The Gravity Between Us (New Adult Contemporary Romance) (22 page)

“I’ve got four sisters. I’m in-tune, all right? I know when a girl has it bad for someone, and you’ve got it bad for Payton. Personally, I think you should go for it.” He leans over the roof of the car and lowers his voice. “It’s the twenty-first century. I doubt anyone would care that you’re gay.”

Dude, a little discretion would be appreciated.
“I am not talking about this with you on the sidewalk. Get in the car.”

“All right,” he says and scoots into the passenger seat and closes the door. I do the same on the driver’s side.

“Firstly, don’t give me the ‘it’s the twenty-first century and everyone in America has reached enlightenment,’ bullshit. Watch the damn news; hate crimes still happen. Secondly, I didn’t say I was gay.”

“Semantics,” he grumbles.

“I wasn’t finished!” I whirl around to him. “Thirdly, it’s not really any of your concern is it? This thing between us is a business arrangement. It’s not like we’re actually dating.”

“Because you don’t want to date
me
, you want to date Payton.”

You can have anyone you want, eh, Kendall? Prove it;
want
him
. Everything will be infinitely easier that way.
“Would you please shut up?” I grab him by the collar of his shirt, tug him toward me, and plant the hardest, most desperate kiss on him. He’s stunned at the outset, but then I feel him pucker into it. He leans across the center console. I think that he’s going to put his arm around me. Instead, he puts his hands on my shoulders and softly pushes me away.

Seriously? “Are you off your meds? I just made a pass at you!”

“Look, you’re totally hot and you can be cool, but I know you aren’t into me.”

I wave him off. “Like that matters! You’re a guy.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a Neanderthal. If I’m going to hook up with a girl, I want to know that she at least
likes
me. And you don’t.” He pops open the door and steps out into the harsh light of day. “Go home and figure yourself out, Kendall. Trust me, you’ll be happier for it.”

❄ ❄ ❄

There’s nothing quite like being rejected to make you feel like shit. Worse than that, he was right to do it. I’ve been walking on eggshells for so long, protecting myself from what? Acknowledging that my biological imperative may not include the drive to procreate, that I just might be attracted to XX chromosomes instead of XY? That’s so stupid—minor in comparison to the fact that I might actually be in love for the first time in my life. It’s with a girl… so
what
? Lesbian, bisexual, whatever! This isn’t about categorization
or
chromosomes. This is about how I feel about another person.

I am fully worn out by the time I stagger into the apartment. The first thing I notice when I walk through the door is that every light in the house is on. I hear music streaming softly from the studio monitors upstairs. A sense of dread takes hold of me. Payton is home and entirely awake. I’m certain I would be more at ease if I had walked in on the damn place being burglarized.

Why isn’t she out with Lauren painting the town red?
I decide I had better alert her to my presence before she realizes that she’s not alone and calls the cops or something. “Hey, I’m home,” I yell up to her.

She turns the music down and sticks her head over the railing. “Hi.”

“I’m surprised you’re here. I thought you’d be out with Lauren.”

“Not tonight. I’ve been trying to call you all day. I wanted to talk.”

“About what?” I place my clutch on the coffee table and take a solid, steadying breath. I jump nearly a foot in the air when I unexpectedly find her standing right in front of me.

“About how you ran out of the house this morning. What was up with that?”

“How I ran out…” I scoff. “Since you’re so concerned, I’ll tell you exactly what was up with that!” I realize how unfair it is to be yelling at her, yet I’m powerless to stop myself from doing it. I’m so wound up that every last sensible part of me has shut down. There’s not an ounce of stability left in me. “I’m pissed, Payton! Pissed at myself because I’m a stupid, gutless coward! I couldn’t just tell you how I was feeling. I couldn’t tell you that I think
I want to be more than just your friend, and that it scares the shit out of me! It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late! You’re sleeping with Lauren, and–”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she yells over me. “I tried to sleep with Lauren! Oh my god, did I try! I was
this
close, and then I started crying! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was for me, curled up in a half-naked ball at the edge of my bed telling a girl I really
liked
all about how I couldn’t be with
her
because my heart belongs to you? It does, you know! My heart has belonged to you for as long as I can remember!
Jesus Christ, Kendall! I’ve been killing myself since I was twelve, trying not to notice it was there, trying to make it go away!”

