The whiskey was all smoke and heat as it slid down my throat, and it was exactly what I needed. That was the most surprising thing of all to discover. That what Lucy gave to me during my panic attack was exactly what I needed. I’d never had one in front of someone who I genuinely cared what they thought of me. But now I couldn’t stop thinking about what she thought when she looked at me.
Oh, the heat in her eyes was scorching when she occasionally flickered her gaze down to my chest, my stomach. All those obsessive hours in my gym downstairs were not wasted, clearly. Even if the truth was that I didn’t do it for female appreciation, hers wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
Which was why I didn’t really feel like answering her question. Here, let me offer up my neurosis on a silver platter, for you to do with whatever you want. No thank you.
If I explained that my entire life I’d been subjected to a walking slideshow of all the horrible things that could happen to me, she’d either look at me with pity or judgment. Who, at twenty-six, couldn’t shake the paranoid whispers from the ultimate helicopter parent? Lucy had already seen the proof of my mother’s obsession with my health. There were thousands of dollars’ worth of health supplements in various places in my house, hidden away so that she thought I used them. Half of them, I had no clue what they were. For all I knew, the innocuous capsules and powders were hiding enough tranquilizers to knock out an elephant, and my mother was just lying in wait so that she could shoot a tracking device up my arm or something.
In no way would I put that past her. She tried monthly to sneak my phone away from me so that she could change the settings on the Find my Friend app. Just what every man wanted: his mother sitting at home, watching a blinking blue dot on a map and tracking where he was at any given moment.
Which is why I kept staring at Lucy, my glass drained and my mind whirling, my skin humming from whatever little game we were playing.
“I’ll take dare instead.” My voice didn’t even belong to me, like I’d chewed glass; like I’d choked on the words before they made their way up my throat, but forced them out regardless. Lucy tilted her head and regarded me. The crystal glass she was holding hovered by her lips before she took a slow sip.
“’Kay.” She narrowed her eyes. I liked them better without all the black gunk she’d smeared around them when she’d broken in. They were clearer, and in them, I could see just the girl. Not the criminal. “Do you think you could bench press me?”
Of course I could. The way she was staring at my arms, she knew it too. Given that she was such a small thing, it would be easy. And impossible. I tried to imagine her braced over me, where I’d set my hands on her body, and I was immediately shaking my head.
“Try again.”
“You’re no fun,” she said, her bottom lip pushing out in an appealing pout.
I wasn’t. She was damn right about that. But somehow with her, I was a different version of myself. It was unsettling, and interesting. Normally, it would have caused me to retreat violently. Literally and figuratively lock her out of my life.
Except with Lucy, she’d just pick the damn lock and barge right back in.
She leaned back in her chair, grinning like she could read my mind. Also not something I’d put past her. Absently, I scratched my chest and tried to decide if I should go get a new shirt now that I wasn’t freaking the hell out. Her eyes tracked that movement too.
“Ooh, I should make you give me a lap dance. See what you’re workin’ with.” At the look on my face, she burst out laughing. “Okay, fine. Spoilsport.”
She stood and grabbed my empty glass, and I watched the movements of her legs, the sway of her hips, the curve of her ass under the black yoga pants she’d thrown on before we left. While she refilled our glasses, I knew that I should be careful. Should proceed with caution, even as my whole body screamed at me to unsettle her in the same way that she was doing to me.
Could I?
I’d never been a game player. I’d never had the time for it, couldn’t understand the appeal. And maybe game was the wrong word. This was a sort of dance that we’d be engaged in since the moment that I helped her up out of her chair. No doubt a calculated move on her part that first night.
As she walked back to me, intention written over every inch of her body in the way her pulse thrummed in her throat, the way her eyes took in as much of me as possible, I didn’t even care.
She played me. And right now, I did not care, but I wasn’t going to let her keep doing it. Be the only person in this equation who was constantly off-kilter.
