Текст книги "Quarterback Bait "

Автор книги: Celia Loren

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Chapter Nineteen

Landon

The older sister was in a far less charitable mood. She had a big, rambling two story full of cool artsy shit—I stepped into her foyer and almost hit my head on a hanging lamp. Though half of me was still expecting nods of recognition from every Austin resident I happened to encounter, as soon as I got to Doll's neck of the woods I realized I was no longer in game-watching country. From the looks of it, Carson didn't even have cable. And one look at her rigid face in the doorway told me that now was not the time to dole out autographs.

“How's Anya?” I asked.

Carson cut me with a stare, but forced herself to reply like a human. “She's resting comfortably. Couldn't get any painkillers because of the preexisting condition, but I've made her some Kava tea and that seemed to do the trick.”

“So she's not in pain anymore?”

“Not any physical pain, no.”

Walked into that one, Landon.

We paced around the entranceway for what felt like another ten minutes, her sizing me up like I was a potentially dangerous stray. Which was her prerogative. She had every right to be suspicious. I was a shit-stain. I'd hidden an important truth from a trio of innocent women. I'd hidden an important truth, I realized, from myself.

“Landon,” Carson said slowly, stopping her pacing. “We're thinking about pressing charges. She doesn't want to, but I do.”

I assumed the she indicated the sleeping Anya. And possibly Ash, who sure was taking forever and a half to get ready. I stopped pacing, too, and took a look at Carson. She seemed the faintest bit...sorry.

I'd been trying to keep myself far, far away from Memory Lane, but it was impossible to stay fully impartial. I didn't know exactly how many nights had resolved with ten-year-old me hiding my mother from my father, but it felt like a dozen at least. He'd always apologized in the mornings. Sometimes, he'd cried. I would watch them make up and feel the deepest confusion. On one hand, I had hated the man who could give my mother bruises, who could come at me with an alien fury in his eyes, like I was the enemy and he was still at war. On the other, there was nothing I could do—he was still my Pop. Plus, it'd been so long ago. All of that had stopped when I was in middle school, even if the fear lingered.

I knew the Pastor wouldn't do well in prison. But perhaps he belonged in some kind of...other place. Some place where they could help an old soldier get back to himself. Some place where he couldn't hurt anyone. I didn't have to think about it too hard, and I didn't have to confuse it with love. I simply nodded.

“If that's what you need to do, I'll support you,” I said. This seemed to mollify the pacing she-tiger. Her eyes softened.

“Look, this is a really shitty situation. We're going to think long and hard, before...”

“I understand.”

“And if you're willing to cooperate, then...”

“I understand.”

“He understands,” piped up a voice I recognized. I couldn't help but smile, though I knew it was inappropriate. Ash hovered at the top of the rickety staircase, looking exhausted, but somehow lovely as ever. She wore ratty jeans and a snug band t-shirt (The Pixies), and her shorter hair fell across her face in lanky waves. It looked good without the highlights, I thought. Not that I super cared either way.

“We won't be out late,” Ash told her sister, and I was reminded for a moment of what television described as typical-family-behavior. It felt like I was about to take my stepsister out for an all-American date, to the drive-in or something. The QB gets the girl...

Ash jerked me out of my reverie by tugging on my wrist. The door slammed behind us, and suddenly it was just me and her sharing the moist Texas air with a trillion chirping cicadas and the kind of humidity that could make a hummingbird slow.

“So where are we going?” I started—but Ash was already tearing towards shotgun, a feverish look in her eyes. I loped over to the driver side of the Saab, trying to keep the highly inappropriate memory of the last time we'd been in this car together at bay.

“You're a senior and a minor celebrity. Don't tell me you don't know a bar that'll serve me.” Ash turned her attention to the radio dials, just as I eased off the brake. “And don't forget—I'm one part legal now.” Some particularly angry Green Day tune seemed to sate her. I watched her mouth along to the lyrics as we pulled back toward school, where—as it happened—I had managed to think of a place or two that would serve us.