She’s been feeling this for years? Years
!
I am such an idiot
! “I’m glad it never went away,” I mumble. Here she is, chilling in the middle of the living room, staring at me with her big honey-colored eyes.
She is so lovely.
I can’t…

I rush at her, slamming her back against the kitchen wall. I run my fingers through her velvety tresses and kiss her
hard
. She kisses me back—tentatively at first, but soon I feel her tongue dance across my lips, begging for entrance to my mouth. Immediately, I realize how different it is, kissing a woman as opposed to kissing a man. It’s inquisitive rather than demanding, pleasurable rather than acceptable, more delicate, yet so much more tantalizing.

My lips are wild, ravenous from waiting longer than they should have to be introduced to hers. Now that our mouths have become acquainted with one another, I never want them to be apart. I want to kiss her a hundred times a day, every day, for the rest of my life.

I kick off my shoes and suddenly, I’m climbing her—wrapping my arms around her neck, my legs around her waist. She puts her hands on my butt and props me up higher. Kissing her is simply not enough. I need more. I need
everything
. “Please, Payton,” I whisper into her mouth. “I want to be with you.”

She jerks her head back and gazes at me curiously. There is so much reverence sparkling in her eyes, but they are flecked with traces of apprehension, too. “I… We should probably…”

We
should
probably slow down, but I’m afraid if we do I might chicken out completely. “Don’t second guess me. I want this.”

As soon as I say it, her lips stretch into a smile. She pushes off the wall with her foot and carries me to the couch. In one fluid motion she gently lays me down and rests herself on top of me.

Her kisses move from my lips down to my neck, and I shudder unrestrainedly. A ripple of ecstasy runs though me as she pulls my shirt down my shoulders and licks my collarbone. I am so turned on. I claw like a rabid beast at the buttons of her shirt. My greedy hands hunger to caress
every single inch
of her skin. Furiously, I peel away the layers of her clothing: shirt, bra, jeans, boy shorts. She wrestles the last bit of my pants down my legs along with my panties. Before I can blink, we are both fully naked. She’s hovering above me, holding herself up with her strong, lean arms. And then she stops.

Shit! What if
she
doesn’t want this? Did I do the wrong thing, attacking her face like some kind of feral animal in heat? Maybe we should’ve discussed it more; made sure we were on the same page.
“What’s wrong?” I’m panting so hard, I can barely form words.

“You’re just so…” She looks me over, head to toe. It feels like the first time anyone has ever really seen me. “You are
so
beautiful.”

I’m beautiful? I’ve been told as much by a million different people, but when Payton says it, I truly believe it. I want so much to thank her for making me
feel
beautiful and for constantly reassuring me that I’m smart enough to do anything I set my mind to. But I know I could never in a thousand years express my gratitude in words, so I close my eyes and resume kissing her.

She cups my breasts in her palms. Her tongue slides down my stomach. Then lower and lower still. She halts again, looks up at me from between my spread legs. “Are you sure?”

Sure? Are you serious? I’ve never been surer of anything, ever.
“I’m positive.”

That’s all the affirmation she needs.

I can tell that she’s nervous at first, kind of twitchy and uncertain of where and how to touch me, but soon she finds her rhythm. My frontal lobe sends a signal to my lips, like ‘let her know she’s right on target.’ “There. There, there,” I mumble.

It’s only a matter of minutes before the shock waves begin to surge through every nerve ending in my body. My synapses fire on automatic.
Repeatedly
. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s the most startling, marvelous sensation.

Are those her fingers? Holy…

I hear myself whimpering and place my hand below her chin to force her to stop doing the magical things she’s doing. Her head snaps up at me questioningly, but I’ve got nothing to answer with. I lie motionless, struggling to take in air. She pulls herself up, rests her head on my shoulder.

