Kiss Is a Four-Letter Word (3 page)

"Yeah, me too." Eli smiled at her and Sherry shifted her eyes to him.
Such a handsome man
, she thought, looking him up and down. Oh well. She briefly wondered what it would be like to have the two of them naked on her bed at the same time then let the daydream drift away. Not everyone fell in love. She knew that better than anyone. Just because they were good kissers didn't mean they would be any different than the other losers she'd dated. Not everyone got to be happy.

"Bye," she said, lifting a hand. They waved and a few seconds later were halfway down the side of the mountain. Sherry swallowed, disappointed.
Get a grip
, she told herself for the thousandth time.

"Those guys didn't try anything funny, did they?" Eric asked her, sitting down where Eli had just been.

She gave him her death glare.

"Okay. Okay…just making sure." Eric held a palm up as if to ward off her temper.

"They were perfect gentlemen," Sherry said.
More's the pity.
She wished she'd managed to steal a few more kisses.

"You know we worry about you," Zeke said, quietly.

Sherry glared at him too but he just smiled. He was immune to her stare, probably because she stole it from him when they were kids.

"I fell. They stopped to make sure I was okay then rescued my bike. You showed up. End of story," she said in a clipped voice.

Zeke eyed her intently but wisely didn't pursue it. Sherry sighed and stood up. It was time to get off this stupid mountain.

Chapter Two

The second time Eli ran into Sherry, he and Zeke were manning a kissing booth for charity. It was yet another one of the horrible ways his mom tormented him now that he was a grown man. She claimed she did it because he'd been such a difficult baby and that he owed her, big time. Eli thought she did it just because she liked to see him squirm. Kissing the geriatric widows that swarmed her senior center's summer fair fundraiser definitely topped the list when it came to squirming, in Eli's opinion. Not the good kind of squirming, either.

"Hey, Eli. Why are we doing this again?" Simon asked in his most annoying and penetrating voice. "We can afford to just donate money, you know. A large chunk of money and all this agony goes away."

Eli glared at him and pasted a smile back on his face when a flock of his mother's friends moved up to the counter, giggling. Eli suppressed a shudder. Women old enough to be his grandmother shouldn't be giggling at the idea of kissing him and Simon. It just wasn't right.

"I see three of the women who slipped us tongue last year, Eli. Tongue." Simon hissed in his ear. "I'm still trying to get over the trauma. You promised me we wouldn't have to do this again."

"Look, you were the one who insisted we had to stay for dinner last week. I was all for getting the hell out of there, but no. You had to be all ‘polite’ and stuff. You
know
how my mother is." Eli muttered from the corner of his mouth. Simon didn't have time to respond. The bevy of clucking ladies was upon them.

"Eli! And Simon, too. Oh, how delicious."

Eli tried not to flinch as one particular voice made his spine knot in terror. "Hello, Mrs. Ruffle. How are you doing?" He leaned back, hoping she wasn't going to—

Crap. She was. He flinched away from the twenty she'd just slapped down on the rough wood. Somewhere far away Eli could hear the call of freedom, then Simon poked him in the gut and all hope fled.

"A twenty? It's only two bucks a kiss, Mrs. Ruffle," Simon said in a smarmy voice. Eli poked him back.

"Oh I know that, Eli dear. I'm paying for my friends here, too." She smiled at him and he winced. Her forehead didn't move at all. Too much Botox floating around these days. Her gaze shifted to Simon.

"And of course, there should be enough there for your friend Simon, too." Eli felt like laughing. Or puking. His mom owed him a huge apple pie for this. Maybe even two.

****

An hour later Simon plopped down in the rickety chair behind the booth and heaved a great big sigh. "That was truly horrible, my friend."

Eli grimaced and took another swig of lemonade. "Yeah. I usually just close my eyes and think of the charity."

"She'd been drinking coffee. With tequila." Simon shuddered. "Now I need the tequila. Or maybe some vodka. That might work better. It’ll sanitize my sensitive gums."

