16
Landon
Those of us who dislike crowds were spoiled after the last few months of mild winter weather and fewer tourists. But during spring break, there’s no such thing as a deserted beach here.
After barely graduating last year, Thompson senior started getting into more extreme shit – selling and using – while Rick slowly took over the weed, gelcaps and little purple pills arm of his big brother’s enterprise. His livelihood depended on buyers, so crowds were good.
‘Dumbass smokes through half his profits, though, man,’ Boyce said. From one of the rocks overlooking the beach, we watched Rick circle through the crush of bodies. He was selling a good time in a baggie, and business was thriving.
‘Or gives them away.’ As if to illustrate my point, Brittney Loper circled her arms round him from behind, pressing her chest into his back and speaking into his ear. Without stopping his conversation with a couple of potential clients, he brought her round front with one arm and transferred a small baggie from his hoodie pocket to the front pocket of her jeans with the other.
She leaned into him and kissed him while the two guys glanced at each other. One of them said something, Rick shook his head and turned Brittney round, snaking an arm round her rib cage. The guys stared at her ample cleavage. She stuck a hand out and each of them shook it. Cash and baggies swapped hands, and Brittney walked off down the beach between the two out-of-towners.
‘Man, that girl lives dangerously,’ Boyce said, taking one last drag on his cigarette.
‘Seriously.’ I tossed back the rest of my beer and chewed the corner of my lip. After a minute, I added, ‘I’m thinking about getting my tongue pierced.’
He made a pretence of shivering. ‘Damn, Maxfield, why the hell would you do that?’
Boyce had no piercings and only one tattoo – Semper Fi above an Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem on his shoulder, in memory of his only sibling, a Marine who’d died in Iraq. ‘I didn’t know how much I hated needles until then. Burned like a motherf*cker,’ he’d told me once. ‘If I hadn’t been doing it for Brent, I’da told Arianna to quit with the damned bird’s head.’
‘I heard a tongue stud makes it better for the girl when you go down on her,’ I answered.
He crooked an eyebrow, his beer halfway to his mouth. ‘That so?’ He took a swallow. ‘Even still. Maybe if it made it better for me …’
I shrugged, smirking. ‘If it’s better for her, it’s better for me.’
He peered at me. ‘That sounds suspiciously like you’re f*ckin’ someone you care about, Maxfield.’ I said nothing, and after a few seconds, he groaned, head falling back. ‘Oh, man – for real? Shit. Why don’t you ever listen to the Boyce of reason?’ I grunted at his pun and shook my head as he sighed. ‘You know when I’m the one talkin’ sense, you’re in deep shit.’ He scanned the crowd. ‘So where is she?’
‘Houston for a couple nights. She and her mom go shopping every year during spring break.’
Boyce dropped his cigarette butt into his empty bottle. ‘Watch your back. You know Richards is a grade-A dickhole.’
‘I don’t think he gives a shit.’
‘About her? Probably not. But he gives a shit about appearances, and he doesn’t like to lose.’
‘Neither do I.’ My phone vibrated and I pulled up a text from Melody, along with two dressing-room-mirror selfies of lacy nothings – one black, one red. I lay back on the rock, staring. ‘Holy, holy shit.’
Melody: Lingerie shopping. This? Or this?
Me: BOTH. EITHER. Is this a trick question??
Melody: I’ll be wearing one of them Friday, if you still want to go out.
Me: A. Of course I want to go out. B. You can’t go out in that, unless you want me to kill the first guy who touches you.
Melody: Under my clothes, silly. You’ll know, but no one else will.;)
Me: I’ll never make it through dinner.
‘What? Is she sexting you?’ Boyce asked, reaching for my phone. ‘Lemme see.’
I shoved it in my pocket. ‘Nope. That’s all mine.’
‘Lucky bastard.’
I shook my head, sitting up. ‘I thought you guys couldn’t stand each other?’
Spreading his arms, he asked, ‘Who’s gotta stand her to appreciate her naked?’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You’d better hope that never happens.’
