by J. Saman
He’s got a point. “Truth.”
“Wimp.”
“Hey.” I slap at him. “You can’t rate my choice.”
“If you had to choose between going naked around campus or having your thoughts appear in a bubble above your head for everyone to read, which would you choose?”
I laugh, leaning back into the couch. “Naked. My thoughts are rarely fit for people to read. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Wimp.”
He chuckles, taking a sip of his drink.
“What’s the craziest sexual thing you’ve ever done?”
“Threesome,” he says without hesitation and my eyes widen. “I was hammered, unfortunately, but I was at a party sophomore year and these two senior girls came on to me. They led me to an empty bedroom and started making out with each other. It went on from there.”
“Sounds hot.”
He nods, a wicked gleam in his eyes. A gleam that has me squirming under the blanket. It’s dark in here, but not uncomfortably so. The warm glow from the candles and fireplace dance across us, providing just enough light to see by.
“What about you?”
I shake my head. “That’s not how this game is played.”
“Adapt with me.”
I turn away from his penetrating stare, over to the flames of the fireplace. It’s gas, so there isn’t that lovely crackle and pop that you get with a real wood fire. This one just has a gentle hiss to it and the flames are sort of lackluster, but it’s better than nothing and it provides an easy distraction.
“You’re blushing, Lyric. Even in this dark room, I can see that.”
I laugh despite myself. “It’s nothing great. I really don’t have anything all that fun to share.”
“Tell me.”
I sink my teeth into my lip. Why is this so difficult? Right, like I don’t know. “I used a sex toy with a guy I was seeing back in New York.”
He’s silent and it takes every ounce of bravery in me to look over at him. “What did you do with the sex toy?” he asks, once my eyes find his. His expression is pure heat. His pale blue eyes are darker. Sexier. He’s getting off on what I’m telling him and now he wants a visual to go with it.
“He watched as I made myself come with it.”
Jameson closes his eyes slowly, licks his lips and then opens to find me once more. “Truth or dare,” he whispers, his voice thick with the mounting tension. It’s like a hypnotic dance with a snake. Dangerous. Forbidden. Exciting. I can’t look away. I’m utterly entranced. My chest is fluttering. My stomach is coiling. My skin humming.
“I thought it was my turn to ask you that?”
He shakes his head slowly.
“Dare.”
He grins and shifts his body closer to mine. The blanket is still covering my body, my feet propped up on the couch between us. His hand finds my knee and even through the blanket, I can feel the warm seeping into me. “Let me break my promise.”
A bemused chuckle floats out. That’s not where I thought he was going. “What promise?”
“The one I made to you that first day in class.”
I stare at him, completely at a loss.
“The one where I told you I wouldn’t ask to fuck you.”
Oh. That promise.
He raises up, his knees pressing into the couch. “I know you feel it. I know you know how good it will be between us.”
I nod. I do know. But I also know this will end badly if we give in to it. “I don’t know if I can just have sex with you,” I admit.
“I don’t want to just have sex with you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He comes closer, spreading my knees under the blanket and crawling up in between them. My heart is galloping out of my chest and he reaches out, touching the pulse at the base of my neck, his eyes on that point of contact. His fingers are warm and his touch feels like lightning.
“What are you looking for then?” I hate that question. It makes me feel like I’m asking for something he’s not willing to offer on his own. “A relationship?”
I hesitate on that one. Because I know, if we start this, there will be no going back. He’s right about us. We have something and it’s not the sort of something that diminishes with time. It’s the sort of something that grows.
“I’m going to California in five months.”
“I’m going to New York in five months.”
His fingers trail up from that spot on my neck, gliding across my collar bone, up the back of my neck and into my hair. He grips it, holding it firmly in his possession, forcing me to face him head on. My breaths are coming out in short erratic pants. My mind is swimming and drowning and giddy and terrified all at once. I’m on overload.
“I dream about you,” he says, slingshotting his words into me and forcing me to swallow them down. “About kissing you. Touching you. Fucking you. I haven’t been able to look at another girl in weeks. Probably longer. I want you so badly I’m crazy with it. But our lives are headed in different directions. So, how’s this? We try it. We give it our best shot, but we take it one day at a time. We don’t place expectations and we don’t talk about the future and we’ll see where we end up.”
Yeah, with a broken heart.
But if I go into this with my eyes open and the knowledge that it can’t go anywhere serious, can I hold myself back from truly falling for him? I don’t know. I don’t. If I said yes, I’d be lying. But screw it. I want him too damn badly not to try and find out. And if I do get hurt, well, I can’t say I didn’t know it was coming beforehand.
“Are we exclusive?”
“The thought of another man touching you makes me homicidal, so I’m going to go with yes.”
“One day at a time?”
“It’s the only way.”
I stare at him. Breathe him in feature by feature as I try to clear the fog of lust and think rationally about this.
“What do you say?”
Chapter 9
Lyric
* * *
“Yes,” I say, agreeing to what we both want and the most beautiful smile lights up Jameson’s face, his clear blue eyes sparkling against the flicker of orange flames and lust. “We’re going to ruin each other for everyone else,” I warn him.
