Someone to Love (12 page)

“Second lesson.” I let out a quiet groan as I
land beside her. She’s got her top hanging so low her cleavage
bulges out like perfect twin mounds.

“Second?” Her eyes sparkle like cut glass as
she reclines onto her elbows.

“The kisses were first. Which, by the way,
you’ve mastered, but I highly suggest we practice to keep your
skill-set high.” I give a devilish grin and sweep my lips across
her cheek just enough to tease her. “But tonight, we’re advancing
to the fine art of touch.” I run my fingers up her bare thigh then
slowly up her skirt until I round out the searing skin of her
bottom. Her lids close partway, and her chest rises and falls in
one quick motion.

“I don’t know…” She rolls into me. The slight
curve of her mouth lets me know she approves. “What about all those
phone numbers? You said get six, and I got twenty.” Her teeth graze
over her blood red lips, and my jeans cinch at the crotch.

“You were trying too hard.” I hold back a
laugh. “Besides, other people don’t count.”

“No?” She watches me with that diamond vision
of hers. I can feel her wanting me, trembling to have me. I want to
string it out—make it hurt until she abandons her efforts at
becoming anything that remotely resembles the predator I’ve morphed
into.

She picks up my hand and rubs slow circles
into my palm.

“This sounds personal,” she whispers, her
eyes heavy with either lust or fatigue. I’m hoping for the
former.

“It should always be personal.” My fingers
land firm on her thigh. I run my thumb under the lip of her
underwear and trace over her hip. “Take off your clothes,” I
whisper it like a dare.

“No.” She bows into the word as if she never
had any intention of doing something so vile.

“You’re going to make a lousy one-night
stand.” I bury a kiss into her neck in lieu of a laugh.

Kenny bubbles with a string of giggles. She
arches into me and I lay over her, my body conforming to hers.

“I like tonight’s lesson,” she murmurs in my
ear. “Touching.”

I sit up and pull off my shirt, leaving my
arms extended for a moment while she rakes me with her eyes.

“All right.” I slip back over her and dot a
row of kisses straight down her chest, stopping just shy of burying
myself in her cleavage. I’ve envisioned at least a thousand times
what that would feel like, lost in the soft pillow of her flesh.
Kenny has me shaking with a hard-on ready to rip from my jeans.
“Next lesson will be conducted with considerably less clothing. And
believe me, you have nothing to be shy about.”

“Neither do you.” She runs her fingers over
my shoulder, soft and unsure.

I gently take up her hand and run it down my
chest, never breaking our gaze. Kenny interlaces our fingers. She
closes her eyes as I pull her lower, inch by inch, until we crest
the hard ridge in my pants and she gives a soft moan. Her hand
escapes mine, and she cups me over my jeans.
Dear lord, yes
.
She lets her fingers glide over me soft and achingly sweet. I glide
my hands under her sweater, and I slip them over her breasts, feel
the lace of her bra, and trace out her hard nipples underneath.

Kenny pulls me in and crashes her lips over
mine. Her mouth is ripe with the taste of strawberries as she
delivers her sweet, juicy kisses. Her tongue strokes over mine,
slow and easy, as if we had already logged a decade of doing
exactly this. I could spend an eternity holding Kenny with her
lips, her body welded to mine. Her cool hands slip into the back of
my jeans and dip into my boxers. Kenny relaxes her fingers over me
and gives a gentle squeeze. It takes everything in me not to move
her hand around to the front, introduce her to the physical part of
me that craves her most. Her bra unhooks beneath my fingers, and I
move my heated hands over her bare stomach until I feel her quiver
beneath me. I glance down at her beautiful face. Her lids are
closed and she licks her lips in anticipation as I cup her breasts
full with both hands.

Kenny takes in a sharp breath and bucks
beneath me. Her lids flutter with ecstasy as if this simple act of
loving her made her dizzy.

I lay my lips over hers as we indulge in a
spastic war of limbs. Kenny tastes and feels as if she were made
just for me.

Kenny is stabbing at my heart with her
being—molding herself over my existence.

Something amazing is happening—something
meaningful and real.

Monday afternoon, Cal and I run side by side
on the treadmill in the overcrowded equipment room. Every person on
the planet has meandered into the gym today, trying to work off
that extra slice of holiday pie. A couple of girls across from us
have all but resorted to smoke signals to let us know they’re
interested, and for the first time in a long while, there isn’t
anything in me that’s up for a hot and sweaty quickie at the gym.
Now, if it were Kenny initiating the offer, I’d take her right here
in the middle of the room, with an audience, if she wanted.

“Kenny thinks ‘touch’ should act as an
extended lesson.” I marvel at my dumb luck. “But for whatever
reason, she’s still hell bent on continuing with her experiment,” I
say out of breath, trying not to shout too loud should the girls
across the way be moved to eavesdrop. I wouldn’t put it past Blair
to set her eyes and ears in my midst.

“Touch, huh? Maybe she could give some
pointers to Lauren. Can you believe she thinks I was cheating on
her New Year’s Eve?”

“You tell her you were with me?” I flinch at
the thought. After I saw Kenny surrounded like a pageant queen on
parade, I hauled ass outside for a pity party and ended up
confessing to Cal that I had more than a few feelings rolling
around for Kenny—that surprisingly, they weren’t solely tied to my
balls’ incessant urge to release some pressure. I used the ‘L’ word
for the first time in a good long while, out loud, and not even my
own ears could fucking believe it—still not sure I do.

