This Is Now

by Maggie Gilbert

  ‘Hey, I’m not a Moet virgin anymore,’ I observed, and snorted out a few more giggles.

  ‘No, well and truly,’ Sebastien agreed.

  ‘Hey, are you saying I’m drunk?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘You drank plenty too,’ I grumbled. My fingers found dark hair curling over his collar, and twined their way in against warm skin, and Sebastien shook all over, like a big dog. Funny.

  ‘Jesus, Jess, stop that, I just nearly dropped you.’

  ‘No you didn’t.’ I felt totally secure in his arms, as he carried me towards the front door. He was big and strong from playing cello, and I may not be the most beautiful girl, but I felt like it right then. Okay, I suspected a bit of a random boozy element getting into my thoughts there.

  We stopped at the door.

  ‘Can you reach my keys?’ Sebastien said, and I twisted around to shove my hand in his pocket.

  ‘Oh, hmm, ah. Bad idea.’

  I abruptly found myself on my feet again, giggling, and I clung to Sebastien, dizzy, as he turned the key in the door.

  ‘Whoa, head-spins.’

  ‘Are you OK? Hang on, I just have to turn off the alarm.’

  I grabbed the doorframe as Sebastien disappeared inside. Didn’t want to set the alarm off prematurely, nope. And I had been right, Darry Ackles must have built a panel in there somewhere for an alarm panel. Of course he would, he’d want to protect one of his houses. He was a genius!

  ‘I’m a bit tipsy,’ I said to Sebastien, when he came back.

  ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said, steering me inside, and shut the door after me.

  ‘Make sure you lock it,’ I reminded him, and rubbed my bare arms, shivering. Which was stupid, because it was way warmer in here than outside.

  ‘Coffee?’

  I looked over my shoulder at Sebastien.

  He laughed and raised his eyebrows. ‘Coffee, to start with?’

  ‘Did you just say I was gorgeous?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then forget the coffee. I’d rather have you.’ I took a step towards him, my heart starting to beat faster, my stomach fluttering. I hoped the anxiety fizzing in my blood didn’t show on the outside, my fear that I’d read him all wrong, and he was going to pull away yet again.

  ‘I should get you drunk more often.’

  ‘Like I said.’ I dropped my shoes and moved even closer to him, reaching for the keys in his hand, and dropping those too, not on the floor but in the dish where I knew he always put them. ‘Like I said, you don’t need to get me drunk first.’ I stopped once I was almost touching him, unexpectedly unable to take that last little step and slide my body against his, even though I wanted to.

  Some cautious part of me, or maybe just the echo of my brother’s constant warnings. Dammit. I looked up at Sebastien, his hair shining almost blue under the foyer lighting. He looked at that moment so beautiful to me. My throat tightened with longing, and I shook my head almost angrily, that I could be feeling sadness before I’d even had him, let alone lost him. A long lock of hair slipped from the pins Michelle had used to twist it up so many hours ago, and slithered down over my shoulder. Sebastien watched it fall, and then he reached over and traced it, his finger grazing my collarbone. I sucked in a shaky breath, my whole body tilting towards him.

  ‘You said I didn’t have to take you to dinner. You didn’t mention anything about getting you drunk.’ Our bodies had swayed close enough that on the last word his breath tickled my cheek, and I had to tilt my head back to keep eye contact.

  ‘So this was all part of your cunning plan, huh?’

  His hand slid across my back and then down under my dress, skimmed over my silky panties, his hand cupping my bottom so I gasped against his mouth as he kissed me.

  I rose up on my toes and wrapped my hands around the back of his neck, aware of his other hand moving over my hair.

  The empty house around us was so quiet, so insulated that it shut out all the sounds from outside and it was like we were cocooned. All I could hear was the sound of us breathing, and the faint ‘tink’ of metal hitting the floor every time he dislodged a pin from my hair.

  I’d wanted him so much, and yet a part of me was still holding back, that cynical bitchy side of me that I hated so bad, standing back, in judgement, mocking me, him, us, and I wanted her to just fuck off and leave me alone.

