Satisfaction

by Piper Lawson

  Still, after talking with Dal last night, I’d found myself thinking about the women I had slept with and re-examining why. It’d always been on good terms. But out of love? The kind where every part of you hums for another person because you don’t want to be anywhere they aren’t?

  No.

  It’s not that I’m opposed to love. I’ve seen it work magic in my friends’ lives.

  But I’ve also seen it break people.

  One moment you’re on top, the next you’re crushed against the reef.

  I might ride the biggest waves in the world, but that’s one particular surf I’m content to steer clear of.

  By the time the sun went down, my boards were in the back room at Travesty and I was knocking on an upper-floor door in a two-story condo complex in Culver City.

  “You brought snacks!” Dal made an appreciative noise when she opened the door and spotted the popcorn in my hands.

  I cleared my throat. “Um. Yeah. I always come prepared.”

  Words were beyond me, because the jean shorts she’d worn to unload the truck had made a reappearance.

  Scratch that. These were shorter, I’d swear it in court, and frayed at the edges in a way that tickled her skin and left her long, tan legs on display. A tank top the color of cherries hugged her perky breasts, and when she reached to snag the bag of popcorn from my hands, the shirt rode up enough for me to catch a glimpse of her waist.

  I wondered if she’d be as soft as she looked, because all I could think about was how it’d feel to drag my mouth up the slow slope of her stomach.

  Stop it.

  I followed her into the foyer, which had no closet but a row of tidy hooks for jackets and sweaters and an umbrella. The small kitchen was off to the right, the living room directly in front of us.

  “Your apartment. It’s…”

  “It’s linoleum,” she finished with a laugh, toeing the tile floor. “But with this manager’s salary, and Mac finishing community college? Maybe we can get something nicer this summer.

  “She’ll be home any minute.”

  “What’re we watching?”

  “The Killing 3.”

  I grimaced. Of course it had to be horror. “Thought they killed everyone in one and two.”

  “Not a horror fan?”

  “Nah. I just didn’t peg you as one.”

  “I’m not scared of everything,” she said wryly as she crossed to the fridge, barefoot. “Can I get you a drink? Beer?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  Dal opened the door and bent over.

  I forced my gaze to the “Happy Birthday Dal” banner pinned to the fridge and away from the tempting curve of her ass in those shorts. “Whoa. When was this?”

  “Last month.”

  “I didn’t know,” I commented as she shut the fridge and set two beers on the counter.

  She popped the tops on both beers and pushed one toward me with a smile. “You live two hours away. There’s a limit on the kind of friends we can be.”

  “That’s crap. Hell, Dylan and Lex dated on different sides of the country for months.”

  “I guess.” Dal set the microwave and turned to face me as the popcorn popped, tracing a toe absently over the tile. “But with them, it’s like nothing could keep them apart. They should’ve been wrong for each other for every reason and yet…” She lifted a shoulder.

  “And yet,” I said under my breath as Dal reached for a bowl to dump the popcorn into.

  Thinking about my friends had me wondering about the boundaries of my friendship with Dal.

  Before I could progress that thinking—for better or worse—the door opened, and the redhead from the other day came bounding in.

  “Oh, popcorn! Sweet. We’re out. Hi, handsome.”

  “Hi, Mac.”

  “Dal told me you two faked me out with the stop-drop-and-roll-thing the other day.” She tsked.

  “What can I say. Our love’s a slow burn.” Mac hooted as I trailed Dal to the couch and dropped into the seat.

  “I like this guy, D. You should keep him around.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she murmured as she set the movie up to play.

  We settled in to watch, me and Dal next to each other on the couch and Mac sprawled on the chair.

  But my brain was distracted by her closeness. Her scent.

  The opening scenes were par for the course, some young blond girl and her friends from school renting a cabin that looked like it’d been made by axe murderers centuries before.

  Not fifteen minutes in, Mac’s phone rang and she leapt out of the chair, lunging for the phone on the kitchen counter.

