by Julie Kriss
I owed my best friend for that. He’d joined because I had, because he was worried I’d get myself hurt. We’d both been young and stupid, with no idea what was ahead of us. We’d been through thick and thin together, and Dean had paid for it with a bout of depression and anxiety that had nearly paralyzed him and sent him back into civilian life. I’d followed him out of the Marines, because I was done with it. I’d felt like it was more important to be with my friend than to stay where I wasn’t doing any good anymore.
“It was harder on you than you let on, wasn’t it?” Megan asked. She was looking at me now. “You give off this vibe since you came home that it was no big deal, but it had an effect on you.”
“No one wants to hear that shit,” I said. “I mean, my mother is already worried that I’m a depressed alcoholic.”
Megan’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Because I smell like alcohol all the time, and I sleep late every day.”
“But that’s because of your job.” She paused. “You did tell her about your job, right?”
“I have now. But there’s no way I’m talking to her about how the Marines messed with me. I’ll just shut up and deal, thanks.”
Her jaw went hard, and she looked out the window again. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “You’re right. Superhero powers sound really good. Healing, kicking ass. I’m in.”
“He’s not a superhero,” I corrected her. “Wolverine is a mutant.”
“What?”
“He’s a mutant,” I said. “He’s mutated. His genetics are all fucked up.”
“Now I wish he was real,” she said. “He sounds like my kind of guy.”
We stopped at a roadside place for lunch, and after we ate Megan sat at one of the picnic tables outside while I stood by the trees at the edge of the parking lot, stretching before I had to get back in the car. She was quiet, looking away toward the highway where the cars whizzed by, her expression serious. I watched her for a minute and then I stepped in front of her, so she turned and looked at me.
“Okay,” I said. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“The thing,” I said. “The thing you have going on in your life that has nothing to do with me, that you haven’t told anyone.”
“I’m not telling you,” she said.
“Since you’re trying to forget it by having sex with me, you may as well tell me,” I said. She went red, and I rolled my hands in a bring it motion. “Shoot.”
“I never—I never said that,” she said.
“Actually, you did.”
She looked pained. “Jason, I—”
“Megan, it’s fine. Just tell me. You’ll feel better.” She still looked uncertain, so I said, “I never tell anyone anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I promise I’ll never repeat it. What do you have to lose?”
She looked at me for another long minute, thinking. And then she said, “Fine, Carsleigh. I’ll tell you. Sit down.”
Fourteen
Megan
Jason sat at the picnic table next to mine, his back to the table, his hands folded over his stomach, his long legs stretched out, listening as I talked. Once again I noticed every detail about him, from the way his hot-as-fuck watch glinted on his wrist to the way his unshaven scruff looked on his neck to the way his knees sprawled carelessly in his worn jeans. His knees. It was fucking embarrassing.
A minute ago he’d been stretching, his hands locked at the back of his neck, his elbows up, his shoulders and back flexing beneath the navy blue shirt. I’d pretended not to watch, but I’d seen every luscious move.
I figured nothing could kill the mood faster than the C-word, but as I told him about my mother’s genes and Dr. Pfeiffer and what exactly I was up against, he didn’t even flinch. The only thing I left out was the part about possibly passing my genes on to my kids, because that topic felt personal. I had no intention of talking about reproducing with Jason Carsleigh.
Jason didn’t interrupt. He just listened, and when I finished he said, “Holy shit, Megan. I am really fucking sorry.”
I blinked. Once again he had the talent for saying the right thing at the right time, cutting through the bullshit and just saying sorry like he meant it. I hadn’t thought out what would make me feel better, if that was even possible, but that wasn’t too bad. And I already felt lighter after spilling everything.
“So if you have this mutation,” Jason said, “your chances of getting cancer are statistically a lot higher.”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you don’t really know.”
“No.”
“Shit,” he said again, running a hand through his hair. “No wonder you’ve been stressed out.”
“No,” I said, pointing at him. “That’s not how it works. I don’t get a free pass because of this. Don’t let me off the hook for being a bitch.”
That brought a grin to his face. “If you insist.”
“I’m healthy right now,” I said. “I feel fine. Maybe nothing will happen. There are people who are already sick, who have it a lot worse than me. I’ve seen what cancer can do, and that hasn’t happened to me yet. So I’m just going to live in the moment.”
“I agree,” Jason said. “Live in the moment. It’s a nice day, you have the day off work, my sister made you a dress. And you’re showing up to your ex’s wedding with a hot guy you’re having sex with.”
“I’m not going to tell people we’re having sex, Jason.”
He smiled. “You won’t have to.”
My cheeks flushed. I shook my head. “And I never said you were hot.”
“Please,” he said, motioning to himself. “I’ve been told I have a hotness superpower. I could join the fucking X-Men over here.”
“Oh God, what have I done?” I stood up. “You’re so spoiled by women falling all over you. Let’s go.”
He stood up to follow me, and he looked like he was going to debate that, but his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it and frowned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. He moved to put the phone back in his pocket, but it went off again. And a third time.
“See what I mean?” I said. “Girls are texting you right now.”
He shrugged, his expression closed down. “It’s nothing important,” he said. “Let’s roll.”