Was this what people felt like after funerals when they sought the outlet of sex? Of grasping hands and groans torn from them by someone else’s hands and lips? I could understand that desire to prove that you were alive. That you weren’t the one buried six feet under dirt and worms, trapped in a wooden box, the mortal cage of your body now rotting and gaunt.
The dark thoughts made it that much more apparent how alive we were, she and I. We were here, no matter what else had happened. And the fact was unavoidable, Lucy and I were irrevocably tied together in this dark truth.
She handed me a fresh drink and I nodded in thanks while I mulled over that thought. Forever, I’d think of her and this night, forever I’d know that we had a hand in something permanent, something that altered the landscape of the world that we lived in.
Did that shift her axis in the same way that it shifted mine? I wanted it to. It was easy to admit, like I’d flipped a switch and the lights went on in a room that I’d previously kept dark.
“Come on, Lucy,” I told her after I’d drained my glass again. “Don’t tell me you’re out of ideas already? That’s disappointing.”
The blatant challenge had her rising from her chair, eyes sparking, cheeks flushed. “Where might I find some shot glasses?”
“Cabinet underneath the liquor.”
She fished out two and slammed them on the counter next to me. “Watch the granite, geez,” I muttered.
The whiskey came next, and it sloshed over the edge of the shot glass when she poured. I was watching that, which is why I didn’t realize right away that she’d stripped off her shirt and tossed it on the floor.
Now, given that this was not my first time seeing Lucy in her bra, I chose to give myself points for restraint when I didn’t stare directly at her breasts. The bra was different today. Not black lace, but a sedate pink with no frills that somehow was even more appealing.
“You have to take this shot without using your hands, and if you get a single drop on my skin, you have to do twenty-five push-ups with me sitting on your back.”
If I backed down from this, she’d win.
“Only twenty-five?” I tsked as I stood from my stool. “Make it fifty.”
She laughed under her breath, a soft puff of air that I felt against my skin for how close I was. The quirk of her eyebrow was the only form of concession I got, but she lifted the shot glass and handed it to me.
“Hold this please.” Then she boosted herself up on my large kitchen island and laid down. She extended her arms above her head and arched her back slightly as she stretched. Her smile was sin, and she was temptation personified, laid out before me like a feast that I desperately wanted to partake of. Something primal roared inside of me at the sight of her like this.
Lucy held her hand out for the shot glass, and wordlessly, I gave it to her. After releasing a deep breath, she set the glass carefully on the hard surface of her sternum. Instead of going for the shot right away, I took a few decadent seconds to just take her in. It was greedy, and I loved it.
“What happens if you spill the whiskey?” I asked her quietly.
She hummed, and the glass wobbled dangerously as she inhaled. “Good question.”
“Have an answer to it?”
“Not right now. But I’m also slightly distracted at the moment.”
I braced my hands on the edge of the counter and leaned over her, blowing air along the line of her stomach, which quivered visibly.
“That’s not very nice, Xerxes,” she whispered.
From over the edge of the shot glass, I held her eyes and blew more air, following the edge of her bra. The smell of her skin made my mouth water, but I didn’t touch her. Goose bumps popped on her skin and I smiled.
“I didn’t say I was nice, Lucy.” I leaned over the shot glass, but didn’t pick it up right away. “If you spill it, then you owe me a favor that I get to cash in whenever I want. No question asked.”
“Aren’t you the little opportunist?” she mumbled, staring up at the ceiling. The shot glass moved again when she breathed.
“I learned from the best.”
Her eyes flashed dangerously when she looked over at me. “Fine.”
While I held myself over her, I realized that in the process of this torturous foreplay, I was fully, painfully hard.
“Does the no touching rule only apply to the glass?”
“X,” she said dangerously. “Just take the damn shot.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” My hand hovered over her stomach for a brief moment, the lunacy of what we were doing bright and vivid in my mind, but it didn’t deter me. This moment was the first in two days that I’d finally felt in control. It was heady and addicting.
She would be addicting, I knew, as my hand spread over the soft skin of her stomach. My hand looked so big on her small waist, and the hard bones of her ribs underneath her skin practically vibrated under my fingers.
