Hot Laps (21 page)

I’d never experienced something so … so … electrifying.

“Pretty girl?”

Was he talking to me?

Shit. He was.

I pried my eyes open to look down. The sight of him with his head between my legs
was un-fucking-real.

“Hmm?”

“Do you know what lapping the valves is?”

Oh God, not again.

I shook my head against the pillow, my eyes drifting closed as he tongue tasted me,
again and again, so painstakingly slow.

With my legs spread wide, his left hand rested on my pelvis, his thumb working me
over and the other was between my legs, aiding in everything his tongue was providing
me.

“We call it a valve job.” Again, he paused for effect. “First we start by inspecting
the valves,” he took his forefinger and placed it at my opening carefully sliding
over my wet, never mind, dripping, sensitive skin. “And then the valve guides,” one
finger slid inside me, “and when you’ve inspected everything, you take the valve and
apply a layer of compound to it.”

I couldn’t look. Instead, I kept my eyes closed.

So much was happening. So much. Movements, feelings, sensations that sent shiver shakes
and toe curling tingles. He even, to my complete fucking surprise, licked my asshole.

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been something I would have ever been open to but this
boy, this fucking eighteen-year-old boy knew exactly what he was doing.

“After you have the compound applied to the valves, you take a valve seating tool
and attach it to the valve.” His fingers were working their magic, in and out, his
tongue, in and out, swirling, tasting, sucking. “You twist the tool, working the valve
in and out of the valve seat, lifting and twisting at the same time to smooth the
edge. You want a good solid seal between the valve and the seat so you don’t have
any leaks.”

I have a leak.

“If, by chance, your valve has pits, it messes with your compression.” I looked down,
finally, giving him a shy smile. His tongue swirled, his eyes closed as if that was
the best fucking thing he’d ever tasted. “That’s bad.”

I was bad. He was dirty. He knew what he was doing.
Oh my fucking God.

Naturally, it didn’t take long and I succumbed to those shiver shakes and toe curling
tingles. Mumbling his name, or some kind of noise, my hands threaded deep in his hair.
Our eyes breaking contact as the sensations, the sweet surrendering ones left me weak
and wasted.

As I laid there in the marshmallow bliss of his bed, Casten crawled back up my body,
sliding his own against mine and then buried himself deep inside of me, moving with
extreme determination. It wasn’t but just a few quick moments and he was again, shaking
with me.

“Nicely done,” I said, breathless.

Casten didn’t say anything, he, too, was just as spent but rolled off me for the second
time within the hour.

Then, without so much of a warning, my goddamn girly emotions roared their two-timing
selves and I started crying.

Who cries after sex?

Not me, I don’t do that sort of thing, never had. But no, the one guy I want to impress
I cry like a goddamn virgin. Way to go fucktard. If your hyperventilating noises weren’t
enough to send the boy running for the hills, your crying should be.

I blamed it on him going down on me. It messed with my nerves. Fucked with my dignity.

Casten noticed quickly I was having a nervous breakdown.

How much can you hide from a person when you’re glued together by your private parts,
sweat and gooey stuff? Not much let me tell you. And let me tell you another thing,
maybe I hadn’t noticed it when I was drunk and engaging in this sort of thing but
fuck if I wasn’t sticky. From sweat and assembly lube. I needed a fucking shower.

“Are you crying?” he asked, his brow pulled together in confusion, his head lifting
from his sea of white fully pillows. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m allergic to you.”

“Really?” he chuckled, the movement shaking us both. His fingertips brushed the tears
away before he kissed lightly down my jaw and over the curve of my neck. “I lathered
in antihistamine this morning. How can you be allergic?”

“I feel like a complete fucking loser. What the hell?” I threw my hands up before
they slapped loosely against his back again. “Who cries after sex?”

“You are so weird,” he mumbled in my hair before rolling to the side. “But like I
said before …” his voice lowered and I could almost hear the smile in his voice before
I saw it, “It happens to the best of us,”

“I’m not weird. You’re weird. You just got me off by explaining valve lapping. Some
would think that’s
really
weird.”

“Some might,” he agreed. “But some would say that was the sexiest fucking thing they’d
ever heard. And that some would be you.” He leaned forward kissing my shoulder. “And
me.”

Holding me securely against him, his fingers traced along my ribs. “Are you hungry?
I think I worked up an appetite.”

“I could use some food.”

We made plans to go to that same diner we ate at last Saturday morning but the problem
was, I didn’t want to get up.

“Why is your bed so comfortable? How do you get up in the morning?”

He grinned. “It’s hard. Really hard.” And he was. Hard that is.

Breakfast had to wait on account of the caution flag being thrown for an oil slick
on the track, as Casten so calmly put it.

Camber – The angle in which tires are angled in, or out.

We didn’t end up going to breakfast but instead ate some cereal and then went back
to his room.

This was also extremely different from anything I’d done before. Usually after sex,
I passed out, hell, sometimes I passed out during the process but now, I was wide
awake, eating cereal and pillow talking with Casten.

What does pillow talk consist of?

Well, for Casten and me, that consisted of him telling me what press forging was again,
because I asked. Turns out, press forging is exactly the kind of machine work my body
needed.

This time, Casten didn’t last nearly as long. To be fair, neither of us did. Not when
he talks about engines the way he does.

The casual bedroom talk continued when we ended up in the shower after the third time
Saturday morning. This time I wasn’t impressed with the shower talk.

“So you’ve been with a lot of people?” he asked softly, his expression surprisingly
controlled but I could hear the curiosity burning behind his words. He lathered some
soap in his hand before rubbing down my shoulders.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, buddy, I really have no clue. I’m sure the number would
frighten even myself. What about you?”