By six o’clock, we were lost. There was a detour off the interstate, and we were on a back road somewhere, with I-90 long gone behind us. The sun was going down behind the thick trees, we were tired of driving, and we were both starving.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “I can’t believe the map and the GPS failed us.” The map was useless, and we were far into the land of no signal. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay, I think we should stop for the night and rest. We’ll get back on the interstate tomorrow.”
“No argument from me,” Jason said. “It’s nice around here, anyway.”
He was right. We were somewhere in the Finger Lakes in New York, and this far off the interstate there was nothing but trees, fresh air, and water. We drove down a back road until we saw a sign advertising an inn ahead. There were no street lights, and Jason navigated through the growing dusk as we looked for the turnoff to the inn.
“Well, I guess this will be better than a Motel 6 for the night,” I said. And more expensive, I tried not to fret.
The inn was set back in the trees, a three-story building surrounded by beautiful gardens. Yellow light was starting to glow from the big windows, and balconies in the rooms overlooked the large front terrace. The property backed onto a crisp, clear lake behind it. It looked like the kind of place you’d go on a honeymoon, not spend the night with a guy you roped in to being your wedding date. I swallowed and tried not to panic about the cost.
The woman at the front desk beamed at Jason, barely looking at me, and listened raptly as he told her we’d gotten lost and needed a place to stay for the night. Moms s
woon over Jason, grandmas, everyone, Dean had said. He’s that guy. This woman was old enough to be his mother, but she was so smitten she gave us a discount on the room and smiled at me happily as she handed him the key. “You lucky girl,” she said to me when Jason turned away to grab our bags. “Such a lovely boyfriend.”
I didn’t bother arguing with her. I was too distracted by the fact that Jason had gotten us a single room.
“Hey,” I said, following him as he lugged our bags up the stairs to the second floor. “You only got one room.”
“It’s cheaper than two,” he said sensibly.
“I never agreed to be roommates on this trip.”
“Relax.” He’d reached the top landing, and even though he was carrying all our bags, he wasn’t even out of breath. “I got a room with two beds.”
The room was nothing short of beautiful. It had two big beds, a desk, and a sliding door to a balcony that overlooked the lake. It definitely looked like a romantic honeymoon suite, except for the two beds. I tried not to think about the two beds.
Still, despite everything I started to feel more relaxed the minute I came through the door. It had been a long day, and I had barely been sleeping since the appointment with Dr. Pfeiffer. When I sat on the edge of one of the beds and felt myself sink into it, I almost groaned.
Jason glanced at his watch. “Room service?” he said. “I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I’m going back out to the dining room.”
So we ordered sandwiches and beer from room service, and ate it out on the balcony, watching night fall over the water. It was beautiful, the air crisp and clean, and I felt my muscles relaxing. I slowly stopped worrying about beds or money or Dr. Pfeiffer or Kyle’s wedding or the fact that the woman at the front desk had thought Jason was my boyfriend. I just sipped my cold beer and watched the water and the trees, with Jason sitting next to me.
“I’m going to wash up,” Jason said at last. “Then the bathroom is yours.” He got up and left me alone. I listened to the crickets until I heard a buzzing sound. Jason had left his phone on the arm of his chair, and it was buzzing again.
I wondered who it was. Did he have that many girls following him around? He’d always had girls crazy about him in high school—he wasn’t a player, exactly, just a guy that every girl had a crush on. The good guy, while Dean was the rebel. He wasn’t in high school anymore, but he was even more gorgeous now than he’d been then, and it couldn’t be hard for him to meet women. He worked in a nightclub, after all. I wondered if it had just been that easy for him after Charlotte, if he had just picked up a train of adoring girls like he always had.
The thought made me feel sour, and when I heard him come out of the bathroom I picked up his phone without looking at it. Inside the room again, I tossed it at him. “You should answer whoever that is,” I said. “I’m taking a shower.”
As I stood under the hot spray in the shower—which was as luxurious as a spa—I thought about whoever was on the other end of his phone. And then I thought about the fact that whoever she was—or whoever they were—he wasn’t here with her. He was here with me.
I’m going to fuck you, he’d told me this morning. I leaned my head back under the spray and heard the words in my mind, felt the way he’d kissed me. Maybe we weren’t made for the long term, Jason and me. But we were alone here in this beautiful hotel room, with nowhere else to go. I already knew how good it was when we had sex, how good he made me feel. And besides, I might not get long-term anything. I didn’t know.
I finished my shower and towelled myself off. Wrapping the towel around me, I walked back out into the room.
It was dark, except for a single bedside lamp. Jason was lying on one of the beds, propped up on the pillows. He had taken off the navy blue shirt, and he was wearing his jeans and white t-shirt, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. He was holding the TV remote, figuring out the buttons, but when he saw me he froze. His eyebrows went up.
I walked over to him and got on the bed. I straddled his lap. He dropped the remote. I dropped the towel.
I leaned over him, my hands on the headboard behind him, letting him see all of me.
“I think you promised me something,” I said.
