by L. L. Ash
Maybe someday I’d get to kiss her. Just not tonight.
- 10 -
Ivory
Nothing happened with Kai. Despite what Hunter obviously thought, he was a total gentleman. Even when I kind of, sort of, maybe threw myself at him a little.
I was a little tipsy after my couple beers and I was looser than I usually was. Didn’t matter though, because the only thing Kai did was kiss me goodnight on the cheek while Hunter was staring at the ocean.
He was a real man.
Kai, not Hunter! God, Hunter was a total womanizing, big-headed prick.
I mean, he wasn’t a total pig at the little party thing the night before, but he usually was. He had a reputation around UCLA, and it had followed him there from our high school.
Stretching out in my bed, I considered his strange behaviour at the beach.
Hunter, not Kai.
Oh, God...
Hunter had totally stuck by my side like glue all night, and he didn’t even drink or flirt or anything. It actually seemed like he was there for me, which was pretty...cool. That was something he’d always been for me. Hunter had always been there for me to protect me. From Brett Porter in fifth grade, and from Leanna Nelson in sophomore year when she picked on me for having little boobs.
Hunter had dug into her so hard, insulting the hell out of her and her overdone makeup and desperate attempt at looking like an adult even though she was sixteen. She’d had little boobs too, to be fair, which he pointed out none-too-subtly. His buddies taunted her too, until she was running away from us, snot dripping down her face as she sobbed.
He'd met my eyes for a brief second, his warm amber ones piercing my dark blues. And there, for just the shortest moment, I saw the boy he used to be. The boy that used to care about me before he ditched me for buddies and girls. Before he was too good for me.
That was the year he got his first leather jacket, and he started strutting around the school like he owned the place. Nobody stopped him, and he’d become the epitome of cool. Guys wanted to be like him, and girls wanted to be with him. Even at seventeen, everyone was eating out of the palm of his hand.
Me too.
Even after he hurt me to the bone with his abandonment, I still wanted him. I’d had a crush on him since I was nine years old, and it had only grown in complexity and desire since.
Now?
Now I was just as messed up as I was at sixteen, with a lady hard-on for the guy I could never have, and honestly, could probably never forgive. We were an impossibility, but that didn’t stop me from watching him, wanting him.
Hillary knew. She totally knew that I was still jonesing for the guy. It was why I had to put on such a show when he appeared. I was trying to convince me, as well as her, that I didn’t want him, and that he was unforgivable. Which he was.
Slipping into a pair of shorts and a breezy top over a white tank, I found my way to the little dining room in the main part of our hotel suite. I didn’t see a sign of Dad or Penelope anywhere, so I just sat in the chair by the big bay windows and watched the sun rise with my book tucked into my lap.
It was so beautiful.
Hawaii had its own sort of magic, and that was coming from someone who grew up in Malibu.
Soft footsteps tore me away from the pages of my newest taboo romance and I looked up to see Hunter, just in his board shorts again, heading toward the little dinette kitchen. We’d gotten cereal and milk to have in the mornings just in case we didn’t feel like braving the crowds at the continental breakfast. He started pouring the cereal with sharp little pings into a glass bowl.
We didn’t say anything. Honestly, I didn’t even know what to say. After the night we had, I couldn’t find it in me to dig at him like I normally would, and he wasn’t provoking me. Maybe we could have that truce, afterall.
“Reading another one of those porn books?” Hunter asked, not even looking up at me while he took a massive spoonful.
With an audible crunch, he chewed down on it, letting a little drop of milk slide down his unshaved chin.
Well, maybe no truce.
“Yep,” I agreed, not willing to argue with him while I still hadn’t had my morning coffee.
“Anything good?” he asked, making his way over, still crunching away with each new bite he took.
“I wouldn’t be reading it if it wasn’t good,” I scoffed.
“So, read me some,” he practically demanded.
The request had hit me with a bit of shock, but it immediately made my cheeks bloom pink because I was totally on a sexy scene that I didn’t want to spoil with distractions from him.
“You don’t want to hear it—”
“If it’s good enough for you to keep your nose buried in half the day, it’s good enough for me while I finish breakfast.”
Licking my lips, I glanced back at the pages I kept with my thumb between them. The heroine had just been thrown up on the countertop with the hero clamped between her legs. While the other hero was undressing her, and the other, other hero was pinching her nipples.
So I liked reverse harem stories. Sue me.
“C’mon,” he said, dropping his spoon against the side of the bowl before rolling his wrist to get me going.
“Fine,” I said, but I tried to sneakily go back a chapter or two while there was all the drama going on.
Without a word, he snatched the book up and set his bowl on the coffee table to get soggy while he perused the pages I was currently on.
“Holy fuck!” he choked, eyes scanning the first couple paragraphs before his mouth split into a huge grin.
“‘Oh, God, Andy, yeah, right there,’ I screamed while Andy humped me through his jeans with his giant cock.
“‘Make me yours!’
“Jason was tearing my shirt up over my head while Jarome kneaded my breasts like pizza dough.”
