my life as a pop album

by LJ Evans

  He pulled me to my feet, hand going to my hair.

  “I saw your fan club tonight.”

  He watched my lips.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Trista says you never…”

  “I don’t believe in having sex just to have sex.”

  My turn to stare, because what? What twenty-something guy didn’t want sex without strings? Wasn’t that what had started this whole three week journey? Him wanting to sleep with me? I knew he wanted me. He’d pretty much said that. But I could also hear Hayden again, telling me that my imagination stopped me from seeing reality. My holes in my heart started to bleed a little.

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” was all I could say.

  This did bring a smile to his face. Not his huge one. Not the one that stretched his cleft into its own smiley face, but one that did lighten his mood.

  “I have a solution for that,” he said with so much innuendo that I was right back to not having to doubt. He did want me.

  And he proved it by kissing me. A slow kiss that burned from my toenails slowly up my legs to the pit of my belly and up until it reached my heart where it caused melting to occur all over again.

  I tangled my fingers in those slightly too long locks of dark chocolate and opened my mouth and soul to him as he took them both with his tongue and his musician fingers and his smile. We were lost in a moment of heat until the lights went out on us.

  I felt his smile on my lips. “I think they’re kicking us out. Has Miss Mia ever been kicked out of anything?”

  I shook my head because I couldn’t talk. He grabbed my hand and then his guitar case and the scent that always surrounded him wafted up from it.

  “What is that smell?”

  “What smell?”

  I pointed to the guitar case. He pulled it up and took a whiff. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “It smells like wood wax or honey and musk or…”

  “Ah. The guitar oil.”

  Guitar oil. And that was a puzzle piece that did finally click into place. He smelled like guitar oil. How very, very à propos. And sexy. Guitar oil and him would be embedded into my brain until… well, forever.

  We made our way outside and the muggy air hit us like a fry basket. We looked around. “How are we getting back?” I asked.

  Derek looked as if the same thought had suddenly hit him. “I guess we’re walking.”

  I looked down at my wedges.

  “Butterbeer,” I said just as he said, “Shit.”

  He laughed at me, “Butterbeer?”

  I shrugged. “There are a lot more interesting words in the world than cuss words.”

  He kissed me as if that was the best response he’d ever heard.

  “I’ll call a taxi,” he said.

  By the time we got back to the hotel, it was close to two. I was dead on my feet and I knew he must be twice as tired. We were supposed to leave at seven a.m. It was a two and half hour drive to Alabaster Caverns, and they only allowed the wild caving the guys wanted to do from eight until three, so we had to be there early if they wanted to spend a good chunk of the day underground.

  I went to my door, and Derek didn’t even ask, he just came with me and followed me into my room, stripping down to his skivvies at my bedside while I watched. He beckoned to me, and I stood motionless. Because hadn’t he just said he didn’t believe in sex just for sex? We stared at each other until he must have realized that I was incapable of moving to him.

  So, he slowly approached me, watching to see if I’d fly. I was getting good at not flying away scared, but flying to him was still harder. “Little Bird, there is no way in hell I’m making love to you tonight, so don’t give me that look like I’m about to steal from the cookie jar.”

  He grinned, but it was a tired grin.

  He tugged at the hem of my tank. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to make love to you. But when we make love, I want it to be an all-night adventure. If not an all day and all-night adventure. I want to hear you moan many, many times.”

  I was so confused. Sex not sex? Where did I fit? And his fingers, skimming my stomach as he pulled at my top did nothing to help my confusion.

  I let him lift my shirt over my head, wrapping it behind me so that he could pull me towards him with it. I was captured by my own shirt. He kissed me tenderly on the lips.

  “And tonight, I can barely think, let alone have the self-control to make you moan as many times as you deserve.”

  My body was a puddle of mush and my brain went right along with it.

  “So, for tonight, you’re just going to have to put up with me spooning you in a desperate attempt to believe that we’ll have our moment sometime very soon.”

  Shirt gone, he tugged at the button on my jeans and then kissed my belly button and my thigh as he bent to help me take the jeans off my frozen body. Because I was still very much frozen even if I felt like a puddle of simmering butter inside.

  My jeans got stuck on my wedges, and he gently lifted my foot and removed each of those before pulling off my pants. I balanced on his shoulders as he helped me lose the jeans that I never knew I hated until they were in the way of my body touching his.

  When I had nothing left but my bra and undies, he stood and took my hand and led me to the bed. He lifted the covers, and I climbed in, and true to his word, he crawled in behind me, arm draped over my waist, legs tucked up against mine, and I felt that feeling again. That somehow, I had come home. To a place I hadn’t known that I’d wanted and yet was somehow never going to be able to leave again.

  And the truth hit me so hard in the chest that I couldn’t breathe.

  The truth was that I was going to fall for him, and I wondered if he would fall too? I wondered if we would learn to speak our own language with kisses on cheeks? Or if I’d be left having fallen off the edge, alone, again?

