Fireworks: A Holiday Bad Boy Romance (84 page)

“What should we do?” he
asks.

“I’m not going back out
there right now,” I tell him. “Just don’t come inside me.”

I feel two hands, one on
the back of each of my legs, and they’re moving upward. His touch is warm,
comforting and a little disorienting until he stands up, keeping his hands
right where they ended up, and he’s whispering, “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” I answer.

One of his hands moves up
my body, settling between my shoulder blades while the other moves down the
back of my left leg. As the hand moves closer toward the back of my knee, I get
the idea and I lift the leg for him to cradle, and I reach forward to find just
where his body begins.

My hand falls on his
chest and I move it down, telling him to keep me steady; telling him I’d rather
not end up slipping, cracking my head and ending up being carted out of here on
a stretcher, naked from the waist down in front of hundreds of spectators. He’s
holding me firmly, but I know how my knees go weak with Ian.

My hand finally comes to
his skin once more, and I take him in my hand a moment, feeling his pulse under
my fingers, and then I bring his tip to my entrance and let my knee bend just
enough to feel him as he parts my folds, entering me.

Now inside, Ian takes
over, slowly pushing into me before pulling back out most of the way, going
just a little deeper each time, and I’m just glad he’s holding me up.

Given our height
difference and the lack of available light in the room, finding his lips is
difficult when they’re not kissing me or running over my body, but my hands are
free enough that I finally just pull his head toward me and move my mouth where
it feels like he’s going to be.

My lips make contact with
him, but it’s not his mouth they find.

He’s stifling laughter,
saying, “Kind of got my eye, there.”

I smile, not that he’s
going to see it, and we’re able to find each other’s mouths before much longer.

Ian only seems to grow
harder inside me as I reach for his hand that’s holding up my leg, and I give
it a slight tug, trying to let him know I want him to let go for a second, and
he does. Free now, I wrap my leg the rest of the way around his body, using it
as leverage to pull him toward me, to pull more of him into me.

The feeling of his skin
is a bit more intense than I’d anticipated, but every time I feel my standing
knee start to weaken or like I’m beginning to lose my balance, I just clutch
Ian a little tighter and he pulls me a bit closer, making sure I’m steady,
secure.

“You’re so wet,” he
utters.

I kiss for his lips
again, though from the feel of it, I end up somewhere along his jawline, but it
doesn’t matter. All that matters is the feel of him on my lips, against my
body, inside my body.

His breath starts to
quicken, and I’m beginning to feel that building heat right until the moment a
knock lands on the door. I should be startled, but no, that’s just the final
piece of the puzzle before I’m coming, holding Ian so tight.

I know I need to be
quiet, so I try to bury my face in Ian’s chest, but it doesn’t seem to be
working as whoever’s standing on the other side of the door knocks again, only
louder this time.

Ian’s arms are firm around
me, and I’m grateful. Otherwise, there’s no way I would have managed to stay on
my feet this long.

I’m sweating and this
room suddenly feels so small, confining, but it’s okay because Ian and I are
still holding each other.

“We should probably get
out there,” Ian whispers.

“Not yet,” I respond.

“Why?” he asks.
“Everything all right?”

“Do you remember how you
were telling me about your pre-competition ritual?” I ask. “If I’m not
mistaken, you went as far as to say that getting blue balls ruins your ability
to skate. I’m not done until you’re done.”

“Just a second then,” he
says, and I have no idea what he’s doing when he eases his grip on me, but
doesn’t pull out of me as he cracks the door open. “Yeah,” Ian says, “any way
you could just give us a couple more minutes?”

“Oh god,” I groan.

The man on the other side
of the barely-cracked door just laughs and says, “Sure thing, buddy. Just
remember: You’re in a janitor’s closet. There’s no reason to not clean up after
yourselves.”

With that, Ian closes the
door again and this time, I hear him fumbling with the doorknob before a second
latching sound comes.

“I think we’ve got about
two minutes before that guy brings all of his buddies over here to stand
outside the door and listen in on us,” he says.

“Think we’ve got the
time?” I ask.

“We’ll see,” he says.

The feeling of him inside
of me is so comfortable, so natural, that I almost don’t even realize he’s
still inside of me until he starts slowly pulling back before easing in again.
With the first millimeter of motion, I feel every bit of him that’s in between
my legs and inside of me, and I’ve all but forgotten about the guy that knocked
on the door.

“That’s not going to do
it,” I whisper to Ian, and I’m rocking my hips and gripping him tight with my
kegel muscles.

“Fu-uck,” he mutters, and
he’s holding my hips now, using the leverage to enter me so fast, so hard.

“Come for me,” I whisper
to him, and his grip on me tightens.

