A Kiss For You

by Rachel Van Dyken

  Veronica laughed. “I mean, with that endorsement, why wouldn’t you want a boyfriend?”

  “Precisely my point. And anyway, it’s such a fucking double standard. Guys are allowed to fuck whoever they want, and other dudes are like, Way to go, bro, and slap them five. Girls are supposed to be all demure and pure and rely solely on their vibrators if they’re not in a committed, monogamous relationship. Fucking patriarchy.”

  “Fuck the patriarchy!” Ramona crowed as she held up her hand for a slap.

  I obliged.

  I rapped the chorus of “I’m not a player” like Big Pun. “Ronnie, you need to crush a lot. I’d even settle for a little crushing. You’re too hot not to crush as much as humanly possible.”

  Veronica laughed. “Maybe tonight. Wing me.”

  My mouth popped open. “Oh my God, seriously?”

  She nodded, closed lips smiling. “You won me over with your slut speech.”

  “Finally. I’ve been working on you for years. I can’t believe I’ve seen the day. And I’m not even in Depends!”

  She laughed and pushed me over, and I couldn’t even be mad about it.

  A half an hour later, we were walking into a bar on Broadway called Circus that had popped up a few months before. The thing about themed bars was that they were hit or miss. That was mostly because, in an attempt to be cute, the bars would end up overdone, and within a few months of the novelty wearing off, the bar would close and a new one would take its place.

  Not Circus.

  A circular bar stood in the center of the room, and it was made out of a small version of a carousel. It looked like someone had plucked the top off a carousel and hung it from the ceiling. Around the top, Edison bulbs lined the panels of alternating mirrors and vintage paintings of circus scenes, and long white bar lights spoked from underneath the center, like a wheel. Red-and-white striped fabric draped from the peaked top of the carousel and out into the darkness of the edges of the ceiling, and the barstools were all saddles.

  Everything in the bar had a circus feel — from creepy-cool oddity art to brushed brass fixtures on everything. The bartenders were dressed up like ringmasters, complete with handlebar mustaches and red tails, and the cocktail waitresses were all dressed in tails too. Rather than shirttails, they wore black bras, and rather than pants, they wore high-waisted shorts and fishnets. They even had little top hats on.

  I swear to God, if I hadn’t had my dream job as a tattoo artist, I’d have dropped everything and joined the Circus.

  I led the charge through the crowd and to the bar with my roommates behind me, squeezing in between two gigantic guys to lean on the bar.

  They looked down at me.

  “Hey, fellas.”

  They smiled.

  The closest bartender set a drink in front of a girl down from me, and the second he saw me, he headed straight over, effectively skipping everyone ahead of me.

  It might have been the fact that I’d hopped up a little, caging my rack in my arms to put it on display. Oldest trick in the book.

  I told you — I was absolutely shameless.

  With drinks in hand, I gave the bartender a smile, and the girls and I headed away from the fray to look for a table. A group was just getting up, and we swooped in like birds of prey just ahead of a pack of bitter chicks wearing painful-looking shoes.

  I sipped on my tequila — it was chilled: I’m not that hard — looking around at the mass of people, soaking it all in, as “Pretty in Pink” by The Psychedelic Furs played.

  And then time stopped, and the crowd parted like the universe wanted to point right at him.

  It was Blondie from the ice cream parlor.

  The music stretched out, people slowing under the red and white striped fabric, the naked bulbs of the carousel painting him in golden light. He stood right there like he’d been placed in that spot just for me, tall and beautiful, his skin tan and smile bright as he laughed at something his twin had said.

  I almost fell out of my chair. There were two of them. My insides turned into raspberry jelly at the thought of what kind of damage they could do to a woman.

