The Last

by Tawna Fenske

  What cool points?

  “I went up in a plane after I turned twenty-one and I was totally planning to jump out,” I tell her. “They had me strapped to the guide for the tandem jump and everything.”

  “And?”

  “And I chickened out,” I admit. “The other two guys on the flight went through with it, but the pilot had to take me back down to solid ground.”

  “Ooof.” She grins. “Well, not all goals are made to be achieved.”

  I refrain from telling her this was on the one-year anniversary of Shane’s death. That I was feeling sick and heartbroken and a little too eager to hurl my body at the concrete from twelve-thousand feet, screw the parachute.

  “Do I make up some cool points if I tell you I got my pilot’s license the year after that? I even bought a little four-seater Cessna Skyhawk.”

  Her eyes widen with surprise. “That totally counts. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” I tell myself to shut up so I don’t come off like some bragging idiot. It’s true I’m doing well on the career front, but I don’t need to blurt it out within the first ten minutes. Instead, I comb my brain for memories of Sarah’s other goals. For snippets of late-night dorm room conversations and confessions.

  “You wanted to live overseas,” I recall. “Did you get to do that?”

  Sarah shifts a little on the couch, and her knee bumps against mine. The effect is electric, shooting a delicious, warm jolt all the way up my spine. I’d forgotten it was like that between us. That our video game sessions in my big brown beanbag chair felt way more intense than just friendship. I kept myself in check, thanks to her string of boyfriends and my long-term, long-distance girlfriend. After we broke up, there was this time with Sarah that I thought—

  “I lived in Venezuela for six months teaching English,” Sarah says, jarring me back to our conversation. “I would have stayed longer, but I got swine flu.”

  “That’ll put a damper on things.” I glance down to where her leg has come to rest against mine and try to focus on our teenage life goals instead of the warm pressure of her body heat.

  “You wanted to learn French, right?” she asks.

  “Oui,” I tell her, wracking my brain for something witty and useful to say. “Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles.”

  Her lips part just a little, and belatedly I recall she had a thing for languages. Our sophomore year, she confessed to hanging out near the exchange student advisory center just to listen to foreign students bantering with each other.

  “What does that mean?” she asks, and the words come out breathless.

  “Literally? It means your ass is surrounded by noodles.”

  Sarah bursts out laughing and sets her empty champagne flute on the coffee table. “That’s something you need to say to someone on a regular basis?”

  “It’s an idiom,” I tell her. “A slang way of telling someone they’re very lucky.”

  “Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles,” she repeats, slaughtering most of the words, but giving it her best effort. “I like it. Say something else.”

  I should probably confess that I know only a few French phrases, and that most of what I know I learned from a colleague with a fondness for foul language.

  But the way her fingertips graze my thigh sends me thumbing through my mental rolodex again. “Péter plus haut que son cul.”

  The words roll off my tongue, sounding a lot sexier than they ought to, and Sarah licks her lips. “What’s that?”

  “Uh, literally—someone is trying to fart higher than his own ass.”

  She snort-laughs so hard she falls into me, and I can’t believe how good she feels up against my chest. I’m half tempted to pull up a French website on my phone and just start rattling off random phrases. Anything to keep her touching me like this.

  “It’s like saying someone thinks he’s too good for something,” I explain. “That he has a high opinion of himself. Too big for his britches, I guess might be the English equivalent?”

  “It sounds way cooler in French,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. “Now I’m regretting that I learned Spanish instead of French.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what else she regrets. If there’s anything else that happened or didn’t happen over the last ten years that she wishes had gone differently.

  But I stop myself and stick to the present topic of conversation instead of seizing my urge to steal another glimpse down the front of that tank top. “Let’s see…did you ever see Death Cab for Cutie in concert?”

  “Three times. How about you?”

  “Nope. But that was your goal, not mine.”

  “Hmmm.” She scoots her bare toes under my thigh, something she did in college. A friendly gesture, one between two best buddies, but the touch leaves me reeling now just like it did back then. I curl my fingers into the arch of her foot and give a squeeze.

