We had talked about Jared doing a team, but it was really expensive. And the practices and games were in Birmingham, near where we were staying at Connor’s apartment, but far from where we worked and from Jared’s school. “Connor, that was a lot of money to pay.” Which I should have been glad about him laying out for my brother, but I wasn’t. “Thank you for doing that, but—”
He reached over and grabbed my knee, squeezing. “This will be good for Jared. He needs to get out and do something constructive, right? He needs to be doing something besides playing on that game console.”
Jared wasn’t spending as much time on it, but I got what Connor meant. “Yeah, I mean, I’ll be glad to get him doing something else, but still.”
“And it will probably be good for me, too,” he told me.
“Why?”
“It turned out that they needed a coach for that team, and I volunteered. I can leave the office early a few times a week, I’ll just do a little more work at the apartment after practices.”
I didn’t know what to say. Everything just caught in my throat. “Thank you for doing that for him,” I said after a moment. “Thank you for everything.” The other shoe was going to drop, that was for sure. But I was going to do everything in my power to keep this going as long as I could.
So that night, after we had met with the plumber, Jared was asleep, and Connor was working at the kitchen table, I decided to make my move. I racked my brain for a line. Something sexy, suggestive, that would take us from hugging and kissing foreheads and cheeks, back to tongues in each other’s mouths, and moving on to (partial) nudity. Something to let him know that I was ready to be more than friends, roommates.
“That plumber seemed to know what he was talking about when he went through my house,” I said. No. No, that wasn’t going to work.
He kept typing. “Commodore? Yes, he’s great. He’ll figure out where the water is coming from.”
“And the other guy is going to work on the foundation as soon as the pond dries up,” I summarized.
“Right, shoring up the basement, et cetera.” He was still typing.
Ok, comments about construction was getting me nowhere. “Um, Connor? Connor,” I said a little more forcefully.
“Yes?” He looked away from the laptop and his eyebrows shot up. “Lia, why is your shirt open?”
I reached behind myself and unhooked my bra, which wasn’t the sexy move I had anticipated because now, it just bagged oddly around my breasts. I couldn’t get the straps down my arms without some major wiggling, or without taking off my shirt, which I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to let him see my back. “Um…” I fumbled, and managed to yank off one strap and move the cheap nylon fabric so that the majority of my right boob was visible. “I thought we should go to bed? Have sex, I mean.”
“That’s why you decided to expose yourself?” He stood and pulled the sides of my shirt back over my chest. “You just came to this conclusion?”
“You liked kissing me before,” I said. This clearly wasn’t something he was interested in, and I started closing up my shirt as fast as I could.
Connor’s hands slid to hold my waist. “Wait a minute. Stop buttoning.”
I halted my fumbling, jerking fingers and put my hands on top of his. “You don’t have to say anything. We’ll just ignore this moment and move on.”
“What if I want to?” he asked me quietly. “I do.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He squeezed gently. “I’m going to guess, based on your method of seduction, that this isn’t something you do regularly.”
“I screw around all the time,” I answered quickly. No, he would want this to be a special thing between us, so I changed my tone and smiled. “I should say, what you and I do would be different and unique because—”
“Don’t, Lia. Don’t give me another line.” He started to let go but I held his hands to me.
“Ok, no. No, this isn’t something I do regularly, but I want to, with you. I didn’t know how to start it off.”
“I got that from interesting underwear-removal technique you just employed.” He laughed softly as he moved his hands up to my sagging bra, and then my heart caught in my throat as he touched my breasts. His fingertips grazed the undersides, just beyond the frayed nylon, gently sweeping back and forth against my skin. It felt so light and feathery, it was hard to understand why it was affecting me the way it seemed to—my breath was coming in pants and I bit my lip to hold in a moan.
Connor leaned down and nuzzled my ear. “Lia, we’re not sleeping together tonight.” He brushed across my nipples.
Oh, my God. “What? Huh?”
