by Vanessa Page
“You need to turn around, sweetie,” Abby suggests.
“You said I was too heavy for just one person’s lap,” I remind her.
She shakes her head and then answers slowly, like she’s explaining the obvious solution to a child. “No, you need to turn completely around. Put your butt on Jace’s legs and stretch your legs over me and Miranda.”
I freeze. “I’m not doing that.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Jace breaks his silence.
“It’s the only way for everyone to ride comfortably,” Abby says firmly, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, I know she’s probably right.
I shift my attention to Jace to gauge whether or not he’d even let me sit in his lap. His Jaw is tense, and a muscle there twitches like a video clip on repeat. Recognizing the answer in his silence, I make one more attempt to get comfortable where I am, but when Miranda squeaks and curses again, he sighs in resignation and holds his arms open in a space-giving gesture. He’s inviting me into his personal space.
I unclip mine and Miranda’s seatbelt and move as gently and gingerly as I can onto my knees and then pivot around so I’m on all fours over Abby. I realize just a second too late that I’m basically waving my ass in front of Jace’s face, and I sit down quickly. A little too quickly, judging from the way Jace sucks in a breath as my rear makes contact with his lap. I misjudged the space on my way down, and instead of landing on his leg, I’m seated squarely over his crotch.
And he’s having an immediate reaction to the contact.
I can feel him growing hard beneath my right butt cheek, his growing erection moving against me through the thin material of my shorts and the only slightly thicker material of his cargo pants, likely twitching in time with his pulse. The logical part of my brain realizes this is just the reaction of a man to a having a woman in his lap, that this has nothing to do with me or some secret attraction he’s harboring for me.
I steal a glance at his face, to find him looking tensely straight ahead, out the windshield. His face is placid, but his ears are a vibrant red, belying his embarrassment. Is he worried I’ll call him out for getting hard? As much as the idea of embarrassing him as a form of retribution for what he said about me the other night brings a tickle of amusement to my heart, I’m not that type of person. I’m not going to out him in front of our friends. Instead, I do my best to shift away from his erection, ignoring the way his eyes close and his jaw tightens.
When I’ve put some distance between me and Jace’s penis, he looks down at me with something like gratitude and gives me a slight nod. I return it and lean back against the door, shift a little so the handle isn’t poking me quite so hard.
A moment later, a strong arm slips behind me, lifts my back away from the door, and sits as a buffer between me and the hardness. He’s trying to make me more comfortable, I realize and do my best to relax against him for the remainder of the ride.
His scent, like mint and fresh rain envelopes me, and I’m acutely aware of all the places our bodies connect, his skin against my skin, his breath in my hair. Prickles of awareness shiver down my neck, across my arms, shooting straight to my core. How is it that just sitting innocently in this man’s lap is enough to turn me on?
I spend the rest of the ride wishing I’d stayed turned around the other way. Even if the door handle left a permanent dent in my upper ribcage, it still would have been preferable to this new tension.
As soon as we turn into the subdivision where the lake house is, I shift my position, turning on Jace’s lap so I can get at the handle as soon as we park and be done with the most uncomfortable car ride ever. I’m the first one out of the car, and I stand in the grass at the edge of the driveway waiting for everyone else to climb out. A narrow, man-made retention stream runs along the back of the empty lot across the street, disappearing behind the houses on either side. It’s probably only there so the builders can bill those properties as “waterfront” as well, even though they don’t overlook the lake.
Another car pulls into the driveway behind ours and several people I only recognize from the charity dinner pile out. We all grab our bags and follow Brian into the house when he unlocks the front door.
The place is gorgeous, way fancier than anywhere else I’ve ever stayed. It’s the kind of house you’d expect to see on TV, on one of those shows where the Hollywood star takes you on a tour of their perfectly reasonable, not at all ostentatious, every-man’s mansion.
