by Julie Kriss
“I don’t need to talk about it,” I said. “What I need is to forget about it.”
For a second he was surprised, even though I’d texted him to come over here. Then the frown left his mouth, and his expression relaxed. He understood me so perfectly in that moment that I felt a rush of pure anticipation come over me, mixed with nervous fear. This seemed more intimate than when I’d taken him on on the basketball court. That had been aggressive and fun, with a lightning crackle of sex in it. Now he just looked at me, dropping his gaze and slowly taking me in. He took a breath, and I knew from the soft inhale that he was turned on. By me.
“Okay,” he said.
He took a step toward me, and I panicked again. “Not in my bed,” I said.
He just shook his head and kept coming forward.
“And no staying over,” I said, watching him. “And—”
He reached me and pressed me into the counter, using his hips against mine. His hands came up and brushed my jawline, his thumbs pressing gently into my skin. “How about this?” he said in a low rumble in my ear. “I make the rules.”
I closed my eyes and stopped talking.
I felt his mouth on the skin just below my ear, his breath warm, his stubble rasping me lightly. He dragged his lips slowly over me, taking in every contour along the bottom of my jaw. I could smell him, a heady clean man-smell, could feel my own pulse against his fingertips. He angled my head again and put his mouth on mine, sucking my bottom lip between his teeth, flooding me with heat. I opened my mouth, and he pressed his fingertips harder into my jaw, pressing me open as he kissed me deep and hard.
Oh, God, Jason Carsleigh was the best kisser on earth.
He broke away after a long time. “Fuck,” he said softly. He dropped his hands and slid them under the hem of my sweater, dragging his fingers up over my skin to cup my breasts through my bra. “I remember these,” he said in my ear.
I was floating, on some kind of high, my body wired to him, my memory going back to the feel of him against me in the park and his fingers between my legs. “You do?” I gasped. His hands on me were hot, his thumbs slow and expert on my nipples. I felt it everywhere.
“Fuck, yes,” he said, dragging his thumbs over my nipples again as I made a little whimper.
“Jason—”
“Ssh,” he said in my ear. “You talk too much. I’m making two rules.”
Wordlessly, I nodded. I would agree to anything as long as he kept rubbing my nipples like that.
“First,” he said, dragging his teeth lightly along the side of my neck so I squirmed and grabbed fistfuls of his sweater, “what happens right now is done when it’s done. We both want to. We’re gonna do what we’re gonna do. No strings.”
That sounded good. I nodded again, pulling up on his sweater now, dragging my hands down to touch the perfect skin of his stomach.
“Second,” Jason said, inhaling a light breath as he felt my hands on him, “you give in and let go. Completely.”
Completely? part of my brain thought, the remaining sliver that was still rational. Then he tugged down the fabric of my bra beneath my shirt so my nipples were bare and rubbed them again, and I remembered that this was what I wanted. To let go. Of everything.
“Yes,” I said, and leaned up and kissed him.
He pressed me back into the counter, and I felt him. Hard thighs, hard hips, hard everything. I squirmed against him as he dropped his hands from my breasts—it was agony—and tugged open the buttons of my jean skirt, letting it drop to the floor. In a second quick motion, he pulled my shirt off over my head and threw it away.
We weren’t going to go slow, then. This, I liked. His gaze was dark on me, his lips parted, as if he was as worked up as I was. Maybe he hadn’t been with anyone since Charlotte. I didn’t care. Right now, he was mine. For however long it took, I was going to get the only thing I wanted, which was Jason Carsleigh’s huge, sexy body between my legs.
I pushed his sweater up over his chest and he pulled it off. I had stripped him at that party five years ago—he was right when he remembered that—and I drunkenly remembered it as good, but this was better. This was like unwrapping a present. I ran my hands down his chest, my palms touching the light dusting of dark hair that narrowed down his stomach and down again into the waistband of his jeans. His skin was warm and hard. I touched the lines of his stomach, his biceps, his shoulders as his hands slid over my bare waist. Then he gripped my hips and lifted me on to the counter, stepping forward between my knees.