  “Want us to stop it?” Dal called.

  Mac waved a dismissive hand as she answered. “Yeah.” Pause. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  She blew out a breath.

  “My brother got picked up again,” Mac announced as she clicked off. “That little shit’s going to pay.”

  “Take my car?”

  “Thanks, hon.” In a cloud of red hair and cowboy boots, she vanished out the front door, slamming it on the way.

  Then it was me and Dal. I shifted, the dent in the middle of the couch encouraging me closer.

  “She seems nice.” I glanced over to take in Dal’s profile in the flickering light of the TV.

  “Mac’s a handful,” Dal said, catching my eye with a half-smile. “I love her to death. She was one of my first friends here. She makes this crocheted lingerie that doubles as festival wear.”

  The word “lingerie” from Dal’s mouth had something lighting up in the back of my brain. I reached for my beer. “I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

  Dal’s gaze flicked from the TV to me and back again. She arched a brow, her amused lips inches from mine. “Are you asking for a demonstration?” she teased.

  I choked, setting the bottle down on the table with a clink. “I didn’t know that was an option.”

  I shifted to face her, because there was no point pretending to be focused on the movie now.

  Her face was bright and a little flushed. Something was different tonight. Like maybe our time together last night had put a strain on her, not just me.

  Or maybe it had changed her. Made her bolder.

  “Tell me something,” I started, steering the conversation in another direction. “If being the center of attention bugs you, why can you handle a line of customers?”

  Her nose scrunched up. “I know how to help them. It’s when it’s an audience. Someone watching. Judging.”

  “You really need to get over these fears.”

  She cocked her head. “Immersion therapy? You want to drown me? Make me give a speech in public?”

  “Something that freaks you out even more.”

  “I’m not smuggling drugs across national borders in my ass.”

  I laughed softly. “I was thinking more like…Getting yourself off.”

  A scream from the TV made Dal jump, spilling popcorn. I bent to collect the fallen kernels.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one made edgy by slasher flicks.

  “I do get myself off,” she protested as I straightened.

  “Really? Let me guess. Lights out. Covers pulled up. No one home.”

  Her eyes glinted in the dark. “You’re making fun of me.”

  I shouldn’t be provoking her but damned if she didn’t need someone to push her a little.

  And that someone’s you?

  Yeah, why the hell not.

  I thought about what her roommate had said, that she and the ex hadn’t had chemistry. Added that to her comments about the guy looking elsewhere, which—pardon my French—he had to be a fucking moron to do, because Dal was like a sexbomb pinup wrapped in apple pie.

  “Tell me. You ever gotten off in front of another person?” My voice lowered despite the fact that the movie soundtrack had been reduced to ominous music and we were the only two people in the room. But she leaned closer anyway, matching my murmur.


  “It’s not a spectator sport, Kent. If you’re with someone else, what’s the point?” The exasperation in her voice should’ve been cute.

  “The point is it’s fucking hot.”

  Dal’s lips fell open. “Oh.”

  Thank Jesus for the darkness, because that one syllable went straight to my dick. Or maybe it was the way her mouth went round, sending dangerous possibilities to my edgy brain. Her face cast in shadows made her full lower lip stick out more than usual.

  Dal shifted in her seat, the couch squeaking lightly.

  I turned back to the screen. A teenaged kid was running from a masked guy with a machete, but suddenly that was the safest place in the room to look.

  What was it with this girl? The movie had me on a low-grade buzz, but it was our conversation that had me twisted in knots.

  “What you said about sex and love…I don’t know if that’s true,” I heard myself say after a moment. “I’ve always thought there are good reasons for casual. And I’d like to think I’ve never pressured anyone, or treated them unfairly.”

  “What about Taylor? I mean,” she pulled her knees up in front of her, between us, “I just never pictured you two together. She wasn’t the nicest person to be around.”

