by Angel Lawson
“Yeah?” I ask, sweeping my thumbs over them. They fit perfectly in my hands—not too big, not too little, just fucking right.
Her eyes fall closed and she exhales, sighing against my touch. “Yes.”
That’s all I need to push the fabric aside to thumb her hard, pebbled nipples. Her mouth parts on a breathy little gasp when I do. Like a button, every time I touch her, she grinds down harder on me. So responsive that it’s driving my hips up, meeting hers in a needy thrust. The action makes her face screw up, like it hurts, but she does it again and again. I move a hand to her thigh and sweep it up, raising her skirt. I want to let her take the lead, but Jesus. She’s driving me crazy.
“Does that feel good?” I ask, because I don’t want to hurt her. Never again.
She nods, eyes clenched tight.
I touch her chin and force her face to mine. “Does it feel good, V? I need to know.”
Slowly, her eyes open, blue blazing back at me. Her words escape in a frantic rush, “It feels so good.”
“That’s what I want,” I tell her, and I can barely recognize the low octave of my own voice. “I just want you to feel good.”
I plant a hand on both her hips and drag her against me. I’d give anything to shuck these jeans and coax her into riding me bare and hard. I bet she’s wet for me, and the thought alone is enough to make my balls tighten. But she’s not there yet. We’re not there yet. Slow, steady. I am not fucking this up.
But I can make her feel good, and I focus every ounce of energy I have on it. I push the cup of her bra aside and take her into my mouth, licking and sucking on her peaked nipple. She arches into it, fingers threading into my hair and holding me there, no question that this is doing it for her. I hum when she touches me in return, hand pushing my shirt up, fingers teasing the hair below my belly. Jesus.
Such a little touch to make me feel so crazy.
I wonder, “Can you come like this?” and tip my face up to hers when she doesn’t answer. Vandy isn’t very good at holding a conversation when she’s like this—chasing, hungry, horny. It’s like fire in my veins to know this about her, a knowledge that no one else has. “Can you?”
She’s looking at me with glazed eyes, hips never ceasing. “Yeah, I think—yeah.” And then she asks, “Can…can you?”
I look at her tits, spilling out over her bra, and then at the way her skirt is riding up her thighs, the starkness of her soft skin against the rough denim of my jeans. “Definitely.”
Her lips press against mine, wet. Her tongue tangles, hot. Little pants coat me in her breath, and it takes everything not to cave to my instincts. To take. It becomes clear that Vandy needs this. That she’s desperate for release. I let her ride against me, hips thrusting more and more frantically, and this is it. There’s no way I’ll ever feel this good again, Vandy using my body to chase her own orgasm.
I can feel it approaching in the stutter of her rhythm, the way her legs tremble around me, in the sound she makes, these choked-off little whines against my lips. I guide her hips, working her against my cock, and whisper, “Yeah, that’s it,” and, “Come on, baby.”
Her fingers pinch into my shoulders, like she’s holding on as she falls over the edge. I watch as she falls apart, teeth sinking into her lip, brow furled. I sweep the hair from her cheek as she whimpers, and when I press a soothing kiss to her jaw, she pushes her nose into my temple, body shuddering one last time. The motion of her hips grows less frantic, more controlled. Intentional. Giving instead of seeking.
I’m so close, I push my hands up her skirt and clutch her hips, falling back to look at her. She looks like pure sex. Her eyes are still glazed over, but there’s a sharpness in them. Something bright and satisfied. She surprises me like this. I guess I always figured Vandy would be shy and reluctant, but she’s shameless and soft here, so willing that it makes my chest clench.
“God, look at you.” I wet my lips as I take her in, her skirt riding up around my wrists as I drag her against me. She doesn’t even play it up—doesn’t even need to. She looks into my eyes and my thumbs sweep inward, grazing the softness of where her legs meet her body, dangerously close to finding out just how wet she is, and that’s it.
My hips buck forward and I groan as the hot, sticky release spreads inside my boxers.
