I was lying on the picnic table getting some sun and I rolled onto my side. Riley was sitting on the bench behind me, his hand lazily stroking my thigh below my shorts.
“Cool!” Easton was a little high on life, running around the yard, soaking wet and clearly relieved. “Riley says we’re going out for burgers and milkshakes!”
“I know. You guys go and change and by the time you’re ready Rory should be here.”
“Rory’s coming?” Easton started doing some sort of jump and spin thing.
“Yep. She figured today is an important day, man, she wants to be here for dinner.”
“Excellent,” I said, genuinely pleased. I missed her and I had a lot to catch her up on. “I won’t be the only chick for a change. Having all these sexy guys around me is starting to spoil me.”
Riley made a rude sound. “If that’s a hint, sell it somewhere else, because I ain’t buying.”
“I am,” Jayden said.
That made me laugh so hard I’m sure my breasts gave him enough jiggle to fuel more than one fantasy.
After an awesome and rowdy dinner at the burger joint we came back to the house, laughing and talking. I hooked my arm through Rory’s as the guys dropped down in the living room on various surfaces. “Come on, I want to talk to you privately.”
“Where are you going?” Riley asked.
“Our room. Rory and I want to do girl things.” I meant paint our nails and gossip.
But he raised his eyebrows and said, “If you two are going to make out, can I watch?”
“Riley!”
“Dude,” Tyler said to his brother. “Seriously?”
Rory was blushing. I threw a couch pillow at Riley.
“What?” Riley asked Tyler. “I mean, come on, if they were going to make out, wouldn’t you want to watch? Seriously, be honest.”
Tyler grinned. “Yeah, I can’t lie. But I meant, you know, maybe you should watch what you joke about it in front of certain people.” He jerked his head toward Easton.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Riley made a face. “Oops.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tyler said.
“I’m working on it!” Riley protested.
“We’re going away,” I said firmly. “Come on.” I pulled Rory. “You have to see our room.”
When I opened the door, feeling triumph, Rory started laughing. “Oh my God, Jess, this is awesome! I mean, I can’t believe what you did with the whole house, but this is classic. I can’t believe Riley, of all people, sleeps here.”
I jumped on the bed. “Sit down. It’s a freaking waterbed, can you stand it?”
We climbed up by the headboard, and leaned on it, our knees up. I had unpacked my boxes from our former dorm room and I had discarded the weird horse blanket dirty thing that had formerly resided on the waterbed. It had been replaced by my purple floral comforter with hot pink fuzzy pillows. The pattern was actually called garden floral, and it was like juicy daisies on acid. There was an orange throw at the bottom with dangling pom poms that I had learned served as serious entertainment for the cat at three in the morning. Over the bed I had hung my giant white J (okay, I made Riley hang it) next to which Riley had taken a Sharpie and drawn a huge R, right on the wall. So we were JR.
On the nightstand I had replaced the brass lamp with a purple blown glass one, and on the dresser next to the picture of his mother, I had set a ceramic hand, to hold my jewelry. The first day after I put it there, I kept finding it in weird places, like sticking out from under the couch cushions, and in the fridge. But once his amusement with using it to scare his brothers wore off, Riley started cramming his wallet between the thumb and index fingers and left it in place.
“I miss you,” I told her. “I’m glad you’re here for the weekend.”
“I miss you, too. It’s cool to see my dad and everything, but it’s just that I feel like my life is here now, not there, you know?”
I nodded. Rory was wearing a cute and very short dress, the feminine and floral print one only she could pull off. I would look like a giantess trying to squeeze into a toddler’s dress if I wore that. “I get it, trust me. I mean, I am upset about my parents, but at the same time, as long as they’re still willing to talk to me, and my dad is, what difference does it mean if they cut me off?” I had thought about it a lot, and there were worse things than being forced to grow up a little. “My mom will miss me eventually, but right now maybe we don’t belong in each other’s worlds.”
