by Virna DePaul
He was right. There was no way Tom would kiss me with passion, much less with anything like lust. Jamie would, and then some. The kiss in the hallway had taken me by surprise, but oh god it had been the best kiss I’d ever had. My pussy clenched and tingles shot through my body as I remembered the way Jamie had pushed me up against the wall, the way he’d plunged his tongue into my mouth, the way he’d made me go hot and wet an—
I let him keep counting.
“…two…one. Time’s up.”
He again grabbed my face on either side and firmly pressed his lips against mine. I sank into his kiss, into his mouth, quivering at the taste of whiskey on his tongue, gasping when he surreptitiously slid a hand up to cover my breast, then pinched my hard nipple. God, this was good. Jamie was good. No—Jamie was the best kisser I’d ever had. And if he was this good at just kissing, he’d have to be amazing in bed. Memories of his overly large cock swirled into my mind and I went dizzy, wanting more, wanting—
Suddenly he pulled away, leaving me gasping for breath.
“That asswipe won’t kiss you like I can. He for sure won’t fuck you like I could. And Tabatha, you know you want to fuck me. You want it bad.”
And then he was gone, pushing his way through the crowd, headed back to the stage. “Shut up, you fuckers,” he shouted into the mic. “I’ve got a new song for you lot.”
Tom slipped between a group of girls who all whispered excitedly as he walked toward our table. “What happened to the chair?” he asked, setting our drinks down on the table and struggling to lift the chair back to his side. Clearly he hadn’t noticed the star attraction had just made out with his date.
“Um, you know, wild crowd,” I said, eyes on Jamie as I touched my fingers to my lips. I hated what he had said for one single reason and one single reason alone: it was true. His lips had been lightning against mine. I could still feel them buzzing with electricity. I didn’t want to want him. I really, truly did not want to want that loud, brash Irish jerk.
But I did.
The warmth between my legs left no doubt.
“You okay?” Tom asked as Jamie crashed his drum sticks together over his head like some ancient god-warrior. “You look a little flushed.”
This question caused me to blush even more, knowing that Jamie had walked over here and kissed me within sight of my date, knowing full well he was within sight of my date. My neighbor had Neanderthal manners.
And oddly, I was okay with that.
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
“Good,” Tom said. “Because I was thinking after this, we could go back to my place.”
His fingers rested on my arm, and I knew the girls standing just to the right of us thought I must somehow be the luckiest girl in the world. An average girl getting a chance with a certifiable ten out of ten. But for me, I felt nothing. On the Bachelorette, the girl gives out roses to the guys she is inviting to stay. Perhaps I could give out vibrators shaped like a rose or something. But one thing was certain: Tom would not be receiving one, rose-shaped vibrator or otherwise.
Because it was when I was looking at the red-haired bearded man on stage, not the beyond perfect male specimen next to me, that I felt something.
And then, of course, Jamie had to go and ruin it.
“Alright, fuckers,” he shouted. “This new song is called, ‘Sex Study Neighbor’.”
The crowd cheered and I heard Tom laugh next to me, but my only emotion was pure and unadulterated rage. Right before Jamie began singing, he gave me a wink. It took everything in my power not to storm up onto stage, wrench the drum stick from his beefy hands, and shove it up where the Irish sun never shines.
I take back everything I said earlier. I wanted nothing, I repeat nothing to do with Jamie Whatever His Last Name Is.
And that was final.
Guaranteed.
Ellis
It wasn’t that I was following Tessa. Not really. It was just that I happened to be at the same bar on the same night as she was for her date with Tom. It’s not like I don’t ever come to this bar, but I sure as heck could have avoided it tonight of all nights. Unfortunately, as soon as I’d given Tom Tessa’s number, I’d started to have second thoughts. Tom went through women faster than I did, and I didn’t want Tessa to get hurt.
I’m now sitting a few tables behind Tessa at the bar. She wouldn’t see me, especially through the packed crowd, and even if she did, she wouldn’t mind me looking out for her best interests. That’s what best friends are for, right?
