Elements of Chemistry: Attraction

by Penny Reid

  “It’s true, it swells.” I shifted restlessly when he remained motionless. “It also elongates.”

  “You’re a virgin?”

  It was my turn to hold still, a spike of some unpleasant sensation coursing through my body. I hadn’t meant to admit that. I hadn’t meant to ever tell him anything personal about myself, anything that could be tucked away and used to make me cry at some later date.

  “Um…,” I said, struggling to think of some way to hide that fact without flat-out lying.

  Martin withdrew his hands and I felt the loss of him at my back; a few seconds later I heard the jingle of the change in his pants pocket. I closed my eyes again, my forehead hitting the closet door.

  “Ah, barnacles,” I whispered, my body cold and hot. I was tightly wound with both mortification and unspent sexual energy.

  “You’re a virgin,” he said, this time not a question; it sounded like an accusation.

  I nodded, took a deep breath, and glanced over my shoulder. He was buttoning his jeans, his expression thunderous. I glared at where his fingers gripped the waist of his pants.

  “So what?” I said. If I pretended like it was no big deal maybe he’d believe me. “So what, I’m a virgin.”

  Finished with his button, he pulled the zipper up with a rough yank. “So you’re a virgin and I’m not going to—” He growled, cutting himself off and reached for his shirt with rough swipe. “I’m not a total bastard,” he said, this to his shirt.

  I glared at him, disbelieving what he’d just said, what he’d just implied. “What does my being a virgin have to do with anything? All girls should be treated with respect regardless of whether or not they’re virgins. Being a virgin doesn’t make me any more or less worthwhile than a non-virgin. Your seduction logic is flawed.”

  “It’s not virgins I have a problem with. I’ve fucked plenty of virgins.”

  I winced at this and watched him pull his shirt on with jerky movements. Before I could recover from his harsh admission, he continued.

  “But you being a virgin and you being Kaitlyn Parker makes me want to ensure our first time touching each other isn’t some grope session against the closet of a dorm room.”

  “So if I hadn’t been a virgin, then we would…what? We would have just, just…” I couldn’t say the word fuck. I just couldn’t. Instead I rushed to finish. “You would have impaled me with your penis while I face planted against the closet?”

  “God, Kaitlyn. No!” His protest appeared to be equally appalled and earnest. “I wanted to tease you until you agreed to come with me. I wasn’t going to let it go that far. Haven’t you ever fooled around before?”

  I think he knew the answer before he finished asking the question, because his eyes widened with realization as the last words left his mouth.

  No. No, I have never fooled around.

  I didn’t want to admit anything. Yet I couldn’t help but look away, stare unseeingly at the foot of my bed. I belatedly realized my small evasive action told him everything. My hands balled into fists and I crossed my arms over my chest. The weight and heat of his gaze, what he must be thinking about me, made my skin feel three sizes too small.

  “Damnit, Kaitlyn! Was I your first kiss too?” He sounded angry and his words made me jump.

  “No. Of course not.” My cheeks and neck were on fire. I tried to lift my eyes to his but couldn’t manage any higher than his chin. “I’ve kissed someone before.”

  “Someone? As in, one other person?”

  For some inexplicable reason, I felt like crying. Tears stung behind my eyelids and my throat felt tight.

  I knew it.

  I KNEW IT.

  I knew he was going to make me cry. It’s what he did. Therefore, I didn’t answer him. I just blinked at the foot of my bed and pressed my lips together, focused on my breathing.

  He sat down heavily on the edge of my bed, his elbows on his knees, running his hands through his hair, and I heard him exhale a dumbfounded, “Fuck.”

  I muttered, “That word is unimaginative.”

  “You’re completely inexperienced.” He said this to the room.

  He was probably thinking, What is wrong with you that you’ve only been kissed by one other person? That you never made it past first base prior to yesterday?

