#Poser

by Cambria Hebert

  “Girl, you know I ain’t gonna drive out to the middle of nowhere for some private time without a bottle of the good stuff,” I drawled and leaned back so I could snag the bottle.

  She giggled. “So what kind of good stuff is that?”

  “Fuck if I know.” I shrugged. “I never drink wine. You know this. I got it from one of the guys on the team.”

  “Let me see.” Ivy held out her hand. Her lips were pursed, but I could see her trying hard not to laugh.

  I surrendered the bottle so she could pull it into her lap and turn the label around to face her.

  Her laugh burst out almost immediately, and she clutched the bottle against her chest as a bad case of the giggles rocked her body.

  I frowned. “What the hell’s so funny?”

  Ivy laughed even harder, like me not knowing was somehow the cherry on top.

  “Blondie,” I growled.

  She sat up and wiped a tear out of her eye and cleared her throat. Amusement shone in her eyes when she turned the label around to face me.

  “What?” I shrugged.

  “It’s Boone’s Farm.”

  “Is that like a bad brand or something?”

  “Well, we are sort of in a cornfield. It’s actually totes appropriate.”

  “Totes what?” What the fuck was she talking about?

  Her teeth flashed white, and she practically hugged the bottle. “Boone’s Farm I guess is technically a wine. I wouldn’t necessarily call it the good stuff.”

  “Why?” I asked dubiously.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of this stuff. Every high school girl drinks this.”

  “I’m not a high school girl,” I pointed out, sort of disgruntled yet slightly amused.

  “Well, surely you went to high school parties. You know the ones where the girls all acted super tipsy even though they smelled like cherry lip-gloss but swore they were drunk.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I remember those days.”

  Ivy smacked me.

  “What?” I demanded. “You asked.”

  “This has barely any alcohol in it.” She snickered. “I didn’t even know they still made this. Where did you even get it?”

  Okay, so did me bringing this totally amusing girl drink take away any bonus points I had racked up? Or was she secretly pleased I had the shit?

  “I told ya. I got it from one of the guys on the team. I told him I needed something other than beer that my girl would like.” I glanced down at the bottle. “It’s pink. You like pink. I thought it was like that blush-colored wine women drink.”

  Ivy laughed again. She pointed to the label. “It’s watermelon flavored.”

  I squinted at the label. It said watermelon. I scoffed. “It can’t be that bad. Hand it over.”

  She did, and I unscrewed the cap (yet another clue that perhaps this was some cheap-ass shit) and poured it in the two plastic cups Ivy held out.

  I took one of the cups and sniffed the contents. It smelled like some bad air freshener you could buy at Wal-Mart that promised to make your car smell great, when what it actually did was make you nauseous. “Fruity.”

  Ivy grinned and took a sip. Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Try it.”

  Oh, what the hell? I’d already forgone my manhood to drink Smurf Balls; this pink shit couldn’t possibly be any worse.

  I took a drink, letting the flavor spill across my tongue. I pulled it back and looked down.

  Was this supposed to be alcohol or soda?

  I guess I could see why they named it watermelon… Okay, no I couldn’t. It didn’t taste like watermelon at all.

  It tasted like a giant Jolly Rancher.

  “Well?” Ivy asked.

  “Too much of this shit might give us diabetes,” I quipped. “I mean, seriously. Did you want some wine with your sugar?”

  “Aww, but it’s pink wine!”

  I made a rude sound. “The shit I do for you, woman.”

  Ivy drank some more of it. I made a face, but oddly, I was thinking about taking another sip too.

  “I kinda like it,” she confided.

  “Drink up.” I held out my hand like it was a formal invite.

  “You just want me to get drunk so you can take advantage of me,” she teased.

  My body jerked. “That’s not fucking funny.” My voice was hard and loud.

  Ivy sucked in a breath and straightened. All traces of fun were wiped from her features. “I was just kidding. There’s like three percent alcohol in this. I wouldn’t even be drunk if I had the entire bottle.”

  I swore under my breath and rubbed a hand over my hair. “I’m sorry. I guess just the suggestion I would ever do something like that to you makes me sick.”

  She tucked the cup in her lap and reached out with both hands, laying them on my knees. “I know you wouldn’t, B. I feel safer with you than anyone I’ve ever met. Even Drew.”

  I blew out a breath and drank some of the Kool-Aid masquerading as wine.

  “You mean that?” I asked. For some reason, that statement meant a lot to me. Almost as much as when she told me she loved me for the first time.

  It was like it somehow validated everything I’d done.

  “I swear on every single star in the sky,” she spoke, echoing my own words back to me. “I know you would never hurt me, Braeden James Walker. I am safe with you.”

  “Bring those fine-ass lips over here, woman.” I opened up one arm. She leaned over, and I tugged her into my lap. She laughed, but I caught the sound with my lips and used my tongue to claim the rest.

  She tasted sweet and her tongue was cool. I sucked it farther into my mouth, deepening our kiss. The cup in my hand made it hard to touch her the way I wanted, so I tossed it over the side of the truck. It landed with a barely audibly thud on the grass below.

