Gravity Happens (Forcing Gravity) (11 page)

“This afternoon. He’s teaching me to surf.”

I raised my eyebrows, wondering whose idea that had been. I was sure Ethan was over-the-top excited about seeing Nora in a bikini. And she’d get to see Ethan half-naked. I’d bet
money they’d end up in his bed, but I wasn’t telling Jase that.

“Nora, really?” Jase asked in disbelief, and it sort of annoyed me that he wasn’t happy about this. At least Ethan wasn’t hitting on
me
.

“What should I have to be concerned about, Jase?”
Nora asked him in a clipped tone.

“That Ethan only likes girls he can get in his bed,” Jase said bluntly, and I took major offense to it, even if it was true.

“Hey,” I said, smacking him on the chest with the back of my hand. “Not cool.”

“Hey,” he said right back to me. “My sister, my opinion. I don’t care how long you’ve known the guy and how much you care about him, he sleeps around.”

“He’s a good guy,” I defended, really not wanting to get into an argument with Jase when he was leaving. Besides, I knew he’d slept around a bit in between dating Chloe and me, so he didn’t have much room to talk.

“Not for my sister, he isn’t.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “Jase, I’m nineteen. I’ll make my own decisions about who I go out with, and Ethan told me he’s done with sleeping around.” Jase raised an eyebrow, and Nora held up her hand. “I know, I know. He could be feeding me a line, but I’m willing to take that risk. He’s really cute. I’ll give him a chance.”

“He really is
a good guy,” I defended, feeling like I needed to plug Ethan just because he was my best friend.

“I’ll be
t he’s a fantastic kisser,” Nora mused, and Jase turned to me.

“Just ask Logan. She can tell you,” he said sarcastically, and I glared at him.

I stood up as he was chuckling, so I pushed him in the shoulder. “Too far,
Jason
,” I said, using his full name, so he knew I was pissed. Then I stormed inside.

Just before I closed the door behind me, I heard Jase mutter, “Shit.”

Then Nora said, “Nice move,
Jason.
”

Within a few seconds, Jase was behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist and his lips at my ear. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t cool, and I know it. I shouldn’t have said it.”

I spun around and faced him. “No, you shouldn’t have,” I said, shoving my index finger against his chest, “especially because you know that kissing him wasn’t my choice. It is way too soon for you to make jokes about something that damn near broke us up for good.”

Jase pulled me closer so I was right up against him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then he kissed me.
“I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.”

I resisted at first, but then he became more insistent, and it was hard to hold back. Just being that close to him did funny things to my body and made me crave him, even if I was pissed at what he’d said. After a few minutes of him alternating
between kissing me and whispering, “I’m sorry,” I wraped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to deepen the kiss.

He pulled me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling the hardness there.

“Magical bedroom?” I asked him, referring to the nickname we had for his bedroom.

“Nora! Go home!
” he shouted out to the porch.

“Fine,” she called back. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

Jase started to walk us toward his room as he kissed me feverishly.

“I’ll call you later, Lo. We can do dinner
this week, and I’ll tell you all about my date with Ethan.”

“Sounds great,” I called back, just as Jase kicked the door to his room closed with his foot and laid me on the bed, slowing
coming to rest on top of me.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him to me, eliciting a groan from him that made me smile around his kiss.

“Damn, I’m going to miss this,” he said, as he sat up, took his shirt off and reached for mine in turn. As soon as it was off, I reached back and unhooked my bra.

His mouth descended on my breast as soon as I’d flung my bra to the floor, and I let my head fall back as he did all sorts of things that made me crazy in a really good way.

“Jase, don’t go,” I purred, as I snaked my hand between us and massaged him.

He groaned against my skin. “You are playing extremely dirty, Logan, and it’s not fair. I
have
to go. This is my job.”

“No, you
r job is to keep me happy,” I said, as I brought my other hand down to unbutton his jeans.

He started
to trail kisses down my stomach and fell to his knees in front of me, pulling me all the way to the end of the bed. Then he looked up at me with hooded eyes.

“You bet your ass that’s my job,” he said, before he yanked my yoga p
ants down along with my panties.

Chapter
Eight

Ethan

I was standing on the beach waiting for Nora to get to my house. It was three-fifteen, and she wasn’t there yet, but I had no way to contact her since she had yet to give me her phone number. I was getting
nervously impatient and felt like maybe I should do some push-ups to calm down, but then if I was doing push-ups when she arrived I’d be the jackass who was trying to look bigger for a girl. And truthfully, I was pretty secure in what I was packing – above and below the waist. Not that it would come to that, but just in case we went there, she’d know she was covered.

Then, before I could obsess any longer, she appeared on the deck above me wearing my hat and looking incredibly sexy.

“Come to return my stolen property?” I called up to her, and she leaned over and smiled.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. This is mine now,” she said tipping it at me.

“Not if I take it from you,” I threatened.

She grinned. “You have to catch me first.”

Happily.

“Then quit hiding up there, come down and let me chase you.”

“You are such a flirt!” she yelled out, leaning as far over the railing as she could without falling.

I shrugged. “Hey, I embrace what I’m good at, and flirting is one of those things. Sue me.”

“I’d rather kiss you.”

I knew there was surprise written all over my face
. “Really?”

That was faster than I’d expected.

“No,” she called back casually. “I just wanted to see what you’d do if I told you that, though.”

