The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C

by LeighAnn Kopans

  “No. Well, yes. I mean, there is a message, but the message is in the music, the tones, the tempo. I never notice the words, I’m so obsessed with where the song is going, how it’ll play out, how I can make it different or more awesome. Anyway, I thought it was beautiful. Hopeful.” She looked in his eyes again.

  “Let me listen again,” he said. “Please.”

  Disappointment turned to soaring hope, and Rion fought to keep it in check. “If you want to. Just…hold my hands. I can feel it. Maybe I can make you feel it too.”

  Crash’s eyes flicked to her lips, and his own parted. “Can I kiss you?”

  She wanted him to, so badly. But she had done something stupid, put herself on display, had begged for some guy she was inexplicably drawn to, to understand her. She had to know if he could.

  Slowly, almost reverently, Crash opened the computer again. Clicked play again. Waited.

  “Close your eyes,” Rion whispered, more begging than commanding. He did, and then held his hands out for hers. She weaved hers into his, admiring how strong his fingers were, watching the tattoo around his right wrist move when his fingers wove pliant through hers.

  This time, when the song played, Rion watched Crash carefully. When the first song change approached, his body tensed, his back straightened, and a soft sigh lowered his shoulders gradually. A seed of happiness lodged itself in Rion’s throat, and grew when she watched his reaction to the male voice joining in, his eyebrows twitching when they harmonized. And at the end, when the relaxed, persistent, sure voice sang the words he’d heard as all wrong carried along a tune that sounded nothing but beautiful to Rion, a small smile twitched the corners of his lips. And as the song faded out, Rion knew. He couldn’t read her mind, but when they were on the same wavelength, Crash got her. Completely.

  His eyes opened and she searched them. He knew he’d passed, too. After a few steady breaths, he said, “So you don’t want me to go away and never talk to you again.”

  Rion bit her lip. Every sentence that flashed into her mind at that moment sounded stupid, sappy, or worse, sounded insufficient. So she just shook her head, begging him with her eyes to see what she was trying to say.

  “Do you want me to…?”

  And then she couldn’t stand it anymore. Just like the song, words didn’t matter. Just actions, just feelings. Just touching him, feeling him, and being lost in him. She leaned forward, opening her lips just enough before she pressed them to Crash’s that she could taste him when she did. He sucked in a surprised breath, and his arms went from the laptop to the sides of her face in an instant, sending the black hunk of wires and plastic thudding on the floor. His fingers moved, sure but gentle, over her skin, making her feel like something desired and precious for the first time in a very long time. She felt promises traced over her scalp, hardly caring that he was sending her hair standing up every which way. In fact, she was fairly certain that she looked damn sexy right at this moment, a feeling that sent her chest pressing into his, powered by an electricity that could only be calmed when his skin touched hers. Her nipples hardened, calling the electricity out again, and she knew, so suddenly and so clearly, that just kissing wasn’t nearly enough.

  Something sent her fingers seeking under his shirt, translated the smooth feel of his skin, the hard ridges of his muscle running alongside bone into a tug deep inside her. Yet, she wasn’t anxious, wasn’t desperate.

  This felt like it was a long time coming.

  His shirt coming off, and hers shortly after, had been written in whatever crazy story this was since the first time they’d locked eyes. Crash’s mouth opened, devouring hers, and she felt the hard edge of that irresistible lip ring pressing sideways into her skin, all the way down to her shoulder, warming a bit with each touch. And then Crash biting at her collarbone, making her arch her back and gasp. He pulled back, still gripping at her sides, like he was willing to stop but certainly not let her go. “Are you okay? Is it okay?”

  For once, she said exactly the words she was thinking. “Don’t stop,” she gasped, pulling his mouth to hers again, biting at the opposite corner of his lip, grinning into his mouth when that made him moan.

  “I love this bra,” he said against her neck as he traced his finger under the strap, then nudged it down, making it flop down her upper arm, tickling the skin there and making her nipples bud with wanting more of his lips against more of her.

