by T. Torrest
Jack figured that out before I did.
* * *
We make our way back to the party which has thinned out considerably in the time we’ve been gone.
Jack shakes a few hands of goodbye on our way to the pool area. He flops down to sit on one of the chaises and pulls me along to sit next to his legs.
Mr. and Mrs. Tanner materialize from the garden path, holding hands as they stop in front of our chair. Jack’s mom rests her head on her husband’s shoulder, saying, “I’m exhausted! But what a fun night. Livia, did you have a good time?”
I sit up and answer, “I did. This was an amazing party; everything was beautiful. Thank you so much.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t get much chance to talk, but I hope we’ll get to see you again soon.”
I catch Mr. Tanner sharing a smile with his son. I ignore it, though, and reply, “I hope so, too.”
Mr. Tanner says, “Alright, Eleanor. Livia, it’s been a pleasure. Jack, you alright to drive?” Jack assures him that yes, he’s fine. “Okay, then. Good night, you two. Safe trip home.”
Jack and I both say goodnight as Mr. and Mrs. Tanner head into the house.
The instant the door closes behind his parents, Jack grabs my hand, hoists me off the chaise, and runs me across the patio into the dark poolhouse in one swift motion. There’s a slam! behind me, before he abruptly presses his body into the length of mine, backing me into the closed door.
“I’ve been waiting to get you alone all night,” he whispers, before lowering his head and kissing me firmly.
It happens so quickly that I don’t have time to think as I automatically return his kiss. My lips are pressed to his for all of three seconds when my heart starts hammering and my knees go weak. My hands move on their own, sliding up his muscular arms to wrap around his nape.
We’d been so hands-off all night that the sudden contact is more intense because of it. With such limited visibility, my other senses are heightened, and I’m reveling in the minty taste of his lips, the smoky, shaving-cream scent of his skin, the sound of his breath mingling with mine, the thumping of his heart against my chest. The quiet, dark room is an isolation chamber. Outside of Jack and me; the world ceases to exist.
When my fingers wind through his hair, the slightest moan creaks from his throat. He wraps his arms tighter around me and parts his lips.
The second my tongue meets his, his entire body hardens against me. It’s a powerful feeling, to have him react so instantaneously to nothing more than my willingness to kiss him back. But hey, I’m having one hell of a reaction here, myself.
I expel a deep breath and Jack pulls back slightly, his sleepy eyes peering lazily down at me with a look of amusement.
Without asking, he leads me through the darkened room a few paces to the sofa and lays me down upon it. He slips off his shoes as he unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt, taking his time to roll the sleeves to his elbows, prolonging the agony. I’m left with no other choice but to lay here and wait. From the dim moonlight filtering in through the window, I’m able to make out his form, even if I can’t see his face.
But I know that he’s smiling.
So am I.
He finally lowers himself to the sofa and stretches out beside me, wrapping one leg across mine, tangling one of his strong hands around my waist and knotting the other one through my hair. Every motion is laced with authority, oozing pure sex from every pore in his body. My heart is racing like mad, a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Just how far is he willing to take things? Is this the night that he’ll finally cave? He wanted to wait until he liked someone and didn’t he just say he liked me?
To hell with our bet.
Sorry. Our arrangement.
I slide my fingertips up his spine and feel him shudder as his hips roll between my legs. I wrap them around his waist to push back, and from the tortured sound that rips from his chest, I know that he’s already crossed over to the dark side. His hand slips up my thigh, under my dress, grabbing my ass and pulling me tighter against his body, his insistent hard-on grinding against the thin layers of fabric between us.
His breathing is choppy as he buries his face against my neck. “Christ. We have to stop.”
“No. We don’t,” I immediately shoot back. I’m out of breath, my chest is heaving; his hips are still rocking against mine. I don’t want this feeling to end. “C’mon, Jack. Don’t you want to?”
I can hear a growl tear from his throat before he clenches his teeth and says, “What I want and what’s going to happen are two entirely different things.”
