Being Not Good: as opposed to being bad

by Elizabeth Stevens

  Her body was so soft and warm against mine that it actually took me a moment to believe that it was in fact against mine because, for a moment, it felt like a dream. I held her close as we kissed, one hand always running over some part of her. I found the buttons on her skirt and slowly started undoing them. When she batted my hand away, I thought she’d changed her mind. But she just grinned at me and showed me there was a much easier to undo zip.

  We pulled the skirt over her head, then she pushed her shoes off and started climbing off my lap.

  “Where are you going?” I asked her.

  “Under the covers,” she replied smugly as she clambered under and bit her lip. “You coming?”

  “Hopefully not too quickly,” I say as I stood up and wasted no time taking off my jeans.

  She giggled and I was more affected by it than I used to be. “Good to know.”

  I pulled back the covers and she held her arms out for me. I can tell you I wasn’t going to dawdle getting in beside her. I paused long enough to dump my glasses on my bedside table, then I was with her. I rolled half over her as she wrapped her arms and leg around me and beamed up at me.

  “Can you see okay?” she asked, her finger tracing softly down my cheek under my eye.

  I felt a smirk tugging on my lips. “Yeah. I can see okay.”

  She brought my face to hers and kissed me slowly, deeply. I felt my stomach drop and suddenly there wasn’t a distance she could be from me that classified as close enough.

  Her knee hugged my hip and I dragged my hand over hers and down her leg. She sighed as she arched into me, rubbing against me in a way that had me straining against my boxers. Her hands ran down my back until her fingers found my waistband and she made the very obvious move of pushing on it.

  I pulled back enough to look at her and my witty quip died on my lips as I saw the look in her eyes.

  “Are you–?”

  “If you ask me again if I’m fine, I will…do something very out of character.”

  “Will you now?” I asked and she nodded. “You just look…”

  “What?”

  That hint of apprehension in her eyes turned into a failed attempted at hidden panic.

  “You just look a little…nervous.”

  “Ah.” She looked down at my chest. “It’s not because I don’t want to… I’m just… I don’t want to be boring.”

  I could have smiled. But I didn’t. “Lesson, then. Turn off the editor, baby. Whatever’s going on in there, tune it out. Imagine you’re having amazing, lazy sex in bed. What do you do?”

  She licked her lip as she thought about it. “Okay. Okay. I can do that.”

  “Good. Now, is there something you want?” I asked her as I kissed down her neck.

  There was a moment of hesitation then I watched the resolve send all those worries packing. “Yes,” she answered, hooking her fingers in the waistband of my boxers. “Those off.”

  “Bossy,” I commented, feeling an unbidden smile almost cross my face.

  “Two can play at that game, Davin.”

  “Then tell me exactly what you want, baby,” I said slowly as I dragged my nose up her neck again and I loved the way she sucked in a breath as I did.

  As she spoke, with only very little trepidation in her tone, she pushed against my chest and ended up lying over me. “I want your boxers off. I want my undies off. And I want it now.”

  I nearly fell for her right then. I’ll be honest with you. She did something for me. Fuck, she did something to me. And there was a very lust-drunk part of me that was happy for her to keep doing it for as long as possible.

  I did as she wanted and slid my boxers off, dropping them off the side of the bed as I reached for the bedside table and grabbed a condom. By the time I was facing her again, she’d taken off her undies and bra and, while her cheeks were flushed a gorgeous bright pink, there wasn’t another sign of hesitation about her.

  I thought it probably best not to check with her again that she wanted to do this.

  Avery plucked the condom out of my fingers and ripped the packet open. She did the roll check and then she was sliding it over me. I gave my own hastily inhaled breath at the feeling of her hands on me.

  “All good?” she asked cheekily.

  Fuck it. I almost smiled again. “Super.”

  She laughed, hooked her leg around mine and I just followed as she pulled me onto her. I nestled between her legs and looked down at her while she brushed the hair off my face and looked up at me with… I didn’t even know what that look was.

  Something in me crumbled.

  I pictured cliffs falling into the ocean.

  Vast empires collapsing.

  This implausibly small flare of life would have brought me to my knees had the physical action been possible.

  She licked her bottom lip slowly as a smile lit her eyes, taking me in her hand and guiding me into her.

  I thrust slowly and she lifted her knee higher around my hip to give me a better angle. She closed her eyes, a satisfied smile ghosting her lips, and rolled her hips to meet me.

  I paused when I was all the way and she opened her eyes.

  Seventeen: Avery

  He was looking down at me like he’d never seen me before and it sent a thrill of excitement through me that had my heart fluttering like crazy.

  “All good?” I asked again, more breathless this time.

  He nodded almost stiltedly and I realised he wasn’t looking at me like he’d never seen me before. He was looking at me like he’d seen me plenty of times before but just discovered he’d been missing something every single time. And that was a million times better.

  I brought him down to kiss me, slowly again. I might have been more than aware that Davin wasn’t a feelings sort of guy, but I was going to feel this.