He put his hands up. ‘All right, all right – keep your shorts on.’
I took a deep breath, hand on my phone inside my pocket. My fingers itched to pull up those photos and study every detail. Meticulously. ‘I need a beer or five.’
Boyce hopped down to the sand. ‘On it, bro. Let’s go.’
Melody’s parents were less than thrilled to see me at the door Friday to pick her up, or the old blue-and-white Ford F-100 at the end of their curving pebbled walk. I’d worn boots, jeans and a snap-front western shirt I’d taken from Grandpa’s stuff before Dad gave the rest of it away. The shirt was faded blue, soft as hell, and way older than me. There was a tear by the cuff, so I rolled the sleeves and pushed them up to my elbows. I forgot about my tattoos until her mom focused on them two seconds after opening the door – once her eyes unfocused from my truck.
Fingering the necklace at her throat as though I might snatch it off and run out the door, she spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Landon. Hello. Melody will be down in a minute.’
Her father was less subtle. One glance at me, and he turned to his wife. ‘Barb, may I see you in the kitchen?’
‘Wait here, please,’ she told me. I nodded.
Melody came down the stairs a moment later wearing a short red sundress with boots, and my mouth went dry, immediately imagining those red lacy things she’d promised to wear underneath. I knew every detail of them except how they’d feel to the touch, because I’d stared at those photos for so many hours that they were all but burned into my retinas.
‘Ooh, cool vintage shirt,’ Melody said, running a hand down my chest. My whole body responded to her touch, everything constricting at once. I was in deep shit with this girl.
We could hear her parents arguing in the kitchen. ‘Did you approve her going out with that Maxfield boy?’ her father said.
‘Of course not –’
‘What the hell were you thinking? What happened to Clark?’
Her mother’s answer was inaudible.
Melody rolled her eyes. ‘God. Let’s get out of here.’
She got no argument from me.
We took the ferry and drove to a Peruvian seafood joint for ceviche and fish tacos.
‘So you like working on cars?’ Melody asked, sipping her iced tea.
I’d hung around Boyce a few times when he was working at his dad’s garage. He liked the grease under his nails, the smell of the exhaust, and getting his hands dirty while diving into the bowels of the machine under a hood. That wasn’t me. ‘Kinda, but not really. It might be cool to design cars. I mean, I like figuring out how mechanical things work, but only so I can use that knowledge to build something else. Once I know how it all connects, it’s not that fascinating any more. When I was a kid, I took stuff apart all the time – radios, clocks, toasters, a doorbell chime …’
She laughed. ‘A doorbell?’
‘Yeah. I made my mom nuts with that one. I got it back together, but she said it always sounded like a wounded moose after that.’
She smiled. ‘So that’s what some of those drawings on your wall were. The mechanical stuff. I thought maybe you were like, into steampunk or something.’
‘That’s cool in fiction.’ I shrugged. ‘But I’m more into sketching new technologies.’
She took my hand and traced the tattoo across my right wrist. ‘What about your tattoos? What do they mean?’ When she started to turn my hand over, I threaded my fingers through hers instead. I wasn’t ready for her to discover those camouflaged scars.
‘Enough questions about me. What about you? What do you like to do?’ I arched a brow and leaned closer. ‘Besides sending me pics that drive me crazy for two days straight.’
Lips pressed together, she grinned and then stared at the table, shrugging one mostly bare shoulder and swirling a fingernail in a pool of condensation. ‘I dunno. I like fashion. I like being a part of the dance squad.’ She peered up at me and chewed her lower lip. ‘I kind of like history? Like, art history?’
I nodded. ‘That’s cool.’
She looked dubious. ‘You think?’
‘Yeah – but it shouldn’t matter what I think.’ I squeezed the hand I held. ‘If you like it, you like it. Is that what you want to major in when you go to college?’
She sighed. ‘Maybe. But my parents expect me to do something like be an accountant or a doctor. They got all excited when Pearl and me got to be best friends, because Pearl wants to go to medical school. But I’m not like her.’
