“James!” I squawked then looked around frantically. Thankfully, most everyone had made their way back to the house to nibble on snacks in the kitchen and the bar, so no one overheard her. “He’s Jared’s best friend and young enough to be my son.”
My sister’s left eyebrow arrowed upward. “I notice that you didn’t deny either of those things, either.”
“There’s nothing to deny, James. Nothing has happened!” I whispered a little too loudly.
James chuckled and turned toward me. “Darcy… Young boys like that are just toys. Something fun to play with. Not a thing to take seriously. As long as he understands that up-front, everyone gets what they need, everyone’s happy, and no one gets hurt.” She stood then, towering over me with her hands on her hips as if she’d said something wise and profound instead of provocative. “I’m gonna cut out early.”
“You’re not staying for the rehearsal dinner?” I asked.
Hands still on her hips, she looked around. “To be honest, this has been a lot of togetherness for me today,” she said and didn’t bother to explain herself any further. I understood, but I couldn’t help feeling a little abandoned.
“Oh. Well, I guess I’ll see y’all tomorrow afternoon,” I said, standing to hug her.
James gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Okay, sis. And, hey…” She held me at arm’s length so she could look me in the eyes. “If Tommy Martinez is down to do something strange with you while he’s in town, let him.”
“James—” I tried to push away from her completely, but she held me fast.
“Darcy, it’s okay to take a little pleasure for yourself. You’re overdue.” She smacked another kiss on my cheek, chucked up the deuces, and said,” See you later, nephew!” before exiting the rehearsal like everyone had convened to pay her tribute.
I watched James make her way across the lawn in her super skinny jeans, wild hair, and a cacophony of brass bangles. Not for the first time in my life, I wished I could be as loud, bold, and deficient of fucks as my sister. I’ve never been good at asking for or taking what I wanted.
When I turned toward the couple at the altar, stammering through their I dos, and I immediately felt Tommy’s eyes on me. When I met his gaze, I couldn’t help thinking that James wasn’t wrong. I was overdue for some pleasure. Maybe it was time for me to take some for myself.
9
Tomás
Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s newest single blasted from the speakers of the private room I’d reserved for the bachelor party. I could tell by the big goofy-ass grin on Jared’s face as two very talented dancers tag-teamed him in a very athletic, seemingly impossible twerk session that I’d done a good job. He’d asked for a drunken, debauched bachelor party, and if the sticky dollar-bill-littered floor and the empty bottles of liquor strewn about the room were any sort of measurement, both boxes had been checked. Not that I was worried.
I just wished I was having as much fun as everyone else.
The rehearsal dinner had dragged on, with me trying not to stare at Darcy all night. The bachelor party seemed intent on doing the same. Ordinarily, I would be all into a night spent with half-naked women bent on getting my dick hard, but now that I had Darcy’s To-Do List, I couldn’t think of anything else.
Kiss me. And I mean really kiss me. Not like you’re just trying to get me naked, but like you could get lost in doing it for hours and hours. Stolen kisses. Secret kisses. Kisses in the rain. Kisses in the pool. Kiss me.
Touch me. Trace my lips with the tips of your fingers. Learn the slope of my nose, the hollow of my throat, the curve of my breast with the tip of one finger. Trace each of those places again with the tip of your tongue.
Talk to me. Tell me all the ways you imagined us together. Tell me every dirty thought you ever had. Every time a glancing touch made you hard — the way your hand cupping my shoulder made me wet today. Tell me every fantasy you ever had while laying in bed in the garçonnière. Tell me the meaning of all those Spanish pet names you’ve given me. Whisper them in my ear. Make me wet with your words.
Make me come. You probably know lots of ways to make a woman come. I know you do. Show me.
That last one…shit. That last one about did me in. I knew sooo many ways to make her come. I’d daydreamed about it in fucking detail. There was a catalog in my brain that I was ready to put to work. And now that I had this list, I would start to tick every single one of them off, one by one.
As soon as I got out of this fucking strip club.
The song ended, and the strippers climbed off of Jared, leaving him covered in glitter and looking deliriously happy. The DJ announced last call. That was my cue. These dudes were all drunk as hell, and I wanted to be out of the strip club before the lights came up.
“Hey, bruh,” I said, tapping the bouncer standing by the door. “Can you let our waitress know that I’m ready to settle up?”
The big man gave me a short nod, opened the door, and signaled for the waitress. I turned back to Jared, who was trying, unsuccessfully, to stand up.
“Hold on, Jay. I gotchu, man,” I said, looping his arm over my shoulders to steady him.
“Wow. I’m a lot more drunk when I stand up.”
“Heh, yeah. That happens,” I said with a chuckle. “I think it’s about time to pack it in for the night.”
“Agreed,” he said with an enthusiastic nod.
Arm in arm, we walked out to the curb just as our car was pulling up. When I climbed in and closed the door, Jared groaned. “You all right over there? You ain’t gonna be sick, are you?”
“Nah… I was just thinking about sleeping in my old bedroom and realized that I’d much rather be sleeping next to Brandi tonight,” my drunk friend admitted. He wasn’t one to get all sappy about a girl, but this weekend was really bringing it out of him — which was appropriate, I guess.