  The words rose up in my throat, the harsh sexy words that always got Jay going, the words I’d use when I wanted him to come home with me, to prove he loved me, or when I wanted him to get on with it and finish before he rubbed me raw. Do me, baby. Now. Here.

  But it didn’t feel right to say that. Now. Here. I didn’t know what words were right, though, to get what I wanted. I wanted, wanted, wanted – I didn’t even know what I wanted, but I could feel the pressure building in my body, like a headache but everywhere, and it was almost like anger. Too much like the kind of rage and helplessness I felt almost every day as I tried to do my assignments or make it through to the end of the day without puking with fatigue, and it made me even angrier and also afraid. I was losing it, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be thinking, I just wanted to be feeling. Wasn’t that the whole point of sex? I dug my hands into Sebastien’s shoulders, dragging him to me.

  ‘Jess, I want you so much. I’ve wanted you since the minute I saw you at the concert.’

  ‘Me too,’ I admitted, sliding my hands down from his neck to his chest, to the top button of his shirt. I undid it, and then the next one, and leant forward to press my lips there, and I smiled against his skin when he shivered. I undid the next button, and moved a little lower and kissed him again, my heart pounding. He shivered again, and groaned, his hands moving in my hair, so I guess he liked it. Another button, and I pulled his shirt free from his pants, sliding my hand along his twitching stomach muscles, so smooth and warm and hard, he was so beautiful. I felt my hair slither down over my bare back and heard another ‘ting’ against the tiles in the foyer.

  ‘Jess, wait.’

  My whole body clenched in icy fright, and I looked up at him reluctantly.

  He stared down at me, and pushed my tumbled hair back from my eyes.

  ‘Not here. But will you — will you come upstairs with me? Will you come to my room?’

  I tried to say something and couldn’t, my throat tight. I swallowed, desperate to speak.

  ‘I — yes, yes of course.’

  ‘I don’t want you to come up just for a while or anything, you know that, don’t you? I want to make love to you.’

  I stared at him. There. Those were the words I’d been looking for.

  I stretched up and put my arms around his neck.

  ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I want you too.’ I curled my fingers into his hair and drew his head down to kiss him, fitting my body against his, bringing my hand down again to grip his waist, and press my fingers against his back. He kissed me hungrily, and my body almost vibrated in response. Something so different in that kiss, to all the others he’d given me.

  Sebastien leant back a little, then, and looked at me seriously.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Are you?’

  ‘I never had any doubts about wanting this. But when and where, that was the thing. I want everything to be perfect.’

  ‘Nothing’s perfect,’ I murmured.

  ‘You are.’

  My heart squeezed painfully. If he only knew. But I didn’t have time to start worrying about that, because he threaded his fingers through mine and led me towards the stairs.

  I stood beside Sebastien’s bed, my stockinged toes curling into the deep spongy fibres of the carpet as he turned out the main light, leaving the room lit only by the soft glow of a bedside lamp. He came across to me, where I waited with my back half turned to the door, and as I reached my arms behind me to start undoing my dress his hand on my wrist stopped me.

  ‘Let me,’ he said, and my arms fell down to my sides,
boneless. Sebastien stood behind me, almost touching me but not quite, and pushed my hair forward over my shoulder, then kissed the back of my neck. He slowly slid the zipper of my dress down, his fingers brushing my skin, making me gasp and shake, and then he kissed my shoulder-blades, left, then right. He kissed the points of my shoulders before he slipped the dress slowly, so slowly, down along my arms. Left then right, again, two quick barely-there kisses and I was shaking by then, almost dizzy with desire and the not knowing what was coming next. Despite all the trash-talk I’d endured at school and after, I’d only had sex with three guys, and none of them had ever done anything like this. Not even Jay.

  My dress — Michelle’s dress — slithered down past my hips and Sebastien’s hands moved around my ribs to cup my breasts, and I gasped and let him draw me back against him. His bare chest against my back, his hands hot against my almost painfully hard nipples, and then his mouth sucking gently on my skin, right where my shoulder joined my neck. That was the last time that anyone’s name but his went through my mind.