Hunter cracked up, wiping his eye from a tear of mirth before he kept reading.
“‘Fuck me!’ I begged.
“Andy finally took pity on me and pulled my leather pants down, then his strong fingers snapped my panties in two before he pierced my feminine canal with his purple-headed soldier.”
“Stop!” I screeched.
It never sounded that stupid while I was reading it, but dripping from his lips, it was ridiculous. But...I was also absurdly turned on by listening to those words coming from him.
“‘Take me!’ I screamed while Andy thrust into me, hitting my womb with each drill of his hips.
“Jason and Jarome both took a diamond tipped nipple into their mouths and suckled while one of their hands slid down and stroked my intimate button in tight circles.
“Within moments I was cumming, squirting and gushing until my arousal was dripping off the countertops.”
Hunter stopped, stared for a second as if re-reading that sentence.
“You do know this isn’t a thing, right?” he asked finally, looking into my eyes with an oddly serious expression.
“What do you mean?” I asked, embarrassment heating my chest and face. “People can have more than one lover at a time.”
He shook his head a little, handing the book back.
“No, I mean all that bullshit about squirting and gushing and coming in three seconds flat. That’s not a thing.”
Why did he care what I thought?
“So?” I asked, my curiosity momentarily overpowering my mortification.
He shrugged.
“Women feel way too much pressure about that shit. Dudes are easy. They want a wet pussy and an active partner. That’s it. All that other stuff, if it were manageable by the average woman, is all just fluff. Orgasms are nice, but they have to be worked for. They’re better that way, anyway.”
My throat swelled a little, and my embarrassment died down.
He meant it.
He meant all of that.
“You telling me not to feel pressure to come when I have sex?” I asked, obviously flashing back to when I'd come two times in that
closet to his attentive mouth.
A smile finally tipped his lips and that serious expression slipped away.
“You usually feel pressure when you come.” He winked, leaning over to grab his bowl again before standing up and heading back to the kitchen to fill it again.
“Besides, I don’t remember you ever having an issue with coming.”
My mouth gaped wide as I stared at him.
He refused to look back at me, even though he’d just mentioned that night between us out loud for the first time since it happened. I’d thought he was just pretending that it hadn’t happened, but evidently he remembered. And well enough to recall that I came all over him.
Leaning his ass against the countertop, he kept his back to me as he polished off his next bowl, then put it in the half sink.
“Also,” he added before opening the front door, “you should try regular porn. It’s storylines are way better than that shit.”
The door clicked behind him, but I caught the evil grin he had on his face as he left, knowing he was pissing me off.
I huffed, angry, but also wanting to laugh.
He was such a fucking asshole.
I didn’t blame him. That scene was pretty bad, and the book wasn’t exactly written by one of my favorite authors. It was something I’d picked up at the airport, and it was either that or a sweet, prairie romance that definitely wasn’t my scene.
I tried to get back into the story, reading further into what the heroine and her men were doing in her kitchen, but I just couldn’t. All I could hear was Hunter’s voice and the way those filthy words rolled off his tongue, sending heat right between my legs. I was hot and bothered, and it had nothing to do with the beating tropical sun coming in through the windows in front of me.
Letting my mind wander a little, I imagined for just a moment that it was me on that counter, and it was Hunter pinned between my thighs as he kissed me and fucked me with his Honey Nut Cheerios breath. It probably didn’t sound all that great, but my vag was having a hayday with the image, and I was already throbbing, my clit demanding some attention.
Groaning, I got up and made a detour to my bedroom again before throwing off all my clothes. I wasn’t sure how thin the walls were, but I had a vibe that was quiet enough to use, so I pulled it out and gave it a look over to see if it needed a wash. Eh, I was too needy to put my clothes back on to go and wash it.
There was no normalcy ahead of me until I got rid of my little problem, so I laid back on my bed to take care of things, cursing Hunter and his sexy mouth the entire time I was thinking about him fucking my mouth with his tongue.
- 11 -
Ivory
Eleven Years Ago
We were hiding together.
Dad was going to be home late again and Hunter’s dad was home and on a rampage. He’d snuck out his window and met me while I was on my way to his place.
We looked at each other, each of us feeling terrible and annoyed and hurt by what we were forced to deal with from our own parents.
“C’mon,” Hunter said, taking my hand and leading me down the street.
I followed, my heart beating a million miles a minute at the feeling of his hand clutching mine.
I was about to turn ten, and Hunter’s eleventh birthday was only a couple months after mine. I’d always hated that he was a little older than me, because he was always in different classes since he was one grade ahead, but we saw each other at school, and that was enough.
Hunter led me through the neighborhood, avoiding a couple groups of older kids gathered under streetlights before turning toward the ocean.
We passed dozens of houses, packed onto the land like sardines in a can, then kept going southeast until we went past the long curve that ended at Cabrillo Beach. Overshooting it a little, we stopped at a chain link fence that separated us from the shore below.
“What’re you doing?” I demanded when Hunter started to climb.
He shoved the scuffed, white tips of his Converse into the diamond shaped holes before hauling himself over.
