by M. C. Cerny
There was that.
“This place has the best quarter beers in town on ladies’ night.” Reagan danced us toward the end of the bar where Jase and Warren waited in a low booth seat, towing me behind her.
“Hey, brat!” Jase put his arm around Reagan and used his knuckles to mess up her hair. Both laughed and pushed back at each other. It was obvious they were attracted to each other but hadn’t done anything about it. At least they were getting along right then. Usually they were pecking at each other over something petty.
“Kerri-man!” Jase nodded at me as Warren nudged him in the chest. “Dude, what?” Both were being funny and Jase nursed his beer while Warren sat back with a soda.
“Hey, Kerri.” Warren moved over in the booth so I could sit next to him. I slid in and immediately Jase and Reagan followed suit, trapping me inside the booth.
“Hey, I haven’t seen you around lately.” He was being friendly and I missed that, seeing him and being around his kind presence.
“Work, class, you know. Did you start your student teaching job yet?” I could tell something was on his mind and I let it go, enjoying the time spent with him. He was a new friend to share conversation with even if I was attracted to him.
“Mmm. Two weeks ago. I have a class full of seniors right now.” It was true our lives were busy, but I had kind of hoped to see him a little bit more than once a blue moon.
“Is that what you studied in your undergraduate program?” Warren leaned closer and listened with interest. That was a change from Dillon, who typically ignored my career aspirations, and I shut him from my mind.
“I wanted the younger kids, but I’m told I’ll have them next semester.” Shrugging, we smiled maybe a little less awkward now.
“Guys, it’s official!” Reagan yelled over the crowded room to our table, interrupting our conversation. We waited expectantly when she embarrassed me. “Kerri finally told that d-bag ex of hers to go suck it.” I was uncertain if that was good news yet. Was I supposed to rejoice announcing my ‘official’ breakup?
“Cheers to that!” Jase tossed down his drink and ordered a round from a waitress nearby.
Groaning. “Reagan, I doubt all of Woodland Creek needed to know this.” So much for keeping a low profile and my privacy from my nosy roommate.
“Smile, Kerri. It’s a new day!” Signing, Reagan took a drink of her beer and pushed one in my direction, humming the rest of the broken lyrics to herself.
“That’s good, right?” To my side, Warren, who hovered over the table, gently poked my thigh underneath it, getting my attention.
“Uh, yeah. It needed to happen.” I took my beer and started to peel the label off. I didn’t know why telling Warren made this all weird.
“Good.” Was all he said, and after two drinks and some appetizers, I felt his arm reach out behind the seat of the booth and pull me in next to him. Goosebumps popped up on my skin even though the bar was warm. Yes, dumping Dillon was definitely a good thing.
“God, get a room.” Jase laughed and Warren responded with a low growl. His mouth was practically touching my neck and nerves incapacitated me momentarily. I finished my beer and asked for a third, maybe it was a fourth. I didn’t know, but my breasts felt strained against my sweater and my jeans too tight. Alcohol swam in my stomach and I couldn’t shake off the sensation that everyone was looking at me with sharp teeth and eyes too big.
WARREN
Kerri was drunk. She was cute as hell swaying in the booth to the music playing, tapping her fingers on the table. Jase and Reagan, on some sort of truce tonight, got up and danced with the rest of the crowd. My preference was to sit there and watch her, relieved that Kerri was no longer with her ex-boyfriend. From what Reagan had told me, purely unsolicited on my part, he sounded like an ass.
“Warren?” Kerri peeled the label off her fourth beer and reached for a fifth I pushed just out of her reach.
“Yeah.” I let my arm drape around her possessively. It would’ve pleased me just fine to let everyone know she was mine.
“How come you’re not drinking?” Her voice squeaked drunkenly, an interesting question but easily answered.
“I’m not of age to drink yet.” Kerri stiffened under my arm and I expected this. Squeezing her shoulder, her eyes came back to me, swimming with questions.
“How old are you?” Her face puckered sourly and I wanted to smooth out the frown between her eyebrows.
“I’m only twenty. Give me a few more weeks and it won’t matter.”
