Beauty and the Mustache

by Penny Reid

  At first I tensed because… MARTIN SANDEKE’S ARMS ARE AROUND ME, HIS HAND IS UNDER MY SHIRT, HE BODY IS PRESSED AGAINST MINE!

  OMG. WTF? BBQ!

  But then, my brain’s very understandable stunted fan-girl reaction to his movements was quickly eclipsed by the blissful relief of an inch scratched.

  I melted in his arms, my forehead resting against his chest, and I moaned my satisfaction.

  “Oh, yes, God. That’s the spot… Please, don’t stop.” I murmured, obviously out of my mind. But it felt so good. So very, very good. Like sinking into a hot bubble bath after walking a mile through a nor’easter.

  Martin didn’t stop.

  Well… not precisely.

  Rather, over the course of a full minute, he ceased using his nails and instead began caressing and massaging my back with his fingers and hands. I realized too late that his head had dipped to my neck and his lips were against my ear, his hot breath tickling me and sending delightfully dangerous shivers racing down my spine, back of my legs, to my toes.

  “Did I make it all better?” He whispered then bit—yes, bit!—my neck, like he was tasting me.

  Then he bit me again.

  I sucked in a breath and my eyes opened—even as my body instinctively arched toward him. Reality burst through the delightful fog of his ministrations like one of those disturbing and jarring windup jack-in-the-box clowns.

  After one and half semesters of nothing but mundane academic interactions, I was in the chemistry lab with Martin Sandeke and his hands were roaming, liberal and greedy. His face was tucked in my neck. I was trapped against a lab table. Our bodies were intimately connected.

  And I’d just moaned.

  What the hiccup was going on?

  I raised my palms to his chest and made to push him away. This only caused his hands to still, now on the curve of my waist, and his grip to tighten. He plastered our fronts together more completely.

  “Um…” I cleared my throat, found my voice unsteady. “Yeah, yeah—all better.” I croaked.

  He laughed. Actually, it was more like a lazy chuckle.

  One of Martin’s hands slipped up my back and under the strap of my bra, where the itch had been, his fingers splayed wide. The other went to the clip on my head and released the spring. My hair fell like a curtain down my back and I perceived that he was wrapping the thick length around his hand.

  I pushed him again, tilted my head to the side and away, feeling unaccountably breathless. “I’m all better now. Thanks for the help. Services no longer needed.” Everywhere he touched me sent ripples of awareness and heat to my core.

  My attempt at escape was a failure because, as soon as I pressed against him in earnest, Martin tugged my hair, encouraged me to tilt my chin upward.

  Then he kissed me.

  And—damn, damn, damn—he was a good kisser.

  More precisely, since I had grossly limited experience in the kissing department, he was what I imagined a good kisser would kiss like. The kind girls fantasize about. The guy who just takes what he wants, like he’s hungry and you’re on the menu, but somehow makes it epic for both parties involved.

  No preamble, prologue, or preface. Just urgent, fervent, worshipful kisses, one right after the other. I had no choice but wrap my arms around his neck, stand on my tip toes, and try to kiss him back. Because, honestly, the way he held me, the way he growled when our tongues met, the way his mouth moved over mine—he demanded it.

  Also, in the recesses of my mind, I realized that this entire situation was completely preposterous. Likely, he was drunk or tripping on acid or was playing some kind of joke.

  One day I would persuade my grandchildren to gather ‘round while I put in my good dentures, the ones with no space between my two front teeth. I would tell them for the millionth time about how Hercules had once accidentally kissed me in the chemistry lab at my Ivy League University.

  The need for air eventually required our lips to part, though we separated only inches. If I inclined my head forward our noses would touch.

  I opened my eyes as wide as they would go and glanced at his, found his gaze alternately moving between mine and my lips. I also noted that I wasn’t the only one who was breathing heavy.

  I said and thought in unison, my voice just above a whisper, “What was that?”

  His eyes stopped moving over my face and instead settled, held mine captive. They were all heated and… hot and… intense. I was starting to understand why the blood of a thousand virgins had been sacrificed at his altar of sexual prowess.

  I tried to swallow. I couldn’t.

  “That was necessary.” He finally said. Actually, he growled it.

  “Necessary?”

  “Yes. That needed to happen.”

  “It did?”

  He nodded once and bent as though he were going to do it again. I stiffened, my hands moved instantly to his chest and I thwarted his advance—because, if he started kissing me, it was surely a sign of Armageddon. Also, I was so far out of my comfort level, I was in an alternate dimension.

  “No-no-no-no.” I twisted my head to the side, braced my hands against the imposing wall of his chest. “We’re not doing that again.”