“I’m counting on it,” he practically growls the words before his lips slam into mine, his body pushing me back into the couch as he covers me. It’s the sort of kiss that’s commanding. That sings down your spine and curls your toes and makes you moan just as you think, wow, he can really kiss.
And then it hits me.
This is no ordinary kiss before more. He turned my words into a dare. A challenge. Asshole is in fact trying to ruin me for everyone else. But two can play at that game. I can shred him of other women. I can rock his world upside down. And when this is over, he’ll compare every girl from this moment on to me.
Every. Single. One.
The sad reality of that? I can already tell I’m going to compare every future man to him and we’re still only kissing. I could stop this. But I’m already too addicted to his kisses. In fact, if he stops kissing me, I might die. He groans into my mouth, that hand in my hair pulling just a bit as he adjusts me to get me the way he wants.
I hum, raking my fingers up his back.
“This has to go,” he says, leaning back. He yanks the blanket off me, tossing it to the floor and then he’s back on me, body to body, the length of him stretched out over me as he holds most of his weight off me with his elbows that are propped up, sinking into the couch, on either side of my head. “Mine,” he says against my mouth, his hand cupping my jaw.
He draws back, his eyes catch mine, our noses touch and the intensity, the raw vulnerable passion, has me woozy.
“Mine,” he says again, this time it’s a demand. An order to comply with. I am his. I think I’ve been his since that first moment in class when I saw him walking up the steps before he even noticed me. When I disregarded him as
an arrogant jerk who ate through women like a premenstrual teenager eats through calories. I’m not wrong in that description of him. He does do that. And now I’m his next victim.
I know what day by day is code for: Not serious.
But it’s better that way. I have no room for serious and neither does he. So instead of giving voice to the millions of tiny bombs exploding in my head with various rationales about just how stupid this is, I say, “Mine.”
“Yours.”
“Yours.”
The fire in the hearth has nothing on his eyes. He reaches behind his back and tugs his shirt over his head. He grins when he catches me taking in the musculature of his arms and chest. I don’t have access to the full picture at this angle, but damn, this man. Adonis really doesn’t come close.
Leaning back, he sits me up and then takes my blouse off, unbuttoning each button with care. He takes his time, starting from the bottom and working his way up. But once he reaches the fabric covering my breasts, he cups me, squeezing me hard. “Do you like this shirt?”
“Pardon?” I don’t think I can make sense of anything other than his hands on me.
“Do. You. Like. This. Shirt?”
“Oh. Well ye—”
He tears at the remaining closure, snapping buttons left and right. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he says with a smarmy grin. He tosses the shredded material to the floor and then takes me in, staring at my bra-covered tits like he’s fourteen and has never seen breasts before. Like I’m art and poetry. Like I’m the lyrics to a song he never knew he needed to hear. “Breathe.”
I shake my head. “I can’t,” I say, only now realizing that I’m a pant away from hyperventilating.
“Do you not want to do this?”
“I want to do this more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything.” No truer words have ever been spoken.
His mouth finds mine in a fevered kiss, his hands back on my breasts that now only have lace separating us. His thumbs glide across my nipples that are desperately straining against the fabric of my bra. Diving his head down, his mouth takes over, nipping, biting and sucking at me through the lace, his hands gliding across my ribs until they reach the clasp in the back, removing it with ease.
My bra flies somewhere and then he devours me, taking my breasts into his mouth and hands like he needs to acquaint himself with every single inch of flesh. Testing every kiss, pinch, lick and bite for my body’s reaction. Fingers press into the soft leggings covering my pussy, fingering me, rubbing me through them. “You’re so wet. Even through two fucking layers, I feel how wet you are. You’re soaked. Dripping for me.”
“Yes,” I pant out as his mouth continues its torture on my needy nipples.
“Take off your leggings and touch yourself, Lyric.”
Christ almighty. I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on. I didn’t even know it was possible to feel like this. This…combustible. Explosive. My leggings find themselves somewhere. I don’t care enough to look. One hand slides beneath the lace of my thong. I’m so desperate for release, my fingers start off at a wild rhythm. My other hand cups his hard cock over the thick layer of denim still covering it. “Please,” I moan, beg, plead. “I need you.”
“God, you’re perfect.”
I open my eyes and find him watching me, unsnapping the button of his jeans, his eyes locked on the movement of my fingers inside my body.
“Harder,” he commands, and I obey. I’m so close. “You smell so good, Lee. I can practically taste you.”
“Taste me,” I moan, not even sure who I am anymore. I never beg like this. I never make demands like this. But hell, I love how insane he has me. How close to the edge he’s driven me with his words and desire.
He flicks my nipple and I come. I come loud and hard and wildly. I come so hard I see stars dancing behind my eyes. In a flash, before I can even comprehend the movement or what’s happening, he has me on my back, my panties now gone and his mouth on my pussy.
