by L. J. Woods
Gemma sighs again. “Okay, okay.” She scoots in closer, looking at each of us like she’s about to tell a scary camp tale. “This summer, I realized I’m bi and in Clementine, that’s kind of a huge deal. So—”
“I’m bi.” Milo shrugs.
“What?!” Adam’s surprised but who knows what goes on in Milo’s life. Like me, he’s not exactly a sharer. Much more dark and musing than I am. “Why didn’t you say?”
Milo shrugs again, taking the bottle to his face. Gemma keeps her gaze on him, sitting up straighter like she’s found some understanding. “Well, I told someone I thought I could trust. He told me I’m not, and then tried convincing me that I’m not by fucking me. Again and again. But here I am, still bi. I thought that’s what I needed but all I need is to be myself.”
Delilah glances over at me. How is she still thinking it’s me if I’m a student? “Is this non-student the one who sent the video?”
“No,” Gemma says. “I’m sure of it.”
“Alright!” Adam’s hand lands on the bottle next. “We’ve all learned a lot but let the birthday boy have a go, yeah?” He spins the bottle and like he plans it, he lands on Hazel. She perks up. Adam rises to his feet. “Hazelnut,” he smiles, a hand through his hair. “Dare.”
“Oh, okay.” Hazel sounds nervous, letting Adam pick for her.
“Seven minutes with me. In the shed.” He tilts his head towards a wooden shed to the back of the yard. The place his family keeps all their equipment in the winter.
“Fine.” Hazel gets up.
“Yeah, girl!” Delilah claps, smacking her ass as she cheers them on. Hazel takes Adam’s hand before finding Delilah’s gaze behind her. Delilah gives her a thumbs up. “Give him a birthday present to remember!”
Nix leans in and whispers something to her and she laughs. That’s when I take Hazel’s spot, moving beside her. Mariam’s eyes bounce between me, Delilah and Nix before her brows furrow. I don’t care as I lean into Delilah and ask, “Still think I’m the one causing trouble?” Gemma’s confession should get me off trial.
“You’re still trouble. Period.” She takes a swig of her drink, her scent driving me insane.
“You’re still a pain in my ass.”
Her gaze slices into mine. “Why don’t you get Mariam to kiss it for you?”
Bingo. “Jealous?”
“Like you’re jealous of Nix?” She holds that gaze and I don’t back down before Adam tumbles out of the shed, pulling her attention away. He falls back on his ass as Hazel scrambles to fix her suit. He hoists his hands in the air and I’m happy he’s having a good time but it’s hard for me to believe that Hazel Hawthorne did anything in that shed besides talk.
Nix’s hand hits the bottle next. It lands on me but a nudge of his toe in those pineapple slides swings it over to Mariam. No one calls him on it as Hazel and Adam settle back into the circle.
Dirty asshole. Delilah’s right there and he’s not being the least bit discreet. Leaning towards Delilah I clear the question in her head. “I don’t have anything to be jealous about.”
Nix smiles but Mariam pipes up first, “Dare.”
“Yoooo!” He claps. “This girl has guts! Alright, same dare. Seven minutes. In the shed.”
I want to chime in, but when I glance at Delilah, she doesn’t look bothered.
“Uh,” Mariam hesitates, glancing at Delilah then at me. Her morals won’t let her. “Okay.” She shrugs, Nix getting up to take her hand, proving me wrong.
I’d say this was the weirdest party I’ve ever been to but this summer takes the cake. As they go off, Hazel moves next to her, whispering something but I’ve got something I wanna say too. Leaning into the other side of her I feed my curiosity. If she’s not bothered then, “What the fuck are you doing, Dee?”
She tells Hazel to hang on before she looks at me, those deep amber eyes sending that tightness to my abs. “Buck up, Godfrey.” She smirks. “It’s a party.” A simple answer to the question but that pretty, sloppy smile she wears on her face is a loaded fucking gun.
I’m not having it. “Time to stop.”
“Not until you do.” Delilah reaches for the bottle as Mariam and Nix leave the shed. My heart stops, my eyes focused on it. Hazel scoots over so Nix can take his seat again and as it spins and spins, so does my head.
