Fully Automatic (Bullet) (4 page)

He had to be careful.  Seeing her halfway nude made him want to plunge into her, but he had to restrain himself.  So his lips met hers again,
his motions intentionally soft and slow, and he took his time moving his hand to her breasts again.  Then he kissed her neck and moved to a nipple.  She gasped again but he could see her shift once more.  She wanted this, wanted him to make her feel alive, and he wasn’t going to let her down.

He started kissing back up toward her face.  “God, you’re perfect,” he said as he cupped her breast with his hand.  Then he kissed her again, slow and hot, and decided to go for it.  He trailed his fingers down her abdomen, stopping when he got to the waistband of her jeans, and then he pushed the button through the buttonhole.
  She thrust her fingers into his hair again and kissed him back hard.  Yeah, Brad tried not to smile, but it felt so good knowing she wanted him.  He still didn’t want to rush.  He wanted to make sure that
she
was sure she wanted it, and he’d only know for certain if he gave her plenty of time to tell him
no
.  So when he got to her zipper, he took his time pulling it down.  He could tell her breathing was a little harder.  She was definitely warmed up.  He slid his hand inside, on top of her panties, making a pass, and he could feel her tilt her pelvis almost imperceptibly.  She was definitely feeling the urge.  So he slid his hand down farther, pushing a finger in between her jeans and panties.  It was tight but he could tell her panties were wet.  A good sign.  So he kissed her one more time and then pressed his forehead to hers.  He knew it was a risky move, taking her out of the mood and making her be rational, but it was a chance he had to take.  When she opened her eyes, he said, “I’m not gonna take your virginity, Leah, not tonight, but I want to make you feel good.  Can I do that?”

She was breathless.  “Uh-huh.”  A slight nod, almost an urgency in her voice.  He leaned over to kiss her one last time
.  Then he sat up and helped her slide her jeans off her hips and down her legs.  She kicked her sandals off and then he let her jeans drop to the floor.  She was wearing hot pink panties, nothing fancy, but they were snug on her and accentuated her shape.  He felt himself wanting to rush again but wasn’t going to.  He pulled on the sides and she tilted her ass up off the bed while he slid the panties off her.  Then, without haste but a little more quickly, he pulled them down her thighs, over her knees, and she bent them so he didn’t have to move down the bed to pull the panties the rest of the way off.

He leaned over and kissed her belly next to her navel, drawing the flesh into his mouth some.  Then he trailed his tongue down toward the bush between her legs, stopping at the mound.  He kissed her flesh again and then changed position so he was between her legs.  He’d only ever tried oral on a girl once before and while it hadn’t ended in utter failure, he hadn’t been able to make her come.  He figured it was because he’d been fingering her before and had managed to that way.  Since then, his dad had given him some suggestions
, and he planned to put them to good use.

She was a little nervous—he could tell.  He didn’t think there was any way to alleviate her anxiety.  She’d never had a guy touching her before, so she’d have to go through it sometime.  Brad realized too that that might mean he wouldn’t be able to bring her to orgasm because of her inexperience and nervousness too, so he hoped he could help her enjoy herself.
  He kissed her inner thigh and then lifted that leg so it draped over his shoulder.  He slid his thumbs up her slit to part her open and there she was.  His dad had told him to not concentrate directly on the area women raved about—the clit—but to work all around it at first, especially with a girl with less experience.  He’d told Brad to wait until she started tensing up and then move in for the kill.  Patience too, he’d advised, and start slowly.  Don’t increase the speed for a while either.  Brad thought he could do that.  He didn’t mind taking a long time to build her to the breaking point.

So he started, doing just what he’d planned.
  He stroked his tongue slowly against the sides and she seemed to like it okay, but nothing was happening.  It wasn’t like his dad had told him, so he decided
fuck it
.  He moved his tongue to her clit—easy to find.  He did decide to take one bit of his dad’s advice, and that was to move slowly.  He didn’t want to overwhelm her, and he wanted her to enjoy it.  After a minute or so, that’s when he heard her breathing change.  She was taking in deeper breaths and every gulp of air became audible.  She moved her hands back into his hair, and he felt himself growing hard again.  He tried to ignore his own excitement as he focused on her, and he kept up the steady pace, increasing it a bit.  After a few more minutes, she started taking deep breaths, lots of air into her lungs, and he was sure she was close.  He decided then to go for broke and he sped up.  She made a slight noise one of the times she was gulping down air, and that’s when he knew he was on the right track and that an orgasm was likely.  He wasn’t going to stop then.  A few more seconds and he felt the muscles in her thighs get tighter.  He kept his hands on them but again focused on what his tongue was doing and then her thighs started to squeeze against him and she let out a small groan.  He knew what that meant—what he did now mattered more than ever.  So he kept up the same pace, focusing on the same spot, and her groans became cries, music to his ears.

