by Shen, L. J.
“That’s what I heard, too. But he said something about an ex and some stuff going wrong. Last I talked to our boy here, he said he was looking for apprenticeships in Charlottesville. That was before we graduated.”
“Ex?” I whipped my head toward Cruz, frowning. “What ex?”
Cruz had fooled around with a few popular girls in high school, but he was too bright, too untouchable to settle down with one of them. And besides, people in our school had this small-town mentality that ensured almost zero drama where breakups were involved—the dating pool was too small for you to feel weird about dating a friend’s ex…or an ex’s friend…
In fact, I was pretty sure mine and Rob’s was the only messy story from Fairhope High during his graduation year.
Also, on a side note—why was everyone blurry? And how come my legs felt like they were too heavy to move, but also kind of warm and nice? Was this how being hammered felt like? No wonder alcoholics were grumpy people.
And also did this a lot. I laughed once.
Cruz kicked my ankle under the table, signaling me to shut up.
“You don’t know my whole life story, Turner.”
“I know you didn’t have a messy girlfriend back home or dark memories,” I countered, peppering my statement with a hiccup.
Dalton and Jocelyn looked between us, grinning.
“Who wants some shots?” Jocelyn purred.
“Not me,” I was about to say, when Cruz bit out, “Great idea.”
Oh boy.
He was going to be so pissed when I ended up puking on his friend’s wife’s pointy nipples.
A round of tequila arrived, and we all emptied the content of our glasses. Dalton and Cruz switched to beer and started talking about football while Jocelyn ordered “us girls” some bubbly.
“So.” Jocelyn gave me a slow once-over. “What’d you get done?”
Telling her I got nothing done seemed impolite and haughty, even if it was the truth. I pointed to my chin, nose, and a few more areas in my body.
“Everywhere, pretty much. The only thing that’s real about me is my heart. And I’ve been told it’s not the best. How ’bout you?”
Cruz’s quaking shoulder, pressed against mine, told me he heard me and was wildly amused by my answer.
My walls were coming down, fast and hard, and I was growing more and more enamored with the idea of fooling around with Cruz Costello. With clothes on.
Because when you think about it—it was the perfect crime.
He didn’t want word to get out.
I didn’t want word to get out.
I was feeling frisky.
He was… a man.
And we both knew this cruise had an end date, and neither of us had any ideas to continue this beyond the here and now.
Plus, I’d learned my lesson from a decade-and-a-half ago. I wouldn’t let him go all the way. I wouldn’t get pregnant again.
So what was the big deal?
Cruz was a gentleman. He’d never kiss and tell.
Tactically, I slipped my foot out of my sandal and used my big toe to brush his inner calf suggestively under the table while nodding at something Jocelyn said.
“…jawline reduction, but I told him, ‘Baby, while you’re there, give my nose a little shave, would you?’ Of course, I didn’t think he’d actually go for it…”
Meanwhile, Cruz nodded and sipped his beer, ignoring my undercover advance.
Fortunately, I was far too drunk to take offense. Or the hint.
Maybe I was being too subtle. There was no way he wasn’t game. The way he’d kissed me yesterday pretty much cemented the attraction was there. Also, he’d admitted I was a hottie at the pool.
I slipped my hand under the table and placed it on his knee.
Dang it, his thighs were as hard as a statue.
“…Chris Wade had 1,794 yards receiving, you don’t have to go ham when you’re running wide open,” Dalton explained to Cruz hotly, while his wife continued droning on, “…dimple creation will be my next procedure. I think I’ll be asking for one for our anniversary. Seven years of marriage counts as a big anniversary, right?”
When Cruz still didn’t get it, I dragged my hand up his knee, my little finger skimming his inner thigh. I hoped the rest of him was as hard as his leg. I chanced a glance at him.
He was frowning at something Dalton said and added, “They also have one of the worst pass protection units in the NFL, so that’s not saying much.”