“Ha, ha. You’re hilarious.”

Then she pushed off the railing and headed down the steps. I noticed she was wearing a hoodie and cut-offs. I was disappointed she wasn’t in a skimpy bathing suit, but it wasn’t super-warm out, so I’d take what I could get. Her long, tan legs alone were enough to get any man hard. And I’d be staring at them all afternoon.

In front of me I had my and Logan’s boards laid out on the sand.
Nora and I wouldn’t be getting in the water. Today would just be about learning how to pop up and learning the mechanics of the sport. I’d taught surf lessons to kids every summer since I was fourteen, so I was familiar with how to help people learn the right way.

And
I planned on inviting her back for more lessons, so I’d be guaranteed to see her again.

“Hi,” Nora said, bouncing a little as she stopped in front of me.

“Hey,” I said, stuffing my hands in the pockets of my cargo shorts.

She smiled, and I shook my head at how good she looked in my hat. I really loved that hat, but a part of
me didn’t want to take it back from her. I honestly wanted to do really awful things to her while she wore only my hat.

She stepped closer to me, and my heart started to pound.

“My brother doesn’t think I should be here,” she shared, and although I wasn’t surprised, I was sort of taken aback by her approach. Why were we talking about her brother?

“Okay,” I responded, because as much as I wanted to tell her that her brother could kiss my white ass, I held back. Logan had told me they were close, so I had to play nice.

She took a step closer to me, reached out and ran her hand back through my hair. “I don’t necessarily agree with him,” she said, as her hand drifted down to cup the side of my face.

Normally when a girl did that, I stepped up and kissed her, but for some reason with Nora I was so scared of fucking things up that I held back, even though her eyes were hooded as she gazed at me. I knew she wanted to kiss me, but she was waiting for me to make a move, and I wasn’t budging.
She’d forced me to let her play hard to get, and now I was giving it right back.

“Is that so,” I answered casually, and she shrugged
, dropping her hand back to her side.

“He thinks you’re a player.”

“You think I’m a player,” I responded, shrugging.

She cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, but I’m beginning to think I might have been wrong, that maybe I pre-judged you too quickly and the player thing is mostly just for show. Am I right?”

No, you really aren’t. I’m a total player.

But could I change for this girl? I would have changed for Logan, but she didn’t want anything to do with me. Nora seemed to genuinely like me. And I liked her. Maybe change was good.

I shrugged
and said, “You tell me.” No sense in outright lying.

She stepped even closer to me, so much so, that we were just inches apart. I could feel her warm breath on my face.
She smelled like candy again, and the sweet scent invaded my senses, making my brain fuzzy.

“The way I see it,” she said confidently, “is that if you were a player, you would have made a play for me already, and you haven’t. In fact, you played hard to get so well that I came to you. I got tired of waiting, Ethan.”

I reached my hand out and rested it on her hip. She smiled at the gesture, but I wasn’t taking things any further than that.

“I wasn’t playing hard to get,” I finally told her. “I wasn’t playing anything.”

At least not intentionally.

She cocked her head to the side. “But it felt like you were playing – what
you were playing, I’m not sure – but you were so adamant about getting my number the night of your party that I thought for sure I’d hear from you, but I never did.”

“I still don’t have your number,” I pointed out.

“And yet here I am.”

“Here you are – ready for a surf lesson, but stalling fabulously.”

She laughed. “I’m not stalling, I’m flirting.”

“Good to know, although a part of me sort of thinks that you’re afraid, so you’re actually using flirting as a way to not have to learn how to surf.”

She shrugged. “Surfing’s hard. And the water’s cold.”

Shit, cold water might be nice. I was starting to get overheated.

“The water’s not that bad,” I told her, even though I knew it was freezing.

She raised an eyebrow, and I don’t think I’d ever considered that particular non-verbal gesture to be sexy before, but for some reason, when Nora did it, it was hot.

She put her hands on her hips then and said, “Prove it.”

Both of my eyebrows shot up. “Prove it how?”

She smirked. “Go swimming.”

“No.”

“Chicken shit.”

I rolled my eyes at her as I pulled off the long-sleeve t-shirt I was wearing. She was way too good at talking people into things. I was pleased to see her eyes flicker to my bare chest
and then to the tattoo covering my right shoulder. Her tongue darted out of her mouth and touched her upper lip.

Damn, if that gesture alone didn’t make me want to grab her and carry her to my bed immediately. Then before she could protest, I lifted her off the ground and ran us both into the ocean, letting loose a battle cry as I did that comingled with her initial screams of protest and finally her yelp when the icy water enveloped us both.

“Holy shit!” I spluttered as I broke the surface. That was about the dumbest thing I could have done.

“Oh, my God, it is fucking freezing!” Nora cried out as she shoved me hard in the chest with both hands.

I laughed at her, which might have pissed some girls off, but it just made her grin.

“It is fucking freezing,” I
agreed, and as soon as we made eye contact with each other, we were charging out of the ocean. As we stood on the beach, I looked over at her in her dripping wet clothes, her bare legs covered in goose bumps as she wrapped her arms around herself.

Without thinking, I stepped in front of he
r and wrapped my arms around her body. Her teeth chattered in my ear, and she refused to let her arms fall to her sides, so they were pinned between us.

“I’m s-s-so c-c-cold,” she stuttered.