She takes my hand a little further and I forget about everything.
My eyes squeeze closed again and I swallow, my heartbeat rattling down through my body until every pulse aches. I’m so close to forgetting everything I said I wouldn’t do and just shifting my weight over until she’s beneath me.
I know she’d let me.
Cali’s fingers stroke through my hair and she hugs my face tightly into the curve of her shoulder, and that’s what kicks my thoughts back onto the right side of the line. Vickie used to run her hands through my hair like that, her nails scraping sweetly across my scalp, but then she’d push me lower, putting my head exactly where she wanted it.
It was a long, hot summer the year my parents died and it passed slowly, in a haze of pot smoke and dimly lit rooms filled with the bubbling of bongs and the throaty catch of Vickie’s laugh. We’d giggle and tug our way out of our clothes somewhere in the middle of smoking the first bowl, rolling around in the twisted blankets of her always-unmade bed, reveling in the buzz in our heads and the easy, gloriously forbidden slide of skin over skin.
I was freshly rid of my virginity and stoked to try anything, and Vickie wasn’t shy about telling me what she wanted. I’d lose whole days in the swirl of my tongue and the catch of her breath. The weed faded the hands on the clock and focused my mind on the sensation of our bodies alone, and there was no one left to catch us, no one to tell me I had to come home.
I fell in love with the rhythm of her moans, the song of someone who needed me and never got tired of what I could make her feel. I learned every ripple of sound that came up out of her thin chest and I would follow it doggedly, perfectly happy to grant her pleas for more.
And Vickie always wanted more.
In some ways, it was a fantastic summer and in others, it was the saddest time of my life. Because I didn’t realize until school started again that she didn’t care whose body was next to hers as long as it made her feel good for a minute.
Before Vickie, I was too young to get that there’s a world of difference between screwing and being screwed. After Vickie, I stuck hard on the idea that I’m never again going to be with somebody who is ashamed of me.
Cali’s touch is gentle and excited on my hair and she’s pulling me closer, cradling me into her neck and that’s where I want to be. That’s where I want to belong.
So when I trail my lips slowly over her body, I do it because I want to, not because she’s pushing me. I do it because I want to give her a taste of what it could be like between us.
And even when her breaths get short and spiky and her eyes drift closed, I know that she knows who is in bed with her, and something deep in my chest is dead-solid certain that whatever she says about dating or not dating, I’m the only one she wants to be doing this with right now. And for now, that’s more than enough for me.
Chapter 6: A Gentleman
JEREMY
“I am dead,” Cali announces.
I fold the pillow under my head to prop it up higher, and watch her happily. “Yeah?”
“Yup.” She does not open her eyes.
She’s completely, gloriously naked, having lost her bra somewhere along the way, and despite being disappointed that I wouldn’t let us go all the way, she doesn’t look like she’s suffering much.
I sit up with a grunt and nab her a pillow from the head of the bed, because somehow we ended up fully upside down.
“Pillow?” I offer.
“Pillow?” she says thoughtfully, rolling the word around on her tongue as if trying to decipher its meaning. I chuckle deep in my throat and drop the pillow onto her face.
She swipes it away, screwing up her nose into the most adorable little scowl I’ve ever seen, her lip ring winking against her pouted lips. She smashes one corner of the pillow crookedly under her head without looking and I can’t wipe the damn grin off my face to save my life.
Instead, I reach out and brush away the hair that’s tickling her nose and she sighs.
“Thank you,” she says, with feeling. “That thing was killing me.”
“You’re not paralyzed,” I point out.
“Speak for yourself.” She heaves another sigh so deep that her breasts jiggle. “I need a drink. Or a smoke. Then again, after a night like that, maybe the only thing left is to take up cocaine.”
I drape my arm contentedly over her hips, still grinning like a fool. “Yeah?”
Her abs tighten with an aftershock at my touch and she gasps and slaps weakly at my hand. “No more. I can’t take any more or you’ll have to call an ambulance, or have your sister over to feed me her blood. And that would just be embarrassing.”
“No more?” I say dubiously, and strum my fingers across her skin, watching her muscles jerk helplessly with another aftershock. She strikes out blindly with one hand that falls tiredly onto my thigh, and then she huffs out a breath and wriggles closer.
I suck in a breath as her skin brushes mine, and I shift back just a little. At some point, my towel came off, and I should probably be self-conscious about it, but right now I’m just not.
Cali’s eyes open, the pale blue of a summer sky, the dark rim at the edge of her irises appearing exotic and intense from this close up. Her hand trails from my thigh up to my hip and I can hardly bear her touch. Energy is shimmering under every inch of my skin, bunching thickly in my thighs and tightening my abs. I swear, I could stay in bed with her all day right now, but I’m weirdly happy that I stopped things where I did.
