“Right,” Jess said. She knew what I was getting at. “The upside is that you’ll always have your family and friends that were there before you got famous. We’re not going to see you as a ticket to fame… even though I totally want a photo with you and your signature. Just in case.”
She grinned at me, and I realized she was joking. She laughed when I realized it and her eyes danced. God, had she always been this beautiful?
“What about you? I’m sure men must be flocking around you.”
I was laying it on thick, but the alcohol was starting to burn in my veins, removing the filter I usually had. Besides, being with Jess was comfortable. It was like being with family, except she wasn’t family. She was hot and interesting and fun.
Jess shook her head and looked around the room, refusing to make eye-contact.
“Not really.”
I stilled. “You have a boyfriend.”
She laughed and shook her head. Her hair was golden in the pub’s dim light, and I wondered what it would feel like if I touched it.
“I don’t have a boyfriend. Men aren’t really interested in me as more than a friend.”
“They should be.”
She looked up at me, surprised.
“What? You’re beautiful and interesting and funny.” I wasn’t even flirting. I was just being honest.
Liv appeared and collapsed on a chair between us, cutting the conversation short.
“You guys are being boring. Why aren’t you drinking with us? These guys are totally cute.” She nudged Jess.
“We were just catching up,” I said, and Jess nodded.
“Just catching up,” she echoed.
Liv rolled her eyes. “He’s going to be here all summer. Come on.” She took Jess’s hand and pulled her away from me. Jess looked at me, her eyes apologetic, before she followed Liv. My sister was well-lubricated by now, I could tell. She was past tipsy. The more she drank, the louder and more flirtatious she became. The more flirtatious she became, the more men looked at her.
It was enough to make me want to deck into every man that thought about being with her. I looked at Jess instead. Liv was trying to pull her into the conversation, but the guys weren’t interested in her. I was relieved. I had no right to want them to back off, but she was too good for them.
I knew the guys, and I was starting to know the new Jess.
They paid attention to Liv. She drank more and told stories and the men hung on her every word. Jess listened, too. At some point, she must have felt me looking at her before our eyes met and she smiled. It was a sweet smile, one that wasn’t shy, the way she usually was around me.
I liked it.
It was getting late. My body wasn’t dealing with the alcohol well. I hadn’t drunk that much, but I felt like I’d been taking shots all night. Jess had ordered a few more cocktails. Liv and my teammates were very drunk. They sang along to old songs and waved their bottles in the air.
“Logan!” Aaron called out. He was the only teammate I would call a friend. “We want to check out the Square. Are you coming with us?”
I shook my head. I didn’t feel like going out for a party now. I wanted to go home and get in bed. The guys protested, but I’d made up my mind. They got ready to leave, settling bills, and Liv got up to go with them. Jess stood up, too. I got up and walked around the table to where she was.
“Be careful tonight,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I’m going to join them.” We both watched Aaron trip over a chair. “It’s getting a bit… rough.”
I chuckled. “I know what you mean. Can I walk you out?”
She smiled at me and nodded. We said goodbye to the others before they left in a taxi. Jess and I stood on the curb. I was really feeling the alcohol; the world slowly spun around me. The night was fresh and crisp. It was good to be out of the smoky, hazy environment of the club.
Jess put her hand to her head. “I think I had too much to drink,” she said.
“You and me both.”
I flagged a cab for her, and one stopped at the curb. She turned to walk to it, and her shoe caught on an uneven slab of concrete. I stepped in and caught her so that she didn’t lose her balance. It put her right up against me.
Her body was warm and she smelled like perfume. The smoke we’d been sitting in all night clung to her clothes and her hair. Up close, she was even more beautiful, and I was sure it wasn’t just the beer talking. I knew Jess. She’d changed a lot in the time since I’d seen her, but deep down I knew her.
“Definitely too much,” she giggled. I knew I was playing with fire. I knew it could turn into a disaster, but I couldn’t help myself. Alcohol made me brave. It made me stupid.
Instead of laughing with her, telling her to be careful and stay safe, I kissed her.
She froze against me for a moment. I just stood there, holding her, kissing her. A moment later, she kissed me back. She tasted like alcohol and cherry chapstick. The world stopped for a moment, and it was just the two of us.
She pulled away, breaking the kiss. Her fingers rose to her lips. “I can’t do this,” she breathed. “Liv…”
I shook my head, trying to tell her it didn’t matter.
“Are we going?” the cab driver called. I wanted to shout at him to shut up. Jess turned and answered him first.
“Yes.”
She turned to me again. “I’m sorry. We can’t…”
I didn’t let her finish. I nodded and opened the door for her, cutting her off. I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t want to hear it. She was everything that I wanted but I couldn’t have in that moment. It would be better if she just left.
Chapter 3
Liv was having a party. Her parents were away for the weekend – they never learned not to leave the kids alone. Maybe they knew what was happening but didn’t mind.
Regardless, there were people everywhere. Liv had called it ‘a small get-together to celebrate coming home’. Her parties were never small. I wasn’t sure if she knew even half the people that had arrived.
