by Casey Winter
Crap.
“I can teach you the basics,” she says. She back-skates slowly in front of me. “Firstly, bend your knees more. Limber up. Don’t be so stiff. You want to be springy, responsive. Make sure your weight is on the balls of your feet, tipped slightly forward. But not too far forward or you’ll end up on your tiptoes.”
“Okay,” I growl. I listen carefully, following her instructions. “Like this?”
I skate forward a few feet.
“Woah, yeah, that wasn’t actually that bad. But lengthen your stride more. You’re still sort of walking. Try gliding a little. In a V-shape. Like this. Watch.”
Her skill is undeniable. She glides forward easily, and then spins, watching me.
“Okay,” I grunt.
She laughs. “You’re really trying, aren’t you?”
“If you’re gonna do something,” I grunt, “do it right.”
I lengthen my stride, slip—and fall on my ass.
“Damn,” I snap, climbing awkwardly to my feet. “Let’s go again.”
This time, I manage to get to the other side of the rink.
“See?” Hannah beams. “You’re already like five times better than when you stepped in here.”
“That’s because you’re a hell of a teacher, Hannah,” I say, honestly. “How do you do that thing where you grab your one skate while balancing on the other?”
“This?” she asks. She sinks into the position, bending down and sticking her leg out. It makes her yoga pants hug onto her well-shaped legs so tightly, my manhood throbs.
“I think that might be a bit advanced for you,” she says, rising. “No offense.”
“Oh, none taken, twinkle toes,” I grin. “You just look too damn fine in that position. Is there a downward-facing dog in slalom? I think I’d be in heaven, then.”
“Naughty,” she teases. “Is that how you always talk to your teachers, huh?”
“Only when they’re as beautiful as you,” I growl.
I can’t stop. I’ve tried, haven’t I? I’ve really tried to fight this desire? But it’s too much. I’m only human.
“Come here,” I say, knowing there’s no way I’d be able to catch her on my skates.
“Why?” she fires.
“You know why,” I tell her. “We both do. Come here. I can’t—screw being strong, Hannah. I can’t take it anymore.”
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” she whispers, skating over to me.
We stop, inches from each other. I was right about how hot she is. I can feel the heat radiating from her. She’s burning up. And so am I. I wrap my hands around her waist and pull her to me. She glides toward me easily, but I don’t. I fall backward.
She squeals in delight, landing on top of me, as I palm her ass. It’s so tight, two perfect round bulbs just for me, the yoga pants so thin I can feel her panties through the material. I squeeze harder, pressing her cheeks together as I grind my manhood against her crotch.
“Oh, heck,” she gasps. “Kiss me, Luke. Kiss me—”
I move one hand up her back. Fisting her ponytail like I imagined, I guide her lips to mine. We kiss intensely, hungrily, both of us breathing like we’re a few seconds from an explosion. She tastes so good, her lips are so rough and textured, her tongue so eager. I move my hand past her ass toward her sex. Oh, Jesus Christ, her yoga pants are wet. She grinds against my hand, arching her back confidently and sexily.
Breaking off the kiss, I growl, “I want you to come like this, Hannah. I want to feel you come.”
“You will, if you keep doing that,” she whispers.
“You have to keep a lookout,” I tell her. “I don’t want anybody seeing you.”
“I will, I will,” she gasps. “Just don’t stop, Luke. It feels so fricking good.”
I rub her sex harder, and then drive my finger against her hole, through the thinness of the yoga pants, feeling the wetness through the fabric. I palm her pussy, hard, rubbing in time with her gasps and her cute moaning noises. I turn my face so that she can moan right into my ear, so that I can feel her pleasured breaths on my skin.
“So—close,” she croaks. “Oh, yes. Oh, God.”
“Come,” I growl. “Now, Hannah. Now.”
“Ah,” she cries, bucking against my hand.
I feel her juices through the yoga pants as her pussy floods. My finger is soaked. I rub harder, deeper, faster. The more she moans, the harder my manhood becomes. I can’t take it anymore, she’s so hot, so perfect.
