by Ashley Drew
Call it a juvenile move; we’re also not in high school anymore. But there’s just something about doing it that tempts me, as if marking her would give me some sort of validation that she belongs to me, and everyone would know it. Before I change my mind and act upon instinct rather than reason, I reluctantly pull my lips off her neck, only to hear her release what sounds like a frustrated whimper.
“God, you really know how to tease a girl, don’t you?” she says with a smirk, eyeing my lips like a feral cat ready to lunge at a mouse. We’re already wading in some pretty deep shit, but if she keeps looking at me that way, we may as well be swimming in it.
“Someone has to be the levelheaded one here, but in case you haven’t noticed,” I start, kneading my hands into her waist so roughly my fingers probably leave red imprints on her skin, “you’re making that extremely difficult for me.”
“If eighteen-year-old Cori was here, I think she’d tell you to go for it. And not hold anything back,” she declares, her eyes still focused on my mouth.
“If eighteen-year-old Cori was here, I’d probably be deemed a pervert.”
She giggles at my attempt at humor as she flips her hair to the side and renders her gaze to me. “Pervert, no. Chicken shit, yes.”
I bring my hand up and tuck one side of her hair behind her ear. I brush the other side back with my fingers, making Cori’s eyes grow heavy with need. It’s the little motions like these that I’ve looked forward to for so long. Of course, the lip-to-lip action speaks for itself. But this? There’s more intimacy in this simple gesture than in a million lust-filled kisses.
“I must say, though, eighteen-year-old Cori was insanely hot.”
She scoffs and gently pushes at my chest, releasing me from the grip of her legs and causing me to stumble back a foot. “Was? I know we’re talking in the third person here, but I didn’t realize we were talking in the past tense, too. Ass!”
Chuckling, I realize how she interpreted my comment, and throw my hands up in surrender. “All I can say is that she put eighteen-year-old Nicholas through the longest, sexually-frustrated hell.”
Even under the glow of the red light, it’s easy to see how my comment makes her blush. It was a little forward, but at this point, why hold anything back?
“All joking aside,” I say, stepping in between her legs and placing each one back around me where they were before. She doesn’t resist. “Eighteen-year-old Cori was definitely hot. The center of every boy’s fantasy, which unfortunately, I had to bear witness to.” The thought of Aiden and Chase comes to mind and still drives me fucking crazy. “But you? Now? Stunning. Radiant. A goddamn knockout,” I unabashedly admit, placing a kiss between each adjective—one below her left ear, one below her right, and one at the base of her throat. “And instead of a boy’s fantasy...every man’s desire.”
And like that, the mood transitions from lighthearted back to serious, and my lips continue their ravenous pursuit of hers. I pick her up and carry her to my bedroom, her flip-flops falling to the floor as soon as she lands on the bed. There isn’t anything sexier than the image of Cori and the way her entire body softly bounces off the mattress when she hits it. If I wasn’t so eager to get her beneath me, I might pick her up and toss her on the bed again, just so I can sear the moment into my memory. Her hands grab tight fistfuls of my shirt and yank me into her body so hard, I should have whiplash by now, but the only pain I feel is the painfully good ache growing viciously between my legs. I’m pretty sure Cori can feel it, too.
Shirts and shoes come off, and when my fingertips barely touch the smooth surface of her waist, I go fucking nuts. I begin to ravage her, channeling my inner Jekyll and Hyde, caressing her one second like she’s the most delicate thing on earth, and then clawing at her the next, as if it’s the last time I feel her this way again. If Cori had to choose one, I bet she’d go for Hyde—rough and wild—because every time my fingers dig into her, I can practically taste her moan as it pulsates against my lips. When my fingers find the small, jagged line on the right side of her torso, forever scarred into her skin, I break my mouth away from hers to lay a gentle kiss on it.