“You're a little young for these guys, aren't you?” I asked, eyebrow cocked at the radio. Ash fixed me with a sullen stare. And I couldn't help it. I knew the situation was serious, the stakes incredibly high—but something about that chick made me crack a smile. We drove on in a rock n' roll silence.

But soon, Green Day gave way to commercials. Ash sighed. She knocked her pretty head gently against the headrests. “What I don't understand is, how could anybody do that to someone they love?” she asked suddenly, her voice thick with emotion. Her tone reminded me that she was a teenager, and that there were still some things of which she remained innocent. The things people would do to one another, under guise of love. I didn't have the heart to offer my own cynical explanation, so I just shrugged.

“I don't understand it, either.”

“Like—you love someone, you should want them to be safe and happy at every second, right? When you're not with them, even. You should be taking seconds out of every minute to wish them the best. Even when they make you mad or make you crazy, the right kind of love should be enough.” Her eyes were boiling again. Tears were hovering on the tips of her long lashes.

“It should be,” I said, fighting to keep my attention on the clogged roads. We were hitting some post-game traffic.

“She's a good person.”

I could feel her eyes on me. Was this some test? Was she waiting for me to rush to the Pastor's defense? I waited to feel the love she spoke of for my father, the unconditional concern. But I didn't even know where my old man was. I'd called him once from the car on the way over, and hadn't even left a voicemail. My fury with him remained blinding.

“Some people learned to show their love in kind of... crooked ways,” I finally ventured. No sooner were the words out than I started to feel anxious. Was it possible that I was this kind of person? Had the Pastor passed his wickedness onto me? I hadn't loved Zora the right way. It wasn’t a stretch that I would always have this problem with women, that I would always seek out the people who I could never love the right way, the people who could never truly love me back.

“Turn here,” Ash said, in sotto. We were coming up on the nightlife-y part of town, but she pointed toward a cul-de-sac loop that veered back toward residential Austin. I was confused, but didn't question. All I wanted was for her to feel safe.

“Will you stop the car a second?” she asked, as soon as I'd eased off the gas in front of a pretty green clapboard house. I'd never been in this part of town before, but I did as the lady asked and slid the emergency brake into position. We sat in silence as the city sounds pressed in around us. The clicking of the car ceded back into the anxious whirring of cicadas.

I turned to Ash, who had closed her eyes and was now rolling her head back and forth across the headrest. I smiled. She was beautiful. The best part of her beauty was how un-self conscious it was. Unlike Zora, even unlike Yvette—Ash walked around like she didn't give a fuck who was looking at her. And as a result, it could have been everybody. I was grateful, in that moment, that it was me.

“What can I do?” I whispered after a beat, half-hating how wormy I sounded. But I was in a position to worm. She had reason enough to never give me the time of day again, and yet here she was, waxing poetical in my Saab. Her eyes slid open. They were bleary and desperate and warm.

Without thinking, I lurched towards her, faster than I could even unbuckle my seatbelt. I held her face in my palms, tilted it gently up so some stray moonlight could fall on her pale cheeks. I held her for a moment like that, heart beating like a jackrabbit's, until she nodded. Very slightly, but just enough so I could feel her certainty. I tentatively slid my thumb over her warm, slightly dewy lips. Her mouth parted, as if to welcome me. Then her neck seemed to collapse forward, and we fell into one another.

I remembered kissing her, on that happier day in our past. I remembered the shape and feel of her bow-like mouth. Her tongue was anxious and grasping, it wouldn't let me go. I tilted my own face so I could wriggle deeper inside her. The car made shifting sounds as we moved together, straining against our seat-belts. I wanted to break away the strap so I could climb on top of her, but I was worried that if I pulled away—if even for a second—when I came back she'd have changed her mind.

But minutes passed, and she didn't seem interested in changing her mind. Her skinny, long fingers wormed their way toward my torso. She seemed to stutter on my muscles, and made carving gestures around them as I flexed for her benefit. I wanted to be strong for her, I wanted to be the reliable, sturdy guy. I also wanted to fuck her, good and long, soft and hard, for as long as it took. Until she quivered with pleasure. Until her beautiful mind was stripped of anything that could cause it pain.

