Bend (31 page)

And it gave me the biggest rush of my life. I’m still high from it. Don’t think I’ve ever gone from annoyed to surprised to thrilled and turned-on in such a short span of time.

I hadn’t meant to dance to more than one song with Aaron, but I got caught up in the moment and was actually enjoying myself, finding him charming and funny and kind of sweet. Dancing with him was easy and uncomplicated.

It also didn’t make my heart pound and my mouth go dry. No, that didn’t happen until Jay showed up and sent Aaron packing.

I’m gonna have to cut in.

It was probably rude of us to leave like that, and I’m almost regretting it all of a sudden—but just almost. Still, I fish my phone out of my clutch and find my mom in my messaging app. Her clients often call her at odd hours, so she always keeps her phone close, meaning she’s most likely to actually see and read my text right now.

Jay and I had to leave in kind of a hurry,
I type with my thumbs.
Can you apologize to Grandma for us? Just tell her I’m sorry and hope it didn’t upset her.

Then I switch off the screen and mute the phone. If Mom is mad, I’d rather not know.

We turn into my parents’ driveway, and the driver pulls up beside my MINI, which is visible in the halos from the garage coach lights. Thanking the driver, I slide out of the car, and as the guy backs up into the street and takes off, Jay and I walk toward the front door. My feet have decided they’re done wearing high heels, and I’m wincing with each painful step.

We’re still not talking as I pluck my keys out of my purse. Even though I haven’t lived in this house for almost eight years, I still have a key; my parents wouldn’t hear of it when I tried to give it back. My hand is unsteady as I fumble for the keyhole.

Once I get the door open, Jay’s there at my heels, ushering me through it with a hand on my back. We step inside, and he immediately spins me around, pushing me back toward the door, which shuts with a bang behind me.

And then his mouth comes crashing down on mine, hot and hard and heavy. Letting my clutch slide to the floor, I grasp at the lapels on his suit jacket with a strangled whimper.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he says, a low growl against my lips. His breath is warm and smells mildly of beer. “I think you actually made me lose my mind tonight.”

A burst of breathless laughter escapes me, and I feel like I should come up with a snappy comment, but I’m halfway drunk and too horny to think straight. My head is spinning and staggering, my pulse pounding loudly in my ears.

Nipping at his lower lip, I say, “We need to go upstairs.”

With a small grunt, he’s kissing me again, reaching down to grab my ass with both hands. Kicking off my shoes, I throw my arms around his neck and let him lift me off the floor, my legs hooking on his hips. With our mouths still locked, tongues stroking and teeth grazing, he carries me to the stairs.

He takes a couple of steps up. But there he stops. Holding me up with one hand, he grabs on to the wrought-iron banister with the other. And then he lowers me to the carpet-cushioned surface, kneeling above me.

Okay, what? No. My whole body, from head to toe, screams in protest. “No,” I tell him, breathing hard as I plant my elbows on the stairstep, trying to push away from it. “Up.
Up
stairs, Jay. Someone could come home.”

In fact, I can almost guarantee my sister’s family isn’t far behind us, since my nieces had clearly run out of fuel.

Jay slips his hand up under my dress. “This is payback, Mia. I thought that’s what you wanted?” he murmurs against my neck, his voice grating.

Huh? I blink up at him. His eyes look hooded and unreadable in the sliver of porch light creeping into the hallway through the windows. Payback? For what—
Oh.
Right. The blow job. Our conversation in my bedroom.

So…what? Because I went down on him in my car on the freeway shoulder he’s going to do the same to me at the bottom of my parents’ staircase? That’s unusually immature and reckless for Jay.

I should make him jealous more often.

His palm is big and warm on the inside of my thigh. He cups me through the fabric of my panties, pressing down and rubbing with the ball of his hand, and with a moan I collapse and surrender.