“So sweet,” he whispers into me, the sound driving me up the wall in ecstasy. He eats me like a starving man presented with a buffet of his favorite foods. “This,” he says, his finger gliding against my backdoor, “is also going to be mine.”
Oh God. My eyes roll back in my head.
“Every hole, every inch, is mine, Lyric Rose. And in five months, when we’re forced apart, you’ll touch yourself while thinking about all of the naughty, dirty things I did to you.”
He sucks on my clit and I’m done. I scream this time, tugging on his hair and twisting my body. The sensation is too much and yet…shit, there are no words for what this is. Wrecked is the closest I can come up with. His mouth finds mine, his lips taking without asking. His hard cock grinds into my overly sensitive parts.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” I breathe, barely able to formulate conscious thought patterns.
“Good,” he says as he thrusts into me, hard and deep, taking no prisoners as he moves, our skin slapping with only a condom between us to keep us sane and smart. My fingers find his hair. His back. My nails mark him. Brand him. He is mine and I need the world to know it. I want him to feel it tonight when he lies on his back and tomorrow when he showers. I want his blood. His flesh.
And fuck my life, his heart.
I want that, too, and as a result, I do the stupidest thing on the planet. I open my eyes. I watch him screw me. I watch him possess me. I watch his face move, twist, exalt in bliss. I watch as he opens his eyes and finds mine. When he moves my legs up to his shoulders and drills into me even deeper. I watch it all and he watches me.
Enraptured. Star fire and dancing midnight.
And when we come, it’s together. I’ve never experienced that. A man who watches, learns and waits.
“That was only our first time,” he says against me, when we’re both covered in sweat and contented, sated smiles.
No words have ever terrified me more.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you up.”
No words have ever made me feel more alive.
“I didn’t know it could be like that.”
No words have ever made me cry so hard.
I’m going to love you, Jameson Woods. And then I’ll get my heart broken.
I sigh and close my eyes, sinking into him. His arms wrap around me, holding me so very close. So close I never want to move again. So close I’m not sure I’ve ever been this content in my life.
Hold off, I say to myself. Detach, I beg.
“Too late,” he says, his hands running down my hair. I said those words aloud. But I don’t think I care, mostly because I know he’s right. It is too late. Because I’m his and he’s mine and there is no going back now. The die is cast.
Chapter 10
Lyric
* * *
“Remind me what we’re doing at a baseball game again?” Cass asks, her dark eyes surveying the crowd with equal measures of amusement and revulsion. “Those guys don’t have any shirts on, Lyric. And their stomachs are painted yellow and red with the letters of our school on them.”
“I know.” I laugh, checking out the scrawny freshman who are yelling and heckling the other team.
“Do they know that they misspelled our school name?”
“Not sure,” I muse, taking a sip of my soda, shifting my weight to my other ass cheek. These stadium bench seats are mad uncomfortable. It’s probably why most people are standing. “But they’re entertaining nonetheless. Who knew people got this crazy over a baseball game?”
“What time do your parents come in?”
“They land at the airfield in an hour.”
“Does anyone else know? Other than Jameson, I mean?”
I shake my head. I haven’t told anyone. Not even Daria. And I swore Jameson to secrecy, so he hasn’t mentioned it to Travers or Cane. My parents are literally stopping here for a few hours on their way to Las Vegas. It still makes me smile. My rock star father is nominated for Song of the Year at the
Academy of Country Music Awards. He wrote a song for Jeremy Straight and that song has been played nonstop on the radio—at least here in Tennessee.
I can’t wait to see them, to take them all around campus. They’ve been here before, but that was back in September when they brought me here, so I didn’t really know it the way I do now. And if I thought it was pretty here in the fall, it’s downright gorgeous in the spring. The trees all have new leaves and the air is sweet and fragrant with budding flowers. The sun is high and bright in the sky with only a few clouds that don’t dare to obstruct it or its warmth. So much warmer here than it is up north this time of year.
“Is your dad the sort that beats up boyfriends? Because if he is, I’d really like front row seats to that. It would be much more entertaining than this shit show. I get that your man love is the catcher, but why do we have to watch? It’s not like he can talk to us or anything. He probably wouldn’t even know if we left.”
“My dad is definitely not the sort to beat up boyfriends. It’s bad PR.” I wink at her. “He’ll just interrogate him some, but I doubt it will be all that much. He’s known Jameson as long as I have. And you’re here to suffer through with me because you’re a good friend and you owe me for that nonsense with Saylor last week.”
She huffs out a breath, pushing the bridge of her sunglasses up her nose. “Fine. But why do you have to be here?”
“He asked me to.” I shrug, taking another sip of my soda. “And watching your boyfriend play baseball is what good girlfriends do.” The pitcher strikes the batter out and the inning ends. Jameson stands up, removing his face guard and wiping away a trail of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform. He looks…well, he looks fucking hot. It’s not even the uniform, though admittedly, that’s not bad. It’s the sexy sweat and the flushed cheeks and the disheveled hair. He looks like he just had sex, so maybe that’s what this giddy feeling at the sight of him is.