“You seem really happy, Jess.”
“I am. Riley asked me to marry him.”
“What?” She turned to me. “Holy shit, what did you say?”
“Yes.” I gave her a confident smile, enjoying saying that out loud. “I don’t know when, but I just know I will, at some point. I figure there’s a reason I never fell in love before.” I was waiting for him. “So do you think you’ll marry Tyler?”
“I would like to, eventually, but Tyler has this fear that I’ll become a doctor and ditch him. He needs to see that I’m going to stick around.”
“The Mann brothers have a lot of pride,” I said. “It’s got them through some nasty shit. But it also makes them loyal.”
“Totally. So we’re like sisters-in-law in a way.” She tossed back her auburn hair and gave me a grin. “I feel like such a girl saying this, but I love that we’re besties and dating brothers.”
Laughing, I said, “I know. It totally rocks.” It was petty to admit it, but when she and Kylie had been going on and on about how much they loved their boyfriends, I had felt left out of their friendship. Like I couldn’t share in their giddy secret. But now I got it.
“I can’t believe you did a Warrior Dash. I could never do that.”
“Tyler would go in front of you, clearing your path of everything. He likes that he’s the tough guy to your girly girl.”
“That’s true. Maybe that’s why our educational imbalance works out, because he likes to take care of me.”
“Riley likes me to tell people off. I think it turns him on.” I laughed.
“Then I guess despite the sheer number of human beings on the planet, we both found our perfect mate.”
“I love it when you sound like a scientist.”
“That isn’t science. Though arguably, we were following evolution and both sought out a partner we perceived was a strong candidate, who could protect us.”
Evolution had nothing to do with the gushy-gush I felt when I looked at Riley. “Whatever. Let’s paint our toenails.”
“Yeah, I don’t believe it either,” she said with a laugh.
“Hey, I was thinking of getting a tattoo. What should I get?”
“A portrait of Riley’s penis,” she deadpanned.
Seriously, sometimes Rory killed me. “I haven’t even seen it,” I told her.
Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“I mean, I’ve touched it, but I haven’t seen it, seen it, and it hasn’t been really all that close to my body. Yet.”
“Wow,” was her opinion. I knew what she was thinking, but she didn’t say anything, and I loved her for it.
“Pink or purple?” I asked her, pulling open the drawer to the nightstand. I held up the polish bottles.
“Purple. You must match your purpleicious bedroom.”
“One night when Riley is sleeping I’m going to paint his nails.”
Chapter Twenty
I thought about Riley waking up with hot pink fingernails as I curled up next to him in bed that night and I couldn’t prevent a giggle.
“What?” he asked. “Are you plotting something with Rory? You two looked damn pleased with yourselves.”
“We were just catching up. It’s good to see her and today is an awesome day. I just feel happy for you, for Easton.” That was definitely true.
“I’m pretty damn happy, too. Even if I’m living in a teenage girl’s dream bedroom.”
I laughed, sliding my leg over his. I liked the scratchy feeling of his leg hairs over my smo
oth skin. “It’s not that bad.”
“Oh, yes, it is. But I don’t give a shit. I’d sleep in an igloo with you.”
For some reason, my laughter evaporated. I told him sincerely, tilting his heads toward me, “Riley, I love you. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I do.” He kissed me softly, then studied me. “I love you, too.”
The soft glow of our new nightlight gave a warm tone to his skin. Riley had decided we needed a nightlight because he wanted to see me in our bed but didn’t want to keep the overhead light on because of his brothers. I liked it like this because there was nothing anonymous about what we did, what we shared. It wasn’t bodies moving in the dark, it was eyes locked together.
So when he slid his hands down my back and over my ass, the soft touch already raising goose bumps on my flesh, I fought the temptation to close my eyes, wanting that connection. He rolled me gently on to my back and brushed his lips over my collarbone, burrowing into the neckline of my tank top, tongue flickering over the swell of my breast. Our breath mingled, my sighs unguarded, every reaction natural and intimate.