He kissed me as his hands traveled up my back to unhook my bra. We were both breathing hard, and for once we weren’t talking. It was so easy—it wasn’t that he was so practiced, or that I was, but that we fit. There wasn’t a second in which my body was awkward with his. I gripped his shoulders, and I lifted my ass briefly off the counter as he slipped my panties down my hips.
He kissed down my neck, then my breastbone, bending his knees. My skin went hot, and I braced my hands on the counter, trying to stay upright. He took a nipple in his mouth, smiling as I moaned, and then the other. Then he left my breasts and trailed kisses further down my stomach.
The sight of his dark hair against my skin was making me crazy. “Jason—”
“Be quiet,” he said against my stomach. He hooked a finger into my panties where they were still looped over my knees and dragged them down. I pulled one foot out of them and he moved them slowly off the other foot, cupping my calf and my ankle before dropping the panties to the floor. I was fully naked now, my ass on the counter, my body leaned back on my elbows, my knees in his hands. He dropped lower, and then he pushed my legs apart and slid a finger over me as I gasped. He spread me, leaned in, and put his mouth on me.
We hadn’t done this five years ago. It was a gentle kiss, slowly exploring, his tongue moving over me in a long, slow sweep. My world narrowed into a single pinpoint of sensation, and I had no existence except the trembling between my legs, the hot slide of his tongue on me. I dropped my head back, closed my eyes, and gave in to it completely. My elbows ached and my ass was propped on the hard counter and I was completely, garishly spread open, but all I wanted was to feel that again and again until I came, until he made me scream.
He licked down, toward my entrance, and then up again, and my hips flexed, trying to lift off the counter and get more. He groaned against me, slid a finger over my skin, and licked over my clit in a tight circle.
His mouth came off me—I actually cried out in protest—and he leaned over me, pressing a kiss to my stomach, sucking so hard it would leave a mark. His arms were braced against the counter, his forearms flexed, his biceps like rocks, and I could see that he was working hard for his control. I reached down and wound my fingers in his hair, pulling it.
He lifted his head, and our gazes locked for one long, perfectly dirty moment. Then he stood as I pulled myself up off the counter. I put my arms around his neck as he gripped my hips, and he picked me up, wrapping my legs around him. He carried me like I was weightless, and we stayed locked together as he carried me to the sofa. When I kissed him I caught the tang of my own flavor on his tongue.
He put me on my back on the sofa, bracing himself over me. I dropped my hands impatiently to his jeans and began undoing them, and he let me as he kissed me again, his tongue stroking me. I didn’t even want to feel him through his boxers. I undid his jeans and pushed them down hard, hooking my fingers in his underwear, too.
He lifted off me to pull his clothes all the way off, and then he swore softly. “Wait a second.” He groped on the floor for his discarded jeans, pulled out his wallet, and pulled a condom from it. Thank God he carried one, because if I even had a condom, it was probably expired. He dropped his jeans again and ripped the package open while I just stared.
I’d seen his cock before. I remembered it very, very well. But I watched it, hypnotized. It was freaking gorgeous. It was massive, and beautiful, and hard as marble. My body reacted to just the sight of it, my muscles relaxing, my
knees falling open.
Jason rolled the condom on, then braced himself over me on the cushions again. “My eyes are up here, you know,” he said, tilting my chin, looking down at me, grinning.
Oh, he was such an asshole. I reached up and pulled him down to me, one hand on the back of his neck. With the other hand I traced the perfect, flawless line of his lower lip. “Just shut up and fuck me with that thing,” I said.
“I live to serve,” he said, and leaned down and bit my lip as he tilted my hips with one hand and slid into me.
I arched my back beneath him. “Oh, my fucking God.”
He lifted one arm and grabbed the arm of the sofa, shoving into me harder, burying his face in my neck. “Perfect,” he said. “Fucking perfect.”