Everything looks expensive and one of a kind. Like if I break something, I will have to offer my life as an indentured servant to pay for it. The entryway is bigger than the dorm room Abby and I share, and the flooring is made of some hard, shiny material I want to call marble, but I’m sure it’s not. The ceiling is absurdly high, like cathedral high, and to the left is what looks like a study or home office next to a set of wide stairs leading up to a loft. The landing of the loft stretches the entire depth of the house, with several doors, likely bedrooms, overlooking the living room straight ahead. To the right is a mini-flight of stairs, leading up to a formal dining room, with another doorway to what I assume is the kitchen.
Our view from the entryway is unobstructed all the way to the back of the house, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlook a gorgeous patio and infinity pool. Beyond the pool, past a sea of privacy-giving rushes and grassy shrubbery is a pristine lake with a backdrop of cloud-topped mountains.
“This is where I live now,” I tell Miranda.
“Right?” RJ returns as he pushes past us and makes for the stairs. “Dibs on the master bedroom!”
“Uh-uh, no way man. You’re sharing with the other single guys.” Jules tells him, but it doesn’t stop his ascent.
“It’s alright. Let him go.” Brian reasons as RJ reaches the top. We watch as RJ crosses the loft and heads for the first door on the landing, peaks in, then moves on to the next, and the next after that. “The master is down here anyway, and as the winner of this little treat, I’m claiming that for Andy and me.”
Jameson claps Brian on the back. “No arguments here, man. I’m just happy to be here. Thanks for letting us come along.” Then to Miranda he says, “Want to help me pick out our room?” He waggles his eyebrows at her to punctuate his question.
“What is that?” She asks him.
“What?”
“That thing you’re doing with your face?”
“Being sexy?” Jameson’s answer sounds more like a question.
“It looks more like you’re trying to make your eyebrows dance,” Jules tells him. He sticks out his tongue at her playfully before offering a gentlemanly hand to Miranda and leading her up the stairs.
“I guess she’s not bunking with us,” Abby says to me as we watch our friend go.
“No, but I think I am,” the only other drama club girl, Maggie I think her name is, says.
Abby nods. “We better go pick out our room before RJ does something gross in it.”
I don’t bother to ask what gross things he might do. Who knows what ideas Abby might come up with, and worse, there’s no telling what gross things RJ might be capable of. I grab the handle of my rolling suitcase and drag it up the stairs as I climb them behind my roommate and my new temporary roommate on our way to pick out our room in a house that I’m almost scared to touch anything in. Maybe Jameson will let me sleep in the car.
CHAPTER TEN
Jace
When I come downstairs to the living room, drawn there by the noise from below, my friends have all of the furniture pushed away from the center of the room and are spreading out what looks like an air mattress with colorful splotches. Nope, not an air mattress, I realize as Scott connects the foot pump and steps on the pedal to expand it. Inflatable Twister.
Along the far wall, the coffee table is topped with a bottle of tequila and a line of shot glasses. Camden sits on the floor next to the table, with Jules in his lap. She picks up the bottle and begins expertly filling the line of shot glasses. Apparently, we�
��re playing drunk inflatable Twister.
“Hey, man, you’re just in time.” RJ claps me on the back as he comes into the room from the kitchen, red plastic cup in hand.
“I see that,” I say cautiously, not sure this game is right for me. The last thing I need is to be in a position where I might have to make physical contact with Krystal. I’m already strung tight, even after having taken matters into my own hand in the shower this morning. Just being near her has my dick straining to get out of my pants and into hers.
As Scott finishes inflating the game, Abby parks herself on the displaced couch with the spinner. “Okay, guys and gals, listen close. Here are the rules!” Her voice is a little too loud, her eyes a little too glassy, belying the fact that she, like RJ, has already started drinking. “We’re going to split into teams and we’ll play two on two.
“Shirts versus skins?” Miranda asks and gestures suggestively toward Jameson’s bare chest, and he winks at her.
