CHAPTER FOUR

I left Kylie’s apartment and for a second, just stood in the hallway, shaking my head. What the fuck? Sex with a student I was tutoring? That was a first. And a last. Jesus.

Jogging down the one flight I hit the front door hard, welcoming the cool air on my body. I was still hot from the sex, from the exertion, the arousal, the view of her gorgeous, smooth, naked body, lounging on her bed, looking built for sin. Her expression had just been sweetly satisfied, her smile knowing yet innocent somehow. She was a complete dichotomy.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I was twenty-five, goddamn it. I had control over my body. Usually.

Walking fast, I backtracked to the coffee shop and unlocked my car in the parking lot. Tossing my bag on the passenger seat, I adjusted myself and got in. My balls were sticking. For a second, I sat there immobile, brain dead from the memory of seeing her clean-shaven and pierced pussy for the first time. A fucking crowbar couldn’t have pried me away from her at that point.

Yet it wasn’t just her body. It was her. She was nothing but mixed signals. She dressed in tight jeans and showed cleavage, sporting a tan that couldn’t be natural in November, and she was clearly comfortable being naked. Yet she cried over her stupid boyfriend instead of being angry, and she looked at me with shy, worried eyes, her teeth digging into her bottom lip when I had been walking her through ionic compounds. There was nothing ballsy or brazen about her. It made me intensely curious.

None of which could totally explain how I’d found myself buried inside her instead of going home to study for my own finals.

Fortunately, it was a short drive to my apartment.

Unfortunately, Devon was still up, sitting at the kitchen table, books spread in front of him. “Are you insane?” he said as a greeting as I slunk in, knowing I probably smelled like sex.

I could taste Kylie on my tongue and I wanted to let it linger awhile, but not there in the kitchen with Devon. His words made me feel guilty. “What?” I asked defensively.

“Why are you going out when your first exam is on Monday? Spectroscopy, if my photographic memory recalls.”

I just grunted.

He finally glanced up, looking annoyed. “And why the hell didn’t you text me to meet you out? Just because I’m Indian doesn’t mean I want to spend all my time studying. I resent that.”

Ignoring that bit of ridiculousness, I sighed and decided to tell the truth. “I wasn’t out having a beer. I was with the new girl I’m tutoring in chem.”

“Until midnight? Is she a total moron?”

For a second I wondered how far off from the truth that was, then I felt like a complete asshole for even thinking it. Kylie wasn’t stupid. She just didn’t have a brain for science. I wasn’t sure she was going to actually pass her exam, despite our cram session. The concepts just seemed to float around her head, but never actually penetrate it. Maybe it was that she was distracted by her personal drama, but I didn’t think that was all of it. It just wasn’t her thing.

“We weren’t studying the whole time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I had sex with her.” I went into the fridge, because suddenly I needed a drink of water. My tongue felt too thick for my mouth. I spotted a twelve-pack of beer and decided that sounded even better. I snagged one.

“You what? I repeat, are you fucking insane?”

“Probably.” I held the cold can to my forehead. The image of Kylie writhing beneath me had popped up in my head again and I had a renewed boner. I hung around in the fridge for a minute before closing the door and facing my best friend.

He was making an expression that was so ludicrous I almost laughed. Almost.

“Was she hot?”

“Of course she was hot! I’m not going to bang a chick three hours after meeting her if she looks like my uncle Mike.”

“Valid point. I concede the stupidity of my question. But how exactly does that happen? Hey, here’s molarity, oh, and my dick inside you.”

Now I did laugh. “Shut up.”

Devon pulled his earbuds down and tossed them on the table. “No, I am dead serious. I want an answer. This shit never happens to me. I want to know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Well.” How did I explain what had happened? “She’s struggling with chem.”

“Established.” He waved his hand. “Jump ahead.”

“I’m trying to explain, asshole.” I popped the beer tab and took a sip. The cool liquid felt good on my dry mouth. “She was trying really hard, though, and she was sweet and funny. She looked up these incredibly idiotic chemistry jokes and it was . . . cute.” The women I dated were usually serious, like me. Kylie had amused me, made me smile.

“Then?” Devon looked thoroughly impatient with my storytelling.

“Then she started crying about her ex-boyfriend so I walked her home. And that’s it.”

“That’s it? That is not the fuck it. How do you go from a chick crying to coming? It does not work like that.”

“She was upset because her ex cheated on her. She felt unattractive and I was comforting her.” As I said it, I realized how ludicrous that sounded. It hadn’t seemed that creepy at the time.

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I’m so sorry your boyfriend fucked someone else. If you suck on my dick you’ll feel so much better.” He picked up a balled-up piece of notebook paper and threw it at me. “God, I hate you. That would never work for me. I would end up with a black eye and a testicular torque.”

