by Vivian Wood
I leave the room with a grin on my face. Mouthing, “I’m done!” to myself as I walk down the stairs feels silly but also satisfying. I deserve something really, really good for finishing my first year of law school… and I know exactly what I want.
As I slide into my Mercedes, I pull out my phone and text Jameson. It’s been a few days since we spent the night together. I wanted to give him plenty of space, not to crowd him too much. But I feel like celebrating today, for sure.
Hey. I’m in the mood to party. And by party, I mean surf! Are you interested?
I don’t get anything back right away, so I head home for a minute. When I pull up outside my house, there are two messages waiting for me. The first is a picture of the ocean, captured just as a wave is rolling in. The second says: I’m at Breakneck Cove already. You can join if you want.
That’s kind of a weird way to phrase it, but all right. I’m still excited to see him.
I hurry to change into a tiny string bikini, a crop top, and a pair of shorts. I throw my wetsuit into the car, wrestle my new pink surf board in as well, then make the quick drive over to the beach.
Breakneck Cove is close, but it’s also kinda packed. The parking lot is jammed full of cars, and people have started parking along the side of the road. Luckily, I see a parking space opening up just as I’m about to enter the lot. I spot J’s car as I pull in, and can’t help but smile as I grab my surfboard.
I go past the parking lot, taking the well-trodden path down to the sandy beach. I’m taken aback by the sheer number of people on the beach at first. There are kids laughing and playing near the water, their corresponding adults shading their eyes and looking on from the positions further up the beach.
I trudge down the beach. It takes me a minute to find Jameson… and when I do, he is not alone. In fact, he’s with three hot girls, trying to catch a frisbee that one of them threw. I stop, worrying my bottom lip.
At least Jameson has a shirt on… because I’ve seen him without one, and I know what effect it has on women. He’s so tall and dashing, with his board shorts and sunglasses. I see one of the girls check him out, not subtly either.
I look at the girls, all gorgeous beach bunny types in string bikinis and shorts. Basically the types of girls I’ve been trying to imitate. Jameson tosses the frisbee, his whole body flexing for a second. He looks tall and handsome next to the sexy, age-appropriate women he’s with.
I am suddenly so jealous that I almost can’t stand myself. Jameson looks over and sees me. He raises his hand in greeting.
Perfect. Now I don’t have much of a choice. I have to go over there.
I slog over there, hating myself for feeling so much jealousy. After all, it’s not like I own Jameson. He can do whatever he wants… I would just rather not see it. Or know about it.
Or even think that it might happen, honestly. I frown.
“Hey,” Jameson greets me as I put my surfboard down. He sees my expression, and looks a bit puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, shading my eyes as I look out onto the ocean. “Who are your friends?”
“Who, them?” he says, motioning to the girls. He wrinkles his nose. “Just some girls that hang out with the group that I usually surf with.”
“Ohhh,” I say, relieved. “I mean, that’s cool.”
He arches a brow. “Is it?”
I blush. I decide to joke my way out of awkwardness. “I just came to learn to surf. You gonna teach me, or what?”
Jameson doesn’t look particularly convinced, but he lets it slide.
“Let me grab my board and my wetsuit. We’ll go a little bit down the beach, away from the crowds.”
He grabs his mint green surfboard, casually carrying it under his arm. His wetsuit he throws over his shoulder. I heft my board and my wetsuit, and we set off down the beach. After a minute or so, the silence feels pretty suffocating, so I try to make conversation.
“I finished my last exam today,” I say, hurrying to keep pace with him. Not only is he over a foot taller than me, but I guess he has had a lot more practice walking in the sand.
I’ve lived by the beach my whole life, but I still have trouble plodding along. He notices that I’m struggling and slows down, for which I am thankful.
“Oh yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah. That means I’m officially on summer break. I can help you study more often. I mean, you know, if you want that.”
He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, maybe.”
Frustrated by his terseness, I plunge onward. “I was thinking that I could maybe make those flash cards that I mentioned the other day.”
He grunts, distractedly looking out at the ocean. The crowds start to thin out here, so he stops and sinks the tail of his board in the sand.
“We should be good here.” He wrinkles his nose, but his eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses. “I’m going to go ahead and put my wetsuit on.”
“Cool.” I put my board down and quickly get out of my shorts and tee, climbing into the wetsuit. I zip it up, and then look at Jameson for further instructions. “Now what?”
He folds his arms, sizing me up.
“Do you remember the steps from last time? Or should we go over them again real quick?”
I bite my lip. “Mmm… maybe practice them one more time?”
He nods. “All right. Lay your board down flat.”
I lay my board down, and move to the end. “All right.”
“Get on your knees,” he orders.
There is a moment of weirdness between us, and I blush. I kneel down at the end of my board.
“Grab the sides, and move onto your stomach.”
I do it awkwardly. “Then do sort of a cobra pose, right?”
I push my head up, angling my elbows back. When I look to him for affirmation, I realize that he’s staring at my ass, even though it’s covered in neoprene.
I cock a brow. “Are you teaching me to surf, or daydreaming about touching my ass?”