“We’re going a little slower with this. We don’t have to rush anything.”
No, we needed to rush. We had to do this, immediately. “Why wait? We should do it.” He did a thing with my breasts, rubbing his knuckles against my nipples, and I involuntarily thrust my chest toward him, gasping.
He bent again, now to kiss me, his arm looping behind my head to hold me steady while his tongue found mine and teased. “No, no rush,” he said against my lips, before kissing me again. “Let’s head to the other room and keep going, though.”
We held hands as we walked to his bedroom, which felt a little like it was mine, too. Connor pulled off the t-shirt he had put on after work and reached to remove my shirt, also. I stepped closer to him, pressing myself to his body, so that he couldn’t. I ran my hands over his skin, smoothing and tracing with my fingertips, and I followed them with my mouth, trying to feel every inch of him. I kissed across his hard chest, touching his nipples with my tongue so that he jumped. I didn’t know what I was doing, except that I wanted him to feel good, I wanted to make him feel the way that I did when he touched me: breathless.
Connor reached between us and unbuckled his jeans. He slid them down and then tugged on my old black work-pants until they were off, too. He sat on the bed, pulling me to stand between his knees, and then reached to slide my shirt off my shoulders.
“No.”
“What?” He looked into my face.
“I want to keep that on. Here.” I struggled for a moment and managed to fully extract my bra, sliding it out of my left sleeve.
His eyes went to my breasts and he carefully cupped them with his hands, causing me to arch forward, wanting more. I put my palms on his shoulders to keep myself steady as he started to massage, and then I let my head fall forward to rest on his. I could feel his hardness between us, pressing against me, and I wanted to feel more. I climbed onto the bed, straddling Connor with my knees, rubbing myself against his plaid boxer shorts.
Connor moaned, a strangled sound in his throat that broke off when he flipped me onto my back on the bed, my shirt billowing behind me. He lay over me like he had before in the motel, setting himself between my legs and making me pulse there with the pressure. I moved my hips to feel more and he kissed me, his hand still on my breast, the other holding my cheek.
“Lia?”
“Mmm,” I answered. I played with his hair and tried to draw his face down to mine to kiss again.
“Can I touch you there?”
“My back?” I asked, not understanding.
Connor shifted, moving his weight off but still cocooning me with his body. “No, here,” he said, and put his hand between my legs, over the nicest underwear I owned. He kissed me again now, and as he did, his fingers fluttered.
I gasped against his mouth. “Yes! Yes, you can…oh, yes, please…” Because his hand had gone beyond the cotton fabric. He rubbed with his thumb up and down and I quaked. Carefully and slowly, one of his fingers moved inside me. I squirmed against it, not sure about the intrusion there, but then he started to slide it in and out, and at the same time, his thumb found my clit and massaged it.
I broke off our kiss because I couldn’t get a breath in. “Connor, what…”
He put his cheek against mine, nuzzling my ear, and he breathed hard too, like he was ru
nning. He moved his leg over mine and I felt that hardness again, pressed against my hip. “Lia, is this good?” The finger inside me shifted and touched a spot, and he bit my neck.
I arched off the bed, his name caught in my throat, my body caught in a moment of throbbing pleasure. Yes, yes, yes, yes…I held him tightly to me, never letting him go.
Chapter 12
“What day is today?” my brother asked me.
I slid another pancake onto his plate. “Saturday. I thought you would have noticed that you aren’t at school.” I messed with his hair like Connor did to him.
“No, I mean the date,” he said, ducking my hand, but grinning.
“It’s the eighteenth,” I told him. “Eat the fruit, too.” I put my hand on his head again and he didn’t shake me off. Something—maybe how I had tried to help him, maybe the past week living at Connor’s house—something had triggered a change between my brother and me. A lot of his anger had melted away, and this wasn’t the first time he had smiled at me. I didn’t want it to be the last.
