He left it hanging in there, for her to pick up. She wasn’t sure she could, however. He’d brought Chinese food. He had a bag, with, like, overnight things in it. He probably had his toothbrush in there, for God’s sake.
“Just tell me if you want me to go,” he said, and again she wondered what he’d been about to say. Lately I’ve just been thinking that maybe…
“I don’t want you to go.” She pushed several unidentifiable things around her plate with a fork. He had chopsticks, and he used them as if he’d been doing it since the age of five. “This all just seems so…”
“Overwhelming?”
“I was going to say nice.”
He considered, as he expertly maneuvered his food around.
“You mean the bad kind of nice though, right?”
“I mean the kind of nice I’m not really familiar with.”
He didn’t do what she expected him to once she’d said it, however. She thought it sounded mean, somehow. Rude, even—like the words she’d spoken in the grass. I have to be home by four, so get the fuck off me.
But he just reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. On the back of her neck. Rubbed there, until all her muscles turned to jelly.
“I want you to be familiar with it,” he said. “This is how things should be.”
She imagined him coming home every night with a bag of food. Getting the plates, rubbing her neck, saying soft things. Did other people do that stuff, all the time?
“I’m not even familiar with this food. Yesterday I had tomato sandwiches for dinner. With tepid water. And the tepid water was the most interesting part of the meal.”
The hand dropped away, but he had the most awesome smile for her instead. All the way across his face, with teeth and everything.
“Here,” he said, then identified a few of the various elements on her plate. Mostly it seemed like a lot of pork, but it didn’t taste like pork, in her mouth. It tasted like having an orgasm.
“Holy crap.”
“Did you just say crap?”
“I might also say damn. Do you eat this stuff all the time?”
She tried to eat another forkful without seeming like a starving person.
“Sure.”
Well, of course he did. He used chopsticks and knew what everything was called, and oh—he had that Chinese restaurant across from him. Oh Jesus, he had that Chinese restaurant across from him. She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“This isn’t the place that chops off the chicken heads, is it?”
He touched his tongue to his upper lip. Of course he meant it as an amused sort of gesture—quite obviously so. But somehow it didn’t translate to her pleasure centers that way. Her pleasure centers just said, Oh, so you want us to wake up, now? I guess we can manage that.
“If I told you it was would you stop eating?”
He was teasing her. Actually teasing. Weird, that it felt like a relief after Monday’s conversation.
“Probably not.”
He shook his head, still amused in that lovely, heated sort of way.
“It’s not the chicken head Chinese. Eat your food.”
She did. In fact, she did more than that. She licked her plate, and then the insides of the containers, and then finally her sticky, sauce-covered fingers. Of course she hardly realized he was watching her until that last one, but it didn’t embarrass her as badly as it probably should have done.
Instead she curled her tongue around one fingertip, heart suddenly giddy in her chest. Was he watching her in…you know. That way?
“Tease,” he said.
So maybe yeah. He was watching her in that way. She looked a mess and most likely had sauce all around her mouth and all down her top, but he was watching her in that way.
“Come here,” he said, but it was him who leaned forward over the table. Him who cupped the side of her face and drew her close, quite suddenly, and kissed her.
Only he didn’t exactly kiss her. He licked the corner of her mouth instead, where there was most likely sauce. He licked it and licked it, and then once he was done cleaning her in a way that made her go all weird inside, he pushed his lips against hers, hungrily.
He tasted like that spicy thing, again. Stronger though this time—so much so that she had to ask.
“What’s in the food?”
He pulled back—a little breathless. A little curious.
“Why?”
When he kissed her this time, she felt it go all the way down through her body. He just did it so lazily, as if they had all the time in the world. He could touch his mouth to hers then pull back, then start all over again.
Things were better, with more time.
“Because you always taste that way.”
“Like stale Chinese food?”
She nudged him. “Like something sweet. I thought it was cinnamon, but—”
Comprehension dawned on his face, all in a rush. “Oh—yeah. Yeah.” He clicked his fingers and stood, went for his bag in the corner. “It’s star anise. Aniseed.”
When he finally emerged from the front pocket of his backpack, he had a little jar of candy in his hand. Like Red Hots, only darker, and rounder.
“I used to smoke—real cigarettes. Now I’m just addicted to these.” He held them out for her. “Want one?”
“I guess you’re all the way bad now. Offering me candy. You want me to get into your truck too, stranger?”
“Very funny. You want one or not?”
She did, but found she didn’t want to eat it right away. When his back was turned again she wrapped it in a napkin and put it in her pocket. Later, when she couldn’t so easily remember the taste of him, she’d try the candy.
“So what do you want to do now, honey?” He still had his back to her, as he wrestled with the zip on his bag. Again she thought of the things that could be in there—pajamas, razor, a change of clothes.
Condoms.
“I brought some movies you’ve most likely never been allowed to watch.”
