Living the Dream

by Lyla Payne

  I hang up her trench next to my peacoat and get my shit together for the seventeenth time since Audra and I started hanging out together, then face her head-on. “Do you want to watch television or a movie? There’s a theater room next door.”

  “Nah, not really my thing.” She glances around at my tidy space. It’s been days since I’ve made an appearance at the house and things are dustier than I’d like. Unused. “Do you have any games?”

  “What, like board games?”

  “Sure. Or video games?”

  “There’s a Wii and a PlayStation under my television and we have a game closet downstairs. Anything that can turn into a strip version.”

  “All games have a strip version, Sebastian.” She winks.

  My heart thuds like a fucking teenage girl who accidentally bumped into Zac Efron.

  “Well, pick your poison,” I manage to choke out.

  “How about Mario Kart? Are you any good?”

  “I don’t know what the standard is, but I’ve played.” I raise my eyebrows. “Stakes?”

  “Are you suggesting strip Mario Kart?”

  “What?” I almost swallow my tongue just thinking about her naked. “I was suggesting nothing of the sort. A friendly wager, perhaps, but one that doesn’t require nudity.”

  Audra Stuart, the sex kitten version, studies me with hungry eyes. “Are you hiding some kind of gross deformity? Drunken tattoo with a misspelled word? Excess body hair?”

  I heave an exaggerated sigh. “None of the above, I’m afraid. I’m sure with the way gossip spreads on this campus you would have heard by now if that were true.”

  “Like any girl would dare start a rumor about you.”

  “Please. You flatter me. I’m sure they’re not all totally satisfied.”

  “Are you sure?” she purrs, stepping close to me as she sidles away from the door and toward the flatscreen television setup.

  The innocent strip of bare neck that appears when she bends down to check out my video games and her ponytail slips over her shoulder makes me hard again so I sit in one of the chairs set up for playing Wii and cross my legs. “How about five bucks a race?”

  Her nimble fingers slip the game into the slot on the white console and then toss a remote encased in a wheel my direction. “Lame. Neither of us needs cash.”

  We choose our players—mini Mario for me and mini Luigi for her—and our karts and start from the beginning. We’re pretty evenly matched but only because Audra’s pink tongue pokes out the side of her lips when she concentrates and it’s so … something that it makes it hard for me to focus. I lose fifteen bucks to her five before I toss the wheel aside, tired of playing stupid games.

  The ones on the Wii and the others going on in this room right now. I don’t play games. I orchestrate them, but she’s not letting me this time.

  Audra walked in here the other night needing something from me. A favor. I asked for payment, she agreed, but instead of that being the end of another typical story, she’s asking for something else—access to my life.

  My real life, the thoughts in my head, the reasons behind my so-called madness. It’s not what I agreed to, and since she doesn’t have anything else I want, I don’t know why I’m considering giving it to her.

  But I am.

  “Why are you hanging out with me?” My standby response of suspicion flows naturally onto my tongue and right out of my mouth. It never fails me.

  She rolls her eyes, but the way her shoulders tense tells me she doesn’t miss the change in tone. Or the different kind of tension in the room. “We’ve been over this, Sebastian.”

  “I know what you said. But every other girl on this campus would have made that deal and then thought up every possible way to keep her part of the bargain while avoiding actually spending time with me.” I eye her, trying to figure her out. “Say you’re here and then pay for a hotel room with room and maid service. Hide in the library and say you were at the beach house. See a movie alone. There are ways around this.” I motion between us with a jerky movement, suddenly afraid I’m giving her ideas. “So why are you hanging out with me?”

  The way she gnaws on her lower lip suggests she’s at least considering giving me a true answer. I wait for it, not pushing. Not talking. Patience is not one of my favorite things, but it can certainly pay off.

  “I mean, it’s going to sound like I’m using you.”

  The hesitant admission pops my eyes open wide. I almost want to clean out my ears to make sure I heard her right, but that would mean admitting that she surprised me. “Well, are you using me?”

