Pinky
This was Samir she was practice kissing. Samir.
The thought should’ve made her double over in maniacal laughter, but somehow, it didn’t. Somehow, Pinky found herself deepening the kiss, inhaling the masculine, clean smell of him, reveling in those broad shoulders, those muscular arms encircling her waist. The thing was, Samir Jha was taking control, and she was letting him. And not just that, but she was enjoying this very strange new dynamic to their non-relationship.
Dear sweet goddess, what the hell was happening to her?
Samir
Even in this intense, hormone-high state, Samir was surprised at Pinky’s response. He’d hoped to catch her off guard by proposing this practice kiss, but he hadn’t expected the depth of her reaction.
She responded to him like she’d been starving and he’d handed her a delicious morsel of chocolate. Her hands roved his back and she pressed tight against his body, her gentle curves doing interesting things to his anatomy. Her tongue ran across his, tasting, testing, as if to gauge his reaction. Pinky, normally so confident and take-charge, was suddenly both breathless for more and somewhat insecure. To show her her lustfulness was more than okay with him, Samir put his hands in her hair, cinching her body against his. Her smooth cheek against his, the way she was on her tiptoes, her frenzied hands, that soft gasping—everything about her was driving him intensely, rabidly crazy.
They pulled apart after a few seconds, both of them breathing hard, regarding each other with bright eyes and flushed cheeks. Pinky’s bun was a mess, half her hair tumbling down her back. A loose leaf from the branch above them had deposited itself at the crown of her head. Samir got rid of it, pulled her hair tie out gently, and arranged her multicolored curls around her shoulders. Smiling a half smile, he asked, “And how was that for you?”
Still breathing hard, still clinging to him, she said, “G-good. Um, that was, yeah. Good.” He smiled and stepped a half step away, his torso pressing into the knobby branch behind him. He was still on enough of a hormone high that the actual height of the tree didn’t bother him so much.
After a pause, Pinky said, over-casually, “I think I may need steady practice, though. I’m a really slow learner, so, you know. Just to make sure I really have it.”
Samir felt a small smile flicker at his lips. Facing forward, he said, “Mm, yeah. Probably a good idea. We can do it again tonight, if you want.” He didn’t really know where all this was coming from—the confidence, the suave dialogue, the feeling of surety, especially in the face of Pinky’s unsteadiness. But there was something about seeing her wanting him, about seeing her so thrown and so un-Pinky-like, that made it easy for him to step into this role.
Which was ridiculous. If he were to think about it—and he wasn’t doing much thinking right then, to be honest—this was a bad idea. What had come over him? Why had he told Pinky he wanted to practice, just so he could kiss her? As if it wasn’t enough that she took every opportunity she could to tease him and bait him and drive him mad. As if it wasn’t enough that she was so much the mayor of la-la land that she didn’t even know what varieties of butterfly inhabited her own beloved butterfly sanctuary. As if he needed her chaotic, turbulent, unpredictable energy in his life.
But be all that as it was, he couldn’t deny the truth. He’d been noticing little moments between them here and there for a while now, sparks of… something, and up here in the tree, he’d been able to practically see the desire radiating off her. And he’d realized he felt the same way. They had a chemistry between them, something strong, that had just taken over the moment. And the crazy thing was, she had felt it too. She had responded to it.
Pinky interrupted his reverie by answering his question in this breathy voice that drove him mad, though, naturally, he couldn’t show it. He was the one in control here. “Yeah. I want to. I mean, we have to be convincing, after all.”
“Guys? I see DQ dead on the grass, but I don’t see you. Hello?”
“Crap, it’s Dolly,” Pinky said, automatically putting distance between herself and him.
“Guys?”
“Yeah,” Pinky called. “We’re up in the big oak tree! Be right down!”
They clambered down—well, Pinky clambered; Samir went at a pace that respected the height of the tree and the potential lethality of said height—and stood on the ground. Samir noticed Pinky picking at her shorts, putting her hair back in its bun, looking vaguely guilty.
“What were you guys doing up there?” Dolly asked. She wore a summer dress and sandals and, at her feet, DQ still lay dead, near Pinky’s discarded tote bag.
“Just showing him the view,” Pinky said, her voice a notch higher than usual. She rubbed the back of her neck, and Samir forced his eyes away from the soft skin there. “You know, so he could really appreciate the place.”
“Yep.” Samir pursed his lips and looked around, hooking his thumbs into his shorts pockets. A rivulet of sweat ran down his back. “I really appreciate the place.”
Dolly looked between them, slightly amused. “Oh… kay.” She spun in a slow circle. “Wow. I forgot how meditative it is out here.” She turned back to Pinky. “Remember that time we celebrated your sixth birthday in that meadow? I just remember you burst into tears when your mom brought in those cupcakes.”
“Oh, right,” Pinky said, laughing. “I’d imagined the butterflies bringing them to me, like in a fairy tale or something.”
Dolly chuckled. “Yeah. I didn’t know that until I was older and you told me.” She sighed and gave Pinky a quick hug. “This place has always meant so much to you.”
“Not just to me, to a lot of people,” Pinky said, her eyes sparking. “We have to do something.”
They heard voices then and turned to see five people, a middle-aged white woman in a business suit, two white men, about the same age, in rumpled T-shirts and pants, and two older women, one black and one white, in shorts and T-shirts, walking through the grove of pines toward them.
“All of this,” the woman in the business suit was saying in authoritative tones. In spite of the heat and humidity, her short blond hair was perfectly straight and silky. She sliced her arm through the air, her index finger pointed. Her nails were done in an understated plum-gray color. “I need it flat.” The two men nodded.
“If you could reconsider, that’s all we’re asking,” the older black woman said. “This habitat is an important piece of town history.”
The woman in the business suit smirked. “History is best left in the past. I’m talking about bringing in millions of dollars in revenue to Ellingsworth Point. Besides which, there’s no point talking about all of this now. The contract’s already been signed; the paperwork’s done.” She turned dismissively away, not giving the other two women a chance to respond.
“What the hell?” Pinky muttered, looking from the woman in the suit to the other two women. And then she began to stride forward.
Dolly looked at Samir and shrugged. “All we can do now is follow.”
Pinky