My little finger almost got to his crotch, and finally—finally—Cruz’s left hand snaked under the table, too. Instead of stopping my hand, he placed his directly on the edge of my dress where the fabric met my skin.
A shot of pleasure ran through my spine at the contact on my sensitive flesh.
He pressed an ice cube on my inner knee.
Whoop.
“Two can play this game,” he muttered under his breath, pretending to be engrossed in Dalton’s football chat.
“Game on,” I uttered through a close-lipped smile directed at Jocelyn, who was now contemplating removing excess labial skin from her vag after she and Dalton had their third and final child, which she was planning on having next year.
I knew depressingly too much about their sex lives.
And shape of their nipples.
“…could be a smokescreen for Roberts. But if he makes this move, I think we’ll be in good shape,” Cruz continued conversing with Dalton, as his hand hiked up my inner thigh with the ice cube, which was literally melting against my sizzling skin.
My pinkie brushed his package through his jeans.
He was hard, fully loaded and ready to go.
Now if I could just figure out how far I wanted to take this.
“Better to stay put than trade down,” Cruz replied to something Dalton said as his cock pushed back on my pinkie.
He pretended to rearrange himself on his seat while giving a little hip-thrust into my touch.
Boy, oh boy.
This was happening.
The ice cube continued its journey between my legs, almost resting on my panties. I let out a soft moan. It was such a nice touch, not to move my panties aside and tease me by pressing it against the fabric.
In other (related) news, I was never going to make eye contact with this man ever again.
“Tennessee? Are you with me?” Jocelyn snapped her fingers in front of my face.
Holy fug, what now? “Huh?” Did she want to know if I needed some of her extra labia skin for my butt enhancement?
“I asked if you know the mysterious ex who made Cruz swear off Fairhope back when he was in med school.”
“Uhm.” I cleared my throat, shifting in my seat to gain more friction against my clit. “Can’t recall. Did he ever describe her?”
“I don’t know. Honey, did he?” Jocelyn elbowed her husband.
Dalton’s eyes shot straight to my girls—I swear, the guy was a first-grade sleazeball—and he shrugged.
“I don’t remember, it was so long ago. And Cruz and I moved in different circles. But lemme see…”
Cruz slipped what remained of the ice cube through the side of my panties, letting it melt against my slit, and holy sh…
“Blonde, I think he said. Brown eyes? No. No. Hazel. Long legs. Said she was a horrible human being. Zero tact when it came to affairs of the heart. She had a weird name,” Dalton recited. “Lessy? Noriana?”
Wait a minute…
Cruz chose that moment to toss my hand away from his crotch, get up, and finish the remainder of his beer.
“All right, buddy, it was good seeing you. I’ll settle the bill at the bar. Send Joyce my regards.”
“She’s right here,” Dalton faltered. “And it’s…”
“Yes. Of course she is.” Cruz began pulling me out of my stool, not even bothering to listen to the rest of it. “Nice meeting you, Joyce. You’re utterly unforgettable.”
Unfortunately, I was both hammered and enjoying the sensati
on of the tip of an ice cube teasing my clit, which resulted in my stumbling all over my feet like a baby deer, giggling uncontrollably.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go.”
Cruz grabbed my hand and practically raced through the casino toward the exit, throwing a wad of cash at the bartender on his way out.
I tried to keep up with him, panting. So many things went through my head. But the most pressing issue was…
“Why on earth did you tell your friends at med school we were a couple?”
It was me he’d described.
I knew.
And I thought Dalton and Jocelyn knew it, too, because they kept looking at me like a puzzle they had to put together. The woman behind the conundrum.
It hadn’t been about them being swingers. Well, maybe not all about them being swingers—they’d stared at me trying to connect dots, not our genitals.
Maybe both? Pluck no.
And it had only just hit me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’ve been cockteasing me all evening and it’s high time we do something about it. Where’re the elevators?” Cruz muttered. He was lit like a Roman candle, looking left and right frantically while holding onto my hand like I had immediate plans to disappear.