When he kissed me again and again, my lips swollen and damp, my body tightening everywhere, fingers tracing the muscles in my back, I could feel his heart beating in his chest, pressed against me, an anxious staccato that matched mine. Riley sat back and lifted off my shirt, tossing it on the floor. The way he looked down at me, as if I were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, had my lips parting on a sigh, nipples tight. He bent over and took one into his mouth and I arched up with a cry. He licked and tugged until I dug my nails into his hot skin, heels moving restlessly on our bed.
My body was moist, aching, when he flicked his tongue lower and lower, carefully peeling down my sport shorts and panties, studying me as he exposed inch by inch. Then he took off his own boxer briefs and I sucked in a breath. He rested his hands on either side of me and asked a very poignant, “Can we?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
But he didn’t press inside me. Instead, he covered himself with a condom from his nightstand, then rolled onto his back and pulled me over him. “I just want to feel you for a minute,” he murmured.
We kissed and rocked together, our bodies pressed in all the most intimate ways but one. He entwined our fingers together so we were clasping hands above our heads, tongues tangling, my legs open on either side of his, moist inner thighs pressed against the thickness of him.
It was enough stimulation, hips rocking my clitoris onto him, breasts brushing, his mouth taking mine, that I shuddered in a slow and emotional orgasm. “Oh!” I said. “Riley . . .”
“Baby,” he breathed, gripping my ass and rolling us both over so that he was astride me.
Then with his eyes fixed on mine, my body open entirely to him, he pushed inside. We both groaned and I swallowed hard, the sensation overwhelming as he rested there, throbbing. It was like . . . everything. Like there was just him and I and this moment.
“Jessica,” he breathed. “God, I love you.”
Then he started to move and something inside me shattered. I started to cry, tears rushing down my cheeks as I clasped his hands, waves of ecstasy lapping over me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, nuzzling my cheek with his. “What’s wrong, am I hurting you?”
“No, God no.” I tried to explain. “I just . . . it just . . . it’s so . . .” I didn’t have the words for it.
But he understood. “I know, babe, I know.” He moved faster, his grip on my hand tightening, his jaw tense. “Oh, God, you feel perfect. Perfect.”
Our bodies moved together, our hands clasped, and I didn’t know where he began and where I ended.
When he came, I came with him.
* * *
Sitting on the top of the picnic table afterward, so Riley could have a cigarette, a cliché that made me smile in secret amusement, I put my bare feet on the bench and looked up at the dark sky.
Everything had changed. But then, no, it hadn’t. It was just fuller, more.
His arm came around my back.
“There are no stars,” he murmured. “Light pollution.”
“Make a wish anyway.”
“There’s nothing to wish for. I already have everything I want.”
God. The tears rolled down my cheek, two damp rivers, as I sniffled.
“I’ve never seen you cry,” he said, puzzled. “Not even at your parents’ house. And now you cry twice in twenty minutes.”
“It’s because I finally let you in.” I wasn’t talking about sex.
And he knew it.
“I do have a wish,” he said softly. “That you’ll look at me like that every night for forever. It’s the sweetest expression I’ve ever seen. Almost as sweet as you.”
“Believe me, I will.” There was nothing I wanted more.
“Oh, I believe you,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up.
I nudged his knee with mine, staring to smile myself. “You’d better.”
“I said I believe you. Pita.”
And we both laughed.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in Erin McCarthy’s TRUE BELIEVERS series
BELIEVE
Available from InterMix January 2014
Robin
I spent my sophomore year in college partying. I wasn’t even original about it. Just the totally typical pattern of skipping class and going out every single night. If there was a keg party I went, if there was a shot I drank it, if there was a guy I made out with him. I wore short skirts, showed as much cleavage as I could, and I felt sexy and confident while having the time of my life. I threw up in more than one toilet, made out with a taxidermied deer on a dare, and came home without my shoes, dorm key, or phone on a regular basis.