“I need to be inside of you,” I growl, half feral. “But not here. In the office. I need to feel your tight, wet pussy. I’m so hard for you.”
“Okay, okay,” she whimpers. “Me too. Oh, baby.”
“Let me get these damn skates off.”
We’re both so horny, she helps me unlace them. I do one as she does the other. I kick them off and then leap to my feet, grabbing her and picking her up. She giggles, burying her face in my neck, biting, kissing.
“I’ve never been this hot before,” she moans. I take the stairs two at a time, going fast but also being careful not to hit her head. “I don’t understand it. I just … Screw me hard, okay, Luke? Screw me really hard. I want you so badly. I don’t wanna seem too forward, but—”
“Be as forward as you want, twinkle toes,” I tell her. “Right now, it’s driving me insane.”
The base of my cock throbs. I feel pre-come sticking to my underwear. I’m panting, animal-like. I kick open the office door, letting it slam behind us, and run to the desk.
“I dreamed about this,” I tell her, sweeping the desk clear as she hops from my arms. “About taking you on this desk. About making you scream. Bend over, Hannah. I want to grab on those yoga pants as I grind inside of you. I want you to bounce on those skates as I screw you hard.”
“Do you have …”
I nod. “In my wallet.”
“Mr. Prepared,” she teases, already bending over the desk, sticking her ass out.
I reach forward for her hips. I’m going to tear down her yoga pants, revealing her fine ass, and then free my cock and sheath myself quickly. Then, I’m going to grind wetly and hotly inside of her like my life depends on it. Maybe afterward, I’ll come to my senses. We both will. But right now, neither of us wants to.
I almost have my hands on her when I hear it. The loud crashing noise, coming from outside. And then another, and another.
I freeze, my instincts flaring. Absurdly, I think, We’re under attack. We need to get some return fire cover going. Cover-and-move, gentleman. It’s time to get some.
I shake my head, bringing myself back to the present. “Did you hear that?”
Hannah leans up. “Yeah, what the hell was that?”
Two more loud, metal crashes, and then the loudest yet—thunk—followed by series of grating noises.
“I should go and check on it,” I mutter. “The front door is open. I couldn’t let this place get robbed. It’d be like desecrating Mom’s memory. Wait here, Hannah?”
She nods. “I don’t want Family Roller to get robbed, either.”
Annoyed, I turn back to the door, taking the stairs four at a time now that I’m not carrying Hannah. My manhood roars at me to go back up there. But my instincts flash brightly in my mind, impossible to ignore. They won’t stop until I’ve figured out what that noise was.
When I get outside, I find the source of it: the air-conditioning unit has been battered from the wall and completely smashed up. I look around for Jock or Will Hanlon hiding in the shadows, because I know it must be one of them. But the parking lot is empty. So is the road. I do a circuit of the building, just to be sure. It takes about five minutes in total, and I don’t find anybody.
I’ll deal with it later, I decide. Right now, I have more pressing business upstairs.
—
But, when I get there, Hannah is gone. I go to the window and look down at the rink. Her cones and her skating bag are gone, too. She must’ve hurried out when I was making the circuit of
the rink. When I return to the desk, I see the note: Luke, what the hell are we doing?
I hold the note in my hand, trembling, both angry and relieved. She’s right. This can never work. But I wanted her so badly, I wanted to feel how she quivered when she came on my manhood, I wanted to hear her moan. I even wanted to hold her afterward, which I’ve never wanted before.
I crush the note in my hand and toss it in the trashcan, letting out a growl.
It’s for the best, I tell myself. But if that’s the case, why am I so pissed as I walk back outside to get a better look at the air-conditioning unit? I grind my teeth, clenching my jaws, remembering how sexy and sassy she looked as she stuck her ass out, remembering how capable and talented she looked as she taught me how to skate.
I kneel down, studying the unit and the bracket. It looks like they used a bat or a hammer to smash it free, and then laid into it a few times for good measure. Then, suddenly, I pause. Somebody is sneaking up on me. They’re being quiet, but I can hear them, their footsteps crunching on the gravel.