  “I’ve read books,” I said dumbly, clearing my throat, safely past the threat of tears. “And watched a number of pornographic videos. I took extensive notes. I’ve also read several enlightening journal articles on pubmed about the physiology of the sex act. I probably know more about the logistics of it then you do. I’m not an idiot.”

  “No. You’re not the idiot,” he said. Again, he sounded angry. He bent to put on his shoes and I noted that his jaw flexed, and he was grinding his teeth.

  I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. The instinct to hide was strong. I considered stepping backward into the closet and sliding the door shut. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. He’d just look up eventually and it would look like I’d simply disappeared.

  I was about to put this plan into action when he stood abruptly. It startled me so I did a weird step forward then backward shuffle, similar to a jazz square. He crossed to me, his eyes fierce, his gaze intent. I retreated until my back hit the closet, lifting my chin to maintain eye contact.

  “This is what is going to happen,” he said, his hands moving like he was going to touch me, but then he yanked them back at the last minute and stuffed them in his pockets. “Pack your things, you’re coming with me.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off.

  “You promised, Parker. You said yes and you promised.”

  Not breaking promises was one of my life rules. If I made a promise, I kept it. Therefore I frowned at him and admitted nothing.

  He studied me for a moment, his gaze growing thoughtful, introspective. His words sounded shaded with distraction as he said, “We’re going to take this slow. We’re going to start over and do this right.”

  I squinted at him, my mouth doing its opening and closing dance. “What? What are you talking about? Take what slow?”

  “You like me.” He said this matter-of-factly, with a hint of belligerence.

  This statement did not answer my question.

  “What?”

  “You like me. You want to know me better.”

  “I most certainly do not want to know you better.”

  “I definitely want to know you better.” His gaze flickered down then up meaningfully.

  I gaped at him because—hot hottie from Hotsvillie—the growly and intense way he’d said, I definitely want to know you better made my insides flare into a frenzy of wanting that wanted him to know me better.

  My immediate thought was, Okay, let’s do that. Let’s just do whatever you want, just say everything using that voice, mmm-kay?

  He continued, “We’ll have dates.”

  Because my mind was distracted, I didn’t understand his meaning, therefore I said, “I don’t like dates. They’re too sugary and stick to my teeth.”

  His somber and fierce façade cracked, a small smile tugging at the side of his mouth. He leaned closer, resting his hand on the closet behind me, his face just inches from mine.

  His truly magnificent eyes were bright with amusement and something else as they scanned my face. His truly magnificent lips formed a mesmerizing curve. His truly magnificent body was scant inches from mine, but touched me nowhere.

  “Fine.” His voice was quiet and laced heavily with intimacy. “We won’t have dates on our dates. We’ll have tacos.”

  “I like tacos.” I said this because I did like tacos, but I was also mesmerized by the voodoo of his closeness.

  “Good. Tacos. Promise me.” He stuck out his hand.

  “I promise.” I took his hand, shook it, released it, then frowned. “Wait, what?”

  His eyes darted to my lips and he licked his own, drawing the top one into his mouth and biting it. I think I fainted a little, which I know is
n’t possible—one does not faint a little. But his sexy lip-lick-suck-bite thing may have caused a head rush.

  I thought he was going to kiss me, because he was staring at my mouth in such a way that lead me to believe he was hungry…for my lips. He appeared to be struggling, warring with himself; I held my breath.

  The five seconds he hesitated proved to be the undoing of the potential kiss, because we were unceremoniously interrupted by a shrieking Sam.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Chemical Kinetics

  “Foolish, absurd, brainless, crazy, preposterous, ridiculous, silly, stupid…,” I muttered.

  “What are you doing?”

  I slid my eyes to my right where surly faced Sam sat, flipping through her political science textbook pretending to study.

  “You know what I’m doing,” I whispered.

  “It’s the synonym game, isn’t it?” she whispered back, turning just slightly in her seat and dipping her head close to mine. “What’s the word?”

  “Foolish.”

  “Oh. How many do you have so far?”