“Yeah, I told her I was with you.” He catches
the worried look on my face. “Relax, I didn’t rattle off any of
that bullshit you were shoveling.” He wipes down his forehead with
the towel draped around his neck. “I thought you swore off love and
traded it in for, I believe the quote was, ‘quick and dirty
ass.’”

I try to shake the accuracy of his words out
of my head. “I thought so, too. Don’t worry. You’re not the only
one who’s disappointed in me.” I don’t tell him that I saw Blair at
Ackerman House—that she wanted to talk, that I essentially blew her
off and fused my lips to Kenny instead. I don’t want to drag Blair
into every conversation. I want her and the ghost of who we were,
hidden in the back of the closet. I wish I could burn it down,
torch every memory we ever made. And now, here she is, showing up
just when things are shaping up in my life. Figures. She probably
doesn’t feel she did enough damage the first time around.

I drain the rest of my water and end up
spilling the reserve down my chest.

“Watch the equipment, buddy. That’s a three
thousand dollar machine you’re desecrating. You think getting your
heart ripped out of your ass hurt like hell, wait until I come
after you for restitution. How’s the bed and breakfast going?
Business mistreating you much these days?”

A groan escapes my throat at the mere mention
of that money pit. “I handed the reins back to my mom last summer
when I ditched my sanity. I should swing by and glance at the
books.”

“Wear safety goggles. Those books have a way
of trying to knock you out. I should know. Hey, school starts
tomorrow. You ready to begin instructional duties?”

“Yup. Already found my favorite student.”

“No way.”

“Yes,” I say, exhilarated by the thought.
“Wrote up a syllabus just for her.”

“I bet you did. You fucking perv.” He says it
with a marked sense of pride.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Pennington struts in with his thin frame
puffed out, his glazed expression that lets me know he’s already
high as a kite at this early hour.

“I bet he rolls his joints with your daddy’s
Benjamins.” Cal spits out exactly what I was thinking, and I give a
little laugh. Then an idea comes to me.

Kendall

The Date

After Zumba, my limbs rebel and quietly
petition to secede from the union of my torso. Okay, not so
quietly. Every muscle in my body is on fire and rioting in protest
to my sudden faux interest in fitness. I hit Starbucks afterwards
as a show of affection to my poor earthly frame. I thought about
asking Cruise to join me on my quest for the perfect cup of Joe,
but I’d hate for him to think I’m clingy and needy. The last thing
I want him to feel around me is like he can’t breathe. But God, how
I’d love to smother him—preferably with my chest.

Snow covers the ground in smooth, sparkling
sheets, a visual treat that I’m in no way prepared for. It’s as if
the landscape of my heart magically transformed into a fairytale
much like this new world I’ve touched down in. Cruise is the
sparkling magic. He’s adhered himself to that secret place inside
me that I once denied existed. He’s molded himself perfectly over
my heart, my soul, my marrow. And now I can never let go. How will
I ever tell him the truth? That I don’t want twenty boys on speed
dial—that I only want one. And that he just so happens to be the
one in question.

Carrington glows a resplendent shade of
lavender, dressed in a winter wonderland that up until now, I had
only seen in movies. I don’t know what possessed my mother to pack
up on a whim and move clear across country—trade paradise for smog
and traffic. The fact my grandmother passed away around the same
time she graduated might have played into it, but still, now that I
see how nice everyone is here, and how stunning the scenery is, I
never want to go back to California. Although, I guess if she
didn’t hit the West Coast, she would never have met “the loser
surfer” she hooked up with and spawned my brother, and me.

I glance inside Starbucks and the line looks
incredibly long, but I venture in anyway. The thick scent of
roasted coffee lights up my senses. God, I love this smell. If this
out of body experience I’ve been enjoying with Cruise had a
fragrance, this would definitely be it. They should have a coffee
named after him—Kisses with Cruise. I’d drink it down by the
pitcher—get on my knees and let them pour it down my throat like a
beer bong.

A group of cackling girls walk in behind me,
and I’m quick to secure a place in line. I glance over the counter
and don’t see any sign of Lauren or Ally. Honestly, I can’t
remember which one works here.

I hope Lauren’s okay. Last I saw her, she
looked heartbroken over the idea her boyfriend might be
cheating.

A vision of Cruise with that girl in the
thigh-highs he almost took home that first night shoots through me,
and a wild pang of jealousy cinches my stomach. Just the thought of
him touching her, his oven-hot hands searing over her flesh the way
they did mine makes my heart drop like a stone.

I shake the thought away and distract myself
by counting out the people ahead of me. If they each take five
minutes, then I’ll safely be here a solid hour.

“Next!” A friendly voice calls from over the
counter and Ally waves at me. The line moves briskly now that two
baristas are at the helm, and I step over to her in less than ten
minutes. “How’s it going?”

“Great. I can’t get over how gorgeous the
world looks covered with snow.” I dig out my wallet. “Venti, iced
mocha.”

“Iced huh? You really are from California.”
She leans in. “ Hey, that girl in the corner over there…” I follow
her gaze to the back where a teenage girl sits. She has a tissue
pushed into her face, and it looks as if she can’t stop crying.
“That’s Cruise’s sister, Molly,” she whispers. “Maybe you can see
what’s got her so broken up. She’s been sobbing for the last
half-hour.”