I couldn’t help the smirk that stole across my face.
‘What?’ She frowned and started to withdraw her hand.
I clenched my fingers tighter and smiled. ‘Nothing! I was only remembering how super-excited you were to do that frog autopsy. Not. I’m thinking medical school might not be in your future.’
She rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Seriously. I couldn’t have given two shits to slice that thing open, and Pearl was pissed off she was out sick that day because she missed it. You did okay with it, though.’
I shrugged. ‘I was only interested how the stuff inside worked.’
‘Like the doorbell and the radio?’
Nodding, I said, ‘Speaking of radios – do you wanna go park somewhere and listen to music?’
Leaving the windows rolled down so we could hear the radio, I pulled two sleeping bags, a quilt and a pillow out of the toolbox in the truck bed.
‘The cemetery, huh?’ Melody peered around as our eyes adjusted to the meagre light cast by the moon and a sky full of stars. ‘It’s kinda spooky here. Like maybe all the ghosts are spying on us.’
I watched her through the fringe of my hair. ‘The beaches are full of drunk tourists. No one in here is going to bother us. Unless you mind those ghosts watching me kiss you.’
She twisted her lips and smiled. ‘Guess I don’t mind that so much.’ She pulled her boots off and climbed into the truck bed, and I followed suit.
Five minutes later, I sat back on my heels, regretting the fact that I didn’t dry-run this at home first. The truck bed’s ridges cut through the meagre layers of cloth. It was made for hauling stuff, not making out. ‘Not the most comfortable surface …’ There was no way I could lay her down on this. Dammit.
‘It’s fine.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not.’
Pushing my chest until I lay back, she scooted up beside me, on her knees. ‘It is.’
I decided not to argue, especially when she unsnapped my shirt – not all at once, but one maddening click at a time, her hands smoothing over my pecs, tracing the rose tattoo before moving down over my abs, which hardened – like every other part of my body.
She untied the shoulder straps of her dress. The fabric slipped down to reveal the red lace I’d dreamed about, asleep and awake, ever since she messaged me those pics. As the dress fell to her waist, I was thankful for a full moon and cloudless sky. I rose to one elbow and reached a finger to the shadowed crease of flesh barely covered by the lace.
‘Can I touch you here?’ I asked, staring into her eyes. She nodded. ‘And here?’ I sat back up, moving both hands to her waist and gently pressing the dress down over her hips when she nodded again, her breathing becoming erratic.
She stood and let the dress drop to her feet. My mouth went dry as she kicked it behind her. Her sheer red push-up bra and panties hid absolutely nothing. Even in the semi-darkness, it was better than the pictures on my phone. Going to her knees, she pressed me flat again, straddling me. My hands gripped her thighs.
‘Still think it’s too uncomfortable?’ she asked.
‘Um. No. I think I could pretty much lie on hot coals right now and not notice. A bit of bumpy sheet metal is nothing.’
One of her bra straps fell of its own accord, and I reached to pull the other one down. Her tits were close to spilling from the barely-there cups. ‘Holy f*ck,’ I said.
She leaned close and unzipped my jeans. ‘Yes.’
We left the lacy things on. I felt the soft scuff of it against my chest as she leaned to kiss me. I felt it against my palms on her ass, my fingertips touching the bare skin just below it. And then I couldn’t feel anything but where we joined. She gasped my name minutes later as I angled my hips up to meet her and it was like there were fireworks all around us.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you, Melody,’ I whispered when she’d fallen asleep, her ear pressed to the rose tattoo above my heart.
LUCAS
My ulterior motive terrified Jacqueline as much as I feared it would. I wanted to show her the ground-defence move here, where no one was watching – the one she’d not been able to do without quaking this morning – and teach her to do it without a second thought.
Knowing she could do this would bring her power. If she’d have been able to do this move that night and escape that truck, he might have been too drunk to chase her down. If I hadn’t been there, it would have given her a chance to get away from him.
