Easy (15 page)

“Do you remember
the moves?”

I shook my head,
shutting my eyes.

“It’s okay. I
could tell you were freaking out in class. Your friend did the right thing, not
forcing you. I don’t want to force you, either. I just want to help you feel
more in control.”

I took a deep
breath. “Okay.”

“If you find
yourself in this position, you want to do these moves automatically, without
wasting time or energy trying to buck him off.”

I stiffened as his
inadvertent use of Buck’s name.

“What?”

“That’s his name.
Buck.”

I heard him inhale
through his nose, like he was trying to maintain control. “I will remember
that.” He was silent for a moment. “The first move seems counterproductive
because it provides no leverage. But that’s the thing—you’re taking
his
leverage away. Choose the side you want to roll onto, and put that arm straight
up and out, like you’re standing and reaching for the ceiling.”

I put my left arm
up as he described.

“Good. Now, with
your opposite arm, you give
yourself
leverage, and you remove his
already precarious balance. Palm flat on the ground, elbow up. Shove down and
roll to your side, throwing him off.”

I followed his
instructions—easy to do, with no weight on top of me.

“Can we try it?
I’m going to push your shoulders down and use my weight to hold you there. If
you have a problem, just say so and I’m off. Okay?”

I fought my panic.
“Okay.”

His gentleness as
he knelt over me, holding my shoulders to the floor, was so contrary to Buck’s
violence that I almost cried. He lay over me, his breath in my ear. “Arm
straight up.” I obeyed. “Palm flat, and push off, hard, and roll onto your
side.”

I did as he said,
and he tumbled off. “Perfect. Let’s try it again.”

We went through
the moves again, and again, and again, and each time he was more forceful and harder
to displace, but still, I threw him off, every time. Until I mistakenly pushed
up with my hips, trying to rise.

He exhaled harshly.
“That won’t work, Jacqueline—though it’s the natural response to something
unwanted on top of you. The only sure way to dislodge a man in this position is
rolling to the side. I’m too strong for you to move me by pressing up. You have
to fight that inclination.”

Finally, we tried
it more for real than any other time. He shoved me down, and my arm shot up and
out, but I had a difficult time getting my hand free for leverage. Finally, I
switched arms and got the opposite palm to the floor, shoved and rolled,
throwing him off and to the side. “Shit!” he laughed, facing me as we lay on
the floor. “You swapped sides on me!”

I smiled at his
praise, and his gaze flicked to my lips.

“This is the part
where you’d get up and run like hell.” His voice was gravelly.

“But won’t he
chase me?” We lay on our sides, two feet of carpet between us, neither making a
move to sit up.

He nodded. “He
might. But most of these guys don’t want challenging prey. Only a handful will
go after you, if you run away screaming.”

“Ah.”

He reached out,
took my hand. “I was supposed to show you your portrait, I think.”

“So it won’t seem
like you brought me here under completely false pretenses?”

His eyes flared
and my breath caught. “I do want you to see the charcoal, but I admit that was
secondary to what we just did. Do you feel more confident now, that it’ll
work?”

“Yes.”

He leaned up on
his elbow, closing the distance between us, pushing his hand into my hair and
moving it to cup my face. “I did have one other concealed motive for bringing
you here.” Leaning down slowly, his lips met mine and the fire that had been
embers since he left my room over a week ago flamed. I opened my mouth and his
tongue pressed inside, stroked mine and withdrew. Turning his head, he moved
his mouth over mine, sucking my lower lip into his mouth, caressing it with his
tongue and releasing it to pay attention to the upper. His tongue ran over the
sensitive space above my top teeth and I gasped.

And then his hands
started moving.

Chapter 12

Cradling my head against his
shoulder, both hands skimmed down to my hips, urging me closer until there was
no space between us. His lips continued to move against mine, unrelenting and
sweet, and my head swam as he swept his tongue through my mouth, his hand
gripping my thigh, drawing it between his so that our legs were scissored
together. I leaned into him and he moaned, one hand kneading my hip and the
other stroking up beneath my sweater, warm fingers splayed across my lower
back.

