by Serena Bell
“You’re a better kisser than you were when we were kids,” he said against my ear a moment later, clutching me to him as we both panted.
“So are you.”
He kissed me again, bit my lip. I yelped. Then he bit it again and licked the spot he’d bitten. The scrap of fabric between my legs was damp, and not from lake water. He confirmed this with a hand that slid down my bare belly and into my bikini bottom without waiting for permission. He groaned quietly. He looked up, as if remembering for the first time that we were more or less in public—too far from the mob to be obvious, but definitely within visual range.
“Follow me,” he said, tugging a little on my arm.
“Where?”
“There’s another boathouse, a little ways…”
I should tell Mia.
I shouldn’t go.
I need to walk away. Now.
I made a decision.
He led me over the sand, through a short stand of trees, and sure enough there was another structure there, just out of view. He got me inside the door before he began kissing me again and pressed me hard against the wall, pinning me with his hips so I could barely wriggle enough to get the friction I now desperately needed. I was out of control, drunk, wretched, and so, so, so elated to be kissing Jack Parker I could barely stand it. He smelled like himself, like clean soap and the indefinable scent of his skin, and like lake water and beer, and I was lapping it up, all of it, my tongue sliding along his, unstoppable, my whimpers and moans caught in his mouth. I was writhing in his arms, that’s how turned on I was.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he said. “I knew you would be. I dreamed you just like this.”
Which was funny to me because I’d never been like this before with anyone, so for him to have dreamed me like this when I didn’t even know I had it in me—how did that make any sense?
I was the one who slid his swim trunks down and wrapped my hand around him, satisfyingly, hugely, Jack. I was the one who pulled at the ties behind my neck so he could get his mouth on my nipples, the one who wriggled my bikini bottom down.
He was the one who hoisted me against the boathouse wall and—hesitating only long enough to ask if I was on the Pill and to promise me he’d never in his life had sex without a condom—took me in a single, deep thrust that—swear to God—made me come, with huge, convulsive, grabby spasms that I could feel all through my belly and breasts and tongue and fingers and toes and internal organs.
He covered my mouth with his hand so people wouldn’t hear us all the way back at the beach and fucked me until he came, rigid, head thrown back and mouth open in a silent, triumphant shout.
Chapter 16
It’s not that I’m mad at Maddie for trying to convince me that I’m smarter than I think I am. It’s that I just don’t understand what she expects of me. Maybe I’m not a lost cause, but I’m not the kind of guy she thinks I am, either. I’m not the guy who’s going to start his own business and grow it into an empire and live in one of the big houses he built. I’m just Jack, and I’m sorry if that’s a disappointment to her, but that’s how it is.
So I do what any guy would do in my shoes. I change the subject. “You pick the genre. And I’ll pick the movie. Or the other way around. I pick the genre, you pick the movie.”
She nods. I’m not sure what the look on her face is. I think I’ve made her feel bad, which was sort of what I set out to do, but now I’m not sure it was really what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was say, Thank you. For bothering to hold on to your faith in me even though I didn’t earn it.
But then I remember that in the end, she didn’t. Not really. Not when it mattered.
“You pick the genre,” she says.
“Sports.”
She rolls her eyes, thinks for a minute, then smiles slyly. When she smiles like that, I want to kiss the smile off her face. “Bend It Like Beckham.”
She was the one who originally made me watch that movie, so she’s pretty much just messing with me. “That’s not a sports movie.”
She gives me a look. “You made the rules.”
“Okay, okay.”
We find it on Netflix and camp out on the couch. She’s at one end, I’m at the other, with acres of room between us. I can’t help being disappointed. “Accidental” contact during movies is something I will probably still be chasing even when I am crushing on some ninety-year-old lady in the nursing home.
“You mind if I—?” she asks, around the time Jess lies to Joe and tells him her parents know she’s been playing soccer. As she asks it, she hoists her feet up onto the couch, with her knees up so she’s still not touching me.