Chapter Twenty

Ash

 

Even before we'd moved to the backseat, his cock was rigid in his pants. I brushed against it by accident, while tugging on the fabric of his flimsy t-shirt. I found I wanted to touch this taut expanse of a football player, this body so contra to Nate's. I wanted to sink into the arms of someone strong enough to hold me up.

He continued to kiss me, fingers moving through my hair. He was gentle. I waited for the moment to reach a natural conclusion, or for some reason to seize us both and pull us apart—but I couldn't stop. I was hungry for him. I kissed harder. When I came up for a brief lungful of air, his eyes were pinned on me with such an intensity I might have swooned right then. I directed my mouth to his neck, and began to suck. He'd liked that, before. This time, I heard him whimper with want before digging lightly into my scalp, drawing me further in.

“Doll,” he gasped, chest rising and falling fast. “Oh fuck, Doll. You're so fucking amazing. You've got me so fucking hard.” Then, as if to prove this last statement, he lifted my hand from his coiled bicep and placed it on the bulge of his jeans. I opened my eyes and read a question in his gaze, an arched interest in taking things slow. A part of me wanted to be the reasonable girl, the no-we-can't-you're-my-stepbrother-girl—but I couldn't. I nodded my head firmly: yes.

Then my eyes swiveled towards the beast between his legs. My own stomach was rising and falling with a desire I'd never experienced before. I was feeling what I'd only read about, or seen in movies. A pure, unadulterated thirst for another body.

“Wait,” Landon was saying, struggling to get the words out as I stroked his cock through his jeans. “Wait. Fuck. This... isn't right.”

But I didn't feel like talking anymore. So I leaned forward, and took his earlobe very gently between my teeth. I moved my hand from his crotch and felt him strain in my absence. Then, I unbuckled my seatbelt.

“I don't want to take advantage,” Landon continued—admirable, given his state. I was just about to lift my dizzy hips from the bucket seat when his last words seemed to reverberate in the car. Take advantage, take advantage, take advantage...I paused.

“You don't want to?” I asked him. “What about all that shit you said before? On the roof? When I fuck you, blah blah blah?” A strange silence fell. Then:

“I've seen St. Elmo's Fire. I know this whole...thing.” Landon's eyebrows scrunched together on his forehead, and for a moment he looked like an adorable basset hound puppy.

“I've never seen St. Elmo's Fire,”—I kissed him—“So, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Right. You'd be too young.”

“Oh, can we fucking cool it with that excuse? We're four years apart, plus I'm way smarter than you.”

This seemed to slough off some of his reserve. The smile started at the corner of his mouth, just a crooked little line appearing. For a stupid, girly second, I had to look away—he was just too damn cute.

“You had a terrible day,” Landon continued. I met his gaze again. His kind, warm gaze. In that second, I didn't think about my mom, or my sister, or the Pastor, or school, or Mr. Dempsey, or the past...there was just this humid car. There was just this man, before me.

I pressed my head towards his like all the bones had been magically removed from my neck, and he met me in kind. His mouth opened wider this time, and I found no resistance—just thirst. His fingers found the back of my scalp again, and he grappled with my tangling hair. The humidity was getting to me, in more ways than one.

Our breath co-mingled, becoming a hot cloud between our faces. It got hard to breathe, but I didn't care. His hands were on the sides of my face, the damp skin of my neck, just barely grazing my breasts through my shirt—still a little tentative, but secretly gunning for further contact. I kissed him deeply. I kissed him in a way I prayed would tell him: yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

His hands had found the bottom of my shirt before long, but he moved too slow for me. I brought my sweaty fingers to my sides and tugged, sharply—so sharply that my hair was briefly caught in a web of my clothes. This made Landon laugh. But no sooner had his face broken into another endearing smile than his eyes turned rapt at the sight of my décolletage. So long un-admired, so long a burden to me—sensing his eyes on my swollen rack sent me. I leaned back, and my hair fell against my shoulders. Landon seized the opportunity and buried his lips in my skin.

