches my face and kisses me, his passion spiking. “What the fuck are you doing to me?”
I shake my head and press my palm into his chest, right onto his mother’s name. “I don’t know.”
As the song builds, so does the crazy electricity between us. It feels too big to contain, too pleasurable to bear.
Suddenly, I don’t want an inch of separation between us. I want all of him. Every inch. I hitch my legs up higher around his thrusting body, as high as I can manage, trying to coax him into the farthest recesses of my body and he responds by guiding my thighs to his shoulders. And that’s all it takes to send my body releasing with an orgasm so pleasurable, it makes my eyes water.
“Yeah, baby,” Josh says, his passion obviously on the verge of releasing. “Oh my God. You’re amazing, babe.”
In one smooth movement, Josh pulls out of me and rearranges us. Suddenly, he’s on his back and I’m on top of him, straddling him, riding him. His hands are all over me. His face is intense. I grab his finger off my breast and suck it voraciously.
He moans and thrusts underneath me with increased fervor.
I’m vaguely aware the music has moved on to the next song on James Bay’s album. He’s singing about “craving.” Oh God, these words were written for us, too. I’ve been craving this man since the minute I laid eyes on him.
Our movement becomes heated. Josh is thrusting into me, grabbing at me, groping me, kissing me, groaning, and I’m gyrating my hips wildly on top of him, rubbing myself against his hard shaft as I do. He touches my clit and massages me—and I absolutely explode with pleasure.
“Yeah,” he chokes out as my body undulates around his cock, over and over. “Get it, baby.”
Right on my heels, Josh jerks underneath me, his body releasing into mine. “Oh God,” he groans. “Holy fuck.”
As Josh comes, I gaze at him from my perch on top of his body.
I love watching his features contort from pure pleasure. I love seeing every muscle in his body tense and tighten and then relax. My eyes drift across all the swirling ink decorating his skin—to his abs and chest, glistening with sweat.
His body is quiet now. He’s all done. His blue eyes are fixed on mine. Oh, those eyes. I trace his eyebrow with my fingertip and he blinks slowly, obviously completely spent. I lean down and kiss his lips gently and then trail gentle kisses along the length of his jaw, to his ear, and then down to his neck. I inhale the scent of him and swoon. Oh my effing God, I cannot get enough of this man.
I kiss and lick his chest tattoo, each and every letter, and then I let my tongue migrate down his torso to his little fishy swimming in the river and then down to the deep ridges in his abs. I kiss every letter of his “overcome” tattoo along his waist and let my tongue explore the sharp “V” cuts above his pelvis as the song swirls around us, giving voice to what I’m feeling deep inside. After a while, my mouth finds his nipples, then his neck, his jawline, his lips. We kiss passionately for a long time until, finally, we pull away from each other and stare into each other’s eyes.
My head is reeling. I’ve never experienced sex like this. This was something new—the perfect alignment of heart, body, mind, and soul. It took my breath away.
Josh wraps a lock of my hair around his finger and sings along softly to the last chorus of “Craving” straight to the end of the song. Another song on the album starts, and at the first chorus, it becomes clear what this new song must be called—“If You Ever Want To Be In Love.”
Josh stops playing with my hair. “Excuse me for a minute, PG.” He abruptly guides me off him, hops off the bed, and practically sprints toward his bathroom, leaving me in the bed alone with my mouth hanging open, listening to the rest of the song by myself.
Sixty-Eight
Josh
I splash cold water on my face and look at myself in the mirror. What the fuck just happened between Kat and me? I wouldn’t even call what we just did sex. It felt more like a nuclear reaction. Sexual fusion. Is that a thing? Well, if not, it is now.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
Water is dripping off my brow and down my nose.
Holy motherfucking shit.
How many times has Kat or I said, “Sex doesn’t have to be deep and meaningful”? And now, all of a sudden, I feel like going back in a time machine to each and every one of those conversations and shouting, “Yeah, but sometimes it is, Kat—sometimes it is!”
Jesus Christ. That was epic. The way her body felt around mine. Her eyes. Her lips. That electricity coursing between us. I could feel it. And the music. Oh my God. What the fuck was James Bay trying to do to me? Turn me into a blubbering pussy? I thought that James Bay album was cool when Jonas played it for me in New York, that’s all—I just really liked the guy’s voice. “Hey, that’s cool,” I said when Jonas played one of the songs for me. “Who is that?” I had no idea those songs would later provide the soundtrack of my complete and total undoing.
Holy fucking damn, that was some seriously mind-blowing sex.
Which, by the way, makes no sen
se at all. Ever since breaking up with Emma, all I’ve done is fantasize about all the kinky-ass shit I wanna do, all the ways I wanna let my inner sick-fuck run amok—and that’s what got me off so hard?—the most straight-forward, basic kind of sex a guy can have? But, oh my fucking God, it was incredible. Kat felt so fucking good, and the music was so perfect, and that electricity came out of nowhere and rocked my world... Holy fuck. I literally had to run away from her when that last song started playing or else I was gonna turn into fucking Jonas and start calling her the ‘goddess and the muse’ or some shit like that.
For Chrissakes, the way I was feeling in that moment, I was on the cusp of pouring my heart out to her, on the verge of telling her a thousand things I’d never normally say. For Chrissakes, I was about to babble about my upcoming move to Seattle! “When I move to Seattle,” I was about to say, “I wanna do this every night with you, babe.” Those are the exact words I was on the verge of saying to her! They were on the tip of my fucking tongue—even though I’m not moving for three motherfucking months! How could I even think of making an implied promise like that? Sure, I’m addicted to Kat right now—painfully addicted—Jesus God—I feel like a fucking labradoodle fetching a stick every time I’m in her presence—but who knows how long this white-hot passion’s gonna last? This thing with Kat and me is brand new, after all. At this stage in a relationship, three months from now might as well be thirty years. Things might work out—and, shit, I sure hope they do—God, I hope they do—but they might not. Like I always say: under-promise and over-deliver. That’s the path to happiness and peace of mind in all things.
But, goddammit, I wanted so badly to tell her about my upcoming move to Seattle, plus a bunch of other stuff, too. I wanted to tell her how excited I am to sit down to dinner with her noisy, chaotic family, to meet her mom and dad and brothers and just sit there, watching everyone interact. I wanted to explain that it’s a big fucking deal for someone like me to sit down for a birthday dinner with a real family—a big family—even though it’s a ho-hum kind of thing for everyone else. In fact, I wanted to tell her, the whole reason I lived in my fraternity house for my first two years in college (even though the place should have been condemned) was because I craved being around noise and chaos and laughter and people so badly after growing up my whole goddamned life in a fucking morgue with Joseph Stalin breathing down my neck.