It lands on Milo who looks up, a grin growing across his face like he’s finally awake. “Lucky boy!” Delilah cheers with a clap. “You’re taking a dare. And we’re doing it in the shed.”
There’s a pang in my chest and it’s tempting to ruin his night with a fist through his face. Especially when Delilah moves to get up. My hand goes to her thigh, her head whipping to me before she catches my eye. I don’t know what else to say except, “Don’t you dare.”
“Don’t I dare?” she scoffs. “That’s the game. Truth or dare, genius.”
“Your boyfriend’s right there. Don’t be a—that’s not—” Fuck, she has me tongue-tied.
“A what?” Her lips twist, pulling my attention right to them. Soft, pillowy and warm. I want them. More than I want those lines in Adam’s room. More than I want to be here at this stupid fucking party. “Go ahead, say it.”
“Am I interrupting?” Milo cocks a brow, standing over us but I don’t return it. I know what he’s thinking and I’m not about to play into it.
“Delilah’s afraid of the dark.”
Delilah scoffs, pushing my hand away when she rises from the grass. “I’m not twelve anymore.” She gestures to her body like she knows what she’s working with. Sultry curves and a toned figure. One that makes my cock jump in my shorts. “And Nix isn’t bothered. Believe me.”
When I glance at him, he winks and yeah, I’m fucking bothered. “Dee,” I warn and I’m not sure what I expect her to do but she ignores it, walking towards the shed.
When she passes Milo, she touches his arm and I notice the way her fingers linger. It’s as if she knows she’s riling me up with her every move. “Don’t keep me waiting, Milo. I’m impatient.”
Milo looks over his shoulder, his eyes on that plump, firm ass as she saunters towards the shed. When that wooden door closes, he looks at me. I’m on my feet in a second. “You’re not going in there. I am.”
He doesn’t look surprised. “Alright.”
Mariam pipes up, “You?”
“Yeah, me.”
Nix doesn’t say anything and I’m starting to wonder if he even gives a shit about her. The group chatters behind me but my heart pounds against my chest way too hard to hear them. I don’t know if it’s the blow or something else but my feet won’t stop moving to that door.
And when I open it, her scent takes over. That sweet, delicious scent.
The door closes and the shed darkens, sunlight peeking through wooden slats. I can feel her body near me. Can hear her breaths. They’re quick like she’s been panicking which tells me she was bluffing. She’s still afraid of the dark but I’ve always known Dee to have the biggest balls of anyone I know.
“Milo?” Her hands come to my chest before she slides them down my abs. The fuck? Is this how she would greet him? My hands in fists, she pushes them back up to my pecs. “Wait. Gabe?”
“Five minutes, Dee,” I’m quick to answer. “I’m just standing here with you for five minutes.”
“Why?” she asks, her hands still roaming my abs before I stop them, her wrists in my hold. “What’re you doing?”
“You’re too hellbent on pissing me off to admit you’re afraid of the dark.”
“I’m not.” She pulls against my hold but I’m not done.
“You are, and since you’re too cocky to tell your new friends that, I’m here so you don’t have a panic attack and ruin my friend’s birthday.”
Sure, Gabe, keep telling yourself that.
Her arms go limp before I drop them. She takes a step closer and she’s making this the longest fucking five minutes of my life. “You sure you’re not in here because you’re jealous?”
<
br /> “Jealous?” For fuck’s sake. “Of that idiot?”
“Nix. His name is Nix.”
“I don’t give a fuck what his name is, he’s not right for you.” That flies out and I’m realizing I’m a lot more fucked up than I thought. Adam’s right. I’m a fucking lightweight.
“And you are?”
“That’s not what I meant.” So why do I keep feeling the urge to kiss her? To push her against this wall and make her know what she deserves. Me.
“So why the hell are you here?” She takes a step closer, her lips so close I can smell her gloss. Coconut. Sweet, inebriating.
“I told you—”
“Yeah, and you’re lying.” She comes closer, her tits in that bikini grazing my skin.
“And you’re a fucking tease.”
“Wh—How the fuck am I tease!?”
Jesus, why does she always have to be this heated? “Forget it.”
“How!?”