A bunch of kids were smoking pot in the back of the pool house. There were beer bottles everywhere. Some college guys had set up a keg in the living room and were taking turns lying on their backs drinking straight from the tap.
There were girls in groups on the stairs, making it hard for anyone to pass.
I didn’t usually drink, but I’d been a part of the planning and set up, and when Liv started pre-drinking, I’d joined her. Being back from college had given me a new sense of courage. I wasn’t the same girl who had left four years ago.
I was just like every person walking in through the door: fun, sexy, interesting.
My head swam. The room spun slowly around me, and warm bodies rubbed up against me as I tried to walk from one room to the next. I was hot and bothered, aware of my own body. My clothes prickled on my skin. My hair irritated me on my shoulders. I wore a skirt, which I never did, and a top with a low neckline. I’d borrowed boots from Liv that were a little higher than usual, but what the hell? I was being different tonight.
I liked it. I liked being daring.
I wasn’t sure what time it was. I’d lost my phone somewhere. I hoped it was in Liv’s room and not in someone’s pocket. Looking for it now would be a disaster.
Someone pushed another cup of something into my hand, and I drank it because I didn’t have a good enough reason not to. I was already swimming around the place, my body drowning in alcohol. I was drunk and I knew it. That was as far as my thought process went.
A bunch of guys in the kitchen looked vaguely familiar. When I stepped closer, they cheered, and I realized I knew them. Logan’s hockey team. They were all here, too.
“Wild party,” I said above the thumping of the music. Logan tried to knock his cup against mine in salute, but he knocked too hard and alcohol splashed onto my shirt.
“Oh, shit. Sorry.”
He took my hand and pulled me toward the sink. He got a we
t cloth and tried to dry it up. It didn’t do anything. I giggled at his attempt. He swayed slightly.
“I’ll just go change,” I said. “If I can get past the girls on the stairs.”
Logan grabbed my hand. “I’ll fight them off for you.” He dragged me toward the stairs and started up them, arguing his way through until everyone moved. I found the spare bedroom where I was supposed to stay, pulled off my shirt and dumped it on the floor.
When I turned around to find my bag, Logan was standing in the doorway. His eyes slid down my body.
“Sorry,” I said. He shook his head and closed the door. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was supposed to be nervous and shy. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that this wasn’t the best scenario – I was standing in front of Liv’s brother without a shirt on. In a spare bedroom. With the door closed—but my skin burned and my head felt light and airy, and Logan stepped closer, making it harder to breathe.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You’ve changed so much.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure if I was saying no to the beautiful remark or the one about how much I’d changed.
Logan stepped closer to me. I should have stepped back. I didn’t. He took my hand in his, interlinking our fingers. I didn’t stop him. He saw all these things as little signs, and I supposed they were. He leaned in and kissed me.
His lips tasted like beer. They were cold when the rest of him was hot. I kissed him back, opening my mouth when he licked my lower lip, letting him kiss me.
He knew what he was doing, too. Kissing him was like… wow. He cupped my cheek with one hand. With the other, he traced my bra strap slowly down to the cup. I knew where he was headed.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I mumbled against his mouth.
“I know.”
He didn’t stop. He headed on down toward my breast, still kissing me, and I let him. When he touched my breast, his skin burned through the material of my bra, and I gasped into his mouth. He kneaded my breast, tugging on the nipple through the material. He moved his head to my neck and kissed and sucked the skin, pushing me toward the bed. I backed up until the bed was behind me, and I fell back, letting the mattress break my fall. Logan crawled over me and pulled his shirt over his head.
He was good-looking. Like, really good-looking. He had muscles all over. They rippled under his skin when he moved, and I could trace the individual bunches with my fingers. He leaned down and kissed me again, grinding his hips against mine, and I felt his lust through his pants. He was hard and eager, and my body responded.
I wanted him. I ached for him. I knew that it was the alcohol talking. I knew I had to stop, but I didn’t. I wanted him, and I knew a great part of that was doing was the alcohol, too. I didn’t want to stop it, though. I wanted him to keep going.
I arched my back, pushing my breasts toward him, and unclasped my bra. He pulled it off, and I was topless on the bed. I was wearing the skirt and it was easy to get into it.
Logan pulled down his pants, wriggling on the bed, fumbling, until he had gotten rid of them.
He was hard, long, and thinner than I would have thought. The tip of his sex glistened with want. My thighs fell open, and I looked at him. This was it. This was the point of no return.
He pulled my skirt and panties off in one go and positioned himself at my entrance. We were drunk. We weren’t stopping for foreplay. It wasn’t necessary. My body was ready for him, and judging by the feeling of him against my sex, he was ready for me, too.
He pushed into me and I moaned.
“Shh,” Logan said softly. The music thumped all around us, but we couldn’t make too much noise.
“Did you lock it?”
He nodded. He’d had this in mind since I’d pulled off my shirt. I should have known. In that moment, I didn’t care.
Logan started moving inside me, and every thought vanished. All that was left was an empty void filled with the pleasure of what he did to me. Logan pushed in and pulled out of me, his chest against my breasts, his elbows propped up on either side of my head.
