by Leisa Rayven
I draw a cross on my chest.
He pulls his key ring out of his pocket and uses a small brass key to unlock the bottom drawer.
“I don’t fucking believe I’m doing this,” he mutters as he pulls the drawer open.
I step forward and peer inside. It’s full of plain, fabric-covered books.
“Um … okay.”
He’s waiting for a reaction. The only one I can give him is confusion. “I’m sorry, Holt, I don’t understand.”
He sighs. “Remember when I read your diary? I was a total asshole and yelled at you for writing all that shit down where people could find it? Well, this is why. I was scared someone might find these. That you might find these one day, and …”
What he’s saying becomes clear. “Oh my God.”
He bends down and picks up one of the books.
“These are all … ?”
“Yeah.”
He flips open the front cover and holds it up for me to see:
The Journal of Ethan Holt. Keep the fuck out.
“You keep diaries!”
He drops the book back into the drawer and shoves it closed with his foot. “Journals, Taylor, not diaries. There’s a difference.”
“Oh, please. How is a journal different from a diary?”
“It just is, okay? Men don’t keep diaries.”
“Well, obviously they do.”
“Goddammit, you said you wouldn’t mock.”
I hold up my hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” We’re silent for a moment, then I ask, “So what do you write in there?”
“The same sort of stuff you write in yours, I suppose.”
“Really? So you’re also a sexually frustrated virgin who’s obsessed with a handsome actor’s penis?”
He sighs and drops his head.
“I’m sorry,” I say, laughing. “But you gave me such a hard time after you read my diary. Aren’t I allowed to have a little fun?”
“A little,” he says grudgingly.
“So, do I feature in your diary?”
His ears pink, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. Not these, but the one back at my apartment.”
“Are you ever going to let me read something? Quid pro quo, and all that.”
“Not in this lifetime. Or the next, for that matter.” He looks at the floor, and I feel bad for poking fun. Revealing this to me is a huge step for him, and I shouldn’t make light of it.
I walk over and touch his face, then rise on my toes to kiss him lightly. “Thank you. For showing me. It means a lot.”
He looks away. “Yeah. Sure.”
I kiss him again, longer this time, and after a moment’s hesitation, he responds. Strong arms wind around me as he kisses me more passionately, and just as I register his giant hands are cupping my butt, I hear a throat clear behind us.
We both turn to see Maggie in the doorway, trying not to smile. “Sorry to interrupt, but dinner’s ready.”
Without another word, she disappears.
Holt exhales and drops his head to my shoulder. I notice his hands remain on my ass.
“Well, I guess now we don’t have to tell Mom we’re dating.”
“Nope. Guess not.”
When we get downstairs, Elissa and Maggie are already seated. Tribble guards a chair I guess to be Ethan’s. I swear she sneers at me.
“Sit, please,” Maggie says and gestures to the remaining place settings. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starving.”
Tribble growls as I sit next to Holt, and he chastises her under his breath.
When his mom passes him a plate of pasta, he clears his throat and says, “Mom, I … uh … I wanted to tell you earlier about Cassie and me, but … well …”
“It’s fine, sweetheart,” Maggie says and offers me a bowl of salad. “I already knew.”
Holt shoots an accusing glare at his sister.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” she says and holds up her hands defensively. “I haven’t said a thing.”
“Then how did she know?”
“Sweetheart,” Maggie says, “when you’re a mother, it’s easy to read the emotions of your children. It’s been obvious to me you have feelings for Cassie, and I’m glad you finally acted upon them. I’m very happy for you.”
Holt looks dubious as she hands him the salad.
“Oh, all right,” she says. “Jack Avery called earlier to say that my bet last week had paid off.”
Holt’s face drops, along with his fork. “What?!”
Maggie wrings her hands in embarrassment. “Well, darling, Elissa told me the odds Jack was offering, and after I saw you two in Romeo and Juliet, I figured it was a sure thing.”
“Mom! Jesus!”
“Darling, don’t be mad. Momma needed a new pair of shoes.”
He rubs his eyes and groans.
My nervous energy manifests as too-shrill laughter, and as I snort indelicately, three surprised faces turn to me. Four, if you count the dog.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I try unsuccessfully to stop. “But that’s kind of awesome.”
Maggie laughs along with me, and Elissa joins in.
Ethan shakes his head. “Why are all the women in my life determined to torture me?”
I lean over and kiss him on the cheek. I’m rewarded with a hint of a smile.
The rest of the meal passes quickly, and I’m blown away by the amazing feast Maggie has whipped up. By the time I’m finished, I can barely move. My poor, distended stomach is in both heaven and hell, and I curse the years of eating my mom’s sad excuse for cuisine, in which the chickpea was held sacred and anything that tasted good, like butter or salt, was treated like a deadly poison to be avoided at all costs.
As she serves dessert, Maggie questions me about myself and my family, and even though I’m usually nervous about being scrutinized so openly, it doesn’t seem like she’s being nosy. She just wants to get to know her son’s girlfriend.
A couple of times I catch her watching when Holt and I talk to each other, and she has that same optimistic look in her eye my mother used to get whenever she tried to convert me to veganism. I’m hoping Holt and I work out better than my short-lived relationship with Tofurkey and rice milk.