The paper missed me. “I didn’t say it like that, douche.”

“Word for word what did you say?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Which was a lie. I remembered every word, every kiss, every touch. But some things were none of Devon’s business. Like that piercing. I took another huge sip of my beer.

“Are you going to see her again?”

I paused. But then I said, “No.”

Kylie had made no move to give me her number, and she hadn’t said anything about seeing each other again. She’d even been noncommittal when I had offered to help her study a little more. Not that she needed my particular brand of, uh, studying, before her exams. Suddenly I felt like a jerk. I should have never gone into her apartment.

But then I wouldn’t have had that amazing sex.

My grip tightened on my can.

“Why the hell not? We can think of ways to make her cry so you can comfort her again.”

I bent over and picked the paper up and threw it back at him. Hard.

He caught it and grinned. “Was it at least good?”

“Yes,” I said shortly. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

“Thank God. I can smell you from over here, you dirty whore. Darwin’s theory of fuckability. Can’t wait to see the formula for that one.”

Yeah. Someday it would really be damn nice to live alone.

*   *   *

I curled up on Jessica’s couch, happy to not be alone. Rory, Jess, and I were sprawled out studying. Robin, who didn’t have traditional exams because she was taking all art classes, was out with her boyfriend, Phoenix. I was glad she wasn’t there, and that made me feel guilty. I wanted to just sprinkle pixie dust and make all my shitty feelings toward her go away, but it was hard. I knew she was drunk and didn’t even remember sleeping with Nathan, but she had still done it. I’d been shitfaced plenty of times and I’d never fucked anyone’s boyfriend.

So it felt more comfortable not to have her there. Like old times. When it was just Rory, Jess, and me in a triple in our old dorm. Both Tyler and Riley and their younger brothers were out catching a movie. Cuddling under a blanket, I bit the bottom of my pen and went over the chemistry notes Jonathon had made for me again. Rory was lying on the floor, chin propped up by her fists. She had a giant to-go cup of coffee sitting next to her.

I knew she was studying and I shouldn’t interrupt her, but I also knew she was always around the chemistry lab. “Hey, Rory, do you know some guy who is a chemistry grad student named Darwin?”

She glanced over at me before going straight back to reading. “Sure,” she murmured. “He’s a kinetics genius.”

Whatever. “Isn’t he totally cute?”

Now she swung her head completely and stared at me. “I guess. Yes. He’s attractive. How do you know Darwin?”

I waved my notes at her. “He is the tutor I met Thursday night. He helped me study.”

“How do you get a cute tutor?” Jessica asked, sprawled across the easy chair on the other side of the coffee table. She was wearing yoga pants and lying on her back. “When I was still at UC, the one time I tried to get calculus help I got a girl with a mustache. I mean, hello, there are at-home wax strips. Try them.”

“Not everyone has your aesthetic,” Rory told her. “Besides, maybe there are religious reasons she can’t alter her body.”

Jessica waved her hand. “Fine.” She had enrolled in cosmetology school in October and while we were studying for our college exams, she was studying for her own first round of exams. Apparently even stylists need to know the muscles in the head and I was looking forward to when she would need to practice shampoo and massage techniques.

“But my point is, I did not get a hot tutor while Kylie apparently did.” Jessica studied me. “You are so crushing on him.”

“No, I’m not!” I protested, because I wasn’t. Not really. I honestly didn’t expect to ever see him again. But he had been exactly what I had needed right then, whether he knew it or not. “I totally had sex with him, but I do not have a crush on him.”

Jessica shrieked. Rory’s head fell off her hand.

I grinned. Well, it was fun to drop that little bomb.

Rory looked totally scandalized. “You had sex with Darwin Kadisch? Are you serious?”

Wait a minute. “His last name is Kadisch? But that’s my teacher’s last name.”

“He’s Professor Kadisch’s son.”

“He is?” Oops. “I did not know that. At all.” That seemed bad. “Is that bad?”

“It’s only bad if one of you tells the professor,” Jessica said. “Which I seriously doubt he is going to do unless he and his father have a TMI relationship with each other. And you’re not going to tell.”

“No. Definitely not.” I chewed my lip. “He said he wasn’t going to say anything. He actually said Professor Kadisch would kill him. He didn’t say anything about him being his dad. That’s weird.”

“His father is head of the undergrad chemistry program,” Rory said. “He must’ve been trying to stay professional.”

Jessica snorted. “Sure, he was. That’s why he and Kylie were playing naked Twister. Because he’s totally professional.”

Rory made a face. “Good point. I guess the real question here is . . . was it good?”

