by Penny Reid
I frowned at his question because I didn’t know what he was asking and he looked extremely frustrated.
“When what?”
“When are we going to be together? When will I see you when we get back?”
“You want specific dates and times?”
“How often? Will I see you every day? Or will it be once a week?”
“Martin—”
“Maybe we should make a chore chart for it.” He stood abruptly, looking menacing and angry. “Then you can allocate just the right amount of time to maintaining an adequate relationship.”
I stood as well, heat spreading from my chest to my neck. “That’s not how it would be.”
“I’m going for a swim.” Martin turned from me and pulled off his shirt; he shook off his sandals as I rounded the table, trying to reach him before he jumped off the boat.
“You’re overreacting. Just stop for a second and think about this. I know if you think about this you’ll see that I’m right.”
Martin’s attention was on his watch as he removed it from his wrist. “All I know is that I’m completely crazy about a girl who doesn’t want to move in with me because she’s worried I’ll be messy.”
“That’s an oversimplification of the issue, Martin Sandeke. You can’t let your passion make every decision for you.”
“No, you’re right.” He stilled and glanced up at me then, his eyes glinting like daggers, his voice hard. “It’s much better to be a musical prodigy, to love something passionately, but give up and bow out gracefully. To not fight. To talk yourself out of caring about what matters to you, because then you’ll have all those fine deeds and reasonable decisions and logic to keep you warm at night.”
My mouth moved but nothing emerged. He was being completely crazy and irrational and I had no idea how to interact with someone who was being completely crazy and irrational.
But then I looked at him more closely as he placed his watch on the table and saw the unhappy curve of his mouth. I realized I’d hurt him.
“Martin.” I placed my hand on his bicep to stay his movements. He winced a little at the contact, but I took heart in the fact he didn’t shrug me off. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just want us to be—”
“Smart,” he finished for me, his resentful gaze softening as it moved over my face. “I know. You always want to be smart and do the right thing. But the problem is, Parker…I just want you.”
CHAPTER 7
Covalent Bonding and Orbital Overlap
Martin went for a swim. A really, really long swim. I was a little jealous of the water.
I distracted myself by finishing up my last term paper.
He returned and I tried to keep from gawking or drooling as he pulled himself onto the boat. He was wet, so very, very wet. As such, all the oxygen seemed to abruptly disappear from the atmosphere. He dried himself off and I pretended not to watch. Eventually, mostly dry, he disappeared into the captain’s cabin.
I sighed unhappily then distractedly studied for my math test. Then I heard a strange buzzing and clicking and realized it was coming from Martin’s infernal lazy fishing pole contraption.
He’d caught two yellowfin tuna by proxy and I had to make a split decision: I could go get him and risk losing both fish, or I could try to haul up the smaller, more manageable of the two. I was successful in bringing up the one, but the other broke loose and swam off in the three minutes it took to get my fish netted, unhooked, and deposited in a huge cooler of sea water set on the deck.
“You’re pretty good at that.”
I looked over my shoulder and found him leaning against the doorway to the upper deck cabin, watching me as I bent over the cooler and untangled the fish from the net. He was still shirtless and droplets of water were clinging to his hair.
“I lost the bigger fish.” I straightened and said this apologetically. “I didn’t think I could bring it up by myself and I didn’t want to lose them both.”
He shrugged and moved away from the door, walking to me until he crowded my space. His hands slipped under my T-shirt and caressed the expanse of my stomach.
“Hi,” he said, looking down at me. He looked a little cagey and regretful.
“Hi,” I said, then lifted on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. It was just a soft press of my mouth to his, but I needed it. When I went back on my feet I saw he needed it too.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’re forgiven,” I said.
He smiled, and those thorny feelings in his gaze gave way to relief. “I haven’t told you why I’m sorry.”
“You’re still forgiven.”
His thumbs dipped into the waistband of my shorts, rubbing down the line of my hips. “I did overreact. And all your points are valid ones. I just don’t want to get back to campus and for this to go away. I need to see you, often.”
I wound my arms around his back and pressed him to me. Really, I wanted to feel his skin against mine, but for now I decided to settle for just his warmth.
“This isn’t going away. I don’t think I’m going to disappear into a chemistry lab cabinet when we get back. And besides, if I did, you’d know where to find me.” I kissed his collarbone. Damn he was delicious. Being so close to him had my hormones throwing a parade and making a Slip ’n Slide out of my pants. It would have been embarrassing if I’d cared, but I didn’t. I’d grown to love the way he made me feel.
“Promise me that when we get back, maybe in a month, or when finals are over, you’ll reconsider moving in together.”
The idea of dating Martin—or still dating Martin—during finals made what we were doing here feel very real, and it gave it a sudden gravity. It was a fixed time point in the future. I thought about meeting him for study sessions in the library and coffee shop. How it would be. How he might spend the night with me on those odd weekends when Sam went home.
I realized, or understood better, why he wanted to move in together. If we shared an apartment our default would be together—like it had been here—and he didn’t want to give that up. Neither did I.
“Where are you living over the summer?” I asked, smoothing my hands up and down his back just so I could feel more of him.