I lift myself and hover over her, taking a second to soak in the sight of Cori lying beneath me. Her wavy brown locks sprawled messily beneath her head. The rosy tint of her cheeks. Her lust-filled brown eyes. Her swollen lips. The trail of ivory skin that runs from the dip in her neck all the way down the valley of her perfect chest, under her lacy black bra, crossing the plateau over her belly button, and finally disappearing under the waistband of her jean shorts.
I’ve heard seasoned photographers say that you haven’t captured real beauty until you’ve seen the places and sights they have. Glow Worm Cave in New Zealand, the Northern Lights, the Maldives, to name a few. All perfectly good examples of some of the most breathtaking sights in the world, I’m sure. But they’re wrong.
You see, I could die tomorrow, without ever seeing any of those places, and I would have seen it all. Because this…right here…lying in front of me, is the most breathtaking sight I could possibly ever see.
Torturing my lips long enough, I bury my face in Cori’s neck. The feel of her bare skin against mine is electrifying, and when she brings her arms around my back and starts to drag her fingertips up and down it, she sends a jolt to every nerve in my body, making my lips, hot-blooded and wanting, move furiously along her neck. She hitches one leg up, a silent plea to invite me in closer. I slide my hand to the waistband of her shorts, unsnapping the brass button and tugging the zipper down, because the only way we could possibly get any closer is if we—
“Wait,” Cori commands through her heavy breaths, her voice whipping my hand away from her shorts. I reluctantly part my lips from her neck and look up. My eyes move with hers toward the nightstand on the right side of the bed that’s stacked high with bridal magazines, adorned with a clear vase full of wilting pink and white peonies, and decorated with a photo of Riley and me in a wooden frame.
I roll onto my side as Cori pushes herself from beneath me and sits at the edge of the bed. She looks torn, and it’s strange the way human emotions work—to go from a hundred to zero, absolute to uncertain, in a matter of seconds.
“We can’t do this. Not right now. If we do, then I wouldn’t be any better than my—” she hesitates. “I’d be the biggest hypocrite.”
I rise up from the bed and face her. “The situations are completely different, Cori. You and me...there’s history. I’m not justifying what we’re doing here because considering our circumstances, we’ve definitely crossed a boundary tonight. But I can’t say it’s wrong.” I take her hand in mine, bringing it up to my lips and planting a soft kiss on it. “Because everything about it feels so right.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, a look of hope glazed across each one. She eyes my naked chest up and down, and I see the need return. “God, my body is screaming at me right now,” she admits, giggling.
She has no idea. “You’re telling me.”
Cori stands from the bed, causing my paranoia to kick in. My breath grows tight as I hold it in. I’d hate it if she left, but would understand. If she needs time to process everything, I’ll give her the space she needs. I’ll give it to her because I love her. More than anything. More than anyone.
But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she extends her hand out in front of her, offering it to me. “Can you just hold me tonight? Like how you used to? I just need you to hold me. Can you do that?”
And just like that, I can breathe again. She doesn’t need to ask twice.
I take her hand as she leads us out of my bedroom. What we’re doing, it isn’t sex but it isn’t innocent either, and not that lying together almost half-naked on the couch in the living room is any better, but sleeping in a bed I share with another woman doesn’t seem right.
I lie down first, and Cori follows, snuggling into my body as she drapes a leg over me and buries her face into my neck, the way she always would before. I trace my free hand up and
down her arm, across her bare stomach and back, breathing in her scent of vanilla with every caress of her skin while my smile brushes the top of her head.
And we stay like this until we finally succumb to sleep.
I had hoped to use this fishing excursion with Dad and Jamie today as a distraction. That my mind would be occupied with all of the baiting and the hooking and the reeling and all the other -ings of fishing, that I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else.
Fact is, there isn’t anything to do other than think while you wait for some poor fish to be fooled into its demise, all because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nibbling at my thumbnail, I stare blankly across the Monterey Bay as the horizon rocks steadily up and down with the flow of the tide. It’s a good thing I don’t get seasick. Otherwise, I’d probably be yakking over the side of this boat right now.
