by Anne Marsh
Hazel clicks along at my side. I’m constantly amazed by her speed in those ridiculous boots she loves. She keeps up effortlessly for the two blocks it takes to reach the private parking lot where my BMW is being babied under the watchful eye of a seventeen-year-old part-time employee. I hand him my ticket and a twenty.
Hazel loops her arm through mine and leans into me. This is less a friendly gesture than it is a practical one. Her T-shirt is thin and her bra thinner still. She’s visibly cold.
“Why French?”
Hazel shrugs. “Why not May? She’d date you. You could have sex tonight.”
Valet Boy jerks to a brief halt at Hazel’s words. The twenty in his teenage pocket works its magic, however, because he lurches back into motion. I pretend he’s not imagining me and my dinner guest doing it in a penthouse suite.
“It didn’t feel right,” I say.
Hazel groans dramatically. “It was two hours. How did things go so wrong? You’re a guy. You have a penis. This should be like basic math.”
I try not to think about Hazel thinking about my penis. Or how she makes a popping sound on the letter P, the same kind of ripe, juicy sound her mouth would make coming off my dick.
“It was forever,” I counter. “And easily.”
“You just need more practice.” Hazel’s wrapped around my arm so tightly that she’s starting to cut off my circulation. I’m honestly not sure if I’m allowed to think about Hazel’s breasts, but they’re hard to ignore. Her nipples are tight little twists that demand sucking.
No.
Cold Hazel is one problem that I can fix. I peel her off my arm, shuck my jacket and wrap her up in it.
When the valet finally returns with my car, I open the passenger-side door for Hazel and wait. She makes a face but slides in. I add a point to my mental score.
“Did you drive?”
Hazel laughs. It’s part snort, part guffaw, all Hazel. I’m not sure she knows how to hold back. “Car service.”
She pulls off the blond wig and tosses it into the back seat. Her own hair is pulled back in a tight, sleek knot at the base of her neck.
“Prudent.” Hazel’s a late bloomer when it comes to driving, having only just gotten her driver’s license a year ago—and only after three attempts at passing the road test. Max, Dev and I spent hours coaching her, but Hazel’s still not convinced—she says—that God intended human beings to drive faster than twenty miles an hour. Max claims that she’s a reincarnated Amish person in mourning for her buggy. Whatever the reason, however, the truth is that Hazel is the world’s slowest driver. She still won’t tell me how she actually passed her road test, but Dev believes bribery was involved.
It hasn’t quite hit me that I’ve had my first date since Molly and I split. I stare at the road, concentrating on staying perfectly between the lines. The ocean spins away on our right, the dark water melting into the horizon. Just a few days ago, Hazel offered herself to me, suggesting that we sleep together until we both come up with better options. It’s a strangely seductive thought, although not a plan that I should be entertaining. Hazel and I are business partners and best friends, and introducing naked activities to that relationship would be a mistake.
“Tell me about your date.” Hazel manages to curl into me, despite the ample legroom in the BMW. She flicks on the seat warmer and groans. Is that the sound she makes when she’s having sex?
“There’s nothing to tell. We met, we had drinks, dinner was consumed and then a crazy woman landed in my lap and my date decided it was time to exit stage left.”
Hazel’s head against my arm makes shifting difficult, but I manage. “You need more practice. I’ll help. I can be your practice date. Chat me up. Hit me with your best lines.”
I slide a quick glance at her. “You want me to hit on you?”
“I’ll start,” she says. “You must be an angel because I’m in heaven!”
I mock-groan and one-up her. “Somewhere in heaven they’re missing an angel.”
“I can die happy now because I’ve seen heaven,” Hazel shouts.
We trade corny lines back and forth, smirking as we try to top each other. I tuck an escaping strand of hair behind her ear. For a second, my finger traces the curve of her ear.
“Hazel?”
“Yeah?” She fiddles with the dashboard again, but I don’t think she’s still cold.
“What’s the last pickup line that worked on you?”