I let them get closer, my breathing slowing down, laser-focused like I am before a battle. When they’re within striking distance, I leap to my feet, spinning around, ready for a fight.
Chapter Eight
Hannah
I’m not even kidding, right, but my knuckles are actually fricking bone-white as I drive to Penny’s apartment. My heartbeat is like a series of lightning strikes in my chest, my breath coming way, way too fast. I haven’t been that horny in my entire life. That’s not a joke. I’ve heard about it before, passion like that, but feeling it is a whole other thing entirely.
I felt like I didn’t even have control of myself. It was just our desire, our excitement, pushing us to something we might regret later.
Yeah, maybe that’s true, maybe we would regret it. But, as I pull up outside the modern apartment block, I find myself regretting the way I left even more. I basically had to force myself to write that note and get out of there. Or I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave.
And I can’t just do that. I can’t just have sex with Luke Nelson without even thinking about it. It’s too big, too monumental. Even as I think this, another part of me is like, Um, bitch, STFU. Just do what feels good.
I call Penny, knowing she doesn’t like it when the apartment buzzer goes off too loudly. It makes her jumpy. I also know that her therapist has suggested telling people to use the buzzer anyway, to get her used to it. But I just don’t have the heart to purposefully scare her. I don’t know if that makes me a good or a bad friend.
“Hey, Banana,” she says, answering.
“Okay if I come up?” I ask.
“Oh—yeah, sure. I’m just doing some writing, but I could use a break. I’ll buzz you up when you tell me you’re outside.”
“Okay.” I climb from the car and walk over to the apartment building. I ignore the fact that my panties are still very sticky. “I’m here.”
“Cool, see you in a sec.”
The door opens and I walk upstairs. Penny has unlocked her apartment door for me, too, so I just head right in. Immediately, I see stacks of notebooks, paperback novels, and posters of original classics covers. It’s like walking into the messiest library in the universe. The place smells like a library, too, musty and welcoming.
Penny is sitting cross-legged on the couch, laptop balanced on her knees, typing furiously. I’ve interrupted her when she’s writing hundreds of times before, so I do what I usually do: take a seat and wait for her to finish. I find it peaceful, listening to her bashing the keys. It brings me back to when we were teenagers. She had the room next to mine after she moved in with us, after that horror she went through, and often I’d hear her typing late at night or early in the morning.
Finally, she closes it, turning to me. “Sorry about that,” she says. “Fancy a glass of wine?”
I nod vigorously. “Make it a big one. I’ll get a cab home. Or walk. It’s a nice evening.”
“Woah. Rough day?” Penny laughs as she dances over to the attached kitchen. She talks over the room divide, the pencil in her hair-bun bobbing around with her movements. “Did you have sex today? You have that look.”
I laugh. “No, I didn’t. But—”
“No, no,” Penny cries. “Wait for the wine. I like the sound of that but. I want all the details.”
I wait until we’re both settled into our nooks, Penny pulling a blanket over her even though it’s a warm evening. Penny always likes to be cozy, closed-in. She’s looking at me with the undivided attention which is so characteristic of her. She once said that writers are basically vampires: sucking the life force out of all their family and friends and using it in their stories.
“Okay, you finally settled?” I laugh.
“Wait,” she laughs.
Her long arm snakes out of the blanket, grabs her wineglass, and she sips enthusiastically. I do the same. And then, at last, I launch into the story. It comes it fits and starts. About halfway through, I feel so agitated I jump to my feet and start pacing up and down in front of the TV. I wave my arms like I’m conducting a fricking invisible orchestra as I tell her about the first kiss in his office, quick, stolen, and then the second kiss earlier this evening.
“Which led to, no joke, the best orgasm of my life.” I don’t go into too much gory detail, but I give her the general gist, which is that I’ve never felt anything like that before. “It was crazy. I mean, I’ve heard about passion like that. In movies. In books. But in real life? I thought it was a myth, to be honest. But it’s not, because I felt it. I can tell he’s trying to hold himself back. And I am, too. But once we started kissing, it was like this different, uh, force took over. I don’t wanna sound all tinfoil-hat loco or anything, but that’s really what it was like.”
