10 Years Ago
Paris Fairchild
I STOOD OUTSIDE Tyler Holiday’s bedroom door with a brand-new pair of panties on and my mind made up.
It had been six weeks since we started whatever this was we had going on, and he was right—I did want him, want him enough to beg if I had to.
Tall, sexy-as-sin Tyler.
Broad shouldered.
Beautiful.
Brilliant teacher. Fun guy. Party boy.
While he taught me how to masturbate and introduced me to pornography, I showed him the beauty of looking for flowers out in the fields and introduced him to The Little Prince.
Tyler Holiday and me.
Exceptional party boy and pretend party girl. He drank whiskey straight from the bottle and smoked the best weed. I made lemonade and did his homework for him.
Tyler Holiday.
Sworn enemy of my father.
Soon-to-be lover of mine.
Because, like I said, what my father didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I had always been good at sneaking around.
Tyler just made me better.
On the weekends, we snuck into each other’s bedrooms. And on the weekdays after school, we met somewhere quiet, usually at the coffee shops or parks on the border of St. Helena and Calistoga. I had to ride my bike. He drove. He wanted to pick me up, but I worried his fancy Mustang would be spotted and someone would tell my father.
Most of the time we talked—about everything. War, movies, school, people, the wine-making business, books, sex, and even his father. We never talked about our family feud, though, or my father.
We both knew family feud or not, my father would never approve of Tyler Justin Ryan Holiday, III, and not only because of his name or his kin.
Tyler was too much of a wild child.
He wasn’t religious, and my father still made me go to church every Sunday. He liked the Ramones and the Clash, bands my father called devil-worshippers. He had a fast car, and I wasn’t allowed to ride with boys, period. And then there was that fact that he drank, he smoked, and he did insane things.
Sometimes, I wondered if he didn’t have a death wish.
So yes, my father would send me to the ends of the earth if he knew.
Being with him was worth it, though. Being with Tyler made me feel free. Alive. Like Stevie Nicks when she sang the song, “Dream.”
With him, I was that girl who ruled her life like a bird in flight. I’d never felt such depths of emotion until I met him.
While it was mostly good, Tyler had a dark side. One minute he was soaring and the next plummeting. He was self-destructive in a way I couldn’t understand. Sure, he was broken, like me, but he’d also retreat inside himself and do things that didn’t make sense. Still, I continued to ride the roller coaster of us and I never wanted to get off.
The truth was, I’d fallen in love with Tyler Holiday, and I had no idea about how he felt about me. Emotion wasn’t his thing and he’d made that clear. Not with words so much as actions. Always pulling away or running away when things got deep. Making light of the heavy or ignoring it all together.
I couldn’t change him even if I wanted to.
I knew I had to accept him for the way he was, or risk losing him, and I wasn’t about to risk anything.
That Saturday afternoon I went to Tyler’s under the pretense of dropping off a book he’d been assigned to read for English at the prestigious St. John’s School for Boys that he attended.
The book was titled, “A Long Walk to Remember,” and I’d already read it. The Jane Whitmore School for Girls seemed to always be one step ahead of the boys, or so I’d been told. Anyway, the book title seemed rather fitting for my home situation.
It spoke to me. Although the story was nothing like mine, I could relate to Nya and I wondered if Tyler would relate to Salva in some way. That is, if I could get him to read it.
Since my father was gone for the day, I’d gone to Tyler’s early. I knocked, and as soon as I did, butterflies bounced along the walls of my belly like they were ready to be set free.
He opened the door, shirtless, in those low-slung jeans of his, no belt, his hair wet from the shower. I stared at him, my mouth agape. Sure, I’d seen him with his shirt off, seen all that lean, defined muscle that made every girl want to drop their panties. Yet today, in the sunlight, it was more than just a well-defined body that I saw.
I saw him.
The real him.
Sure, he looked like sex on a stick. Hell, he looked like sin. And yes, his sculpted upper torso caused my heart to beat more than just in my main organ. It was beating in my wrists, my neck, and between my thighs, too. But I also saw the boy I loved and wanted to be my first.
“You brought me the book.” Towel-drying his hair, he flashed me that grin that had every nerve in my body thrumming with anticipation.
“I did.”
He stepped aside. “Let me throw a shirt on and you can give me the CliffsNotes version.”
Knowing no one was at home made my knees shake and my palms sweat.
This was it.
I was ready.
I strode past him and flopped onto his messy bed, putting my back against his headboard and crossing my legs at the ankle like he’d done a dozen times in the past few weeks. “I will do no such thing, Tyler Holiday,” I teased. “You’re going to read it for yourself and I’m going to sit here and listen.”
Dropping the towel in his hand, he strode toward me like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. “Are you sure there’s no way I can convince you to help a guy out?”
I shook my head and leafed through the pages, pretending to read when what I was really doing was remembering last weekend when he sat right here and showed me how he jerked himself off.
God, I’d never seen anything like it.