She doesn’t even have to think about it. “Guys don’t try to pick me up, Jack. I’m too scary, too blunt, or too successful. Sometimes D—all of the above.”
“They’re stupid.” It’s not the most articulate assessment of my life, but it’s accurate.
Hazel nods in agreement. “Absolutely. So I wouldn’t want to have their babies, anyhow. Imagine the gene pool.”
There’s nothing I can say to that, so I lose myself in the car. I love driving as much as Hazel hates it, and my BMW is fucking amazing. I downshift into a curve, slowing as we start up the mountain. The road to her place is a serpentine delight of curves and hairpin turns and steep, tree-covered drop-offs. The kind of person who lives here doesn’t want to see or hear from neighbors, so even though the houses here come in all shapes, sizes and stages of dilapidation, the one thing they have in common is an enormous amount of tree-covered space. And since there are no streetlights, I have plenty of time to admire each and every branch as I ease forward.
“You should live on the beach like a civilized person,” I tell her.
She sticks her tongue out at me. “And when the tsunami hits, you’ll be begging to stay with me.”
“The odds of a tsunami in California are low. It’s the earthquakes you have to watch out for.”
Hazel not only lives in the mountains, but she also has an honest-to-goodness log cabin for a house. Laura Ingalls would be jealous. Two stories of rough-cut goodness, a shit ton of windows and French doors, and closer proximity to the woods and its resident wildlife than I’m strictly comfortable with. While most of the snakes in Santa Cruz are either of the harmless or Silicon Valley variety, Hazel has spotted more than one rattlesnake swanning its way around her property. It is not a feature as far as I’m concerned.
“If you lived at the beach, you could have a moat,” I point out. I pull into her driveway, easing to a stop. A barrage of security lights go on.
“True, but then I’d have to fend off all the surfers and riffraff. Nobody comes up here.” She says that as if it’s a selling point.
I put the car in Park as Hazel hops out at warp speed. I follow as quickly as I can just in case bears or other wild animals put in an appearance. Hazel makes a face. She’s pointed out before that she has yet to get lost, mauled or otherwise injured on her way to her front door. As always, I ignore her because insurance never hurts.
“So. Hold this.” She shoves her bag into my hand and proceeds to rummage inside for her keys. Hazel’s bag is the disorganized disaster her life is not. “Next steps, Viking man. Invite a new girl out.”
“I don’t think I’m ready to date.”
“Of course you are. You just need practice.”
“We practiced. What do you think?”
She winks at me. “How’s your kissing?”
“There’s no safe answer to that.”
“Dating’s not low risk, either.” Hazel’s key disappears into the lock and there’s a quiet snick as the tumblers turn over. “But if you can’t charm the lady with your dinner-table wit, I’d suggest making her panties melt.”
I shouldn’t ask, but... “Is that really a thing?”
Hazel grins. “Do you really want me to explain it? Hint: it’s directly related to your kissing skills.”
I need to stop thinking about Hazel and panties.
“Do you want me to show you?” I brace an arm over her head. If
she opens the door now, I’ll crash-land in her living room, but it’s worth it for the comical look on her face. As if no guy in recent memory has gotten too close on her doorstep and gone in for a good-night kiss. Apparently I also can’t stop thinking about her offer to be my friend with benefits. I need help. An intervention. Possibly a two-by-four to the head.
Because that’s my voice still talking and digging a ginormous, dirty hole. “You’re the one who said I needed practice. Practice with me?”
Hazel blinks, her eyes widening as her gaze moves over my face and then lower. Her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip and I’m lost. I’ve been lost for some time, if I’m honest. Every nerve in my body seems to be on fire, starting with where my fingers just brush her hair and our legs almost touch. I think I close that not-quite distance. Or she does. But somehow our bodies meet, erasing all the space I’ve worked so hard to keep between us.
I feel her.
Hazel.
“Tell me yes.” I bend closer, so that my mouth brushes her neck. “Or tell me good night. But you have to choose for us, Zee.”