A little later I feel the bottoms of her feet against my thigh, and a little after that, I scoop her feet up and rest them on my thigh, and then, because that’s actually kind of painful, her heels digging into the muscle, I slide toward her and loop her legs over mine so if I wanted to, I could rest my crossed arms on her knees.
As Jules catches Joe and Jess leaning into their first kiss, I start watching Maddie instead of the movie. She’s just so—into it. Big-eyed, emotions moving over her face, mouth parting and closing as if she’s about to kiss, about to speak. A frown. A smile.
She’s way more interesting than the movie. I could watch her all night, the sparkle in her eyes, the softness of that lower lip.
And then she catches me in the act. She grabs the remote and hits pause.
“What?” she demands.
“You’re just…” I’m not good with words. I’ve never been good with words. “I’m sorry.”
But she doesn’t hit play again. She just sits there, holding the remote, looking at me like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve.
“Jack,” she says finally. “Why did you stop talking to me? After you kissed me in the basement?”
I was so not expecting that. We’ve never talked about it. And I had no idea that if she brought it up, I would feel like this, like I’m walking on a tightrope.
“That was fourteen years ago.”
“I know, but I’ve always wanted to know.”
“I just—I was thirteen. Who knows why thirteen-year-old guys do anything? Why not ask me why I kissed you in the first place?”
“Why did you kiss me in the first place?”
Oh, Jesus, I’m an idiot. “Maddie.”
She pins me with her gaze.
“Because I was a teenager and you were a girl and we were in an enclosed space,” I lie. Or, well, not lie precisely, but conveniently simplify.
She looks disappointed. And honestly, I’m kind of disappointed in myself. Here we are, watching a movie where people keep lying about stuff, and I’m doing it too. So I take a deep breath and man up.
“I liked you.” My voice sounds defensive, even to me. “I kissed you because I liked you. I wanted to show you how much.”
I’ve become a student of her expressions, watching her while she watches the movie, but this one is new. So soft and open I want to look away, like she’s too vulnerable and it hurts to see it.
“I liked you, too,” she says, and even though it’s one of those phrases that can mean anything or nothing, my gut knows she means it in the anything way. “So how come you didn’t talk to me after—?”
“I was a thirteen-year-old boy,” I say firmly. “I was embarrassed. And then—”
I stop, abruptly.
“Then your dad left.” She supplies it quietly. Gently.
“Then my dad left.”
“And?”
She’s always been like this. Direct. Asking questions I don’t want to answer, making me face things I don’t want to think about.
And everything fell apart. And the last thing I wanted was for Maddie to tell me it wasn’t my fault and it was all going to be okay when I knew it was and it wouldn’t be.
“There was too much shit,” I say, because that’s the truth, too, the simple truth.
She nods.
Then she picks up the remote control a
nd starts the movie again. And I’m like—Wait!
But I don’t know what I still need to say, or how I’d say it, even if I knew exactly what it was.
We watch the rest of the movie and then she gets up from the couch and says, “Good night, Jack. That was really fun. Thanks for suggesting it.”
And I say, “It was fun. Thanks for hanging out with me.”
One last note on Bend It Like Beckham. I don’t remember this movie being this stressful to watch the last time I saw it, which was admittedly a million years ago.
I don’t remember it being so hard to watch two people who obviously care so much about each other have such a hard time showing it.
Chapter 17
Saturday is my long day at work, and by the time I get home, Gabe is asleep in his bed and Jack is asleep on the couch in front of the television. I turn off the TV and the overhead light and throw a blanket over Jack. Asleep, his face is peaceful, his lashes absurdly long. He looks so much like Gabe that it makes my chest ache.
Maybe it’s impossible not to have feelings for the man who contributed half the genes in your perfect child? Maybe the fact that I can’t get Jack out of my blood is as much about gratitude for Gabe as anything else?