“Wow,” Penny mutters. “That sounds intense.”
I drop down into the seat, grab for my wine. My head is rushing, my chest warming, my thoughts and feeling conflicted. I sip. I set the glass down. “It is.”
“So you regret it, then?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I guess I do. I left him that note. I ran.” Shrugging, I let out a shaky sigh. “I should regret it. For one thing, I’m a fricking nomad. I can’t exactly get involved with anybody in Little Fall. I’m going to be gone as soon as Mom is better.”
Penny watches me knowingly. She can read me better than anybody, and I’m sure she can hear how weakly I say this. “So you’re just going to act like you haven’t been complaining about spending your whole life on the road for a full-on year now?” she says. “We’re going to pretend that all those long Skype conversations never happened?”
I roll my eyes. “Damn you, Penny Snow,” I laugh.
She tosses her head, causing her pencil to slide loose and her long red hair to spill down her shoulders.
“I know you too well,” she says, absentmindedly adjusting her hair. “So you can’t get married and stay here forever and ever, fine. Even if that was true—which we both know isn’t, since you’re at a bit of a crossroads in your life anyway—who said you had to effing marry him? Come on, what’s the real reason, Hannah? It’s Noah, isn’t it?”
I grab the wine, take a long sip. I’ve almost finished the glass. I feel tipsy, but not in a good way. It’s more like my emotions are too close to the surface. I’m not sure whether to blame the wine or Luke. I remember the way Noah’s veins bulged on his forearms, fist tensed, as he told me the way it was going to be. He forced me into it. I didn’t even have a choice.
I realize I’m gouging the arm of the chair so aggressively it’s a miracle my nails don’t snap. “Don’t you see how complicated it is?” I explode, jumping to my feet again.
I wish I had my skates on. I feel trapped. I pace to the window, looking out on the street. The sunset is lingering prettily, the town glowing in an eerie, Halloween-like way. “Mom would love to paint this,” I whisper.
“I think you might be changing the subject, Banana,” Penny mutters.
“Maybe,” I admit, placing my hand on the glass. I like the coldness of it. “I can’t have anything to do with Luke. Because of Noah. Yeah, you’re right. It’s just too weird. There’s too much history there. He was just the older brother. I had a crush on him once. You know that, right?”
“Of course,” Penny mutters. “I thought it was just a silly teenage thing?”
“It was,” I say, voice low. “But can’t you see how bent out of shape this is? I almost had sex with the big brother of the boy who shattered my heart into a billion pieces. The boy I once had a crush on. And now his little brother is dead. And our families seem to hate each other, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just every time I tell her I’m going to Family Roller,” I say. “Mom gets really weird. She keeps making comments like, ‘Don’t you trust those Nelsons.’ Like we’re the fricking Hatfields and McCoys or something. I think it might just be because of how bad the breakup with Noah was. But sometimes, I dunno, I feel like she hates Russel and Luke just as much as Noah.”
“You know you can tell me what happened with Noah,” Penny says quietly. “I know you’ve said you will, when you’re ready. And I’m guessing it’s really bad from how you wanna keep it locked away. But sometimes it can be helpful, talking about stuff like that. Take it from a certified nut job.”
“Hush,” I say, spinning on her. I walk over to the couch and drop down next to her. “You’re not a nut job. You’re just a little … nutty.”
She giggles, throwing her blanket over both of us.
“And I know,” I whisper. “I will tell you, one day. I just don’t like to think about it, much less talk about it. It was so horrible.”
“I respect that,” Penny says. “But if it was something criminal, it might affect my advice for you. If it was—” She swallows nervously, and we both know what she’s implying. “Then maybe it is best if you steer clear.”
“It wasn’t what you’re thinking,” I whisper. “It wasn’t, um, physical. Not like that.”
“Well, then, let me just say that Luke Nelson isn’t his little brother. I’m not saying throw caution to the wind. I’m not saying jump in without thinking about it. But you can’t spend your whole life letting what happened in the past rule you—” She bites down, laughing quietly. “I mean, that is pretty much what I do, but, you know … do as I say, not as I do?”