I still couldn’t think about seeing him on top of her without red edging my vision, followed by crushing guilt for not immediately following him out the door the second he left the party. I’d allowed my insecurity over my desire for her to blunt my perception that something was off about him. Monumental mistake. I swore I would not make it again.
Focus.
‘Trust me, Jacqueline. It works. Will you let me show you?’ I held her hands in mine – they’d gone cold again – and watched a swarm of emotions hurtle across her face. Fear was foremost, and I prayed that her fear stemmed from those memories and not from me. If she couldn’t trust me with this, I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t help her. Trust me.
She nodded – the barest inclination of her head.
I brought her to an empty space on my living-room floor, going to my knees with her, our eyes connected. If I read her wrong … I couldn’t think about the consequences of that. I knew this girl. I trusted my instincts that this was right. ‘Lie flat. On your stomach,’ I told her, and she complied.
I reminded her of everything Lieutenant Watts said in class, knowing that she’d missed some of it when she’d mentally checked out. I’d watched her do it. ‘The key is to get away,’ I said, and she nodded.
I asked if she remembered the moves, and she closed her eyes and shook her head, as if she was ashamed. I took a deep breath and forced my fists to loosen. My rage at the degradation forced on her would not help her, and that was all that mattered. If this was going to work, she’d have to go through it several times. It needed to be a programmed response that her body simply executed, without a lot of thought.
‘If you find yourself in this position, you want to do these moves automatically, without wasting time or energy trying to buck him off.’
When she went stiff, I asked, ‘What?’ I searched my words for the one that could cause that response and came up empty.
‘That’s his name. Buck,’ she said, her voice thin as a thread.
I found myself fighting for control again, and I knew that it would be best if I never ran into Buck on campus – or anywhere else. There was a high likelihood that he wouldn’t live through a reunion. ‘I will remember that.’
The move was one of leverage, backed up by simple physics – something very clear to me, but not necessarily so to most people. Dislodging a bigger, stronger foe meant impairing his leverage first. I had her perform the move without my weight on her, and then I suggested trying it with me holding her down, promising that she could say the word and I’d let go.
She was so clearly panicked, her shoulders rising and falling beneath my hands. She shut her eyes to hide tears I’d already noted. Goddammit, I wanted to murder that son of a bitch.
I was careful each time, but increased the pressure as she gained confidence, until finally I put my full weight on her. She got flustered and pushed up with her hips instead of rolling to one side – which she’d been doing perfectly moments before. I reminded her to fight that inclination. ‘Yes. Okay.’ Her voice was noticeably stronger, and I locked on to that.
‘Ready to try it for real?’ I asked, watching her closely. She nodded. ‘I won’t hurt you, but you’ll feel the force behind it more than before. It will be fast and hard – are you sure you’re ready for that?’ She nodded again. Her pulse thrummed, just under her ear, and I prayed she could do it. I had to know she could. She had to know she could.
I grabbed her shoulders and shoved her down, and one arm shot up over her head, but she couldn’t get the other one under her. She struggled, and I waited for her sign of surrender, but it didn’t come. Instead, she switched arms, pushing the one beneath her above her head and shoving the floor with her free arm, propelling me off.
I lay on my side, amazed and laughing. ‘Shit! You swapped sides on me!’
She smiled, and my gaze swung to her lips.
Mistake.
I told her this is where she’d get up and run, but she didn’t take the hint.
‘Won’t he chase me?’ she asked, and I gave the answer Watts always gave – that most rapists don’t want to chase a screaming, fleeing target. They don’t want a challenge. I knew from experience as a guy that Buck probably wasn’t one of these, though I would not say this to her. In all probability, she knew it already.
‘I was supposed to show you your portrait, I think,’ I said, taking her hand as we lay on our sides, facing each other.
In a small, teasing voice she asked, ‘So it won’t seem like you brought me here under completely false pretences?’
I admitted that I wanted her to see the charcoal sketch, but that fact was secondary to what we’d just done. I asked if she felt more confident, and she said, ‘Yes.’