  And by the time he laid me down on his bed and slid himself inside me I was so desperately wanting, so wound up tight with longing and astonished, greedy lust, it felt so intensely good I had to bite his shoulder to stop myself screaming. Some unknowable time after that, he drew the rumpled covers up over us and, twined together, I guess I slept.

  Because later, when he woke me sometime in the night murmuring my name into my hair, his hands on me, and then rolled us over in the tangled sheets so this time I was on top, I couldn’t help myself. As I finally let everything go, and gave myself over to the moment, to him, and to what we’d made of it, I cried his name as I came.

  Chapter 22

  ‘So I guess you guys finally did it. Congratulations.’

  I opened my eyes, fingers closing automatically over the edge of the sheet to make sure all my bits were covered. I’m a securely wrapped sleeper and a fast waker, I’ve had to be, but I was more than a little startled to realise I was naked. Beside me, Sebastien was taking a lot longer to wake up, and being a lot noisier about it too, groaning at his sister to go away.

  I looked warily up at Anna, who was standing there with a big grin on her face.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. Was it just me or did it seem bloody weird that she’d come in to her brother’s room while he (and I, on this particular morning) were still sleeping? And even more creepy, how long had she been there? Usually I’d have been sure it couldn’t have been long — like I say, light sleeper — but I wouldn’t normally fall asleep after sex without putting something on, either. That was if I even got fully undressed in the first place. Which, I could tell, I most definitely had. I took a quick peek around the room, wondering where the hell my clothes were.

  Sebastien rolled over and reached his arm out under the covers, sliding a warm hand over my bare stomach. My insides somersaulted and I squirmed, trying not to let anything show on my face.

  Anna winked. Hell.

  Then she raised her hand and showed me the black heels dangling from her fingers. ‘I wondered who these belonged to. Now I know.’ She set them on the bedside table, and I stared up at her, more and more uncomfortable.

  ‘Anna, please get out of my room. I’m naked here,’ Sebastien groaned.

  ‘Ew, overshare,’ Anna exclaimed, pulling a face. It made me feel a little better. It was exactly the same response I’d have if my brother told me he was in his bed, naked, with a chick. Except I wouldn’t have gone into his room in the first place. Not ever, not for any reason. Which made me wonder, abruptly, if it wasn’t Sebastien and Anna who had weird ideas, but me. Maybe it was perfectly normal for a girl to wake up in her boyfriend’s bed with his sister staring at her.

  ‘Go put some coffee on, would you?’ Sebastien mumbled, burying his face in my neck. Under the covers, his fingers lightly stroked the skin just inside my hip bone, and I bit my lip. Half of me wanted him to cut it out, but the half who was loving it seemed to be in charge right then.

  ‘Go do it yourself.’ Anna straightened the shoes, then turned and started making her way towards the bedroom door.

  ‘Come on Anna, be nice.’

  ‘This is nice,’ she muttered, and giving me a small smile, she disappeared out into the hall. She left the door wide open.

  ‘Bitch,’ Sebastien said mildly, lifting his head out of my hair. He took the word right off my tongue, only I’d have probably been a bit more intense about it. And speaking of tongues, I wondered if he was going to kiss me. I almost wished he wouldn’t — my mouth felt a little bit morning after-ish. I licked dry lips. I glanced at Sebastien and saw him staring at my mouth.

  He saw me looking, and his own lips curled in a smile.

  ‘That Moet tasted a bit better last night than this morning, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m going to give you an IOU for a kiss good morning. I don’t want to risk scaring you off with my morning breath.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Not going to risk it.’ He propped his head on his hand and looked at me with that slow grin lifting his mouth and putting a wicked spark in his eyes. It seemed to liquefy my muscles, every time. ‘Do you want first shower or do you think we should save water and share?’

  I shrugged, not totally confident that he wanted me to pick the second option, and afraid I’d look too needy if I asked him what he actually wanted to do.

  ‘Do you have to be anywhere in a hurry?’

