But I’m also alive, and her whole bold, fearless, say-anything approach to sex is driving me every kind of batshit crazy.
“I can make that happen.”
I say it like I’m not freaking out, foreseeing myself choking big time and having her hit me with that frustrated sigh that guts me.
“I like the sound of that.” Her voice is low and raspy.
“I’m coming to pick you up now.” I get into the car, fumbling with the keys.
“Nope. I’m driving myself. Give me the location so I can map it.”
I’m about to argue. It’s not easy to find, especially at night and if you’re new to the area. But she’s not about to do anything she doesn’t want to do, so I give her the location and some landmarks to look out for, stop off at the restaurant next to the bar and order a stupid amount of whatever they can promise will come out of the kitchen fast, and grab a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
I have no idea if she’ll like any of it, but I have a feeling I’m guessing right with her. There’s something about Hattie. No matter how frustrating or surprising she can be, something makes me feel like I know her. Like I can guess what will make her happy.
It’s not something I’ve ever felt about anyone else before.
I’m waiting at the pier when her little blue girly car pulls up. I can practically see her rolling her eyes at it as she gets out and slams the door too hard, like she’s frustrated to even be driving it.
“You give pretty good directions!” she yells as she walks.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I admit, pulling her close when she’s within reach. She stiffens a little when I hug her, and turns her cheek my way when I attempt to kiss her.
Which is disappointing, but I can work with it. She’s here. She’s not bristling at everything I do and say.
“I wasn’t sure I would either. Last time was fun, but I want to be clear that I’m not looking for anything serious. No matter how adorable an ex you’d make,” she tells me with a rueful smile. “But since we’re nothing to each other and won’t be, I’m bending my rules. My mom would be so proud.”
She says the words so lightly, I know she probably doesn’t even realize what a kick in the head they are.
I shake it off because I’m still glad she’s willing to go with this at all. Before she can change her mind, I grab her hand and lead her onto the deck of the boat.
My boat.
My brother makes fun of the fact that, despite keeping a job and owning a suit, I refuse to be a full adult and live on land. And I guess I do have a kind of wild, roaming thing going on. But to be able to afford this, I had to work, barter, and sacrifice more than most guys I know. My boat is where I live according to my own principles. It’s also why I drive a piece of shit car and work myself ragged, but I couldn’t be happier.
She looks around at the rigging and sails, runs a hand over the banisters and asks, “So is this what you race?”
“No.” I grab a blanket and spread it out, setting the food on it and looking around for a corkscrew. “I live on this boat. And I sail it. But I sail it for personal reasons. The sailboats I race are way sleeker, and they’re docked at the pier my boss owns. My boss’s shop sponsors me.”
“Ah,” she says. Her dark hair is back in a ponytail, but the ends still whip in the wind that’s picking up. “So, you race whenever you have free time?”
“Yeah. But I just got a second sponsor, so I’m hoping I can cut back my hours and devote more time to racing. That’s the plan for now.”
I find the corkscrew and go to town getting this bottle open. I’d sort of hoped she’d ask more about the racing so I could let her know I’m serious about this, but I can tell from the way she’s asking that she’s not very impressed.
Maybe what’s making me edgy is that I expected her to able to embrace the idea of me doing this without judgment. I get that Hattie likes rules, but she also seems to appreciate passion, no matter how much she argues about moderation being the way to go.
“What happens after ‘now’?” she asks, walking across the deck and looking down as I pour the wine into sturdy glass tumblers I nabbed from the restaurant. I probably only have a few plastic cups onboard. I try to live with the essentials, since my space is limited.
“What do you mean?” I hear the defensive edge in my voice, but, fuck it.
I feel defensive.
“Well,” she says, sitting down and tucking her legs to the side, “right now you can live on a boat and sail in races, but what about the rest of your life? Like, after racing?”
“Plenty of people make a career out of being professional racers,” I say, handing her a glass of wine.