When I can finally breathe normally, I flip on top of her. All my weight is on her and I’m kissing her hard, like before. All of a sudden I get
stupid
anxious. I have the most extreme longing to make her feel as magnificent as I do, but what if I can’t do it right? What if I’m seriously bad at it? What if there are rules like in playing sports? I don’t understand sports! I fucking
suck at
sports
!

The moment before the panic alarm in my brain goes off, Payton stirs. “Hey, it’s okay,” she says, almost as if she has absorbed my thoughts via osmosis. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” She sounds so incredibly earnest, it completely renews my determination.
I’m gonna do this like a boss!

“I
want
to,” I reply breathlessly, then tease a trail down her body with my lips. My tongue finds its way to the space between her thighs. Her muscles go instantly rigid. I’m surprised at how I can actually
feel
her pulsating, like there’s a tiny drum beating somewhere deep inside her.

“Kendall!” she purrs as her hips jerk upward. My name has never before sounded so sexy. As she reaches climax, she grabs fistfuls of my hair and lightly tugs my head back.

All my strength is drained. I collapse on top of her in wonderment, thinking of how I’d slept with guys before but it never came close to being this amazing. It was never once so powerful.

She folds me in her arms and kisses my forehead. We lie together for the longest time, wordlessly basking in the afterglow. I don’t know exactly how much time passes before she breaks the silence. “Are you all right?”

I just had the most mind-blowing sex imaginable with someone who just happens to be a girl.
Well,
that
formula only works for one very specific equation.
Suddenly, I’m laughing harder than I’ve ever laughed before, because solving said equation is cathartic in the scariest, yet most exquisite way. All the pieces of the puzzle have finally come together: why I never really connected with the guys I dated, how I always felt like some inexplicable thing was missing. Now I know it wasn’t them; it was me.
Shit.
“I think I’m gay.”

“Yeah? That’s awesome. Maybe we can do this again sometime,” she jokes.

I want so badly to tell her that she might just be the only person I
ever
want to do this with. I want to tell her that I love her, but I’m petrified that one little word will change everything. I mean,
she
didn’t drop the L word. She said her heart belongs to me. That’s not the same thing as “I love you.” The nomenclature matters.
Right, Kendall, because having sex with her on the couch is so much
less
life-changing than words.
“Maybe we can.” I kiss her and then push to my feet. I take a few steps toward my bedroom. When I notice she isn’t following, I turn back to find her staring at me. She looks so frightened.

“Um, did I say something wrong?”

I shake my head.

She sits upright and her muscles go taut as though my lack of explanation has literally scared her stiff. “Where are you going?”

“To bed,” I say nonchalantly. “Are you coming?”
An invitation to share my bed… What a pathetic consolation prize to “I love you.”

She continues to eye me up and down for a moment before her face alights with a smile. “Yes.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Payton

I
am coaxed into wakefulness not by the golden rays of sunlight flooding through the bedroom windows, but by the tingle of puckered lips and sultry breath against my neck. “Good morning,” Kendall whispers, her voice scarcely registering through the fog of slumber I’m trapped in.

“Good morning,” I reply, still groggy. I clear the gritty remainders of sleep from the inner corners of my eyes and focus on the sensation of bare flesh touching mine. It’s all the silky smoothness of skin on skin, unadulterated by the weighty coarseness of clothing. I ruffle the sheets and take a peek beneath them. We are both totally nude.
She’s…
I’m… Holy shit! Last night wasn’t a dream. I didn’t imagine it. It happened. What if it was a one-time thing? What if she regrets it? What if this totally fucks up our friendship forever? Payton, you twat, say something!
“So I haven’t died and gone to heaven, have I? Please tell me this is real.”

“Died and gone to heaven, huh? That is
so
cheesy,” she says with a snigger. “Yes, it’s real.”

“Will you pinch me so I can be sure?”

“I’ll do better than that,” she says, then kisses my lips.

I laugh when she pulls away. “I knew this was a dream! You don’t even have morning breath!”