Without thinking about it, I press a quick kiss to Jack’s forehead, the way I do when I come in at night to check on Gabe.
I feel the electric thrum he gives off before my lips even touch his skin. And then there’s the smell of his skin and the ghost of his aftershave, both scents hard-wired directly between my legs. I practically jump back.
Yeah. The way Jack makes me feel? Definitely not only about his genetic contribution to my beautiful son.
I hurry down the hall, resisting the urge to look around guiltily, as if someone might have seen either the kiss or the chemical reaction it set off. I shed my work clothes, climb into bed, and crash like a ton of bricks. I don’t even remember turning off the light.
I wake to a rare, violent spring thunderstorm.
Here’s the thing. When I said that thunderstorms freaked me out, I meant thunderstorms freak me out. Like, still.
I know, I know. It’s totally juvenile. You’re supposed to get over thunderstorms when you get over volcanoes and tsunamis, but instead they ended up filed under Spiders and Snakes. Permanently stuck in my head as grounds for panic.
It’s not rational. I don’t actually think thunder is going to strike Jack’s house and sizzle through his electrical system and burn out our brains.
Still, even at age twenty-six, every time there’s a close clap of thunder, especially if it’s almost right on top of the lightning, as it is right now, I go into this hard-core adrenaline overload and get frozen and shaky.
The one thing stronger than my shock and terror is my worry for my kid, so I drag myself out of bed and creep down the hall to check on Gabe. He’s sleeping straight through the racket, sacked out with his limbs flailed. I retrieve his covers from where he’s flung them and tuck him in, and he barely stirs. I kiss his cheek and turn to head back down the hall.
Two things happen in rapid succession. Lightning flashes, illuminating a ghostly human figure in the hallway, and then, almost immediately, there is a clap of thunder.
The figure rushes toward me.
I scream, but since my throat has closed up, it’s more like a squeak.
“For fuck’s sake, Maddie!” says the ghost, “you haven’t learned anything in sixteen years, have you?”
It’s Jack, of course, and his arms are around me. I’m panting and clutching him and he’s laughing—laughing—at me.
“It’s not funny!” I cry.
But his laughter is contagious and his arms are tight and warm, and then I’m laughing too, the two of us hugging and shaking with hilarity. He sleeps in just those stupid pajama pants, so the bare skin of my arms is flush with the hot skin of his bare torso, and wow, the heat and charge pouring off him could set me on fire.
Suddenly neither of us is laughing. We cling to each other and his breath is as fast and shallow as mine. He adjusts his position to bring the whole length of my body in line with his.
He feels so good. So warm, so fiercely alive, so strong and safe.
And then his head dips and his mouth finds mine.
“Oh, fuck,” he says, almost immediately, by which I think he means Oh my God this is good, but there’s no time to ask him because he’s kissing me again, like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted and like he’s never going to let me go, and I’m drowning in how good he tastes and feels.
He pulls away. “We can’t do this here.”
I clutch both his arms to prevent him from pulling away, which makes him laugh again.
“I didn’t say we can’t do this. I just said we can’t do it here.” He scoops me up and carries me down the hall, depositing me in my bed. I don’t know if it’s the terror or the relief or the fact that it’s the middle of the night and it might be a dream, but I let it happen. He fastens the latch on the door, and for a split second I hate what that latch implies about Jack’s extracurriculars, but then I don’t care at all. I’m just grateful it’s there.
He comes back to the bed. He hesitates, then, and I’m afraid he’s going to stop us, now that I’ve decided I don’t want him to, but he just says, “What the hell are we going to do with you, Maddie Adams?”
It’s a rhetorical question, because he seems to know exactly what he wants to do with me. He climbs over me, one knee on each side, lowers himself to his elbows, and begins kissing me again, his mouth softer now, exploring, teasing, stroking. Each touch echoes in other parts of my body so I light up all over.