  But my eyes found Blondie again — his twin was wrong somehow, which was bizarre in itself because they were identical. From where I sat, they were night and day. There was something about Blondie, some vibe that hit me even more now than it had at the ice cream parlor. He felt … familiar. Something about him I couldn’t quite place caught me, something in the line of his profile and the curve of his lips. But I was certain I’d never seen him before — I remembered all of the Adonises I’d met and arduously logged them in my mental bank of spank.

  He was tall and jacked with a smile like a lightbulb and hair like spun gold. It was a little long, curling around his ears, and I wondered if it was soft, wondered what it would feel like between my fingers as I rode his face like a pony.

  I didn’t realize I had slipped off my stool and was walking toward him — I had locked onto him like a goddamn target — until he met my eyes, froze for a split second, and then walked toward me like he was caught up just as much as I was.

  I should have known right then that I was in big Blondie-sized trouble. But I couldn’t seem to find a single fuck to give.

  The pinup girl from the ice cream shop had the reddest lips curled into an irresistible smile, and my feet, which had been moving entirely of their own accord, didn’t stop until we met in the middle.

  I knew her somehow, but I couldn’t place her and wondered if it was just that I’d been thinking about her since I saw her a few hours before.

  Shock and awe, man. She was standing there in front of me like a dream, but up close and personal where I could see her. In a split second, I’d catalogued everything about her — her gold septum ring, the black gauges with tiny cat ears, the curve of her plump red lips, the shine of her hair, and the tattoos across her chest, her shoulders, her arms, her thighs. I wondered where else she was tattooed and found myself smiling down at her, imagining the answer.

  “Heya, Blondie,” she said slyly. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were following me.”

  One dark brow rose with one corner of her lips. “Who says you know better?”

  I chuckled as my eyes combed over her face like it was the first face I’d ever seen. She was so familiar to me, but I’d have remembered the purple hair, the piercings, the tattoos. That smile.

  I blinked.

  I knew that smile.

  “I’m Penny,” she said, extending her free hand.

  I took it, my smile spreading. “Bodie.”

  She showed no recognition at my name — when she had known me, I’d gone by a nickname. Her eyes were on my lips, and I realized fully that she had no idea who I was. I wondered if I’d really changed that much from when she’d seen me last, realizing I had. Sometimes I’d look in the mirror and barely recognize myself. And earlier she’d had on big sunglasses, on top of being far enough away that I couldn’t tell it was her. Eight years had changed her too, but only the colors of her feathers. Everything else seemed exactly the same.

  I considered telling her, but dismissed the thought. Because there was really only one thing to do: fuck with her until she figured it out.

  “Good to see you again,” I said ambiguously.

  “You too, but I’m surprised. I mean, after going down on a waffle cone for you earlier, I figured you would have had plenty of me to last.”

  A laugh burst out of me. “Oh, I have a feeling your kind of ice cream is the kind you can’t get enough of.”

  She shrugged and brought her drink to her lips. “It’s been said.” She watched me for a second again. “So what’s your story, Bodie?”

  “I just moved here from LA.”

  “For a job?”

  “You could say that. I’m a software engineer.”

  She laughed. “Wow, not what I would have guessed.”

  “Oh?”

  Penny drama
tically looked me up and down. “Hmm. I’d say … personal trainer. No, no. That hunky moving company I always see commercials for.”

  “Manly Movers?”

  She lit up and snapped. “Yes! You definitely look like the Manly Mover type. All those muscles.”

  I chuckled. “That’s super sexist.”

  “Male model. That would have done too.”

  I couldn’t stop smiling, and I hated thinking that my dimple was on display. “I guess I should be flattered that you think I’m hot enough to be a male model.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, you definitely are.”

  “How about you? What do you do? Where are you from?” I asked, baiting her.

  “I’m a tattoo artist,” she offered but didn’t elaborate, and I sensed a story there. “I’ve lived in New York since I graduated high school, but I grew up in Santa Cruz.”

  “Me too.”

  Her eyes widened, and she smiled. “No way. I went to Loma Vista. What a small world.”