“Only twenty?” Kerri tapped her lips with her finger and I pushed the beer back to her. She took it and happily peeled the label off in one tug. “I’m twenty-two. My birthday is in June, though.”
“A regular old lady then.” She leaned into me and I took a chance playing with a tendril of her loose blonde hair. She moaned and took a swig of her beer when our friends joined us again.
“Come on, you two, get up and dance!” Reagan pulled me out of the booth on my side and Jase hauled up a tipsy Kerri to join us.
Worried that Jase was jostling her around too much, I stepped between them, holding Kerri against my chest and speaking to them over my shoulder. “I don’t think that’s the best idea.” Her nose rubbed against my neck sniffing, and my hips wanted to press against her.
“Dude, I’m pretty sure that’s not a good idea.” Jase pointed to Kerri, who looked up at me with a dreamy expression.
“Oh boy, did you give her that fifth beer?” Reagan was worried and buzzing around us, lifting Kerri’s sweaty hair off her neck and rubbing her back.
“Nobody told me not to and she reached for it several times before I let her have it.” I couldn’t see what the harm was in giving it to her. Kerri was an adult and made her own decisions, which I respected.
“She is going to have one super-human hangover, genius.” Hands on her hips, Reagan lectured me and sent Jase to the bar to get some bottled water.
“I didn’t know,” I told her, because I didn’t drink the stuff. How could I have known?
“It’s the bartender’s special brew.” Reagan could get all mother hen she wanted, but it wasn’t my fault that whatever it was in the pub’s special batch of homemade beer got humans drunker quicker. Maybe that was Vider’s lure, but it was none of my business what the lone wolf pub owner did.
Annoyed and feeling like my friends were crawling up my back for no reason, I gave a short retort. “I am the medical expert here, Reagan.” I held Kerri and checked her pulse. Regular, maybe slightly elevated, but perfectly normal. She leaned into me all soft curves and smiles.
“Yeah, yeah and you’re the youngest EMS captain voted in by Woodland Creek. You’ve also got zero experience with girls, buddy, even if you live with a regular lothario here.” Thumbing at Jase, who returned with the bottled water, Reagan was relentless.
“Kerri-man okay?” Jase handed the water over and I uncapped it, giving it to Kerri, who quietly sipped the water down when I put it to her lips.
We both nodded and sat back down in the booth, except this time I kept her on my lap, arms around her and the beer far away, pushing more water on her to help sober her up.
At the end of the night the girls danced, and Jase and I watched like predators while they indulged in some fun. I drove everyone back being the only true sober one, and Jase promised to pick up Reagan tomorrow to get her car from the pub’s overnight lot. We helped Kerri up the stairs because the dang elevator was out of service again and tucked her into bed. I was going to offer to stay, but Reagan propped her on her side with some pillows and shooed me out of their room with a wicked grin, letting me know Kerri had a study date tomorrow in the library…which I’d already conveniently decided to interrupt.
Chapter Nine
“The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
KERRI
Sedately pausing through the stacks of the library looking for a specific book,
my head ached from my lingering hangover from the night before. What the hell was in the beer last night? My steps were measured to avoid feeling nausea. I looked at my phone seeing the time and then slipped it into my back pocket to keep looking for my book. Now that I knew the local pub had a ‘special’ home brewed beer, I likely wouldn’t be drinking that anytime soon. My time in Woodland Creek had passed quickly, almost in the blink of an eye. Between the classes I was taking and student teaching at the elementary school, life was full and held meaning again.
An old clock dial sat above the librarian’s desk where a student I recognized but didn’t really know that well was sitting. Shannon, whose last name I didn’t recall, looked up from her book and red-framed eye glasses, giving me a small smile. She was nice and we had a child psychology course on Wednesday afternoons together. I could ask her if she was familiar with the book I needed, but I wanted to find it on my own, determined to hunt it down.
My fingers touched each leather-bound volume, dipping and jumping to the next book. The raised gold titles sparkled against the antique aged bindings. I looked for the research volume outlining cornerstone developmental behaviors for middle school aged children. Leather volumes smelling slightly musty filled the tall shelves as I rounded a corner, unexpectedly finding a new friend.