“I was already planning to move out of the house in April. I was thinking of an apartment downtown.”
“So far away?”
“Yeah, but then I can catch the train to New York easier.”
“What’s in New York?”
He hesitated for a minute, watched me, and his hands stilled. “A project I’m working on.”
“What kind of project? A class assignment?”
He shook his head, his fingers moving around to the back of my shorts. “No. It’s not for class. It’s a…a venture capitalist thing.”
My eyebrows bounced up and down as I oscillated between surprised and impressed. “Just a little venture capitalist thing, in New York?”
He huffed a laugh, his voice low, rumbly, and delicious as he said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Does it have anything to do with your cheating fishing poles? Maybe a golf club that plays eighteen holes all by itself?”
“No, it has nothing to do with fishing. It’s, uh, it’s satellites.”
“Oh.” I nodded, made sure I looked like I thought satellites were as impressive as a finger painting. “Oh, satellites. Who doesn’t have a little venture capitalist side project in New York about satellites? I have twenty at least.”
He was full on chuckling now, looking at me like I was cute and hilarious. “Really? We should compare notes.”
“How much money are you trying to raise for this little cosmic endeavor? Five? Ten million?” I’d thrown the figures out there because they sounded preposterous.
He shocked me by responding seriously, “Sixty and some change, but I have a way to raise the capital, so we’re golden.”
My mouth fell open and I struggled not to choke on my bewilderment. “Who are you? Why are you even going to colleg
e?”
“College is good for making contacts, meeting the right people—smart people who I might be able to employ later— and networking.” He shrugged, like the college experience was one big social networking conference or a giant job interview for all of his classmates in the inevitable Martin Sandeke Empire. He added, “I also like to row and I like to win.”
I couldn’t help but tease him. “Am I one of your right people? Are you planning to employ me later?”
“No.” He grew sincere, introspective, and his tone mimicked his expression. “You were a complete surprise and you might ruin everything.” Then he added as a distracted afterthought, “You might ruin me.”
I felt a little stab of sober hurt just under my heart. “I wouldn’t,” I implored, my fingers flexed into the muscles of his back. “Martin, I would never ruin you.”
“You wouldn’t do it on purpose,” he soothed, looking resigned. “But you could if you wanted to.”
“I won’t want to.”
He merely smiled wryly in response and let me look at him. Then he took advantage of me being distracted by reaching into my shorts and swimsuit and touching my bare skin.
“Let’s go downstairs.”
“Why?”
He bent to my jaw and kissed it, then kissed a path to my ear. “I want to do very bad things to this bottom.” He growled, grabbing and massaging me, making my breath hitch and liquid heat race to very nice places…in my pants.
“What kind of things? Give me some details. Maybe a numbered list.” I was teasing him but my voice betrayed me, as it was breathy and uneven.
He lifted his head from where he’d been biting me; his gaze was heated, hooded, and full of sexy promise.
“Let’s get you naked and I’ll show you.”
***
I was naked. He was not.
He’d kept his swim shorts on all day, then changed into boxer briefs and pajama bottoms for bedtime.
I wasn’t comfortable being naked in general. Over the course of my life I was only ever naked right before, during, or after bathing/a shower or changing into a bathing suit; therefore, being naked while alone with Martin specifically, felt like an epic skydive outside of my comfort zone.
I briefly wondered if this made me an odd duck. Did other nineteen-year-old girls—less sexually repressed girls—spend minutes and hours alone with themselves naked? Admiring their knees, becoming acquainted with their elbows, discovering the dots and indents of their backside? Somehow I doubted it, at least not girls from the United States of America.
This was the country where Janet Jackson’s inadvertent boob exposure during the 2004 Super Bowl led many to believe it was a sign of the Apocalypse. Movies frequently displayed death, violence, and gore with a PG-13 rating, but god forbid a nipple be exposed, or an ass crack. Cuss and swear and maim and kill, but the sight of the human body is lascivious, offensive, and shameful.
Really, in the USA, there were only two sure ways one could ever see a human male penis without having sex: porn, and anatomy/physiology 101. Part of me wondered if zoos were so popular as a direct result, giving kids an opportunity to assuage their curiosity with animal anatomy, and therefore labeling the experience as educational.
Presently, I was naked and being spooned. Martin was spooning me. It felt very surreal and far-fetched, just like almost every other moment during this week. It was on the tip of my tongue to yell to no one in particular that I was snuggling with Martin Sandeke, as in: I AM SNUGGLING WITH MARTIN SANDEKE!
But instead I asked, all calm and cool, “So, tell me, do you prefer to be the spoon or the spooned?”
His lips were against my upper back, where my neck met my shoulders, and I felt his mouth curve into the barest smile. “I don’t know, I’ve never done this before.”
“What? Spooned?”
“Yeah.”
I allowed this to sink in. Once it did, I grinned into the dim cabin and said with no small amount of wonder, “Kaitlyn Parker has popped Martin Sandeke’s spooning cherry.”
I felt his smile grow just before he said, “It’s only fair. I hope to pop your forking cherry.”