“Right. You mentioned that.” Her eyes, a smooth gold that makes me think of tequila, flash like she’s laughing. She raises one black eyebrow. “How many?”
“What I do isn’t really about statistics, Hattie.” I unpack food I’m not even hungry for. “What I do is about living by my own rules.”
“That’s just something people say,” Hattie says, picking up a turkey club and a mayo pack. She opens it with delicate fingers and spreads it on. “Everyone wants to play by their own rules, but that makes no sense. Not really. There are rules we all agree to.”
“Who?” I ask.
She looks up and squints at me, like she’s trying to determine whether or not I’m kidding.
“Who agrees to these rules?” I press. “Not me. For sure, not me.”
“I guess it’s just...it’s just like jumping out of a plane without a parachute,” she says, and I try not to choke on my chicken salad.
I put all thoughts of my brother’s term for sex without condoms out of my head and ask her, “What’s it about being daring that scares the crap out of people? You know the least daring guy in the world? My dad. He was a plumber, and a damn good one. He apprenticed with his uncle, married my mom, had me and my brother and sister, did his daily grind, and died before he was fifty.”
She puts the sandwich down, and her eyes warm to a darker shade of golden brown. Like heated maple syrup. “I’m sorry you lost your father,” she says, her face serious.
For some reason, sympathy from her makes my chest go tight. I like her better ferocious.
“It sucked,” I admit, taking a swig of the wine. “But what sucked more was all the dreams he had, all the vacations he wanted to take but never did because he wanted to hustle while the money was good. The old Mustang he was gonna restore is still on blocks in my mom’s driveway.” I think back on my dad, who’s still a giant in my mind, even though cancer shrank him into a shell of himself before it killed him off.
“That was love, Ryan,” she says, her lips trembling.
“I know that.” I reach out for her hand, but she darts it to her side before I can take it. “And I love him for it. But I never needed all the crap he thought he had to provide for me. I’m being honest here: I would have been so much happier if we had less material comfort, but did more together. If dad said, ‘Screw the new minivan and the kitchen renovation, let’s go to Yosemite like I’ve wanted for the last ten years’ we’d both be resting easier now.”
“There are two sides to every story,” Hattie says, flicking at her bread. “It sucks that your father sacrificed so much, but he took amazing care of you and your family. I don’t know if there’s an adventure my father has ever passed up on. Ever. But his only contribution to my life has been in the form of ridiculous, fancy gifts twice a year. I don’t know him. At all. And that’s because he was busy living for his own selfish gains, you know?”
I lean in and cup her face. She looks up, her eyes faraway. Hattie is usually so focused; it’s weird to see this distant expression.
“Hey. We’re like two bad clichés, right?”
“Are we?” She frowns, but she also presses her cheek into my palm. “Why is that?”
“Your dad goes all over the world like mad, so you buckle down and follow the rules. Mine was a steadfast martyr so I live this cr
azy life, unanchored. Total clichés. We should help each other find some balance.” I smile and her lips curve up.
She touches her wine glass to them and says, “What, like we can trade places? You be a focused college student with a double major and I can laze around on the love boat?” Her eyes are dancing.
“Do you have any clue at all what it takes to sail a boat? Like, at all?” I watch her giggle into her wine and shake her head. “You have some serious lessons coming your way.”
“Do I have to be your first mate?” she asks, slipping her foot out of one cherry red high heel. Her feet are tiny. Seriously, I’ve never seen such small feet. She wiggles her toes, the nails painted a shiny red that matches her shoes, and pokes me with them.
“I guess you could be the co-captain eventually.” I try to joke with her, but she sets her foot on my thigh and rubs it up and down.
“I like the sound of that.” She crooks a finger in my direction. “Come here. I’ve been thinking about kissing you.”
As far as dirty talks goes, this is pretty damn innocent. So I have no idea why it has me so hard, there’s no blood left in my head and my eyes blur.