  It was a thin fabric, nude, bare bones. An underwire and not even enough padding to conceal her nipples when it got cold.

  “Can I take it off?” he asked, even though he didn’t have to.

  “Please. I want you to.” She wanted so many things. She wanted to feel his hot mouth covering her, sucking on her. She wanted to lick his lip ring, to feel it smooth under her tongue. She wanted to do this, and be here, and not worry about anything. The emotion slammed into her all at once—she wanted him to take care of her. In this way, for now. Maybe more ways later.

  So she pushed against him harder, arching her back and silently begging him to take that next step. Thank God, his lips traveled lower, and she moaned when they reached the high round curve of her breast.

  “I have to tell you something, Rion,” his voice ground out, hungry and sparse.

  “Now?” she panted.

  “It’s important.” He looked up at her with the start of a cocky smile. “I’m a boob man.”

  Rion grinned. “I think mine are pretty nice.”

  “Mmmm.” His strong hands glided down and gripped just below her rib cage, his thumbs teasing up along her underwire. “Nice is the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard. But if you let me have yours, I will go insane. I will really, really, really not want to stop. It’s like flipping a switch.”

  “I will go insane if you don’t,” she sighed, letting her head loll back and closing her eyes as she gave herself over to the sweet, insistent softness of his mouth covering every inch of her breasts. When the lip ring flicked against her nipple, she almost lost it, moaning and pushing her hands into his waistband.

  “We don’t have to rush,” he murmured before lowering his head and sucking hard. Rion whimpered.

  “I want you,” she whined, fully aware of, and not giving a single fuck about, how pathetic she sounded.

  He raised his eyes to hers, suddenly one hundred percent serious. “You want…”

  “Yes. I want you to fuck me. I want you to make me scream your name and forget my own.”

  Under her right thigh, she felt what was already hard get even harder and twitch against her, and Crash growled. She grinned, satisfied and hungry. Crash moved his hands down her sides, got a strong grip, and flipped her over so that she tumbled onto his sheets.

  Almost instantly, he was licking the underside of her breasts, smoothing a hot trail down to her belly button, notching his thumbs into her waistband and tugging her sweatpants down. “So sexy,” he growled, peppering the insides of her thighs with rough kisses as she squirmed and tried to keep from coming before he even touched her. When his hands crept under her ass, then hooked up over her thighs and gently tugged them apart, she started to tense.

  “No, no, you don’t have to—”

  He looked up at her, eyebrows raised in alarm. “You don’t want me to?”

  “I just…I know guys don’t like to, and…”

  “What guys don’t like to? Idiot guys,” he answered his own question. “You have the most beautiful fucking pussy on the planet, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, kissing her thighs again.

  Rion blushed and gasped. He was damn lucky she liked dirty talk. She was damn lucky he’d guessed.

  “Please,” he mumbled into her leg, and she scooted down half an inch and opened her legs a bit more. Within half a second, his tongue was inside her, then one finger, then two, moving in and out and hitting some amazing spot on her upper wall that quickly wound a coil inside her tighter and tighter until she was so high she couldn’t sense the ground beneath her. And he hand’t even lic
ked her clit yet. When he did, the hard curve of his lip ring wiggling against the sensitive skin there, and she came crashing down, everything dark and spiraling and thrillingly twisting inside her. Her scream was like a cry, a beg for mercy, the need for him to be inside her, for her to see his face and feel his tongue twisting with hers again.

  He seemed to understand, because as her body spasmed, clenching over and over again like it never had before, not even when she got herself off, he didn’t pull his body away from hers. He held her to him, strong but not tight, covering her with his warmth, making her feel safe and secure in the midst of coming completely undone.

  His mouth was on her neck again, kissing softly, like he could wait there forever for her to take the lead again. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she wasn’t worrying about the next class or the next bill, wasn’t flinging angry thoughts at a professor or her mother. Definitely not at Crash.