Her hand gripped mine. My thumb lay across her wrist, and I was soothed by the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. The expression in her eyes – the faith and the expectation – was too strong to ignore. I brought my free hand up to her face. ‘I did have one other concealed motive for bringing you here.’ Slowly, carefully, I angled towards her and leaned in, staring into her eyes, measuring her response.
When my lips touched hers, she shut her eyes, kissing me back, parting her lips, inviting me inside. I stroked my tongue across hers, gently. Exploring her mouth was all I wanted to do – sucking her full lower lip, so sweet, and then the upper, my tongue tracing the heart-shaped curve before diving back inside and teasing across her teeth.
She gasped, and I released her hand to tuck her to my shoulder, my hands skimming down to her hips and holding her close. There wasn’t a millimetre of space between us, but I couldn’t get her close enough. I kneaded her hip and she pressed into me while my fingers meandered across the base of her spine.
I felt her hand on the bare skin of my abdomen just before she leaned up on one elbow and asked to see my tattoos.
When I found that she’d unbuttoned my flannel shirt without my notice, I laughed softly and her cheeks flushed a rosy pink. Chucking the shirt, I pulled the thin thermal I’d worn underneath over my head and tossed it aside, too, reclining and letting her eyes and fingers peruse the ink beneath my skin.
My first tattoos – the ones ringing my wrists – were seven years old. I’d added a few since then, but not many since I left home, and nothing at all in the last couple of years. Tattoo artists are like doctors. You have to trust them – not just their skill with the needle, but their ability to read you, personally. To know what you need, and what you don’t. I’d never found anyone I trusted as much as Arianna.
I waited for questions that didn’t come, as if Jacqueline knew they were more than body art to me. As if she knew their significance to me ran deeper than the ink.
Finally, her fingers brushed lightly over the hair trailing below my navel, and I was instantly ready to answer that touch – an answer she might not have meant to invite. I sat up. ‘Your turn, I think.’ I wanted that sweater off. I wanted my fingers roaming over her, exploring.
She frowned. ‘I don’t have any tattoos.’
Big surprise, Jacqueline. I smirked. She had no idea what I meant, and I wasn’t about to explain it bluntly while reclining on my living-room floor. ‘I figured as much. Would you like to see the drawing now?’
The emotions flickering across her face were amazingly readable – confusion in the slightly puckered brow, desire in her dilated eyes. There was a touch of indignation, as well – but I wasn’t sure why. As she reached up and took my hand, her grip secure, one thing was certain. She’d accepted me as the bad boy her friends wanted her to have, and I would be an idiot to fight it.
I led her into my room and turned on a lamp as she examined the room and my wall of sketches. I’d not brought many girls to this apartment, and even fewer to my bed – and I didn’t bother with the lamp when I did. I knew the room by feel – the placement of the bookcases and desk. The night table where I stored drawing pencils and a small sketchpad, glasses for late-night reading or studying, and condoms. Finally, the bed, where all that was required was finding the centre of it. Pitch-black darkness – I led, they followed.
Or we just never left the sofa.
That was not for Jacqueline.
‘These are amazing,’ she murmured, and I waited, watching her eyes scan over the wall, letting her find her sketch, knowing she was hunting for it. When she spotted it, she sat, staring. I lowered myself next to her, all too aware that I was already half undressed.
She turned and watched me, and I had never wanted to read someone’s mind so badly. Your turn, Jacqueline, I thought, wondering how far she’d want me to go. I didn’t want to go one centimetre beyond it. Or stop one centimetre too soon.
I leaned to run the tip of my tongue over her ear, following the curve and sucking her diamond stud into my mouth. My tongue pressed against the post in the back and ran lightly over the flesh behind her ear, and she moaned softly. I nuzzled her hair aside and kissed her neck, licking her skin lightly after each kiss, lower and lower until I met the wide neckline of her sweater.