I take her face in my hands and rub a thumb over her puffy bottom lip. “You okay?” I didn’t miss the way her leg shook there at the end, even though I was doing most of the work. The realization that all that trembling from before could have been something bad startles the shit out of me.
“You don’t have to ask me that.” She swallows, eyes boring into mine. “Please don’t... don’t treat me like that, okay? Like everyone else does, like I’m fragile. I’m a big girl, Reyn. If we’re going to do this, I need you to know that.”
“I hear you,” I say, understanding that this is what she needs from me. The one person that treats her like an adult. “Just don’t ever…” Only I don’t quite know how to say it. How to ask her not to push herself too far because she’s afraid that I can’t handle facing the truth of her injuries. I try, “You can tell me, if there’s something you can’t—I mean, something that’s hard for you to…”
My fault, my brain screams. I did it.
I’m the reason I have to ask this, in every single way, and it makes my stomach roil.
Luckily, she understands what I need from her. “I know my limits, don’t worry.” If I was afraid of pissing her off, then I’m pleasantly surprised when she gives me a soft smile. “I told you last night, didn’t I? That I wasn’t ready for sex.”
“Right.” I do my best to tamp down the sudden sick feeling. Kind of shitty, if I’m being honest, wanting her to be open and honest, and then not being able to handle it. “Sorry.”
She grins. “As long as we keep doing things like that, I’ll give you a pass.”
A surprised laugh bursts from my chest and I right her bra, fingers lingering. “You’re fucking gorgeous, you know.”
Now, she gets bashful, exhaling a dubious, “Pshhh.”
“Really,” I insist, fingers dragging down her chest, stomach, landing on the scars there. “All of you.” If I were in that Devil confession circle right now, my biggest sin, my darkest secret, would be how touching that scar makes me feel. Because there’s anger and shame, a regret so acute that it burns the back of my throat, but there’s something else, too. It’s possessive and unsettling, looking at this mark I’ve made on her. No one else would understand, but Vandy probably would. It’s not that I’ve marked her with this pain, it’s that no one but the two of us really gets it. No one else can ever know what it was like, that night on that road, waiting for help. Something like that—those moments are what define you. Shape you.
And I was a part of hers.
I know it’s fucked up. It’s something I try not to look too closely at.
I watch as she finds her sweater, pulling it over her head. I help her tug it down, covering up all that skin. I just came my brains out, but when she tugs my shirt down, her knuckles grazing low on my belly, my dick is thinking that it’s already down for another go.
Never done until it goes twice.
“Oh, I brought this,” she says, clambering off my lap. I reach out to steady her waist when she wobbles, but she waves me away. “It didn’t look like you were able to eat.” She pulls a plate from the shelf, setting it on my lap.
It’s a little hard to ignore the mess happening inside my boxers, but when I pull the towel off the plate, it’s a near thing. “Fuck.” Yes.
“I remember how much you used to like cornbread,” she says simply, dropping beside me. She looks blissed out, the good sort of tired. “Mom was totally laughing at me because it didn’t gel with the spread, like there’s ever a bad time for cornbread.”
I already have a mouthful of it when I realize, “You made this for me?”
She blushes, eyes narrowing playfully. “I made it because cornbread is good. B
ut knowing how much you liked it may have provided some of the motivation.” She lets out this airy, carefree laugh as I shove it into my face. “Plus, it was nice waking up with some energy.”
I admit, “I ran like four miles more this morning.” Part of it was that Fucking Jerry was nowhere to be seen—must be on the afternoon shift today—but a bigger part of it was just waking up well-rested.
“I may have seen some of those,” she says, eyes sliding to mine.
Christ, a few more looks like that and I might start adding to the mess in my boxers. I keep eating instead, watching Vandy extend her leg, stretching. She reaches out to grab her toes, exhaling as her leg flexes.