“Hey.” Warren Boone leaned against the bookshelf, arms crossed over his chest and that damn watch sitting pretty cool against his tan wrist. My heart skipped and I stuttered. He was wearing a navy puffy vest over a flannel button-up shirt he’d rolled up the sleeves on to show off his muscled forearms. Arms that haunted my nights when I thought of how he’d rescued me, caught me, and held me in the short time I’d known him. Dark jeans and navy Converse sneakers covered the bottom half and I was a little embarrassed looking down at my hastily put together outfit. My cheeks flushed when I remembered that he’d likely seen me in all my mismatched glory the night he’d pulled me from my car.
“Hey yourself.” I looked at Warren and back at the shelf, finding the book I was looking for. Pulling it out quickly, I covered my chest protectively with it, holding on tight. This book was my lifeline or a dang brick as I almost sank down holding it.
“Reagan said I might find you here.”
Raising my shoulders awkwardly, I answered him, nerves clamoring in my belly. “Here I am.” Brushing off the swirls of anticipation, the quiet stretched between us when I felt a buzzing in the back pocket of my jeans. “Oh crap.” I tried grabbing the phone, but the book was unexpectedly heavy as I attempted to maneuver it to one arm.
“Maybe you should answer that?” He nodded in the general direction of my butt and my face flamed.
“Oh um?” Half turning, he left his perch from leaning against the shelf and pulled me forward into his arms. His hands brushed down my sides, resting on my hips and pulling me forward into his stance. Thick arms reached around me and I breathed in, smelling Warren. Woods. Pine. Musk. Man. I barely felt the fingers of his right hand hold my hip close to him in a pinching grip as his left hand reached to the pocket of my jeans. His blunt fingertips danced across the top band of my jeans, grazing the skin. Back and forth he touched me slowly, inching down. My eyes fluttered shut and my mouth opened to catch more air, flies, honey, I didn’t really know. The feel of his two fingers reaching between the folds of my jean pocket, pressing against my clothed ass to pull out my still buzzing phone almost finished me.
Weak in the knees, I looked up under heavy-lidded eyes to see Warren frown. I stared at my phone in his grip, the screen illuminated with Dillon’s name. “It’s him again.” He turned the buzzing off, resting the phone on a shelf eye level to me. His hands returned to my hips, squeezing. “How often does he call you?” Warren’s words were clipped but not unkind. Why does he want to know?
I pushed the lump in my throat down, answering, “A few times a week.” I kept hoping he’d stop altogether and give me the space I needed to figure things out and get through school.
“Slacker.” Pulling back to see his concerned expression, I was confused. I thought Warren would be more upset by Dillon’s persistent calls, but I hadn’t let him finish his thoughts out loud because he answered the question anyway. “If I had you, I’d be calling you every day.”
“Excessive, don’t you think?” The tart reply surprised even me and I was rewarded with his smile, genuinely grinning from ear to ear.
He leaned down and the next words brushed over my lips as we touched pillow soft yet firm. “Never, because I wouldn’t be stupid to let you go.” One breath later, we sought each other out. Tentative and hushed in the quiet library, nerves attacked me and I wondered if anyone could hear my beating heart. His arms fully wrapped around me and my breasts pressed against the book between us, and I wished it would disintegrate so I could grab onto Warren’s tall shoulders and pull myself closer to him.
A whimper emanated from my lips, followed by a rumbled growl deep in Warren’s chest. I licked my lips and felt his soft ones nipping mine. Gentle scrapes against puffy tissues and wet swipes of his tongue met and dueled. Losing touch with the feelings and thoughts connecting my head and heart, I let go of the book between us and it slid to the floor with a loud thud, opening up, half the pages scattering over the carpet.
“Shhhh!” the student librarian hissed from the front of the cavernous room and I tried to pull away.
“No, not done tasting you yet.” Warren pulled me in tighter, backing me up against a stack of books, hiding us from view. A brazen hand rested on my lower back, pressing me closer to rock hard muscles and a ridge of something else rising and pressing against my soft belly.
