by Viv Daniels
“You are not done with me.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but the second my lips parted, he bent to kiss me, and, God help me, I kissed him back. Our tongues fought and I reached up to cling to his shoulders because I was pretty sure my legs couldn’t support me anymore and his mouth—oh, his mouth. I was lost. Boone kissed me and I was lost.
His hands slid down my body with purpose, his fingers digging hard into the flesh of my thighs. “Stop me now, Hannah,” he growled against my mouth. “God, you’re so hot.”
“Boone,” I moaned, but it wasn’t a protest. It was a plea. I felt the material of my dress riding up over my legs, over my butt, felt his fingers working between my thighs. My panties were already ruined, slick with moisture and desire, and when he slid them down my legs it felt only right to kick them off.
“Stop me now,” he repeated. “Or I’m going to fuck you up against this wall.”
Oh. Oh. This was wrong. This was precisely what I wasn’t supposed to be doing. He slid a finger inside me and I gasped. I should stop him. I should stop this. But instead I angled my feet apart a bit more. “Please,” I said, desperate. “Don’t stop.”
“Is this what it was like?” he whispered in my ear as he withdrew his finger, slick and slippery, and circled it around my clit. “When you banged that Canton boy in the coatroom at your formal?”
“I can’t believe you remember that.” I could barely stand upright and he was recounting my sexual history.
“Is that what you like?” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard. His clever, eager, evil fingers never stopped. He was going to make me come just like this. “Slipping away with some guy while all your boring, rich friends socialize a few feet away?”
“Not usually,” I managed to say. “Certainly not then. But now—”
“I think it is,” he hissed. His fingers left and then with one twist he flipped me around and pressed me against the wall. “I think it turns you on. Spread your legs for me.”
I obeyed. The plaster was hard, flattening my breasts, cool against my face and thighs. I turned my cheek to the wall and tried to glimpse him over my shoulder. “Boone—”
“Shhh, Hannah,” he admonished me. I heard the sound of a zipper and the crinkle of a condom wrapper but as soon as I started to look at him he pressed a hand against my shoulder blades, holding me in place against the wall. “You don’t want them to hear you, do you?”
“They can’t—” I began, but then he was behind me, and he plunged his erection inside me so quickly I almost cried out. I clamped my mouth shut and it came out like a whimper.
He stilled. “You okay?” His tone was soft, suddenly, the Boone hiding beneath the harsh facade.
“Yes,” I whispered. Oh God, yes. “Keep going.”
“See?” he said, soft and low in my ear. He snaked a hand about my waist. “Isn’t this nice?”
I nodded and spread my legs more, tilting my hips back to meet his thrusts. “Yes.” And it was. It was more than nice.
“Maybe you do want them to hear you,” he went on, setting up an easy, insistent rhythm. “Maybe you want them all to know how wild you are.”
I shook my head, even as the thought made my muscles clench and my knees go weak. “No. I—”
“I could make you scream,” he said. “I could bring them all running.”
I clamped my mouth shut over the moans rising in my throat.
He ran his hands up under the chains at the back of my dress, spreading his fingers wide against my skin. “I could rip these,” he warned me. “I could rip them all off, and then you’d never be able to go back downstairs. Everyone would know.”
“Boone!” I turned my head. “Don’t you dare.”
“Why?” he punctuated his words with quick strokes. “Because I’m your dirty little secret?”
“No—”
“Yes,” he said, his grip on me tightening. “I am. I’m the thing you do in the dark, the one you can never let anyone know.”
I couldn’t form words now. Just moans.
“It didn’t work with that Canton boy in the coatroom. He wasn’t dirty enough for you. That’s it, isn’t it?”
No. No…
“You like it like this,” he insisted, pounding into me now, each thrust hard and punishing. “Perfect Hannah Swift, her dress hiked up around her waist, getting fucked by some stranger at a fancy party.”
There was something dark in his words. Something dark and cruel and…angry. This was more than just a game. I twisted around to look at him. Boone’s eyes were hooded, his face a mask of concentration. When he withdrew for a split second I spun around fully to face him. “Boone…wait.”
He lifted me up around my waist. “That’s what you want,” he went on, as if I’d said nothing. He arranged my legs on either side of his hips and slid inside me again. I gasped in pleasure and wrapped my legs around his waist, hooking my ankles behind his back and holding on tight.
“Please,” I gasped. “I’m going to come.”
“I know you are.” He buried his face against my shoulder as he started slamming into me again and again. “Because that’s what you want out of this. Some nobody to stick his dick in you, all filthy and secret. That’s all you ever wanted.”
A rush of cold washed away every ounce of lust I’d felt. Every time I’d called him my bit of rough, even in my head, came back to slap me in the face. This had gone beyond dirty talk. I tightened my legs around his hips, stopping his thrusts, and put my hands on either side of his cheeks to lift his chin and look into his eyes. “Don’t say that! That’s not what this is, Boone.”
He jerked his head away, looking down. “Don’t, Hannah. Stop. I’m trying to make this easy.”
