by Ami Snow
“Y-yes?” Her voice seemed raspy, an octave lower than it should have been now that it was colored with arousal. Tucker could probably tell.
“Cousin’s gone. Wanna second birthday party? Sam’s coming over and I’ve already ordered sushi from that place on Main street”
She hissed out a shuddery sigh, delighted when Masters sidled up behind her, pressing his body against her back. He was so warm…
“Tonight?”
Tucker laughed.
“Bit late for that. I was thinking tomorrow evening.”
Long fingers were trailing down her back and sides, brushing the hem of her pants and sneakily feathering the soft skin at her hips, just under her shirt.
Dannie shifted, already knowing she’d need a change of underwear after this. She leaned back into him, wanting to melt when he gave a low little hum of approval.
“T-that sounds fine, I’ll see you then.”
She could feel his breath on the side of her face, soft lips mouthing along the crest of her ear. She felt a slight scrape, and a faint wetness. She bit her lip to hold in any sound, not wanting to moan like a whore right in Tucker’s ear.
“Have a good night, Dannie!”
“You too.”
She hung up, tilting her head up and aiming for an odd sideways kiss.
Instead, she found fingers tugging her head sideways, a talented mouth sliding down to kiss and nip at the side of her neck.
She arched into it, pink mouth open in heated pants as his hand snuck up under her shirt, tickling the sensitive skin just at her hemline and sending electric jolts of arousal straight into her core.
“He’s right you know.” He murmured into her neck.
“It’s getting late. You should be in bed.”
She pulled away for a moment, turning around and pressing back up against him. She pressed a leg between his own, getting the sudden urge to just unbutton her pants now when she felt a hot hardness press back into her thigh.
He was ready for this, too.
Antonio ran gentle fingers around the sides of her face, leaning forward and dropping a small kiss on her forehead.
“Not tonight, Danielle.”
He stepped away from her, heading toward the door to outside before pausing at the exit.
“You’re still invited to fly with me tomorrow, if you’d like.” He glanced over his shoulder, where she still stood aroused and frustrated. “We can make it a personal flight.”
That night, she may or may not have masturbated furiously to those words and that look.
Chapter 3
“Dannnniieeee are you ready yet?”
“It’s ten in the morning, couldn’t this have waiting until this afternoon?
“Sam has to leave at noon.”
She shoved the last bite of cereal into her mouth, already scrambling to throw on a jacket.
“I’ll be there in like, ten minutes.”
The walk to his house was short, her chinks still pinking from the brisk wind nipping at her skin. He greeted her at the door, still just as dark and gangly as ever.
They must have looked a sight back in high school; one overly tall, noodly black kid, and one chubby, milk-white airhead. If Sam had joined them earlier, her Asian punk-goth look could have completed the set. It didn’t make logical sense, but Dannie liked to imagine they would have been good together back then.
Still, they always had her back. Tucker ushered her inside and presented her with a host of balloons bouncing along the hallway to his room. Dannie couldn’t help but laugh, kicking up one of the drifting objects and snatching it up to read it.
“World’s Okayest Partier? I don’t qualify as ‘Best’?”
He feigned an appalled look.
“Are you challenging me? In my own house?” She snickered, pulling out an imaginary dagger and pretending to stab at him. “After all I’ve done for you? Begone, wench!”
She let herself be pushed into his room, grinning at the layout spread before her. As promised, there was video games, pizza, ridiculous amounts of other junk food and a small pile of presents on the top of his bed. Not to mention Sam, who was sprawled out with a bubble half-blown, looking up from her Gameboy.
“Yo.”
“Hi, Sam.”
Tucker patted Dannie’s shoulder for attention.
“My parents wish you ‘Congrats’, by the way.”
She poked one of the packages, smiling at its obvious shape. It HAD to be a stuffed animal.
“Well then, oh greatest partier. Shall we put all this to use?”
He bowed dramatically, sweeping his arm out.
“Everything the light touches… shall be played.”
Noon rolled around eventually, Sam leaving at the prophesied time and tossing a roughly wrapped gift into Dannie’s arms.
“Don’t spend it all in one place.” Was her parting shot, before walking out the door.
Of course it had been a gift card to GameStop.
Tucker's parents came up with a large pizza for the two of them, not realizing they had already ordered their own earlier in the night. The taller young adult graciously accepted it, saying it was his new personal pizza, and Dannie could have the other one.
"Any pizza is a personal pizza, as long as you try hard and believe in yourself." He declared with a sage nod.
As the night wound down, turning into morning, their playing had become less competitive and more ridiculous. They spent nearly twenty minutes trying to stack inventory items on top of each other, and see how far they'd fling when their characters jumped in like a leaf pile. There was a moment when Tucker couldn't breathe for laughing so hard, when his 'belt of invisibility' glitched with his character, and acted like a hyperactive hula hoop.
