“He isn’t as bad as I originally thought, and he isn’t in love with another girl,” she shoots back.
“Do you trust him?” I ask and pause, my heart thudding in my chest.
“No.”
“Do you trust me?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
She rolls her eyes. “Do I have a choice?”
I close the space between us. “Does the offer still stand?”
“I-I-I don’t know. Now you’ve got me all worried. What if it makes things weird between us?”
“Was it weird when I kissed you?”
Her eyes drop to my lips and she shakes her head. “No.”
“Would it be weird if I did it again?”
She looks up at me. “Is that a good idea?”
“You said you wanted to experience life before you go to Chicago, right?”
“Right.” She nods slowly.
“Well, kissing is part of it.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “So,” she looks at the bed, “are we going to…”
“No.”
She frowns. “No?”
“Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t ready.”
“I’m sure Reese would disagree.”
I walk forward, forcing her backward into the wall. I lift her leg, wrapping it around my waist, grinding my cock into her center. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“Maybe,” she says defiantly.
“I get your firsts, not him.”
“And what do I get, huh?”
“You get your firsts with someone you know will take care of you. With someone who won’t ever lie to you, with someone you can trust.”
“Someone who’s still hung up on another girl.”
“And you’re going to Chicago at the end of the summer. Neither one of us is ready for anything serious, so promise me right here, right now. If we do this, at the end of summer, nothing changes between us. But you need to tell Reese to fuck off.”
She shakes her head. “I like him.”
I wrap a hand around her throat, forcing her to meet my gaze. “So what, you’re going to fuck us both and compare dick sizes?”
She pushes me back. “If that’s what I wanted to do, then yes.” I drag a hand down my face, and she speaks again. “I’m not saying I’m going to screw both of you, but I’m not convinced you’re all in. Why would I give up a sure thing for someone who is just trying to win a pissing contest?”
I want to tell her that Reese is the one who wanted to make this a competition, but there’s no point. Telling her the truth will only hurt her feelings and I’d rather throw myself in front of a bus than intentionally hurt her. Instead, I step around her and walk over to the canvas perched on the easel. It’s just a bunch of lines and circles. I can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be, but knowing Roni the finished product will look like something that should be hanging in a museum. I squeeze a few globs of paint on a palette and hold it out towards her. “He hasn’t sparked your muse yet?”
She rolls her eyes and stomps over to where I’m standing, and snatches the paint from me. “Jealous much?”
“No, not particularly. Reese might say all the right things, but pretty words mean shit, especially to a girl like you. You need actions.” I grip her waist, pulling her back into my chest. She lets out a little moan that has my dick aching in my jeans. My body is dwarfing hers. “You left with me. Your heart...it’s not beating like that because you're wrapped in his arms. Your little ass isn’t grinding up against his dick. Admit it, it’s me your pussy gets wet for, only me.”
She lets out a shaky breath “So, if anything, you’re to blame for my lack of muse.”
I chuckle into her ear, and she shivers. “I can fix that.”
14
Chapter 14
Roni, age 18
I’m not sure how we got here. I’m not sure how I was so dead set on Reese at the beginning of the night only to leave the diner with Devin. Not sure how one person can piss me off so deeply, and at the same time make me feel so complete. But if I’m being honest with myself, it’s been that way since we were kids. He’s always been my happy place and my comfort. He knows what buttons to push to make me angry and he isn’t afraid to push them.
I should send him away. I should choose Reese. There wouldn’t be as much drama with him, but then again there wouldn’t be as much fire either. That’s the toss up. Easy and simple or hot and consuming. The choice should be clear, but, what’s a leap of faith if you never actually jump?
I reach over and grab a brush from the dirty mug of water sitting on the ledge, and swipe on the paint.
“Good girl,” he murmurs in my ear as hands dip down the front of my overalls. Rough hands palm my mound and my body goes slack against his. “Finish it.”
“But—”
“Don’t think,” he tells me, dragging his tongue down the side of my neck. My body trembles as he tastes me, in a lot of ways for the first time. Something changed tonight. He’s no longer keeping me at arm’s length, no longer worried about how us being intimate will affect our friendship. A part of me—the still fucked up part from my less than stellar childhood—worries it’s because he sees me as expendable, as something he’s no longer afraid of losing. But rationally I know it was jealousy that pushed him to this. I just hope it’s enough to keep him after tonight.
My eyelids flutter closed and I push down those insecurities because he’s here with me now, and as pathetic as it might sound, that’s all that matters. I’ll take fleeting and real over a lasting façade seven days a week.
My hand drifts back to the canvas as his hot, wet tongue runs circles around the space where my neck and shoulder meet. I have no idea what I’m doing but as long as he keeps his mouth on me I'll paint whatever he wants.
I dip the brush into another color as his hands travel up my stomach and he cups my breast. “Dev,” I whimper. No one has ever touched me there, and I wasn’t prepared for how deliriously good it feels.
“Keep painting,” he grunts, pinching my nipple with more force than I’d been expecting.
I do as I’m told, trying to focus on what I’m doing, but the smear of red and pink paint have no rhyme or reason. “Stop thinking,” he admonishes, pinching my nipple again.
My brain is fuzzy from the cheap rum and his touch. I dip back into the red and add another few lines to the canvas as he unhooks my overalls and they slide down my legs.
“Are-are you going to fuck me?” I ask in a shaky voice.
“No.” He grunts.
I can feel his erection stabbing into the cotton of my panties, and I gasp. “But your…”
“Hard as fucking stone? It seems to happen a lot when I’m around you.”
I try to turn to face him, wanting to dig further into that confession, but he stops me, pinning me to him. “Paint, Veronica, or I stop touching, and neither of us wants that.”
I do as I’m told, not even paying attention to the color I choose next. I just need more of his mouth, more of his hands, more of him, on me…inside of me.