Hot.
So hot.
I bit my lip, the memory so sweet I could practically taste it. Of course, he’d only treated me to that show after I’d spread myself out naked as a jaybird on his bed and he’d instructed me on the proper technique to make myself come.
It should have been embarrassing, but it was anything but. Everything with Tyler was erotic. Pleasure and poison. Dirty. Filthy. Wrong and right.
The next day, he’d schooled me in the art of blowing him to perfection and then talked step-by-step as he ate my pussy out.
And um, yes, I really liked that.
Sixty-nine was so naughty and so much fun.
Things between us had progressed over the past three weeks, but not once did he attempt to fuck my vagina with his cock. I knew why. I was a virgin and technically, although he was too, I was the one who needed to be certain.
There was no doubt about it, I was sure.
I was ready.
And I would beg if I had to.
He stopped next to the mattress and snatched the book from me, his eyes scanning the words on the page I’d bookmarked, top to bottom, as if he was reading prose. “One step at a time, one day at a time, just today, just this day to get through,” he recited.
I remembered to breathe, sipping oxygen like I was sipping his favorite whiskey.
Slamming the book shut, he remarked, “Very profound.”
My pulse was erratic. “I think so,” I said with a bite in my tone.
We stared at each other.
His heart beating as fast as mine.
Tossing the book on the bedside table, he held out a hand. “You should probably wait for me downstairs.”
Our fingers linked when I took what was offered, his hand warm and mine cold from the handlebars of my bike. I shook my head no and slid our linked hands to his lean hips. “I don’t want to go downstairs. I want you.”
He stared at me for the longest time and I really thought he was going to tell me no. “Move over,” he said, “let’s talk about this.”
I did as he requested and when his hot body was beside mine, he crossed his arms over his naked chest and said, “And by talk, I mean beg.”
I swatted his shoulder. “You suck.”
“I do,” he grinned with the biggest inappropriate smirk I’d ever seen. It was almost pornographic, it was that obnoxious.
When I tried to push him away, he laughed and pulled me onto his lap so I was straddling him. “Seriously,” I said, “I’m ready.”
His shoulders beneath my palms were as warm as his skin was smooth. “Are you sure?”
With a nod, I shifted and when I did my sex pressed against his bare stomach. “I couldn’t be surer of anything,” I breathed against his lips.
He took the dog tags from his neck and placed them around mine. “This means you’re mine. Got it?”
I laughed because really, did he not know I’d been his from the moment I saw him?
His hands found my hips and he pulled me to his mouth. Hot. Sweet. Delicious. Sitting that way, we kissed for a long time. It reminded me of the first night I’d met him. The biggest difference—we knew each other so much better.
Our likes.
Dislikes.
His palms smoothed up and down my body, his erection nudging at my belly. I traced the lines of his ribs, the bulges of his biceps, the squareness of his jaw. I even ran my fingertips over each and every bump on his spine.
By the time he rolled us flat onto the mattress, I was more aroused than I’d ever been. My pussy was soaked. My nipples were like steel peaks, taut and aching. And the most erotic sensation flowed through my veins.
I swore the room crackled with the electricity charging between us. Tyler pushed the rumpled covers aside so we could stretch out unencumbered by anything but the beats of our hearts.
Everything happened naturally. My thighs spread so he could fit snug against my body. His lips traveled down to the sensitive place on my neck, and then lower as he lifted my shirt to reveal my brand new lace bra.
Tyler Holiday surprised me.
He took his time.
Didn’t rush.
He unwrapped me like a fragile gift, with gentle fingers and whispers of appreciation. His hands passed gently over my skin as he unhooked, unbuttoned, and unzipped.
When we were both naked, he shifted in a way that our bodies aligned with each other perfectly.
We were two puzzle pieces that fit together but shouldn’t have.
A Holiday and a Fairchild.
The Hatfields and McCoys.
Tyler and Paris.
Forbidden.
The world existed solely for us in that moment, and we took what it gave. He slid the condom on and then entered me, using his hand to guide himself to my secret place.
His fingers dipped in and out slowly.
Up and down.
I arched beneath him, moving to his rhythm.
It was slow and right and perfect and it didn’t last nearly long enough. Within minutes, we both cried out. I clutched onto his shoulders and rode the wave for as long as I could. He tensed, calling out, “Paris, Love, fuck, Paris.”
Love.
I had a new nickname.
He didn’t say he loved me, but I knew he did. Later, I’d question that thought. But when he told me I was Love for the city of love, Paris, I took it for what I wanted to believe.
Collapsing, he buried his face in the curve of my shoulder. He grazed his teeth along my neck and brought his lips to mine, whispering, “I think we need to do that again.”
I giggled beneath him. “Geez, Tyler, can I have a hot second,” I teased.
He wiggled, poking his semi-hard cock against my swollen flesh. “That’s about all you have, Love.”
And just like that, neither of us was a virgin anymore.