One of my arms
crushed between us, I lay the other against his chest, fingering the front
placket of his flannel shirt, covertly sliding buttons from buttonholes,
feeling the variation between the smooth surface of the flannel and the bumpy texture
of the thermal knit shirt beneath it. Shirt unbuttoned, I peeled it aside and
slid my hand beneath the thermal to his hard stomach. His breath caught and I
pulled away to lean on my elbow and look down on him.

“I want to see
your tattoos.”

“You do, huh?” His
eyes burned into mine. When I nodded, he withdrew his hand from beneath my
sweater and sat up, crooking an eyebrow at me when he looked down on his
unbuttoned shirt. My face warmed at his smirk and he chuckled, removing the
shirt and tossing it aside.

Reaching behind
his neck, he removed the white thermal the way boys do—pulled forward over the
back of his head—unworried about ruined mascara, or blusher smeared on the
fabric. He dropped this shirt, inside out, on top of the flannel one, and lay
back on the floor, offering himself up for my inspection.

His skin was
smooth and beautiful, his torso segmented with definitions of muscle and
ornamented with the two tattoos I’d seen in my dorm room—an intricate octagonal
design on his left side, and four scripted lines on his right. There was one
other—a rose over his heart, the petals dark red, the dark green stem slightly
curved. On his arms were mostly designs and patterns, thin and black like
wrought iron.

I ran my fingers
over each one, but he didn’t turn and I couldn’t read the poem-like lines
snaking around his left side. It looked like a love poem, and I was jealous of
whoever inspired the sort of devotion he must have felt to make those words so
permanent. I wondered if the rose represented her as well, but I couldn’t ask.

When my fingers
trailed down his abdomen to the line of hair below his navel, he sat up. “Your
turn, I think.”

Confused, I said, “I
don’t have any tattoos.”

“I figured as
much.” He stood and reached a hand down to me. “Would you like to see the
drawing now?”

He was asking me
to go to his bedroom. I felt like I should come back with something smart, like
Should I call you Lucas or Landon in bed?
but I couldn’t manage it. I
reached up and took his hand, and he pulled me up effortlessly. Without
releasing my hand, he turned toward the bedroom, and I followed.

Dim light from the
outer room illuminated the furniture and the wall adjacent to his bed, where at
least twenty or thirty drawings were tacked up. He switched on a lamp and I saw
that the entire surface of the wall was covered in cork. I wondered if he’d
installed it, or if it was here, and when he went looking for a place to live,
he knew immediately that this was meant to be his.

The two uncorked
walls were painted an earthy taupe, and his furniture was dark and not at all
typical college-boy—from the queen-sized platform bed to the solid desk and
hutch.

I moved into the narrow
space between his bed and the wall of drawings, searching for myself, but distracted
by the others—renditions of familiar scenes like the downtown skyline,
unfamiliar faces of children and old men, and a couple of Francis in repose.

“These are
amazing.”

He came to stand
next to me just as my eyes found my own face amongst the others. He’d chosen to
charcoal the one of me on my back, looking up at him. Its placement was low on
the right side of the wall. Seemingly, this display spot would indicate lower
importance, but I was acutely aware of where it was located in relation to his bed—directly
across from his pillow.

 
Who wouldn’t
want to wake up to this?
he’d said.

I sat on his bed,
staring at it, and he sat, too. I was abruptly aware of his bare chest, and his
statement in the other room:
Your turn, I think
. Turning to him, I saw
that he was watching me.

I’d been so sure
that this sort of moment would summon debilitating memories of Kennedy—of his
kiss, of our years together. But the truth was, I didn’t miss him. I couldn’t
dredge up a single twinge of sorrow. I wondered if I was either anesthetized to
the grief of losing him—which would be worrisome—or if I had cried so much and
grieved so deeply in the past several weeks that I was over it. Over him.

Lucas leaned to me
and the Kennedy bubble burst entirely. His breath in my ear, he ran his tongue
along the curved edge, sucking the fleshy lobe and my small diamond stud into
his mouth, and my eyes drifted closed while I babbled a weak sound of longing.
Nuzzling my neck, he lapped gentle kisses down the side, his hand coming up to
cradle the weight of my head, which had fallen to the side. His weight left the
bed as he knelt on the floor and pulled my boots from my feet before resuming
his seat and removing his own.