  My hands delved deep into the soft strands of her long hair and got lost, kneading in farther until the tips of my fingers caressed her scalp.

  She made a purring sound that vibrated both our tongues, and I groaned.

  She pulled back, and my eyes narrowed. I wasn’t done kissing the shit out of her yet. I followed, trying to pull her back, but she shook her head.

  “We came here to talk.”

  “We talked.” My voice was strained. “And now our bodies want to have a conversation.”

  Her smile was slow, and it made my loins tighten. “My body has lots to say to you.”

  A groan ripped from deep in my throat. I leaned toward her again, but she leaned away.

  “But I actually do have something I want to talk to you about. And judging from the way you almost chewed off my head a minute ago, it’s something we should talk about.”

  Have I mentioned I hate words?

  I do. Like really.

  Still, this was the main reason I brought her out here (I mean, yes, of course I planned on some sex; that’s why I brought so many blankets), so it seemed I should listen to what she had to say.

  “That was about your father, wasn’t it?”

  All thought of hanky panky time went flying off into the distance.

  “Ivy,” I warned. My father wasn’t a subject I liked to talk about.

  She held her ground. “You made me talk about him when I didn’t want to. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I actually feel better.”

  “I’m glad, baby.” My voice gentled.

  “So now we’re gonna talk about this. And then you’ll feel better.”

  Not bloody likely. “There’s nothing to say, Blondie. My father is scum. He abused my mother half my life until he almost killed her. Now he’s dying and he thinks death should somehow earn him a forgiveness card.”

  “So you don’t plan on talking to him at all?” she asked.

  “No,” I growled.

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You heard me.”

  “Whose side are
you on?”

  “Yours. Even when you’re being a giant doody head and are wrong.”

  “Did you just call me a giant doody head?”

  She nodded. “Mm-hmm.” I opened my mouth, but she lifted her hand. “Why are you so afraid to talk to him, Braeden?”

  “I’m not,” I ground out. I was getting all mixed up inside. The darkness and anger deep down was getting all riled up. I didn’t like it. Not at all.

  “Is it because you’re afraid that if you do—”

  I cut her off. “I will not ever forgive him.”

  Her face gentled even though my tone was angry and slightly mean. “That isn’t what I was going to say. I don’t think he deserves your forgiveness, B.”

  “You don’t?” Just hearing her say that calmed me down.

  “No. I don’t. But I do think you’re afraid if you talk to him face to face, you might see some things in him that remind you of yourself.”

  Her words hit their mark.

  I didn’t need to sit down beside him to see those things. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror, he was all I saw.

  “You’re nothing like him,” she vowed.

  “How do you know?” I asked, the words the closest I’d ever come to saying out loud my biggest fear. “You’ve never met him.”

  “I don’t need to meet him because I know you. You aren’t capable of that type of violence. You don’t have that mean streak in you.”

  “Yes, I am. I do.”

  She tilted her head. “Maybe,” she allowed.

  Her honesty only helped me. I admired that she didn’t try to sugarcoat everything she said.

  “But those parts of you only surface when you feel like you have something or someone to protect. You don’t use those qualities against people, Braeden. You don’t use them to tear people down. You use them to guard people you love.”

  She made me sound like some comic book character.

  “I’m no hero, Ivy.”

  “No, you aren’t. You drink bad wine, cuss too much, and let very few people in.”

  “A guy gets one bad bottle of wine…” I muttered. “And he never lives it down.”

  “You’re real. You have real feelings, real emotions, and the things you do reflect that. I’d take you over a hero any day. Even Spider-Man.”

  I made a scoffing sound. “Superman would kick Spidey’s ass.”

  She gasped. “Bad wine and bad taste in superheroes? You’re just pushing it now.”

  I laughed. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I’ll regret not talking to him before he dies. Mom says I will. She thinks I need closure.”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Talking to him doesn’t mean forgiving him,” she pointed out.

  Such a simple statement, but it held so much power.

  “No?”

  She shook her head. “You do it for you. Not for him. Maybe just telling him you can’t accept what he did all those years ago will help you close that door.”

  Maybe she was right.

  All this time, I was thinking if I talked to my father, it would be because he asked me to. I never thought about it being something I would do for myself.

  And yeah, maybe that’s what Mom was trying to say all those times she urged me call him. But she was too close to the situation. Maybe this was something I needed to hear from someone else, like Ivy.

  “I’m gonna tuck that right in here.” I tapped on my head. “Think on it some.”

  She looked insanely pleased with herself. I pulled the cup out of her lap and tossed it over the side to join mine. “Talking’s over.”

  Gently, I pushed her back against the pillows and leaned into her.

  “Tell me yes, Ivy,” I intoned, hovering my lips mere centimeters above hers.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  It was all I needed to hear.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ivy

  His need seemed urgent.

  His hands were anything but.

  I was pressed into the pillows, cushioning my body like they were made just for me. Slowly he kissed me, dragging his mouth down the side of my neck and latching onto that sweet spot, the one that always made me shiver.