She turns her head a little more toward me, the curve of her cheek in the lamplight smooth and plump, almost innocent. I want to keep this girl.
I want her to keep me.
I’ll make it happen, I vow in that split second. I’m smart. I can figure out what she wants and give it to her. I can figure out what she’s scared of, why she’s holding back and we’ll deal with that too.
I can be crazy focused when I want something: to memorize every lilt and note of a song, or to capture the exact lines of a picture I can see in my head that I need to pour out through my pencil. Or when I want to make her scream into that pillow until she bites it with her teeth…
I blow out a long breath and her hand trails closer. She’s watching my face.
“Jeremy…” she whispers.
I trace her naval piercing with my thumb and pretend that I don’t hear her, that I’m perfectly relaxed.
But then her fingers brush me, just the trace of a touch along the line of hair beneath my belly button and my heart punches up into my throat like it might just explode from the excitement.
I catch her hand and bring it up to my mouth, pressing her fingers against my lips fervently as I shake my head in a silent but firm, “No.”
“Look, I know you said you didn’t want to have sex, but I could—” she starts.
“Nope,” I say, even while my muscles clench at the thought. “I told you. I don’t do casual anymore.”
She arches an eyebrow. “That’s a little arbitrary, don’t you think? Considering what we just did?”
“Nope.” I need to draw a line right now, any line, because I want her too much and I refuse to give her all of me when she’s not yet willing to give herself in return. I roll up off the bed. “Friends with benefits aren’t real friends anyway.”
I do feel self-conscious now, and I fight the urge to grab my towel, but it’s only two steps to my duffel bag and that would be stupid.
I pull on the first pair of boxers I find, and then step into jeans, hopping on one foot to get them on without having to sit down.
“Jeremy, it’s not that I don’t—” she begins and then her voice trails off sadly. I turn around as I zip my pants, giving them a little tug before I do up the button.
She’s watching me with worried eyes, her head propped up on one hand as she bites the inside of her lip. I get a little twinge of guilt and relief all at once when I see her expression, because whatever’s holding her back, it’s not that she doesn’t care.
&nb
sp; “Hey,” I say softly, going back over and sitting on the edge of the bed, touching her cheek briefly with the back of my knuckles. “You’re not ready for a relationship. I get that.” I let her see my eyes slipping down the length of her body, and then I smirk gently. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
She gasps with outrage and goes to pinch my side and I catch her wrist, Hunter-fast, before she can.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Quit it, you’re killing your glow,” I say, and then pounce, the mattress bouncing underneath us as I growl against her stomach, nipping at her hipbone as she shrieks. “Don’t make me give you another one,” I threaten.
She squeals, her knees snapping up into my chest as she tries to roll away from me. “I can’t, I can’t!” she protests. “Swear to God, my heart will give out.”
I subside, leaning my weight back onto one hand as I rest my arm over a cocked knee.
“Better than spontaneous combustion, like you threatened earlier. That would just be…messy.”
She watches me with an open sort of approval that makes my skin tingle and my muscles want to flex for her.
“The near spontaneous combustion was your fault,” she accuses. “Teasing me with all those days of looong showers.”
I blush hard, rolling my eyes. “What the hell was I supposed to do? You were the one who invited yourself into my room. I was losing my mind being so close to you all the time and the bathroom was the only place I could go to catch my breath.”
She tucks her hands under her cheek and smiles knowingly at me, which for no good reason makes me embarrassed as all hell. I start to get up, looking for something to do to keep my hands busy, but she catches me by the belt loop and pulls me back down onto the bed, wriggling over until she can lay her head in my lap.
“You were a perfect gentleman,” she says softly, and I blush even brighter because every time I glance down at her, dirty images flash and jump through my brain and I am nothing like a gentleman.
I clear my throat and at least try to act like one, reaching over to untangle the sheet and pull it up over her so she won’t get cold. I smooth her hair back over her shoulders, my fingers tingling excitedly everywhere they touch her. I wonder if I’m pushing my luck, if this is the wrong side of the line between sex and caring, but she doesn’t protest.
I try to think of what else a gentleman would do, and suddenly I remember what she said earlier. I tap her shoulder and she lifts her head reluctantly, pouting as I scoot off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s a surprise,” I tell her, pulling on a shirt and hoodie and shoving my feet into my sneakers.
She scowls. “You know what would be surprising? If you came back to bed.”
I grin, because she wants me to stay with her, even though she’s plenty satisfied. But Damon’s only ever told me one thing about women: to always leave them wanting more, except in the bedroom. So far, I’m right on track.
I reach for the doorknob, and Cali says my name again, in that way she has that makes me insanely, unreasonably proud of what my parents decided to write on my birth certificate.
I turn back, no contest. “Yeah?”
“Can I have a kiss?” she says, her voice tentative, but her eyes wicked.
