by Deanna Chase
“Jeez. Thanks a lot for that,” I said.
“What? I thought you liked him.”
I ground my jaw, not answering. Still feeling like a jerk, I went back to pouring salt into the row of little glass salt-shakers, not looking at her.
“How the hell did he even find me?” I muttered.
“Didn’t you tell him where you worked?” she said.
I fought to remember. I must have been more buzzed that night than I’d realized. I remembered something about where each of us worked, from back when we were first talking near the dance floor, half-shouting in each other’s ears to be heard over the band. I seemed to remember him saying something about computer games. But it’s not like we’d done a ton of talking. Besides, I’d had all of that make-up on.
“How does he even recognize me?” I said, more finishing the thought than really aiming the question at Cass.
“Maybe it’s not your face that stuck in his mind,” she smirked.
I gave her a lifted-eyebrow and a look, and Cass laughed.
“What?” She walked over to the table where I worked. “What’s your problem? You’re not telling me something.”
When I didn’t answer, I could feel her stare burning into my profile.
“You’re blushing!” she pronounced. When I gave her another dirty look, Cass laughed outright. “Oh my god! That’s where you went that night. You were blowing him in the bathroom! Little miss ‘I don’t date’ got down and dirty with cute goth boy...after knowing him for a total of thirty minutes. You bad, bad girl, you!”
“Would you shut up?” I hissed, motioning for her to keep her voice down. “You’re like the town crier. Does everyone need to hear this...?”
When she laughed again, a smile fought its way onto my face, in spite of myself.
“Seriously,” I said. “Shut up. Before I beat you senseless with my check pad.”
“Admit it...and I might.”
“I didn’t blow him, okay?”
“So, what? You fucked him?” Cass said it lightly, clearly a joke. I must have reddened more because she burst out in a louder laugh. “Oh my god! You did! You totally fucked him! And you call me a slut!”
“Shut up! Seriously!” I hissed, motioning again for her to be quiet. “It was...an accident.” Cass laughed even harder, and that time, I couldn’t help laughing with her. “He’s going to hear you...along with everyone else in this damned place. Unlike you, I don’t want to be fired.”
But Cass didn’t seem to hear that part. Or, more likely, she didn’t care.
“An accident?” she said. “You fell on him, or what? He must be big if you ‘accidentally’ ran into his cock with your vagina...”
“Shhh...Cass! Shut up, I mean it.” I couldn’t help laughing that time, too. “I am so going to get back at you for this. Just wait.”
Before I could go on, another voice interrupted us.
“That’s something I’d like to see,” it said.
I froze, feeling the blood drain from my face, despite the casualness of the words.
I glanced towards the opening between the two partitions sectioning off the waitressing station from the main dining area.
“...You getting back at her, I mean,” Jaden finished, smiling at me from where he gripped each of the side partitions. He leaned forward a little, rocking his weight, each hand holding one side of the narrow opening. “Maybe I’d better not get on your bad side.”
Cass stared at him, blank-faced.
Then she turned and raised her eyebrows dramatically at me, making her mock surprise face, one hand poised comically over her mouth. When she glanced back at Jaden, she winked, right before giving him a knowing smirk.
“Hi there,” she said.
“Hello,” he said back. He nodded to her politely but made his disinterest in her crystal clear. He looked back at me, his blue eyes even lighter and more intense than I remembered. “Hey,” he said. “When are you off?”
I fought to keep my expression more or less normal. “When I finish up back here.” I motioned towards the salt and pepper shakers.
“You got plans?” he said, not missing a beat.
I stared at him, feeling my brain whirl around the question, thinking through my half-assed musings around what I’d do when I got off work. Most of those involved my couch, a feed-player, or maybe, if I was feeling really ambitious, music blasting out of my old, crappy speakers while I worked on a few new sketches.
Ice cream had figured in there somewhere, too...and probably a few beers.
Before I could answer him, Cass aimed her smirk at me.
