by Lark O'Neal
I look at my dad. “What the—?”
“Ignore them,” he says with a grim set to his mouth. “Bastards.”
KALEB
The haul back home is long and tiring, the flight to Nelson, then the drive home in the dark in a rented car. I roll the windows down to let the summer night air in, taking in the stars filling the black sky by the billions, so many more than you can see in the city. I think of the night Jess and I lay on the sand at Abel Tasman and looked up at the night, and things shifted between us. I could feel it, a light, a presence, something substantial growing, binding us together.
Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better for me if she had never come here. Lately, my life feels like it belongs to someone else, like the guy who was studying wine and viniculture is still out there in a parallel timeline, dating girls from Blenheim, saving for uni.
I miss that life sometimes. It was a lot easier.
When Jess arrived, bringing the film thing into our lives, it seemed like a lark, just a way to have some fun for a few weeks. That it has become so much more still feels strange, and I think about that sometimes, that one day, one action, can send your life spinning in an entirely new direction. A person arrives, a chance, or maybe it’s something bad, like when the car crashed into the restaurant where Jess worked.
The past few months, filming the television series up in the Bay of Islands, I’ve worked harder and sat around more than I ever have in my life. The days are long, the work interesting, the people—
The people—not sure I fit there. Not my world. I’m glad to be getting back to normal life, at least for a little while. Back to the quiet of the winery, the family.
And Jess.
It’s late when I get in, and the house is asleep. All the way here, the only thing I’ve been thinking about is how long it’s been since I’ve touched her. Kissed her. Held her. The last time was in Auckland, when we tried out for the movie, when the heat of the scenes we acted out set our skin on fire. I only kissed her at the door of her room, so hungry, so full of wanting, and we tumbled into the room and made love all night long.
Even thinking about it makes my dick hard, and I pause for a few minutes before I head upstairs, thinking about broccoli until it calms down. Around me, the house is silent, whispery with breath and sighing, and I climb the stairs as quietly as possible.
Outside her door, I pause, then turn the handle slowly so I won’t wake her, and slide into the room. The smell of her slams me, nutmeg and honey and this strange, slightly odd undernote that’s only her, which is probably sweat and sex, and it can get too strong to be pleasant, but the stronger it is, the more I want her, and the more savagely. Right now, it’s strong, hot, and I want to open up her legs and taste the source, lick it up with my tongue, dive all the way in.
For a long minute, I can only lean on the wall, breathing until I can calm down again. I’m only here to hold her. That’s the rules. Everything else, I shove away.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, I can see she’s sprawled across the bed in the warm night, wearing a pair of thin cotton boxers and a tiny white tank. Her hair, so much, too much, is caught in a braid. A breeze comes in through the open window.
Quietly, I strip down to my own boxers and climb in beside her, gently, gently, so I won’t wake her and frighten her. So close now, the siren smell of her soaks into my cells and dances over my tongue. Tension pours out of my body. Tucking my nose into her nape, I settle my hand over her flat belly, just skimming the edge of her t-shirt where the bare skin above her shorts is showing. She sighs a little and settles into me, as if it is natural, easy, right.
This.
Her long back is hot against my chest, her legs spooning mine, and for a long time, that’s enough. Just to be here, holding her, listening to the sound of her breath. Our old, old souls knit together, dancing around us, through us, above us, reunited. As her hair brushes my face and my hand spreads wide over her tummy, I wonder if we have lived since the dawn of time, coming together over and over.
Maybe that’s a lot of bullshit. It wasn’t like I fell in love with her the first time I saw her or anything. She was pretty, yeah. I’m a guy. I noticed. But she’s not my type, really—all blonde and skinny and shy. I’ve always liked outgoing girls, girls with some curves.
I don’t know what happened. When. It was a minute here, a minute there. Her bookishness. Her curiosity about everything. Her loneliness.
I nuzzle closer, and her hand comes up and covers mine, pulling me tighter into her, but it’s the slow gesture of sleep and she goes softly limp again in a moment.