I reached down and dug my fingers into his amazing ass. “More,” I panted.
“All of it?”
“Yes. Yes.”
He flexed his hips and shoved into me harder, all the way. It was huge and hard and I was so drenched that it fit in me without a hitch. It stretched me, burned me a little, the slight pain only adding to the overwhelming pleasure. He paused for a second, taking stock of me, and then he started to move.
I had never felt anything so good in my life. Everything flew away from me—every worry, every stupid distraction, every self-defeating thought, it all disappeared and I did nothing but feel, nothing but be. I could feel his body on mine, the rasp of his stubble and his breath against my neck. I could see the perfect line of his bicep where he braced himself on the arm of the couch. I could smell his skin, mixed now with the sweat that was breaking out on his neck, on the slick skin of his chest. I could hear the couch creaking as he pounded into me.
“Don’t stop,” I begged him, digging my fingernails into his ass. I had no concern for my dignity anymore. “Don’t you dare stop.”
“Come,” he rasped in my ear. “I mean it. As hard as you fucking can.”
I didn’t have to tell him that I was already halfway there. “Jason—I can’t—I think I—Oh, God.”
His big hand was on my hip, digging into my flesh, and he held me hard, angling me as he stroked into me. “Like that,” he said. “Just like that. Fuck. Fuck.”
I flexed up into him, and he hit that perfect spot, and then I was coming, my body riding his as every part of me sparked with pleasure, as my muscles squeezed and my head dropped back and I gasped, inhaling. He rode me through it, and then he came with the hottest, most incredible sound in his throat, every muscle of his perfect body tensing on mine, his hand holding me still, his other hand bracing himself above me. My reaction was instinctive and possessive, my legs twining over the backs of his thighs, my palms gripping him hard. Mine.
Slowly he relaxed, exhaling, the muscles loosening in his arm where he braced himself above me. He moved his other hand from my hip and propped himself on his elbows, looking down at me, his brown eyes clearing, sweat in his tousled hair.
I was boneless, my knees flung open, my head sinking back into the cushions, catching my breath. He was still inside me, and though he’d lifted his upper half off of me, his hips were still on mine, pressing me down like hot wax.
It was a minute before I realized a smile had touched the corners of his lips.
“What?” I said. My voice sounded breathy and hot, like a nightclub singer’s.
Jason dipped his head down and brushed his lips over mine. “Your hands are still on my ass,” he said.
He was right; I was still grabbing him like my life depended on it, and I didn’t even know it. I loosened my grip and dropped my hands, feeling his smile against my mouth.
“I hate you,” I said.
He just laughed, a silent vibration in his perfect chest and stomach. “Admit it,” he said. “Every part of me turns you on.”
I closed my eyes. He was right.
I was tough. I could deal with my mother’s sickness and death, my father’s checking out, my shitty job situation, my lack of prospects, my warped genes. I could handle anything, and I could do it alone. But I had one weakness. One big, massive, muscled weakness, and it was currently between my legs.
Jason Carsleigh was my kryptonite.
And as of now, he knew it.
Eleven
Jason
“Hey, man, what did you do?” Shark said, looking me up and down with narrowed eyes. “You look different.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, zipping up my black warmup jacket that said SECURITY on the back. Prepping for another night at Zoot Bar.
“You lose weight?” Shark asked, stepping back. We were standing next to the bar, which was empty of customers since it was still early. “Get new clothes?”
“Dude, I saw you two days ago,” I said. “There’s no way I lost weight. And we always wear the same fucking jacket.”
Shark’s eyes narrowed, like somehow he thought I was having him on. “If you say so. Whatever. You’re on Puke Patrol first.”
When he walked away I turned to see Edie, the bartender, leaning on her side of the bar and smiling at me.
“What?” I asked her.
She winked one mascaraed eye, her long hair glossy under the nightclub lights. “You have a girl,” she said knowingly.
“There’s no girl.”
“Sure there is,” she said. “I can tell. You got laid, Carsleigh.”