“She does now,” she said cheerfully.
“Fuck...”
The word came out in mostly a gasp, even as he gripped my bare shoulder in his hand. I watched his face as he came, my legs wrapped around his, my arms coiled around his waist. For a long moment, I couldn’t think at all, but only watched him, realizing it was the first thing he’d said since we’d gotten back to my apartment.
It’s probably good Cass had gone over to Jack’s.
I hadn’t been as quiet as Jaden.
It was also really good Jon was working late tonight, and therefore unlikely to pop by unannounced, as he had a tendency to do on his early nights and his days off.
Jaden smiled down at me when he caught me looking at him. I felt myself blush, even as he rolled off. He was still grinning as he landed on the mattress next to me. I had my bed on the floor for now, not on a real frame or anything, but Jaden didn’t seem to care about that, either.
It hit me again that I knew next to nothing about the guy.
Why the hell had I slept with him? Twice?
“I love it that you get so embarrassed afterwards,” he said. He leaned towards me, kissing me on the cheek. Grinning, he slid closer, nuzzling my face with his. “It’s fucking adorable. You’re like a wildcat in the sack and then as soon as it’s over, you turn all mortified...” He kissed me again, his sweaty face pressed against mine as he murmured, “...It’s making me hard all over again.”
I felt my face grow warmer, but I looked up at him, meeting his gaze anyway.
When he smiled at me that time, I smiled back.
“Are you hungry?” he said.
I nodded. “Starving.”
“Me, too,” he said cheerfully. “Wanna go out? I couldn’t make myself eat the food at that shitty diner where you work. Even the menu pictures looked pretty scary.” He winced a little, and his voice grew borderline apologetic. “...Sorry.”
I laughed at that, I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t be,” I said, smiling more naturally that time. “And yeah...they do. Look scary.”
“I want to actually talk to you this time,” he said, kissing me again. “Maybe it won’t be a real date, but maybe close. Closer, anyway.”
He caressed my face with his fingers.
I was still trying to decide if I wanted to get to know him, honestly.
Some part of me wanted to not make more of this than it was. I knew my reactions to him hadn’t exactly been “normal,” but I also knew I was doing my best not to go all gushy on him because of that, doing the girl thing just because we were attracted to each other. I didn’t know him well enough to know if I even liked him yet.
Clearly, some more animal side of me liked him...but I wasn’t going to kid myself that it meant anything more than that, whatever he said. Unlike a lot of my friends, it had always been pretty easy for me to separate the physical stuff from the emotional. I didn’t say anything most of the time, since I knew how that sounded to a lot of people, but I really didn’t have to like people I slept with all that much.
Not like I’d had a lot of experience or anything, but I knew that about myself, seemingly from when I was a kid. Sex was just sex.
It could mean more than that, but it usually didn’t.
I certainly didn’t need to treat my sex partners like some kind of soul mate or whatever.
Watching Jaden glance
over at my naked body with appreciative eyes, I did the same to him, letting myself really look at him for the first time since I’d met him at that party. Despite my determination not to get weird about this, I still felt pretty confused, honestly. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, exactly, that had caused me to break every single one of my unwritten but previously ironclad rules.
I mean, I’d never really decided not to date––whatever Cass said––but truthfully, I hadn’t really decided to date anyone before, either. I wasn’t anti-guy or anti-sex or anything. I just knew I had a tendency to attract weirdos, so I learned to be wary of anyone who came on too strong. My dad warned me I’d always need to be careful about that because, as he put it, “I was just one of those lights that attracted a lot of moths, for good and ill.”
I was pretty wary of having sex with someone I didn’t know for the same reason.
I was definitely wary of having sex with people around my friends, or in a way my friends might find out about. Cass, in particular, didn’t need to know that stuff about me. Not because I didn’t trust her, but more because I knew she’d make more of it than it was. I didn’t need the drama, frankly. Usually, my affairs, or whatever you wanted to call them, didn’t last long enough to warrant much drama, but I knew Cass had a tendency to make sex and romance the center of her world, in a way that made no sense to me.