I give her a slow smile. “Sure you can. When you’re ready to get serious about me.”
She gasps in mock indignation and throws a pillow at me. I close the door in time to hear it thud against the wood and I drop my head back, the cold fall air washing over me as I grin.
She hasn’t said a thing, but I think I’ve already got her at least halfway to changing her mind. And fuck it feels good to be wanted like that, especially by her.
My smile pulls into a wince as I squint against the blaring sun that catches me off guard because I’m still not used to our weird schedule and in my head, it’s nighttime. Still, it makes it easier to find Damon’s room when I finally push away from my own. It’s four doors down and I pause mid-knock as I do the calculation, wondering if four sets of walls and a pillow were enough to muffle what I’ve been up to for most of the day when we were supposed to be sleeping.
When the door finally opens, it’s not to my sister’s face. Score.
I peek past Damon into the hotel room. “Where’s Elena?”
“Shower,” Damon says shortly, only wearing jeans. “Which is where I should be, so make it snappy.”
“Fine. Can I borrow some bourbon?”
He raises an eyebrow.
“It’s not for me,” I tell him, rolling my eyes because I swear he flips a coin to see whether or not he cares about the drinking age on any given day. “It’s for, um—” I fumble, suddenly wondering if it’ll give everything away if I say it’s for Cali, but he already knows we’re sharing a hotel room, so…
A slow smirk spreads across his face. “Oh, really? Nice work, Baby Gilbert.”
Shit. I glance away, a little pissed that I didn’t realize he’d know exactly what happened tonight, just by looking at me.
“It’s not like that,” I mumble, trying to backpedal since there’s no way in hell he’s not going to give me shit about this in front of Cali tomorrow just to watch me squirm.
“Uh-huh,” he says, and leaves the door open as he goes to rummage in his bag for something. He comes back with a brand of bourbon they don’t even sell at the Grill: an un-opened bottle. And knowing him? It costs more than my last paycheck from that place.
“You sure?”
“It’s not for you.” He stuffs it into my hands and reaches in his back pocket to dig out a wallet so new it doesn’t fold quite right yet. He pulls out a twenty and passes it over.
I frown, puzzled.
“You don’t have a glass, do you?” he says disgustedly.
“Um, the room comes with cups,” I remind him.
He snorts and his hand flashes out, smacking me upside the head before I have the chance to react. “You don’t make your lady drink out of the bottle or plastic, unless she’s not worth buying drinks for in the first place. Now trot your sorry ass across the street to that steakhouse and buy a glass off them.” He squints out at the parking lot, and then gives me an appraising look. “You think all that little punk rocker wants is a stiff drink?”
“No,” I scoff, without even thinking about it. “What she wants is her drum kit, and to not be on the run with every one of my friends and family.”
Damon’s lips twitch in one of his silent chuckles. “No shit. Does she have a second choice?”
I glance down the row of identical doors, my hands tightening around the bottle of bourbon. I said I’d figure out what she wanted and get it for her. But I wasn’t kidding: what she really wants is her drums.
“A guitar,” I tell him. “Maybe a violin. There was a music store on the way into town...” I glance up the street, trying to remember how much money I have. Probably not even enough to buy a violin string, much less the whole thing.
He smiles. “Damn straight.” He pulls the rest of the cash out of his wallet and slaps it against my chest. “Don’t buy cheap shit, and make sure you get it a traveling case so we don’t have to ditch it when we leave tonight.”
“Um, thanks, Damon.” I fidget a little, weirded out by how nice he’s being to me.
He shrugs. “Whatever. First time she plays a Bieber cover all bets are off and that shit goes out the window.”
I glance down at Matt’s truck, wondering how pissed he’ll be if I wake him up for the keys. Damon groans.
“You freaking kidding me?”
I take a step back, frowning. “What?”
Elena calls something from the shower, but I can’t quite catch what she said.
Damon digs a set of car keys out of his pocket and slaps them into my hand on top of the cash, glowering as he grabs me by the front of my shirt and jerks me up onto my toes. I change my grip on the bourbon bottle, ready in case I need to clock him with it. It’d be far from the first time his mood turned on a dime and as lo
ng as he heals, Elena’ll forgive me in the morning.
“That car does not come with a magic ring. It is a classic and it is not replaceable. You, on the other hand, I could do without.”
I knock his hand away from me, dropping back onto my feet. “Didn’t ask for the Camaro.”
He sneers. “You walk all the way to that music store, you won’t be back by sunset.” He glances back toward the bathroom. “And you start opening doors for that girl, you hear me?”
“What’s with all the orders?” I bristle. “I just wanted to borrow a damn drink, is all.”
The Vampire Diaries: Trust In Betrayal (Kindle Worlds) (In Time We Trust Trilogy Book 3) Page 8