I go to her. I gather her in my arms, loving how small she is. She can’t be more than five foot three. Megan was really tall, and I always thought that was my type: tall girls. But I love the way Hattie fits against me, like I can take care of her. Like I can protect her.
And I love how she takes my stereotype about tiny girls and turns it on its head, because me feeling like I can protect her is one thing. The reality is, she’s completely able to protect herself, and that’s something I admire so damn much.
She rubs her nose against mine, softly, and whispers, “I like the way you look, but it’s a little scary. You’re too handsome for your own good.”
“What does that mean?” I whisper back.
Her lips brush mine, a touch so light it shouldn’t send the shockwaves through me that it does.
“It means you’ve probably had too many girls come at you without you having to even turn on the charm. It probably made you cocky as hell.”
I run my hands along her cheek and thread my fingers through her hair.
“Does that hold for you?” I close my eyes when she kisses me so lightly a second time. “Because you’re so damn gorgeous, it’s heart-stopping.”
“That sounds dangerous,” she says, her tongue darting out to lick my top, then bottom lip.
“As cardiac arrest,” I agree.
She slides a hand up between us and lays it palm-flat on my chest. “You sound healthy as an ox to me.”
I love those light kisses landing on my face, but I also want to jack what she’s been thinking and twist it a little. She likes to be in control, and that’s fine.
It’s sweet. It’s safe.
She needs more.
I slide my hands down to her shoulders and along her back, pulling her close by her hips.
“Definitely healthy.” I pull her closer, until she rubs along the length of my dick, hard and ready for her. The sound of her breath sucked between her teeth makes my mind blank. “I want you, Hattie.”
I lick at her lips, pressing forward when she tries to pull back, dodging to the side when she attempts to take a break. The longer and deeper we kiss, the more time our tongues spend moving against one another, the less she’s able to keep it all in check.
She tries to jerk back, but my hands are ready, catching her shoulders and licking at her mouth until I hear the first gasp followed by a tiny moan.
That’s when I finally pull away, kissing at her neck and sucking down one side. She grabs at my hair and tries to pull back, but I suck harder and she grinds down onto me. I drop my head and nip her shoulder to keep from losing it. Her hand, palm flat, fingers down, bumps from my chest to my abs to the buckle of my belt. When she hits lower, I strain up into her touch.
I’m rock hard and she’s purring like she’s ready for more. I screw my eyes shut and focus on her hand, the hot, slow caress of her skin on mine, up and down, back and forth until I want to unzip my pants and press her down onto the deck. I want to slide deep into her and fill her up over and over, until she’s panting my name and begging me not to stop.
But I can’t.
Not yet. Not with Hattie.
She’s my chance to start over, to do things the way I haven’t with anyone else, even Megan.
So I back up and slow it down, kissing her with soft brushes of my lips even though she’s pressing her tongue deep and letting her soft, full tits press hard into my chest.
“Ryan?” She toys with my pants, trying to push them lower, but I put a hand on her wrist.
“Damnit, Hattie. You have no idea how badly I want you. And this. But not yet. Not here.” I watch her face break into a pout and kiss her bottom lip. “Not for me anyway. But I want to help you. I promised you an orgasm, right?”
She shakes her head as my hand rides down until I feel the waistband of her panties.
“Nope.” She hops off my lap. “All or nothing, Ryan. That’s how I work.”
I catch her by the wrist. “So are you leaving me?”
She grabs the bottle of wine and shrugs. “Not yet. I have a few hours to kill, and this wine isn’t bad. So, what do guys with morals do when they’re done telling gorgeous women not to fuck them?”
“We could talk. Like two civilized people,” I suggest, and she pulls a face. “What? You think I’m so handsome, I’ve never had to hold up my end of a conversation before?”
Her grin is infectious, and I definitely catch her fever. Bad.
“So, what are we going to talk about?” she asks, tipping the wine bottle back and drinking so fast, a little rivulet leaks from one corner of her mouth. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and then grins like she’s looking for trouble
“Anything you want,” I offer, spreading my arms out. “I’m an open book.”
