by Piper Lawson
“Mhmm. This girl got a solid B average in community college. Which means we are going out. And tonight, you’re my Barbie, bitch.” She let out a whoop and I shook my head, grinning.
“I figured Coachella’d cleaned you out.”
“Not even.”
“Can you find something that covers nipples? Both at the same time?”
She made a noncommittal noise. “You should ask Mr. Hottie to come.”
I pictured me after two drinks, confronted with that man in jeans and a T-shirt. His hard frame and easy smile, taunting me like a flickering neon sign that said just friends.
“Kent is not coming tonight. I’ll see you at nine.”
She waved dismissively as she left.
My phone buzzed on the counter and I crossed to it.
Speak of the devil.
Kent: Hey badass. Check this out
I bit my lip as I zoomed in on the image of the purple board.
Dal: She’s gorgeous! And she looks like a Thelma
* * *
Dal: This might be your best work. It’ll break my heart when you sell her
* * *
Kent: She’s for you. Tempted yet? :)
“What are you sighing about?” Kyla asked, making me jump.
“Nothing.”
Dal: Maybe. What’re you up to tonight?
* * *
Kent: Going out. I’ll miss you, Supergirl
I’ll miss you too.
The thought surprised me. It was the first day in three I wouldn’t see him, but I’d gone weeks without and it’d never been a big deal.
So what’s the difference?
For one, I was getting used to having him around.
Not that I was really getting used to anything. Being around him was both comforting and disturbing. He made me wonder things, want things.
Like last night when he’d been inches from me. Practically daring me to touch myself.
A rational girl would’ve laughed it off.
Not slid her hand down the front of her shorts as she drowned in the scent of the sexy guy at her back.
“I was reading articles from that writer who’s interviewing you. Emma something or other.”
I looked up. “Yeah? What do you think?”
“She seems good. Way nicer than some of them.” Kyla made a face.
The store might look good, but that didn’t make me ready to represent our brand. I had homework to do, and it wasn’t going to get done tonight if Mac had anything to say about it.
Dal: Want to help a girl practice tomorrow for her interview?
* * *
Kent: You bet
There.
Two birds.
One completely innocent, temptation-free stone.
I tucked my phone away and went back to work.
8
Dal
“Hold my penis!” Mac shouted over the music, shoving the balloons at me as she reached for the fresh round of drinks our waiter set on the table.
I took the strings of the “Congratulations” helium balloon, plus another shaped like a missile that was the closest thing to a phallus that I could find.
By the time we’d gotten to the packed bar, some of her graduating class already had a table. We squeezed in and got drinks.
I’d never understood why people would drink to forget their lives. But work seemed a little further away with each round. The crowd blurred together, a mass of bodies and white teeth and drinks glinting in the light overhead.
“I forgot to ask! How was the photographer?” Mac called after downing her shot and sliding one over to me.
“Good, I think. I gave him my number.” Her jaw went slack. “So he can send images over this week.”
“Was he hot?”
“I guess.” I thought about the man who’d introduced himself as Dmitri in a European accent.
“Dal.” She gave me the closest thing to a once-over possible given we were crammed into a booth. “We’re going to find you some guy you can ride like a bucking bronco.”
“I don’t think I can ride anything in this dress.”
“You don’t get it. You can ride anything you want in that dress.”
I stifled the laugh as I glanced down at the garment she’d insisted I wear.
True to her word, it obscured both nipples. The dress was crocheted, like most of the clothing she made. The top looked like a bikini, with a halter and two triangles, then was cut out almost to my navel. The entire thing was a cream color, and once I was in it, it was amazing I could sit down without flashing someone.
“We need to find you a guy,” she whisper-shouted from next to me. “How about Andre?” Her chin angled to the guy squished two down from me in the booth.
“I think it’s Andrew.”
“Whatever. He’s hot, no?” Whatever expression my face formed made her sigh. “Fine. That one.”
She gestured to another guy. I shook my head.
“Dal. Dahlia. My friend.” Mac’s hands locked on my arms and I raised my brows. “I know you want forever. But I need to tell you something…you’re missing out.”
“I’m okay with that, Mac. Seriously. There is no guy in this bar who could tempt me right now. Which is good, because tonight’s about you.”
Her eyes twinkled. “What about him.”
I followed her gaze past our table and my breath stuck in my throat.
Kent’s white shirt was open at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves. Over blue jeans, it should’ve seemed generic.
It wasn’t.
I’d never seen the guy in a button down shirt, and holy hell was it messing with my head.
“Hey,” he called over the music.
“Hey.”
Kent leaned over the table and I shifted forward to hear him. “What are you doing here?”
“Mac wanted to go to Bungalow. When her friends picked us up, they decided the HB location would be better.”
A pretty girl with tan skin and short, dark hair appeared next to Kent, tapping him on the shoulder and passing him a drink when he turned.
The warm feeling in me seeped away even before he said, “Dal, this is Tasha.”
