ARROGANT PLAYBOY (39 page)

I’m in control now, bucking my
hips against his mouth as his hands grip the flesh of my hips. I’m on my knees,
desperate for something to cling onto, to ground me.

I bend forward, coming face to
face with his throbbing erection. In a hazy fit of blinding lust, I
instinctively grab the base of it, bringing the tip of it to my lips. It’s warm
and soft against my mouth. My lips part, my tongue extending to taste the tiny
drop of pre-cum that rests on top of his swollen member. It’s slightly sweet,
mostly salty, and not nearly as disgusting as I expected.

I swallow the tiny drop and
bask in the naughty feeling it gives me. My tongue strokes the length of him
from base to tip and back before circling his head. He moans deep against my
sex when I take him into my mouth. He’s velvet and heat, deliciously forbidden,
and I can’t quite fit him all.

His tongue continues lapping my
arousal, hungrier and needier with each passing minute. My breasts graze his
lower abs as I continue licking and sucking him. This is like sex, but softer,
gentler, and even more sensual.

Feeling his tongue invading my
sex as his erection fills my mouth is strangely intense. Jensen was right.
Again.

“I’m gonna come.” He breathes
his words hot onto my sensitive skin moments later, his hardness swelling and
pumping into my mouth. His fingers dig into me, threatening to leave marks. A
few long spurts and he’s dripping down the back of my throat.

I rise up to my knees, his mouth
still commanding my hips. I grab my breasts as I rock against him.

Closer…

Until I hit the edge I’d been
fighting all along.

Intensity rains down on me in
uncontrollable spasms. Jensen grips me, refusing to let me leave his tongue
until he’s drained every last ounce of orgasm from my spent body.

I collapse on the bed next to
him, burying my face against a free pillow. I’ve no idea how I’m going to walk
out of here when I can’t feel my legs.

“Waverly,” he says.

“I know, I know. I’ll leave in
a second.”

“No, I was going to say, you
don’t have to leave. Your mom and Bellamy are asleep, right? And your dad’s at
Summer’s?”

“You want me to stay?”

“I wasn’t done drawing you.”

“So that wasn’t a ploy to get
me to…?”

“No,” he laughs, his full lips
arching wide. His fingertip scratches the spot just above his left brow. “That
just, um… that just happened.”

We lie on his bed, neither of
us in a hurry to grab our clothes off the floor.

My eye catches a round,
dime-sized scar on his chest, hidden between two points of his tattoos. I’d
never noticed it before, and I trace it with the tip of my finger. “What
happened here?”

Jensen doesn’t flinch or move.
He doesn’t wince or scowl. “Cigarette lighter.”

“How?”

“My dad was mad at me one
Sunday after church. I talked back to him on the way home in the car. Reached
down, grabbed the cigarette lighter, jammed it into my chest. Burned clear
through my shirt.”

My body tingles with empathetic
pains, and I breathe through clenched teeth. “All you did was talk back, and he
burned
you?”

“If it wasn’t cigarette
lighters it was red pepper flakes in the mouth, no dinner for a week, belts,
paddles. Corporal punishment was a way of life.”

“And he got away with all of
that?”

“If you lived in Charter
Springs, you’d see. The whole goddamned town thinks he’s the second coming of
Christ.” Jensen’s face is blank. I can’t read him. I feel like I should feel
sorry for him, but I don’t get the impression that he feels sorry for himself.
“He let up on the beatings when Juliette came into the picture.”

“Juliette?”

“My father’s girlfriend. She
became his target after that. She couldn’t do anything right.”

“Why’d she stay with him?”

He shrugs. “I suppose because
it was better than being out on the street. And I don’t think Juliette really
knew what love was, because she believed my father loved her. I don’t know much
about love, but I know that wasn’t it.”

“And…” I’m scared to ask, but I
have to know. “You and her? How’d that happen?”

He rakes his hand through his
hair and blows out a lungful of air. “This is really heavy, can we—”

“Please. I want to know. I
won’t judge this time. I promise.”

He pouts. “I don’t know,
Waverly. I could sit here and say that she seduced me. I mean, she was older.
She knew better. I was just sixteen when it first happened. But she wasn’t my
first. I was experienced. It wasn’t a perverted sort of thing. We were both in
a bad place, and we found comfort in our own way, with each other. Looking
back, was it wrong? Yes. But it happened. Can’t go back now.”

“And that’s how you ended up
here?”

He nodded. “That shiner I
walked in here with? A parting gift from my father.”

“What ever happened with
Juliette?”