He’s breathing heavily,
his erection so slick with the wet in me and one of his hands comes up to pull
my upper body tight against his.

Ian’s breath is jagged,
and as I glance down toward the tiny space under the door, the gap through
which all light in this little room enters, and see two foot-width shadows just
on the other side, and suddenly my body’s quivering and I’m clutching Ian
again, just hoping he can keep his balance when he comes.

Wait.

With my hand closest to
the door, I feel against the wall until I find a light switch, and I tell Ian
to close his eyes just before I flip the switch.

Now, with my first real
look at the room, I find it’s not nearly as cramped as I’d thought, but that
couldn’t matter less right now.

The diversion pulled me
back from the brink, but Ian’s eyelids are squeezed shut and I can tell that
he’s trying to quiet the sound of his own breathing as his moment draws near.

“Okay,” he whispers.
“Where—”

I lift myself off of him
and put both legs on the ground before lowering myself between his knees and
taking him into my mouth.

I’m looking up at him and
his eyes are wide open as he matches my gaze for what feels like almost no time
at all before his eyes close and, with a stifled grunt, his salty warmth
spreads throughout my mouth.

I swallow as he comes,
and his body shudders as the orgasm begins to recede.

A few seconds later, and
we’re embracing each other, breathing heavily.

“Tell me,” he says,
kissing my forehead.

“Tell you what?” I
whisper back, blindly wrapping my arms around the back of his neck.

“What changed your mind?”
he asks.

“I got the point,” I tell
him. “When I asked you earlier what your point was, what you were trying to
prove by arguing with me,” I breathe, “I know what you were trying to say.”

“You do?” he asks.

“I think so,” I tell him.
“Otherwise, I may have just made a huge mistake.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

Maybe I misread what he
was saying. Maybe he wasn’t trying to say anything at all. Maybe he was just
stalling while he tried to think of something clever to say.

I should have known.

That’s what I’m thinking
right until he says it. “The point is,” he tells me, “that I think I’m in love
with you.”

Chapter
Eighteen

The Street

Ian

I’m leaning against a
wall in the janitor’s closet, just trying to catch my breath.

There’s a lot more that I
want to say, but Mia hasn’t responded to the bomb I just dropped. She said she
knew what I meant, but the silence is suggesting otherwise.

The silence doesn’t last,
though, as outside the door to this room that smells like bleach and now, sex,
comes the heavy thud of music over the sound system.

I look down at Mia. She
looks up at me.

“You should go,” she
says. “It sounds like they’re letting people in.”

“Yeah,” I answer, but I
hesitate. “Should we…?”

“Just go,” she says. “We
suck at talking.”

I wheeze a bit of nervous
laughter and ask, “When exactly did I lose my shirt?”

“I couldn’t even tell
you,” she answers, wiping a forearm across the sweat on her brow.

I find the shirt dangling
from the handle of a mop and I grab it, sticking my head through the neck hole
and pulling up my pants.

“Are you coming?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll
be out in a minute. I’m going to try to freshen up a little so maybe I can look
a touch less I just made it with a guy in a janitor’s closet.”

“You know,” I start
again, “you never responded to what I—”

“I love you too, dummy,”
she says, patting me on the cheek. “Now go before I change my mind again. You
know how fickle I can be.”

I’m smiling, although I’m
not a hundred percent sure she’s joking, and I leave the janitor’s closet,
still adjusting my shirt as I close the door behind me.

I can’t really say I come
out of the room unnoticed, but the people who spot me either don’t seem to know
what just happened in there or they just don’t care. There’s no way to tell,
and I’m sure as hell not going to bother asking.

People are still filing in
through the front doors, but the place is already pretty packed.

A few people are starting
to skate around the street course, but they don’t seem to be competitors.

I should be rather
pleased with myself at the moment, and I would be if it weren’t for the fact
that I have no idea where the hell my board ended up.

I ditched it after what
happened with Abby, when I was trying to catch up to Mia. From there, who
knows?

It’s not like it’s the
end of the world or anything. Even if I can’t find my board, I’m sure I could
borrow one from Rob—he’s always got one in the trunk—it’d just be nice to have
my own.

As I make my way toward
the first bright pink shirt I see in the distance, I take a quick look back in
the direction of the janitor’s closet. The door’s closed. I can’t see whether
there’s light coming from under the door or not—there are too many people
between me and there—but I guess I’ll see her when this thing gets started.

I track down Nick, but he
hasn’t seen my board. I ask him where Rob and Marci are, but he just shrugs,
saying, “How the hell should I know?”

“Hey shit brick, forget
something?” Rob’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn around to find him
standing on my board.

