I’ve managed to douse all the joy he exemplified only moments before.
“Okay, Kenny.” He presses a kiss born of sadness against the back of my hand. “I’ll do anything you want.”
I wish I could be honest with Cruise.
I wish I could be honest with myself.
Cruise
Teach me how to use my body.
I pour over Kenny in all her inordinate beauty and wonder why in God’s name she would choose this path. Who hurt her so bad that she couldn’t understand something greater than a string of one-night stands waited for her?
I get up and start a fire before we freeze to death. The night riffles through my mind like a disorganized filing cabinet shaking out events in random order. Kenny and I arriving at Ackerman House, the sea of hard-ons surrounding her once she drifted in that ocean of depravity, then Blair showing up like some twisted nightmare. The last time we stood face-to-face was the day she declared everything I thought I knew about us null and void and asked for my “blessing” to move on with her new Mr. Uptight Right. Tonight she wanted to talk, to start the New Year without any bitterness. I simply told her I wasn’t bitter and walked away.
It was Kenny I wanted to talk to, to be near. It was Kenny and all of her beautiful glory I wanted to surround myself with. Then her lips gave that mile-wide resplendent smile, reduced me to nothing, and I kissed her right there. I wondered if Blair was watching—if she thought it was some kind of perverse revenge kiss. A part of me was sad for her because I knew the truth. I was kissing someone special, someone I’m falling for a lot harder and stronger than I ever did for Blair all those years combined.
Kenny lands on the sheepskin rug as the fire roars to life. I pull two more rugs from the corner and blanket the floor with the fleece of three dead sheep, discards from the bed and breakfast. Something about the irony doesn’t escape me. There’s definitely something dead inside both Kenny and me if we can’t pinpoint love, if we can’t figure out that it just might be staring us in the face. And here I was all amped up to tell her how I felt when we walked through the door, but those weren’t the words she wanted to hear.
“Second lesson.” I let out a quiet groan as I land beside her. She’s got her top hanging so low her cleavage bulges out like perfect twin mounds.
“Second?” Her eyes sparkle like cut glass as she reclines onto her elbows.
“The kisses were first. Which, by the way, you’ve mastered, but I highly suggest we practice to keep your skill-set high.” I give a devilish grin and sweep my lips across her cheek just enough to tease her. “But tonight, we’re advancing to the fine art of touch.” I run my fingers up her bare thigh then slowly up her skirt until I round out the searing skin of her bottom. Her lids close partway, and her chest rises and falls in one quick motion.
“I don’t know…” She rolls into me. The slight curve of her mouth lets me know she approves. “What about all those phone numbers? You said get six, and I got twenty.” Her teeth graze over her blood red lips, and my jeans cinch at the crotch.
“You were trying too hard.” I hold back a laugh. “Besides, other people don’t count.”
“No?” She watches me with that diamond vision of hers. I can feel her wanting me, trembling to have me. I want to string it out—make it hurt until she abandons her efforts at becoming anything that remotely resembles the predator I’ve morphed into.
She picks up my hand and rubs slow circles into my palm.
“This sounds personal,” she whispers, her eyes heavy with either lust or fatigue. I’m hoping for the former.
“It should always be personal.” My fingers land firm on her thigh. I run my thumb under the lip of her underwear and trace over her hip. “Take off your clothes,” I whisper it like a dare.
“No.” She bows into the word as if she never had any intention of doing something so vile.
“You’re going to make a lousy one-night stand.” I bury a kiss into her neck in lieu of a laugh.
Kenny bubbles with a string of giggles. She arches into me and I lay over her, my body conforming to hers.
“I like tonight’s lesson,” she murmurs in my ear. “Touching.”
I sit up and pull off my shirt, leaving my arms extended for a moment while she rakes me with her eyes.
“All right.” I slip back over her and dot a row of kisses straight down her chest, stopping just shy of burying myself in her cleavage. I’ve envisioned at least a thousand times what that would feel like, lost in the soft pillow of her flesh. Kenny has me shaking with a hard-on ready to rip from my jeans. “Next lesson will be conducted with considerably less clothing. And believe me, you have nothing to be shy about.”