"Any new plans for the future?" Dannie asked, trying to find the rumored 'invisible bridge' that should have linked levels 2 and 5 over a river of lava. She wasn’t sure if it was real, or just a gamer’s myth.
Tucker's character bounced up behind her, shoving the avatar into the lava, mashing the 'taunt' button as Dannie's character burned.
“Aside from kicking your butt? I’ve got a new video game I’m working on. It’s nothing serious – a pocket monsters ripoff, but it’s been fun making sprites with Silver – my buddy online."
Dannie scowled, slaughtering a few newbies milling around, boosting her experience points and rushing at Tuck's Avatar. Her controller was tossed to the couch, arms flying up in disbelief when Tucker sidestepped, sending Dannie's character plummeting once again into the lava.
"Seriously? That's freaking stupid. What the hell." Tucker just cackled at her.
She poured herself a soda, briefly entertaining the idea of pouring it over his friend's lap in revenge. No, one instance of cleaning sticky shit out of delicate electronics was enough.
She flopped on the couch, deliberately throwing her arms out in Tucker's face, pretending to yawn and ignoring the protests. It turned into a sputtering cough when a handful of popcorn was shoved in her face.
"Dude, that got up my nose!"
She batted the snack away, snorting and blowing air out her nose.
“Gotta admit that I’m the better player.”
Dannie watched as Tucker turned to the side, putting his foot up on Dannie's shoulder and pushing until the blue-eyed girl was sliding off the couch.
She let herself flop down into the carpet face-down, stretching his arms out.
"I don't wannaaaa." She whined, kicking his feet.
"Oh my god, Dannie. Stop being a child."
“Neverrrrr.”
She wiggled on the carpet, pulling the bowl of popcorn toward her.
"For the love of -" Tucker set his controller down, bouncing off the couch and standing over Dannie.
"You have three seconds. One."
Dannie stared up at him balefully, deliberately shoving some popcorn in her mouth.
"Two." Tucker put his hands on his hips, looking unimpressed.
"THREE!" He bent d
own grabbing his friend's ankles and yanking the girl backward. Dannie yelped, kicking automatically and spilling the popcorn, but Tuck only dropped her for a second, leaning down and hauling her up further. This wasn't fair!
"OI! Lemme go!"
Tucker just continued to drag the girl backward, wobbling a bit from Dannie's thrashing. He shuffled into the guest bedroom dropping Dannie next to the bed and grinning when the girl scrambled up to grab and throw pillow at him.
The chuckle turned into peals of laughter when her violent throw sent her flopping backward onto the bed, too close to the side. She slid off the corner of the bed, into the dusty space between mattress frame and wall.
“ohmygod spiders. Ach! Help!”
A dark, slender hand snagged her own flailing one, helping to pull her out of the tiny space. A bit more disoriented than anticipated, his valiant effort ended with her bowling him over onto the floor.
She muttered an apology, halfway through pulling herself off when he spoke. She glanced down at him, his carefully averted eyes staring at something on the ceiling.
“I’ve been thinking about things, lately.”
“Oh?”
Her heartbeat picked up, tapping urgently against the inside of her breast. His expression turned unsure, dark eyes turning to search her face for something.
“I’ve…. Really liked you, for a long time.” He hesitated, but plowed onward before he lost his nerve.
“I know we’re friends, and I don’t want to lose you because my feelings get in the way or something dumb like that.”
Dannie sat back on her heels, reaching a hand out to him and urging him to sit upright. As he wove his legs together, she plopped back onto her butt and looped her arms around her knees.
“I might have suspected something was up, but always figured I was being too sensitive to that kind of thing.” She saw the expression on his face change slightly, and continued.
“It’s not that I don’t like you, or would dislike dating you, I just haven’t given it much thought. Can I think about it?”
She could tell he was hitting his head on a wall internally, probably beating himself up for even saying anything.
“I’ll definitely get back to you tomorrow, okay?”
He nodded, and she muttered something about having to get home soon. A bummer way to end a party, but she did have to figure out what to say.
How DID someone say “Hey I acknowledge that you like me, but I’m too busy having a giant crush on a guy twice my age, who could probably be my parent. I want to hang with you, but suck his dick.” Without being entirely insensitive?
There probably wasn’t a way, to be honest.
He saw her to the door, with an odd look in his eye.
“Look, can I just...?”
She tilted her head, not entirely sure what he meant.
“Lemme just…”
He leaned forward, and she was too distracted by his previous words to really give the gesture much thought. She opened her arms for a hug, startling slightly when warm lips landed on her own instead.
Tucker pulled back slightly, his face asking something like ‘is this okay?’
“Um…”
She could only get a small word in before he was pressing forward again, this time grabbing her hips in his hands and pushing her gently against the wall.
“Mmmf- Hey! Off!”
She wiggled unhappily, pushing the young man away.
“What?”
“I said, Off. I don’t like being kissed like that.”