  Taylor had always been sweet to me, probably because she’d wanted something. It was only after that I realized how awful she was to everyone else. “I’m not proud of that.”

  “Then why?”

  I turned it over. The answer was on the tip of my tongue, the same one I’d given myself for years. Things were simpler with casual. Clear boundaries made everyone happier.

  But it never felt as hollow as it did right now.

  So I tried something different.

  “Because it’s easy to get caught up in life. In what you should do. Who you should be. All the things you’ve screwed up. Sometimes you just need to…” I reached for words “…quiet the noise in your head.”

  I felt her solemn gaze on me, like she was searching for an answer to a question I hadn’t known I’d asked. Her eyes were wide, and I was willing to bet if I laid a hand over her heart I’d hear it pounding.

  “Turn around,” she said at last.

  What?

  But I shifted, facing the end of the couch and the window with the curtains drawn. She did the same, our backs pressing together.

  It was like a middle school game. I was about to say as much when she cleared her throat.

  I felt her breath through her back, through mine.

  Then an unmistakable sound.

  A zipper.

  “What are you doing?” My voice was rough.

  Her silky hair rubbed the back of my neck. “Quieting the noise.”

  The whispered admission had adrenaline pumping through my body.

  My eyes fell closed, my ears straining. The little hitch in Dal’s breath made my dick leap in my jeans.

  Jesus.

  When I went surfing, it was me and the ocean. Now it was like that, only it was me and Dal. I focused on her warm body through her tank top, my T-shirt.

  I swallowed, my fingers digging into my knees. “Is it working?” I grunted.

  “Stop distracting me.”

  The tight sound sent my brain to darker places.

  The girl on the film shrieked. I prayed she’d die already.

  Dal was my friend. Someone I liked and respected.

  And I couldn’t for the life of me remember how we’d got here.

  All I knew was she smelled like flowers and temptation incarnate, and her little breaths made my hands itch on the denim of my jeans.

  I leaned my head back, closing my eyes. If I gave my brain an inch it’d take a mile, but I couldn’t hold back.

  I wondered if either the movie or our conversation had turned her on as I pictured her fingers sliding under the edge of her panties, grazing her wetness. Her thumb on her clit. Brushing once. Again, slower.

  I turned my head to the side. Her bare shoulder, lightly freckled from the sun, edged into my peripheral vision. “You’re not watching the movie,” I rasped.

  “No.” Her voice was breathy. “You scared?”

  Shit, Dal.

  My abs flexed from the effort of staying still as I imagined her pressing a finger inside.

  Her deep breath at my back had me biting my tongue.

  Two fingers. I really fucking wanted it to be two.

  I inhaled the scent of her skin. I started to reach for her hair, the silky strands sliding against my neck, but stopped short. This might’ve been my experiment, but I hadn’t been ready for the side effects.

  “I need to tell you something.” I hoped the little hitch in her voice was from my breath on her skin. “Take this in the spirit of friendship, but…” My eyes fell closed. “You’re sexy as fuck.”

  She went still. The only feeling in my body was the vibration of being close to her. Like catching the most beautiful wave and opening up to it, taking every ounce of power and force and beauty and riding the shit out of it.

  I breathed, overwhelmed by the moment, by her.

  When she tapped me on the shoulder, I turned.

  The slight flush of her cheeks was drowned out by the guilt in her eyes.

  “Why’d you stop,” I muttered.

  Dal’s throat worked for a moment before I heard her voice. “I want to be that girl. The badass. But I’m not.”

  Her lips parted, and I wanted to drag her under me and take out this unfamiliar need coiled low in my stomach.

  I forced myself to get a damned grip. I hadn’t touched her, and she hadn’t come close to touching me, but I was reacting as if she’d sliced me open and crawled inside.

  “You are that girl,” I said at last, my voice surprisingly level. “You just don’t know it.”

  I shifted back in my seat and we watched the rest of the film, trying to forget the arousal and frustration tingling through my body.