Digging my heels into carpet, I spread my legs farther apart and fall back, my head connecting with the step behind it. The hard edge from another step digs into my back, but I don’t care. Creating friction with the soft cotton of my underwear, Jay is massaging me while his teeth dig gently into the sensitive spot in the crook of my neck, and I just can’t feel any pain right now.

He scoots down a couple of steps, pushes the skirt of my dress up to my waist, and then his head is between my legs. Cool air brushes my skin as he tugs the crotch of my panties aside. My lungs start burning; I realize I’m holding my breath, and I release it in an audible rush just as his tongue makes contact with my clit.

Oh, my God. I hear a guttural moan escape from deep in my throat, and I don’t recognize the voice—it sounds almost inhuman and not like me. His mouth is so hot and so wet, and the way he’s licking and sucking so insistently and confidently and without hesitation feels so good I want to weep.

He brings a hand down to join his mouth. He starts stroking me with his thumb, from my opening and down over the sensitive skin below. My breath shuddering out in shallow gasps, I arch my hips, straining into his touch. When his finger shoves inside me, I moan and let my eyes drift closed.

The raw, exquisite sensations surround me like a fog, and I lose myself in it—willingly and happily letting myself get lost. I have no self-restraint with Jay. I want to give him all of myself. Want him under my skin, in my head, pumping through my veins.

He shifts so that his other hand is between my thighs, pushing a finger inside me, in and out while his tongue keeps dipping and swirling. And then the same finger, now slick and slippery from my pussy, slides down between my butt cheeks.

“Jay!” I blurt out while my whole body gives an involuntary jerk. The protest gets caught in my throat and comes out as a squeak. “What are you—”

“You said you like having your ass touched.” His voice sounds dark, almost angry.

“Yeah, but—”

“I want to hear you scream,” he says, stroking in circles, wetting the tight opening.

My breath catches, and I tense up. Fuck, that feels good. Still, I grind out a desperate, “On my parents’ staircase?”

“I don’t give a shit.” His finger dips a fraction of an inch inside, stretching me. I release a half moan, half sob.

“You think Aaron would’ve done this to you?” Jay’s breath is fanning hotly against the skin between my legs, and with each thrust he goes a little deeper into my ass. “You think he would’ve fucking loved it even half as much as I do?”

Oh, God. I’m letting him inside me in the most trusting and intimate way I can imagine, and he’s still hung up on me dancing with a guy whose face has already become nothing more than a blurry memory?

“Stop talking,” I say, panting, “and just get me off already.”

Jay snorts, but no more words come out of his mouth. Instead he wraps it around my clit again, shoving two fingers inside my pussy with the other still in my ass, and I’m gone. Coherent thought, gone. Ability to speak, gone. Any last scrap of self-control, completely fucking gone.

With two strokes, maybe three, my whole body ignites. Heat shoots up from my womb, through my core and my chest, and up and up until my neck and cheeks are aflame. Goose bumps follow, and then I cry out as I start coming.

The orgasm goes on and on, rolling over me in waves, and I can’t stop the noises coming out of my mouth. Closing my eyes, I surrender to it. I reach down to bury my fingers in Jay’s hair, keeping his head there, willing him to stay with his tongue on my sensitive bundle of nerves. Willing the moment to go on forever.

It doesn’t, of course. Now I feel like I’m sinking, unable to move a muscle as gravity pulls me down.

“Wow,” I gasp out when I find my voice again.

Jay lets go of me and inches back, pushing himself up to his feet. Reaching out a hand to me, he asks, “Was that a first?”

After sluggishly and somewhat clumsily tugging my underwear back into place, I take his hand and let him help me up. My heart is still hammering against my rib cage, my hands shaking.

“You don’t need to sound so surprised.”

He scoffs. “So when you said earlier that double penetration is your dirtiest fantasy, that was about ninety-seven percent bravado?”

Inexplicably, my cheeks prickle and burn. “Just because I’ve never had a guy do that to me before doesn’t mean I’ve never had anything...you know.”

