by Claire Adams
The covered patio of Penn’s was only one story up from the street, open at its sides with a low roof that stretched just a couple of inches further than the metal railings, but sitting there right up against the railing, I felt kind of removed from the street below and crowd around.
It was a feeling I was used to, and I’d been told that I exuded some serious fuck off vibes when I got like that. Fuck off vibes that a pissed off looking Blondie either didn’t notice in her anger or was just plain ignoring.
Although, I had quite literally told her to find me if she wanted to, and she looked pretty upset. I’d been watching her showdown with her friend from the corner of my eye, and while Tugger, and quite possibly May, would’ve been disappointed in the state of affairs, I didn’t feel guilty for my role in the flare-up. She was ripe for seduction now, and I had no problem being a revenge fuck.
Blondie’s boyfriend was an asshole, and her friend wasn’t much better, from the looks of things. I also reminded myself that I had to get her name so I could stop referring to her as Blondie in my head. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be only there for much longer, and the sooner I got her out of my system, the better, but I wasn’t so much of an asshole that I liked referring to girls I was trying to bag by a nickname.
Their names didn’t stay in my head long after we were done; I couldn’t be bothered to remember them mostly, but I liked to think that I was decent to them during our time, and treated them well enough to make sure they came first. Pun—bad as it was—intended.
Blondie came storming toward me, her face scrunched up in anger that looked positively adorable on her. She sank into the seat across from me, grabbed my beer right from my hand and drained it.
It wasn’t often that women surprised me, but that move did. When there was nothing but a thin layer of foam left in the bottom of the bottle, she slammed it down onto the table and met my eyes without a glimmer of remorse over having usurped my beer.
“Thanks, sidekick,” she said. “I needed that. I’ll get the next round.”
“You know, if I remember correctly, Nancy Drew’s sidekicks were both girl cousins. The only male sidekick I remember was her boyfriend, and that’s not a role I’m comfortable portraying without even knowing your name.”
She rolled her eyes, blue winning in the fight between blue and green in the muted light, but a small smile was raising the corners of her lips. “Is that your way of asking for my name?”
Instead of answering her question, I reached for her hand, and it seemed it was her turn to be surprised. “I’m Pacey.”
My hand hung between us before she finally placed hers into it. The touch of her hand, cool from holding the beer and the breeze that was sweeping over the patio, felt like she was reaching into me somehow. And like she was cupping my cock with her bare hand. My sex drive was something akin to that of a prize stallion, but even I was taken aback by how much that one touch turned me on.
“Juliana,” she said, several octaves lower than her voice had been before.
“Juliana,” I repeated. Her name rolled off my tongue and seemed to settle over her, making her seem more real. “Suits you.”
“Thanks.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and lowered her eyes, making me inexplicably wonder what she was thinking. A touch of blood had rushed to her cheeks, making them rosy, which could mean that she was as turned on by our simple touch as I was.
As if she’d heard my thoughts, her eyes snapped to mine, and she dropped my hand. “Unfortunately, the role of my boyfriend is unavailable, at the moment anyway.”
Exactly the way I liked it. “That’s okay; we’ll just come up with our own thing. Looks like you’re just about Nancy Drew’d out anyway.”
“That’s a verb now?” Juliana raised an eyebrow as she leaned back in her chair, folding her arms loosely.
I shrugged with a smile, “Why not?”
“Yeah, I guess stranger things have happened,” she huffed, glancing toward the spot where her friend had still been standing minutes before, but now was gone.
A couple of raindrops started falling, fat and slow. It wouldn’t turn into a storm; it was probably going to be just enough to make your car look dirty and kick allergies into gear, but it was enough to remind me of Juliana’s words the night we met.
“About that rain check from the other night, you up for that ride on my bike now?”
She didn’t answer me immediately, and only looked at me, searching, before she nodded slowly. “Okay, but only if you give me a ride home after. My—I don’t have my car, but no funny business, and that wasn’t an invitation to come inside,” she insisted firmly.
I saluted her, “You got it. Home after. No funny business.”
Unless she decided to invite me inside after all, in which case all bets were off. I would never force myself on a girl, nor would I invite myself inside or anything like that, but I could work to make her want me to come inside.
Since we were both all paid up, we left straight down the back steps, walking to the Ducati together. The Black Beast, as Tugger called her, sat gleaming underneath a yellowing arched iron streetlight. Juliana hesitated when we walked up to her.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? It’s raining.”
“Barely, and I’m a great driver, by the way. Come on; it’ll take your mind off whatever it is that’s going on with that douche you call your boyfriend.” I didn’t miss the fact that she didn’t correct me on Scott’s status as a douche. Not that it was here nor there to me.
“Okay, Pacey, let’s see what a great driver you are.” She squared her shoulders and went to stand by the bike, resting her hand softly on the leather seat. I wanted that hand on me and hopefully soon enough, it would be.
I pulled the spare helmet from the storage compartment and handed it to her. She was staring at the heavy black helmet in her hands when I turned back to her.
“You okay with that or do you need help?”