“Don’t be a pussy,” he said, a grin on his face that looked mischievous in the long shadows of night.
There was a house right there, though we weren’t technically on their property. Still, they only had to look out their window to see us scaling the fence.
Sticking his fingers through the little diamonds of the chain link, he wiggled them at me in invitation.
“C’mon, I got ya,” he told me.
Gulping back my argument that it was a bad idea, I put my dirt-stained, pink Chucks in his hand and he gripped the rubber sole while boosting me up. I managed to straddle the top of the fence, then had an ‘oh shit’ moment when I realized I had to get down somehow.
“Jump!” he whisper-yelled at me, waving his arms to convince me that he’d catch me.
It was a stupid thing to do, I knew that, but I moved my other leg over the fence, the top of the chain link diamonds digging into my thighs. Getting a tiny grip with the heel of my shoe, I burst off the fence, landing right on top of Hunter.
He half caught me, half broke my fall, but we ended up sprawled on the dirt, both laughing and moaning in pain, and trying to smother the sound so nobody would hear.
Eventually, we got to our feet, bruises and all, and slithered down the small embankment to the rocks and sand below.
Hunter had picked the bad part of the beach, its sand so full of stones and rocks that nobody much ventured over there except people like us that lived so close. But I liked it better that way. Nobody was there to bother us, and while there were people on the nicer part of the beach, we were able to pretty well hide amongst the rock and seaweed littering the shoreline.
“Why here?” I asked Hunter after a minute, watching the water break against the rocks in front of us.
At first, I didn’t think he was going to answer me.
“It’s where I get away,” he said after a couple minutes of silence. “When Dad’s home and hitting Mom, I can’t just stay there and listen to it.”
I sighed, my heart hurting for him.
At least, though my Mom sucked and my home life was awful, I still had Dad. He loved me more than anything, and he loved Mom, too. He’d never once hit me or her. That was never something I’d had to worry about.
Not knowing what to say, I just let silence take over again before moving to prop my elbows on my knees.
“Ouch!” I hissed, feeling a sharp sting when I leaned on my left elbow.
Sure enough, I’d skinned it nice and good when I’d gone over the fence.
Hunter had heard me, and he was right there, pulling on my arm until he could get a look at my scrape.
“Bet that hurts,” he whispered, inspecting, but obviously figuring that there was nothing he could do.
I shrugged, but gave a little honest nod. It did hurt.
Hunter met my eyes, then leaned in and kissed the tip of my elbow, right on my sore.
It was something he’d always done, but today… Today it felt different. It felt intimate, and not so much comforting as...something else.
“You’re ok,” he said finally, pulling away and sitting beside me on the long, crumbling rock.
His knee was touching mine, and my heart was thumping like crazy all over again.
I had a crush. I knew it from the movies I watched and the books I read.
Girls at school had talked about boys and crushes and cooties, but none of those things had ever interested me before. I wasn’t sure when that changed, exactly, but all of a sudden I wanted to hold his hand, to hug him, and I really wanted him to kiss me. And not just my boo-boos. I wanted his lips on my lips, even though that was kinda gross to think about. I wanted what I saw other people have, and I wanted that closeness with him.
Trying to be as stealthy as possible, I turned a little to him and watched his face as he stared at the water.
Hunter had always loved the ocean, though he rarely went into the water. His eyes were closed as
he sat there, taking in the sound of the waves crashing and the crickets chirping around us. His bright blond hair rustled in the soft breeze, messing it all up, like it usually was.
What felt like a warm hug settled around my heart when I realized that my best friend was handsome. Absolutely handsome. He’d only get even more handsome as we got older, but that light in his eyes was dimming as his body got older. He wasn’t so carefree anymore, and he rebelled in ways I wasn’t so comfortable with, like climbing a fence to the beach.
“Why are you staring at me?” he asked eventually.
Dangit. I’d thought I’d been stealthy enough.
It didn’t take much to think of what to say. I’d already been thinking it.
“You’re not as happy as you used to be,” I admitted. “How come?”
He shrugged.
“I’m just tired of being a dumb, weak kid. I want to grow up and get the hell out of here.”
“And be a doctor?”
He’d always said he wanted to be a doctor so that he could be rich and get his mom away from his dad.
Surprisingly, Hunter shook his head.
“Nah. I like cars. I think I want to do that.”
“What? Race them?”
He shrugged.
“Or fix ‘em. As long as I have my hands busy, nothing’s too hard.”
Blinking, I took him in again.
When had he changed so much?
“You’re still going to UCLA with me, right?”
He turned back to me and gave a naughty smile.
“Of course! We made a spit, pinky promise. I can’t not go.”
Smiling back at him, I leaned my head over and settled it on the crook of his shoulder.
At least we’d be together. I didn’t want to face my future without him. I wanted him by my side the entire way.
For the rest of my life.
- 12 -
Ivory
“How about a spa day?” Penelope asked me when her and Dad emerged from their room in the suite.
I didn’t want to think about all the newlywed shit going on in there. I mean, yuck! That’s my dad!