  “Oh, that feels good.”

  My breath hitches as I order myself not to get turned on. It’s a foot rub, for crying out loud, not foreplay.

  I stroke my thumb over her arch again, pretending it’s a casual gesture and that her soft moans aren’t getting to me.

  “Let’s see,” she says, shifting so I’ve got better access to the ball of her foot. “Okay, I’ve got one.” That’s right, we’re still playing catch-up. “Did you sleep with that girl—the one from art history class?”

  “Anabelle?” I trace a finger in a slow circle around the happy face on her knee. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  She quirks an eyebrow at me. “You used to. We used to tell each other everything.”

  Not everything. Jesus, definitely not everything.

  “How about you?” I say. “Remember that threesome fantasy you told me about?”

  “God.” Sarah covers her face with her hands and laughs. “I can’t believe I told you that. I was drunk on fuzzy navels that night, for the record.”

  “And yet, not an answer to my question.”

  She pulls her hands off her face and looks me in the eye. “Would you respect me less if I said yes?”

  My dick lunges at my fly, and it’s all I can do to keep from pouncing on her. “I’d respect you either way,” I say. “For going after what you want, or for deciding that wasn’t what you wanted after all.”

  “Good.” Sarah licks her lips. “Because there’s something I want right now.”

  “Oh?” My heart revs like a jump-started engine, and I can’t quite read the heat in her eyes. “What’s that?”

  I hold my breath, listening to the thud of my pulse hammering in my eardrums.

  “This,” Sarah says and leans up to kiss me.

  Chapter Three

  Sarah

  Oh my God, I’m kissing Ian Nolan.

  That thought screams through my mind as our mouths connect for the first time. How is it possible I’ve known this guy for ten years and had no idea he could kiss like a dream?

  His lips are soft, but the rest of him is hard and in-control. Punishing, even as he angles his body against mine and grazes my tongue with his. I respond by digging my nails into his shoulder blades in a signal I hope he can read: I don’t want gentle. I want a fierce, frantic birthday fuck to remember.

  Either he reads my mind, or he remembers the secrets I confessed in college. The ones about liking it rough, about loving dirty talk more than just about anything. They’re the sort of things a nineteen-year-old girl can confess to her male BFF only after a few too many beers. Ian never judged, never responded with anything more than friendly interest.

  And I’m pretty sure he remembers everything I told him, because he threads his fingers into my hair and clenches tight, forcing my head back so he can devour my throat with rough little nips of his teeth. I groan as his other hand slides under the hem of my shirt and keeps going. None of that tentative bullshit I get from guys who assume the sweet social worker doesn’t want to be manhandled.

  She does. Oh my God, she does.

&n
bsp; Ian gives a low growl as his hand claims my bare breast. Never in my life have I been so grateful that I left my bra in the bedroom. His palm is hot and possessive, thumb skimming over my nipple in a way that sends shockwaves of sensation down my bare arms. His mouth lays claim to me with every kiss, every punishing drag of his teeth down nerve-prickled flesh.

  “Ian,” I gasp. “Fuck.”

  The words throw fuel on the fire, and he uses his considerable body weight to push me back on the couch. He prowls over me, holding himself up on arms that ripple with muscle. His eyes are wild as he breaks the kiss and looks at me with a heat that sends my pulse into overdrive.

  I grab at his shirt, desperate to feel him. To have him bite and push and tug at my hair again, but he holds himself back.

  “Tell me now if you don’t want this,” he says. “If you’re tipsy or unsure or you’d rather watch Game of Thrones and eat birthday cake.”

  I finally catch hold of his neckline and yank him back down. “I don’t want birthday cake,” I tell him. “I want you.”

  A palpable relief surges through him, followed by something more powerful. I can feel it rippling through his shoulders as he covers my body with his. His kisses are even rougher this time, and I’m conscious of just how big he is, how deliciously hard and powerful. Did he have this body in college? I don’t think so, but I was too busy chasing idiot boys to notice.