“I mean, we could drop you off at her hotel instead. You could Romeo your way into her room.”
“Pfft, I wish. She’s so superstitious about not seeing each other before the wedding. There’s no way she would let me in.”
“Wow… By this time tomorrow, you’ll be a married man.”
“I know. Am I s’posed to feel nervous? ‘Cause I don’t. I’m just ready to start my life with her, you know?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I love that for you, man.”
Jared chuckled dryly. “Yeah…you’re right. You don’t know,” he said, then let the matter drop, but I heard something else in that dismissal that we should probably discuss at some point.
The house was quiet and dark when we pulled in. Assuming that Darcy had gone to bed, I made sure Jared made it to his third-floor bedroom safely and as quietly as possible. I’d avoided the dark plant-filled hallway on the way up, sticking to the piazza instead. Now I made my way to her bedroom door. It was closed, and there was no light under it, but I knocked anyway, hoping that she was still awake.
“Darcy?” I called softly, rapping my knuckles against the door again.
Nothing.
I allowed myself a sigh of disappointment and started toward the garçonnière. Did I really expect her to stay up until the wee hours of the morning to talk to me? Maybe I should just take this as a sign that I should let this go. Enjoy the weekend, celebrate my friend and his new bride, then carry my ass back to Chicago and get on with my life.
The predawn air was still humid and filled with night sounds — the meeps of little peeper tree frogs and the occasional rise and fall of a cicada whose own circadian rhythms were off. I checked to make sure the back door was locked before I headed toward the stairs up to the apartment, feeling a little wired and antsy. Midway up, I heard a loud splash. I paused and held my breath, and sure enough, I heard another one.
Darcy was in the pool.
Now locked out of the house, which was the easiest route to the pool, I hopped the fence into the yard, stumbled through some bushes, and crossed the grass until the pool was in full view.
&nb
sp; Wearing a different swimsuit, this one black and covering far less skin than the one she had on yesterday, Darcy sliced through the brightly lit water almost soundlessly. I walked over to where I knew she would stop to flip around, took off my shoes, and dangled my feet in the water. Her form was perfect. She barely broke the surface to take in a breath before kicking her powerful legs to propel her forward and knifing her hand through the water, so in the zone that when she came to the opposite end of the pool where I sat, she kicked me then startled, splashing to the surface.
“Oh, fuck!” she cursed. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“Long enough to see that you’ve become quite the athlete.”
“Thank you,” she answered shyly.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I was waiting up for you,” she said, her voice soft.
Nervous. I’m fucking nervous, and she’s looking at me like I have the answers. “So, how about that drink?”
“Okay.”
Planting her palms on the tiled patio, Darcy levered herself out of the pool. I stayed where I was and watched as each muscle in her lean arms engaged, and then her long legs until she was standing over me, water sluicing off her body, making her look like a mermaid out of a dark fairytale.
Sitting at her feet like this… Why did that make me hard almost instantly? At your service… Those words I’d tossed around playfully felt really fucking real right now.
I slipped my hand around her ankle and watched her skin pebble as I dragged my eyes over every inch of her until they met hers. She shivered a little, but I didn’t think it was because she was cold.
She held out her hand. “You comin’?”
I was torn. I wanted to sit at her feet like this forever, but I also wanted to have the conversation that we’d been trying to have all day. Knowing where that conversation could lead, I took Darcy’s proffered hand, and she led me inside.
The house was so quiet that it felt like someone had packed my ears with cotton. All of my senses were focused on Darcy. The sticky sound of her wet feet on the hardwood floors. The rustling leaves of the houseplants as our shoulders brushed against them in the closeness of the dark hallway. The way the door stuck and then jogged back when she twisted the knob, swollen and warped from years in the damp Charleston humidity. It was both real and unreal, yet I was in it, feeling every sensual detail.
“I’m just going to jump in the shower and rinse off the chlorine,” she said, turning to me in the middle of the room. “But there’s a little bar over there next to the piazza doors. Make yourself a drink, and I’ll be right out.”
While Darcy showered and put on another of her silky robes, I made both of us a drink. When she finished up in the shower, she joined me out on the piazza, and we sat on a patio set hidden behind a curtain of ivy. With the citronella candles lit and the pillows and cushions arranged just so, it was clear that she had set up this space for us to talk before I got here. The cozy seclusion enveloped us and sent a frisson of excitement across my skin. We’d sat out here together many a night. Back then, she would sit at the far end of the couch, as far away from me as she could be without sitting on another piece of furniture altogether. As the night progressed and the conversation became more intimate, she’d inch closer and closer until we were cuddled up at one end. Not tonight, though. Tonight, she sat right next to me. Close enough for me to see that her eyelashes were still wet and tangled. Close enough to smell her expensive perfumed soap mixed with the harsh chemical smell of chlorine.
“So, how did it go? Did you have any fun?”
“Not really. I was just a glorified chaperone with a Black Card. I barely drank tonight.”
“Hm.” She raised her glass to take a drink, and I did the same. I took a deep swallow that I hoped would calm, if not completely drown my nervousness.