Fine. “Well, you’re dating that idiot, fucking with me, and you were about to hop all over Milo.” The more I think about it, the more fire flows through me. “Y’know, you’re a lot more like your mother than you think.”
She lets out a growl. “Fuck you, Godfrey!” Her finger bounces off my abs, every touch sending a spark through me.
“Fuck you, Delilah.”
“You’re such a phony. You think you’re a fucking god and you never own up to anything. Fucking coward! You never take responsibility!”
“Shut up, Delilah.”
“You don’t ever want to talk about anything until you feel which is so fucking selfish.”
“God, shut up!”
“Selfish as fuck especially when one of those things is a fucking body! No, wait. Make that two! Do you know how fucked up I’ve been? How I can’t sleep, eat or even think stra—”
“Please, shut the fuck up.” Putting her face between my palms, I get her to stop talking with my lips against hers. Then, it’s a fucking explosion. Her hands come to my face, our lips moving together as that feeling rushes back to me.
Paradise.
“W-what’re you doing?” she sighs when my lips land on her neck. She’s even sweeter here. Soft and sultry. “Dodging my questions some more?”
With a spin, her back hits the shed door, my chest pressing into hers. “Why don’t you stop talking? Ever?” Her nipples harden against mine in that damp bikini and it’s way too easy for me to pull on a string.
“Gonna make me? Or are you gonna—” Pushing two fingers in her mouth, I press on her tongue and that smirk on her face tells me she loves it. And she looks fucking sexy, my mind wandering to how my cock would look in that mouth. I’ve thought of it before, thought about being balls deep in that sassy throat. When I push my fingers further, she takes it all and fuuuck, there’s no stopping me now.
Ignoring every voice in my head telling me not to, I force her legs open with my knee, kissing my way to her chest. She moves her tongue over my fingers like it’s the tip of my cock. It makes me groan, makes me slide my finger between her folds.
“Fuck, Dee.” With my face against her thigh, my tongue slides along her skin. She moans, soft and sexy when I push a finger inside her. “Does Nix know how wet you get for me?”
“Fuck you, Godfrey.” Her words don’t pack as much punch when they’re an airy sigh. Pumping my fingers inside her, her legs start to shake. “Fuck you straight to hell.” She sounds even sexier when she can hardly speak with my fingers in her mouth. In her. “Go faster.”
“You mean, God.” With a tug on her bikini, I drop to my knees before my tongue parts her folds.
“God!” she moans, her hand coming through the long hair on the top of my fade. She pulls. Hard. Hard enough for me to plunge my tongue in her sweet, dripping hole. Hard enough that I lap up her wetness like it’s the last fucking line. “God, yes!”
“Be quiet,” I growl, curling my fingers inside her to give her an extra challenge. She tugs harder, grinding on my face, her juices all over my lips, my mouth. It’s hard not to stroke my cock at her squirms, her moans, the way she moves her pussy against my tongue. It’s hard. Frantic. Like she’ll explode on my face in any second.
Her head hits the wood, her body tensing. “Holy fuck!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Hammer?”
We freeze. I can’t see her face but something tells me her eyes are as wide as mine.
“Guys?”
Fuck. It’s Mariam.
Moving away from Delilah, I try my best to make sure my boner doesn’t show through my shorts. She’s shuffling about while I wipe my face with the back of a tarp.
“You good?” I whisper, Mariam jiggling at the latch on the door.
Delilah mocks me and that makes me chuckle, something in me more at ease with the taste of her on my tongue. She takes a beat before she whispers, “We should talk about this.”
“Hey! Guys!”
Shiit. There’s no time and I hope Delilah’s decent because this door’s flying open.
Eighteen
Delilah
“It’s been way longer than ten minutes.”
Mariam’s voice comes from behind Gabe’s sweaty body. While I’m still shaking, it’s for the best that she’s intruded on this little private party.
‘Cause I’m an idiot. Yet again.
My body’s warm but I still feel cold with Gabe a few feet in front of me, his rippled back in view.
So what if what Gemma said makes him less of a suspect? He’s still trouble. Dangerous.
Evil.
“Told you, she’s afraid of the dark,” Gabe says. “Had to calm her down.”