She couldn’t stop her heart leaping. Movies. Not Johnny Did A Bad Thing or some documentary about a really Godly person. Actual and real films with probable sex in them and maybe people’s heads coming off and things.
But in the end, she couldn’t possibly choose them.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said instead. As light as she could possibly make it, nothing in her voice that hinted at what they could possibly do upstairs. On her bed. With the condoms.
He still turned and looked at her, however. That familiar look on his face, like maybe he wanted to say no. Slow down. Stop. We can’t. But when he finally got some words out, they didn’t match the expression.
“You go up,” he said. “I’ll clear the plates and be up in a second.”
Chapter Seven
He was going to be up in a second. He’d said it. He wanted more, and although the idea of more scared her it also made her almost electrically giddy. She had to think of dull things just to keep it contained, and the longer he took the worse it got.
By the time he finally, finally walked into her bedroom, she’d made great twisted shapes in her ridiculous frilly pink coverlet. The rest of her cotton-candy ten-year-old’s bedroom didn’t even embarrass her, because every one of her thoughts was directed at what might possibly happen now.
Unfortunately, however, the décor seemed to embarrass him. He looked stunned once he’d shut the door behind him, and it was obvious why. There were pictures of babies in flowerpots on the walls. Things had frills. The frills had frills.
And all of it made her want to explain, somehow.
“I didn’t—” she started, but he cut her off like a cleaver coming down.
“Are you naked?”
The words didn’t so much die in her mouth as turn into something else altogether. Couldn’t be helped, though. Her words had expected one thing, and prepared a defense. And then he’d given her another thing instead.
Something she couldn’t exactly den
y.
“Maybe.”
Even hedging sounded stupid.
“You’re totally naked under those covers. You’ve taken all your clothes off.”
She fidgeted. His open mouth just looked absolutely huge—like a mime’s version of shock. Somehow, she’d inspired a comedy caricature of a real emotion.
“There may have been some removal of the things I was wearing, yes.”
He held up his hands.
“Whoa, no. No. That’s not…that’s too much. Too fast.”
There were times, many, many times, when she just didn’t get him. She’d heard on numerous occasions that men were bad, wicked creatures, who’d do terrible things at a moment’s notice. You wore the wrong skirt or bent over at an inopportune time and BAM. They slipped their penises into you.
But not Van. He actively backed away from it—heck, he backed away from it even after he’d said he wanted more. And though she suspected that sex wasn’t exactly what he’d meant, even so, even so.
It was what she’d meant. She wanted it to be in there, meaning something.
“I thought you said it wasn’t enough—” she started, but he laid his hand over his eyes before she could finish.
“God, no. Evie—I wasn’t asking you to put out.” He swallowed too thickly. Pushed that hand through his hair hard, hard. “Fuck. I’ve somehow become one of those guys who manipulates his girlfriend into having sex before she’s ready.”
The weirdest thing went through her, when he said those last words. It felt like the urge she’d had to go to him, when she’d seen the bruise that was still apparent on his face.
She couldn’t go with it, however. Something else needed clarifying first.
“I’m your girlfriend?”
His expression softened immediately, immeasurably. She suspected hurt was at least twenty percent responsible for the change, however. No wonder she’d wanted to go to him—he was actually wounded by what she’d said. And now that she’d spelled out exactly what she thought of their situation, it got worse.
“Evie…honey…of course you’re my girlfriend.”
“Sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? It’s my fault.” He ruffled his hair again. It was getting long enough on top to ruffle. “I talk more to you than I’ve ever talked to anyone in my life, and I’m still missing some pretty important words.”
“Your words are fine—it’s me. I don’t know enough to assume. I can’t assume. I just feel so small sometimes it seems crazy to assume.”
His plump lips thinned into that firm line.
“You’re my girlfriend, Evie. That’s all there is to it.” He blew out a long breath, once the words were out. Some of the tension in him went with it. “And listen—I’m not that guy. I don’t want to push you—I will never push you. I mean Jesus, up until now I’ve felt as though you were pushing me.”
She tried to hold down the wince that threatened—because God, he was right. Somehow, she was the bad boyfriend in this scenario. He always did the no, slow down, we should wait sort of thing.
Whereas she…
“Oh Lord. I’m the person trying to get you into the back of my truck with candy.”
It was almost a relief, when he laughed right out loud. Shook his head and took a step toward the bed.
“No, no—fuck no. I didn’t mean it that way. I like that you’re like that.” He hesitated, then just seemed to go for broke. “It makes it more exciting that you’re like that.”
“Really?”
“God, yeah. Don’t think I’ve ever been so turned-on in my life, than that night when you…”
She was glad he just left it hanging. It sent more heat to her cheeks, just thinking about it.
“But it’s not just stuff like that, okay? I want time to be with you.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, but she noticed he didn’t try to look. Not even a little bit. And his hand touched something perfectly innocent too, like the shape of her foot beneath the covers. “I want to just eat Chinese food and watch movies and talk. I want to be able to actually talk with someone.”