“Something on your mind, kiddo?” Dad asks as he removes his hat, squinting when the twelve o’clock sun pokes his eyes. With the back of his hand, he swipes away the moisture glistening across his forehead, and then flips the hat back over his head.
“No, not really,” I say, my response questionable and pathetic, considering I’ve always been able to talk my way through situations. Apparently, my expertise is lacking today.
“You sure about that? You seem distracted.”
Funnily enough, that happens to be the underlying goal of the day: finding a distraction which will distract my thoughts away from the very source causing my distraction. That’s a shit load of distraction, and still not nearly enough.
“Distracted? No. Just waiting to catch something,” I say, monotonous, forcing a smile and shrugging my shoulders innocently.
Aren’t I the Queen of Bullshit? I ought to be stripped of that title. I glance over at Dad and Jamie in hopes they haven’t caught on to me, but who am I kidding? A toddler would see right through my crap, and the kid wouldn’t even be toilet-trained.
“Actually, Corinne, I’ve had to bait your hook twice now,” Jamie tells me. “It looks like you might have yourself some beginner’s luck. Your line has had a couple of good catches.” He points to the large white bucket next to him.
Have I been that far gone I hadn’t realized this? Baffled, I half-stand from my seat and lean over to look inside the bucket. Well, would you look at that? In the bucket are two decently-sized fish, reddish-orange in color and sporting a mohawk-looking thing along their backs.
“Their eyes are freakishly huge,” I observe, sitting back down. Other than that, I show very little interest, and not because I’m entirely uninterested, but because I’m more interested in thinking about Nick and his incredible lips. Lord, those amazing lips. Warm to the touch, yet they made me shiver in all the right places. Those perfectly toned arms, wrapping their way over and under me. And those hands, rough around the edges but tender to the touch, signs of a man who works day in and day out but knows exactly how to satisfy a woman’s needs at night.
How would I know, right? We didn’t actually get that far. Despite my lack of knowledge in Going to Bed with Nicholas Kelley 101, I’m about ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that Nick would have no problem in that subject.
Fine. I’m a hundred-and-one percent sure. As the course suggests.
“Can I ask you something, kiddo?” My eyes meet Dad’s inquisitive gaze. “And you can tell me if I’m prying because I don’t want to be that father, the annoying one who pries,” he stutters.
Our recently repaired relationship is still so fresh, like mortar laid between bricks, holding it all together, yet still not completely sturdy. One clumsy move, and the entire structure collapses to the ground until it is, once again, nothing but a pile of brick. It’s obvious why he’d approach anything involving me with caution.
“Thanks, because I already have a mother who does that,” I tease with a wink.
“She wouldn’t be Evelyn if she didn’t!” He grins, but it is quickly washed away by the serious undertones in his eyes. “When we were in the kitchen early this morning, we noticed you pulling into the driveway. Were you out all night?”
As soon as he asks, the boat begins to rock heavily with the waves, teetering up and down while my answer teeters on the tip of my tongue.
“I…” I drag out the word before the completion of my thought rolls off my tongue and dives head first into the admission pool, “…was.” It’s the longest, shortest sentence ever.
“I assumed after we retreated to bed last night, you had too.”
I bring my thumb to my mouth, my teeth clawing at my fingernail. Surprisingly, there is still nail to chew on. “That was the plan. And then Nick showed up at my door.”
“I’m glad you two have found a way to reconnect after all these years.”
Boy, if Dad only knew the ways in which Nick and I have reconnected, he’d probably feel otherwise. Lips. Tongues. Nick’s hands on my ass. God, my dad is talking to me, and all I can think about are Nick’s lips and hands ravaging me.
“Where did you two end up going? Don’t tell me you partied at the pub again. I don’t know how you kids do it.”
“We didn’t go to the pub.”
His eyebrows furrow. “If not the pub, then…”
A water-rippling silence settles in because I can’t really say I was at Nick’s place all night, can I? Although we’ve spent countless platonic nights in each other’s beds when we were younger, the circumstances have drastically changed, and I’d look more like a two-timing tramp than some girl sleeping in her best guy friend’s bed. Well, technically I didn’t sleep in his bed; we slept on his couch. So, that doesn’t make it too bad, right?