  She still hadn’t figured it out, and I found myself grinning like an idiot, wondering how long it would take her to put it together.

  “Ever surf?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No way. Sharks.”

  “That’s what my buddy Phil says too.”

  She glanced behind me, twiddling her fingers, presumably at Jude and Phil. “So, you’re a twin, huh?”

  I nodded and took a sip of my Maker’s as “Rock the Casbah” kicked off, and everyone around us started bouncing and dancing. “Since birth.”

  She laughed. “What a win for the universe that there would be two of you.”

  “Double your pleasure, double your fun.”

  That caught her off guard, and her bottom lip slipped between her teeth as a flush rose on her cheeks.

  Just like that, I had one objective, and it began and ended with her lips.

  “Although I should tell you now,” I stepped closer, slipping into her space, and her eyes widened, pupils dilating as she leaned into me, “I don’t like to share.”

  The tip of her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, and her eyes were locked on to my mouth.

  “Are you thinking about kissing me?” I asked.

  She shook her head, though her eyes didn’t stray. “No, I’m thinking about what your dick looks like.”

  I laughed from way down deep in my belly, shocked in the best way and turned on in the worst. And as the ocean of people waved around us, she rose up on her tiptoes, grabbed a handful of my T-shirt, and pulled.

  I caught the smallest breath — a surprised, satisfied gasp — just before our lips met, and fireworks exploded in my brain. The kiss wasn’t soft or sweet; it was strong and determined, those red, red lips pressing against mine, opening to let me into her hot mouth, her tongue finding mine like she’d been looking for it her whole life.

  The surprise left me as quickly as it had hit, and I leaned into her, my free arm winding around her back to press her body against mine. There wasn’t an inch of space between us, and all the while, our mouths worked each other’s in a long dance that left my heart chugging like a freight train in my chest.

  She pulled away, her lips swollen and eyes lust-drunk as they met mine and held them while she kicked back her drink and grabbed my hand.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.

  And I smirked, breathless. “Your place or mine?”

  Mr. Diddle

  For the record, I had every intention of telling her who I was.

  It was just that I was so caught up in her as we hurried back to my apartment that my brain had short-circuited, thinking only from my raging hard-on in my pants. I didn’t have time to consider what it meant or what would happen, and I didn’t have the will to break whatever trance I’d found myself in.

  I should have been surprised to have her by my side. I should have been confused about how I’d ended up with Penny’s hand in mine. But wondering felt like the absolute first and last thing I should be doing, so I didn’t. And as I towed her toward my apartment, I was unable to consider anything other than the feeling of her fingers twined in mine and the sight of her smiling up at me, eyes shining and hot.

  The loft felt like it was on Mars for as long as it was taking to get there.

  I took the opportunity to kiss her as we waited for a stoplight to change, slipping my fingers into her purple hair, closing my lips over hers, and she tipped her chin and gave me her mouth, her tongue, with her hands clutching my shirt, pulling me into her like she was starving and I was a porterhouse.

  My keys were in my hand before we hit the elevator — another opportunity to kiss her, my fingerips brushing her bare collarbone, down the curve of her breast, around her waist to her ass. I squeezed, pulling her into my cock, pleased with the whimper against my lips.

  We practically ran down the hallway. She panted behind me as I unlocked the door, and we tumbled inside.

  I closed it behind her and turned. “Hang on, there’s something I need to—”

  She launched herself at me, and I caught her, my back hitting the door with a thump, as she wrapped her arms around my neck. Her feet dangled off the ground, and I held her around the waist, kissing her deep.

  In that moment, there was no point in stopping to tell her I was the chubby, nerdy kid with glasses she went to high school with. If she even remembered me.

  But I remembered her. I’d imagined kissing her a thousand times, but never in my life had I thought I’d ever get the chance. Until now.

  I turned her around, the decision made and my mission singular, and pressed her against the door. She pulled my lip between her teeth, and I growled, moving down her neck, nipping and sucking a trail past her collarbone and across the tattoos marking the soft skin of her breasts.