His face was filled with concentration. His eyes were dilated, his pupils large. He had a silly grin on his face.
I kissed him.
It didn’t take him very long to distract me from his face and draw my attention to what was going on in my body. Logan coaxed a flame into being that burned hot at my core. The combination of the alcohol, the thrill of what I was doing and with who and the continued friction built the orgasm inside me faster than ever before, and I gave myself over to the feeling.
Logan knew what he was doing. He was muscular and strong and more than able in bed. In that moment, with him hovering over me, his hips pounding against mine and the heat licking through my body, nothing was wrong with the world. I wasn’t overweight or unsure of myself, and Logan wasn’t off-limits. We were a couple destined for each other, and no matter how inevitable our crash was going to be, we charged toward it in uncaring bliss.
The orgasm burned through my body before I realized what was happening. The flamed turned into a roaring furnace, and my body contracted and clenched and curled around Logan’s. I opened my mouth in a silent scream, gasping, breathing hard and trying to keep it together. Logan’s hand was in my hair, making a fist that made the pleasure all that much more intense.
When it subsided, I realized my nails were biting into his back. I let go of him. “Sorry,” I whispered. He was still grinning.
“Don’t be.”
He didn’t give me time to think of anything else to say. He started moving again, and the feeling now that my body was tightened around his and sensitive was another level of ecstasy. I gasped in rhythm with his movement until he picked up the pace even more. He kicked into a new gear, something primal taking over. His strokes shortened, his pace quickened even more, and then he convulsed on top of me, spasming and jerking inside of me as he released the built up tension that we’d created together.
Logan collapsed on top of me. His chest rose and fell against mine, and I felt his heart hammering against my own ribs. He softened and slid out of me, rolling to the side.
“We have to get dressed,” I whispered. If someone walked in…
He nodded and sat up. “You’re right.”
He stumbled around the room, bunching our clothes together and putting them on the bed. I picked my clothes out of the pile and got dressed. Logan leaned forward and kissed me again when I was dressed.
“You’re fantastic,” he said and walked out of the room.
I wasn’t upset that we hadn’t cuddled, I was relieved. I was drunk and I had to pull myself together before going out if I wanted to face Liv again without her knowing that something was up. When I stood, I felt the aftermath of our sex in my panties. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice screamed at me about forgetting to use a condom, but I was numb to anything that might feel like stress.
I left the room knowing that reality would hit me in the face in the morning, but until then, I wanted to find my friends, find the music and find another drink.
Chapter 4
I woke up draped over an armchair in the den with a stiff neck and a hangover that beat the shit out of me. My head throbbed, a thousand chisels in my temples, and I sat up, groaning. My friends were draped over the other couches and bean bags. Aaron lay on the bare carpet without anything over him or under him. I had the feeling he’d passed out there, not slept there intentionally.
I walked through the house. Everywhere people were sleeping on and around the furniture, the remnants of the night before. Liv and I had terrifying parties like this one before but this one had been of epic proportions, even for us.
I stood in the kitchen and scratched my head. I was going to suffer all day with this hangover. I needed water and food.
I found rolls the pantry and made one with leftover ham and pickles I found the fridge. There were empty cups and beer bottles everywhere. The house was littered with rubbish. The floors were dirty like a nigh
tclub’s. The worst thing about epic parties was having to clean the house with a hangover the next day.
I found Liv in her bed. Three other girls were in a tangle on the bed. Jess wasn’t one of them.
Jess. That part of last night I remembered very clearly. I’d followed her to the spare room, and as she’d stood there just in her bra, there was no way I’d been able to see her as my little sister’s best friend. She’d turned into a woman, a woman that I’d wanted.
I’d had her because she hadn’t said no, in fact, she’d wanted me too. I had never felt a connection with a woman like that before, and it wasn’t just the alcohol speaking. I’d had drunk sex before – more than I liked to admit – but it had never been like that.
I walked through the house, up the stairs, and to the spare bedroom. It was empty, the bed was made and her bag missing. She’d already left.
I wasn’t sure if she’d stayed over at all, and for a moment, I thought that maybe she’d run away just after we’d done it, but the pillow was dented on the side she usually slept. I was willing to bet she’d snuck out of the house at the crack of dawn, before everyone else was awake.
Pity. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to talk to her. I was going to get myself into a better, soberer state, and then I was going to call her and take her out to talk. I wanted to find out more about her. I wanted to be more to her than the older guy she’d grown up with around the house. I wanted her to see me the way I’d suddenly come to see her.
Did this thing happen often? Did two people know each other their whole lives and suddenly realize what they were to each other, what they felt for each other? I always thought this kind of thing only happened in movies, but now that it was starting to happen to me, it made sense. Why wouldn’t I fall for Jess? She was the one girl I knew who wasn’t a ditzy airhead who was just after me for the fame and the money and the reputation I had with women. She’d known me before all that, and even though we’d only ever been friendly with each other, she didn’t think I was a piece of shit or a god. Those were the only two labels I got from non-family members.
Hang Em' Up: A Bad Boy Sports Pregnancy Romance Page 2