As for Holt, I like to watch him interact with his mother and sister. He and Elissa fight incessantly, but it’s good natured, despite his efforts to seem like a badass. And the way he is with his mom? It makes me all kinds of swoony.
They say you can tell a lot about how a man will treat you by the way he treats his mother. If that’s true, I expect to be treated like a queen.
TWENTY
DESPERATION
Four days later, Thanksgiving is over and we're back in Westchester. Holt's barely gotten my apartment door open before I'm on him, kissing him with everything I have.
He drops my bag in surprise, and we almost trip over it.
“Cassie, slow down …”
“Don't tell me to slow down,” I say, and push him the short distance to the couch. “Four days, Ethan. Four days of interminable fondling, interrupted orgasms, and family drama. The time for being slow has passed. Now, please, shut up and kiss me.”
Whatever he's going to say next is smothered by my mouth, and I straddle him as I bury my fingers in his hair.
He feels amazing. Tastes amazing. How one man can taste so good is completely beyond me.
I know I'm out of control, but he's made me this way. Our weekend with his family ended up being pretty enjoyable, despite some tension when his dad was around. But being in close quarters with him for twenty-four hours a day was sexual torture. Between sightseeing with his sister and family meals, we rarely got time alone. And when we were, he'd always stop before we got to the good stuff. The whole weekend turned out to be one giant round of excruciating foreplay, and if he doesn't stop stalling and give me some relief pretty damn pronto, there's going to be a girl-parts rebellion the likes of which he's never seen. I'm wound tighter than Jane Fonda
's latest facelift, goddammit.
“Take off your shirt.” I kiss all over his face, then move down his neck while I add in some nibbling, because I know it makes him crazy.
“Wait … just— Oh, fuck …”
I bite down at the point where his neck meets his shoulder and suck hard. He pushes his pelvis up so suddenly, he nearly bucks me off his lap.
“Jesus, Cassie!”
“Shirt! Off!”
I tug and yank it over his head. His hair looks like I've electrocuted him. With the way my neurons are firing right now, I probably could.
When I throw his shirt away, it smacks into the lamp beside us and knocks it to the floor in an explosion of porcelain.
He drags his mouth away from me long enough to assess the damage. “You murdered the lamp.”
I circle my hips. “Stop talking. Lamp's not important. Getting naked is.”
I fumble as I unbutton my shirt. He says something in protest, but I tear it off anyway. It lands on the floor next to the lamp corpse and leaves me just in my bra. I press my chest to his and exhale in relief. I want to lick him all over. I start on his neck and revel in the salty and sweet of his skin, as I move my hips to rub against him.
Ohhh, he's hard and perfect. All of his other parts taste good, and I wonder if that would, too.
Just thinking about it makes me even more desperate, and something's seriously gotta give before I burst into flames.
“Pants,” I say, and it's barely even a word. More like a hoarse bark.
“What?” He's doing something amazing to my boobs.
I can barely form words, but I try. “Holt, for the love of all that's holy, take off your damn pants!”
My yelling shocks him into stillness, so I take matters into my own hands. He makes vague protests as I fumble with his belt, but at this point, all of his arguments are invalid.
His belt is the stupid type that just has a solid metal plate held together with pins or something. I tug at it, frustrated.
“Crap …”
“Cassie—”
“How the frack does this thing work?!” I grab it with both hands and pull and push in an attempt to make it come apart with brute force, but it won't budge. “Dammit, Ethan, help me!”
I feel like I'm in a disaster movie, and that belt is the iceberg that's going to sink the good ship Orgasm. It must be destroyed.
At last, the buckle gives way, and I make a small victory noise before I frantically unbutton his jeans.
“I want you,” I say as I push my hand into his boxers.
Oh, God, yes. That, right there. That's what I want.
“Ohhhhh … Jesus.” His eyes glaze over when I close my hand around him.
“Please, Ethan.” I'm so whiny, I'm almost ashamed. “Ruby isn't going to be home until tomorrow. We have the whole place to ourselves. Please.”
The look on his face tells me he's about to say something I don't want to hear, so I kiss him to shut him up and stroke him slowly. He moans and grips my thighs. Neither of those things makes me any less frantic.
I stand and unbutton my jeans then tug them down to my knees in record time. I try standing on them to get them off, but they're skinny jeans, and the stupid things won't go over my giant feet.
“Dammit!”
I yank my right foot up and try to pull it free, but I end up overbalancing and face-plant into Ethan's crotch. My chin hits something soft, and he doubles over and cups himself.
“Fuuuuuuck, woman …”
“Sorry! Oh my God, I'm so sorry!”
He collapses sideways on the couch. I try to stand, desperate to help in some way, but my feet are still encased in my jeans, so I just end up falling over again.
“Fracking frack!”
Holt groans, his face half turned into the couch cushion. “Taylor, if you're going to be a badass who destroys her boyfriend's balls, you're going to have to start using real swear words.”
I sit on the ground and tug at my jeans until my feet are free, then I kneel in front of him. “I'm so sorry. Are you okay?”