I knew early on in the date that Tessa wasn’t having a good time. I knew Tessa’s laughs by heart, and she kept laughing her fake laugh with Tom, the ha ha polite laugh, and her gaze kept darting all over the place, landing anywhere but on his face.
I’d felt relieved.
And then I felt bad about feeling relieved.
It was when I was sitting there, sorting through my feelings (something I try to avoid at all costs), that I saw the big drummer push through the crowd like a medieval battering ram and stop in front of Tessa’s table. My chair screeched on the sticky bar floors as I pushed it back to hurry to her aid when I realized the red-bearded maniac was actually Tessa’s neighbor, Jamie something-or-other.
When she first moved into her studio I’d been concerned by the brute next door, until I saw him run into traffic to help an old woman who had started weaving around, looking confused. He’d stayed with her until a family member had come and picked her up.
Later, we’d seen each other in the hall and he’d asked to exchange numbers in case anything ever happened to Tessa. He said he knew I was her best friend and if anything ever happened to her he wanted to be able to get ahold of me. He promised me he’d keep an eye on her, which I thought was cool. He was an odd one—always pushing buttons and especially with Tessa, but despite his rough edge, I trusted that he had Tessa’s best interests at heart.
Even though he could be quite the asshole at times. Like, a total asshole. Which was weird, given how kind he acted on one hand. But I suppose it was some kind of defense mechanism, and I had to admit, it was one that intrigued me. I’d found myself drawn to the guy. Even fantasized about him a time or two. He was just such a contradiction, and I wondered if that’s how he’d be in bed, too.
He looked as attractive as ever, and I found myself liking the look of him and Tessa together.
Maybe it was the way Tessa was leaning in closer, as if Jamie were magnetized.
Maybe it was the way Tessa’s fingers clenched the table, her knuckles white.
Maybe it was the way Tessa didn’t resist when he dragged her chair closer to his.
But when he kissed her, I definitely felt jealousy. My jealousy tripled when Tessa started kissing him back.
But jealousy wasn’t all I felt.
Damn, they were hot together. What would it be like if we were all in bed together, the three of us? Well, according to how my cock was twitching while I watched them, I had a feeling we’d be fucking awesome.
In the dim, hazy light, I saw Tessa sink into the kiss, and even though I couldn’t see it, I imagined her lips, soft and gentle, against his, red and hungry. My dick got half hard as I imagined the Irish drummer, three times the size of Tessa, wrapping his massive hands around her waist and lifting her to the table, sweeping away the beer bottles and glasses and sending them crashing to the floor. She would be a deer caught in the lion’s mouth. I wanted to see him devour her.
I was fully hard by the time Jamie pulled away, and in the blink of an eye shoved his way roughly back through the crowd. Tessa sagged against her chair and I wondered if the air inside the bar was as stifling to her after that kiss as it was for me.
I studied her as Tom returned with drinks, while her attention remained fixed on the Irish man shouting profanities at the crowd.
Maybe I was wrong about my sweet, shy, quiet friend. Maybe there was a kinky, emboldened side of her even I, her best friend, hadn’t seen. Maybe she really could pull the sex study of
f.
I barely heard the band’s last song as I tried and mostly failed to stop remembering how Jamie had kissed Tessa, and likewise imagining the two of them and me together.
Fuck.
What am I doing here?
Maybe I had always imagined Tessa to be untouchably innocent to make myself feel better because she’s never shown interest in me. She wasn’t into Tom either, but Jamie, and apparently the yoga instructor, were guys she was into. I needed to accept that I was only going to be Tessa’s friend, but hey, she was amazing, and being her best friend was no small consolation prize. Yes, I wanted more, but I wasn’t going to get it.
I was getting up to leave when Jamie suddenly came into my field of vision. He walked up to me with a shot of whiskey in one hand and two bottles of beer in the other.
“How long?” Jamie asked, his voice raspy from his performance.
