Page 123 of My Fault
“I’m serious,” she said, ignoring a lock of hair that kept blowing into her eyes. I stretched my hand out and tucked it behind her ear.
“You really want to know?” I asked. “Fine, but you’re going to laugh… It was Jenna.”
“No!” Her eyes widened like saucers. “No way! Are you serious?”
“We were kids, she was my neighbor and only friend, and we just wanted to see what it felt like… I thought it was weird, she thought it was gross, and she said she’d never do it again.”
Noah cracked up. I was happy to know it hadn’t bothered her. That kiss had meant nothing to me: Jenna was my friend, one of my only true friends.
“What about you?” I asked her, uncomfortable, not wanting to imagine Noah in any other guy’s arms.
“Well, when I did it I wasn’t that little, so I didn’t swear I’d never do it again… Actually, I liked it.”
“So who was it with then?” My attitude was a little more serious than I would have liked, but she either ignored or didn’t notice my tone.
“It was with the lifeguard from the public pool… He was super hot, and we hooked up in the emergency room.”
I grabbed her and pulled her on top of me.
“So you liked it, huh?” I said, trapping her so she couldn’t move.
“I loved it,” she admitted, and I realized she was making fun of me.
“You like torturing me?”
“Honestly, I think it’s hilarious, yeah,” she admitted, smiling and making me kiss her until we were both out of breath.
“I’m going to have to teach you what it means to actually torture someone,” I said, bringing my lips close to hers but without touching. I slipped my hand down her leg, watching the desire grow inside her. When my fingers were in the pit of her knee, I stopped and then brought them back up her thigh whilemy other hand unbuttoned her shirt and I kissed the soft skin of her stomach.
Then I stood up, leaving her there with her cheeks flushed, dying from unfulfilled longings. It took her a few seconds to realize what I was doing. She looked at me like an abandoned dog.
“What the hell?” she asked, exasperated.
“Like this, you’ll think twice before you try to make me jealous again.” It was almost impossible not to finish what we’d started, but I wouldn’t; I was having too much fun.
Slack-jawed, she started buttoning her shirt again.
“You’re the same dickhead you always were,” she grumbled, getting up, grabbing he blanket, and walking off to the car. I chuckled as I admired her long legs and her hair flapping in the wind.
Before she could make it there, I brought her back and kissed her deeply. I couldn’t stay apart from her any longer; a few minutes was my maximum. I rubbed my lips against hers, but she kept her mouth closed, hesitant, not letting me slip my tongue in until I’d licked and venerated her. When she gave in, I responded with the best kiss ever…a kiss worthy of remembering, not like that kiss from that idiot lifeguard.
43
Noah
I was scared of how fast things were moving. After all that had happened with Dan, falling in love again hadn’t entered into my plans. But there I was, wild about my stepbrother, the last guy I could ever have imagined having a relationship with. Maybe it would have been easier if I’d fallen in love with someone like Mario, but I knew that wouldn’t have worked. Ever since I’d told him we could just be friends, he’d completely ditched me. Obviously I wasn’t interesting enough for him. With Nick, everything was excitement. He made me feel happy; I had no complaints. It scared me how badly I wanted to be with him; even when we were just separated for a little bit, I suffered from his absence, which worried me. I couldn’t keep my legs from trembling when I saw him, let alone when he kissed me or we made love. I was on a cloud, and if it hadn’t been for the threatening letters, I would have been the happiest person on the globe.
I knew I couldn’t keep them a secret forever, but I didn’t want to mention my father’s name in front of my mother. She’d suffered from that man’s abuse as much as or more than I had, and now that she was happily married, I didn’t want to stir upthose memories, but what else could I do? My father was in jail, for a long time, and it was practically impossible that he would do anything to me. That meant Ronnie had to be behind all this. He’d found out about my dark past somehow and had brought all this up to scare me and hit me where it hurt. And the only person capable of dealing with that situation was Nicholas.
That night, after a party we were going to as a couple—the first time we’d done so—I was going to tell him. He’d be climbing up the walls and would upbraid me for not telling him before, but I’d been scared of his reaction and scared of what that gangster Ronnie might do.
I tried to conceal my mood when we arrived at Nick’s fraternity party and smiled widely when he came around to open my door. Since our relationship had begun, he’d transformed: the Nicholas who’d used to say girls could open their own door had disappeared, and a true gentleman had taken his place. I didn’t need all those old-fashioned gestures, but I liked knowing I was the only person who received them.
“Have I told you how hard it’s going to be to keep my hands off you tonight?” he asked me, not letting me out for a moment. It was chilly out, and the tight black dress I was wearing hadn’t been the most practical choice.
I looked up at him, admiring those bright eyes and their long black lashes. I got lost in them and the warmth and desire they concealed. Nicholas Leister was the spitting image of a Calvin Klein model, and now he was all mine.
“Well, you’re going to have to,” I said, wrapping my hands around his neck and playing with his hair. It was hard to keep my hands off that splendid body, too. “You know everyone’s going to be staring at us, right?”