  KISS ME

  Getting Stuck

  “Kiss me like you wanna be loved”

  -Ed Sheeran

  IT WAS ONLY FOUR hours later when the alarm went off. I groaned because, have I mentioned? I hate mornings! Derek kissed me on the neck, and all of a sudden, mornings didn’t seem quite so bad. But then he bounded out of bed with more energy than anyone who had only four hours of sleep had the right to have, and mornings seemed all wrong again.

  “Up and at ‘em, Miss Mia,” he said, and I threw the pillow at him.

  “I’m getting the feeling you aren’t a morning person,” he grinned, and I looked at his too perfect body through half closed eyes.

  When I still didn’t budge, he grabbed a leg and pulled me off the bed, where he caught me before I fell to the floor. “Crackerjacks!” I screamed.

  He laughed. I smacked him in the chest.

  “Go shower,” he said and then kissed me before propelling me towards my bathroom.

  “I’ll be back in a jiff,” he said as he headed towards his door.

  “Did you just say jiff?”

  He smiled and waggled his brows.

  “You’re not the only one who can use interesting language.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. He came back, kissed me quick, and then let himself through our shared door while I made my way to the bathroom in a daze of sleepiness and longing.

  I groaned at myself in the mirror when I saw my make-up from last night was smudged and gross. “Good look, Mia,” I said with disgust.

  I was in and out of the shower as quickly as I could. I pulled on my jean shorts and a t-shirt, knowing I’d have to change into my new spelunking apparel when we got to the caverns but not willing to layer up yet in the heat in the Camaro. I left my waves to dry on their own, lifting them into a messy bun because they were going to be a wreck after the helmet anyway.

  When I came out, Derek was sitting there with his bags and my bags packed. I looked at the closet. Only swinging, empty hangers left.

  “Did you pack my suitcase?”

  It was a stupid question because of course he had, but I
was a little taken back.

  “Is this a problem too?” He smiled up at me.

  “Do you have any sense of privacy?”

  “You just spent the night naked up against me and now you want privacy?”

  “Um. We weren’t naked.”

  Derek chuckled.

  “Okay, Miss Mia. Whatever makes you feel better.”

  His nicknames for me rolled round like a carousel. Which one would I get at the next stop?

  “How do you know what makes me feel better?” I tossed back.

  He crossed to me and tugged at the curls in my messy bun but didn’t pull it out, even though I could tell he wanted too. “I can think of a lot of things that would make you feel better, but for now, words will have to do.”

  And I was a puddle of confused goo again because words were so much better than most things people did. And he always came at me hot and heavy, but his words from last night also rattled around in my brain. The words about not having sex just for sex.

  “Come on, Miss Mia. We have to hit the road. Big caving day ahead of us.”

  We were in the Camaro and on the road before seven. I was driving. I wasn’t sure it was smart because I didn’t necessarily trust myself on four hours of sleep, but Derek promised he’d keep me awake by reading and fueling me with Starbucks.

  And he was right. He did.

  About an hour in, he put the book down and dug through my bag again. “Anything I can help you find?” I asked.

  “It’s not that I’m not enjoying Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy because I am quite enjoying their banter, but I’m tired. I need something spicier to keep me awake.”

  “And you think you’ll find spicier in my bag?” I didn’t know whether to be complimented or insulted.

  “You did mention something about erotica the other day.”

  Like the tween I often felt like around him, I flushed. I couldn’t help it. This made his smile widen even further, in that way that sunk into my gut.

  “No erotica in there,” I replied, eyes on the road.

  “How about on your Kindle?”

  I swallowed. No way in all the shades of Hades was he reading erotica to me while I drove.

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  I shrugged. My phone with its Kindle app was plugged in so we could use Google Maps, so I wasn’t worried.

  “Okay. Twenty questions then,” he said in his typical chipper fashion.

  “You have way more energy than me this morning, maybe you should be driving.”

  “No. My turn tomorrow.”

  “Fine,” I agreed with a huff.

  “You want to go first, or shall I?” he said it so seductively that I knew I was in lots of trouble. Over my head in trouble. Ready to just drown in the lake after jumping off the forbidden cliff trouble.

  “You,” I whispered out.

  “Who was your first kiss?”

  My fear eased a little. That was easy. “Tim Martin. He was a junior. I was a freshman. He was friends with Cam and picked me up as a side benefit.”

  “A side benefit?”

  “Is that question two?”

  “No, that’s a clarifying question, it doesn’t count.”

  “It’s a question,” I insisted.

  “Fine, it’ll be question two. Explain.”

  “Everyone loved Cam. Everyone wanted Cam. She was madly in love with my brother though so no one stood a chance. In enters me and her best friend, Wynn. Good alternatives.”

  “I cannot believe you just classified yourself as an alternative,” he said.

  I shrugged again. It didn’t make it not true even if he didn’t like it.

  “My turn.” I said. He didn’t look like he wanted to move on from the first conversation, but he waited for me to ask my question anyway. “Did you really live in the PlayBabe Mansion?”

  His turn to groan. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “Is that a second question?” he teased.

  “Clarifying one, but okay, yes.”

  “And it sucked.”

  “That was not my question.”

  “You didn’t really ask a specific question.” He smirked knowingly.

  “How did you end up living at the PlayBabe Mansion? Is that better?”