“If it’s the eighteenth, then it’s your birthday,” Jared announced. “It’s the same date as mine, but a different month. I remember you saying that when you made me the cake.”
It had been a good cake, but a sad birthday for him last summer. As I recalled, he had refused to eat it, telling me about his amazing parties with the Samotnys and that I fucking sucked, and my cake sucked, too. “Yeah, I guess it is my birthday,” I admitted, pouring more batter. “We’re exactly seven months apart. Eleven years and seven months.” Jared had been the miracle baby my mom had prayed for but never really expected.
“It’s Lia’s birthday,” my brother told Connor as he came into the living room.
Connor was all fresh and glowing from his shower after our early morning run, and my breasts started to tingle just looking at him. Other parts of me tingled as well. I licked my lips.
“Your birthday? Are you serious?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you say anything?” He stood behind me at the stove and slid his arms around my waist.
“What was there to say? I don’t usually do the birthday stuff. I kind of forgot, I guess.”
“What do you want to do today?” Connor asked. “You get to pick because it’s your day.”
I laughed. “Like I’m the birthday queen? I thought we were going to look at samples of roof shingles before Jared’s lacrosse practice.”
“That’s really what you want to do on your birthday?” Jared scoffed. “Go to my practice and look at building stuff?”
“Well, yes,” I admitted.
Connor kissed the back of my neck. “At least sit down and let me finish the pancakes.” I did, and he flipped a few onto a plate, which he decorated with syrup before placing it in front of me.
“You made me breakfast?” I asked. “Wow. This is a birthday to remember.”
Connor and Jared both laughed. We were doing that a lot, all three of us. Jared was relaxed and happy, Connor was sleeping well. I knew this because I was sleeping with him each night, cuddled up together in the big bed, less and less clothing each time. My shirt was still on, but my underwear was definitely off. I thought suddenly of the night before, of Connor lying between my legs, holding open my thighs so he could put his mouth on me. Now, that had been a real gift. I shivered and looked at my plate, in case what I was thinking about showed on my face.
I was feeling slightly more relaxed, too. The orgasms I was getting each night were helping, but I was also feeling like the stuff with Amy had died down and wouldn’t be revived. In other words, I thought that life was going on, and the part where I had stolen her million-dollar ring for a weekend was going to be forgotten. At least, it was forgotten by her, but every time I saw it sparkle on her finger, I felt a fresh wave of guilt. It had made me work harder and faster, trying to make it up to her somehow.
Misiu whined and I looked down at him. He tilted his head and accused me of pancake deprivation with big, sorrowful eyes, one ear pointed up and one flopped over. “No, sorry. You’re the best dog in the world, but no pancakes for you. Connor, don’t even think it.” He looked up guiltily, a bit of breakfast in his hand that he was about to give to the puppy. “You know the trainer said we can’t, not at all.”
“I know. But he’s so cute.”
“You’re too soft,” I told him.
“And you’re the one getting up at night to check on him, to make sure he’s not cold in his kennel,” Connor reminded me. “Maybe we’re both a little soft. But back to your birthday…”
“We don’t have to do anything, seriously. The best day for me would be hanging out with you two, checking on the house, playing with Misiu. And eating the delicious breakfast that you’re going to clean up while not giving scraps to the dog,” I told them.
“Hm,” Connor answered. “I agree to the clean-up, and will try not to derail the dog trainer’s teachings. Jared, you and I have to talk about lacrosse,” he told my brother, stressing the last word and nodding significantly.
I shook my head at his utter lack of sneakiness but continued to enjoy my pancakes as they took Misiu and went off to plot in secret. Really, the best birthday present for me was that Connor’s parents had jetted off to Anguilla to get away from the muddy end of our Michigan winter, so they wouldn’t be coming by this weekend for their customary visit. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to handle seeing his mom again, but I pushed away those thoughts to deal with later.
