Someone to Love(12)

“Come on.” She pulls me down to the carpet, and we lean back admiring its crooked form.

It’s comfortable like this with Kenny. I push into her shoulder playfully, and she reciprocates with a bubbling laugh.

“You kissed me,” she whispers, looking up from under a thicket of lashes.

“Only because your lips were begging for it.”

“You wish.” Her cheeks fill with color like maybe they were begging for it after all.

Kenny locks those steel-colored eyes over mine and doesn’t let go. For a second I envision straddling her—hell, her straddling me with that impossibly perfect body, her warm limbs wrapped around my back like a bow.

A wave of heat washes over me, and I glance down at the bare stump of the tree in an effort to deflect the hard-on in my jeans rising to salute her.

“You think we should decorate it?” She rakes her foot over mine, and an electrical jolt fires up to my groin.

Yes, with a condom, I want to say. Instead, I opt for something more appropriate and likely to happen. “My mom probably has an entire crate of ornaments she’d gladly gift us.” I tap her foot with mine and feel a surge bullet through me once again. I’m fascinated by the physiological effect she has the power to invoke. Obviously sex with someone as physically charged as Kenny would kill me instantly. But what the hell, I say get the paddles ready boys. I’m going in on a suicide mission.

For a moment, I envision myself stretched out on a gurney with my dick smoking.

I pluck my phone out and shoot a quick text to mom before I get off track and end up dry humping the evergreen just to keep from going insane.

“Ornaments are just what we need.” She shifts and appraises me as if seeing me for the very first time. She looks up at me with those bowtie lips, and my insides come to life in a flaming ball of fire.

Shit. I’m not used to this. I haven’t had a real girl over in so long—ever in fact, and it’s quickly becoming obvious my body doesn’t know what it’s supposed to do with her. Hell, I know what it demands to do with her—and most of those things aren’t legal in any of the fifty states.

“Tell me something about yourself,” she says, lying on her back. “What turned you onto women en masse?”

I roll onto my elbow and take her in from this aerial vantage point.

“You’re a beautiful species. Can you blame me?” I won’t be filling her in on my heartbreak anytime soon. Besides, I’m over that. This is the new me, the one that doesn’t need assurances, just a pocket full of condoms and I’m good to go.

She adjusts herself and her chest ripples in all the right places, eliciting a groan from me in the process. I can feel the old me wanting to burst through and make Kenny my own in a far more intimate way than any of the long string of girls I’ve reduced to body parts in the last several months. But body parts in and of themselves are fun, and having your balls handed to you spiked on a stiletto, not so much.

“Well I think you’re a beautiful species.” She nestles in a little closer. I can feel her gunning for another kiss, but she’s too shy to go there on her own.

She kicks off her shoes exposing her glossy red toenails. Kenny rolls into me with her hip seductively hiked, her shoulder turned in until it looks as if she’s downright posing. My body starts in on the shakes, and my breathing picks up pace. I bow into her like a warning and she doesn’t resist the effort. Instead, her eyes enlarge, and her breathing becomes erratic, letting me know she wants it. I close my eyes and go in for the kill.

“So”—she bolts up as if waking from a bad dream—“we should roll some ideas around for our experiment. You know, set some ground rules.”

“Our experiment?” I slouch after having my lips shot down like an incoming missile.

“Yeah, you know.” She pushes her shoulder against mine and that same surge of electricity vibrates through my chest. “You’re my fearless leader. You’re going to teach me the ropes”—she ticks her head toward the leash on the floor—“literally.”

“You really want to do this?” A thin rail of disappointment speeds through me. I thought maybe she’d cave, decide that she’s a one-man woman and maybe, just maybe, that man could’ve been me.

“Yes.” She pushes it out as if she’s unsure. “I mean, only if you’re interested. If you find me repulsive, I could look elsewhere for instruction.” Her lips twitch under the duress of her words, as if she meant it as a joke and had a reality check that stunted her ego.

“I definitely don’t find you repulsive, nor am I willing to relinquish my star pupil. Trust me, I’ll have you bedding your way through fraternity row by New Years’.”