I sighed. “There is no possible way you can see that.”
“Not precisely, but you look different.” She tilted her head. “Hotter. It’s like it gave you some kind of hotness superpower.”
It did? “I don’t know what that is, but if you say I have it, I’m stoked.”
“Is she cute?”
I stared at the ceiling, trying not to think of Megan, who was definitely cute, especially when she was moaning out an orgasm. One time. It was just one time, and that was all. “There is no girl.”
“See, I’d say it was a one-night stand,” Edie went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “except you’re not that kind of guy. One-night stands don’t give guys a hotness superpower. Cute girls do. I’m a bartender—I know this stuff.”
“This is crazy,” I said, for the first time wishing I could just go to the back and start Puke Patrol. “You don’t know anything about me. Maybe I’m a one-night stand guy.” I looked around at the club, which was slowly filling with a few knots of people around the edges. “I could pick up a girl in here anytime I want.” The girls in here were younger than me, and they were mostly drunk, which would make it ultra creepy, but it was still technically true.
“That’s how I know you’re not that guy,” Edie said with perfect logic. “Still, you look like something took the edge off, and it wasn’t porn. Don’t worry, it looks good on you. Just don’t wander too close to the bachelorette party we’re expecting tonight, or they might rip your clothes off.”
I winced. “Oh, no. I haven’t seen a bachelorette party in here yet.”
Edie shook her head. “They’re awful, just awful. Rowdy and shrill, and their tips stink. At least one of them will throw up, guaranteed. Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll shove dollar bills down your pants.”
“I hate this fucking job,” I said.
“You think?” Edie’s eyebrow arched. “Welcome to my life.”
I wandered toward the back, glad to be away from her observant scrutiny, glad that the place was dimly lit. The fact was, I felt different. The sex session on Megan’s couch had made me more comfortable in my skin, less on edge, less jittery. It had also made me horny as hell. There was no way I wanted to do that only once with her, and I thought she felt the same. She’d gone nuts for me on that couch, every time I touched her, like she couldn’t get enough. Like once wouldn’t do it for her either.
But of course, being Megan, she had to give me shit.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through our text history. I’d texted her the next day: If you want a repeat, I’ll consider it. Let me know. I couldn’t resist needling her a little, but it was a sincere off
er. The truth was, she could text me the word Now and I’d drop whatever the hell I was doing and go.
Her reply was immediate, and emphatic: NEVER.
That reminded me of the line about the lady protesting too much, so I’d replied: You sure about that? I can go all night, you know.
FORGET IT, she typed back. Then, a few seconds later: Also, that’s a lie!!
Try me, I wrote.
She didn’t answer that, so the next day I texted her again: Waiting.
Her reply, again, was immediate. NOPE.
I make you type in all caps, I wrote back. You like me.
I type in all caps because you make me INSANE.
I wrote: Megan, I still have nail marks on my ass. You can’t lie to me.
She didn’t answer that one, either.
I was just wondering what to say to her this time when the phone buzzed in my hand.
What are you doing right now? Megan wrote.
I suppressed a grin. Working, I typed. You missed your chance tonight.
That isn’t why I asked, she wrote after a minute.
And then: Really
It was my turn not to answer. I put the phone in my pocket.
It was Tuesday night, and as the club picked up I found I was looking forward to Thursday, when our trip started. Not just the potential for sex—I didn’t see how we’d keep our hands off each other for five days, but I’d play that by ear—but because I needed to get away. From this town, from my mother’s house, from this bar, from my life. I’d never taken a real vacation. I’d traveled while I was in the Marines, but the last thing deployment is is a fucking vacation. And since I’d been home, the slide of my life into the shitter had been grim. A weekend away was a bright spot, and despite everything, I found that Megan was the person I looked forward to seeing. Maybe it was because she didn’t know me as well as my friends and my family did, so I could be someone else with her. Maybe it was because, due to our screwed-up history, she expected basically nothing of me.