I’ve stood next to her, beside her, behind her hundreds of times. Objectively, I know exactly how tall she is and when she changes her shampoo or tries a new scent. We’re friends and yet I run my mouth up her throat, breathing this new, unfamiliar side of her in. The scent of her skin floods my lungs. I want to make her part of me, draw her deep inside my body so that she’s always part of me and not this strange, exotic terra incognita that makes me wild to explore.
She reaches up, her arms sliding around my neck to pull me closer as her head tips back in invitation. “Yes, kiss me.”
I can’t bite back my smile. “You’re the boss.”
Her eyes narrow because she hates being teased, but now there’s no way I don’t kiss her. I cover her mouth with mine and I learn something new about my best friend. Her mouth is soft and warm. She tastes amazing. And she’s an all-in kisser. Her lips part and she angles her head, trying to devour me. It’s fucking hot. Her tongue strokes across my bottom lip and she groans something. A word. A plea. Knowing Hazel, it’s probably a demand for more.
Her hands pull at my waist, tugging my shirt free and skimming up my back. Butterfly touches. Heat ignites in me. I pull back so that I can kiss her bottom lip and then the top. Her mouth is surprisingly, shockingly soft. She’s hungry. I can hear her ragged breathing as if there’s not enough air. Not enough touching. She’s all warm female, sweet welcome and porn-star noises.
I could kiss her all night, but instead I ease my mouth away from hers. Her eyes meet mine as my thumb traces the curve of her lower lip. She’s in a hurry, but me... I want to take this slow. I want to savor my first real taste of Hazel. A kiss is an audition. It’s the magic moment when you judge me. Are we compatible? Do I want more? Do you? That cheek kiss with May? Not an accident. Bad kisses are the worst. They’re hard to fix or to figure out why the hot ones rock our world so hard. Kisses are personal.
Christ, she’s... These are the same lips that have barked at me, argued with me, laughed with me and told me more than once that Hazel’s way is the best way. But I’ve never seen them this way before, not as belonging to someone I’d like to kiss. Not wet and slick from my mouth. Not kiss-bruised and greedy for me.
I find her hand with mine and thread our fingers together. It’s silly, but I sort of want all the date things with her, and we haven’t held hands yet. I cup her face with my other hand because I’m a greedy bastard. I’m a big guy and Hazel’s petite, so my fingers curl around her neck and slip into her knot of hair. For one moment, I let myself imagine pulling her hair. Taking charge, taking over. I want to fuck her more than anything I’ve ever wanted.
“Again,” she demands.
Anything. Everything, as long as it happens now.
Our mouths meet, clash, our hands running over each other, learning the outlines of our bodies. She’s all warmth and lean strength, and I kiss her harder, deeper. She has a death grip on my neck now, her nails biting my skin as she makes a throaty, needy sound.
I rest my forehead against hers. “How am I doing?”
She beams at me and undoes my tie. “Nailed it.”
CHAPTER SIX
YOU NEVER FORGET your first kiss.
Even when you want to. My first first kiss was a wet, enthusiastic middle-school attempt. Jenny Dormon cornered me behind the big oak tree on the far corner of the playground and I gave as good as I got. By high school, I’d learned why French kissing was the best, and by college I was a master. And, yes, this is technically our second kiss, but it’s our first on-purpose kiss and it’s fucking amazing.
I look down at Hazel. Her brown eyes are sparkling and she’s got those happy crinkles she bemoans because she claims they’ll lead to Grand Canyon–sized wrinkles when she’s older. Her face is flushed, her lips still parted and damp. It should not surprise me that she’s a champion kisser. Hazel doesn’t like to be anything but the best, and she’s competitive. I bet she’s amazing in bed. She probably thumbs through her monthly Cosmo looking for sexy tricks to add to her bag even though she’s totally awesome just being Hazel.
“I’m the king of good-night kisses,” I whisper against her hair because somehow we’re touching again, her body melting into mine as if she’s trying to imprint every second of our kiss. As if maybe she also wants so much more than just this.