“I don’t care,” I cried. He was still buried deep inside me. And I was nothing like my father. I wouldn’t fuck around with someone I thought was beneath me. “I don’t want this to be easy if it makes it cheap. I like you, Boone.”
“Hannah—”
“I can’t stop thinking about you, either. And yes, it’s nice to have sex with you, but it’s really, really nice just to talk with you or flirt with you or smile across the fence at you.”
“Stop,” he begged.
“And fine, you don’t think I fit into your life or whatever. Fine. We’re done. But you know what this was, Boone. You know what you are to me.” I dipped my head and kissed him, long and slow.
He thrust again, once, twice, three times, and went rigid in my arms. I felt him pulsing inside me as his orgasm overtook him. He tore his mouth away from mine and pressed his forehead into my shoulder.
“Shit,” he murmured. “Shit.”
I stroked my hands through the rough stubble of his short hair and smiled. “What, that you came before me?”
He set me gently on the floor, breathing heavily, not meeting my eyes. “That too,” he said ruefully. Without another word, Boone strode over to the tiny powder room and shut the door between us. I stared at it, not sure what to think. When we’d entered this room, I’d been mad at him, but here I was, making mid-coital declarations of…affection? And now he’d left me alone in the aftermath. I should run. I should grab my panties—where were my panties?—and run.
The door opened and he emerged, looking dashing and debonair and clean. “You should fix yourself up,” he said grimly. “You look like someone just fucked you up against a wall.”
I glanced in the mirror behind him. It was true. My hair was matted and wild, and a sheen of sweat covered my brow and cheeks. My skirt was still hiked up around my waist, and I could feel slick moisture on the insides of my thighs. But Boone wasn’t getting rid of me that easy.
“Wait here while I get cleaned up,” I said.
He shook his head, all the bluster gone. “I can’t. I honestly can’t, Hannah. I’m crawling out of my skin. I can’t be here.”
“So that’s it?” I spread my arms. “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am?”
He shut his eyes. “No. Yes. Dammit.” He t
ook a deep breath. “I have to leave. I’ll call you.”
“You’ll call me?” I asked, incredulous. “Are you kidding?”
He hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. “I will call you,” he said gruffly, meeting my eyes. “I promise. We are not done.”
I grabbed his lapels and kissed him again, hard. “You’d better.”
After Boone had gone, I took my time straightening myself up, washing my face and neck and between my legs, brushing my hair until it was smooth and glossy again, and reapplying the makeup Boone had smudged or kissed off my face.
But mostly, I tried to get my bearings. What had just happened? I’d brought Boone up here to tell him in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to follow me around like some kind of stalker creep and I’d ended up having sex with him, again, in the dressing room of the Monroe House, where once I’d donned a white satin gown and Mom had placed my grandmother’s pearls around my neck and they’d announced to the world that I was the type of society lady who would never dream of engaging in that sort of activity.
And now Boone had left me here, and I was still throbbing with need despite several cold paper towels, and I’d shot to hell any chance of putting the whole Boone episode behind me. I could ignore his texts and turn off my phone, and all it took was him showing up in my line of vision for me to forget my misgivings and spread my legs and offer him my body like some kind of…
No. It wasn’t that simple. Whatever was happening between Boone and me, it was more than just sex.
Now I had to go downstairs and rejoin the party and pretend to be a good little girl again.
At least until Boone called.
Eighteen
The party was predictably awful. The conversation at the table my parents had purchased didn’t do a damn thing to keep my mind off my encounter with Boone, and worse yet, my mother started in on the matchmaking game again. This time it was Suzanne Gardner’s son, home from school abroad, or maybe Deborah Fineman’s stepson, who’d be at Canton Law come fall.
“Mom,” I said lightly, and drained the dregs of my wineglass, “I don’t think I have time to date right now. Remember how I’ll be concentrating on my schoolwork this semester?”
Two more days and I could move into my apartment close to campus. I needed to arrange for a moving van. Last year, Dylan had helped me with my furniture, but I wouldn’t have such assistance this year.
Then again, I did know a guy with a pickup truck. And he owed me a favor, too.
* * *
True to his word, Boone called the following morning. I answered on the second ring. Didn’t want to seem too eager, after all.
“Hey,” I said, like I hadn’t remotely been waiting by the phone. I was surrounded by half-packed suitcases, ready to make the first trip out to my apartment that afternoon.
“Hi.”
“So,” I said, and folded another T-shirt.
“So.” He seemed to be at war with himself. “I wanted to apologize. For my behavior last night.”
I’d liked some of the behavior. Couldn’t lie about that.
“I was out of line,” he went on. “And the other day on the boat, too. I should not have said those things to you. I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t have said them?” I asked carefully. “Or you didn’t mean them?”
He was quiet for a minute. “Well, what did you mean?”
“When?”
“Last night. At…the end.”
Oh right. Then. I flushed magenta just thinking about it. Boone had always known how to push my buttons. I’d just never before realized how close my desires were to my fears.
No wonder I was crap at one-night stands. No wonder I’d never been able to seal the deal in Europe. I didn’t want to use someone for sex—not like my father had. And then along came Boone. Boone, who I’d not only slept with, but kept calling and kissing and thinking about, even when I had every reason not to.