Fifteen
Jason
I didn’t need to be told twice. I leaned up and kissed her, pushing my fingers into her damp hair, running my tongue over her luscious bottom lip. She wound her hands into the cotton of my t-shirt and kissed me hard, sucking on me, tugging the shirt up. I liked it, but I wasn’t about to give in so fast. I’d promised her this morning that I’d fuck her, and now I had my chance. We’d done the fast-fuck-on-the-couch thing. Now I had all night, and Megan naked and wet on my lap, and I was going to do this properly.
I moved my hands out of her hair and down the back of her neck, her back, her waist, her hips, still kissing her while my hands stroked her. She sighed in my mouth and her muscles relaxed, and she moved her hips against me, an unconscious, rolling grind that was better than any strip club had ever seen. I stroked down her hips and grabbed her ass, my hands cupping her, my fingers digging into her. She was warm and supple and perfect. She did that rolling motion again and I gripped her harder, stilling her, pressing her into the hard fly of my jeans, letting her feel me pulsing beneath it.
I broke the kiss and leaned up, away from the headboard. Now she was flush in my lap, her bare knees gripping my waist. I dug my fingers into her ass again, hard, and she bit her lip. She tugged my t-shirt up again and I let go of her so she could pull it up and over my head, throwing it away.
She was beautiful naked—fucking amazing. Her hips fit perfectly under my hands, curved into the dip of her waist as if they were designed to drive me crazy. Her breasts had the perfect shape of my memory, proportioned to her torso like a sculptor had made them, the nipples cherry-red and hard. I cupped them, rubbing my thumbs over her nipples, and then I moved one hand up to the slim line of her neck, holding her gently and kissing her hard as I moved my other hand down between her legs.
She made a soft sound and gripped my shoulders. She smelled like damp woman and shower soap and hot, musky sex. I held her in place and rubbed her, feeling how wet her pussy was as she ground against my hand.
She broke the kiss, still moving against me. “Jason,” she said, her voice a husky whisper. “Get naked.”
“Maybe,” I said, kissing along the side of her neck, slowing my fingers inside her. “Are you begging?”
In reply she dropped her hands from my shoulders and worked at the button and fly of my jeans, which were damp from her. She leaned in so close her breasts brushed my bare chest and her breath warmed my neck. “I need you naked,” she breathed.
It was like a bolt of lightning going through me. My heart pounded in my chest. My dick pulsed in my jeans. For a second I couldn’t believe I had this girl on my lap, naked, trusting me completely, asking for what she wanted.
I need you naked.
Even with sex, I had always been the good guy. I asked girls out first. Took them on dates. Paid for dinner. Went at the right pace, made them come first. Called them afterward.
But Megan… Megan was the only girl I hadn’t been nice to. That night at the party was the only time something like that had happened to me. The only night I’d ever fooled around—naked—with a girl I wasn’t dating. The only time I’d ever been so drunk I didn’t even remember who she was. Even when I tried to make it up to her, I ended up saying the wrong thing, or giving her an orgasm in the middle of a rainy park, or fucking her quick and hard on her couch. I couldn’t seem to do anything nice around Megan.
And she didn’t care.
I gripped her hips and pushed her backward off my lap, tossing her on her back on the bed. Then I got my knees under me and leaned over her, braced on my arms. I took one of her nipples in my mouth as she gasped and dug her hands into my hair.
I moved to the other nipple and sucked hard as I pushed her knees apart. Her back arched and I moved my hand
down to my jeans, shoving them and my boxers down just enough to free my cock. I stroked it and let her nipple go. Her gaze dropped down and she watched, my body hovering over hers, my hand stroking my dick. Her eyes went dark with lust and her breathing went shallow, her chest moving up and down.
“Is this what you want?” I asked her.
Her gaze stayed fixed on my hand. “Please tell me you brought condoms,” she said.
“I did.” I took my hand off my cock and wiped pre-come onto her lower lip with my thumb. “I brought a box. I told you, I can go all night.”
She looked up at me, and I knew no guy had ever been this dirty with her before. There was a split second when I wondered if I’d gone too far. Then her tongue came out and she licked her lower lip, slowly, in a thorough sweep that made my balls hurt.
“Bring it,” she said huskily.
“You asked,” I told her. “Roll over.”
Sixteen
Megan
There had never been anything as exciting in my life, not a single thing as sharply, perfectly thrilling, as Jason Carsleigh telling me to roll over.
I felt like someone had spiked my blood, like I had something hot and prickling in my veins. My skin was so sensitive I felt every thread of the sheets beneath me, every whisper of air. As he backed off the bed and stood, pulling his clothes the rest of the way off, I obeyed him and rolled onto my stomach, my nipples pressing into the bed with an almost unbearable ache.
There was movement behind me, a rustling. Then his voice, low and even. “Ass up, Megan.”
I sucked in a breath. I had always considered myself a risk-taker, the kind of person who didn’t play things safe and easy—because I’d had an unconventional life, chosen an unconventional path. But now I realized that was complete, utter bullshit. Because I had never taken a risk, a real one, with another person. I didn’t make friends. My boyfriends had been losers, nobodies, easy to leave. They were around, and then they weren’t. No big deal. I kept my walls up with everyone.