  As he kissed me back, seemingly in no rush to quicken the pace I’d set, his hand ran down my body and he started moving gently. Goose bumps flared across my body from where his hand touched like some tingly Mexican wave and it was one of the most pleasurable things I’d felt, ever.

  I felt like I’d melted into a puddle of desire and passion and I just gave myself up to the moment.

  There wasn’t any worrying about whether I had my body in the right position against his or at the right tension (or lack thereof or the perfect combination of tense and relaxed at the right time) to try to get me off before he finished. There wasn’t any worry about whether I was going too slow or too fast or if I was being sexy enough to make him feel good about it.

  All I felt was Davin’s hands and lips on my body, him inside me. I didn’t think about how we moved together, it just happened like it was natural and it felt…different and amazing and, most importantly, right.

  Sometimes Davin was kissing my neck, sometimes we just looked into each other’s eyes like there was something deeper being communicated – although presumably that was just me – and sometimes we just kissed.

  I didn’t think about how long or short it took, I was just insanely comfortable. I definitely just let go. I definitely enjoyed myself. And I definitely didn’t feel like I was doing it wrong.

  The whole thing felt nice, but when I held him a little tighter he seemed to take that as a sign that something was working. He slid his hand between us and, just before he touched me, there was a smile in his eyes as he paused.

  “Unless you want to do it?”

  I giggled. “Not if you want to.”

  His lips brushed over my neck again as he said, “Oh I’d love to.”

  As he thrust, he ran his hand between my legs as lazily as he always started out, When I arched into him, it was like he knew he’d found the exact right spot and his touch became firmer as we started moving a little faster.

  I could feel it deep in my stomach, a slow, strong flutter. As goose bumps flared across my skin from his lips on neck, the feeling of need and want in me rose. The tingling grew and tightened
until I felt like there was this little ball of pressure in me that was going to burst. The flutter in my stomach was becoming a pull and my breathing was getting ragged.

  As my orgasm hit, I held him tight and he slowed while I got my bearings and let the wave of extra sensitivity sweep through me. As it started abating, I bit his lip playfully, then opened my eyes quickly to see if he had actually smiled. But if he had, then I’d missed it.

  He was just looking down at me with a heat in his eyes. “Okay?” he asked and I knew he wasn’t actually asking if the orgasm was satisfactory.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He dipped to kiss me again. This time it was a little harder, a little deeper, and it matched his change in pace. Everything still tingled and every thrust just added to it.

  I got completely lost to him, my hands threaded through his hair as my leg wrapped around his hip possessively, until he came hard and his thrusts slowed.

  He kissed me slowly for a bit, ran his nose over mine, then pulled out.

  I held the sheets over me as he dealt with the condom, then thought I should probably go clean up a little. I saw one of his shirts on the floor next to the bed so I reached down and pulled it on before getting up.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yep. Bathroom,” I replied, feeling very okay indeed.

  “Okay.”

  I headed for the bathroom, trying to keep the ridiculous smile off my face as I peed and cleaned up a little. I had a moment where I wished I’d brought my phone so I could tell Blair that Davin and I had had sex, but then realised as I headed back to Davin’s room that it could totally wait and she wasn’t losing out by me telling her tomorrow.

  Oh. Okay, that was totally unnecessary.

  I walked back into Davin’s room to find him propped up against his pillows, the sheets only reaching his waist so his naked body was still on display, one arm behind his head, his dark hair still brushed off his face, and reading a book.

  “Are you some sort of romance novel cover model?” I giggled.

  He looked up at me, confusion obvious in his eyes. “What?”

  I waved a hand to indicate him. “Is this normal?”

  He looked around. “Is what normal?”

  “Whatever it is you’re doing right now?”

  He blinked slowly. “Reading?”

  “Sure.”

  “I read a lot, yes.”

  I mean, I knew that but… “Like that?”

  He gave me a look that quite clearly told me he wasn’t sorry about it. “I assume so. It feels normal. Am I supposed to read differently?”

  “How do you turn the pages?”

  He reached his arm down, flipped the page, then tucked his hand back behind his head. “I know it’s old-fashioned, but…” He shrugged as if to say ‘there we go’.

  I had a very surreal moment where I realised just how much I was into the nerdy bad boy thing that Davin had going on. The unexplainably chiselled body, the dark hair, and the constant contempt on his face combined with the glasses, the intelligence, and the big hardback books to make one incredibly sexy package.

  He might not have been the most stereotypical bad boy in history – I’d never seen him in a fight, he wasn’t making his way through the entire female population of Mitchell College, and he had zero interest in motor bikes as far as I was aware – but the brooding, mysterious, dark parts of him sure gave him that bad boy vibe.

  Which I had never been interested in before.

  I’d never been into the bad boy thing or the nerd thing before, let alone the combination.

  All my previous crushes had been charming, sweet, and popular. Some of them had been a little sporty. Others had been purely social creatures. They’d all been middle of the road, neither academically behind or inclined. Tom and Miles particularly had been the sort of guys who just exuded that something that you couldn’t help swooning over. The cocky smile accompanied by the arrogant wink given by guys who knew they were hot and knew you knew they were hot.