  And knowing somewhere deep down I never would.

  7

  Dal

  “These are the wrong size,” Kyla complained from behind a red surfboard. “Do you have a stumpy one?”

  “Let me check.”

  Kyla and I had arrived early this morning to style the store for the photoshoot. We were going for a “every season is summer,” vibe which only California had a hope in hell of pulling off.

  “You won’t believe this kid,” Mac exclaimed as she shoved in the front door, a tray of coffees in her hands. “He thinks because he’s a minor and he’s carrying instead of selling that he’s not going to land his ass in juvie.”

  “I didn’t hear you come in last night. You had to drive all the way to Anaheim?”

  “Yeah.” She passed coffees to me and Kyla and hopped up on the counter.

  Kyla took a grateful drink, then set the cup on a display table as she reached for another board.

  We’d posed the mannequins on surfboards, talking and laughing. One was walking a tiny stuffed dog, balanced on the front.

  I took one sip of the coffee Mac had gotten me and cringed. “Whoa. Creamfest. This is yours.”

  I passed it to her and took the one in her hands.

  “Speaking of Creamfest. How is Mr. Hottie?” she asked sweetly. “You were practically making out on the couch when I left. Then I get home from rescuing my degenerate brother to find the guy gone.”

  “Wait. You and Kent?” The surfboard Kyla had set against the wall started to slip, and she grabbed for it just in time. “And I figured you were skipping out to do interview prep last night.”

  “Nothing’s going on,” I protested. “We were hanging out.” I was grateful when a customer brushed in the store and Kyla went to help.

  “Unlike every wannabe in this town, your guy builds things with his hands instead of doing Dove for Men commercials with them,” Mac mused. “What else do you think he could do with those hands, Dal?”

  “Not thinking about it.” I turned back to the display.

  “Okay, real talk. Chri
s was a douche. He didn’t satisfy you while you were together, physically or emotionally. Then the man made a sex tape with some B-list singer and was dumb enough to leak it.”

  My chest burned, not from betrayal, but because I could remember the humiliation like it was yesterday.

  All he’d said when I confronted him was that he needed something more than I could give him. Someone who was “in tune with their sexuality.”

  He’d said all of it in this easy, laid-back tone. As if he was telling me he was going vegan, not that he’d been screwing the talent at the record label.

  “I’m over it,” I said, turning to face my roommate. “You know what bugs me though?”

  Mac arched a brow. “Hit me.”

  I huffed out a breath. “That there’s some screwed-up human need to capture bodily fluids on film. And then share it with the masses.” I moved a stack of shirts across a table. “Why do we need to take something private and make it public? No, wait. Why are we even obsessed with that shit to start with? Getting off, I mean. Talking about it with people. Showing it to other people.”

  Mac shifted to cross one leg over the other. “I have no idea where this is coming from. But as much as I’d like to see you take a well-deserved dive off the deep end? Chris is gone—along with his dickish friends—and about damned time. Because a hundred bucks I don’t have says Kent gives way better orgasms.”

  Take this in the spirit of friendship, but…you’re sexy as fuck.

  A wave of heat started at my toes, defied gravity as it spread up my thighs, between my legs, to my breasts.

  “When I’m ready to date, Mac, I want a real relationship. Someone serious.” I didn’t know if I was trying to convince her or myself. Because when Kent was around, it was too easy to just chuck all of it. To pretend a physical connection was enough.

  Even though I knew deep down it could never satisfy me.

  A customer approached and I snapped into work mode, checking her out, wrapping the garment in tissue paper and passing the bag to her with a smile. Mac and I watched her go.

  Mac shifted off the counter, grabbing her coffee cup and pointing at me as I rolled my eyes. “Be home by nine. Don’t forget.”

  “Your graduation party.” Mac was the first person in her family to go to college, and I was damned proud of her. I knew it hadn’t been easy to make it happen.