“What’s going to happen,” I whisper, unbuttoning his shirt, “is that you’re going to take off those pants… and then you’re going to pull down my panties… and then you’re going to fuck me with that huge cock of yours… And you’re going to do it now.”
His reserve cracks at that. The groan he lets out is tinged with pain, and there’s no disguising the ache in his voice as he answers, “Oh, fuck yeah…”
He lowers his head to kiss me again when a voice interrupts his movement. “Don’t mind me, Pew. I’m not even here.”
A light clicks on in the corner, flooding the entire room. There’s Sean, lounged out in a blue, upholstered chair.
I’m mortified. Shit. How much did he see? How much did he hear?
“Son of a bitch!” Jack spits out through clenched teeth. “What the fuck, Sean?”
Jack rolls more on top of me to cover my exposed skin as Sean stands up, gives a stretch, and laughs out, “In my defense, I was sleeping until about a minute ago.”
Jack isn’t in any state to stand up right at the moment, so he grabs his shoe off the floor and hurls it at his brother. “Get the hell out of here!”
Sean ducks as the shoe slams against the bookcase behind him. He turns his head to check out where it landed, then back to Jack as he raises his eyebrows and shoots him an impressed smirk. “Nice aim. Hey- you never gave me my birthday present.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jack curses, his voice rumbling against my chest. “It’s on a chair near the bar. Now get the fuck out of here!”
“You know what, Jack?” Sean asks, his tone losing some of its playfulness. “You’re being way too pissy about this whole thing. It’s not like I was trying to spy on you two. Who the hell even knew where you and Livia both disappeared to? You made Mom and Dad have this party just so we could meet her, and you’ve been keeping her to yourself all night.”
“Sean. Shut the fuck up!”
My mouth gapes open, shocked at Sean’s words. Jack can’t even look at me.
Sean must realize that he’s said too much, because he gives an apologetic shrug as he walks out the door. “Sorry,” he offers as he shuts it behind him.
Jack and I sit up on the couch, smoothing our hair and clothes back into place. I notice that my hands are shaking. “Is that true?”
He lets out with a heavy breath. “I could easily lie, here. You understand that, right?”
I bite my lip to keep from grinning. “But a gentleman like you, a man with such… high moral values would never do such a thing, right?”
“Wanna bet?” He grabs my hand and stares down at our intertwined fingers. “How ‘bout I just plead the fifth on this one?”
My smile gets the best of me as I find myself chuckling at his words.
“Deal.”
* * *
Jack pulls into the driveway of my house and I put a hand over my mouth, concealing a yawn. It’s late and I’m thinking of the early morning drive to Manasquan tomorrow morning. I’ll have to be on the road by eight if there’s any hope of avoiding the in-season Parkway traffic on Saturdays.
He puts the car in park and drops an elbow over the back of my seat. I look at him as he runs the back of his fingers across my cheek. “It’s late,” he says quietly. “Don’t invite me in.”
“Don’t be a tease,” I fire back before leaning over and gently kissing him on his smiling mouth. “I had a great time. Than
k you.”
He gets out of the car and runs around to my side to help me out. I laugh when he tells me, “I’m not being chivalrous. The passenger door on this piece of junk only opens from the outside.”
We reach my front door and Jack loops his arms around my waist, clamping his hands with mine behind my back. “Can I see you next week?”
I know he’ll be spending the entire week down at Wildwood which is way further south than our normal beach towns. He won’t be back until next Friday.
Suddenly, a week seems like a very long time.
“You know where to find me,” I answer.
Jack kisses me softly, and I find it hard to tear my mouth from his. I can’t quite believe it, but I’m starting to almost like the forced restraint. It’s actually pretty sweet that he’s so intent on making us wait—even if he did almost cave only an hour ago. Hell, we pretty much both reneged on our agreed-upon terms, but I’m going to write the incident off to temporary insanity on both our parts.
“Okay, you can come in,” I joke, knowing full well what his answer will be.