“Do me a favor?” I ask
and Rob rolls his eyes as he steps off of my skateboard and kicks it in my
direction.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“I think you’ve got about
an hour,” Nate says. “If you’re going to get some practice time in, though,
you’d better do it. I think the break between street and vert is only like ten
minutes.”

“Can’t even drop a deuce
in ten minutes,” Rob says, pretending like someone would actually care to hear
it.

“All right, I’ll see you
guys in a bit?” I ask.

I get affirmative
responses across the board and I stomp the tail of my board, catching the nose
in my hand when it comes up, and I walk through the crowds toward the vert
ramp.

There are a few people up
top and one guy’s doing a practice run, but as I start to get closer, I’m
gripped by cold fear. This is too real. It’s just too real.

I know it’s probably a
mistake, but I take a left turn before I get to the vert ramp and head for the
nearest portion of the street course. After finding the obligatory woman with a
clipboard, I’m let through and I skate over to the roll-in ramp.

Over the next hour or so,
I spend almost every second I’m not riding to look over at the vert ramp. Every
time, I tell myself, “All right, just one more line and I’ll head over there,”
but I keep finding ways to talk myself out of it and it just doesn’t happen.

I’m still trying to talk
myself into taking at least one practice run now, as I may not have time
between disciplines, but when a woman comes over the sound system—I could
almost swear it’s Nick’s mom, although that would certainly be a surprise—I
know it’s too late.

The street competition is
about to begin.

I make my way down to the
edge of the crowd and find Rob, who has my duffel bag complete with my pads, a
beer, and the obligatory victory joint.

By the time I’m back to
the starting area, unzipping the bag, the first guy is already rolling in to
start off the competition.

I haven’t met everyone
I’ll be competing against today, but I know all of them, at least by
reputation. I’ve got a solid edge in the street competition, but I’m not going
to be pulling any cute tricks like I did back at the demo. Here, that could
really backfire.

My turn comes and I start
off with a more relaxed run, still pulling enough tricks, hitting enough gaps,
but I can tell before my time’s out that it’s not going to be a first place
attempt.

The scoring for today’s
competition is simple. Best two out of three runs from each discipline will be
counted, highest score wins.

By the time my turn comes
around again, I’m in third place: Not bad, but I’m going to have to turn it up
if I’m going to cancel out that first run.

I roll in and this time,
I head straight for the pyramid, coming fast up the bank and launch into a 540
hospital flip to roast beef.

Landing fakie, I push
hard toward the euro gap, kicking a 180 sigma flip over the gap, landing in a
manual and I big flip off the ledge onto the flat.

Approaching the flat
rail, I nollie up and into a darkslide.

I get a few more lines in
before the buzzer ends my second run.

The street round isn’t
over yet, but I’m feeling pretty confident as I squeak into first, just ahead
of Mike Onomato, who pats me on the back as I return to the starting area.

“That was a hell of a
run,” he says. “Seriously, are you regular or goofy?”

“Wouldn’t you just love
to know?” I ask and laugh.

Mike’s a nice guy, but
when it comes to competing, once he’s up, he’s all in and it doesn’t matter who
else is there. I went harder on the first run than I did at the demo, but
unless I can top that and let that lower number drop, Mike could very easily
walk away with the first here and if that happens, I don’t know if I’m going to
be able to make up the difference.

What I need out of my
third run is overwhelming force.

What I get out of my
third run is a solid, but hardly game-changing score, putting me a few points
ahead of Mike, whose last run had knocked me into second.

He’s picked up a few
things.

There’s one more
competitor, Jimmy Plimpton, a redheaded pimply kid who’s going to be lucky if
he ends up in the top half of the field and then it’s over. While I easily win
the street competition, I’m only three points ahead of Onomato going into the
vert session.

Any other day, that would
be a blowout. Today, though…

It never occurred to me
that I could end up going into the vert section without at least a five point
lead.

There’s no time to think
it over, though, as everyone starts heading over to the vert ramp.

I’m one of the last to
the top, but I’ll be the first to go and whatever happens, I need to just keep
my head: just focus on the moment and not get carried away by anything outside
of it.

I’m thinking I’m going to
have time to take a quick practice run while they get everything ready to go,
but the judges are already set up and the announcer is welcoming everyone to
the vert portion of the competition.

I look out over the
crowd.

None of them besides Mia,
Rob, Nick, and maybe Abby—if she’s even still here—will have any idea why I’m
so pale, and I’m just hoping they can’t see it. That theory goes all to hell
though, when I turn around to find a camera in my face.

There are no microphones
or people asking for insight, so I just give a quick smile and a wave and turn
back around at my earliest chance.

They’re calling my name,
ready for me to start, and I get into position.

My foot’s on the back of
the board, and I take a deep breath as I look down and across the ramp. Under
my breath, I’m mumbling, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”