  I wanted her naked. I wanted to see every tattoo, every inch of skin. I wanted her in my mouth. I wanted inside of her.

  But first, this.

  I dropped to my knees, my fingers working the buttons of her shorts. There were four — two on each side of a panel — and my heart thudded in my chest as I dropped that panel to reveal a rectangle of skin covered in tattoos. Flowers framed two pistols just inside her hip bones, barrels angled in a V, pointing down. I slipped my hands into her shorts and around her naked hips, pushing them down her legs, and as she stepped out of them, my eyes caught on the gold barbells above and below the hood of her clit.

  “Oh, fuck, Penny,” I whispered, my hands gripping her hips, my lips already on a track for it.

  I closed my eyes and buried my face in the sweetness of her.

  She braced herself with her hands on my shoulders, murmuring something I couldn’t make out and didn’t try. My tongue rolled against the bottom ball that rested right over her clit, circling until her nails dug into my skin through my shirt.

  When I broke away and glanced up, she was looking down, her eyes half-shut and those red fucking lips hanging open in pleasure.

  I smirked and lifted one of her legs, hitching it over my shoulder to spread her open. I trailed my hand down, framing her piercing in the V of two fingers, and when I squeezed gently and shifted in a circle, her eyes rolled back in her head that rested against the door, stretching her long white neck out.

  For a second, I wished I could be everywhere at once, licking her neck, sucking her lip, my face in her pussy — everywhere. I wanted to devour her. So I started with what I had at my fingertips.

  I moved my hand down to cup her, my fingers shifting against the slick line of her core.

  “God, you’re soaking fucking wet.” My voice was ragged, my body coiled.

  She whispered a plea, begging me with a single word, “Please.”

  I happily obliged, licking my lips, bringing them just close enough to her hood that they touched only infinitesimally, waiting for a stretched out second before I slipped my fingers inside at the exact moment I closed my lips over her clit.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, bucking against me, closing aroun
d my fingers as they slid in, out, in, reaching for the rough spot inside.

  Her fingers slipped into my hair and twisted, and mine matched the pace of my tongue.

  She clenched around my fingers, pinning me between her thighs as I moved faster, harder, and then …

  Then, she came with a cry to a higher power and a burst that I’d be thinking about on my death bed.

  As she came down, I slowed, softly kissing and licking her, every flick of my tongue sending another pulse through her pussy around my fingers.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathed. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

  I closed my lips, reverently kissing her once more before looking up at her with a smile. “Santa Cruz. Loma Vista, Class of 2009.”

  Her eyes went wide, and she blinked. “But there wasn’t anyone named Bodie in my class.”

  “There was. You just knew me as Diddle.”

  Her mouth hung open, and a shocked laugh escaped her. “No way. No fucking way. Diddle was …”

  I moved her leg, putting her foot back on the ground, but she still hung on to my shoulders. “Chubby? Glasses? Into Dungeons and Dragons? With an equally dorky twin? Friends with Rodney Parker since the second grade when he moved in next to us and gave me that stupid nickname?”

  I rose, and her hands on my shoulders stayed put until I was standing before her with my hands on her hips, feeling ashamed of myself for not telling her sooner. She stood there, stunned and still blinking at me.

  “Are you mad I didn’t tell you?”

  At that, a smile spread across her lips. “How could I be mad at a guy who just ate my pussy like it was his last meal?” And she laughed, pulling me down to kiss her, running her tongue across my lips to taste herself.

  When she broke away, she looked up at me with the devil in her eyes. “Now, if you don’t fuck me and show me what the rest of you can do, I might actually die.”

  I laughed and bent to sling her over my shoulder, smacking her bare ass once I had her where I wanted her.

  Everything was upside down — his apartment, his ass I was clinging to, my insides after the orgasm I’d just had.