After the longest time, her fingers started pushing on his head.  “Stop.”

He paused.  “You sure?”

“Yes.”  Her voice was light and sounded like a pant.

“You okay?”

She
continued to breath hard, her chest heaving.  “I think so.”

He crawled up to lie next to her.  Part of her hair was matted to her forehead.
  He pushed it aside with a finger and kissed her on the nose.  “You sure?”

Her cheeks and chest were pink but she look
ed like she was glowing.  Success.  There was a twinkle in her eyes, and she managed a small smile.  “Yes.  I’m starting to wonder what I waited so long for.”

He chuckled and pulled her into an embrace.  He let her sleep for a while, her naked body resting in his arms.  After a long while, his dick softened back up but his balls ached.  That was okay.  He had a remedy for it later.  He could hardly wait until she was ready…but he
could
and
would
wait, for as long as she needed.

Chapter Four

TWO WEEKS LATER, Bullet was formed.  Brad had never felt this good about a band before.  Somehow, he, Ethan, Nick, and Zane fit together.  The song-writing process was fluid and nothing short of amazing.  They all had the same vision for the band but different influences and inspirations, so the cohesiveness was almost instantaneous, while the music they were making already sounded different.  Brad thought it was fresh and new, and he couldn’t wait until they had more songs written and could play a few gigs.

Leah watched them perform their first two songs.  He sang one and Ethan sang the other.  They hadn’t settled on a permanent singer, but Ethan seemed to do well when he was sober.  The rest of the time, it was better to just let his friend become absorbed in his guitar while he covered the lyrics on all the songs.
  They started practicing every night after school, except Friday, because that was Brad’s night with Leah, and since he worked on Saturday and Sunday, they practiced for a couple of hours Saturday night, but not as much as they would have liked.   Ethan started calling Leah
Yoko
behind her back until Brad told him to shut the fuck up.

He and Leah
still saw each other as much as they could, and they continued to engage in sexual play, but they hadn’t fully consummated, and Brad wasn’t going to force the issue.  She’d gotten really good at giving him head, and he had plenty more surprises for what he could do for her.  He knew the first time for a girl could be painful, and he didn’t want to go there with her until she was ready.

A couple weeks later and the band had
four strong songs.  Brad started talking about playing some shows and then putting together enough money to record an EP.  He started mapping out his plan with the guys and then Ethan said, “Dude, my grandpa’s making me go to college this fall.”

“So?”

“So…it’s not here.  I’m gonna have to move.”

“Seriously?”

Ethan frowned.  “Yeah.  It’s just for a year, though.  He made me promise to go for a year, and then if I still didn’t want to, he wouldn’t make me.”

“He can’t make you
now
, man.”

Ethan sighed.  “He’s already paid the tuition
, and he’s going to give me all the money I want while I go.  It’s either that or…”

“Or what?”

“He takes back my truck and my guitar.”

“He can’t do that.”

“Technically, he can’t, but he’s done a lot for mom and me.  I can’t just tell my grandpa to fuck off.”

Brad sighed.  He knew Ethan’s grandfather was a cool dude.  He’d been the only good man in Ethan’s life.  Brad wished the man lived closer where he could have actually had an influence on him.  Brad had known Ethan for a long time, and the guy’s mother made one shitty choice after another.  He didn’t understand how she’d wound up having such a great father.  Ethan had never said, but Brad suspected Ethan’s parents had just
been plain bad for each other, and Ethan had been caught in the middle of many a bad thing.  Ethan’s dad leaving hadn’t helped, either, because June had managed to bring home plenty of men who were as bad, if not worse, than Ethan’s dad had dreamed of.

Still, he couldn’t hold his friend back.  He’d wanted to have a band with his best friend for the last couple of years and now that everything was starting to gel, it was upsetting to have it pulled right out from under him.  But he knew his friend and knew Ethan would never choose to go to college on his own.  Maybe it would be good for him.  He’d have to focus and apply himself, something he’d rarely done in high school.  The guy was smart—Brad knew that much.  Maybe Ethan’s grandfather saw potential.  “So how often could you come home?”

Ethan shrugged.  “I dunno.  Maybe once a month?  And then after the year was up we could hit it hard?”

Brad shrugged.  “Maybe.”

Zane said, “Yeah, I have to do the college thing to.”

“You have to too?”

“My dad said he’s tired of me being a loser.  He says my hair’s too long, and I’ll never get a job looking the way I do if I don’t get an education.”  Yeah, Brad knew Zane’s dad hated the hair—he’d commented about Brad’s before too.  Zane’s wasn’t as bad, though—his black hair barely went over his ears, and against the guy’s olive complexion and dark blue eyes, he would have thought the guy’s dad was giving him tips on how to attract girls.