Her breath was coming faster, and I knew the shot would spill any second. I pulled my hand off, and traced the edge of her bra with one finger, avoiding the soft swell of her breast completely.
“You’re such an asshole.” Her voice was thready and weak, and the line of her neck moved slightly.
“I am.” Barely … just barely, I moved past the edge of her bra and onto her skin with the tip of my finger. She was so warm. I’d sink into her so easily, her body would heat me from the inside out.
“You have ten seconds before it’s considered a forfeit.”
I laughed, I couldn’t help it.
Without a single care that I was breaking the rules, I leaned closer to pick up the shot glass, but I braced my hands around it, my fingers spread completely over her chest so that my fingers held the glass steady. Her heartbeat thrashed under my palm, and it filled me with a visceral, violent sense of satisfaction that I’d done that to her.
I lifted the shot glass easily and tipped it back. Lucy laid still, her breath making her chest heave temptingly. In the same beat, I threw the glass aside, and then hauled Lucy up by the back of her neck, stamping my mouth over hers.
Her lips were cool and dry, and I devoured her. Her arms wrapped around my neck as our tongues wrapped around each other. With rough hands, I gripped her close to me while her legs wound around my waist.
The beast inside of me was fully unleashed on this woman who’d completely unraveled my life. I fed from her mouth, taking her bottom lip between my teeth and tugging on it. She whimpered shamelessly and dug her hands into my hair, tugging to the point of pain.
“This is insane, X,” she moaned, pressing her chest fully against mine while I pressed open, sucking kisses along her neck.
I lifted my head to hold her eyes, feeling the kind of drugged high that I’d never experienced before with a woman. “You want to stop?”
Her hands gripped the sides of my face. “I’ll kill you if you do.”
Our mouths fused, fierce and hot, as I walked us to the couch. She was so light in my arms, and the sharp point of her fingernails dug into the muscles of my back when I knelt, laying completely over her, in between her legs, the heat of her clear through the remaining layers of our clothes.
“You feel so good,” I admitted, ripping her bra off once she finished unhooking it. She was perfect. The shape of her in my hands, the feel of her against my tongue and teeth, which made her writhe underneath me in a way that made me see stars.
With one hand, I pinned her wrists above her head and took her mouth again. I rolled my hips against her and she bit down on my lip. “Pants. Off. Now.”
I stood from the couch and frantically ripped open my belt while she shoved her pants down, not even bothering to remove them from one ankle before she sat up to help me divest of my boxer briefs. I fell over her with my skin on fire, and my hands barely worked when I tried to open the condom package that she handed me from … I don’t even know where the hell it came from. Lucy snatched it from me.
With my forehead resting against her chest, I let her put it on, my breath sawing in and out of my chest so loudly that maybe I should have been embarrassed, but it felt so good that I couldn’t.
We were frenzied movements and clutching hands when I lined up, her arched back beneath me keeping us pressed together in a way that made me pinch my eyes shut so I wouldn’t embarrass myself.
“Please,” she whispered when I hadn’t moved. “Oh, please.”
So I gave her what she asked for so nicely.
With her hands in my hair, and my hips snapping against hers in rolling thrusts, we breathed each other’s air, traded oxygen that tasted like her and whiskey. My head was screaming to make it last forever, to keep inhaling whatever fire kept her so alive. That fuel slipped from her to me in sweat and whispered, guttural words, sucking kisses and sharp bites of skin.
I could feel her tightening, arching up around me; so tense that I couldn’t believe she didn’t snap apart completely. With my spine morphing into a burning, white ball of pleasure, I reached down between us and pressed, and she screamed my name.
In the stuttered heartbeat later, I followed, breathing like a freight train into her neck, chanting her name in my head, but keeping the words from falling out of my mouth like the prayer they sounded like. Wrapped around each other, she hummed contentedly and pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
“Not bad, Xylophone,” she sighed against my sweat-slicked skin. “Not bad at all.”