His lips played
over mine, and he pulled me to the center of the bed and laid me flat. I opened
my eyes when he drew back and stared down at me. “Say stop, whenever you want
to stop. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Do you want to
stop now?”

My head moved back
and forth on the pillow.

“Thank God,” he
said, his mouth returning to mine, his tongue plunging inside as I dug my
fingers into his solid arms. I stroked his tongue with mine, sucking it deep
into my mouth, and he groaned, wrenching away long enough to lift me slightly
and remove my sweater. Teasing one fingertip over the swell of my breast, he
followed the arc with his lips.

When I pushed
against his shoulder he stopped, his eyes unfocused. I pushed him onto his back
and straddled him, feeling him hard and ready through our two pairs of jeans.
His hands smoothed up my waist and pulled me down, and we kissed deeply as I
rocked against him. Minutes later, he flicked the hooks free at the back of my
bra and tugged the straps down my arms. It wasn’t off completely before he slid
me higher and took a nipple in his mouth.

“Oh,” I gasped, going
limp in his arms.

We rolled again
and I was under him, his hands tracing and circling, followed by his mouth. Then
he unbuttoned my jeans and touched the zipper and everything crashed around me.

I tore my mouth
from his. “Wait.”

“Stop?” he panted,
watching me.

I bit my lip and
nodded.

“Stop everything,
or just go no further?”

“Just… just no
further,” I whispered.

“Done.” He gathered
me into his arms and kissed me, one hand tangled in my hair and the other
caressing down my back, our hearts pulsing out a cadence that the musician in
me translated into a concert of lust.

***

I kept my eyes open on the ride
home. Peeking over Lucas’s shoulder, I watched the scenery fly by—and it was
exhilarating, not frightening. I trusted him. I had since that first night,
when I let him drive me home.

Kennedy would have
never stopped like that. Not that he had ever forced me or come close to doing
so. If I asked him to stop, he’d stop and lay back, a hand over his face,
calming himself and saying, “God, Jackie, you’re going to kill me.” After that,
there was no further physical activity—no kissing, no touching. And I always
felt guilty.

I thought the
guilt would go away once we were actually sleeping together, because it was
rare when I’d ask for a reprieve from sex, but if anything, my self-reproach
was worse. He’d stop, abruptly, like it pained him. It was all or nothing. He’d
take a few deep breaths, click on a game, or channel surf, or we’d go get
something to eat. And I would feel like the world’s worst girlfriend.

Lucas had
continued the make-out for another hour. Before it was over, he’d slid his hand
between my legs, over my jeans. “This okay?” he asked, and at my breathless
affirmative answer he stroked his fingers there while kissing me deeply, and
somehow made me come through a layer of denim. I was shocked, and a little
embarrassed, but one glance at his face told me he savored my body’s response,
and his ability to trigger it. He would not let me return the favor.

“Leave me
something to anticipate,” he’d whispered.

Now he was leaving
me at the front of my building, wide awake from the cold drive, though he’d
placed my hands under his jacket during the ride, so they wouldn’t be frozen.
He put the helmets and his gloves aside and pulled me closer, his hands under
my jacket, over my sweater. “Did you like the charcoal?”

I nodded. “Yes.
Thank you for showing me your drawings… and the defense move.”

Resting his
forehead to mine, he closed his eyes. “Mmm-hmm.” He kissed the tip of my nose,
and then moved his lips to mine.

It almost hurt to
kiss him—almost. I sighed into his mouth.

“You’d better get
inside before…” He kissed me again, more hungrily, and I curled my hands
between us against his hard chest.

“Before…?”

He inhaled and
exhaled through his nose, his mouth a tight line, his hands gripping my waist.
“Just. Before.”

I kissed the edge
of his jaw and pulled away. “Goodnight, Lucas.”

He remained
leaning against the Harley and watched me. “Goodnight, Jacqueline.”