  “Uh, seven I think¸ maybe eight.”

  “Well…you need more than that.” Sam turned and glanced over her shoulder.

  I had the window seat. She had the aisle seat. Therefore, the boys were behind her. I’d achieved maximum willpower and hadn’t looked at Martin for the last forty-five minutes. If this were a video game, I’d be on level one thousand, about to face the final boss, and my palms would be sweating with the anticipation.

  My palms were sweating now.

  Not looking at Martin every thirteen seconds was torture. He was so…lookable. And lookable wasn’t even a word. It should have been, because he was definitely it. Easy-on-the-eyes was the closest phrase I could come up with that would be synonymous with the non-word lookable. Maybe mesmerizing?

  Mesmerizing, hypnotic, irresistible, alluring, seductive… Hmm…

  “Did you know that deductive and seductive are only one letter away from being the same word?” I asked.

  Sam turned back to me and gave me a slight stink eye. “And conducive is conductive, but without a T.”

  “Huh.” I nodded. That was interesting. I wondered how many –ductive words I could identify.

  Sam continued on a whisper, “Are you ready to talk about it yet?”

  “Talk about what?” I removed my eyes from her and stared at the vacant seat in front of mine. Since we were on Martin’s dad’s private plane, we had tons of space. Two seats were on each side of the aisle, and the plane had six rows with an open seating area in the back that included a bar, couches, and a big screen TV. In the front cabin, every other row faced backward which resulted in four seats facing each other.

  When we boarded the plane, Sam insisted she and I needed all four of our seats and that neither Martin nor any of his boy-entourage were allowed to sit across from us. Since finding Martin hovering over me earlier in our dorm room, with clear intent-to-kiss posturing, Sam had been doing a lot of insisting.

  Sam leveled me with a narrowed glare. “Don’t play dumb, Kaitlyn Parker. Why are we on this plane?”

  I folded my arms on my knees and buried my head in my arms.

  I felt her tugging on my hair, not hard, just trying to get me to sit up. I didn’t. A moment later she was leaning over me, whispering in my ear, “When I walked in on you this morning you were about to do something imprudent. Is that one on your list of synonyms for foolish?”

  “No. I’ll add it to the list.” My response was muffled because I was hiding.

  “Parker, why are we on this plane?”

  I stared at the fabric of the jeans covering my legs within the dim cavern created by my head, arms, and hair. Blowing out a long, measured breath, I sat up slowly, straightened until my back was resting against the seat cushion again and my eyes were level with surly faced Sam.

  I stared at her. She stared back, expectant.

  “I promised him,” I said.

  Her eyebrows bounced up then down. “You promised him? That’s it, that’s why we’re here? You promised?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I promised him. I promised him last night and I promised him this morning and then you walked in and you freaked out and then he freaked out and then I thought about hiding in the closet, but I don’t own any spikey heels, so I just agreed. Okay? I just agreed so the freak outs and the name calling would cease and desist.”

  Sam’s eyes were half-lidded and her continued surly expression told me she was not impressed with my answer.

  But it was the truth…kind of.

  When Sam walked in, she’d pitched a fit and started yelling at Martin. Really, she overreacted because she loves me. She was pretty nasty to Martin, called him some unpleasant names I won’t repeat, but I will say they are synonyms for whoreson.

  Then Martin, who has no problem yelling at females, males, turtles, grass, and furniture, yelled back. Really, he was defending himself from her overprotectiveness and nasty name-calling. To his credit, he didn’t call her any names. Mostly he just told her to back off and to “mind her own goddam business.”

  I stepped in and tried to calm them both down. In doing so, I reassured Martin that I would be going with him—because I did promise him more than once—but only if Sam could go too. Eventually he overcame the shock of my request and agreed. Once he confirmed our destination would have a tennis court, Sam agreed.

  Then he did something weird.