The boy pursed his lips, folding his arms.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
She flushed with some combination of anger and shame at her own reactive body. A brief thought flitted that the comment could have been a gentle teasing one, but it echoed so perfectly with what Antonio had said the night before that it just made her angry.
Without a word, she stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.
What an asshole.
Chapter 4
She stormed in through the back door, cursing quietly as her computer bag slipped from her shoulder and smacked the floor before she could catch it.
SO not in the mood for this.
“Honey, you’re home?”
“Yeah.”
She may have raised her voice, but there was no joy in the answer. She couldn’t believe Tucker! After all this time, you’d think he’d be a little less of an asshole. Dannie stormed up to her room, ignoring the gathered people in her living room when they greeted her. Antonio was still here? Her mom stood up-.
“Come back down when you’re finished settling in – we’ve got a surprise for you!”
Dannie paused in front of her doorway, exhaling slowly. Socializing seemed the opposite of appealing, at this point.
She spent a long couple minutes staring at the ceiling, shakily taking deep breaths. She cursed softly, flinging her phone off the edge of the bed, and grabbing an armful of pillows. That was dumb. Her screen could have cracked from that.
She thought she knew Tucker better than this… he wouldn’t say that kind of thing.
The fuming didn’t get her very far, and the impending meeting downstairs was not something she looked forward to.
After a moment of angrily ranting a handful of things, Dannie took a few deep breaths to calm herself and prepared to go downstairs. Before she could even open her bedroom door, she heard shuffling outside it.
The doorknob rattled, and swung open.
Her parents stepped out from the sides of the doorway, waving their heads goofily in an imitation of jazz hands.
“Surpriiiise!”
A raised eyebrow, and her mother laughed.
“Oh, don’t give me that look. Antonio said he’d like to take you up for a flight at night. Apparently there’s a chance of an Aurora Borealis tonight, and we all think this would be an amazing sight! You’ve never seen one, right?”
Perking up at the prospect, Dannie nodded.
“Your mother and I have already seen one, and tonight is date night, so we were thinking you and Tony could go up alone. Make sure to take pictures!”
“We’ll be visiting until you two have to leave, and head out for dinner and a movie once you’re gone. Sound good?”
Alone, with Antonio, for possibly hours inside a luxurious plane? Hello fantasies, lovely to meet you again.
“That sounds amazing! I’d love to.”
“Well then” her mother continued. “You should eat something before you go. I’d hate for you to be thinking about food when you should be getting blown away by the northern lights.”
Dannie laughed, following them down and rooting around in the fridge. She carefully avoided looking at the sharply dressed man across the room. If she really was as bad a liar as everyone said, avoiding talking to him entirely was probably the best bet for keeping their cover.
So she thought, until he chose to sit next to her at the table. All was well and good in her little world of reheated lasagna, until Antonio decided now would be a great idea to play footsie.
Getting partially aroused at the table, you’d think, would be a lot harder when your parents were watching. Antonio, ever the smooth talker, had engaged them in a deep conversation about the economics, Primary Election and other adult things that Dannie had yet to grow interest in.
More to her interest, was the warm toes tickling the side of her leg, climbing higher up her calf and delivering straight to her brain, fantasies that would be better left unsaid.
“Well, would you look at the time! Just about ready to leave for the flight? Got your camera?”
Dannie nodded, holding up her phone. Camera phones were lovely pieces of technology.
“Alright, we’ll see you two later. Have fun, now.”
She waved them off, smiling happily from the table and trying hard not to react to Antonio’s prior actions. As soon as the door closed, she rounded on him
“So are you going to do anything, or just tease?�
�
He laughed, tugging down his cuffs and giving her a sultry grin.
“Guess you’ll have to find out. Care to join me in the car?”
After they piled in, he held out his hand, grin turning practically cheshire when she slid their fingers together without hesitation. The road was far less awkward this time around, Dannie too busy trying to keep herself contained as the man’s thumb rubbed circles into her wrist, fingers curling to stroke the inside of her palm or run up her forearm.
His fingers somehow found her knee, giving it what could be an innocent squeeze. From the way it echoed a pulse in her wetness, it could hardly be called that. Those same fingers slowly crawled up her thigh, still tracing tiny designs and giving the faintest squeeze every few centimeters.
By the end of the trip, Dannie was slouched in her seat, face flushed and legs spread open in a clear invitation. One that Antonio refused to accept.
Placing the car in park, he leaned over toward her. She leaned the side of her face toward him, expecting a little peck. Instead, his breath whispered over her ear.
“I’d like you to call me by my last name. Singular this time.”
She blinked, turning slightly toward him.
“Master?”
He hummed, cheshire grin returning.
“If you want anything, call me that and ask politely. I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Eh?
That was… new.
And not unpleasant.
“C’mon, Danielle. It’s getting late. Time for a flight.”