“You’re a surfer?” I asked, taking a sip of my drink as some of the eagerness from a second ago receded.
“Yeah. Kent’s letting me try his boards.”
They looked right together. Like a Baywatch remake.
I’d always hated Baywatch.
“Hottie!” Mac called, stretching out her arms and snapping her hands like lobster claws. I took advantage of the distraction to squeeze out of the booth, muttering “I’m getting another drink” to no one in particular.
Andrew followed me. “You wanna dance?”
I started to say no, but then looked across the bar to the booth. Kent and his friends stood there, talking.
Except…now he was looking. He turned over his shoulder, scanning the crowd. The distracted expression on his face wasn’t one I’d seen before.
“Yes,” I decided. “Yes I do.”
The music was loud, beach-party music. I swayed my hips and Andrew grabbed them, pulling me closer. I pressed my hands against his chest. “Whoa. I need to breathe.”
“Come on. Mac told me you’re looking for something.”
“Well, I haven’t found it yet.”
He pressed harder and I shoved at him, operating on instinct.
Before he could react, a figure shifted between us. My breath caught as I peered over Kent’s shoulder, trying to see what was happening between him and Andrew.
But I couldn’t see, or hear. Before long, Andrew walked away, shaking his head.
The dance floor was busy, but the only body I felt was Kent’s in front of mine.
When he turned, our gazes were nearly level thanks to my heels.
“I told you not to let guys touch you who don’t deserve to.”
His voice should’ve been too low to hear over the music, but every word echoed clearly in my ears
.
Either his presence or the booze lowered my inhibitions. I stepped closer.
“What am I supposed to do, Kent? Stand off on the sidelines while every guy hits on every girl until maybe someday a guy comes along that’s not a total jackass? Because I’m sick of waiting.” I realized as I said it that it was true.
We were a breath apart. In a sea of dancers, we were the only ones not moving. But the air between us, around us, was electric.
I swayed toward him, or he swayed toward me. The music pushed us together like the water had the other night. Wrapping around us, casting its own spell that filled the places words couldn’t.
I glanced down at his shirt. There was a smudge on the bottom, like he’d tugged it down after fixing his car. I lifted the edge of the shirt and his hands curled into loose fists as his sides. “You’re dirty,” I murmured.
“You have no idea.”
My gaze flew back to his, heat curling between my thighs.
I wanted to touch him.
I wanted to know if I’d like it.
I wanted to know if he would.
“Hey party people!” Mac appeared at my side, along with the rest of the crowd from the table.
Mac grabbed my arm, pulling me away from Kent.
I resisted, looking over my shoulder. He didn’t move to follow me. Instead he disappeared behind the bobbing heads and smiling faces.
I gave in to it. Tonight was about my friend, not whatever confusing flirtation was happening with Kent.
Mac and I lost ourselves in the music, and the alcohol buzzed through my system.
After a dozen songs and another round, Mac started to make groaning noises. I took her to the bathroom, where she emptied her stomach in the toilet. At least she didn’t have any hair to hold back.
“Come on,” I murmured, wiping her face with a paper towel I’d wet at the sink. “I’m taking you home.”
“No! I just need water.”
“You do need that. And sleep. And then ibuprofen.”
I tugged Mac outside. Somehow she’d tracked down the rocket balloon, and the ribbon was clutched in her stubborn fist. The balloon bobbed, snagging on doorways and people and causing me to leave a string of mumbled apologies in our wake.
Outside, the cool night air cut through my buzz.
I opened my phone with one hand, keeping Mac upright with the other.
Shit. An Uber would cost a ton from here.
“Need a ride?”
I turned toward the voice. Kent stood a few paces away, hands in his pockets.
My breath stuck in my chest. “Yes.”
We got Mac around the corner and into the back seat of his Jeep. I slid in the front as he started the car.
We pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street, quiet at this time of night.
The breeze played with my hair and I stretched out a hand, feeling it rush between my fingers. “Thanks for the ride. I hope leaving won’t hurt your chances.”
A smile ghosted across his face. “If they want to buy from me because I party with them, I don’t need them.”
At a stoplight, I leaned forward and switched on the radio. Kent started to sing along under his breath.
“You have a nice voice,” I said.
“Church choir.”
I pictured a younger version of him, blond and sweet and with the same infectious smile, and stifled a laugh. “I had no idea you were so innocent.”
“I was eight. I’m not anymore.”
You’re dirty.
You have no idea.
The truth was, I didn’t. But having those words directed at me caused dangerous thoughts to enter my mind.
We spent most of the forty-minute drive in silence. When we got back to my place, Kent and I helped Mac up the flight of stairs.
“Not good,” she mumbled.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said in my most soothing voice. “Kent and I are here.”
She laughed, wincing. “Mmmm. Hottie came to my party.”
He had the decency not to reply, but his mouth twitched.