The hum of his moan vibrates through my lips and my tongue, through all my nerves, and his weight settles between my legs, the length of him there, the thickness and hardness, and I can feel that he’s holding himself in check, wanting to move against me, but neither of us wants this to end too fast. So I hold still, too, under him, even though my body is aching, calling out to his. Instead, I touch him with my fingertips everywhere I can reach, all that bareness mine, the groove of his spine, the curve of his ass under the pajama pants, my hands so greedy for the heat and silk of him.
He’s worked both hands under my T-shirt, and when he finds my breasts bare, he makes a noise halfway between a grunt and a groan and catches my nipples in his fingers, then pushes the T-shirt up over my head and buries his face in my breasts. The roughness of his stubble and the hot, wet softness of his mouth wreck me. I’m all sensation, lost to the pinch and flick and swirl of his teeth and tongue. I don’t even realize that I’m tipping my hips to get more of him until he puts a hand on my hip bone and gently pushes down, scolding, “Be patient.”
“Can’t. Jack—”
He kisses me again and I’m moaning into his mouth, trying to thrust against him. One of his hands finds the waistband of my sweatpants and works them down between us, so it’s just my teeny-tiny panties, those flimsy pajamas pants, and the magic of Jack. I slide a hand under the elastic of his pants and find him. The heft, the solidity, the rare wonder of chamois-soft skin over steel, sends more slick heat to my core. “Mmmm, Jack. You’re big.”
“I’ve been told,” he says, the words a groan.
I swirl a thumb through the slickness he’s shed for me, around the sensitive head, and he bucks. He grabs my wrist in his big hand and removes my hand. “Stop that.”
“I want to touch you.”
“Well, I want to fuck you and I’m not going to last long enough if you keep that up. What do you think of that?” he murmurs against my ear, his breath lighting me up.
A few hours ago I was sure I wasn’t going to let anything like this happen. A few minutes ago I was planning to call a halt at naked groping.
Now there is no doubt at all in my mind what I want.
“I want you to.”
“You want me to what?” he demands.
I shake my head.
“Say it.”
“I want you to fuck me,
” I whisper.
“Again.”
His voice is rough, a groan, and it sends a sharp, hot thrill through me. “I want you to fuck me.”
“Tell me I’m big again.”
That makes me groan. “You are. You’re big, and you’re going to feel really good inside me—”
“Oh my God, Maddie—”
“So you should probably go get a condom right now.”
He has that glazed, lost look that tells me he is in no shape for higher reasoning, so I instruct him: “There’s a box in my bottom dresser drawer.”
He stumbles over himself in his haste, which makes me laugh, and then, once he’s retrieved the prize, he stands at the side of the bed and tears the packet open.
“Gimme.” I hold my hand out.
I roll it on while he watches, his eyes narrowed to slits, teeth gritted. He throbs under my touch.
Then I reach up and he tumbles back into my arms, kissing and kissing me, slick, dark, fine. I don’t know how long we kiss for, skin sliding against skin, because I’m lost in my own hunger, in his rough breathing, in the press of his thigh between mine.
He slides a hand down my belly and slips his fingers between my legs, where he finds me swollen and eager.
“Mmm,” he says, playing a little. Trailing his fingers through the wet heat there, teasing my clit with the slightest touch, while I try to tip my hips up to get more contact, more sensation.
“Jack.”
“Yeah.”
“Please.”
That makes him grin.
“Please what?”
“Please fuck me.”
He braces himself up on those amazing sculpted arms, his chest filling my visual field with that absurd golden male beauty of his, and I guide him to me.
He stops there.
“Don’t tease.”
“I’m. Not. Teasing,” he says with difficulty. “I’m trying not to embarrass myself.”
And then he eases into me, just the head. The sensation of being penetrated by him makes me gasp, it’s so good, the pressure and the heat and the sheer, unbeatable thickness.
I whimper. “Now you’re teasing.”