  I thought about everyone at home. The light coming in through his window felt like it was still early, and on a Sunday morning they wouldn’t be up at my place for a few hours yet.

  ‘No, I can hang here for a while if you want.’

  ‘If I want? Really?’

  ‘Uh, yeah?’

  He pounced, grabbing my butt and dragging me across the bed, underneath him. His long, hard-muscled body draped over mine, the bony edge of his knee banging against mine as we wrestled, me, at least, quickly breathless with wanting him, which left me pretty defenceless. Sebastien wrapped his arms around me, hands sliding beneath my shoulders. His leg weren’t the only hardness pressing against me. I slid my hand down and palmed him and he caught his breath, eyes wide and dark.

  ‘We can shower later,’ he said, and covered my mouth with his.

  I got Sebastien to drop me off around the corner from my house, using the excuse that I didn’t really want the whole neighbourhood watching me do the walk of shame in a fancy dress. I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that he thought that was a genuine concern. There was no walk of shame in our neighbourhood unless it involved handcuffs and a police car. Staying out all night partying or shagging was pretty ordinary.

  I walked barefoot along the footpath from the corner, squinting in the sharp morning sun, fuzzy-headed from sex and lack of sleep, my nethers still zinging from the ten minutes Sebastien had taken to kiss me goodbye, leaning against his car. Thank God he had agreed to drop me around the corner; I definitely didn’t want to share that with the neighbours.

  I padded wearily to our front gate, and reached out to swing it open.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

  I jumped, mouth going dry, my heart taking a huge startled thump in my chest.

  Troy, sitting on the front steps, cigarette and beer in hand. Shit.

  ‘Out,’ I said, reluctantly going in through the gate. If I’d seen him sitting out here before he saw me I’d have done a u-turn and gone begging to Michelle for a place to crash. But it was too late now; Troy could be a bit like an already-growling dog. No way could you risk turning tail and running.

  ‘Yeah, I can see that, smart-mouth. Been out all night fucking by the look of you. Who with?’

  ‘No one you know.’

  ‘Yeah, see, I knew that already too. All the kids in the street going on about how some big fuck-off limo come to get you, like that stupid movie. What the fuck is that all about?’

  ‘What’s it to you? You never g
ave a shit before if I stay out all night or who I sleep with.’

  ‘I always knew where you were and who you’re with before. You’re kidding yourself if you think I don’t keep tabs on you.’

  I looked at him, wishing my head would stop pounding, and resisted the almost overpowering temptation to point out he hadn’t kept a good eye on me lately. I was a bit hung-over on a little too much good champagne and good sex, no make that freaking amazing sex, and all I wanted to do was have a shower and fall into bed, and think about last night until I dozed off. I resented like hell coming home to the inquisition.

  ‘Right, because you care so much.’

  Troy blew cigarette smoke out and stared at me, his blue eyes, so like mine, narrow and pale in the bright sunshine. But he didn’t seem as menacing to me as he usually did, maybe because for the first time ever he seemed almost fake. Sitting there in his shorts and singlet, with all his ink on show, his beer at eleven a.m., his gangsta glare. I’d never have thought I’d associate the word poser with one of my brothers, but there you go. Life could still surprise the shit out of you.

  ‘You’re my blood. Of course I care,’ he said, as if that was an answer. Maybe for him, it was, especially because the two of us had the same dad, the only ones out of Mum’s kids that did. For Troy, a caveman in his attitude to so many things, that probably meant something. But not for me. Not any more, and not for a long time. I wanted out of here so bad, to get out like Sharon had. I was already ahead of Sharon, managing not to let Jay put a baby in me before I was even sixteen, so although Sharon had escaped it wasn’t accurate to say I wanted a life like hers. I didn’t want to end up like Michelle, either, trapped here and working her guts out to live half a dream. I wanted my dream and I wanted all of it.

  I just didn’t know how to get it.

  ‘Sorry you were worried.’ I’d meant that to be kind of sarcastic, like I didn’t really care, but it came out sincere.

  Troy nodded, and stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray sitting beside him on the step. There were a lot of butts there. Maybe he had been worried.