But in that second, I’m flooded with blue-rose light, every cell of my body illuminated with a kind of emotion I’ve never had in my life, so clean and pure and true that it feels like it could have the power to transform the entire universe. My fingertips blaze with it, and the top of my head, and I feel us melting together, merging, separate but melding, impossible and true and strange and right.
Her bottom presses up against my erection, and somehow my hand curls around her breast, feeling the nipple rise eagerly to touch my finger. Very, very, very lightly, I brush my index finger over the top and feel it grow. I allow myself to bend and kiss her neck, tasting it slowly, knowing that even her sleeping self will respond to the things she likes the most.
And she starts to rouse, ever so softly, reaching around to touch me as I suck on her neck. She sighs and her hand finds my dick and then she says, “Tyler.”
I freeze, that hard nipple against the center of my palm, her hand tight around my dick. Jealousy winds up my throat like a hot burning snake and threatens to strangle me. She just spent a day with him and maybe she gave him the same thing she gave me in Auckland—one night.
One hot night.
For long seconds, I do not move, and let the monkeys chase themselves through my brain. Then I lift on my elbow and pull her shoulder so that she’s half under me. When she opens her eyes, I bend and kiss her. “Not Tyler,” I say in a voice that’s harder than I intend.
“Kaleb, I didn’t—”
I suck the words off her mouth, teasing that lower lip in the way that drives her crazy, even as I’m sliding the tank top off her shoulders to expose her breasts. Beautiful breasts, small and high, with darker nipples than you’d expect. I suck on one, soft and hard, soft and hard, soft and hard, until she’s digging her hands in my hair, yanking me up. “Kaleb, this is not—”
Again I kiss the words away and she arches up against me, her tongue deep in my mouth, too, and when I slide a finger between her legs, I find her swollen and hot and so very, very ready.
“Yes or no?” I growl softly.
She let’s go of a soft, quiet moan, but only brings me up to her mouth, opening to a wide-mouth kiss, her hands hard in my hair, pulling. Her hands slide down my back and push at the waistband of my boxers, and I wiggle out of them.
Then I’m over her, sliding down her body, nipping the lower side of her right breast, sucking the spot just above her belly button, and then I’m pulling her legs apart to find the source of that honeyed, too hot, too compelling source, diving my tongue into her, along her clitoris and back again until she’s wriggling and lifting and when she starts to come, I do the thing I’ve learned makes her completely insane, which is to slide my fingers inside and find the g-spot so she’s coming against both my finger and my tongue, and I manipulate it until she’s practically weeping, coming and coming and coming, and then she grabs my hair with both hands and pulls me up to her face, covered in her own juices. She kisses me like that, her hand hard on my dick, squeezing me, then she pulls me closer and I mount her mouth, careful to follow her lead, her breasts brushing my ass, and then I’m coming, too, and she knows how to make me crazy, just the way I made her. I come in her mouth and she swallows and then I’m kissing her with my juices still in her mouth. I taste her, taste myself, and I want to stay, I want to hold her, but this will kill me.
In my weak state, I slump against
her, our bellies sweating against the other’s. Her hands are on my head, fingers in my hair.
So I kiss her, long and deep. I suckle her lower lip, meeting her eyes. “Not Tyler,” I whisper, and then I leave her. Alone in the dark.
Chapter SIX
JESS
It’s Christmas Eve morning when I wake up. The house is quiet, and I’m sweaty and tangled in the covers. By the angle of the sun, I can tell it’s later than usual, but then, it was a long day at the beach, and —
Kaleb.
Beneath the light sheet, I’m naked, because he took off my tank top and slid me out of my shorts and used his tongue and his hands in the way that he does, that way that sends me right out of my skin. My skin flushes as I remember him capturing my cries with his mouth, and I remember drawing him up to me, too, so I could have him in my mouth. I think of the salty taste of him, the heat of his orgasm, and it makes me hot all over again.