“No clue.” He shakes his head.
“I can’t imagine she left him. I just try not to think about it too much. Doubt
I’ll ever see her again.”

I take his hand, as a friend,
as someone who cares. It’s all starting to make sense. One by one, all those
dislocated parts of Jensen Mackey are fitting together like pieces of a puzzle.

“Why are we holding hands?” he
chuckles. “God, don’t look at me like that—with those sad eyes. Don’t
feel bad for me. Seriously. I don’t think I could ever fuck you again if I know
you feel sorry for me.”

“It’s okay to be vulnerable.” I
squeeze his hand.

He untwines our fingers,
reaching over and grabbing me to pull me on top of him. I’m straddling him, his
fingers tickling my inner thighs and tracing up to my under arms before
trailing down to my stomach.

“Tickles? Really?” I can’t stop
laughing, pushing his hands away until he finally stops.

“It was way too heavy in here
for a second.” Our hands are matched up, our fingers interlaced. Smiles fade
from our faces the second our eyes lock. Jensen sits up, though I’m still
straddling him.

We lean in, meeting in the
middle, our lips finding each other in the dim light of his bedroom. It’s not a
carnal kiss. There’s nothing animalistic or passionate about it. There’s
something sweeter behind it. His lips trace mine between slow, deep kisses, our
tongues grazing. My stomach swirls, matching my heart flutter for flutter.

And then I pull away.

I have to.

It wasn’t supposed to be like
this.

At the end of the day, he’s
still my brother. Stepbrother. Whatever.

His mom and my dad are sealed
for eternity.

And I’m under a microscope
until I convince my father to give me another chance.

Nothing else matters.

“I should go.” I climb off
Jensen, searching for my clothes, and redress as he shamelessly watches. “Oh,
and burn that sketch, okay? I mean it. Destroy it. Not kidding.”

His smile fades as he reaches
for his book, rips the sheet, and begins tearing it into millions of tiny
pieces. I wait for him to sweep them all into his trashcan before leaving.

When I slip out into the
hallway and tiptoe five steps down to my door, I hear a cough.

My heart stops.

“Waverly? What are you doing
up?”

“Dad?”

I
thought he was at Summer’s?

JENSEN

“My dad almost caught me leaving your room
last night.” Waverly stops me in the hallway in the morning between showers. A
towel is wrapped around her wet body and her hair’s in a turban. She’s all
fresh-faced, peppermint-y, and sexy as fuck.

“Shit. I thought he was at
Summer’s?”

“He came back over here to get
his antacids, or something. I don’t know. We’re good, though. I told him I was
leaving Bellamy’s room, not yours.”

“Do you think he bought it?”

“He seemed half-asleep. I don’t
know. He didn’t say anything.” She worries her lip. I want to believe for both
of our sakes he doesn’t think twice about it.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll
just have to be extra careful next time.” I realize I’m committing myself to
her—at least physically—in a roundabout way. Sneaking around with
her is kind of fun, though, and I have no intentions of stopping anytime soon.
I warned her that night in the laundry room. I told her after she kissed me I
wouldn’t be responsible for what happens. Waverly’s kiss, her body, her light
and airy presence, is addicting, just as I suspected it would be.

She tugs her towel tight,
fighting a smile. “So there’ll be a next time?”

“You’ll know when I’m done with
you.” I glance both ways before reaching down and pinching a tight ass cheek
through her towel. She yelps and I push past her to hit the shower.

***

When you want something badly
enough, you find a way to make it happen. For weeks and weeks, well into the
thick of summer, Waverly and I manage to sneak around. On nights when Mark
stays with Summer or Kath, we meet up around eleven, click the lock on her
door, and fuck each other senseless. Nights when Mark is down the hall is pure
fucking torture.

Neither of us has put a label
on whatever it is we’re doing. I’m not sure we even know what we’re doing, we
just know that it feels good, and when we’re fucking like bunnies, we kind of
forget about life’s bullshit for a while.

The last night of Camp Zion is
a sort of prom-like, chaperoned celebration complete with a live band playing
church songs and punch bowls filled with Country Time lemonade. There’s even a
sheet cake with a group photo laser-printed onto the frosting. It doesn’t get
much more G-rated than that, but still, Mark refuses to let his kids attend.

So we made plans of our own.

I rap on Waverly’s door at
eleven o’clock that Saturday night. “You ready yet?”

Her door flings open a moment later.
She’s in jeans and a hoodie, not exactly party material, but I don’t say
anything because she’s still pretty damn fine. I press my finger against my
lips and we tread lightly down the hall, down the stairs, and out the front
door. The second our shoes hit the grass we sprint for my truck like we’re
being chased.