Free of the book, I grabbed a hold of him, pulling on his vest down to me, my own growl vibrating against his smile to kiss again. I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t get close enough to fulfill the aching want for him. He nipped at my lips, my cheek, and my neck before settling on the soft skin just under my ear lobe. He licked upward and bit over my stud earring.
“Warren.” Whispering, I needed him to slow down as heat rushed south with a flood of other unexpected feelings.
“Come out with me tonight.” He pecked at my lips in slow full kisses, tilting my head back.
“I…” His gray eyes seemed to pulse with intensity and I swore the flecks of gold shone brighter, the outer edges rimmed thickly in black.
“Please, Kerri.”
“I…” Why do I hesitate? I want this, don’t I?
“I’ll beg shamelessly for whatever scraps of attention you’ll give me.” He was firm but pleading with me and moved to kiss me senseless again.
“Warren.” I pressed an arm between us to hold him back a moment, my breath hitching and my heart racing to play catch-up with my mind.
Warren Boone just kissed the shit out of me.
“Say yes. I’ll make sure there’s a group to keep you safe.” Why would I need a group to keep me safe? Was he planning to lunge at me the second we left there?
“I have to write a paper for class.” A lame defense and I was crumbling down anyway.
His lips curved upward. “You’ve got hours until then.” Our breath mingled, panting, and I closed my eyes to keep away the dream of him touching my fresh.
“How can I concentrate when you, you…” Licking my lips, he kissed me to the point of heady weakness, legs unable to stand on their own.
“Good to know you feel the same way.” Fingers I was coming to love brushed my messy hair from my face, cupping my cheek, and playfully tugged on my earring. My breasts felt heavy and pressed flush against his chest as his other hand traced down from my hip to under my thigh, hiking it up against him.
“Pick me up?” He grabbed my leg higher and I felt his arousal thick between us. It was definitely too much, too soon, and I shook my head no.
“Of course I will pick you up.” Breathless, I went with it. What did I have to lose? I was there in Woodland Creek to get my education and maybe make it my long-term home; nothing good awaited me back in Ann Arbor. Let
ting my leg go to slide my core against his rough jeans, a moan squeaked out, followed by another harsh whisper to be quiet somewhere inside the library. God, if anyone saw me shamelessly clinging to Warren…
Hands curled around my face, tangled in my hair, pulling me in closer for another scorching hot kiss. His tongue filled my mouth, stroking and pulling me deeper into his embrace. The bookshelves behind me bit into my back, making me whimper when he suddenly released me, stepping back quickly to put distance between us that didn’t feel safe at all. Chest heaving, he left me just as quickly as he’d come, striding out of the library. Alone and in a state of awakened arousal so bad it cramped, I picked up the pages of the wrecked book, my fingers shaking.
Chapter Ten
*
WARREN
Racing from the library, my brain buzzed with excitement. She said yes and a juvenile part of me stopped to jump up in the air with fist pumps. I passed a fellow classmate I barely knew and grabbed him by the shoulders, shouting on an almost howl. “Dude, she said yes!”
He looked confused, separating himself from me. “Uh, congratulations, man?” He brushed me off, laughing and joined his group of friends several feet away. Jogging back to the truck and turning it on, I replayed the last ten minutes with her in my head which led to the last several weeks. Musing, I let the vehicle warm up. In the short time I knew Kerri, from her accident at the end of August to now, she had occupied my thoughts heavily. I had tried to ignore her those first few weeks in the beginning of September, only seeing her when I tagged along with Jase and Reagan. It hadn’t been nearly enough.
Now October was upon us, and a super moon would be visible in the sky tonight. I wondered how she would look in the moonlight, long pale hair picked up by the wind, and my arousal intensified, anticipating tonight. Leaves dusted up around me in a swirl as I backed the truck out of my parking spot. The radio flicked on automatically, playing an Ed Sheeran song. He sang about how people fell in love in mysterious ways…I knew he couldn’t be more right about that. Kerri was a surprise that blew me away from the moment I pulled her out of her car and into my arms.