But after all that, he didn’t stay and curl up with me. Instead, he left. “Not Tyler,” he said, which made no sense.
Not Tyler?
I thought about following him, but I fell asleep. Now, I shift over onto my side, feeling decadent to have no clothes on in my father’s house, because my lover slipped in during the night. It was against the rules of no sex, of course, but when I woke up, the smell of his skin had already enveloped me, and his mouth was sliding along my neck and my shoulder and his hands were sliding over my body in the exact right way. I turned to tell him we shouldn’t, but even then I knew it would be a half-hearted protest. I was already very stirred up and when he kissed me so fiercely, so aggressively, it sent me over the edge. His mouth on my breasts, on my nipples, his hair falling over my skin, and then my shorts were off and—
I have to squeeze my thighs together, thinking of that. The way he opened my legs with such intent and buried his tongue in the folds of my body and then his fingers helping, and the orgasm that exploded after three months of nothing. Nothing and then that flood.
And his fat dick in my mouth, his ass against my ribs, thighs against my breasts, that tattoo shining in the light. It was one of the hottest things I’ve ever done, and I thought he would be so pleased, that he would purr like I had and settle in with me, and then I would deal with the consequences of my choice in the morning.
But he didn’t. He kissed me, hard, his tongue deep in my mouth, his hands on my breasts, and said again, “Not Tyler.”
And left me.
I must have said something in my sleep. But how is that fair? I don’t even remember dreaming anything about Tyler except—
Something about the snowboarding. That he won gold? No, silver. Second place, and he wasn’t happy.
Whatever. I can’t really remember. Grabbing my shirt and shorts, I head for the shower, wash all that heat off my skin. Kaleb’s bedroom is empty as I pass, as tidy as ever, his bed made, the curtains open to the sunshine.
Downstairs, there’s a note on the counter from Katie. We’ve gone to fetch Darcy. See you at suppertime!
Neko the cat is sunning himself on a windowsill. The dog is gone. There are no dishes in the sink. Grabbing a yogurt from the fridge, I text Kaleb. Where r u?
While I’m waiting, I wander into the family room, where the tree is fully decorated, and presents have appeared beneath it. Curious, I glance at the tags, seeing some for me and Kaleb and Darcy, and a big one for Katie, from my dad. In gold paper are several packages that are from Kaleb, and my heart leaps curiously. One for Darcy. One for my dad and Katie, and one very square, medium-size box for me. I pick it up to see if there is some weight to it, or a rattle. It’s very light, no rattle, but I have no clue what it might hold.
Yesterday, a package arrived from Tyler, but I didn’t put it under the tree. I’ll open it in private in my room. It broke my brain to think of presents for each of them. For Tyler, I finally settled on some very fancy paintbrushes, with sable bristles and wooden handles, which I’m worried are too pedestrian, and a book on an artist.
Kaleb’s gift is wrapped, in my room, and I’ll bring it down with Darcy’s. She’s getting very cute leggings I found in Christchurch. I bought Katie some scarves with wine bottles printed on them. My dad is getting new swim trunks because his are about 7000 years old and could break through at the butt any second.
Kaleb’s gift is the only one I’m really sure about. It lends a warmth to my belly to think about his face when he opens it.
When he has not answered my text by the time I’ve finished my yogurt, I head outside to the greenhouse. Maybe he’s there. His scooter is parked in its usual place, so unless he went to Christchurch, he must be around here.
And he is. He’s in the greenhouse. It’s very hot and humid in there, and he’s only wearing a pair of loose board shorts and a turquoise tank that shows off the tanned glow of his arms. “Hey,” I say happily. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
He glances up, his hands full of sprouts, but his face shows nothing. “Hey.”
I frown, walking down the aisle between wooden tables. He keeps doing what he’s doing, tucking clips into a flat of tiny individual pots. A sheen of sweat glosses his shoulders, and I can feel my t-shirt sticking to my skin. “What’s up?”