Later, I tried to look back and figure out why I had slid so easily into party girl, but all I could come up with was maybe I just wanted a louder voice, and drinking gave me that. I wanted some attention, I guess, or maybe just to have a good time where there were no rules. Or maybe there was just no reason at all.
It all seemed normal. What you do in college, right? You party. You make superficial friends. You drink. Do stupid things that you laugh about the next day and take pictures that will prevent you from ever being a senator.
It wasn’t anything I felt bad about. I mean, sure, I could have done without some of those hangovers, and I did end up dodging a few guys who wanted to date after I spent a drunken night telling them they were awesome, but nothing to make me feel ashamed.
Until I hooked up with one of my best friend’s boyfriend when she was out of town.
Then I hated myself and the existence of vodka. Because I wasn’t one of those girls. Or I hadn’t been. Never, under any circumstances at all, would I have come even remotely close to doing anything with a friend’s guy sober, so why would I do that?? How could alcohol make me cross a boundary so high and thick and barb-wired? I wasn’t even hot for Nathan. I never had been. I mean, he was cute, whatever, but it wasn’t like I nurtured a secret crush or anything.
So how did I end up waking up next to him on his plaid sheets, his arm thrown carelessly over my naked chest? I came awake with a start, head pounding, mouth dry, for a second wondering where the hell I was and who I had had sex with. When I blinked and took in the face above that arm, I thought I was going to throw up. Getting to the apartment, sex, it was completely a black, yawning hole of nothing. I didn’t remember even leaving the party. No idea how Nathan and I had wound up in bed together. All I had was a few flashes that suddenly came back to me of him biting my nipple, hard, so that I had protested, my legs on his shoulders. Nothing else.
As I lay there, heart racing, wondering how the hell I could live with this, with myself, the horror slicing through me like a sharp knife, Nathan woke up.
He gave me a sleepy, cocky smile, punctuated by a yawn. “Hey, Robin.”
“Hey.” I tried to sink down under the sheet, not wanting him to see me naked, not wanting to
be naked.
“Well, that was fun,” he said, smile expanding into a grin. “We should do that again before we get up.”
The thought made my stomach turn. “But Kylie,” I said weakly, because I wanted to remind him that his girlfriend was back at her parents’ for the summer, but she still very much existed. His girlfriend. My best friend.
“I love Kylie, but she’s not here. And we’re not going to tell her.” He shrugged. “I didn’t expect this to happen, but it did and we’re still naked.” He pulled my hand over his erection. “No reason we shouldn’t enjoy it.”
And he leaned over to kiss me. I scooted backward so fast, I fell off the mattress onto my bare ass. “I’m going to puke,” I told him.
“Bummer.”
Grabbing my clothes off the floor, I stumbled into the hallway, hoping his roommate, Bill, wasn’t around. In the bathroom, I leaned over the sink, trembling, eyes that stared back at me in the mirror shocked, the skin under them bruised. I didn’t get sick. I wished I would. I wished I could vomit out of myself the horrible realization that I had done something terrible, appalling, unforgiveable, mega disgusting.
I couldn’t use vodka as an excuse. And now I knew Nathan was an asshole on top of it all.
Without asking him if I could shower, I turned on the water and stepped in, wanting to wash away the night, the dirty, nasty smell of skank sex off of my skin. I felt like a slut, like a bitch, like someone I didn’t even know, and my tears mixed with the steady stream of water from the shower as I scrubbed and scrubbed.
I spent the rest of the summer sober, far away from parties, guilt nibbling at my insides, making me chronically nauseous, and I avoided everyone. I begged Nathan to stop when he kept sending me sexy texts and I ignored my friend Jessica, who had stayed in town for the summer and who kept asking what was wrong.
By August I was consumed by anxiety and the fear that someone knew, that someone would tell, that I would be responsible for Kylie having her heart broken.
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