“So,” she says. “Answer a question for me?”
“You got it.”
“As your practice date, will you respect me in the morning if I let you hit a home run?”
Considering how much time I’ve spent thinking about Hazel tonight, there’s only one possible choice. “Open the door, Hazel.”
She grabs my head with one hand and pulls my mouth down to hers. Our third kiss is rougher and hungrier than our first two. I break it off, scoop her up in my arms and tuck her against my chest as I open her front door.
“Viking man.” It doesn’t sound like an objection—plus, the way she’s laughing and wriggling makes my dick harder still.
I tap her butt in mock warning, my palm sliding over the curve of her ass.
“I feel passionately about level playing fields and treating all participants equally,” she warns. Laughter warms her voice, and fuck me if she doesn’t reach around and pinch my butt.
“Are you a completely even-Steven kind of girl?” I head toward her bedroom. I’ve been in Hazel’s house hundreds of times, so I know exactly where I’m going. Her bedroom’s at the end of the hallway. “So if I go down on you for twenty minutes, you’ll go down on me for twenty?”
“I’m the best partner ever,” she says smugly as I toe-open her bedroom door. It looks almost the same. A mountain of decorative pillows devours the bed, and bookcases line the south-facing wall. The shelves are filled with her beloved paperbacks. The room is dark except for the night-light in the bathroom, which is more like a lighthouse or the Eye of Sauron, that cuts through the dark.
I shove the heap of furry, completely useless pillows off the bed with one hand, juggling my Hazel present as I yank back the duvet. Hazel’s bought a new one since the last time I was here—it’s pink and velvety soft. Strangely, it’s not awkward, not like I thought it would be, not even when I drop her onto the space I’ve cleared and our eyes meet. Or when she laughs and throws herself backward, kicking her legs up for some reason known only to her.
I totally want to do this with her.
My fingers are reaching for her before I’ve finished replaying the steps of tonight’s plan in my head. Thanks to yoga and designer jeans, bendy Hazel’s got her ankles on my left shoulder now and my hands are reaching for the zippers on those merciless fuck-me boots. She has the best taste in footwear.
The air rasps out of me as I tug down the zipper on her left boot and slip her foot free. The boot goes...fuck if I know. Later—as in many, many or
gasms later—I’d like to have Hazel wearing just the boots and nothing else, but right now I’m crazy for her and I can’t wait. The right boot joins its mate on the floor and then my hands are reaching for the waistband of her jeans. She helps me shove them down, grinding her hips against the bed as if she’s already skipped ahead in her beautiful, sexy head.
“Wait for me.”
“Hurry up.” The smirk on her face is awesome.
I run my hands up the silky skin of her inner thighs. She has a freckle above her right knee that merits much closer inspection. With my mouth. I kiss her there, drinking in the greedy sounds she makes. She jumps as I move higher, the muscles tensing and relaxing, tensing and relaxing. Her skin is so warm.
“Cute.” Hazel’s panties are black cotton boy shorts. I pause my upward quest to breathe her in.
“I was in a rush or I would have worn my date-night panties.”
I grin and run my thumbs higher. She squeaks. “Are those like day-of-the-week panties? I’m going to need to check what you’re wearing in the office.”
“Don’t make me put you in the naughty corner. The not-in-the-office rule stands.” She wriggles, stretching, and her hand disappears between us. A second later, her fingers discover my dick. She squeezes gently and I make a rough noise. Hazel’s take-charge. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. She loves to be in control...but so do I.
I cup her ass with my hands, drag her to the edge of the bed and press her legs wide with my shoulders. Bending my head, I consider my plan of attack. So many delicious options. I lean in and kiss her through the cotton of her panties. We’ll take this slow. I’ll make her scream. It’s a great plan.
Step one—kiss her senseless. I press my mouth against Hazel, first softly, then harder. Higher. Her breath catches and her hands fist the sheets as I tease her with the lightest of pressure.
“Faster,” she moans. “Don’t be such a beast, Jack.”