“Go, go, go!” She yanks her
seatbelt across her chest the second we get inside, peering over her shoulder
to make sure all three houses are still black.

They are.

I shift into neutral and push
the truck to the end of the street, starting it up and peeling around the
corner. By the time we’re halfway to Liberty’s place, Waverly tugs her
sweatshirt off and tosses it aside, revealing a low-cut, lace trimmed tank top
that hardly covers the top of her breasts.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I can’t
stop staring. Fuck, I’ve seen her naked, but I’ve never seen her dress like
this.

“What? You like?”

Months of fucking the shit out
of her has evidently turned her into a saucy minx. “Yeah, I like. But I don’t
like that other guys might like.”

“You’d get jealous? Over me?”

She’s surprised, and I’m
surprised that she’s surprised. I thought it was obvious.

I’m falling for her.

“Cover up,” I say.

“No.”

I reach behind the seat of my
truck and pull out a gray and blue flannel shirt. “Wear this.”

“No.” She says it harder this
time, not budging. “I wore this for you.”

So there we have it. She’s
dressing for me and I’m getting jealous over her. We’ve been in each other’s
pants for months, unable to keep our hands off each other. She’s in my
thoughts, motivating my actions, and invading the air I breathe.

I love every god damn minute of
it, too.

We pull up to Liberty’s, cars
parked up and down the street and filling the parking lot of her dad’s shop. I
take her hand as we walk in, not because I’m trying to be romantic, but because
I want every drunken jackass in that party to know from the second they see
her, she’s off-limits. As long as I’m fucking her, she belongs to me.

And it’s true. She’s mine from
now until the end of summer when we go our separate ways. It’ll be hard knowing
she’ll be off to college, probably fucking the first jackass who gifts her a
wicked smile because that’s what attention-starved girls do when they get out
from under their parents’ thumbs. But I try not to think about that too much.

We show ourselves in, like
everyone else seems to be doing, and bump into the plastered hostess.

“Heyyyyy!” It’s Liberty,
swaying back and forth, with an armful of beer. “You get a beer! You get a
beer! You get a beer!”

Music blasts from speakers
behind her, nearly drowning out her voice. Kian’s behind her, smoking a joint.
People stare at us with dead-eyed, glassy stares, and a few guys check out
Waverly. I squeeze her hand tight and take a couple beers from Liberty’s arms.

“I can hardly hear myself
think,” Waverly yells into my ear, “but I love it.”

She takes a swig of beer as we
find a couple empty folding chairs in the kitchen. The apartment’s so tiny,
though, we’ve barely escaped the noise. I find a stack of playing cards amongst
the mess of stale, broken chips and crunched beer cans that line the counter.

“Wanna play a game?” I raise a
brow. “A
drinking
game?”

She nods, smiling, gazing at me
from across the table. The party is loud and chaotic, but we may as well be the
only ones here.

I shuffle the deck and go over
the rules, a simple game of War, modified for drinking. By the time we get
through the first shuffle, we need more beers. Three rounds later, and we’re
both buzzing. The room’s a little off-kilter, and I feel a stupid smile on my
face that won’t go away no matter how hard I try.

“Hey, what’s your name?” A
drunk guy stumbles into the kitchen to grab another drink, his gaze fixed on
Waverly. “I’m Jared.”

“I’m Liberty’s cousin,” she
says, forgoing her name.

Smart girl.

I stack the deck of cards. “And
I’m Liberty’s cousin’s boyfriend.”

She doesn’t shoot me a look or
make a face. She owns it just as much as I do.

“Let’s get some fresh air.” I
rise up and nod toward the balcony slider, and she follows.

We slip outside to a humble
balcony with an iron railing, a grill, and a couple of plastic chairs with a
blanket thrown over the back of one. A soft summer breeze whips her hair across
her face.

“Hope this is better than
Zion’s pathetic excuse for a dance.”

She turns to me, her creamy
skin glowing against the moonlight. “This is perfect, Jensen. Really.”

My palms glide up and down her
arms, warming her up and pulling her into my space. The scent of her shampoo is
sharp against the tepid air, and it fills my lungs with each breath. Twinkling
stars dotting a midnight sky is a million times better than pastel fucking
pseudo-prom decorations.

“School starts in a month,” she
says, pressing her cheek against my chest. Her arms slip under mine. Her father
doesn’t know it yet, but she’s leaving the nest matter what. I’ll see to it
personally, if I have to. They’re set to talk about college again next week,
but something tells me he hasn’t changed his mind. “And then what happens?”