“Okay.” She taps her finger to her mouth. “Tell me about your worst date ever.”
“Worst date ever.”
I think back to all the black-hearted, evil witch bullshit my ex put me through at the end, but I realize that’s not what Hattie means. She wants to laugh. She wants me to laugh. Bringing up the ghost of my evil ex isn’t part of her idea of a good time, I’m sure. So I go with a crowd favorite from the end of my ex-files.
“Okay. I got tickets to this ballet my ex wanted to see. Her mom had been a professional ballerina, and she was always dragging me to these things. Anyway, I haggled and got front and center seats. I wear my nicest suit. I get settled in to be bored out of my skull for two hours, and the ballet starts. I have no idea if the lead guy stuffed or what, but he comes on stage and it’s like his junk is front and center, bulging in my face.”
Hattie looks at me and the barest smile comes over her lips. “Um, were you intimidated?”
“No. And don’t try to make this a homophobic thing. I have zero issues with penises in a general sense. But this was like blatantly...exposed. In his leggings or whatever they are. Every woman in the audience was totally glued to the, um, performance. There was nowhere else to look, you know. My ex would have killed me if I took out my phone or started fidgeting. So I had front row seats for the most insanely stuffed codpiece dance off in the history of the world.”
Hattie is giggling now. She holds her palm out and sets her two fingers down like legs, then pushes her thumb between them.
“Like this?” she asks, making her fingers dance.
“You’re opening very old, very deep scars,” I deadpan as she howls.
“You are such a baby!” she accuses. “One little sausage dance and that’s your worst?” Her eyes sparkle, and I decide to tell her the rest, no matter how lame it makes me seem.
It’s not all that easy, since I’ve never even told my best guy friends. It was too much salt in a ripped-open wound at that point.
“We had to go backstage to meet Mr. Cucumberpants after, and it was like I could n
ot look anywhere but right into his eyes. Deeply. Like I had an amazing connection with him and his art.”
Hattie is howling. “He must have known he impressed you with his massive...talent.”
“So I joke about this with my ex, and she gets all kinds of bent out of shape. Calls me immature, says it’s like she’s dating a middle school boy. Come to find out, my ex was doing more than admiring Senor Sausage’s third leg from the audience.”
Hattie’s laugh cuts short, and she looks at me with total shock and horror.
“Wait, what?” When I shrug and hold a hand out for the bottle, she gives it over and bites her lips. “Ah. She cheated. On you? With him?”
I take a long swallow and grin at her. “I love the way you sound so shocked. I think you’re overestimating how good-looking I am.”
“And I haven’t seen Mr. Stuffed Sausage either,” she points out. But she only half smiles at her own joke. “Well, I’m glad she’s your ex. Anyone who’d want to date a dancing wiener over you is clearly an idiot.”
I take another long swallow and don’t elaborate on the fact that it was my ex who dumped me, even after I knew she’d done many horizontal plies with the dancing dick.
“So, how about you?” I ask. “Worst date ever.”
She tosses her shiny hair behind her shoulder and squints at the sky. “I don’t know if I have one. When a date gets bad, I just leave.”
“You leave?” I ask slowly, because the idea is blowing my mind. “What about if you’re out somewhere. Like for dinner? Or in a movie?”
Hattie shrugs and reaches a hand out for the bottle. I pass it.
“I just leave. Like one time a guy took me out, but he spend the whole drive over texting and calling his friends. I asked him to stop, even though he should have been aware how completely rude he was being without my saying anything. Also, he was driving and texting. Asshole. Anyway, he told me I had a stick up my ass.” Even in the retelling she’s getting all pissed, and I secretly love seeing her so furious. “So I sat down at the restaurant, ordered the most expensive drink, appetizer, and entree on the menu, excused myself to the bathroom, and called a cab.”
Ties Page 8