She eyed the helmet suspiciously, then smashed it onto her head without a second of care about her hair being messed up. I liked that. She held the straps up over her ears. “That’s about as far as I know what to do with it. If I try fastening these blindly, the way my day’s going, it’ll probably go flying even before I do.”
“You’re not going flying, but here, let me help you.” With great care, I fastened her straps slowly, even though when I did it for myself I could do it in a flash, probably even asleep. May had never needed help with this kind of thing; she could probably have beat me with her speed and would’ve ripped off on the quiet street while I was still digging for my keys.
Funny enough, it was the first time I had thought about May without a pang sending my heart spiraling and my skin tightening. I didn’t want to attribute that to the fact that Juliana was looking up at me with unreserved trust in her innocent eyes and the soft skin of her cheeks brushing against the backs of my fingers as I deftly fastened the clips and made the necessary adjustments.
But it was illogical and irrational to think that she didn’t have anything to do with it, and logic and rationality happened to be two qualities I knew for sure I possessed. Which meant that having her near was doing that to me, making me able to think about May and to breathe even though I wasn’t buried inside her nearing the point of no return. Yet.
If nothing else, that alone told me that things between us would be fucking explosive if, no, when, it happened. Anticipation tightened my balls and made me want her even more.
Juliana was breathing deeper too, the tips of her ears, exposed by the straps of her helmet, were pink, and a quick glance down revealed that her nipples were hard. Though that also could have been because we were getting dampened by the splashes of raindrops and the breeze that was still causing the leaves to rustle in the old trees around us.
“Ready?” I asked, my voice ringing out in the relative quiet of the mostly abandoned street. The music from the bar was muted from here where I’d parked behind it.
Julia
na nodded, “Ready as I’m ever going to be to ride this death trap.”
“Death trap?” I protested loudly. “You’re going to love it; you’ll see.”
There was no way I knew enough about her to make a statement like that, and from her slightly raised eyebrow she knew it, but she didn’t say anything. She hugged her arms around herself, and I noticed the goosebumps smattering her skin.
Shit, I hadn’t thought this through completely. I shrugged out of the leather jacket I had on and offered it to her. She didn’t take it, choosing to cock her head and dip her chin.
“I’ll be fine; you’ll be cold if I take it.”
“Seriously? You think for one second I’m gonna keep the jacket for myself while you freeze to death on the back in only that dress?” Insanely sexy as said dress might’ve been.
Once she eventually accepted the jacket, it turned out that the dress could be made so much fucking sexier—by the addition of my black leather jacket. My cock actually twitched when she had it on and held out her arms, asking, “This okay? Do I look badass now?”
“Absolutely.” I considered it a feat of inhuman strength that I didn’t sweep her up in my arms, kiss her senseless and fuck her right there on my bike, parked just off Main Street or not.
With an internal sigh, I flung my leg over the bike and got her settled behind me instead. I wrapped her arms around my stomach, and fuck if she didn’t cop a feel. Couldn’t say that I minded it. At all.
When I was sure she was hanging on tight, I started the engine and roared off into the night, turning the bike quickly toward the country. We were out of town within minutes, and soon we were passing between mountains that rolled gently from the ground, past the farms that kept the town stocked with locally grown vegetables and organic beef.
We climbed higher, following an old road that had been carved into the side of a hill, lush greenery covering us overhead until we finally broke free at the same time that the clouds did, and the moon came out.
When we reached the top of the pass, the air had that freshly washed crispness to it, and I decided to pull over. Juliana stared wondrously out at the view down the hill, the miles of countryside dotted with houses lit up only by the moon.
I kicked the stand of the bike, then helped her off after me. “Well, what do you think of the death trap now?”
She sighed contentedly, letting me help her loosen the helmet again. The grass was still wet, but Juliana didn’t seem to mind. She kicked off the sky-high heels she’d been wearing, stacked them to rest against the wheel, and started wandering toward the edge of the hill.
“I think I could get used to it,” she said, finally. “It might not have been as bad as I thought. It kind of did feel like we were flying.”
“Yeah, it kind of does, doesn’t it?”
Juliana nodded, almost reverently. And I did the same thing, but my nod had nothing to do with the bike. This girl was shaking something loose in me, something long dead and buried. Because at that moment, standing at the edge of that hill and silhouetted by the moonlight, she looked divine and it did feel like I was flying. On wings of a fucking ang—
I cut that thought off short. I’d never been one to wax lyrical about women: not even May.
Juliana pointed up at the stars, brighter than ever after the brief rain. “Could you point out some more constellations for me? It’s so beautiful out here.”
“Honestly?” I asked gruffly. “I can’t see anything but you right now.”
Why the fuck did I say that? Where did it come from?
Juliana whirled around, and without really thinking about it, I took the final step toward her and bent my head, brushing her lips with the softest of kisses. My mind was screaming at me, something about how you didn’t kiss girls you only wanted to bag like that, but then Juliana responded, and I abandoned all pretense of thinking.
Her lips were soft and warm; she tasted like cherries and berries, and her vanilla scent was everywhere. Everything.