We passed by Brendan and a group of middle-aged guys who cackled on their way into the casino in a uniform of Hawaiian shirts and beer bellies.
“Lookie, here. Today they are lovebirds,” Brendan whistled as he strolled past us. “Tomorrow, who knows?”
“It was me Dalton described. What the heck was that about?” I trailed behind Cruz, trying to keep up.
“You’re not the only blonde in Fairhope.”
“Hazel eyes? Weird name? Questionable personality?”
“I meant Taylor Cunningham.”
“Taylor’s not a weird name.”
She wasn’t a blonde, either, and had a perfectly pleasant temperament, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt since her hair was light.
“You think?” He took a sharp turn to the right, after trying to find the elevators to his left. “I think it’s a guy’s name. Used to be, anyway. It’s all gender fluid these days.”
I wanted him to stop.
I wanted to talk about what it meant.
But…I wanted him in my panties more, so I put a pin on the conversation.
“Where are the damn elevators?” Cruz seethed.
It was the first time I’d seen him even remotely flustered, wanting something instead of having it automatically given to him, and it gave me a lot of pride and joy to know it was me who made him that way.
“Not sure, but there’s a maintenance room about a hundred feet from us.”
“Good enough.” He made an actual beeline toward the door. “I can’t chance you changing your mind on me again. No time.”
A second later, we were huddled in the maintenance room. It was nestled in a corner of the deck, unseen by others, full to the brim with tool bags, brooms, a ladder, toiler paper rolls, and cleaning products.
Cruz locked the door behind us and pinned me against it, his arms resting on either side of my shoulders as he looked down at me. His breath skated down my face, sweet and alcoholic, hitting all my systems, giving me goosebumps.
“I—”
I started to say something to fill the unbearable, tension-filled silence, but his mouth crushed against mine with force before I could take a breath.
“No, Turner. You’re not going to sass your way out of this one.”
This kiss was way different to the one yesterday.
To put it mildly, Cruz Costello went for broke and pulled out all the stops.
It was animalistic, raw, and bruising. An RSVP to the invitation I’d given him earlier that evening, when my pinkie grazed the buttons of his jeans.
My head swam with a heady, raw need.
He pushed me flat against the wooden door, grabbing the backs of my thighs and wrapping my legs around his narrow waist like in the movies. A broomstick crashed beside us, sending a row of cleaning products sitting on a shelf raining down on the floor.
Neither of us seemed to care under the haze of liquor and hormones.
He hissed into my mouth when I opened for him, my tongue dancing with his. He tasted so good, so male, and I wanted more of him. I wanted all of him. I couldn’t remember why I’d ever hated him.
I threaded my fingers through his hair, tugging him to me, twisting my head here and there, to kiss him from different angles, deeper, faster, more passionately.
We kissed like teenagers. Groaning and pulling and biting and sighing. Like the world was about to end, and we had to get our fill before it was all over.
Even when I closed my eyes, his mustache reminded me that it was Cruz Costello I was kissing, and it made me so wet I was pretty sure that mop in the room we were occupying was going to be put to good use by the time we were done.
“Tennessee Lilybeth Turner.” My name fell from his lips in astonishment, like he couldn’t believe what we were doing. “The most beautiful girl alive.”
Okay, that was a stretch, but I wasn’t going to argue.
He dropped his head down at the same time he pushed my breasts up through my dress, French-kissing said breasts through the fabric. It was even more erotic than having him pop them out and going to town.
Because there was anticipation in this.
I watched him working, licking, suckling my swollen and sensitive nipples. They ached for more and for less and for I-wasn’t-sure-what-else. He scraped his teeth over them, rubbing them in a way that felt so delicious, so good, I thought I was going to burst.
“What’s the protocol on women climaxing too fast these days?” I mumbled, forgetting to tuck my drunkenness in, my hands all over his firm butt.