  “Maybe.” More lip chewing. “I was going to say that I like the way I feel when we’re together. Like I could be whatever I want and you wouldn’t care one way or the other. I’ve never sat across from a person without a crowded one-way street of expectations aimed straight at my face. It’s nice. To just be.”

  “First of all, none of us can just be. We have expectations for ourselves. You want things out of your life even if all I want is for you to get those things, and your family … Audra, don’t take this wrong, because your brothers aren’t the kind of guys I’d pick as friends, but you’re pretty lucky in that department.” I don’t say Take it from a guy with possibly the shittiest luck in the family department ever, but it’s clear from the look on her face that she hears it, anyway.

  I also don’t say that it makes my chest tight to hear that being with me makes her life better. Makes her happier. It infuses power into my limbs, straight into my blood. It flows through me, familiar yet strange. Power, I love. Crave, even, but it’s never been handed to me without manipulation.

  No one has ever been happier after meeting me. No one’s life has ever improved.

  Maybe I manipulated this relationship, but only in the beginning. I forced her into seeing me as a real person and not Sebastian Blair, Whitman University resident devil, but I didn’t make her like hanging out with me.

  It doesn’t bother me in the least that she’s using me to find herself. Her confidence, her voice. Those are worthy things that everyone who’s not currently in my way should have, and sooner rather than later. At the same time, it stings a little that it’s not about attraction.

  “I know. God, you probably think I’m such a spoiled brat for complaining about my family.” Her cheeks turn pink.

  “It’s Whitman. We’re all spoiled brats. It doesn’t mean we don’t have issues.”

  “Is Sebastian Blair ready to admit that he has issues? That being a sociopathic misanthrope might not be the optimal way to navigate seventy or eighty years on this planet?” She’s teasing now, a light replacing the heaviness in her frame.

  “I’m not admitting anything. I’m a believer in going with what works for you, kitten.” Sociopathic misanthrope has worked far better than trusting people and having it blow up in my face.

  She’s not going to give up—like a puppy with its teeth clamped on one end of a toy, determined not to open its jaws until I give up my end of the tug-of-war. That’s not going to happen, but I don’t want to fight.

  I want to distract her.

  So I swallow my aversion to being nothing to her but an obligation first, a distraction second. A tool in her growth so that she can become the woman she wants to be and move on to a guy who’s more worthy of her. It’s easier when I remind myself that I don’t want to be the guy responsible for the happiness of a girl like Audra.

  I don’t want to be the guy responsible for anyone.

  Her eyes get big when she senses the shift in my intent, so tuned in to me, and us, that it punches me in the gut. Not a drop of hesitance litters her gaze or tightens her posture as she drops her controller on the chair and comes to sit beside me on the bed.

  I reach out, fingers trailing from her cheek down to her full bottom lip, trying not to get caught up in how soft her skin feels. How the heat from her body, the smell of her perfume, excite me in a way that’s strange and new and frightening as hell, but not in a way t
hat’s going to stop me from fucking her.

  When she reaches down and peels off her sweater, revealing a white cotton bra that leaves nothing to the imagination, her tits heaving with expectation, I know nothing is going to stop me from fucking her.

  But she wants a lesson. Wants to feel different, and I am nothing if not accommodating to the girls that tumble into my bed. Instead of kissing her, which she probably expects, I let my fingers slide lower, over the swell of her boobs, then around her back, flicking open the clasp on her bra without any effort. Her tits—perfect and round and at full attention—tumble into my waiting hands. They shudder and heave under my attention, first from firm hands and then my tongue. She tastes like salt and faintly like berries, her arched back and guttural moans encouraging me to spend even more time playing with them than I planned.