Abby continues as if Miranda didn’t speak. “We’re doing best three out of five so everyone gets two turns to play. Winning player at the end of each round wins the round for their team. And everyone else has to take a shot. And the losing team has to take two shots.
As Abby finishes relaying the rules, Andy comes in with a baseball cap filled with small, folded papers. “Everyone draw from the hat to find out which team you’ll be on.”
“Where’re Brian and Maggie?” I ask, realizing we’re short a few members of our gang.
“Napping,” Andy says simply.
He makes his way around the room, letting each of us draw from the hat. He gets to me last, and I pull out a paper, open it. Team 2.
“Alright.” Abby claps her hands. “Team 1, you’re over here by the fireplace with me.” She holds up her paper, showing off the number one in bold black script. “Team 2, you’re by the breakfast bar.”
I make my way to the breakfast bar and take a seat on one of the stools next to RJ. “Okay teams, decide who your first two players are going to be, and remember, each player has to go exactly two times. No cheating and putting your better players in more!”
I survey our team. Me, Camden, RJ, Andy, and Jules. “The other team got all the girls,” RJ says in a defeated voice.
“What am I?” Jules asks, feigning offense.
“Taken.” RJ’s response is matter of fact.
Camden puts his arm around Jules. “Damn straight.”
Jules’s cheeks turn pink. “So, who wants to go first?”
“I’ll go,” I say. Better to get my turns out of the way before I’ve had to take a bunch of shots of tequila.
Jameson and Krystal both step away from the Team 1 group piled on and around the couch and approach the inflated Twister platform.
“Looks like they have a guy and a girl playing,” Andy announces. “Maybe we should to the same. You know… keep it fair.”
Camden nods in agreement. “That means you’re up, babe.”
“Where should I stand?”
Abby holds the spinner up. “Let the game decide that.”
“Shots!” RJ calls out and points to the filled-to-the-brim shot glasses on the coffee table. Each of us players grabs a glass. I raised mine into the air. “Bottoms up.” Then I down the contents, wincing against the burn that warms a path down my throat into my chest.
Jules makes a croaking sound after taking her shot.
“Players, take your places!” Abby yells brightly and prepares to spin the arrow.
When we’re each stationed at one of the four sides of the game, she spins.
“Right hand green!”
I’m grateful for my height right now because I’m on the wrong side of the board for green, but I’m able to stretch across and place my hand on a green circle with my feet still firmly planted on the ground. My hand is planted halfway between Jameson’s and Krystal’s hands with an empty spot between each of us.
Abby flicks the arrow again. “Right foot blue.”
We all step on with our right feet and plant them on a blue circle. We’re all positioned in a row, each facing the same direction, only, Krystal has placed her foot right next to mine, lining our bodies up barely six inches from one another. Her hip is in the air, and her T-shirt has slipped away from her waistband enough to reveal several inches of tan skin. I avert my eyes and wait for the next direction.
“Left hand blue.”
I have to squat down and put my left hand on the same circle as my right foot, but there’s an empty blue space directly in front of her for her hand, which moves her a safer distance away from me, thank goodness.
When everyone is settled, Abby calls the next move. “Right hand green!”
“We’re already on green, Abs!” Jules calls back. “You should have to take a shot for that.”
Abby looks questioningly around the room. RJ and Camden unanimously agree, and RJ goes to pour her a shot. She takes it with practiced ease and tries the call again.
“Left foot yellow.”
The move leaves me with my ass in the air and my left leg crossed over my left arm which is reaching back between my legs ridiculously. This game was not designed for anyone over six feet.
“Right hand red.”
I look around me, trying to determine how to fold my body in a way that will get my right hand to the red circle completely across the board from where it currently is.
“This is going to suck,” Jameson mutters under his breath as he lifts his right hand into the air and pivots on his feet. In the split second before he slaps his hand down, he totters backward on his haunches and topples over the side of the platform.
“Shot!” Camden calls.
Jameson chuckles and moves to obey. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
“It’s over for you,” I respond. “I’m still in this mess.”