It did turn out to be a great day. First, we checked on the progress on the house. Connor’s plumber hadn’t walked away with any materials, the backyard pond was shrinking, the basement was pumped out and drying. I was so excited to see this that I didn’t get at all upset when I found some new beer cans that signaled that someone else had been in the house after-hours the night before. I didn’t even get worked up when I realized that a new wet spot on the floor was probably urine of the human variety, which Connor had tried to prevent me from seeing. We nailed up the plywood very securely before leaving.
Next, we went to the lacrosse practice, with me waiting in the car with the puppy because I had told Jared that I wouldn’t watch. He’d said that it would be way too embarrassing to have his big sister there. But really, I did spy as Connor helped him pull on all the pads and snap up his helmet, before patting it and pointing to the rest of the boys on the field. Jared hesitated and I watched the two of them talk for a few moments, and then the helmet nodded and Jared ran off to join his teammates. Connor followed and shook hands with the other coaches, and the three of them talked on the sidelines. I smiled as I saw Connor laugh and jog out after the team. I felt almost overwhelmed by my love for both of them.
“This was a great birthday,” I announced that night, taking my last bite of pizza crust. “I didn’t cook dinner, I got my first pedicure, and there are no dishes to do now. Thank you, guys. I loved it.”
Jared and Connor looked at each other. “We have a surprise for you,” my brother said, looking pretty proud.
I had seen them trying to sneak in a square, pink box that I hoped held birthday cake. “Really? What could it be?” I asked innocently.
“First, the traditional dessert,” Connor said, and went into the kitchen. He came out with a small chocolate cake, covered in sprinkles and glowing candles. He and my brother both burst into song as he carefully placed it in front of me.
“Are you crying?” Jared asked. “Do you hate cake or something?”
“No, it’s just the smoke from the candles,” I said, dabbing my eyes with my sleeve.
“Make a wish and blow them out!” my brother told me, and I nodded. I wished as hard as I could that this day would never end, and that I would always be this happy. I already knew that wishes didn’t come true, no matter how much you wanted them to, and that happiness wasn’t something permanent. But this had been a wonderful day, so I smiled and held my hair back as I blew out all the candles.
We were deep into the cake when Connor said, “J, the su
rprise.”
My brother hopped up and ran into his bedroom, returning with a small box. “Misiu got at it a little in the car,” he explained, pointing to the corner with puppy teeth marks. “He kind of wrecked up the wrapping.” Jared handed it to me.
“What is this?” I asked, looking back and forth between their faces.
“Open it!” my brother demanded.
I untied the ribbon and very carefully, slid my finger under the edge of the tape.
“You’re so slow!” Jared complained, but I wanted this to last.
“If you’d given us a little more notice of this day, Jared and I could have gone even bigger,” Connor told me. “Like fireworks, skywriting. There’s always next year. Open it!”
My hands jerked a little. “I am! Give me a second.” I recognized the name on the top of the box as the jewelry store that Amy liked, the one I had visited with her. “What did you guys do while I got that pedicure?”
“Open it!” they chorused.
I did. It was the silver necklace that I had loved so much, the little disc on the chain that I had tried on but not bought because it was out of my budget. I looked up at them.
“You kept talking about that store, so I got ahold of Amy to see if there was something there that you really liked. She pointed us in the right direction,” Connor told me. “Here, put it on.” But my hands were shaking too much to do that, so he took it from me and gently moved my hair aside. “There,” he said, and bent to kiss my neck.
“Do you like it, Lia?” Jared asked anxiously. “You didn’t say if you liked it.”
“I love it,” I told him. “By far, my best birthday present ever.” I held the little charm that Amy had helped them to pick. “I love this so much and I can’t believe you guys got it for me. I’ll always wear it. Thank you.”
“Good.” My brother smiled in satisfaction and went to the kitchen with his empty milk glass, his mind back on food.
Connor leaned forward and touched the necklace. “Tonight, we’ll do more birthday surprises. I would like to see you wearing just this, nothing else.”
Fixing Lia Page 20