  Ian’s no boy. He’s all man, especially the part I can feel grinding against me through my thin flannel pants. I drag my nails down his back, memorizing the rows of muscle, the faint scents of sandalwood and grass. Expensive cologne or deodorant or shampoo, whatever it is makes my head spin like I’ve stepped into an opium den. Or maybe that’s lust making my brain buzz, making heat pool between my legs.

  He breaks the kiss again and grabs the bottom of my tank top at the same time I catch the hem of his T-shirt in my hands. The result is a frenzied tangle of limbs and armholes and bunched-up fabric that leaves us panting and giggling at the same time.

  “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he growls as he tosses my shirt across the room.

  I drop his T-shirt on the ground and drag my hands down his chest. There are muscles here I didn’t know existed. “You—uh—work out.”

  Brilliant observation, Sarah.

  But Ian just smiles and lowers his mouth to my bare breasts. I gasp and clutch the back of his head as he devours one nipple, then the other. His hair tickles my chin, and I thread my fingers through it for the delicious contrast of softness and hardness. He’s holding himself over me on arms like something borrowed from the cover model of Men’s Journal.

  Ian Nolan has the body of a God and the mouth of an angel, and I’m wondering how long I have to wait to get his pants off.

  Fuck it. It’s your birthday.

  The thought makes me bold, and I grab for the fly of his jeans with a kind of desperation that should probably make him fear for his safety. But he doesn’t jerk back, not even when I trace the thick line of his erection through coarse denim. He hisses out a breath as I stroke him, and I’m already tasting him on the back of my tongue. I need him in my mouth. I’ve never craved anything so much in my life. “Ian.”

  He lifts his head and meets my eyes. “Yeah.”

  “I haven’t blown out any birthday candles yet,” I say slowly, too lust-addled to care whether this sounds cheesy or sexy. “But maybe you’ve got something else I could blow.”

  He closes his eyes and laughs, the sound somewhere between humor and a moan. “I’ve missed you, dork.”

  I take that as a yes and tug open the button on his jeans. Yanking down the zipper, I shove his boxer briefs over his hips. My hand closes around his shaft, and I get a definite moan this time.

  “God, Sarah,” he gasps as I start to stroke. “You shouldn’t—Christ—it’s your birthday.”

  “And this is what I want.” I graze my thumb over his thick head, eliciting another moan. “Besides, yours was two days ago.”

  “This is—I didn’t come here to—”

  “Yes, you did.” I smile into his eyes and tighten my grip on his cock. He isn’t getting away from me, not that he’s trying too hard. Skimming a thumb through the bead of wetness at the tip of him earns me another moan, so I wriggle my way down the couch beneath him, brushing my breasts over his shaft on the way down.

  “Fuck.”

  That’s all he gets out before I wrap my lips around his cock and draw him in deep. He’s still holding himself on his forearms, but he lifts one hand and buries it in my hair. His fingers are forceful, possessive, as he pumps his hips gently. I love that there’s no tentativeness. It’s like we’ve done this a thousand times before, Ian Nolan fucking my mouth like I want him to do instead of like a guy who thinks I’m breakable. He knows I’m not. He knows I don’t want hesitation.

  I want this. I want him.

  I swirl my tongue around his shaft, teasing, sucking, licking, doing my best to make him mindless. His dick is bigger than I would have guessed, not that I ever spent much time thinking about Ian’s cock. He was just Ian, my buddy with the beanbag chair and friendly smile.

  But there’s nothing friendly about the way he’s fucking my mouth. He’s careful about it, but not shy. Not afraid to take what he wants.

  He jerks back, and there’s a funny pop as he pulls out of my mouth. Shoving me back up the couch, he slides down my body to meet my eyes again, his expression dazed and heated. “This is your birthday,” he says. “Shouldn’t we reverse things here?”

  “You just gave me exactly what I wanted.” I grin and lick the corner of my lip, dizzy from the taste of him. “I’d love to finish.”