Krystal and Jules are both giggling madly as they try to maneuver. Then Krystal accidentally bumps her shoulder into Jules’s backside and sends my teammate sprawling off the platform onto the living room rug.
“Foul!” Camden calls with a laugh. “She was pushed!”
“Not on purpose!” Krystal exclaims.
“Doesn’t matter. You have to take a shot,” Abby tells her.
She throws up one hand defensively. “That wasn’t in the rules.
“Shot! Shot! Shot! Shot!” RJ, Camden, and Jules all chant as Jules refills one of the glasses and hands it to Krystal. Krystal begrudgingly takes it and pours the whole thing down her throat. After she swallows, she shakes her head with a wooshy breath. Then she sets her right hand on a red circle in front of her, and the game is down to just me and Krystal.
I make my move and breathe an inaudible sigh of relief when it sticks. I should just give up now, pretend to fall, take my shot and call it a game. Let the other team have this one.
Our next move puts left hand on blue, which makes keeping my balance crouched on this glorified air mattress at least a little easier. When Abby calls, “Right foot yellow,” I have no choice but to fall and give up my chance of winning for my team. Well, I do have a choice, but the alternative to falling backward is falling face first into Krystal’s ass, which is bouncing enticingly in front of my face as she attempts to move into position. So, I roll backward onto my butt and then go to collect my shot when everyone chants for it.
Then, my entire team takes another shot, because we lost.
The second round, played by Andy and Miranda from Team 1 and Camden and Scott from my team, is over almost as quickly as the first game. But this time, there are no fouls. This time, my team wins, and the other team has to do a round of shots.
I don’t volunteer for round three. I’m voluntold—by Abby. Apparently, she doesn’t want RJ playing for my team because she thinks he will purposely try to distract her into losing. It isn’t until I’m standing next to the game board that Krystal steps up to my left for the other team. Inwardly, I groan. I was really hoping to avoid having her gorgeous ass in my face for th
e next twenty minutes.
But I plaster on a smile and say, “Just couldn’t stay away from me, huh?”
Her cheeks pinken, and she looks away, but not before grumbling, “You wish.”
The first few minutes of the game are easy enough. I end up with each of my hands on neighboring colors, yellow and blue, and my feet still on the living room floor.
Four moves later, though, I’m struggling to find a green circle to put my right hand on. They’re all taken, and my only choice to stay in the game is to wrap my body around Krystal’s, lean down over her, and share her green circle, placing my hand on hers.
She sucks in a breath, but doesn’t say anything, and I do my best to hold my body away from hers. I try not to focus on the coconut smell of her shampoo, or the warmth radiating off her.
On the next move, Abby falls out.
I don’t get any reprieve from my weird, and entirely too intimate, position over Krystal. The only move we make is to shift slightly over to place a foot on yellow. I move first and find a place that I hope will allow me some distance. But as Krystal makes her move, I realize there was a fatal flaw in my plan. She has to back up a bit to get her knee under her. The second her leggings-covered ass touches the front of my sweats, my dick springs to life. The material between is entirely too thin for me to not have felt the brush of our bodies, and suddenly, I’m sporting full wood. Hell is a game of drunk inflatable twister with a hot girl you can’t have sex with pressed against your body and not being able to hide your erection from your friends.
Maybe I will get lucky and no one will notice. I am bent over, after all. Maybe it looks like a fold in my pants, not a tent I’m pitching. I don’t dare to draw attention to it by looking. And Krystal is still shifting around in front of me, trying to get her footing.
Finally, she has her foot centered under her, but all that’s managed to do is thrust her ass in the air in some quasi-yoga pose. Downward doggie style. I inwardly curse and shake the thought away. I do not need to be picturing myself thrusting into Krystal from behind right now. I need to think about baseball, statistics class, a lecture given by my World Lit professor with the monotone voice. But my dick is pointing right at her, and if she moves even a few inches in my direction, I will poke her with it.