  He tugged my hair—I’d forgotten that he’d wrapped it around his hand—and bodily pressed me against the black topped lab table. His other armed wrapped completely around me, still under my shirt.

  “Yes. We’re doing that again.”

  “No. We’re not. We’re not doing anything unless it involves measuring the composition of trace elements in surface water.”

  “Parker-” his hand left my hair and slipped into my shirt again, spanning my side and stomach.

  “Because we’re lab partners and lab partners do not kiss.”

  “Then we’re not lab partners anymore.”

  “You can’t switch lab partners in the middle of the semester.”

  “I just did.”

  My hands moved down to catch his wrists because his hands were on their way to second base; I successfully intercepted his northward progress. “Nope. I don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” he nuzzled my neck and whispered against my skin. He must’ve known that nuzzling was going to cause my insides to melt. I imagined he’d conducted methodical experiments into the fastest way to female self-lubrication.

  “I’m not one of your easy girls, or even difficult girls.” My voice wavered, so I cleared my throat. “I’m not even really a girl. I’m more like one of the boys. Think of me like a boy.”

  “Not possible.”

  “It’s true. Do you kiss boys? Because, if not, then I think you must have me confused with someone else.”

  His movements stilled and a long moment passed. Then his hands fell away, he stepped away, and I slumped slightly forward—a weird mixture of bereft and relieved.

  “You’re a lesbian.” He said the words as though they explained a mystery he’d been trying to solve for years.

  My eyes shot to his. He was four feet away and I found him watching me with a dawning something. If I didn’t know any better it looked like disappointment and frustration.

  I swallowed, successfully, and licked my lips, shook my head. The irony of his confusion not lost on me.

  My first and only boyfriend had been gay. I just didn’t know it while we were dating through all of high school.

  I was still trying to catch my breath when I responded. “No. I’m not gay. I’m just… not interested in you that way.”

  This was true—because I’d witnessed his path of devastation with my own eyes.

  This was also a lie—because I was most definitely interested in him that way, just not the after part where he would say it was meaningless sex, made me cry, and told me to get over it.

  His eyebrows jumped a fraction of a centimeter at my softly spoken declaration.

  “Not interested...” He repeated.

  I stepped to the side, scaling the length of the table, and reached for my bag. I hefte
d it to my shoulder, escape now the only thing on my mind. His slightly narrowed eyes followed my movements.

  “I know, right?” I tried to sound self-deprecating, which wasn’t difficult because I truly meant my next words. “Who am I? I’m nobody.”

  “You’re not nobody.” He countered. “Your mother is a senator and your grandfather was an astronaut.”

  I cringed. I hated it when people brought up my family. “Just because my family is famous, doesn’t mean I’m somebody.”

  He shifted forward and said with a surprising amount of vehemence. “Exactly! That’s exactly right.”

  “I know, right?” I readily agreed. “See, I’m ordinary. And you’re you and I’m sure you’re used to the deafening sound of underwear hitting the floor every time you enter a room. But I don’t do that kind of thing, even for Hercules. Sure, I’ll think about the possibility later when I’m safely alone in bed, but I never cross pollinate fantasy and reality.”

  “When you’re alone in bed?”

  I didn’t acknowledge his words because… mortification.

  Instead I said, “I’m not a fast and loose girl. I’m a slow and steady girl. Who knows when or if I’ll ever cross the finish line.”

  He blinked at me, at my deluge of words. I didn’t even try to read his expression because I was so focused on walking backward out of the room.

  “You’re leaving?” He asked.

  “Yep.” I threw my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m going to go now. And don’t worry about the experiment. I’ll come in over spring break and finish it up. And when I see you after the break, everything will be back to normal. We can forget that this ever happened. We shall never speak of it.” My voice cracked on the last word.

  “Parker-”

  “Have a really great spring break.”

  “Kaitlyn-” He took two strides forward as though he were going to stop me; but he halted at the sound of crunching glass underfoot. He glanced at his feet, noticing for the first time the broken beaker on the floor. “What the hell?”

  I seized the opportunity afforded by his split attention and bolted out of the room.

  In fact, I ran down the hall like an insane person and slipped into the elevator just before it closed. I even jogged back to my dorm, didn’t begin to relax until I crossed the threshold of the keycard access area, climbed the three flights to my room, and locked the door behind me.

  I tossed my bag to the corner of the tiny space, threw myself backwards on my bed, and rubbed my eyes with the base of my palms. The scene in the lab played over and over behind my closed eyelids—him touching me, kissing me, scratching the impossible itch.

  It wasn’t until several minutes later that I realized I’d forgotten to tell him about the dastardly plot I’d overheard.

  *END SNEAK PEEK*

  Elements of Chemistry releases Spring 2015