He gives himself a shake, narrowing his dark gaze at me. “Quit being mouthy. Now turn your leg…”
He tries to walk me through standing up, but I can’t quite get it this time without having him as an example next to me. He frowns and comes over to me, touching my leg.
“You have to move this leg first.” He positions my foot. “And then slide this foot forward…”
I shiver a little at his touch. He slowly guides me to a standing position. When I’m finally upright, he’s super close to my face, close enough that I could almost turn my head and kiss him. He holds me for a few seconds too long, his hands on my waist.
I slowly turn my head to face him, and he looks down at my lips. I see him swallow. I gently kiss him, but he pulls away.
“Emma—” he begins, shaking his head.
“What, now that you deflowered me, you’re not interested?” I accuse, but I keep my tone light.
His look turns black. “Of course not. You know that’s not it.”
“No?” I ask, arching a brow. Of course I know that isn’t his hangup, but it’s fun to torment him a little.
Jameson steps back, wrapping his arms across his bare chest. “No. I feel like… Fuck. I feel lucky that you… that I got to…”
I grin wickedly. “Pop my cherry? I hear that’s what the kids are saying these days, grandpa.”
He gives me a long look. “You know that it’s not about that. But there are like a million reasons why we shouldn’t fuck again.”
“Really?” I say, stepping closer. I reach out and smooth my hand over his chest, looking up at him. I can feel his heartbeat. “When I touch you, I can’t think of a single one.”
He catches my hand against his chest, holding it tightly. He’s got a look in his eyes, like an admission of guilt. “It is easy to forget when we’re this close.”
I push up onto my tiptoes, brushing my lips against his. He makes a low noise in his throat, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my h
ead as his mouth descends upon mine. I part my lips, allowing him greater access. He controls the kiss, his tongue playing with mine. He grips my hair and pulls my head to the side, sucking on a spot on my neck.
When I whimper, trying to wrap my hands in his wetsuit, he makes an anguished sound and pushes me back a step.
“No. This is such a bad idea,” he says, a little out of breath. He looks down at me with pleading eyes. “Wasn’t one night enough?”
I answer as honestly as I know how. “Not for me, no. Was one night all you needed?”
Jameson’s expression is just… angry and lost, at the same time.
“It will have to be,” he says. He picks up his surf board and starts heading back toward the parking lot.
“Wait!” I call.
He slows, then turns. “What?”
“I… I’m sorry,” I say. The apology sounds lame though, probably because I’m not sorry at all.
He stares at me for a second with those brown-black eyes. “I just… I need some time, Emma. I need to get my head straight, and I can’t do that with you close by.”
Then he turns and trudges off again, leaving me standing on the beach, watching him go.
18
Jameson
I’m in my bed, trying to ignore the morning sun as it slants down on me. I have a hell of a hangover from the last three days of hard drinking, and not much else going on in my life.
I have working at Cure. I have surfing. But for the first time, it seems like that’s not enough.
Unfortunately, I have an idea of just what would fill that person-shaped hole in my life. Or who, I should say. The hookups and flings that kept me going in the past do less than nothing for me now. I’ve had multiple chances the last few nights, and yet…
I’m not interested. And I blame most of that part on Emma. Every time I even think about another woman, it’s like… it’s like other women are in black and white. I know Emma exists in full color, and my enjoyment of the black and white women is just… less than it was a couple of months ago.
I throw my arm over my eyes to block out the sun, and curse Emma. If she wasn’t so… pert and bouncy… then maybe I would have a chance of not wanting her again like this.
Foolishly, I thought that having her once would be enough to get her out of my system. The problem is, instead of doing that, I think that fucking her somehow drove her further under my skin.
And of course the fallout from having sex with Emma is on my mind all the time. I swear, if it weren’t for the fact that Asher is such a big part of my life, I would say fuck it. I’d bury myself so deep in Emma, she wouldn’t know what hit her.
The fact that I am the only man she’s ever been with is still astonishing. I don’t know the details, the ins and outs of her life that well, but I like to think that she had plenty of chances with other guys… and she chose me. She waited around for me.
It’s a little mind blowing. That thought makes me oddly proud, at the same time it makes me feel a little ill.
I hear the front door open and close. I’m guessing that’s Asher coming home, since he wasn’t here when I came in drunk last night. He’s obviously getting some action somewhere else, because I haven’t seen him but I did see that he rifled through the drawers in the bathroom. He left the giant box of condoms empty, where before there were probably ten or twelve left.
Sex heals all wounds, I guess. Even if the wound is a horrible ex.
Actually, scratch that. Especially if the wound is a horrible ex.
I smell something. I take my arm off of my eyes, sniffing the air. What is that, coffee?
Rolling out of bed, I pull on a pair of sweatpants and pad out of my bedroom. I go down the hall and emerge into the kitchen, then stop. Emma is there, with her hair thrown up in a bun, hovering over the stove with a spatula in hand.
I scrunch my face. “How did you—”
My voice scares her, makes her turn and jump out of her skin. She puts her hand over her heart and fans herself with the spatula. I notice that she’s wearing a cute little pale pink sundress, the hem of it barely reaching mid thigh. I swallow.