“You don’t play fair, Lips.”
I slug him in the chest. “Fine. Goodnight, Jack!” I sing-song as I giggle my way in the door.
Through the peep hole, I watch him adjust the front of his pants as he makes his way back to the car.
CHAPTER 18
Saturday, June 10, 1995
9:38 AM
The Beach House
Manasquan
At nine-thirty-eight, I knock on the front door to our beach cottage. A groggy Sam opens the door and looks as though she immediately regrets that decision as she squints and turns away from the glaring, white sun invading the darkened room.
I laugh at her hungover state. “Osprey last night?” I ask, as I drop my overnight bag and camera case in the middle of the small living room.
Sam groans, “No, Bar A. And let’s not talk about it. I’m going back to bed.”
Chuckling at her slow trek toward the front bedroom, I plop down on the sheet-covered couch and turn on the TV. The adrenaline that has energized me for the past twenty four hours starts to recede as my muscles relax against the surprisingly comfortable sofa.
I must have dozed off, because the next sight I view is Vix standing over me.
“So, did you sleep with him?”
I’m still half-dead to the world. “What?”
“Did you go to bed with Jack?”
I adopt a look of frustration. “No!”
My sister shakes her head and says, “You lose, Tess. First round’s on you tonight.”
Tess pipes in from the kitchen, “I would have slept with him.”
Rolling off the couch, I head to the fridge for some water. “I don’t remember him asking you,” I offer, tongue-in-cheek.
Tess throws a dish towel at me.
“Where are the rest of the girls?” I ask, putting the towel back on the counter.
Vix answers, “They’re already on the beach. I suggest you get yourself into a bathing suit if you want to do the same. Tess and I have already waited an hour for your snoring ass to wake up before heading up there, so get moving already!”
I grab my bags and bring them to the back bedroom, squeezing myself into the one linear foot of floor space between the bed and surrounding walls. “I don’t snore!” I snap as I shut the door in their laughing faces.
I put my bathing suit on under a pair of black shorts and an AC/DC baseball shirt, and we head up to the beach. It’s a positively glorious day, and I tell you that with the understanding that I’m not the type of girl who goes around using words like “glorious” to describe stuff. But what else can I say? The sun is shining; the breeze is blowing. If the ocean was a decent temperature, the day would be perfect. But hey. Two out of three ain’t bad.
Crap. Now I’ve got Meatloaf stuck in my head.
We find Isla and Sam fairly easily, even while they’re doing their best sloth impersonations, lying face-down on a beach sheet. Vix is pretty big on beach sheets. She’d compiled a list of all the stuff each one of us was expected to bring down for the summer, and right there at the top was “Two SETS of queen sheets.” Her thinking was that we’d of course use the fitted ones on the beds, but could use the flat ones to cover the gross couch in the living room, as a curtain across the exposed bay window, and of course, for laying out on the sand.
I’ve mentioned that Vix is an anal-retentive control freak, have I not?
Oh! And I don’t think I mentioned this one yet, either: It turns out that Isla has become quite the Kissing Bandit over the past couple of weekends. She said she may as well take advantage of the fact that we’re staying in MANasquan. So far, she’s racked up five different guys from three different locations, and her goal is to hit one hundred by the end of the summer. With only fourteen weeks to go, I figure she better step up her weekly average if she wants to meet her quota. It’s a lofty goal in any case.
She and Sam wake up from their face-down comas when they see us setting up next to them. Sammy turns her face toward me and groans out, “You have a nice time at your party, Livi-Girl?”
“I did!” I answer. I must have said it a bit too enthusiastically, however, because all four girls stop what they’re doing to gape at me in a blank stare. “What?” I ask.
Tess is the first to pipe up. “You filthy liar! You totally slept with him!”
“I didn’t. I swear.”
“Bullshit. That’s your just-got-laid voice.”
I laugh, but assure her I’m just feeling happy.
“I don’t know, Liv…” Vix busts. “I’m thinking you really like this one.”