  Davin was decidedly not one of those guys.

  He didn’t make any effort to accentuate his looks, he didn’t walk around like God’s gift to anyone, and he certainly wasn’t smiling winningly at anyone.

  And yet I had actually never found any other guy sexier.

  I wondered if that’s what made everyone think being so good was a bad thing? The way I’d just described my previous crushes was the same way a lot of people could have described me. But this – Davin – was so much more interesting. He was so much more real.

  “You coming back to bed?” he asked me, keeping his eyes on his book as he turned the page again.

  “Aren’t you getting dressed?” popped out of my mouth.

  “I sleep naked,” he said and I blinked. “Have for years.”

  “Oh… But…before…?”

  He slid his eyes up to me. “I didn’t want you thinking I was making assumptions.”

  I nodded quickly. “I see.”

  “Is that a problem?” he asked slowly like he was only just realising it might be.

  We’d just had sex. Naked. So I guess it wasn’t really that big a deal. “No.”

  “You don’t seem sure about that.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. I’m keeping your shirt on, though.”

  He sighed and looked at me like he hadn’t actually done that properly before. “What is it with girls doing that after sex?”

  “What?”

  “Putting on our clothes?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I assumed it was sexy or something.” Also it was the closest item of clothing to the bed and I’d felt weird about getting out of it naked.

  He looked me over like he was trying to work it out. “I don’t know. Is seeing a girl wearing my top a turn on?” He sat up, leaning his elbow on his knee, the book hanging by his leg. “Or is seeing Avery St John in my top a turn on? And is it a turn on because I know you’ve got nothing else on under it?” He cocked his head to the side. “Or is it a turn on because it’s a blaring beacon that proclaims you’re mine?”

  My chest hitched and my breath caught. “Yours?”

  He shrugged, like it actually didn’t bother him at all. “In theory.”

  “In theory?” I squeaked.

  He raked his hand through his hair slowly, his eyes on me intently. “You’re wearing nothing but my shirt. That begs the assumption – or the reminder for those of us playing at home – that we’ve just been intimate.” He rubbed his bottom lip like he was thinking. “Many might presume territory has been claimed. At least temporarily.”

  Holy shit.

  I think I’d just set feminism back hundreds of years, but I felt okay with that. If Davin Ambrose wanted to claim me, I was going to let him. But I guess a part of my brain was expecting it went both ways. Still, one could never make assumptions with him.

  He scooted to the end of the bed – keeping everything necessary under the blankets, even if I had just felt it all and more a few minutes ago – and held a hand out to me. I walked over to him like he was a magnet designed specifically for me and he pulled me down to straddle his lap.

  “Yes, Avery,” he said softly, with humour in those bright green eyes, and I looked at him in confusion.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Really? What’s yes then?”

  “Yes, it goes both ways,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “I’m just less obvious about it.”

  Before I could say anything, he kissed me.

  When he pulled away he said, “So… How did that live up to expectations?”

  His eyes were serious as he looked at me and I knew what he was asking. I gave him a small smile and nudged his nose with mine.

  “It exceeded expectations.”

  He looked mildly surprised. “Really?”

  I nodded. “I didn’t think our first time would be
so…” I wasn’t quite sure what the right word to use there was.

  “So what?” he asked before I could decide.

  “Different,” I said before I’d properly thought it through.

  A flicker of doubt passed through his eyes. “Good different I assume?”

  I nodded again. “Of course. It was… I was…” Again at a loss for words.

  “Amazing,” he said softly and I looked up at him again.

  “Really?”

  “Did you not think so?”

  “How do I know if I’m amazing?” I asked.

  “Do you think I enjoyed myself?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you not know?”

  “Well, just because you finished doesn’t mean you enjoyed it.”

  “I could say the same about you.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  He looked me over like I worried him for a second, then his expression was just his usual brooding scrutiny. “Yes. It is entirely possible for a woman to orgasm without actually enjoying or wanting sex.”

  I looked down again. “Well…I enjoyed it. Very much.”

  He huffed that almost laugh. “I hoped so.”

  I shook my head, staring at his belly button. “No. Not just…that. I mean…the whole thing. I was comfortable. I didn’t feel like I was doing it wrong. It didn’t feel wrong.”

  He tipped my chin to look at him. “It should never feel wrong, Avery…”

  “I didn’t mean with…him it did. I just meant… There’s a difference between it feeling right and it feeling like just something you’re doing. You know?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I do…”

  My heart skipped a beat in my chest because he’d spoken so quietly I wasn’t sure if he’d ended that sentence with ‘know’ or ‘now’ and I didn’t want to ask him to clarify. And when I say it skipped a beat, I mean it felt like it was about to thud out of my chest.

  “Do you want to watch the movie? Or just go to bed?” he asked, that heat in his eyes making me feel very much like the latter was a wonderful choice.