“What’s that?” I thought he was going to offer me one of the beers, but he didn’t.
“How long have you been in love with Tessa?”
Jesus, how did he know? Had I actually looked love sick as I stared at her? Instead of answering, I arched a brow.
Jamie grinned and nodded over his shoulder at the table Tessa and Tom should have been at, but which was now empty. I stared at it before looking again at the giant man.
“We’re friends. Just friends.”
Jamie remained silent, but his grin grew. I shifted, slightly uncomfortable for perhaps the first time in my life. That grin unnerved me.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, trying to make the shrug I gave him appear casual. “Tessa’s not even my type.”
Jaimie slowly nodded, still assessing me with that confident grin. “So me kissing her in front of you didn’t bother you at all?” he asked, his Irish accent thick.
I shook my head.
“My lips on your friend was no problem at all?”
“No problem at all.”
“The image of her tongue, hot and wet, slipping inside my mouth is totally fine then, lad?”
I forced my jaw to unclench. “That’s right, pal.”
He grinned. I knew he wanted a fight. He wanted a reaction out of me. I wasn’t going to give it to him, the stinking man-child, even though he was so hot, I wouldn’t mind grappling around with him a little.
Or a lot.
“So you’ll be alright if I decide I want to plough into her and hear her gasping my name as she comes?”
I couldn’t hold back any longer. My fist collided with his cheek before I even had time to process it. Pain erupted in my knuckles as bone hit bone. A red welt was already forming near Jamie’s eye as he rotated his jaw and pressed a cold beer bottle against his skin.
I expected him to retaliate and I was ready for it, my chest heaving, anger burning my blood. But he didn’t.
Instead, he grinned, raised his whiskey glass, and gave a quick “Cheers” before walking away.
I hated that man because he was an asshole. But later that night, my anger at Jamie certainly didn’t stop me from jerking off to the image of him doing exactly what he said he’d do to Tessa.
And I came while I imagined her gasping out his name.
And then mine.
Chapter 9
Tessa
I sent a text of warning to Ellis before leaving my apartment Sunday morning.
TESSA: May end up in jail today. Please keep your phone with you in case I need to be bailed out.
As I tugged on my pair of old sneakers, he messaged back.
ELLIS: Streaking again?
My eye-roll was interrupted by a yawn that threatened to split my lip. Jamie’s drumming into the early hours of the morning had kept me up all night. It had gotten worse in the last few days, to the point where it was almost nonstop. And every time I heard his drums, I remembered his kiss in the bar, and the naughty, delicious words he’d said.
To make matters worse, every time we happened to run into one another by the mailboxes or in the elevator or in the hallway, he would give me a mischievous grin.
It was the kind of grin that said, “Hey, I kissed the hell out of you the other night and you loved it. Ready to bump uglies with me?”
I just clenched my fists and hurried away in whichever direction was opposite of him, even if it was out the front door back onto the busy sidewalk when I meant to go up to my apartment, my fingernails digging into my palms when I heard him chuckling to himself.
I texted Ellis on my way to the bus stop. With the money my parents had loaned me, I had enough to live frugally for the next thirty days. I’d also had enough money to pay Ellis back for what he’d floated me in the past few months. When Ellis had asked me why I’d finally gone to my parents when I never had before, I’d told him the partial truth. That I was hoping the sex study would become reality, and I’d get the financial cushion I needed for a while to keep temping and auditioning. I still didn’t tell him about the eviction notice or the thirty days I’d given myself to get things together because I didn’t want him to worry or get into a fight when he insisted on loaning me more money. I had to do this on my own.
I also had to apologize to Cade. Even though I wasn’t going to ask him to be in the sex study, he’d liked me enough to ask me out on a date. I didn’t want him to think I was the freak he reasonably believed me to be. Plus, apologizing to him would be something the New Tessa would do. So even though it took a whole evening of convincing and re-convincing after I had unconvinced myself, I’d decided to see him face-to-face at that environmental clean-up he’d told his yoga class about.