Upstairs, I poured some water into Mac and got her stripped down and into bed, with another glass of water and some ibuprofen on the nightstand. The rocket balloon, now freed, drifted up to the ceiling in the corner, a feeble testament to the tenacity of drunk people.
I pulled the door of her dark room so it was just ajar, backing into the hall where Kent stood.
“She need anything else?”
“No. She’ll sleep ten hours and be grumpy as hell in the morning. She doesn’t usually drink this much, but it’s been rough lately. School, and her brother, and…” I trailed off, tilting my face up to meet his gaze.
Three hours after our almost-dance and now that I was considerably more sober, he still stole my damned breath.
Everything else melted away against his warmth and his nearness. Work, relationships, self-consciousness. None of it mattered.
The walls were thin, and a door banged shut down the hall.
His finger grazed the neckline of my dress. “You look different tonight,” he murmured.
I laughed softly. “It’s the dental floss dress.”
“Yeah, that’s not it.” He glanced past me toward the living room and I wondered if he was thinking about the couch when we’d been back to back. My heart picked up.
“Last night, here with you…for a second, it was like being free. Almost free,” I amended.
“Almost?” His voice was like satin on my skin. Safe and dangerous at once.
I struggled to find the words. “It’s like…one moment I can’t picture myself wanting that, not to mention doing it. The next, I wish I’d finished it.” My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips. “I’m brave when I’m with you.”
“I’m here now.”
My fingers tingled, my eyes falling closed. “I can’t. It’s not the same.”
But the floor creaked as he stepped closer, and I felt his breath on my neck.
“How about now.”
It was different, because we were face to face. And even with my eyes closed this was intimate.
Still, something flowed through my veins. Reckless, powerful.
“Hey, Supergirl.” His mouth was at my ear now. “You don’t need a man to tell you you’re brave. Or sexy. Or beautiful.”
His words took me over, sent me closer to an edge I hadn’t felt until I’d met his gaze across a crowded table in a bar a few hours before.
My fingers drifted between my thighs like they had last night. My throat tightened at the first brush of my skin.
“You could have anything you want in this world, Dal. Take it.” Kent’s mouth grazed my ear, not a kiss, just grounding me with his presence. His scent took over my brain, opening, enticing.
My hips pressed against my hand.
Two days ago I couldn’t imagine getting off in front of a guy, not to mention Kent. My limited sexual experience paled in comparison to this.
Not because it was dirty. Because it was powerful.
He was making me powerful, and in giving me that he took some too. I fed off his closeness, his warmth, his confidence, used it to reinforce my own.
A noise escaped my throat as my fingers stroked my skin in little circles I knew would get me there. But it felt nothing like how I usually touched myself under the covers.
“Tell me how it is.” His voice sounded far away and in my head at once.
“I—I can’t.” Not because I was ashamed to voice my feelings, but because I was beyond putting words to them.
His lips grazed my temple and I shuddered. “You can.”
“It’s so much…and not enough. I need more.”
As if responding to my own words, I slid a finger down, pressing inside the slick wetness of my body.
A groan that could’ve been Kent’s or mine rumbled through the air.
“Don’t stop,” he muttered.
I couldn’t this time. Stars danced behind my eyelids as I got closer.
It was surreal, like being in a cocoon with him around me, inside me, even though he was barely touching me.
I forced my heavy lids open a millimeter. His hair tickled my face and my head fell to the side.
Kent’s lips skimmed over my forehead, tracing my skin with a lightness that defied the intensity inside me.
I almost missed the whisper because it wasn’t meant for me. “Fuck, you smell good.”
He’s in this too.
The need inside me cranked up another level.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled. “Kent, I’m going to…”
He pulled back an inch, and eyes dark as the night outside were the last thing I saw before my lids fell shut again, my mouth falling wide.
Tremors wracked my body, starting at my core and shaking outward. The wall held me upright when I started to sag.
After a minute or a year, the sound of laughter outside had me blinking my eyes back open.
“Hi,” I murmured.
“Hi.” Kent’s voice was low but it sounded different than before.
His gaze was dark, questioning. He bent closer, like he couldn’t not. His fingers threaded in my hair and his lips skimmed over my cheek, soothing, comforting.
The air I sucked in was nowhere near enough to fix the lightheaded feeling. My hand snuck beneath the edge of his undershirt. The first feel of his warm skin under my hands thrilled me, the muscles flexing with my curious touch. I realized too late that my fingers were still damp.
I started to pull away, but he reached for my wrist.
Not pushing me away. Holding me there.
My heart hammered and I stared up at him, his expression heated.
What he’d given me tonight with zero expectations was a gift. Even now, I knew he would walk out of here no questions asked.
Which created a new problem, because I wanted him to do a lot of things. Leaving wasn’t one of them.
His hands reached for my hips, his thumbs working between the loose weave of the dress to rub my bare skin. I shivered.
My hands explored upward, resting in the indentations below his pecs. He exhaled, hard, his forehead dropping to mine.