I swallow painfully. “Are you—”
“Yes, I’m okay.” She huffs, eyes rolling. “It’s just like this sometimes. After PT, or a long day of walking at school, it gets a little weaker. It doesn’t hurt, I just want to make sure I have range of motion for when I climb down the ladder. Stop freaking out.”
“I’m not,” I lie, eyes tracking as she massages the back of her thigh. “Can I help?”
“Reyn.” Her voice is sharp with frustration, but when our gazes lock, her face softens. “Sure.” I set the plate aside when she puts her foot on my knee, propped back on her hands. “Just push against my toes, make it flat, okay?”
I nod, clutching the bottom of her boot in one hand, and the toe in the other, flexing it. She pushes against the resistance. I watch her for signs of pain, but there aren’t any. She does this for a few minutes, alternating between reclining back and bending over her knee, stretching the muscles. After a few of these passes, she goes to take her foot away, but I stop her, running my hands up her leg.
She sighs when I reluctantly dig my fingers into the muscles of her calf, doesn’t protest when I sweep them up to her thigh. “That’s good,” she says, face going slack. I go higher and then back, to the place she was massaging before, and she groans, “God. Right there.”
When she opens her eyes and meets my gaze, I think maybe she understands what it means to me, being able to do this. I can’t fix what I did. I can’t fix her. But making it better, even in this tiny, inconsequential way, is like a balm to the burn of that truth.
“Reyn?” The dread pooling in her eyes makes me go still. “Can you promise me something?”
I don’t even need to think. “Anything.”
She watches me watch her, and I don’t know what this is, the heaviness here, but I know that this is important. “Whatever this is or isn’t, just… Not Sydney, okay?” Her voice is a small, quiet thing. “Never Sydney.”
My head snaps back when I realize what she’s saying. “I’m not interested in Sydney.”
She looks away. “I don’t think she cares.”
It’s obviously ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter. I knead my fingers into her muscles and it’s easy to say, “Never Sydney.” I wait for her to meet my eyes again. “Promise.”
I wish she didn’t look so relieved. I wish she wasn’t sitting here thinking of what this isn’t. I wish I could tell her that she’s my girl and have that mean something beyond these fleeting secret meetings.
But I can’t.
Minutes later, I wait at the bottom of the ladder. If I can’t be anything more to her than this, then at least I can catch her if she falls.
21
Vandy
So this is what a walk of shame feels like.
Not that I feel shame, because I feel a lot of things—good, satisfied, happy, and kind of boneless—but shame isn’t among them.
Nevertheless, having to collect myself and walk back down to the house in broad daylight without anyone noticing is definitely a new experience to me. So is the fact my panties are soaked.
God, that was epic.
Sure, it was just a dry-hump, but it was my first dry-hump and it was with Reynolds McAllister, of all people. Talk about starting from the top. And it wasn’t done out of some convoluted situation, or after too many shots, or with any hint of regret. Reyn, I’ve realized, actually likes me. I knew it when we were together in my room last night, and I definitely knew it just now, watching his face flush with desire, his jaw going slack as he came beneath me. I’d seen that look before when he pleasured himself in his room, but this was different. Just for me. I’m the one who made him fall apart. I did that.
No, I don’t feel shame. I feel a little proud, though.
He left the treehouse first, face twisted in a grimace, telling me he had to go change. He didn’t take the path down the hill, instead taking the long way around to his house by cutting through another neighbor’s yard. I spend the walk down the hill smoothing my hair and making sure my skirt is aligned. I’m at the edge of the driveway when I see Jerry’s blinking yellow lights. As I get closer, I realize that the person standing spread-eagle, palms flat against the top of the cart, is none other than Reyn.
What the hell?
I storm across the yard. They must both hear the scrape-pull of my steps at the same time, because they look over in tandem. Reyn’s expression goes from annoyed to something darker, that storm cloud passing over his sharp features.
Jerry’s shoulders ease when he sees me, obviously unconcerned about my presence. “Nothing to worry about Miss Hall, just caught this boy trespassing.”