  Crash, for this one moment, had saved her from her own exhausting brain.

  As Rion came down from the waves that had utterly taken her breath away, she began to notice him more and more. The strong, smooth curve of his back. the way that his hand wrapped around her side, how his thumb played over her skin, like they had all the time in the world, like he never wanted to stop. “Thank you,” she breathed, and she felt his cheeks push into a smile against her skin.

  “It’s my pleasure,” Crash said. “You are…delicious.”

  “Oh my God,” Rion said, smiling as she bent to kiss his forehead, then his cheek, then finally his mouth, so tenderly it was like they’d done this a hundred times before. Tate had never gone down on her—said it felt weird when he was high, which he almost always was—and she had assumed that no guy wanted to. The way Crash was acting, she would have thought he had just had an amazing orgasm, too. Except for his cock, so hard against her thigh that it was starting to make her uncomfortable. God knew what it was doing to him.

  She let her hand trail down his side, practically giddy at the feel of the ridges of his abs. She made a mental note to ask him what he did to work out, but it wasn’t important now. The few guys she’d slept with had all been ripped—Rion was the kind of girl to not settle for anything less than what she wanted, and she was as red blooded an American girl as any. Lickable abs were important to her.

  “I meant…thank you for…you know. That was incredible.” She let her hand wander to the front of his pants. Rion liked to give dirty talk as well as she could receive it—it sort of came naturally when you had the everyday mouth of a sailor. But Jesus, she couldn’t find two brain cells to rub together to dole it out right now. Her head still spun, but her hand knew what to do.

  Crash slid up her body so she didn’t need to reach. The only answer he gave was a rough “Unh,” but that was all she needed. Wedging her hands into his waistband, she tugged his jeans down, then gave her own grunt of frustration when the unexpected boxer briefs, instead of boxers, didn’t come right down with them.

  She felt a rush of excitement when she wrapped her hand around him, knowing that she was about to get more of what her body so desperately wanted. Typically at this point, guys tried to push her down so that she would suck it, because that’s what always showed up on porn videos—the girl going after a guy’s dick like it was a fucking ice cream cone. Rion had always thought the damn things were ugly, and didn’t really ever have the desire to put her mouth around one and suck. Especially when she knew they were useful for so much more.

  That was especially true right now, because, compared to the handful of guys she had been with, Crash was endowed. Seriously endowed. No wonder his head lolled back and he gave a lazy sigh when she ran her hand up and down his length—the poor thing had been trapped behind two heavy layers of cotton.

  “Okay,” she laughed, kissing him again, strangely loving the taste of herself on his lips, “This is…impressive.”

  He laughed roughly, lazily shifting his weight on top of her, then propping up slightly on his elbows. “I haven’t heard any complaints.”

  It was like his body auto-adjusted to hers, and his dick was no exception. She wanted it, and her urge grew stronger every second.

  The lingering orgasm pulsed through her slowly now, matching the tempo of his breathing, making her feel like she could handle things faster again. A lot faster. But first, she had to keep her goddamn head on straight. “Are you…checked out?”

  She’d always hated using the word “clean” for sexual status, but how else did you responsibly ask a guy if he had syphilis before you let him fuck you?

  He dipped his head to the other side of her neck, nipping and licking as he went. In a few seconds, she wouldn’t give a shit if he was clean. She’d be begging for it even if he was crawling with crabs. She squirmed beneath him. “Yeah,” he growled. “There’s only been one other girl, and I was her first. You?”

  Relief flooded her, chased by a need to have him in the next five seconds, maximum. “It’s been more than one for me, but I checked out in my last physical before I left high school.” Rion bit her lip. Had she seriously just reminded this guy how young she actually was? She didn’t care.