She leaned toward him. Voice barely more than a whisper, for reasons she couldn’t fathom. “Why am I that someone?”
Some part of her was afraid of the answer, but she had to ask. She just didn’t expect him to reach forward and stroke the backs of his fingers over her cheek, once she’d done it.
“You don’t even know how lovely you are, my Evie.”
It was the word my that made her reach for him and kiss his perfect lips. It just surged up inside her, until she’d caught his mouth with hers. Tasted that spice again, felt him shiver, felt his hand go to her bare arm.
That giddy electricity happened again, the moment he did—though she suspected it was the newness of the sensation. He wasn’t half doing something through material, or brushing something with the back of his hand.
He was skin to skin with her, really and properly. It made her want to grab for him, take his face in her hands, kiss him harder and wetter, though of course the moment she did he jolted as though struck. Just one hand on something innocuous, like his side, and suddenly he wasn’t kissing her anymore.
And he kissed her even less, when she let the covers drop.
“Okay. Okay,” he said, but there didn’t seem to be any end to that. No added words to go with the one he’d just repeated. Instead he looked and then didn’t, looked and then didn’t, seemingly unsure as to whether he should move away or stay right there.
She understood why, of course. If he moved, he’d be able to see pretty much everything. She could feel her nipples stiffening in the cold air, and goose bumps had started breaking out all over some places that weren’t used to being exposed.
But then, if he stayed…if he stayed he’d have to let her touch, and he didn’t seem ready for that at all. His breath caught in his throat, his hands went to her wrists—and for nothing more than a light caress along on his sides.
Of course, the light caress sort of maybe went a little beneath his t-shirt, but still. Surely he wasn’t going to object over something so tame? Surely now he was going to actually let her feel all of the parts of him she’d dreamt of too many times, like the perfect curve of his glorious ass in those near-tight jeans, or maybe the thing all of that hair on his belly pointed to.
She could see it right now, jutting up beneath such horribly thick material, and though he fought with her she knew that side of him was winning. His hands around her wrists were almost rough, suddenly. And when she stretched up to find his mouth again he didn’t exactly resist.
He just kept hold of her, as the kiss got steadily more frantic and far more interesting than anything they’d done before. She could hear him near moaning, into her mouth. His tongue didn’t so much dance with hers as tangle, and that hard, thick shape was getting awfully close to the hands he was still holding.
Or restraining, if she really wanted to be honest about it.
He’d kind of bound her wrists one over the other before she knew where she was at, and the more she tried to get at him the harder he held her. And though she knew it should have been a purely frustrating thing, for the first time it started to turn into something else.
She could feel it happening, slow and steady. Like that pulse between her legs, like the heavy weight of his body against hers. As much as she wanted to pull away, she wanted to go with it too—see where it went, maybe.
However, she still wasn’t prepared when he let go of her hands and took hold of her thighs instead, all quick and too firm and not like him at all. For a brief second she thought he might actually just go for it—it felt as if he was just going for it—only then those hands pulled on her, hard, and suddenly she found herself halfway down the bed. Almost completely exposed and definitely shocked by that fact, so open to him that he could have done anything, anything.
Yet he didn’t do anything. He didn’t look between her abruptly spread legs, or try to shove something in there. He just breathed out i
n a way that mirrored her own frustration exactly, before putting his mouth on her body in places his mouth had never been before. Hell, her body had never had a mouth in those places. She wasn’t even sure how such a thing was supposed to feel, and couldn’t quite process the sensation.
First there was heat, then the sense of something slick rubbing over the tender flesh of her breasts. And after that her mind went sort of blank, as warm jolts of pleasure skittered across her skin. As her sex pulsed once, lazily, to feel him licking there, so close to her stiff nipples.
It made her crazy to feel it, but that was fine. That was okay. He understood it all perfectly, she could tell. It was there, in the firmness of his grip at her hip. In the way he held her steady, as the first delicious shudders went through her.
He wanted her to feel secure in it. He wanted to communicate to her—This is what we’re going to do now. You want this stuff? This is what you’re going to get first.
And oh Lord there was something sweet about that. It put her in a different place—one where she didn’t have to be concerned about anything. He was holding her, and pushing his kisses on her, and she didn’t have to feel embarrassed or weird about any of it. She couldn’t even be concerned about her body and how it looked to someone like him—skin so pale, every part of it so excessive, somehow—because after a moment he murmured many good, good words against her breast.
Words like lovely and lush and ripe. And he did it all in that rich, chocolate voice of his, so overwhelming and shiver-making until he actually moved his mouth lower. Gripped her hips harder, leaned down over her more aggressively.
After which she wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking with that one word. Overwhelming didn’t even cover how it felt to have his lips close over one tense nipple, and then he sucked so slow and easy over it and God, God.
She couldn’t cope with the sensation. The word don’t almost came to her lips before she realized one important fact—he actually would, if she told him to. He’d stop, and Lord she didn’t want him to do that.
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