“Good lord, Jameson,” she says. She acts like I’m in her kitchen, which is really confusing. “Do you want some coffee?”
I don’t move except to fold my arms across my chest. “Do I? What are you doing here?”
“Ummm… Asher gave me a key.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal. Turning back to the stove, she starts using the spatula on some hash browns. “I um… I mostly wanted to apologize for being so pushy at the beach the other day. So I figured I would come over, make some breakfast, and help you study for the GED.”
Emma glances back over her shoulder. I’m sort of befuddled, so I head over to the kitchen table, and pull out a seat for myself. Squinting at her, I sigh.
“Your brother wouldn’t like you being here with me.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t live to please Asher.” She goes over to the cabinet, and gets down two mugs and a glass. She pours me a glass of water first, coming over to set it down in front of me. “You smell like whiskey still.”
I pick it up, not mentioning to her that she’s been the cause of a lot of my misery for the last three days. This hangover is half her fault. As I down the water, she pours me a black coffee and then sets it in front of me as well.
She goes back to the stove, easing the hash browns onto two plates, and scrambling some eggs. While the eggs are cooking, she prods them gently with the spatula. I drink a little of the coffee, then get up to refill the water glass.
It’s awkwardly silent in the kitchen, mostly just me staring at her ass and her sun kissed legs. I down three more glasses of water, and half the coffee. I don’t want to admit it, but the water has already taken the edge off of my hangover.
She opens a plastic container of strawberries, cutting off the tops with a knife.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I say.
She just smiles at me over her shoulder, so I get up and head down the hallway to the bathroom. After a quick piss, I take a few aspirin and brush my teeth. I glance in the mirror and try to smooth down my hair a little bit.
Then I head back to the kitchen. There are two plates of food ready on the counter. She’s made toast in the toaster. I catch her putting a fingertip’s worth of some kind of jam in her mouth.
We make eye contact, and something dark and unspoken radiates between us. She sucks on her fingertip, which gets me hard as fuck. When she pulls that fingertip away from her mouth, a little smudge of jam is left just above her lip.
“You’ve got a little, um,” I say, gesturing to her mouth. I move closer.
She blushes and wipes at the wrong side of her mouth. “There?”
“No, let me…” I step up to her, and she tilts her head up at look at me. The second I touch my thumb to her lip, I know I’ve made a mistake. I freeze, my eyes finding hers. It’s so easy for her to turn her head a little and kiss my thumb. There is something obscene about her plump lips working over my skin, something I can’t just watch.
It’s even easier for me to grab her by the waist and haul her up on the kitchen counter, spreading her thighs and bringing us together. My mouth descends upon hers, hungry and demanding.
She opens her mouth and her thighs for me, drawing me in without a second of hesitation. Her hands slip around my neck, fingernails lightly scoring the flesh of my shoulders. I palm one of her breasts, then pinch her nipple, drawing a cry from her lips.
I trail kisses down her jaw, skipping over her neck, and bend down to nuzzle the space between her tits. I feel her legs wrap around me, her heels digging into the backs of my legs, pulling me as close as possible.
I reach down and pull her dress up, finding her bare underneath. I groan as I rip off one of the straps holding her dress up, kissing her newly exposed breast. I know I’m not being delicate with her, but I’m too entranced to care.
She doesn’t seem to mind, her head thro
wn back. She’s making these little oh sounds that are killing me, every second I’m not inside her.
Fuck. I need to have her, right this second. But a voice in the back of my head says that Asher could walk in any second… and the voice isn’t wrong.
I pick Emma up, with her legs still wrapped around my waist, and carry her down the hall to my bedroom. I get inside, closing the door behind us with a slam, and fall onto the bed with Emma still holding onto me.
Her breath leaves her in a whoosh as we hit the bed, but I use my elbows to keep most of my weight off of her. She kisses me, and I bite her lower lip. She grabs my head and bites me on the neck, which I swear makes my cock pulse.
“Fuck!” I grit out. “You are such a bad girl, Em.”
I squeeze one of her tits hard, and she gasps.
“Bad enough to get punished?” she whispers.
“Ohhh fuck,” I say, pushing her down on the bed. I look at her for a second, searching her face. “You don’t really want that.”
She struggles under me, trying to push me off. “Maybe I do.”
I bring my hand up to her neck, fitting my fingers around the slim white column of her neck. I apply just a little bit of pressure, making her gasp and writhe beneath me. When I release her, she tries to pull me closer for a kiss. I allow it for a moment, but then I pull back. There is much more I want to do to her.
I move back, kneeling on the bed, and ruck her dress up over her head roughly. I cast it aside, then I strip off my own sweatpants.
Her eyes are immediately drawn to my cock, which jumps at the attention she pays it. She looks up at me, biting her lip.
“Can I taste you?” she asks quietly, seeming unsure.
God, could Emma be any sexier? I reach down and stroke my cock with one hand, nodding.
“You sure you’re ready to give head?” I ask.
Her eyes twinkle a bit, and she pushes herself up on the bed. “It’s not rocket science, right? You just… you’ll have to guide me a little.”
“I think I can do that,” I say, amused. I look around my tiny room, realizing that there probably isn’t room for her to get on her knees comfortably.