  Finally, I leave them to my hands and trail my tongue up to her collarbone, then her neck, stopping to nip the spot where her pulse throbs. Her nails dig into my scalp, her fingers twisting hard in my hair as she gasps my name. My own heart pounds, flushing blood straight to my pecker, and it throbs in response, needing to feel the inside of her like my lungs need their next gulp of oxygen.

  But I know from those videos that Audra’s used to doing more than her fair share of the work. At least, she was with Logan, which I’m assuming is her most recent experience. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s as big of an idiot in bed as he is everywhere else, but this is going to be different. She wants to go to bed with me; I’m going to do my best to make sure she doesn’t regret it.

  At least not right away.

  Audra loosens my tie and rips it off, tossing it across the room, then gets my buttons undone and me half naked before I nudge her onto her back. It takes my breath away for a moment, the beauty of her lying topless on my bed. She’s squirming, a dangerous lust glinting in her hooded gaze, and her lips beg me to kiss them.

  Now I do, holding myself over her with one arm and exploring her lips and tongue with mine until we groan together. My other hand slips lower to dispense with the button and zipper on her jeans and she wriggles free of them with a little help. Her own hands refuse to stay idle and simply take what’s being offered, grabbing me through my pants and rubbing, harder and harder, in an attempt to get me to move faster.

  I break our kiss, easing lower and forcing her hand to break contact with my dick, too.

  “Sebastian …” she starts, realizing where I’m headed.

  It could be that she’s not comfortable, or that she’s paranoid about personal hygiene after being out most of the day, but I need to make sure it’s not because she doesn’t want it.

  Despite the games Quinn and I played, despite our differences in so many areas of our lives, the two of us have a common disgust for assholes who don’t get permission.

  I look her in the eye and see nothing but desire. “Okay, kitten?”

  “God, yes. It’s just, you don’t have to … you know.”

  “Oh, I know. I don’t have to do anything. Just like you don’t have to do anything. But I’m looking forward to tasting every last inch of you. To feeling your legs start to shake against my ears and hearing you scream while you come. Let me.”

  “Oh.” Her face flushes, voice small, body inching toward me almost on its own. “Yes. Make me come, Sebastian.”

  She lies back on the covers. The comforter bunches in her palms. I lower my face and tease her, licking gently at first and working my fingers inside her slowly as she squirms and lifts her hips to meet my thrusts. Her lack of inhibition isn’t a surprise, given what I’ve seen on the internet, but it fucking excites me. I lick and suck and fuck her with my fingers with everything I’ve got, eager now to get the reactions I described.

  Then it happens. She shrieks my name, grinding against my lips and fingers, legs pressed hard against my ears as she bucks again and again. Then she’s done, lying back on the pillows like a limp noodle and watching me with a half-stunned, half-sated smile that makes me unbutton my pants and shove them and my underwear out of the way. There’s a box of condoms in the drawer bedside the bed, but Audra plucks it from my fingers before I can get it open, her gaze falling to my crotch.

  She bites her lip, desire flooding her eyes again as they climb back to mine. “Lie down.”

  This was supposed to be me giving her whatever makes her happy, and if being on top gets her off, then I’m not going to argue. I’m certainly not one of those guys who has a problem letting the girl do all the work now and then, and the view is better from down here, anyway.

  The condom rolls over me, cool and dry but not unpleasant in her deft fingers. Then she’s on top of me, straddling my hips, lowering her body onto mine until I’m buried inside her. It’s hot and wet, and then she starts to move and I forget to think at all. We move together and there are a few adjustments, a couple of awkward moments of strange pacing, the way there always are the first time.

  In fact, it’s hard for me to remember the last instance of not-first-time sex I’ve had.

  Then Audra falls into a rhythm, moving against me faster and then faster still, her gorgeous tits bouncing in my face. I reach up and give one of them a pinch, earning a groan.

  “Oh my god, I’m going to come again,” she gasps.