Jay stays still and silent for a few seconds, and then he lets out a harsh breath. Grabbing my elbow, he flips me around and gives me a slap on the butt. “Upstairs.”

Letting out a yelp full of pretend indignation, I take a couple of steps up, away from him. Then I throw him a smirk over my shoulder before taking off, my bare feet springing lightly off each step as I race up the stairs.

Behind me I can hear Jay’s heavier footfall pounding as he chases after me. I pick up my speed for the last couple of steps, and when I reach the landing, my thigh muscles are burning with the effort.

Spinning around the banister with a squeal of laughter, I make a mad dash toward my bedroom, my heart slamming against my ribs. Jay is following so close behind me I can almost feel him breathing down my neck.

I reach my room and try to open the door without slowing down too much, but as soon as I twist the handle, his arm shoots out and around my waist, pulling me back.

As I let go of it, the door drifts open with a slow creak, and I jerk myself toward it, but Jay holds me pinned against himself. He feels large and hard against my back, and his body heat seeps through his clothes and mine and in through my pores.

“You’re a total mind-fuck, you know that?” he growls into my ear, digging his fingers into my hair and tugging my head back.

Leaning back, I relax into him and his strong grip on me. My pulse fluttering, I say, “And you need to loosen the hell up.”

He tightens his hold on me. “You don’t think I’m there yet?”

“No,” I reply teasingly, “but I think I can push you there.”

His arm easing off my waist, he nudges me into my bedroom. The door shuts with a click behind him. The curtains are still open, and moonlight spills in through the windows, illuminating the room in a faint and blue-ish tint.

I turn around to look at Jay; he’s standing slouched against the door, his hands shoved into the pockets of his suit pants.

“Try me.” His voice sounds hoarse and humorless.

I inch closer to him, reaching out to run my hand down his silky-soft tie, tugging lightly on it. “Can you say something to piss me off first?”

He’s quiet for one heartbeat, maybe two, and then he sneers, “Okay. We’re not sharing a room because there was no other option. It’s because you think rules and consequences are for other people. Someone tells you no, and you take it as a challenge to prove you can ignore it without anything bad happening to you.”

Uh. What? Blood rushes in my ears, my neck prickles, and I curl my hand around his tie.

Did he essentially just call me a spoiled, selfish brat? I’m pretty sure he did.

Yeah, I know I told him to make me angry, but he came up with that answer too quickly for it to be a random, meaningless observation. Damn it.

So how do I respond to that? I need to go for the jugular. Figure out his weakness and take complete and unrestrained advantage of it.

Fuckface really did a number on you, huh?

Is he jealous of Matt? I’m still not sure. But maybe that’s what tonight was about, not Aaron Mitchell. I can’t bring that up, though. I’d have to pretend Matt still matters to me, and he doesn’t.

If this is going to work, we need boundaries.

Right. Boundaries, like not kissing me in front of my whole family? Pretty sure he doesn’t care about that anymore.

You’re important to me. I value our friendship more than I want to get you naked
.

A hint of queasiness curls in my stomach. Nope. No way am I talking about that.

Have you thought about having sex with me? For how long?

Bingo.

With a small smile, I press myself closer to him, pulling so hard on his tie he’s forced to bend. I bring his head down until our noses touch. My heart beating wildly and my head swimming at what I’m about to confess, I tell him something that I’ve never told another person. Something I buried so deep in my memory it almost seems like it’s not even real.

Except that it is.

“I had sex dreams about you in college,” I say in a loud whisper. “More than one. While I was still with Matt.”

I feel him go rigid. His chest stops moving, like he’s holding his breath. In the low light of the room, his eyes look black and fathomless.

Air expels from his chest in an audible rush. “Jesus Christ, Mia.”

Slanting his head, he captures my lips in a kiss that’s probing and hungry, almost frantic. Moaning deep in my throat, I meet him beat by beat, stroke by stroke. Every time he touches me is like a shot of tequila flaming down my throat and burning my stomach—it’s the same surge of heat, the same flare of exhilaration.