Luckily, Cruz was too busy not busting his own load to notice. He seemed like the kind of bothersome nobleman to stop whatever we were doing if he knew how trashed I was.
I. Needed. This.
He dropped to his knees in front of me, his big strong hands clutching my waist as he kissed his way down my body, skimming past my belly, navel, and continuing south.
“Haven’t you noticed already?” he murmured into the fabric of my dress. “You can do whatever the hell you want and still be golden in my eyes.”
Whoa.
That had to be hands-down the sexiest thing anyone had ever said to me.
Which, granted, didn’t mean much, seeing as the runner-up was “Hey, baby, wanna show me them tits?”
I let Cruz fling one of my legs over his shoulder, pull my panties to the side, and draw a generous, long and deep inhale.
There.
I’d never received or reciprocated when it came to oral sex, never got that far in my sexual repertoire, although I’d watched enough porn to know the technicalities of it.
Though I had to admit, I found it much less embarrassing when some pixel-faced stranger on a porn site in a homemade video was getting her lady bits licked while moaning in a language I was pretty sure belonged to The Sims than it did in real life.
“Uhm. Oh. Kay.” I giggled.
He stopped, about to pull away from me, no doubt to ask if I was okay with what was going on. I was. Not only was I okay, but I was also morbidly curious. I jerked him back into my center, burying his beautiful face between my thighs.
“How do you like it?” He nuzzled his nose into me. Like, straight up into that part of me.
There was a menu?
“Surprise me.”
He used his thumbs to pry me open, then licked me from my butt crack to my clit. I let out a happy sigh, holding onto his head and making sure he didn’t go anywhere.
I watched acutely as he began licking me there, enjoying every drop of my arousal, making noises as he used my desire to coat my clit and suck on it.
That was when I began suspecting I was going to faint. The pleasure was so intense, so heightened, every muscle in my body clenched in expectation of what
was about to come (pardon the pun).
“You’re so tight.” Cruz used his index and middle fingers to penetrate me while he worked on my clit.
Well, I practically am a virgin, if you disregard the day Bear was conceived!
Luckily, even though I was drunk, I still had some basic verbal filters in place.
My orgasm felt different to all the ones I gave myself. I knew that before it even hit me.
First, because I couldn’t control my limbs at all. They basically turned to that thing that happens to your Frappuccino after you leave it in the sun for half a day.
Second, because I arched and arrowed like I was ready to shoot myself straight into another continent.
Third, because the wave of shivers rolling over me drowned me to the outside world, and for a moment, it was just me, sailing on a cloud.
Best.
Climax.
Ever.
The cloud popped under me and brought me back to planet Earth when the musky scent of my sex invaded my lips as Cruz kissed me, fumbling with his belt to set his willy free.
That’s when I pushed him away, shaking my head violently.
“No. No way. No way.”
“Why not? Are you okay?”
He stood in front of me, panting, his hand still on his buckle. His chest rose and fell to the rhythm of his heartbeat. His hair was a mess—my doing. I loved that his lips were red and swollen from pleasuring me.
…but not enough to screw up my life and officially become Fairhope’s running joke. “I’m okay…”
“I’m clear.” He pointed at himself. “I make it a point to check every three months.”
“I’m not on the pill.”
“I’ll pull out.”
I gave him a double-gross look, pushing my dress down. It was hard to be taken seriously when my vag was still making eye contact with his erection through his jeans.
“Are you kidding me? That’s the one thing they warned us about in sex ed. And I didn’t listen. Spoiler alert: the pull-out method is not a bulletproof plan!”
“Actually,” Cruz’s mouth pulled into a devilish smirk, “if withdrawal is done correctly, the pull-out method is ninety-six percent effective. Not that I’ve been testing it on anyone else.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t be testing it on me, either.” I gave him another push, feeling sober all of a sudden. “I don’t do sex, mister.”