“Trespassing?” I say, not trying to keep the incredulousness out of my voice. “What are you talking about?”
“I caught him red-handed, climbing the Reed’s fence.” He focuses back on Reyn, hand shoving his head down. “Empty your pockets, boy.” I hate how he says that, like Reyn is just some juvenile scumbag. Like he’s less. I hate even more the way Reyn just takes it. He trains his eyes on the hood of the cart and just stands there, scowling.
He looks embarrassed.
“He wasn’t trespassing,” I hotly insist, hoping I can put him off. God only knows what Reyn has in his pockets. Possibly something from my house. “He was with me.”
Reyn’s eyes shoot up to mine, head shaking slightly.
“With you?” Jerry chuckles. “I doubt that a sweet girl like you would spend time with a punk like him.”
A streak of fur races across the front yard. “He—he was helping me find my cat.”
Jerry’s eyes narrow. “Your cat.”
“Yes.” My heart hammers. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I guess because Reyn is on the line and Jerry has such a hard-on for busting him. He always has, ever since we were kids, but these days it’s worse. Maybe it’s the higher stakes. Maybe it’s that Reyn is technically a legal adult now, and Jerry is free to handle him like that, rough him up. It makes me hot and angry. “Firefly got out during our football party and Reynolds was helping me find him.”
“And you thought it was okay to go into the Reed’s yard to search for a cat?” His words are skeptical, but I can see the deflation in his eyes. He knows his opportunity to bust Reyn is slipping right through his fingers.
Reyn gives a tight shrug. “Cats don’t understand the laws of property lines.”
I add, “Why don’t I just go and give Mrs. Reed a chat? She’ll tell you it’s fine.” They both know I’m right. No one around here would be anything less than perfectly hospitable and courteous to Vandy Hall.
Jerry assesses the two of us. He, like everyone else around here, knows all about our history and the accident. Because of that, he probably thinks he knows what we are to one another. After all, why would Vandy Hall falsely vouch for the boy who hurt her so terribly? She wouldn’t. I can tell that’s what he decides. “Fine. If Miss Hall says you were helping her, then I believe it.” He grabs Reyn by the shoulder and lurches him back, away from the cart. I can tell from the way Reyn holds himself that the motion is rough and jarring. A pathetic attempt at intimidation. “But you just stay on your own property from now on, is that clear?”
“Crystal,” Reyn grinds out, meeting Jerry’s gaze directly.
The security guard climbs back into his cart. He gives me a look. “The next t
ime your cat goes missing, call me. There’s no need to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation.”
I open my mouth to speak, but Reyn’s hand tugs at the back of my sweater. It doesn’t matter anyway. Jerry’s already zipping down the road away from us, off to terrorize someone else.
I face Reyn. “God, he’s such a—”
“Douchebag. I know.” He takes a deep breath. He still won’t meet my eyes. “Well, I need to change, and you have a party to get back to.”
I nod but grab his arm and say, “You know that’s not true, right? I don’t feel uncomfortable with you. I never have, even that ni—”
“I know,” he says sharply, not letting me say it all the way. Quieter, he adds, “I know you don’t, V. Thanks.” He walks away and I stand there watching, not knowing what to say.
Disappointed, I walk toward my own house, stopping to pick up Firefly on the way. He’s pissed about all the people being inside, getting in his space. I carry him into the kitchen and drop him in the laundry room, shutting the door behind him. When I turn, Emory is waiting for me.
I freeze. Shit. Did he see what happened outside? Does he know I’ve been missing? Once again, I run my hands over my hair and tug at my sweater. He gives me a weird look.
“Where were you?”
“Oh, I uh,” I give an ambiguous wave toward the window. “I was just outside with Firefly.”
His mouth forms a line. “I’ve been looking for Reyn. Have you seen him?”
I decide to tell some of the truth, admitting, “Jerry was giving him a hard time out front.”