  “I know I told you it would be hard for me to stop, and that was true,” Crash murmured, running his palm up her belly, cupping her breast, making her squirm to have him touching her inside as well as out. “But I can. I told you, I like you. For more than your fucking incredible body.” He bent his head to lick her nipple again, tugging lightly with his teeth as he pulled away, and stars flooded her vision again. “Of course I want you, but not if it means I won’t see you again. You’ve already tried running away from me too many times for me to chance it again. I don’t want you to feel forced. At all.”

  “The only thing that’s going to be forced is your dick inside me if you don’t make it happen soon,” she gasped as his hand made it back down between her legs, thrusting two fingers inside her, his thumb flicking her sensitive clit and making her clench. Wanting him even more.

  She almost growled in frustration when he shifted away from her, until she realized he was stretching his arm over to a bedside table, rummaging in a drawer.

  Oh, God. He had condoms, and she didn’t have to ask him to use them. Had she dreamed this guy? Seriously, had some obscure god looked inside her brain and created the perfect guy for her, then dropped him on the sidewalk outside the Studio?

  When he pressed into her, bit by maddening bit, she knew the answer—he was perfect, and the size of his dick confirmed it. When he finally held himself all the way in, panting into the crook of her neck like he had just sprinted a mile, some part of him fit against some part of her that sent her head spinning and the whole rest of the world, the whole rest of life, to the background. She groaned, hooking her arms under his and clawing at his back, squeezing her legs against him in some subconscious attempt to keep him closer to her while feeling like she was going to fly away with pleasure. When he moved inside her, she thought she’d lose her mind, and the only way to keep it from happening was to move along with him.

  As she rocked against him, she fell into a hypnotic rhythm, like a girl possessed. She’d never realized it before, but this—her naked body, her unguarded cries, her willingness to cling to another person—these were all the beginnings of a trust that had been so soundly violated the last time.

  Crash was the first one to make her even consider going down that road again. She’d thought it was a miracle she was even letting any guy in, bit by little bit, but in that last minute before the hot press of his skin against hers and the building explosion inside her, she knew—he was the only one she could let in.

  Amy

  Matt had asked Amy about her plans for Winter Break three times. Each time, she told him she was going home. From his reaction, she knew her dread seeped into every word. There were about a million things she wanted to do more than sit in her parents’ living room as if everything was the same, even though nothing was. She definitely didn’t want to answe
r questions about Adam that she didn’t have answers to.

  Matt already knew what she was thinking. He always seemed to be listening for things to fill in the gaps between her words. And so he offered to take her home with him, trying to entice her with the promise of a fireplace and a comfortable guest room and all the pie she could want. His mom baked four kinds, but nobody ever ate more than one slice.

  A small, insistent part of her felt like she would fit so easily into that picture that she couldn’t not go home with Matt. Matt was comfort and acceptance. Home was many things, but not those.

  But they weren’t together, she kept telling herself on every afternoon coffee date, which seemed to go later and later as sunset got earlier and earlier. She told herself a lot of things—he wasn’t really interested in her in that way, he was just walking her home because it was dark. She liked hanging out with him because he was funny, and something about the way he looked at her made her feel brilliant and important. Sometimes she wanted to hug him, then panicked a little when she thought about how it would feel to have his skin touch hers. She couldn’t name the feeling—she only knew that she didn’t know what would happen if she felt it.

  Matt always kept a respectable distance. Day to day, she couldn’t tell whether she was relieved by that or frustrated beyond belief.

  Arielle wanted Amy to go home with Matt, reminding her that Harrison was one of the few dorms that stayed open over winter break, so she would really only have to stay for a three-day weekend. Rion acted like she didn’t care what Amy did, but Amy could tell she felt the same way as Arielle.

  Amy explained that she didn’t really have a choice. Mom had been going on for weeks about how excited she was for Amy to spend time with the family and old friends. Yes, Mom was still convinced she and Adam would be getting back together any day now. Every time she mentioned it, Amy felt the chains linking her to Tripp Creek and the life she was supposed to have there pull tighter against her. The only thing that tug toward home made her want to do was break them to pieces.