“Rory asks an excellent question. Was it good?”

They both stared at me expectantly. I let them sweat it for a second.

“Oh yeah.” Then I couldn’t help it. I threw myself back on the cushion and rolled around, kicking my feet. “Holy shit, it was soooo good. I feel hot just thinking about it.” I did. My cheeks were burning and so was my vajayjay. It had been three days and I was trying to set the experience aside and study very seriously, but he popped into my head when I was least expecting it.

Jessica laughed. “Well, that’s good. Was he huge or something?”

“No. I mean, maybe slightly above average. It was more that he took his time. It was two hours and mostly, it was about me.” I cuddled the blanket and sighed. “I really needed that.”

“I haven’t seen you this excited since Voldemort fucked you over,” Jessica commented. “This is awesome.”

I had forbidden my friend’s to use Nathan’s name in my presence so he became he-who-shall-not-be-named and then Voldemort. It worked for me. “Don’t spoil my post-sex happiness by mentioning Sir Dickhead,” I told her.

“Sorry. I’m just really glad to see you having fun.”

“Was it kinky sex?” Rory asked, looking very curious.

“Rory!” Sometimes she said things that seemed totally out of character. “What do you mean by ‘kinky’? And, actually, no. However you could possibly define ‘kinky,’ it wasn’t.”

She shrugged, her auburn braid falling over her shoulder. “I don’t know. I guess I just envisioned him trying to defy the laws of gravity.”

I had been taking a sip of my orange soft drink and at her words, I choked and sprayed it out of both my mouth and my nose. “OMG!” I was laughing and coughing at the same time as my friends both lost it, too. There was orange pop all over my notes and the coffee table. It dribbled down the front of my hoodie. “You kill me.” I wiped my nose.

Rory sat up, still laughing. “God, this floor is so hard. I think I’ve dented my elbows.”

“It’s better than that stinky-ass carpet that was here before Riley and I ripped it up.”

“True.”

I let them go off on a carpet thing for a minute, happy to daydream about Jonathon. Who would have thought nerd sex would be so hot?

When I rolled onto my side and reached idly for my drink again, I realized they were both grinning at me, no longer speaking. “What?”

“You look downright dreamy.” Jessica grinned. “So when are you seeing him again?”

“Oh, I’m not.”

“What? You let him leave without getting his number? Girl, you’re slipping.”

“I have his e-mail. I could get in touch with him. And I could have said something to him before he left, but I don’t know. I didn’t want to ruin it.” I ran my finger over the formulas he’d written in my notebook. “I don’t want to find out he really is some huge asshat. It was fun, and it made me feel sexy for the first time in a long time, and I just want to leave it at that.”

Rory nodded, but Jessica looked sketch about the whole thing. “But if it was good, don’t you want to do it again? It’s not like every guy is willing to be going down on you for two hours. Trust me on this one. I’ve done some research.”

I tried to explain. “But what if it was just A Moment? One of those like rare combinations of the right time, the right place, the right level of hormones or whatever. What if we did it again and it sucked? Not only would it suck, it would lessen the good factor of the first time. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I just want to lock it in a box labeled ‘Awesome Sex with a Nice Guy’ and keep it safe there. Right now he’s the only one in that box so he has plenty of room to move around.”

Rory laughed. “I can understand that.”

“Was he circumcised?” Jessica asked. “I’ve always wanted to know what dealing with an uncircumcised guy is like.”

She made it sound like you had to be animal tamer to handle an uncircumcised penis. Circle it carefully, hands out, so you didn’t spook it.

“Of course he is,” Rory told her. “He’s Jewish.”

“He’s Jewish?” I asked blankly. I had to admit I had not given one single thought to his ethnic or religious background. Not a single one.

“Well, presumably. Professor Kadisch is and their last name is German-Jewish.”

“You scare me,” Jessica told Rory. “How do you know shit like that?”

“What? It’s common knowledge.”

“Not in my world.” Then she glanced back at me. “So he was circumcised?”

I nodded. “Definitely.” I hadn’t gotten that up close and personal with it, well, not with my eyes, but I had stroked him with my hand and that soldier had been wearing a helmet.

The front door opened and Jessica whispered, “Shh!” urgently like we were twelve and someone’s mom was coming in to the room.

Which was why we all looked totally guilty when Riley, Tyler, Jayden, and Easton came into the living room, a gust of cold air following them. They were talking when they first stepped in, but Riley paused in the middle of kicking off his boots.

“What? Why do you all look so guilty?”