TESSA: I’m going to talk to Cade.
ELLIS: I’ll try to visit you as often as I can when they put you away for stalking.
I winced, hoping Cade wouldn’t actually call the police on me when I tried to talk to him. I got on the bus before slipping my phone back into my pocket. On the ride, I mentally counted how many days I had left before I had to move in with my parents. Things weren’t looking good as far as the sex study was concerned, so I needed to be prepared.
Hookup Central had led to nothing but douchebags and weirdos, and even a desperate girl like me had her standards. Tom was hot, but despite Jamie being a massive jerk, he was right in pointing out that Tom did zero for me, which I already knew. If I was going to do the sex study, it wasn’t going to be just for the money. I wanted it to be an adventure. I wanted it to be fun. So I wasn’t going to settle for guys that didn’t turn me on, no matter how good looking or willing they were.
Finally, the bus dropped me off a little ways from the beach where the volunteer clean-up was happening that day. I stood there at the stop for a few minutes, pumping myself up like a boxer about to enter the ring. I can do this, I repeated. I can do this. I can do this.
Walking across the sand, I saw a group of volunteers had gathered, chatting and passing out water bottles and supplies. My eyes scanned the crowd, but I didn’t see Cade.
I worried that maybe I’d gotten the wrong day or the wrong environmental clean-up meet-up. Or maybe Cade just wasn’t coming today. In those few moments, I had to admit I was slightly relieved.
But then I heard a familiar voice just behind me.
“Tessa?”
I turned around to see Cade, eyes somewhat wide in surprise. “Don’t worry,” I said quickly, holding my hands, “I’m not here for your ghost pepper.”
Given the circumstances and those rather incriminating texts, I wanted to make clear my intentions were not of the sexual variety. I came in peace, platonic peace.
He assessed me with lingering suspicion.
“Look,” I said, moving a step closer while Cade warily watched me. “I just wanted to apologize for, um...”
What exactly should I start with? Hiding in bushes just a few feet away from him? Spying on him? Lying about being stuck in traffic? Making sexual innuendos to a man that I barely knew and who seemed by all accounts to be a kind, respectful man? Or worse, making laughably bad sexual innuendos to a man
that I barely knew and who seemed by all accounts to be a kind, respectful man?
Should I apologize for intending to ask him to join a sex study with me before even our first date?
How does one succinctly apologize for all of that?
When I realized how long I had dragged out my “umm” as Cade watched and waited, I cleared my throat.
In the end, I settled on, “Um, I wanted to apologize for the other night.”
Cade sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets.
“I just got nervous,” I admitted. “I was really looking forward to our date, because, well, you might have guessed by my months of elliptical stalking, I kind of like you.”
This elicited a small laugh from Cade’s perfectly shaped lips. It brought a smile to my own.
“I blew it and I know it,” I continued. “I’m trying to act like the New Tessa, to be bold and brave, but I did it all wrong with the lame sexting.”
Cade studied me, and I hoped he saw the earnestness of my heart projected into my eyes. He scratched his chin, then finally said, “Okay. I accept your apology.”
Relief ran through me. “You do?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“Cool.”
When he just continued to stare at me, I shuffled from foot to foot, then lifted my hand in a lame wave goodbye. “Okay, well, thanks for accepting my apology. I’ll let you go now.” I turned to go, but then heard Cade’s voice.
“I’d still like a chance to get to know you, Tessa. The old you and the new you.”
My mouth dropped open. “Really? You’ll give me another chance?”
“If you want it.”
“Of course I want it. I want to show you that I’m not just a sex-crazed animal wanting to jump your bones. That I want to get to know you and for you to get to know me.”
Cade laughed. “That would be great. But only if you promise that next time you get nervous, you’ll just tell me. Then we can be nervous together, alright?”
I nodded, then realized what he’d said. “Wait—you were nervous, too?” The thought baffled my mind. Cade was hot enough to date anyone and have no need to be nervous.