The longer I stay silent, the more the answer becomes obvious that we were definitely not at the pub. And if not the pub, where else could we have gone that I’d be out into the wee hours of the morning? Why can’t I think of a good story right now? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me? I used to be so good at this shit.
Thankfully, the conversation is interrupted when my line starts to move. I’m off the hook for now. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for this fish.
I spend the next sixty minutes of the ride back home in a battle with myself, contemplating if a rendezvous with Nick is in order, but I also know how dangerous that could end up for us.
Dangerous. Since when do I turn down danger? My body craves it, and I’ve suppressed the hunger far too long because all it wants is to be fed. I’ve been practically starving for six years. It’s no wonder I haven’t felt this alive in so long.
When we make it back home, night has fallen. I quickly say goodnight to Dad and Jamie and run straight for the guest house to freshen up. But I come to a halt in the middle of the lawn when a familiar scene unfolds before me.
A silhouette hovers over my doorstep, and my mouth immediately curls into a huge smile. With a skip in my walk and an extra skip to my heart, I move toward him, a swarm of butterflies fluttering wildly within my stomach. But as I inch closer, the silhouette becomes clearer, more defined. The moon shares only a glimmer of its light, but it’s enough for me to fight the darkness and see the person behind the shadow.
I’m guessing it’s not normal to feel disappointment when your fiancé unexpectedly shows up out of nowhere, and is suddenly sitting on your doorstep.
When I was eleven, I had appendicitis and was admitted to the hospital for a few days. It’s one of the few times that I’ve cried, like truly cried. And not from the pain, or the scalpel that had cut me open, or the wound that would leave an ugly scar forever on my waist.
That was all relatively minor to my misery when hospital policy forbade Nick to visit me, since he was under twelve years and not an immediate family member. Something about germs and bacteria, and blah, blah, blah. I had appendicitis, not the Black Plague.
But later that night, after the lights went down, the hospital corridors grew quiet, and my puffy eyelids began to grow heavy with sleep, that pain subsided when I heard the light patter
of footsteps crossing the linoleum floor, followed by the feel of the bed dipping behind me.
Somehow, someway, Nick had made it to me. He hadn’t cared that he had to ride his bike across town in the dark, nor did he care about some stupid rule that some stupid hospital board director made up. He hadn’t cared that he was sweating and panting by the time he’d made it to my room because he had to dodge hospital staff on the way up, running and hiding behind doors and desks and anything that could shield him from being seen. He’d actually enjoyed that part, pretending to be some sort of secret agent on a mission to save his comrade who was chained in a tower by an evil mad scientist scheming to take over the world.
He’d held me all night, my head tucked into the crook of his neck, and his arm draped across me. The way he’d always held me before, and the way he’d always held me thereafter. The way he’d held me the other night on his sofa, and the way I’ve never let Cooper hold me.
Ever.
As daylight breaks, the Monday morning sun pours through the wooden blinds, and I can tell today is going to be a hot one. I wake up to the feel of my tank top sticking to my moist skin and Cooper’s warm breath on the back of my neck. That’s how we always sleep, my back to his front. He once asked me why I sleep this way, with my back to him. I said it was for comfort, that I had always been a side-sleeper, and though I enjoyed our bodies passionately tangled in one another, when it came time to sleep, I needed my side of the bed to myself. See, I told you. Queen of Bullshit.
Cooper shifts his weight as he presses a trail of kisses starting from my neck all the way to the curve of my shoulder, but the kisses aren’t the only thing he’s pressing against me.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, planting kisses along my back.
My eyes are still closed, but I’m wide awake. I didn’t sleep much—if at all—especially after I couldn’t pick up Nick’s call last night. How could I, when my head was ridden with guilt? The indecencies of my thoughts leaving me wired like I had downed five espresso shots, making that inevitable crash at the end all the more agonizing.