“Just enjoying the view,” I say with a leer that makes him snort.
“Turnabout, Jones. Don’t forget it—Not the light. Gah!” He squints when I flick on the bedside light. “Are you trying to blind me?”
“The room was too dark, and I want to see this sucker proper…” My breath hitches. “Jesus, Drew, your side.”
“Hmmm?” He cocks a brow and then glances over his shoulder. “Oh, right.”
‘Right?’ I can’t hold back form leaning down and running a hand along his lower side. He’s covered in bruises. Big, ugly, bruises like berry stains over his golden skin. Blackberry, blueberry, raspberry. They’re a molted landscape of a pain. And I’d been poking him there. Jesus.
“I had a game yesterday,” he reminds me. Like it’s nothing that his body has been pummeled.
“Is it always like this?” I’m curled at his side, my hand slowly running over the smooth skin of his back and along his flank. He’s paler here, and on his upper thighs where his shorts have blocked the sun. He shivers a bit, his skin prickling.
“Some games are tougher than others. This one was a bitch.”
My throat hurts. There’s a black bruise just above his hipbone. I touch it with the very tip of my finger, and he shivers again.
Instantly, I draw back. “Does it hurt?” Of course it does. How can it not?
But Drew turns to look down at me, his h*ps lifting a bit and revealing the shadow of his c**k against the bed. The extent of my distress is great, because I’m not even distracted. My palm comes to rest on the warm rise of his butt when he looks at me. “If I say yes,” he asks, “will you kiss it and make it better?”
He is teasing me, yet there is heat in his eyes. He doesn’t know it, but kissing his battered flesh is something I ache to do. I lean forward. And his breathing speeds up. He looks almost vulnerable, the way his body tightens and his eyes follow my movement.
Inches from him, I hover, waiting, my heart pounding as I look up.
“Yes,” he whispers.
My lips touch his skin and his breath catches.
“Yes,” he says again, more urgent.
Another kiss, soft, gentle. My lips map his pain with each yes, yes, yes, my hair sliding over his skin like a blood-red river.
Everything becomes languid heat. The bed sheets rustle as he turns onto his back and I crawl over him, my lips traveling along the blooming bruises upon his rock-hard belly. I trace the grooves between his muscles with my tongue, and he makes little noises of contentment. And I do too. God, he’s beautiful, his skin taut, his body so honed it looks like it’s been cast from bronze.
The silken heat of his cock, now hard and erect, brushes my cheek, and I still. He’s watching me beneath half-closed lids, his breath light and quick. I stare up at him as my lips graze the tender head, and he croaks a weak “Yes.”
Yes. I’ve wanted to taste Drew’s c**k since the moment I saw it. He’s glorious here, thick and long and straight. He smells of musk and warmth, and he’s trembling as if he’s trying to hold himself still.
The round, swollen head is satin smooth and hot against the roof of my mouth as I draw him in and give a soft suck.
Drew groans loud, his h*ps bucking, which shoves him in deeper. I wrap my hand around him and suck again.
“Yes,” he groans. His trembling fingers thread through my hair. He holds me there, making helpless little sounds as he lightly pumps in and out of my mouth. The sight of him, his head thrown back, his lips parted and his brows furrowed as if in pain, the way his muscles stand out in sharp relief because they’re clenched so tight, all of it, makes me so hot that I begin to sweat. My thighs tremble and my sex pulses as I flick my tongue over his head, suck him hard then light, take as much of him as I can into my mouth before pulling back out in a slow glide.
I want to drive him insane. The way he does me.
I love it when he fists my hair harder, drives himself into my mouth, his free hand clutching the bedspread like he might soon become unmoored.
“Anna...” My name is a plea on his lips as he writhes. “Baby…Please, I’m going to...”
I run my palm along the amour-plate of muscle that is his belly, and he releases with a sharp cry.
It’s warm and viscous and salty-sweet. I’ve never done this before, staying with a guy to the very end. But with Drew, I drink him down. Until he goes soft and helpless in my mouth. And I know that I am in deep, dark waters. Because I want to do it all over again. All of it. Again and again.
12
I NEED PERSPECTIVE. I need to remember why keeping my resolve is a good plan. I need to go home, and Mom’s off on Mondays. Fuck it. I’m skipping class. I give her a call to let her know I’m coming.
It’s a perfect autumn morning when I climb on my Vespa and head toward my mother’s house. The scooter isn’t very practical; I can’t use the highway, so I stick to back roads. And I know I’ll catch hell from my mom yet again for driving it to her house. But I love the feel of air rushing over me, and the ability to weave in and out of traffic. Even so, it would be smart to trade my scooter in and buy a car. I don’t like driving the Vespa in rain, and the winter months flat out suck. I have some savings—hell, my mom would buy a car for me, she hates the scooter so much.
Indecision regarding my scooter fills my thoughts, and I’m happy about that. It keeps me from thinking about other things, other people. Soon enough, I’m pulling up in front of the house I grew up in. It’s a 1920s colonial made of Georgia red brick.