Brad felt his heart sink.  He’d been considering doing a few things—playing here and there—without Ethan for the year, but he couldn’t do it without a bassist too.

“Yeah, but…Ethan and I are going to the same school.”

“Where you goin’?”

“Western.”

Brad thought for a few minutes.  Well, that wasn’t so bad.  It was close.  At least
it wasn’t out of state or on Colorado’s eastern slope.  Zane said, “But I don’t want to do more than a year either.  If my dad sees I’m just wasting my time and his money in school, I think he’ll change his mind.  He wants me to be like my sister.  She’ll be a junior in college next fall, and she’s on the dean’s list and getting scholarships ‘cause she’s so smart.”  He laughed.  “I told my dad to send me to Juilliard, and he got pissed.”

He hoped the disappointment didn’t show on his face.  He’d been hoping to be discovered in a year; instead, they’d just be getting started.  “Well, can we at least do some of our writing through email and stuff?”

“Yeah, man.  And we’ll come home once a month too.”

Zane said, “We get a week off at Thanksgiving and a month off at Christmas too.”

Nick hadn’t said a word till that point.  “Come on, ladies.”  Nick tended to be the quiet one, but when he talked, he usually made them laugh—or at least tried to.  Even his demeanor didn’t demand too much attention—his short dark brown hair made him the odd man out of the group, and his blue eyes took in every little detail.  He might have seemed quiet, but he didn’t miss a thing.  “We’re not breaking up.  We’re just cooling off for a while.”

Brad shook his head.  While he appreciated the humor, he didn’t care for the setback.  So, he’d have to rearrange his plans.  Maybe he could spend the next year working his ass off and buying all the things the band would need.  They needed better amps and shit like that.  He’d make a list and prioritize what they needed most and start checking things off one at a time.  What was going to make things worse, though, was that Leah was going to be attending Colorado Christian University in the fall, and that was somewhere in the Denver area.  If she’d
been around, it wouldn’t have been so bad.  He had a lot of thinking to do.  His band was his dream.

One year.  They had one year, and if Ethan and Zane decided school was what they wanted to do in a
fter that year was up, then the band would never be their thing…and he’d have to start from scratch again.  That was it, though—one year.  He hoped he’d be able to wait.

* * *

One week before graduation, he and Leah were lying on his bed, having finished another hot and heavy session.  She was swirling a finger on the few random hairs that had decided to sprout on his chest.  He was running his hand over her hair, feeling full and alive.  The closer he got to graduation, the more he dreaded it.  He knew she wouldn’t be leaving for college until August, but it made him sad just the same.  Still…he was going to enjoy their time together while they had it.  He tried not to think about it.

Leah lifted her head to look him in the eyes.  She too looked sad.  She must have been thinking what he had.  “Hey.”  She looked down at her finger again.  “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

He didn’t like the sound of that and sat up a little.  “What?”

She blinked.  “Well, you know I’m going to college this fall.”

“Yeah.”  It was as though she’d been reading his thoughts.

“You know what I’m going into, right?”

“Political science.  Isn’t that what you said?”

She nodded.  “I’m going to double major in prelaw.”

“Okay.”

Her face changed and she looked even sadder.  She blinked again.  “I really like you, Brad, and I’ve loved our time together.”

His heart sank.  He already knew where it was going, even though he didn’t want to believe it.  She
liked
him?  When he fucking
loved
her?  How the fuck had he missed this?  He clamped his jaw, hoping to hold it together while she talked.  “Where’s this going?”

“That’s what I mean.  My dad’s decided we’re
all going to move to Lakewood.  He’s already found a house there.  I’ll still be living in the dorms, but my family will be close by.”

He sucked in a breath.  “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Uh, well…”

“You are.”

She was quiet for a moment before she said, “Well, yeah, but it’s not because I don’t like you.”

He had to be cool.  He just nodded.  “Okay.”

“Brad, you know we can’t be together, right?  We’re so different.”

Now he
couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He knew she was still wet between her legs from what they’d been doing earlier, and now she was dumping him like he’d meant nothing to her.  “If you feel that way, why’d you go out with me in the first place?”

At least she acted like breaking up with him wasn’t something she
wanted to do.  He’d give her that.  “Because you’re sweet and good looking and I liked you.”

He felt deflated.  He’d just been fun for her to finish out the school year.  And now she was ready to dump him.  He felt like a pile of dog shit, and he wasn’t going to beg her to
keep seeing him until she left.  If he wasn’t wanted, he wasn’t going to force himself on her.  But after all they’d been through.  What a fucking idiot he’d been.  He’d never felt that way about a girl before, and he needed to make sure he never would again.

He couldn’t remember what he said after that, but he pulled her to his chest and held her
close.  He’d hold his head high at graduation and put his heart into his band.  But right now it felt like a large hand was squeezing his heart, making it impossible to breathe.  He had to find a way to make it through that first.