  “Wait for me, kitten.” I grab her ass and drag her against me at a pace that inches me closer and closer to exploding. It’s seconds later when she starts to go, tossing her head back and digging her nails into the bare skin of my chest. I let go and honestly have no idea what happens for at least five minutes.

  When I look up, she’s grinning at me. A sheen of sweat glistens on her forehead and between her boobs, and honest to god, I think she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. I reach around and slap her ass, making her squeal and driving any chance of my saying something stupid or sentimental right out of my head.

  “Enjoyed that, did you?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I think that’s pretty obvious. We make a good team when we’re on the same page.”

  “You never give up, do you?”

  Audra doesn’t answer as she lifts herself off me and rolls off the bed, grabbing a towel from the basket on the top shelf of my closet. “I need a bathroom.”

  “I’m pretty much the only person who uses the one on this level, so it’s not super disgusting.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed, still feeling disoriented and for some reason, protective. “But I’ll walk with you just in case anyone shows up.”

  “You don’t have to.” She motions to the towel wrapped around her lithe little pleasure-giving body. “I’m covered.”

  “Yeah, have you met the pigs that live in this house? Let’s not take any chances.”

  I grab a fresh pair of boxer briefs and usher her down the hall. After she finishes cleaning up, I take a leak, and then we’re back in my bed, her naked body pressed up against me in the dark.

  “Making my own decisions isn’t the only reason I slept with you, Sebastian.”

  My fingers find the silky strands of her hair. They slip through my fingers, soothing me in some odd way. “Oh? Do tell.”

  “I know this whole thing has an expiration date, but I’m attracted to you. Like, I could feel it when we kissed the other night that this would work.” She tenses. “Physically, I mean. We’re compatible.”

  “I’m not going to argue with that.” Words bubble up from my middle, unwanted, unplanned, but gone before I can stop them. “I didn’t hesitate the other night because I’m not attracted to you. Obviously, I am. I have a penis and I like to use it with girls, and you are fucking hot as shit.”

  That makes her laugh. Her fingers toy with the hair on my chest, raising goose bumps on my arms. “Then why?”

  My goose bumps turn into nerves. Pillow talk is not my thing, but I’ve already opened the can of worms. There’s no way she’s going to drop it now unless I give her something, and telling her to shut up or kicking her out won’t keep things on an even keel.

 
“I didn’t want to fuck this up. Make you hate me, decide you don’t care about the videos enough to keep up our fake relationship.”

  She hears the real admission—that whatever my reason for asking her to pretend to be my girlfriend, it’s important to me. More important than sex.

  Her unspoken questions hover in the air around us and I know she’s dying to ask again—Why. It might not even be so bad to tell her about my mom. Have someone with a level head to talk to about what she’s asking, her version of the story of what happened with my father.

  Whether or not I’m crazy for feeling as though she’s my responsibility.

  But Audra doesn’t ask this time. She snuggles closer and I’m horny again, ready to go at the drop of a hat. Her palm wanders over my belly, brushing my erection.

  It drives a shudder through me and Audra gives a low, sultry chuckle. “See? Me spending the night isn’t such a bad thing for you after all.”

  I roll on top of her, nudging her knees apart and forcing her lips open with my tongue so that she’ll stop talking. So I don’t have to look into her eyes. It’s too unnerving to see myself reflected there. What she wants to see, whatever she wants to believe I can do for her or maybe vice versa—I don’t want to be a part of it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sebastian

  I wake up with a raging boner the next morning, which isn’t a new occurrence but is a tad surprising given that we had sex three times last night before finally passing out. Audra’s asleep next to me, her round ass pushed against my crotch, and I prop myself up on an elbow to see her face.

  Her jaw hangs slightly slack¸ lips parted and relaxed. The gentle movement of her chest, the sound of her breath both calms and stirs my blood. She’s beautiful, no doubt about it, but I’ve been with beautiful girls. I’ve been with smart girls, dumb girls, funny girls … pretty much every single kind of female that exists.

  Or so I’d thought.