Eli thought of Mrs. Ruffle's bright red lipstick and his throat closed up again. He sucked down another quick swallow of his drink. "Yeah. And thanks, but I'm trying to forget all about it now. So can we just not talk about it, please?"

Simon nodded, guzzling his lemonade as if it could wipe away the memory of the last half hour. "Yeah, whatever. You suck, man. You suck so much."

A drop of sweat trickled down Eli's neck and not for the first time he wished it wasn't such a hot, beautiful, sunny July day. He looked across the field at the tree line on the edge of the park. He wished he were there, taking advantage of the shade. Or even better, he wished he were in his Mercedes heading far, far away as fast as he could possibly drive without killing himself.

"Hey, she looks familiar." Simon poked Eli again.

"Knock it off. You're making the dragon mad," Eli said. He rubbed a finger over his tattoo.

Simon snorted. "You're such a girl, Eli."

"Hey! No insulting the lady." Eli flexed his bicep. The dragon etched into his skin flashed in the sunlight.

Simon rolled his eyes and poked him again, right in the dragon's left claw. Eli growled, about to smack his friend, then frowned as he looked across the open space between the kissing booth and the ball dunk stand. A slim woman stood next to an older lady, licking an ice cream cone. Her hair hung in glorious curls down her back. She seemed familiar but it wasn't until she turned to face the booth that Eli realized it was the same girl who had fallen off her mountain bike last week.

"Holy shit. It's Sherry," Eli breathed.

"You remember her name?"

"Oh, like you don't? Please, try to sell me another one," Eli retorted. His eyes narrowed. Was she walking this way? He watched her lick her ice cream, her little pink tongue shooting out and wrapping around the icy treat in a way that made his cock sit up and take notice.
Come to Papa
, he thought.

"She's definitely coming this way." Poke.

Eli had had enough. He poked Simon back, hard, right in the spot he knew Simon was most ticklish. "No shit, moron."

Simon squeaked as Eli's finger hit his waist. Eli smiled, happy to see he hadn't lost his touch.

"Dude. Not cool," Simon muttered, his fair skin flushing.

"Shut up," Eli muttered back. He stood up, hoping that his suddenly interested cock wasn't too obvious. He stepped up to the counter, relieved to see that it covered his groin. He ground his erection into the wood.
Down, boy
.

"Hey, Sherry." Eli hoped he didn't sound as pathetically eager as he felt.

"Hi. Eli, right?" She smiled, eyes full of mischief.

Eli knew she knew his name. No way had she forgotten last week's kiss so soon. "Yeah, it's Eli."

"And Simon," Sherry said, eyes skipping to Simon who'd stepped up beside him. Eli resisted the urge to poke his friend again.

"Hi, Sherry," Simon said, his voice low and smooth. Oh, Eli wanted to kill him, the suave bastard. "What brings you here?"

Sherry grinned and jerked her thumb at the older woman by her side. "My mom here told me they had a kissing booth. And that it was usually manned by the
cutest
guys she'd ever seen." She emphasized the ‘cute’ with a wicked smile.

Eli's cock twitched. He shoved his hips harder against the wood. Now was not the time for him to be flaunting a hard-on. He saw Simon glance down and smirk. Eli really wanted to smack his friend now. Like he wasn't having a similar problem? The faker.

"I don't know how anyone could call Simon
cute
." Eli used air quotes to properly demonstrate his contempt.

"Hey!" Simon poked him in the arm. Again.

Eli glared at him. "Simon. If you do that one more time—"

"You'll what? Sic the dragon on me?"

Eli rolled his eyes and gazed at Sherry with mute appeal. Surely she would take pity on him and kill his friend for him? Nope. She laughed, instead.

"So, you do have a tattoo up your sleeve. I thought I saw it the other day but wasn't sure. It's a dragon?"

Eli sighed with mock resignation. "Yes. The head is on my bicep." He pulled up his left shirtsleeve to show her. "The body is inked down over my pec." He watched her look over his chest, wondering what she thought of his favorite t-shirt. He usually wore it when he had to man the kissing booth, as a sort of passive-aggressive protest. The shirt had a photo of a man being chased by bulls and the caption: "Just because it's a tradition doesn't mean it isn't incredibly stupid."