“So, it’s hard to know where to start,” she said, twisting toward me on her cushion and tucking her feet under her. “I’m still very much thinking and feeling the same way I felt this morning when we had our talk on the back porch. And sitting here next to you tonight, I just keep thinking… ‘This is Tommy. You can’t do this with Tommy.’”
What was this feeling? Disappointment? I brought my glass to my lips once more to hide whatever the feeling was.
“But then I remembered this afternoon in my study. The way you were with me, and how it felt to hold your hand and that almost kiss last night. Just our lips brushing together. It was more intense than any real kiss I’ve had in years, and…I don’t know, Tommy. I don’t know if I can do this… I just… I think…”
“You just think what, Darcy?” I asked softly. “Do you think you need a little push?”
“Yeah?” she said with a shrug.
I laughed and shook my head. “That sounded a little bit like a question and not an answer.”
“And you sound a little mean,” she said with narrowed eyes. “And shouldn’t it be a question? This is not who I am. I’m a good woman—”
“Good to who, Darcy? From where I’m sitting, you’re good to everyone but you.”
She recoiled a little. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t?” Now would be a good time to shut up. I was probably in danger of saying too much, but she said she wanted a push, so I’d give it to her. “Maybe you’re so used to hearing lies that the truth sounds foreign to you.”
“And what’s the truth?” she asked.
“The truth is that you’re a good woman who settled for a shallow puddle of a man and then wondered why you found no depth there. You’re a good woman who isn’t good to herself. Or to know when or how to grab something good when it’s being offered.”
“And you think that good thing is you?” she asked with a raised brow.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Darcy. I know that I want you, but you have to make that decision for yourself. Which was part of the reason why I asked you to make that list.”
“You and this list,” she groaned. “A list of the ways I want and need to be pleased by you doesn’t change the circumstances. I’m not that woman, Tommy. I’m not some desperate—”
“No. Don’t do that,” I warned, pointing at her. “Don’t form your pretty mouth to make yourself sound like some lonely, desperate woman who’s being coerced into this. It’s an insult to both of us. And let’s be real, it’s not true. You don’t need to be this tightly-strung ball of want and need. You know you could have any man you want.”
“But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t want just any man, Tommy,” she said. Her voice had gone soft, somewhere between a rasp and a whisper, and she was wearing that look again. That look that said she wanted me to kiss her. We stared at each other for a few long moments, but neither of us made a move.
“Darcy… If you want me, you’re going to have to—”
She reached for me. Grabbed a fistful of my shirt, hauled me closer. “I’m going to have to what?” she whispered hotly. “Do this?”
I barely had a chance to nod before she gave me an eager, searching kiss.
I dreamed of this so many times. Ran through this first kiss so many times in my mind that I thought I would know exactly what to do when it finally happened. I’d imagined that she would be frantic like this and that I would know exactly how to slow it down. But I’ve wanted her for so long that I didn’t… I couldn’t… Slowing down wasn’t an option. I just let her take. When she reached for me, when she slanted her mouth over mine, parted her lips, and slid inside, I let her. I let her take what she needed.
In one quick movement, she maneuvered herself into my lap, pressing her body right up against mine. The moan that rumbled up from my chest when she ground her pussy against my already hard dick probably echoed through every empty room in the house. I was trying to be sweet and easy, but what I wanted from this kiss had become ungentlemanly very quickly. I thrust my tongue in the sweet place behind her lips, mouth-fucking her until her whimp
ers and sighs poured out like water. Darcy returned my kisses with a recklessness that all but accused me of waking up the little beast inside her. Made it bare its teeth. Made her want to devour me. And fuck, if this was how it felt to be eaten alive, I couldn’t think of a better way to die.
Her body burned under the thin layers of silk that slipped and slid over her skin as I gripped her waist, barely holding on as her hips made impatient circles in my lap, grinding her pussy against my dick so perfectly that I couldn’t help moaning. There were no shouldn’ts or mustn’ts in the way she rubbed her pussy against me, damn near forcing me to play counterpoint. I shifted my hands from her waist to grip her hips, lifting mine so that the next roll of her hips met the split of her pussy lips and made her breath catch.
She cursed softly and bunched the shoulders of my shirt in her hands.
God… I wanted to strip her naked and give her what her body was asking for, but I needed her to take the initiative. It would be so easy for me to give her another little push. To flip her onto her back on this heirloom wicker furniture, strip off every layer of the expensive silk on her body, and fuck her. But in the morning, it would be too easy for her to dismiss what happened. Too easy for her to say she got caught up in the moment, and it couldn’t happen again.
I shook my head and laughed. “The way you’re moving, and all of these little sounds that you’re making…” I cupped her face in both my hands and nipped at her lips. “You’re gonna make me come in my pants if you keep it up.”
Her hips rotated in a tight little circle, and I swear I felt her pussy pulse and tighten, but it had to be impossible to feel that through all these layers of clothes, right?
She smiled against my mouth. “Same. I’m so wet and so close that if you touched me right now…”
My dick thumped hard, spilling a bit of precum near my hip at hearing those words. “Is that what you want, Darcy? Tell me you want me to—”
If She Says Yes Page 9