Rory bit her lip and shook her head. Jessica pretended to be studiously looking at her book. “What are you talking about, honey? How was the movie?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Fine.” Then he turned to his brother. “Ty, are you with me on this one? Don’t they look like they’re either talking about something that is going to embarrass the shit out of us, or they are planning something that involves me doing manual labor?”

Tyler had kicked his boots off, too, and he padded into the room on his socks, dropping to the floor beside Rory. “I agree with you.” He kissed his girlfriend and starting massaging her shoulders, clearly trying to butter her up. “Come on, Rory, be honest. Were you guys talking about us?”

“No,” she told him and it rang with sincerity because it was true. “Ah, keep doing that. It feels good. I’m all in knots from studying.”

He made a face but he kept doing it.

Jayden, Riley and Tyler’s younger brother who had Down syndrome and was basically a laugh-riot all the time, hung his coat on the hooks Jessica had installed by the front door. “Man, I’m glad I don’t have to study.”

“Me, too,” Riley said, going over and kneeling over Jessica on the chair to give her a kiss.

“Ow, get off of me,” she said. “Your knee is crushing my shin.”

Riley completely sprawled across her just to annoy her, kissing her neck with obnoxious sounds.

“Stop it,” she said, laughing, trying to shove at his chest even as her head bent to give him better access.

Two weeks ago, watching both my friends with their boyfriends would have sent me from the room, unable to deal. But now I really didn’t mind. I just pulled my feet up when Easton, who was only eleven, decided to flop onto the couch with me, worming under the blanket. In a minute, he was parallel with me, moving into the crook of my arm. I know his brothers thought it was weird that Easton really dug both Rory and me. I didn’t. Rory volunteered at an animal shelter and I loved kids, having spent every summer in high school as a camp counselor. It seemed natural to me that a kid who had a negligent mother before she died, and none now, would want some affection. Tyler and Riley tried really hard to fill that void, but their way of showing love tended to involve a lot of fist-bumping and hair-rubbing.

Easton said, “Can I have a sip of your pop?”

“Sure.”

But Tyler had eagle ears when it came to Easton. His head popped up from the other side of the coffee table. “No, it’s too—”

“Too what?” Easton asked, already reaching for the can.

“What the hell are you two doing under a blanket together?” Tyler asked. “No. Uh-oh. Hell no.”

Riley looked up from Jessica’s boobs and sighed. “Oh my God.”

I got totally offended. “What? He’s just sitting next to me. He misses his mother.”

“Our mother never hugged him and you are not a forty-year-old woman.”

“So what?” I asked, exasperated. “He thinks of me like a babysitter. Don’t you, Easton?”

Easton nodded.

“A babysitter he’d like to bang if he knew how,” Riley said with a snort.

“Oh!” I gasped. “You’re disgusting!” I actually covered Easton’s ears with my hands. “You shouldn’t say things like that in front of him. He’s just an innocent child.”

Tyler’s eyebrows just about disappeared. “As much as I wish that were the case, he’s seen and heard a lot worse than what Riley just said. Is he innocent in terms of girls? Of course he is, technically. You’re right, he’s only eleven. But in terms of life? Sorry to say he isn’t even close to innocent, Kylie. He has a bit of a breast obsession right now and I think he is playing you, taking advantage of your sympathy.”

“He does,” Jessica confirmed.

“Oh.” She should know, she lived there, even if I had a hard time thinking of an eleven-year-old as anything other than a child still. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.” I released Easton’s ears and thumped the blanket down between us so our bodies weren’t touching. “Better?”

Tyler just laughed. “Uh. Maybe not quite, but thanks.” He kissed the top of Rory’s head. “You ready to go home?”

“Yes. It’s going to be an all-nighter, though.”

“I’ll make you coffee before I go to bed,” he told her. “Kylie, you want a ride home?”

“Yes. Thanks.” Though the idea of returning to my poop apartment didn’t make me happy. I sighed, wishing things had worked out differently. Tyler had moved in with Rory and Phoenix had moved into Robin’s room, so now it was couple city over there instead of the four of us girls the way I had pictured it, the way we had planned it last year. Jessica lived with Riley in the house he’d inherited from his mother. Or been saddled with, as he liked to put it.

On the ride back, me in the backseat, I checked my phone as Rory and Tyler discussed needing to go to the grocery store. Boring.

I had an e-mail from Jonathon. I clicked on it and it said simply, “Good luck tomorrow. You can do it. ~ D”

Now, that gave me a bit of a tingle in my vajingle.

I typed back, “Thanks. ”

There really wasn’t much else to say.

Then I realized I had a text from Nathan. I deleted it without even reading it.

And took Jonathon’s advice and finally blocked him.

That felt almost as good as sex with Jonathon.

I remembered the feel of his tongue over me.

Nah. Sex was way better.