His voice is strained when he says, “Well, I don't have the problem of coming in record time anymore, that's for damn sure.”
I lean down and stroke his hair. “I'm sorry.”
“You keep saying that. It doesn't help.”
“I don't know what else to do.”
He eyes my jeans, which are like a denim pretzel beside me. “You're the only person I know who can turn getting undressed into an extreme sport. What the hell is the rush?”
“I just … I want you.”
“I want you, too, but that doesn't mean we have to have sex this very second. We haven't even been to third base yet.”
“Yes, we have.”
He scoffs. “No, we haven't. I'd remember you going down on me. Or me going down on you, for that matter.”
All of the blood that isn't currently pulsing down south now rushes to my face. “You haven't— I mean … That's third base?” I have a flash of self-consciousness about him being all face-friendly down there. “I … uh … I thought that was fourth base.”
He sits up and frowns. “Cassie, fourth base is sex. How many bases do you think there are?”
I don't know, but I want him to teach me about all of them.
I lean in to kiss him, but he pulls away. “Just … stop, for a second okay? What's going on with you?”
“I'm sorry, I just—” I slump back onto my heels, feeling frustrated and foolish. “You make me crazy, and I want to do stuff to you and have you do stuff to me, but you keep stopping and I …” My eyes prickle. I can't pretend his continued rejections don't hurt.
“Come here.” He pulls me up onto the couch, and we lie side by side.
I sigh when he grazes the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “I just get the feeling I want this more than you do, and that sucks, you know?”
He looks at me like I've accused him of liking Adam Sandler movies. “You think—” He shakes his head. “You think I don't want you? Are you fucking serious?”
He runs his hand down my side and reaches the bare skin of my thigh. “How can you possibly think for even one second I don't—” He looks down. “Fuck me, what are you wearing?”
My panties and bra don't match, but he doesn't seem to care. He runs one fingertip around the edge of my lacy boy shorts. It's the closest he's ever come to delving beneath the fabric, and my heart rate immediately goes into overdrive.
“You like these?”
He closes his hand over my hip. “I like you. Your panties are just a bonus. If you understood … if you had any idea how much I—” He looks at me, eyes heavy and dark. “Cassie, I want you, all the time. Too much.”
He leans forward to cover my mouth with his, and the light suction almost distracts me from the way he runs his hand down my leg to grip the spot just under my knee.
“I have to be careful with you,” he says between soft, slow kisses. “Because if I screw this up …” He kisses my neck, almost talking to himself. “I really don't want to screw this up.”
“You won't.” I take his face in both hands to make him look at me. “Besides, what's the worst that could happen, right?”
He grazes fingers across my stomach, then slowly moves up to my breasts. He teases me there as he kisses my neck, then my chest, then the swells at the top of my bra. Just when I think he can't inflame me any more, he moves his hands lower. And lower. Then he's right there, over my panties, touching gently at first, then pressing harder, making my breathing shallow. He takes control of my pleasure like he has an instruction manual, watching my face the whole time to gauge my reaction.
How is it possible? How can he know what to do to my body when I'm still fumbling and clueless?
Within sixty seconds, he has me closer to orgasm than I can get in ten minutes on my own. I subconsciously rock against his hand, to try and find the magical fulcrum of sensation that will tip me over the edge.
“That look,” he says,
as I press my head back into the cushions. “That belongs to me. The way your mouth drops open. Your eyelids flutter. That look is all mine.”
Then I gasp, because he pushes into my panties and brushes aside the lace. He's never done that before, and ohhhhh, dear God, his fingers …
His perfect, virtuosic fingers.
I squeeze my eyes shut as he touches parts he's never touched before.
He groans, too, and presses his forehead against mine. “Jesus … so soft. And bare. What the fuck are you trying to do to me?”
“Ruby.” I'm panting and barely coherent.
“No, I'm Ethan. But if there's some awesome lesbian tale you'd like to tell me about you and your roommate, I'm all ears.” He presses harder.
“No,” I say, barely able to get the words out. “Ruby forces me to get Brazilians. That's why I'm bare. It hurts like hell.”
He moves his hand faster, and I can't keep my eyes open.
“Right now, Ruby is my hero. I've never felt anything like this.”
“Oh, God … Me neither.”
Then it feels like he's kissing and touching everywhere at once, and everything is hard breaths and low noises. He tightens and coils me, until I think I might pass out from the intensity.
“I love making you come,” he whispers, right before it happens. My back arches, and all the tightrope strands of me snap and unfurl.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God …
He murmurs his approval as he watches me spiral through layers of pleasure, and whispers encouragement until I'm panting and boneless beside him.
Wow.
Just … wow.
The last few shudders fade, and I melt into his arms, beyond relaxed. Endless days of frustration and sexual tension disappear, and I'm so heavily satisfied, I can't move. Thank God at least one of us knows how to get me off.
He pulls my panties back into place. I take deep breaths, but it seems to take forever for my pounding heart to slow down.
When I open my eyes, I see him looking at me with an expression that makes my pulse race again. But as soon as our eyes meet, something shifts, and his emotional shutters slide down.
I stroke his face in an effort to keep him with me. “That was … amazing.”