For a minute, he still doesn’t look at me, and when he does, I see nothing friendly in his topaz eyes. “Nothing much. How about you?”
I blink. “Really? This is how you’re going to act after you came in my room last night and—”
His lids fall ever so slightly, that sleepy-eyed look he gets when he’s aroused. “And? You called out your boyfriend’s name.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you did, Jess.” He faces me, and it seems like he’s grown taller in the few months he’s been away, that his shoulders are even broader than they were, and something in my chest shivers. I have to press my palms together to avoid reaching for him. “I was kissing your neck and touching your body and you called out his name.”
I take a breath. “Okay, maybe I did, but it wasn’t like, ‘oh, Tyler, Tyler, I want you.’” I scowl up at him. “I was having a dream about the Olympics.”
He nods, his tongue sliding out to touch his lower lip. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, it is, actually.”
“Funny how you had my dick in your hand when you said it.”
I flush. I can feel the color pour right over my cheeks and spread over my neck. Did I?
His heavy brows, the left one cut through with an angled scar, lift.
I punch him, playfully. “Come on, Kaleb. I was asleep. I don’t know what was in my head, but I was not dreaming about having sex with Tyler.”
His face is hard.
It sinks in that he’s not going to just laugh this off. “I can’t believe you’re so mad at me! I’ve been waiting for you to get back for weeks and I was so happy to see you last night.”
He shakes his head, goes back to what he was doing, that hard stoicism I’ve seen before, back in Queenstown.
“This is stupid.” I turn to leave, pushing a lock of damp hair off my forehead.
He says, “Yeah, it is kind of stupid, Jess. This game you’re playing.”
I halt in my tracks, but don’t turn. A wash of guilt moves through my body, making my lungs feel airless, but it’s mixed with anger. He’s changing the rules now?
He comes up behind me. “This game,” he repeats. “We are your puppets and you play with whichever one you want.”
I spin around. “That’s not true. At all! And you know it. This happened between us before my old relationship was resolved.”
“Oh, right, because he still needs saving, right?”
“No! It’s not like that.”
“What is it then, Jess?” He steps closer and I have to look up to meet his eyes, my gaze washing upward past the length of his strong brown throat, his lush, beautiful mouth, and my memory rockets out a vision of him between my legs last night, hot and fierce, before I force myself to stop thinking ab
out that, but not before I realize that my bralessness is a handicap because thinking about that heat and fierceness makes my nipples hard and he notices. His eyes touch them, almost physically, and his nostrils flare and he makes me think of a thousand crazy ways to have sex. So close, I am awash in the twilight and watermelon scent of his skin.
“What is it?” he repeats.
I close my eyes, shutting his allure away. Find my resolve, cross my arms, and meet his gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Really?” He steps closer still and our bodies are millimeters apart. I can feel his thighs against the front of mine. “I think you do know and you’re scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of me. Of this. Of us.” He bends close, his hands at his sides, and I don’t pull away. His eyes are open and so are mine as he leans in and captures my mouth. He tastes of earth and sky and sea and salt, and there is nothing punishing or harsh about the way his mouth takes mine. It’s confident. Hungry. Deliriously possessive.
Barely, he lifts his head, his lips so close that I can feel their movements as he says in a quiet voice, “I love you. And you love me. You need to figure out what you’re doing here and stop playing games.”
“I’m not playing a game.” Finding some grit in me, some Electra part of me, I push his chest away. “You agreed that we could date. That I could have some space to—just be.”
“You’ve had some space.” He straightens, his eyes looking suddenly sad. “You need to finish whatever you have with Tyler before we go any further.”
I bow my head, wanting to protest, knowing that this situation is about to become completely impossible.
He turns away, picking up the flat of seedlings.
“Wait,” I cry. “What does this mean? We’re just going to forget about this?”
“What this, Jess?” he asks. “The part where you fuck me when you feel like it and fuck him when the mood strikes?”