“I go to L.A.” I rest my chin
on top of her head. “And you come with me.”

She’s silent.

“Because fuck if I can imagine
walking away from you and never looking back.” It’s the closest thing to “I
love you” I’ve ever said in my entire life.

Waverly lifts her face to mine,
our mouths hanging in limbo as our eyes catch. “You know that’s not realistic.”

“Disagree.”

“I have a scholarship to Utah.
I should go there.” Her eyes search mine, but for what, I’m not sure.

“Mark’s not going to let you,”
I say. “You know that. He’s wants you to get married. You’re safer running off
with me.”

She rakes her fingers through
her hair. “I’ve been walking a straight line all summer. Going above and
beyond. I’ve proven myself to him. He can’t deny it. He said we could talk
about it next week. That’s a good sign.”

“I don’t trust him.” I unclench
my fist long enough to brush the hair from her eyes. “He’s been too…
happy
lately. He’s been laying low. Off
your case. It’s not like him. Something’s up.”

“You’re just being paranoid.”

I shake my head. “I’m telling
you, something’s up.”

“He hasn’t brought up the
arranged marriage thing since that night with Bruce Waterman.” She says it like
it’s a good thing, but that’s what concerns me. “Maybe he’s changed his mind?”

“Okay, so let’s say he lets you
go,” I say. “You don’t think when you’re all finished with school, he’s not
going to try to marry you off to some polygamous asshole? I’m sure he’s been
saving up your dowry since you were barely out of diapers.”

“We don’t do dowries.” She
fights a smile. “If he lets me go away for school, that means he trusts my
judgment. If he trusts my judgment, he’ll let me pick my own husband.”

“Do you realize how completely
and utterly idiotic this conversation is right now? It’s not normal.”

“Nothing about my life has ever
been normal, Jensen.” I pick up on the despondent quiver in her voice, getting
the distinct urge to quell it with a kiss before the waterworks start. I press
my lips against hers, lingering for a moment. “Still think you should come with
me to L.A. I’ll take care of you, but, you know, not in the husband sort of
way. More like the sexual sort of way.”

She slaps my chest with her
fist and smiles. “Let’s just enjoy what we have right now, okay? A few more
weeks of this.”

“And then what?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m
not your girlfriend; you’re not my boyfriend. It’s not like we’ll be breaking
up.”

But
it is. It’s exactly like that.

“Besides,” she adds, “we
couldn’t be together, even if we wanted. We’re family.”

“Fuck, Waverly, you still
believe all that
eternally sealed
bullshit?” My body heats, I feel her slipping away. “It’s not real. None of it.
You know what is real?”

I press my mouth against hers
once more, claiming her for what might be the very last time. With beer and
rebellion on our tongues, our lips fuse. My hands cup her face, hungrily,
refusing to let her go until I’m good and ready.

“That,” I say, coming up for
air. “That’s fucking real. You feel that?”

Her lips are swollen, her eyes
big. “You’re kissing me like you love me, or something.”

“Maybe I might.”

“That’s awfully romantic.” She
rolls her eyes. “Can’t even commit to how you feel, but you expect me to run
away with you.”

“I’ve never said those words to
anyone. It’s not easy for me.”

“I’m not asking you to say
them, I’m just asking you to make up your mind. Either you do or you don’t.
Don’t tell me you might. That’s insulting.”

My hands slide down to the
indentation above her hips. “So you’d run away with me if I told you that I…”

I can’t say it. There’s not a
lot in this world that truly terrifies me. I’ve been beaten, neglected, abused
emotionally and physically, but those three tiny words are more powerful than
anything I’ve ever experienced.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I
don’t think you’ll ever say it, so I won’t get my hopes up.”

“You’re hopeful that I—”

She folds her arms. “Yeah. I
am. I hope you’ll tell me you’ll love me because then I’ll know all this
fooling around, all the back and forth, all of it was for a reason greater than
either one of us ever realized.”

“Do you…?”

“Yes,” she says, like it’s no
big deal, like it’s something she accepted a long time ago. “I love you.”

I can’t remember the last time
anyone ever told me that. Perhaps it was a grandparent or an aunt when I was
little, and I’m sure it was written in a birthday card. But I’d never heard
those words, spoken to me, out loud. Warmth threads my veins.

The feeling is mutual, and the
words are on the tip of my tongue. “These last few months have been the best
months of my life.”

“Mine too.” She stands on her
toes, lifting her mouth to mine.