  I didn’t even think about the sounds I made as he licked and sucked because I was too caught up in the feel of his mouth.

  When at last he continued down along my collarbone to nip at my shoulder, my fingers were digging into his flesh, impatiently demanding more.

  He chuckled and pulled back, taking his weight off mine and reaching for each blanket, peeling away the layers one by one with aching tenderness, like he was unwrapping a gift.

  When I was lying there with nothing covering me, he pulled my hand so I could sit up. With ease, my tank top was lifted off my body and tossed aside. My bra joined the fabric, and the cool night air brushed against my bare skin.

  If my nipples weren’t already hard, they would have puckered instantly.

  B pushed me back down and fastened his lips around one of my breasts. He didn’t go directly for the bud in the center. Instead, he sucked and kneaded the flesh around it.

  My back arched, lifting myself up and offering him even greater access. One hand cupped the fullness to hold it in place so he could assault it even more with slow and gratifying kisses.

  Only when I started to shake did he suck the nipple deep into his mouth.

  I moaned loudly, and he repeated the action.

  I reached for him. My fingers met shirt and not skin.

  I tugged at the fabric because it was in the way. He left my breast long enough to rip the shirt over his head and toss it aside. Then he was back, lavishing the same amount of unhurried attention on the other breast.

  I spread my legs so he could settle between my thighs. Both of us were still wearing jeans, but I wrapped my legs around him anyway as his lips trailed down my stomach and around my navel.

  The button on my jeans gave way easily, and he dipped his fingertips in the waistband, delving beneath my panties.

  I gasped at just the skin-on-skin contact and looked up at the night sky.

  Soon, I was completely naked, nothing but the soft blanket at my back. Braeden knelt between my legs and stared down at me. I couldn’t make out his expression in the dark, but the way he touched me said it all.

  I’d never had anyone be so attentive, so tender and gentle.

  I gave myself to him totally, offering him almost anything he could want. But he never took advantage of me. When I sat up to reach for him, he sank down and mumbled incoherent words that only urged me on.

  He liked when I dragged my nails up the inside of his thigh.

  He liked when I nipped at the spot just below his ear.

  He especially liked when I took him deep into my throat and lightly pinched his nipple at the same time.

  I kissed and sucked until he swore and gently lifted me aside. I reached for his cock, wanting to guide it toward my entrance, but he shook his head.

  “Not yet,” he murmured and lowered his mouth to my inner thigh.

  He licked upward, almost to my most private place, but then he drew back.

  I gasped.

  “Is this okay, baby? Can I touch you here?”

  “If you don’t, I’ll cry.”

  He laughed, the sound hoarse. “Just tell me if you want me to stop.”

  “I’m never gonna want you to stop.”

  He used two fingers and slid them inside my opening. My knees fell open and a sigh took over my body. As his fingers worked, he sucked gently at the already swollen bud.

  When his tongue started lapping and his fingers moved a little faster, I gasped and arched up. He paused, and I urged him on. Seconds after he started up again, I splintered into a thousand pieces. It was like Fourth of July inside my body; everything exploded into a finale of lights.

  I was still floating from the pleasure when he came over me. I felt his insistent length at my opening, and I sighed and
tilted closer.

  With a groan, he slid inside me.

  Both of us cried out. Braeden’s body went rigid.

  “Fuck,” he whispered into my ear. “You’re so warm and slick.”

  In response, I tightened my walls around him, flexing against his cock. He made a sputtering sound and then slid out, only to delve right back in.

  It felt so good. It felt so right.

  I clutched him against me and swiveled my hips. “You feel incredible,” I murmured.

  He pumped his hips again, his eyes going wide. He propped himself up on his hands and stared down at me.

  “Shit,” he ground out, like speaking was hard. “I forgot to wrap it.”

  That explained why this time felt a little different, a little more raw.

  “It’s okay,” I said as he pulled out. I could tell he was upset. “I’m not mad. I’m on the pill.”

  “It’s not okay,” he spat, sitting back and reaching for his jeans. “I got so caught up in you that I freaking forgot a condom.”

  I sat up and pressed my hand to his lower back. “I’ve been tested. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

  He laughed.

  He actually threw back his head and laughed.

  “What?” I grumbled. Some of the sex-induced bliss I was feeling floated away.

  He turned back with a condom clutched in his fist. “I know you’re clean, baby. I don’t care about me. I care about you. About respecting you.”

  “But I’m not upset.”

  “I know you aren’t, and I love the shit out of you for it. But when we go bareback, I want it to be something you agree to when you aren’t under the spell of my touch.”

  I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, but he stopped me. His hand flattened on my shoulder and pushed me back down. “Now, baby,” he cajoled. “I’m just as deep under your spell too. It’s the reason I forgot.”

  He ripped open the foil packet and slid it down over his still-rigid length.

  “Have you done that with lots of girls?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

  Braeden lowered himself so the front of our bodies touched completely. He brushed the hair away from my face and kissed me. “Never.”

  My eyes popped open.

  He nodded. Before I could say anything else, he kissed me at the very same moment his length slid home.