I stammer as I say, “Well, of course I like him. He’s a great guy. And he’s really talented. And funny. And hot.”
Tess’s mouth drops open. “You’re totally buying into this thing! Jeez, girlfriend. You might be in over your head, here. You’re not the type of person who can handle dating a eunuch.”
“He’s not a eunuch!” I laugh out. “And there’s nothing to handle. It’s just… I kind of get it now. I get that it’ll be nice to wait.” I have a sudden flash of Jack pressing himself to me the night before, whispering in my ear, I’ve been waiting to get you alone all night... and it makes me wonder if I’m equipped to handle anything sensibly in his presence. “It’ll be better if I love him first.”
The leading comment slips from my mouth, and I blink back a stunned expression at having actually spoken those words aloud. I couldn’t have possibly meant what I said, could I? I definitely did not mean what I said. Right? Yes.
Tess isn’t buying it. She’s looking at me as if I’ve grown a second head as she asks, “Do you?”
I’m so caught up in my blunder that I don’t register the question. “Do I what?”
“Do you love him?”
I think about Jack’s lazy grin, the way his strong arms feel around me, and the way his lips feel on me, combined with the way he challenges me and laughs with me and busts my chops at every turn. He’s incredibly handsome, extremely talented, and unbelievably funny. I can’t think of anyone who’s ever looked at me quite the way that he does, liquefying my insides when he aims those heavy-lidded, green-blue-gray eyes at me. More than that, he’s the first guy to ever make me see I’m worth more than what I’ve previously allowed myself to believe. No other guy has ever done that before.
But the L-word? I wouldn’t recognize such a Hallmark-card emotion if it jumped up and bit me on the ass. How would I know about something like that? It’s hard to gauge a feeling I’ve never had before.
“It’s too soon,” I finally answer.
The girls let the subject drop after that and I’m relieved. I soak up the sun, enjoying the beautiful, breezy day on the beach. I’m guiltily happy that my friends are fighting off last night’s boozing as they lay practically lifeless on the sand. I’m grateful for the silence and that they decided to leave me alone with my thoughts.
I have a lot to think abo
ut.
I try to be lulled by the sounds of the ocean rhythmically lapping its way onto shore, and I’m sure my body appears relaxed, but in actuality, my mind is positively racing. I dig my feet into the sand, forming two damp troughs, flicking the occasional shell fragments away with my toes.
Rolling the conversation around in my head, I try to make sense of what I had unwittingly revealed. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe Tess was right. Am I in over my head?
With every other guy I’ve ever been with, I tried to talk myself into what I automatically felt when I was with Jack. I made excuses for their behavior; I willingly joined in with their promiscuous lifestyle, lied to myself that I wanted to keep them at arms’ length.
But Jack isn’t having any of that noise. He won’t allow me to pull my usual hit and run. He came up with this ridiculous bet in order to ensure that I can’t run away.
Sorry. Our arrangement.
I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it.
Isla’s muffled voice from under a towel breaks my train of thought. “Leggett’s tonight, ladies?”
I respond, “Cool!” while the other three girls groan at yet another night of imposed alcoholism.
“Leggett’s is a freaking sauna,” Sam moans. “And I’m too hung-over to even think about it.”
“Oh, a little hair o’ the dog and you’ll be fine,” Isla counters before blurting eagerly, “Hey Tess! Can I borrow your purple top tonight?”
Tess grunts out, “You can have it if you shut up and let me go back to sleep.”
CHAPTER 19
Date #3: Friday, June 16, 1995
11:19 AM
The Boardwalk
Seaside Heights
I played hooky from work and headed down to the Manasquan house a day early. It was pretty cool to have the place all to myself last night, even if I didn’t take much advantage of that situation beyond sprawling out on the sofa to watch a rerun of Melrose Place with a box of Snackwells. Normally, we’re forced to enact a three-girl minimum, cramming our bodies onto the lone couch in the living room.