But yeah, I’d ignored all of that stuff with Jaden.
I didn’t even know why. Not really.
I’d been sort of serious when I told Cass that had been an accident. I mean, I hadn’t planned any of it...not the letting myself get picked up right in front of Cass or letting her see me with him afterwards. It embarrassed me, too, especially when it hit me that Jaden himself would have no idea that I didn’t do this with every hot guy I came across.
Although, yeah...normally I wouldn’t care about that, either.
Meaning, I wouldn’t really care what some random guy I happened to have sex with thought of me, or my motivations. Maybe it was the fact that Cass knew about it now. Or maybe I really did care what he thought. I honestly couldn’t tell for sure.
So yeah, mostly, I was embarrassed. And confused.
And wondering why I’d done it at all when I’m pretty sure I could have gotten info on Jaden and who he was some other way and gotten ahold of him later...when Cass wasn’t around. When Jon wouldn’t have been likely to even hear about it.
But I hadn’t wanted to wait, apparently.
Even now, I found myself getting turned on again, just looking at him. He was on the lean side, but had a really sexy body, at least according to my tastes. He was tall, which I’d always liked. Six pack abs. A muscular chest, nice arms and hands. Long fingers. Black hair, thick and kind of messy, but I liked that, too.
I’d always had a thing about black hair.
And joking or not, Cass had been right about something else. He wasn’t exactly small in the important places, either. I slid my hand down his body and closed my fingers around him as I thought it, almost without thinking about what I was doing.
Jaden sucked in a breath.
But nothing about his looks, or his dick size, or the fact that he’d tried to have sex with me the first time we were alone together, explained why I’d done this, either. Truthfully, I hadn’t had a lot of sex...with anyone. I didn’t enjoy admitting that fact to my friends, all of whom seemed to think the sex and romance thing were the end-all and be-all of the universe...but Cass was right. I’d never had a real boyfriend.
The few guys I’d dated, Cass hadn’t known about. Or Jon. Or my mother.
I definitely wasn’t a virgin, though, by any definition. Sex wasn’t a morality issue with me, more a gut reaction and a complication. I didn’t care what other people were doing. I didn’t even care what they thought of me, not really.
I wanted to feel it, and usually I just...didn’t.
I guess I figured I hadn’t met anyone I liked well enough, yet.
Jaden didn’t need to know any of that, though.
His cock jerked to attention under my fingers when I didn’t take my hand away.
“Damn, Allie-girl,” he said, groaning softly. “You drive me fucking crazy, and I don’t know anything about you. What is it about you? Are you bewitching me or something...?”
I couldn’t help smiling. I didn’t stop touching him though, and a few seconds later, he rolled to his back, gasping again, his fingers wrapping around mine where I held him.
“I had to ask someone what your name was,” he said, looking up at me. He wrapped his free arm loosely around my back. He kissed my mouth, then said, softer, “I remembered the Allie part, but I was so fucking drunk I couldn’t remember your last name. I asked a lot of people about you, Allie-girl-Taylor. I found out what high school you went to...where you go to college. I looked for pictures of you on the feeds. I looked at a bunch of your art…the charcoals with those pyramids...” He let out another gasp when I continued to touch him. “...They told me you don’t go out with anyone...some of them thought you were a dyke, but no one I talked to had seen you with girls, either. You’re not a dyke, are you?”
I laughed, quirking an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
He gripped me tighter, pulling me against him.
“I think you like cock an awful lot for a dyke,” he said, smiling when I laughed again. “I also think I’m a lucky bastard, if you don’t normally fuck guys. I may have to find more creative ways of keeping my good luck going...”
I massaged him harder, and he closed his eyes, groaning again.
After another few minutes he was panting, thrusting his body up against my hand.