  “Oh, we’ll finish,” he says. “But it’ll be with my cock buried deep inside you and that sweet little pussy pulsing around me.”

  Oh God, yes.

  My ladybits do a fierce clench of pleasure. He remembers. He definitely remembers me telling him about the dirty talk, about how college guys didn’t do it all that well.

  But Ian Nolan knows how to pull it off without sounding like a creepy perv. He’s saying all the things that leave me squirming and aching for more. My mouth waters, wanting to taste him again.

  Does he remember that, too?

  I confessed it over a campfire one night after everyone else had gone to bed, whispering about how I loved giving head, sucking and testing myself to see how much I can take. I could say those things to my friend, Ian, the one with the girlfriend in California and the solid seat in my friend-zone. The one who watched me cycle through boyfriends like I was changing socks, but never judged or scoffed.

  And I never imagined this Ian. The one hovering over me, his cock close enough for me to grab and taste and—

  But he has other ideas.

  “Your turn.” He doesn’t wait for a response. Just grips my hips and shoves me back up the sofa, making room for himself in the space between my splayed legs. He yanks off my pajama pants with one hand, taking my panties with them and throwing the tangled ball across the room. Then he’s shouldering my legs apart, baring me to him as he dives in like a starving man.

  He wastes no time being delicate, burying his tongue in my sensitive folds and devouring me like I’m the dessert he’s waited for all night. Like he’s been practicing his whole life to have his mouth on me.

  I throw my head back against the couch and cry out, threading my fingers in his hair. He swirls his tongue around my clit and slides one long, thick finger into me. Then two. I grip his hair as he curls both fingers, which are long and skilled and ohmygod right there.

  “That’s it,” he murmurs as the pad of his finger hits my G-spot and I levitate off the fucking sofa. “Come in my mouth. I can feel you squeezing my fingers. You’re so fucking close.”

  His words vibrate through my core as he licks into me again, driving me right to the edge. My brain is a blur of soft tongue twirls and the steady pounding of his fingers as I start to unravel.

  “Ian,” I scream as the first
wave hits me.

  I’ve never come so fast in my life, and he buoys me up and over those first waves, anticipating every roll of the ocean, every surge of my body. His fingers find the perfect rhythm as his tongue swirls and flutters and coaxes every last shudder out of me.

  I go slack in his hands, and he cups my ass as I come down. My breath is still ragged as he crawls up my body like a predatory animal. I’m still twitching with the aftershocks of orgasm as he whips out a condom and sheaths himself.

  I lick my lips, needing more. I want him inside me.

  “What were you starting to say a second ago?” I tease, flicking the condom wrapper aside as it flutters to rest near my shoulder. “You didn’t come here to what, Ian?”

  “To fuck you,” he growls. “I lied.”

  “I’m glad.” I wrap my legs around him, urging him to take me.

  He holds himself back again, and the phrase enthusiastic consent pulses through my brain. I love that he’s making sure.

  “Tell me right now if you don’t want this,” he says.

  I lick my lips, already feeling him at my entrance. “It’s what I want.”

  Desperately, urgently—

  “Oh!” I gasp as he starts to slide in. Just the tip, and then he watches me with molten eyes.

  “You’re so fucking wet,” he says. “Feel that?”

  I nod, though I’m not sure what he means. All I can feel is the head of his cock, so thick and hard I’m squirming to get it inside me.

  “Such a greedy little pussy,” he growls, offering me another inch. “It’s like you’re trying to grab me and pull me inside.”

  “I am,” I gasp, clutching at his hips. “Please, Ian. Please fuck me.”

  And then he’s all the way in. Oh my God, Ian Nolan is inside me, and I’ve never felt anything this fucking amazing in my life.

  I wrap my legs around him as he drives into me, burying himself to the hilt. There’s none of that timid probing, no easing in slowly to get used to each other. Everything fits together like our bodies were engineered to connect just like this. I fight to keep breathing, trying to get my bearings, trying not to pass out from the pleasure as he fills me completely.