I sucked in a shocked breath, but then burst out laughing, half-heartedly covering my face. After a moment he joined in, and I felt his chest shake with laughter.
It felt good, talking to him, joking with him. I couldn’t pinpoint when we’d grown to this level of comfort with each other, but it was a bit strange to think I’d let him touch my body with intimacy before I’d felt confident I could tease him about spooning.
We’d spent all day fooling around, then swimming, then eating, then talking, then fooling around some more. He liked me on my stomach, lying on the bed, his fingers between my spread legs, biting my back and sides and neck and bottom.
He also liked me straddling his face while he lay on the bed, his fingers digging into my hips and thighs while he tasted me.
He also liked me straddling his hips while we just made out like hormone-addled teenagers, necking, touching, and petting, learning each other’s sweet spots.
Despite how the day had started, I admitted to myself that it had quickly ascended to one of my favorite days of all time. I felt happy. So happy. Giddy, excited, joyful, thrilled, and carefree in a way I’d never felt before. Just lying with him was exhilarating. We were a team and I felt certain I could rely on him, and I wanted him to rely on me.
“That, sir,” I referred to his forking joke, “was hilarious and well timed. You win today’s Witty Wednesday contest.”
“I didn’t know we were having a contest, and I thought today was Wet-and-Wild Wednesday.”
“A Wednesday can be more than one thing, it doesn’t just have to be wet and wild. It can also be witty, or wistful, or worrisome. That’s the beauty of Wednesdays.”
“What did I win? What’s my prize?”
“Just the knowledge you’ve won, and that you have my respect.”
He squeezed me. “How many people have your respect?”
I thought about this, my lips twisting as my eyes narrowed. “Forty-seven…and a half.”
“Who is the half?”
“It’s not a half, it’s two three-fourths, and they belong to John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. I three-fourths respect them.”
“You respect historical figures?”
“Yes, after careful vetting.”
“Richard Nixon? Really?”
I nodded. “Yes. He did a lot to normalize our relationship with China. As well he pulled us out of Vietnam. But then…the whole power-hungry arrogance, lying, and being too much of a dweeb to wear makeup on TV stuff brings him down to three-fourths.”
“And JFK? What were his deficiencies?”
“I don’t like how he treated women, especially his wife. He didn’t practice what he preached and that made him slimy. Also, the Bay of Pigs fiasco and groupthink, ugh. Don’t even get me started.”
“Okay, I won’t get you started.” He squeezed me again.
“How about you? How many people do you respect?”
Martin sighed. I felt his exhale against my neck as it sent several of my hairs dancing over my shoulder, tickling me.
“Let’s see,” he stalled.
“Too many to count?”
“Five…no, four.”
“Four? Only four?”
“Yes.”
“Well, who—pray tell—are these pillars of humankind?”
“Unlike you, historical figures don’t have my respect, not actively anyway. If I’ve never met a person I can’t respect them.”
“You sound so serious.”
“It is serious.”
“Now I really want to know.” I shifted my legs and turned my head so I could peer at him over my shoulder.
“You, of course.”
I smiled, but then quickly suppressed it. “Of course.”
He still appeared serious as he continued, “Eric.”
“Your teammate?”
He nodded.
>
I turned my head back to my pillow, pleased to hear that Martin respected Eric since I was pretty sure Sam really, really liked Eric.
“And my business partner.”
“For the satellite venture capitalist thing in New York?”
“Yes.”
“Who is the fourth?”
“Your mother, Senator Parker.”
I frowned, blinked rapidly several times, my tone betraying my surprise. “My mother? You’ve met my mother?”
I felt him nod as his arms tightened around my torso.
“Martin, when did you meet my mother?”
“Three years ago, in Washington, DC.”
“What…how…when?” Unable to settle on a question, I turned completely around so I could see his face. “Okay, start from the beginning. What happened? How did you meet her?”
He shrugged like the fact he’d met my mother before he’d met me was not a big deal. “I was in DC with my father. We were at a restaurant having lunch with a team of telecom lobbyists, and your mother walked in with a few members of her staff.”
“And you respect her because…she ordered the hamburger instead of a salad?” I squinted at him, trying to understand how one brief encounter with my mother three years ago could garner his respect, how she could become one in a short list of four.
“My father stopped her as she walked past, suggested that she join us for lunch.” Martin’s gaze moved to a place over my shoulder, his eyes unfocused as he recalled the scene. “It was the first time I’d seen my father be polite to anyone. And she looked at him like he was scum.” The side of his mouth ticked upward at the memory.
“What did she say? Did she have lunch with you?”
He shook his head and smiled softly. “No. She said, ‘No, thank you,’ and tried to walk away; but he stepped in her path and pushed her about it. Then she said, ‘I’d rather eat glass than suffer through one second of your corrupt and tedious company.’”
Martin’s smile grew as his eyes shifted back to mine.
“Holy rude comeback, Batman!” I exclaimed on an exhale.
“I know. And she was fierce, in control, cold even. She made him look small and insignificant by comparison.” He said this like he admired her, how she’d cut down his father. “After lunch I found out who she was, looked up her voting record, and then it all made sense.”