“I meant every word,” I stated. “I care about you, Boone. I wasn’t expecting to, but I do. So there.”
“‘So there’?” he asked wryly.
“So there.” I sighed. “Now, tell me that you don’t want to see me again.” Because that’s what was coming. It’s what always came. Dylan had left me for my sister. Boone had practically kicked me off the boat. I put myself out there, and no one joined me.
“Hannah, I want to see you so badly I can’t sleep at night.”
I caught my breath.
“Every inch of my boat reminds me of you. The back of my truck? Forget it. I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to see you so badly it should scare you.”
My shirts tumbled from my hands. My mouth hung open, useless.
“Hannah?”
“I’m here,” I breathed.
“Are you scared?”
“I don’t know,” I responded. It was as close as I could get to defining my jumble of emotions.
“I’m fucking terrified,” he admitted. “You’re…a complication.”
“No kidding,” I replied. Everything about this was wrong. I was supposed to be concentrating on finishing college, not having hot sex with some guy who didn’t even think I should be attending. “You think you’re the guy I’m supposed to be with?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I am the guy you’re supposed to be with.”
The words fell like a thunderclap over my heart, shattering everything. It seemed so obvious. It seemed so impossible. “Boone,” I whispered, and it was almost an accusation. I wasn’t supposed to be having this conversation with him. But he went on, anyway.
“I’ve thought about nothing else for days. If I’d known we were going to get to this point, I never would have picked you up at the yacht club. But I can’t go back now. It’s messy and stupid and it’s going to ruin everything, but I don’t care.”
I dropped to the mattress, the phone held tight against my ear as if this whole thing was about to vanish. “Ruin what things?”
He sighed into the phone. “If last night proved anything, it was that I’d take you however I could get you.”
Even if it meant playing dirty sex games. “Tell me about it.”
“But I want you for real, Hannah.” He hesitated. “I want…this…to be real.”
Nervous laughter burst from my mouth. He couldn’t just say these things to me, on the phone, while I stood folding laundry in my childhood bedroom. He couldn’t just say these outrageous things and expect me to believe him. “And you felt this way last night?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you tell me any of this then? You just…you ran off and left me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
“I’m very sorry?” he tried.
I chuckled. “I’m serious.”
“Last night was…” I heard him sigh. “Overwhelming. What we did—what you said to me… I needed to go away, to work it all out in my head. I couldn’t articulate my feelings then.”
“And you can articulate them now?” I asked skeptically. “On the phone? All safe and far away?”
He was silent and I realized I was being unfair. He said he’d call and he called. It wasn’t his fault the conversation had turned so serious so quickly.
“I can come over,” he said at last. “You’re right. It’s better if I say the things I have to say to you in person.”
“Will we talk in person?” I asked. “Or will we just start ripping each other’s clothes off again?”
“True,” he said. “We aren’t great at restraining ourselves. We should work on that.”
Except that didn’t sound like any fun at all. Silence fell between us and it took me a while to realize he was waiting for me.
“So, what do you think?” he asked.
I don’t think so, I should have said. This had disaster written all over it. I hardly knew him, except in the Biblical sense. He was an enigma, a nearly homeless handyman who owned a broken-down y
acht and showed up unexpectedly in tuxedos. And I’d promised my parents. I was supposed to be getting my life together. I was supposed to be moving into my apartment near campus and taking the classes they wanted and dating the boys they liked.
“I suck at this,” he said, as the awkward quiet went on. “Do you know how long it’s been since I had a girlfriend?”
“Is that what you’re doing?” I blurted. “You’re asking me to be your girlfriend?”
He was silent for a second. “I really suck at this, then,” he said glumly.
I laughed out loud. “Well, gee, Boone, I don’t know,” I said, in a voice usually reserved for teenyboppers in fifties sitcoms. I smirked. “Do you like me or do you like-like me?”
“I like-like-like you, Hannah,” he replied wryly.
I bit my lip. Way to turn it around, dude. And what use was there in denying it? “I like-like-like you, too.”
He breathed a sigh of relief I could practically feel through the phone. “Can I please see you?”
“Yes.” I looked at my suitcase. “I’m supposed to be moving into my apartment near campus this week. Actually, I could probably use a hand. And a pickup truck,” I added.
He laughed. “That sounds like a boyfriendy thing to do.”
Boyfriend. No, I wasn’t ready for that. Boone was not my boyfriend. Could not be. My boyfriends were guys with college transcripts and khaki pants.
And my boyfriends were guys who didn’t like-like-like me. Guys like Dylan, who betrayed me. And before that, Taylor—he of coatroom fame—who decided he was “too young to get serious.” And then in high school, guys like Blake, who I’d lost my virginity to and dated for a year and a half before he graduated, went off to Stanford, and broke up with me via Facebook a month into his first semester at college.
Boyfriends sucked. Was I really going to sully what I had with Boone by putting that title on it?
“Is it furniture and stuff?” he said now.
“Yeah. I have it in a storage space. It’s not much, just a bed and a dresser and a sofa and some kitchen things. I was going to rent a van—”