"Nice t-shirt," the older woman said, a smile in her voice. Sherry blinked, her eyes flying from his chest to his face then to her mother.

"Oh, sorry, Mom. I forgot to introduce you. This is Eli and Simon. They're the two guys who came to my rescue last week when I fell off my bike. Guys, this is my mom, Mary Griffin."

"Nice to meet you," Eli said. Simon echoed him. He did not offer to shake her hand. What if she got the wrong idea and decided she wanted a kiss? He cringed at the idea. Not that she was unattractive, because she wasn't. She was actually quite pretty in that older woman, I-have-kids-your-age-so-don't-try-any funny-business way, but Eli didn't want to contemplate the horror of having to kiss the mother of the woman to whom he desperately wanted to do dirty and delicious things.

Mary turned to her daughter. "I promised Carrie I'd meet her near the pony rides and give her a hand with little Jake."

Sherry smiled. "Yeah, she'll need it. Jake is way more of a handful than any of Olivia's kids were at that age. Thank God Carrie babysat them so much. She was prepared." Mary grinned in agreement and started off then paused and dug in her purse. Sherry watched her with a faint frown on her face. When Mary came up with a five and a one-dollar bill, Sherry's frown turned into a glare. "Mom!"

Mary grinned. "Here, have fun." She tried to shove the money into Sherry's hands who backed away hurriedly, to Eli's amusement.

"I can pay for my own kisses, thank you very much."

"Now, don't argue with your mother. I know how stingy you are," Mary said.

"Because I need to pay off my student loans, remember?" Sherry retorted.

Mary shrugged and gave up trying to foist the money on Sherry. Instead she shoved it into Eli's surprised hands. "See that you give her my money's worth." The older woman winked and dashed off.

"Oh my God, my mother is so embarrassing," Sherry moaned, hands over her face. She peeked through her fingers at Eli and Simon. Adorable. Her hair looked even curlier today than it did last week. Eli wanted to touch it. Smell it.

"Oh, don't beat yourself up over it. I mean, my mother talks us into doing this kissing booth thing every year. Talk about embarrassing. We've got you topped," he said with a smirk.

Sherry dropped her hands and stared at him, openmouthed. Simon choked back a laugh at the innuendo. Then he poked Eli again. That was it. Eli growled and grabbed Simon's finger, hanging on to it so that he couldn't get free. Simon laughed his ass off like a moron.

"And also, I have a moron for a best friend. So as you can see, I have way more to be embarrassed about than you do." Eli nodded his head in emphasis.

Sherry chuckled and moved closer. "You could be right."

"I know I'm right." Eli squeezed Simon's finger, bending it back slightly, enough to let Simon know he meant business. "Now, how much did your mom give us?" He checked the money in his hand as if he didn’t know exactly how much was there and tucked the bills into the cash box. "Six bucks. That's three kisses total."

"That means I get to kiss one of you twice." Sherry leaned on the wooden counter.

Eli tried not to stare at the way her red halter-top stretched over the deliciousness of her breasts.
Don't stare, don't stare
... He couldn't help himself. He looked.

Simon cleared his throat but didn't try to take back his finger. "You could kiss me twice. I wouldn't mind."

Sherry laughed. Her boobs jiggled when she did that.

"Hmm. I don't know. It doesn't seem fair," she said. She licked her lips, a thoughtful look on her face.

Eli's cock throbbed. It hurt, because he still had his groin pressed into the counter. Shit. At this rate he was going to geld himself. He shifted sideways and ignored Simon's knowing glance. "No, no, Simon is a terrible kisser. No way do you want to kiss him twice."

She frowned, pretending to be confused. "I don't know. I remember that he did a pretty good job last week. And besides, how would you know that? Have
you
kissed him?"

"What? No, I haven't kissed Simon," Eli said, ignoring Simon's fake horrified look. He was about to protest more when Sherry's expression went cunning.

"Oh. I have an idea." She grinned. It lit up her whole face. Man, was he ever a sucker for her dimples. Her lips twisted as her smile turned sinister.