Casten looked over at me briefly before titling his head slightly as though he was
considering the number, drops of water beaded in his hair. “Actually had sex with?”

“Yeah, insertion only,” I wasn’t about to count blow jobs because frankly, at that
point, my number would have been something similar to a population of a small city
rather than your partner count.

“I don’t know … probably a lot. I haven’t exactly kept a running tally.”

I considered this for a moment and then said, “Well, let’s just say, hypothetically
… well okay … um … my number might be a little higher …
considerably
higher.”

His brow pulled together in that confused manner that scared the floppy side in me
again.

I tried to reason with myself and then said, “It’s not like they were all in there
together,” as if that comment would make it better or less trashy.

Here’s where I was thinking, “Really, if you had any dignity left, you’d shut up by
now.”

To my complete surprise, Casten let out a soft chuckle and pulled me closer. “Good
point. I like a girl who can see the good side in any situation.”

Seemingly disappointed in my slutty vagina and her lack of crowd control, I was quiet
after that and continued washing off the rest of my dignity in the shower.

Casten noticed my mood change and ruffled my hair. “Hey,” he pulled me back toward
his chest grasping the sides of my face with his hands. “That doesn’t mean anything
… well, it means something, but just that I need to up my game so you stick around.”

“You don’t think I’m some sort of … slut?”

“No, and don’t ever say that again,” he replied immediately. “I hate that word.”

Again, the quiet side, though she’d be absent most of the night and early morning,
returned.

Casten seemed to understand where my mood went and let it go as we finished the shower
but before I left to get back to my apartment, he caught me in his arms.

Rosa was there now, in the kitchen so he kept his voice low, meant only for me.

“Hey,” he had my wrists wrapped delicately in his long fingers. “I’ll take good care
of you, if you want me to.”

What did that even mean?

This was one of those strange moments that had my stomach doing that scary awkward
floppy thing that it did when I watched scary movies or peed in the street or, now
apparently, had sex with Casten.

We kissed goodbye, I said I’d text him later and then left to see Anna after stopping
by my apartment to change. It was the only option at that point. She’d know what to
do.

When I arrived at her house, Anna was standing in her parent’s kitchen at noon on
Saturday afternoon making little smokies with barbeque sauce while wearing a bra,
underwear and her black Uggs and nothing else.

“Hey, slut, what’s up?” she greeted me, stirring her boiling pot.

“Nothing. And you got the name right. I am a slut.” I threw myself into the large
beanbag shaped like a man’s ball-sack she made when we were sixteen in sewing class.
She also made a body pillow in the shape of a penis—talented little shit, she was.
Though the body pillow stayed in her bedroom for good reason, it was strangely lifelike.
But the ball-sack, it was allowed in the living room of her parent’s house. Don’t
ask, her parents are hippies which if you knew Anna at all, explains so much.

“Why are you crying?” she finally asked when I blew my nose in her blanket. She pulled
me up to wrap her arms around me.

“Because Casten and I had sex this morning,” I mumbled into pretty ginger hair.

Brown eyes blinked slowly back at me. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“Will you focus? Yes, that’s a bad thing! It wasn’t just fucking … he fucked me
good
! Like
really good
.”

“Come on, honey, let’s chat.” She tossed her tiny arm around me squeezing. “Do you
want some jungle juice?” she slurped her mix through swirly princess straw she got
out a Happy Meal three years ago while balancing her plate of smokies on her lap.

“That has grape Kool-Aid, 151 and Absinthe in it. I’m amazed you’re still alive at
times.”

“It’s good shit.” Another slurp, “And it’s strawberry Kool-Aid today.”

“Casten took my thong off with his teeth. I don’t know how much more in love I can
get.”

“Wow, that’s … intense.”

“He asked about the red mark too.”

“Yeah, Cole did too. He must have said something to Casten about it because he asked
me the other night if you were still seeing any of the hockey team.”

“And you said …?”

“Don’t worry, I told him you slept with half the hockey team but there was no relationships
formed.”

“I really wanted that shared. Thank you, and for the record, I didn’t sleep with the
goalie.”

“Hey, just because those hockey boys branded our asses doesn’t mean we need to be
ashamed of ourselves.” She shoved a handful of Tums into her mouth. “They were some
talented boys.”

“You’re not kidding … but I think Casten is better.”

Anna handed me a little Smokey that she stuck on the end of a pink plastic straw.

“What’s with the straw? Don’t you have forks?”

“I don’t have any clean utensils but I stole some straws from the diner the other
night along with a shit load of napkins. I was out of toilet paper.”

I laughed. “What do you do when you’re out of condoms?”

“Plastic wrap, extra clingy.”

“That’s …” I couldn’t help but laugh, “really disgusting, Anna.”

“It works though, messy afterwards but effective nonetheless.”

“I hate to see what happens when you’re out of tampons…” my voice faded as I shuddered.

Anna quirked an eyebrow, “I just—”

“I don’t want to know.” I interrupted waving my arms around. “You’re disgusting.”

“I’m real. There is a difference.”

“So what’s with you and Cole then?” My tears were nearly gone at this point. Anna
always had a way with positive distraction.

“Well, he’s one hot engine builder, that’s for sure,” she replied taking another drink
of her jungle juice. “He’s also, besides the hockey team, the first guy I slept with
more than once. But I think he has a drug problem.”

“Who on the hockey team did you sleep with more than once?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” she looked up at me as though I was stupid.
“I thought I was fucking Jacob all along and clearly I wasn’t. I just know I showed
up at a few games after that and then left with a group of them.”