When her lips parted beneath mine, I swept my tongue into her mouth and lost myself in it, hardening so quickly and so much it fucking hurt. But I wasn’t stopping; I couldn’t stop. Kissing her was like taking my first proper breath of air in five years, waking me up in a way that I hadn’t been since that shot blew through my heart and soul.
The kiss became more passionate, and she snaked her arms around my neck, her hands into my hair. As lost in me as I was in her. My skin fit suddenly, and the vise grip around my chest loosened, then—she pushed me away. Hard. Breathing heavy, her eyes were wider than ever as she took a step back. “I’m so, so, so, sorry about that, Pacey. I didn’t mean for that to happen. Or maybe I did. I’m fighting with my boyfriend, and I was thinking about getting revenge on him for being a dick, but it’s wrong, and it’s not who I am, and I can’t do this. I don’t—”
I interrupted her rant by placing a finger against her lips, and oddly enough, I respected what she was doing. “It’s okay. I understand. Really. No harm, no foul, right?”
Although I’d felt her desire and I knew that if I pushed it, I could probably get that invite inside, I just didn’t feel like it this time around. As much as I would have loved to get revenge on the asshole myself, I didn’t want to take advantage of Juliana, and if she was that distraught over a kiss, she’d be torn up if anything else happened.
“Let me take you home, okay?”
She nodded silently, and we walked back to the bike. After I’d helped her with her shoes and the helmet, I slung my leg over my seat again and guided the bike back to town. She gave me her address when we stopped at a traffic light as we were entering the town, and I drove there without needing directions.
We’d done a garden on her street, and I remembered where that place was. With the first twinge of shame for my lifestyle of late, I also remembered how enthusiastically the married woman who lived there sucked cock.
Pulling up outside of her house, I made quick work of our helmets and placed them on my seat before walking her to her door.
“Thank you for all of this,” Juliana said. “For bringing me home and for understanding.”
“It’s not a thing. You’re a beautiful, wonderful woman, Juliana. You deserve a man who’ll appreciate and respect you,” I told her.
And if the asshole was in there, it sure as shit wasn’t him. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I bid her goodnight and made my way to my own depressingly empty home.
Chapter 12
Juliana
“Well, look who made it home last night,” I muttered under my breath the next morning. Scott smelled like a pirate in bed next to me. Smoke, rum, and Lord only knew what else was seeping from his pores. He absolutely reeked.
Leaning over to his side of the bed, I poked him, but he didn’t stir. As I’d suspected, he was passed out cold and wouldn’t wake up, despite the amount of shaking I tried and the many times I repeated his name.
He was still fully dressed, though his jeans were wrinkled and his T-shirt was dirty. Having kicked off his shoes, his socks looked kind of crusty and gross, and his hair stood up in every direction. His pallor was off, some splotches of his skin a vivid red and the rest a scary gray that I didn’t want to know the cause of.
Passed out as he was, he’d fallen asleep whenever he’d gotten in, still holding his phone. It buzzed with an incoming message. It was short, and the whole thing was visible on his screen without even the need to unlock it.
Amber: I love you, baby.
With three kissy face emoticons.
And there I had it. My best friend was, in fact, fucking my boyfriend, and apparently in love with him.
I’d kissed a guy and, okay, I’d liked it. But I was planning on telling Scott about it when I talked to him, which I’d been planning to do today. It was nothing near as bad as this, though. ‘I love you, baby’ didn’t happen after one kiss.
Nor did ignoring your girlfriend repeatedly while talking to her best friend. No, whatever this was, it was much,
much more than that.
That had been my one ultimatum to Scott. He’d promised me that he’d left his philandering, stick-your-cock-into-everything days behind when we got together. I told him that fucking someone else was a deal breaker for me.
Despite recent events, I wasn’t a cheater. Never had been. That one kiss was the closest I’d ever come. Scott knew that I wouldn’t put up with cheating, and it was time to put words into action.
One time, when he’d stayed out all night, I’d told him that he better not have been fucking around on me. He told me that after I’d left our friend’s house, he and Amber had ended up getting drunk at Rennie’s.
Babe, he’d said. I was with Amber. Ask her. I didn’t leave her side all night.
And of course, I’d called her, and she’d confirmed that he was with her until he’d stumbled into our house at six o’ clock the following morning.
What a blind idiot I’d been.
But this was Amber, for God’s sake. She was my best friend, my confidante. The girl I’d taken my first shot with, studied with, bitched to, and celebrated with. The first call I’d made after losing my virginity, got my job, and started dating Scott.
It seems I wasn’t the first call she’d made after starting to date him too.
That thought spurred me into action. That same morning, I had told him that if he had been fucking around on me, he was out on his ass. I’d told him that I knew that he’d strung girlfriends along in the past and that if he tried it with me, he was looking at his next ex-girlfriend.
It was time to make those words come true. I spent the morning throwing his shit into whatever boxes I had lying around, and by the time he woke up, I had him all packed up.
Nudging him with my toe while holding onto a steaming cup of coffee, for me—not for him, he finally opened his eyes. For the first time ever, I was repulsed by his cloudy blues. They were watery and rimmed with red so deep it looked like he was bleeding into his eyeballs.