Wincing, I hope she doesn’t guess what that means. He gives me a chance to tie knots on my bottoms, blocking her view. When I’m done, I push around him to see Mariam’s cheeks red and I’m too thrown off to say anything, mouth glued shut again.
When I get back to where everyone’s sitting, it looks emptier. Nix is on his phone, Adam and Hazel sitting together on a lounge chair but Milo’s gone.
Fuck.
“Hey, where’s Gemma?” I ask the group.
Hazel shrugs, her lips around a bottle.
“Think she left with Milo.” Adam waggles his brows. “How was the shed? Wait, hey, Hammer!” His arms go up in the air. “Where you going, G?”
When I follow Adam’s gaze, Gabe is already on the path out the yard. He disappears beyond the trees. I follow him but when I get to the big, round, driveway, he’s hopping in a cab, taking off.
“Motherfucker.”
“Liles?” Nix calls from behind, footsteps coming closer. “You good?” I can’t answer him, my chest tight and heavy.
His hand comes to my back. “Alright, let’s get you out of here.”
Mariam promises to drop Hazel home before we leave. After saying our good-byes, Nix and I hotbox his old car before we chase our munchies back at Nani’s.
He asks what happened and while I’m too ashamed to tell anyone else, he’s the one person who won’t judge. When I tell him, he doesn’t. To soothe my wounds, we watch back-to-back Dirty Shore reruns. Nothing like someone else’s idiocy to make me forget my own woes.
It doesn’t work like it usually does though. Like Sammy’s body, that shed won’t leave my mind and every time they go to the Smash Room, I imagine it’s Gabe and me. The less trashy version. At least I hope.
One minute I was yelling at him, the next his face was between my legs. It was fucking intense. Better than his fingers. There’s no denying the explosive sexual energy between us but getting too close to Gabriel Godfrey is a bad fucking idea. Today proves that.
He’ll only let me down.
“Does Mariam ever come to the city?” Nix asks, his head against one of my old pillows as he stares at the screen. “‘Cause that could be clutch.”
“Dunno,” I groan. “Don’t care.”
“Still nothing from Godfrey?” Nix asks.
“Nope.” My eyes stay fixed on one of
the cast members crying over a boy, her face red and splotchy. I hear ya, girl.
Since he’s staying with us, I thought he’d come home. But it’s pushing one in the morning and Gabe’s not around. Not that I can text him. I don’t even have his number. Sure I could text his InstaShot but the motherfucker has me blocked. Same on QuickToc. So I wait. Like a pathetic fucking puppy. The problem is, the longer I wait. The angrier I get. The quicker that pettiness in my stomach rises to the surface.
Gemma doesn’t answer either. Got her number from Hazel and when I message her on InstaShot, I get no response.
Nix shakes his head, dipping his hand in our bag of Doritos. “That’s cold.”
“It’s what I get.” Letting my body flop to the mattress, face-first, the sheets muffle my voice. “I meant to go to that party to get answers. Not get frisky with my brother’s best friend.”
“You literally texted me to bring you that bikini from Kay and Em to make Gabe drool. Devil emoji included. Your words. Not mine.” When I groan into the sheets, his hand comes to my hair, stroking it. “How ‘bout this? You guys have this forbidden romance thing all twisted. Do you really think Elijah would care? In fact, wouldn’t he be happy his sister got with his best friend? It’s the perfect sitcom happy ending to me.”
“Not when his best friend killed him.” I retort, lifting my head so I can narrow my eyes at Nix. I’m about to kill mine if he keeps condoning this. If anyone knows how I feel, it’s him.
The lava lamp on my dresser lights up his smooth face. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Liles.”
“I’ll never know because he won’t talk about it. Who doesn’t talk about something like that? Or about what we saw? I still can’t fucking touch a nugget. I love nuggets. I miss nuggets.”
“How can he talk about it when his tongue is on your snatch?” Groaning, that gets him a pillow to the head and he’s so high he just laughs. “Fine! I dunno Liles, what’re you gonna do?”
Looking at him, I take a big breath. One for clarity. “Retaliate.”
Nineteen
Gabriel