Going to one knee on the floor, I pulled off her boots, returned to the bed, and removed mine. I lifted her directly to the centre of the mattress, rising over her and waiting until she opened her eyes. She blinked slowly, one hand lifting and grasping my arm, drugged with my kisses and craving more. Exactly as I wanted her.
‘Say stop, whenever you want to stop. Understand?’
She nodded.
I asked if she wanted to stop now, and thanked God when she shook her head no. She gripped both my arms when I thrust my tongue into her mouth, unravelling me when she sucked it deeper still. I pulled away just long enough to tug her sweater over her head and toss it away, returning to run my fingers and mouth over the beautiful arc of her breast above the black satin of her bra.
Her hand against my shoulder stilled me, and I shook myself internally. Stop.
I drew back, but before I could interpret what she needed, she sat up and slid one leg to the other side of my hip and leaned over me, into me, and I dragged her down to kiss her, my hands smoothing over her shoulders and down her back. She rocked against me and there was no containing the groan that movement yielded, a coarse rumbling deep in my chest that spurred her on. Mouth angled and open, fostering intense, mind-blowing kisses, she rocked forward again, and my fingers found and freed the hooks of her bra and tugged the straps down. Grasping her waist, I pulled her higher and sucked a nipple into my mouth. Goddamn if she wasn’t sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted.
Her arms wobbled as she panted her satisfaction, and I rolled her under me, sweeping my tongue over the other breast, teasing the nipple to a hard nub before sucking it deep. My fingers forked into her hair at the nape, holding her mouth to be kissed as I stroked my opposite palm down her side and returned my mouth to hers. When she arched against me, I unbuttoned her jeans and pinched the zipper between my fingers.
Breaking the kiss, she gasped, ‘Wait,’ and I went motionless, watching her. She panted, looking up at me, a worried crease touching her forehead.
‘Stop?’ I asked, and she nodded, catching her swollen lip in her mouth. ‘Stop everything, or just go no further?’
She paused before answering, and I wanted to tell her how far I would go to give her exactly what she needed – that I would do, or not do, whatever she wanted from me.
Her answer was almost inaudible. ‘Just … just no further.’
My body geared up for a battle of restraint, but my mind rejoiced. ‘Done.’ I pulled her back into my arms and kept my hands and mouth above her waist or over her jeans, clasping her hips to drag her along my thigh, creating strokes of friction and employing the benefits of gravity. She minded none of it.
I turned her on to her stomach and moved her hair aside to kiss the nape of her neck, and she sighed, relaxing. The soft hairs tickled my nose and I smiled, running my tongue over the small rise of each vertebra, moving lower as I knelt over her, massaging with long strokes of my hands – over her hips and thighs, to her calves and back up. I squeezed her hip and she giggled, so I pressed a kiss to her mid-back and flipped her over, sucking a nipple into my mouth. Her laughter cut short and she plunged her hands into my hair and held me, trembling.
Sliding to her side, I didn’t have to coax her to follow – she turned with me, alongside me, dipping her knee between my legs as we kissed. My hand inched from her hip to her thigh, prodding her, begging just enough room to sink between us. She shifted and I slipped my fingers between her legs. ‘This okay?’ I asked, and she nodded and pressed against me, her small fingers tight round my bicep.
I stroked the tips of my fingers over the denim and she moaned in response. Come, baby, I urged silently and leaned to kiss her, stretching her mouth wide and sinking into her. Heat radiated from her body against my hand, and I knew her imagination was filling in the blanks as my tongue thrust into her warm mouth and my fingers found the exact spot to orbit in gentle, measured circles, the exact pressure that tumbled her over the brink.
When she fell, she tore her mouth from mine and muffled her cries against my shoulder, her nails scoring my arms. Her breathing slowed and softened, and she shuddered one final time as I withdrew my hand.
Moments later, she touched her fingers to the button of my jeans. Without raising her eyes, she said, ‘I should, um …’
I tipped her chin and stared into those blue, blue depths. ‘Leave me something to anticipate,’ I whispered, kissing her gently.