  “Yes, but it’s question three.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and he reached out to rub my lips when I darted it back inside my mouth. I swallowed hard and concentrated on the road ahead of us.

  “My dad ran the PlayBabe Casino in the Bahamas until it closed. Hugo brought him back to the states, and Dad became his right-hand man at the house.” Derek shrugged. “It was easier for him if we all lived there because he could have my parents’ at his beck and call whenever he wanted.”

  “So, your mom lived there too?”

  “Just so we’re clear, that’s number four.”

  I just nodded.

  “I’ll even save you a question. She wasn’t a ‘Babe’. She wasn’t one of Hugo’s ‘girlfriends’. She met my dad at the casino, stupidly let him knock her up and marry her, and then followed him to the mansion. She helped out at the house, mostly organizing events. We were, not quite alternatives, but at least side benefits.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t. There seemed a lot I could ask about why he thought it was stupid that they’d gotten together, and about whether he liked living there, but I couldn’t figure out which one to ask, so he moved on.

  “My turn,” he said and then grinned which should have warned me that I wouldn’t like the next question. “Oral or regular?”

  I choked. “Excuse me?”

  He laughed. “You have a dirty mind, Miss Mia.”

  Good Girl Mia groaned, but Other Mia wished she had a witty comeback. “What in Merlin’s beard, did you mean?”

  He chuckled at my non-cuss word.

  “I meant oral reading or regular silent reading, of course, whatever did you think?” He was laughing at me. I knew it, but I also knew he’d done it on purpose to see my reaction. He still wanted me to surprise him.

  “Oral isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I told him with my own smile.

  “Explain.”

  I smirked. “Just so we’re clear, this is number four.”

  He nodded in agreement, smile widening in that way I liked.

  “Okay. But don’t judge,” I said.

  “No promises.”

  I looked at him as he shrugged, “I did meet you in a pantsuit.”

  I eye-rolled him, then we were silent for a moment until he prodded. “I believe you were going to explain how oral isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  I sighed, gulped, and continued.

  “I had a roommate who liked to tell me every detail about her sex life. I mean. Every. Detail.”

  “Your own live erotica.”

  I ignored his dig. “She’d be telling me all about how her boyfriend had cum in her mouth, and all I could think was, ‘Ew, that’s kinda gross,’ because, let’s just be honest, that body part is what you pee with and other stuff coming out of it isn’t exactly chocolate cake so, really, who would think oral sex is hot?”

  I couldn’t look at him after all of that. I’d just said things to him that I had never said to anyone. Things I’d barely been able to register in my own brain let alone speak out loud to another human being. A sexy human being to boot. One that I was really thinking about having hot sex with on a daily basis.

  He didn’t laugh, but when he spoke, I could hear the laugh in his voice anyway. “I don’t think you’ve been doing it right.”

  “What? Sex?”

  “Oral sex specifically, but maybe sex all together.”

  And I couldn’t help yet another shrug. Because he may not have been wrong. And, let’s be clear, I haven’t done any oral sex. And the one time I’d had regular plain old missionary style sex, it hadn’t been all that earth shattering. Not the way people in books explained it at least. And the guy I’d had sex wi
th had returned to his ex-girlfriend so there was a good chance that I had been doing it all wrong.

  “By the way, that’s number five,” was his response.

  “I didn’t ask anything.”

  “You asked a clarifying question and you seemed to have set the ground rules that clarifying questions count as a question.”

  “You’re impossible,” I grumbled.

  “But gorgeous.”

  “I’m debating the gorgeousness as we speak.”

  I was surprised I wasn’t more uncomfortable. Good Girl Mia usually shied away from any talk of sex with anyone. Safety discussing sex was only found in books. Definitely never live and in person.

  “Are you going next or me?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I want to play anymore.”

  “Fine, my turn then. How many times have you had oral sex?”

  I blushed again because God, he just kept pushing at the edges of me. I didn’t know if it was because he liked it when I was uncomfortable, or if he thought there was more to me than what I shared on the outside. Either way, admitting some of this stuff out loud was going to be embarrassing. And, as I freely admitted to myself now, I wanted to have sex with this gorgeous guy, but I was worried that if I admitted how little I’d had sex, maybe it would turn him off.

  “Miss Mia?”

  “You first.”

  “Are you asking me how many times I’ve had oral sex?”

  I nodded.

  “As question number six?”

  I nodded again.

  “Given oral sex or received?”

  God, I didn’t want to go there, did I? Did I really want to know how many people he’d touched and who’d touched him? Was that going to make me feel more comfortable with my own limited experiences once he had me undressed in his bed? No. No. And, Jiminy Cricket, no.

  “Never mind. Scratch it. I don’t want to know.”

  “But it still counts as being asked.”

  “Not if I don’t make you answer it,” I griped back.

  “But I wanted to answer it,” he said with that sexy tone back in his voice that made me want to stare at him instead of the road. My fingers tightened on the wheel.

  His phone rang. Thank God, I’d been saved by the phone. He answered it with a sigh, “What do you want, dipshit?” It had to be Lonnie. Lonnie was the one he called names the most. I thought it was because they had been friends the longest.