“If you want me to take you out, this isn’t the way to get me to leave the house with you,” he murmured. “It really isn’t...”
I slid more of my weight on him, leaning on his chest. He let out another gasp when I stroked him harder, then he was panting again, pushing down lightly on my shoulders, asking a different question with his hands and eyes as he tried to guide me further down his body. I felt the urgency in him again, although I couldn’t hear it in his voice.
“On the other hand,” he murmured, his words low and teasing. “If you’re hungry, I might have a short-term solution for that problem...”
I could already feel what he wanted.
I was okay with that, too.
Especially now, feeling his desire wash over me, almost like a tangible force, like something I could feel in my body and breath, or maybe just see in his light blue eyes. Those eyes grew softer as I watched, but I glimpsed flickers of that demand there, too, growing denser as he continued to grip my shoulders, his hands taut with restraint.
In either case, I’d stopped second-guessing why I was doing this.
I couldn’t even remember why it mattered, really.
Jon blinked, clearly startled when he saw me.
I was dressed, though. Well. More or less.
I had a blanket wrapped around my upper body, boxers on down below. I’d shoved my feet into calf-high boots lined with fake fur, so yeah, the outfit was a bit random, but serviceable. Definitely not nude. Not even close to nude, really.
“Hey,” Jon said.
“Hey.”
He looked me over again, then frowned. “Are you alone?”
I glanced over my shoulder, hesitating, then looked back at Jon, whose frown had deepened in that pause.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said. “Who is it? That guy Cass told me about?”
I hesitated, then shrugged. No point in hiding this thing now.
“Do you want to just come in?” I asked him, holding open the door. “We were just ordering pizza. I was going to find a movie on the feeds...you’re welcome to join us.”
I kept my voice casual, like me having some dude over for a movie and pizza was no big deal. Like it was normal me and Jon hanging out time.
Jon looked past me, as if thinking the same thing. He looked less annoyed now, maybe because of the in
vite, but he also made no motion to come inside. After another pause, he motioned with his head for me to come outside instead. Feeling myself tense a little, I did, holding the door closed behind me without letting the latch click into place. I couldn’t exactly carry keys on me in this outfit and I didn’t want to risk getting locked out.
“What?” I said, still standing there, and now feeling self-conscious about the blanket. “What is it? Are you seriously freaked that I have a guy here?”
“Is Cass telling the truth?” Jon said. “Did you really fuck him in the bathroom at some party? That one on Octavia...on Halloween?”
I blinked. Then I looked up, staring Jon in the face. When he didn’t flinch, I let out a laugh, more surprise than humor.
“I can’t believe you just asked me that,” I said.
“Cass is worried about you.”
“What?” I let out another surprised laugh, not hiding my incredulity. “Bullshit. She practically gloated about it.”
“Who is this guy, Allie?” Jon said.
“What difference does it make?” I said, feeling my humor evaporating. “Are you seriously grilling me about a guy I like? I’m twenty-two fucking years old, Jon!”
Jon hesitated at that. Then, taking another step back, he frowned again.
Putting his hands on his waist, he stared down at me, his hazel eyes strangely light even in the shadow of my Victorian porch. I still wasn’t entirely used to him all buffed out like he was now. In my mind, Jon was still the skinny kid with glasses I’d grown up with, the one the neighborhood kids used to call “Bug” and stuff in garbage cans.
“That’s why I came over, actually,” Jon said, his voice gruff.
“Which part?” I said. “To give me dating advice?”
Jon let out a humorless snort. I could almost see the sarcastic comment he bit back, as if it floated between us in the empty air.
Since when does fucking a total stranger on a countertop qualify as dating, Al...?
He didn’t say it, though. Not out loud, anyway.
“I wanted to give you your birthday present,” Jon said, his voice gruff. He motioned towards a box I hadn’t seen, sitting on the wooden chair that lurked near the railing of the porch. “You don’t have to open it now or anything.”