  He gathered me up in his arms like I belonged there, gave me a swift, closed-mouth kiss, and said he’d wait for me in the hall. Then he left the room and stepped out of the suite area and promptly waited…in the hall…for me…for a full hour.

  I felt like Scarlett O’Hara after she was kissed by Rhett Butler, confused and anxious and swoony and wanting it to happen again.

  Sam and I had a brief argument after that, and by some miracle she agreed to come with me. Honestly, I don’t think she felt like she had a choice since I stubbornly insisted I was going, and she lacked the time necessary to argue me out of it.

  However, all the arguing and promising and name-calling aside, a large part of me was strangely excited about the trip. I was nineteen years old and the dodgiest thing I’d ever done was drink peach schnapps and drunk dial my ex last summer. I’d never thrown caution to the wind before. I’d never done anything this nutty and spontaneous. It was equal parts thrilling, terrifying, and confusing.

  So…here we were. On the plane, with Martin, his handsome friend Eric from the fraternity party, and seven other dudes, most of whom looked like they’d stepped out of an Abercrombie and Finch photo-shoot; except they had clothes on, unfortunately. Sam and I were the only females if you didn’t count the two flight attendants.

  We’d been briefly introduced to the boys upon entering the plane. Martin had referred to a few of them by a number first, then by first name.

  Interestingly, they didn’t seem to be surprised by our presence. I was also pretty sure they were checking me out, but not in the, I might hit that checking me out. More like a, Are you a Yoko Ono? checking me out.

  As I shook everyone’s hand I was surprised to see that one of the seven guys was Ben, the cuss monster from my time spent in the science cabinet. I couldn’t fathom why Martin would have him come along, especially given the fact he’d tried to drug then extort Martin the night before.

  Maybe they’d man-hugged it out.

  Boys were just weird.

  I made a mental note to tell Martin the entire conversation between Ben and the unknown female, because Ben had basically admitted to drugging girls. And there was really only one reason he could be drugging girls. He was Ben the rapist as far as I was concerned and I wanted nothing to do with him.

  Sam and I took a seat in the front of the plane after introductions and left the males to their bonding.

  I felt the mounting pressure of Sam’s glare; she pressed her lips together in my general direction, lo
oking displeased and surly.

  “I can’t believe we did this, I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. How did that happen? How did we get here? And now we’re going to some private beach in the middle of the Caribbean? This is crazy.”

  “It is kind of crazy.” I shrugged, feeling shell shocked by the fact I was on this plane and all the circumstances leading up to this moment. Less than twenty-four hours ago I’d kissed Martin Sandeke—or rather, he’d kissed me. And then it happened again…and again. He’d placed his hands on my body like he had a right to do so, and I let him.

  My skin still remembered his touch. Just thinking about his hands on me made my breasts feel tight and heavy, and my neck, back, and arms break out in goosebumps. I was warm all over and felt a little drunk with excitement and fear.

  “But,” I started, stopped, gave my head a quick shake, then began again, “but…it’s okay. We’re okay. We’re together. If we get there and we don’t want to stay we can leave.”

  “And go where? Do what? Swim to Jamaica?”

  I shook my head, fighting back the swelling tide of Martin-inspired lust.

  “No. I sent George, my mother’s PA, a message. George knows the flight information, where we are. Worst case scenario, I call him and he arranges for us to leave. We’re good.”

  Sam looked at me for several soundless seconds, then blurted, “You told your mother?”

  “Of course. Well, technically I told her personal assistant, George. As the daughter of a senator I have to inform her any time I leave the country.”

  “You don’t think she’s going to freak out?”

  “No. Why would she? I’m using the buddy system. She knows where I am, and with whom, and for how long, and why.”

  Although, I was still a bit uncertain as to why…

  “You ladies need any drinks?”

  Both Sam and I glanced up to find handsome Eric hovering in the aisle, poised at the precipice to our secluded island of four seats. Sam stared at him, like she was confused by his presence.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Drinks. Do you need any…drinks?”