It felt incredibly right, to be fulfilling a pact we'd made months and months before. He knew exactly what to do. His mouth was soft and sweet on my bare skin, finding the sensitive hollows fast. I pressed against him. He grabbed my back, nails digging into my sticky surface.

“Landon!” I cried, bringing my fingers up to root through his hair. He rolled against my touch at the contact, though his lips managed to remain focused. I felt my nipples rise, hard, against my thin bralette. I wished it were cooler. I wished it were faster. Mostly, I wished.

Landon had apparently read my mind, as his fingers had wended their way to the back of my bra. He fumbled for a second, but then regained some expertise. Just as the hooks of my sheath fell away, his mouth had slid the fabric to the side so his tongue could attach itself to my nipple. Now it was my turn to whimper.

He sucked long and hard on my bare tit; he sucked like he was thirsty for me. I lost sight of the car and the world around us for a moment, as his rhythm grew urgent, back and forth, back and forth across my sensitive flesh. He’d ripped my bra clasp open in one cool gesture, so the fabric landed on the floor somewhere between our coiled forms. The gear shift, the bucket seat—everything was an impediment. I was unwilling to wait.

Yet.

“No,” Landon pressed. Just as I'd wrested the zipper of his jeans to half-mast, he pulled his muscular body all the way to the far side of the car, where he coiled like a rat.

“I don't want to do it like this,” he said, wiping the back of his bitten-looking mouth. His hair stuck up all over his head, a crown of funny angles. With an athlete's grace, he bent down, tossed me my bra, and turned the ignition in one fluid gesture.

“You're not seriously going to give me Lady Blue Balls, are you Landon?” I pawed at his bare chest, pulse quickening again when he involuntarily flexed against my palm. But no cigar.

Landon swiveled toward me, and took my cheeks in his open, warm palms. His dark eyes shone in the streetlight. He kept them fixed on my own.

“When we do this,” he said slowly, “we're going to do it right. Okay?” The rest of Austin, accomplice, began to seep back in—cars were honking somewhere, music was playing. I saw the effort in his gaze and understood that he was serious. And that maybe, just maybe—we could be serious.

“Fine,” I said, after a beat. Ever the gentleman, Landy waited for me to yank my bra across my bare chest before guiding the Saab back towards the freeway. I didn't ask where we were going. Landon seemed to know. I thought I would be disappointed, or feel humiliated at the least (it's not every day, after all, that a lady throws herself at her stepbrother and is brutally rejected)—but instead what lapsed between us felt comfortable. Landon switched the radio back on. We both wiggled a little bit to Blondie, in our seats. I caught his hammy dancing face in the rearview mirror, and we both broke into shy giggles.

“Oh!” Landon screeched—so loud and impromptu that I jumped a little. “I know where we're going. Don't you worry, Doll.”

There was plenty to worry about, but somehow—I listened.

Chapter Twenty-One

Landon

 

I know this sounds hella stupid, but I actually felt more awake than usual. It wasn't so different than a runner's high—colors looked sharper, music sounded better. Shit was broken all over the place—at school, at home, in all the fibers of our fucked-up family—but I still had this giddy, insane sensation that everything was going to be okay. And it was all because of her.

“You're going to dig this place,” I said, swinging le Saab into the last open spot behind the bar. Fucking victory, man. Signs were sprouting up everywhere.

She reached across the armrest and started to knead my thigh. With effort, I reached down and swatted her fingers away.

“Lan-don!” she giggled.

“Ash-leigh!” I echoed, mocking her. As I slid the gearshift into park, I took a second to look at us again. Was it painfully obvious that we'd just hooked up?

“God, you're beautiful,” I heard myself murmur. I cracked a smile immediately after. I'd never before found myself in the position of being surprised by the words tumbling out of my mouth, but there she was. Her pale face spread out before me like a moon. A few hours ago, she'd been a wreck of a frown, and here I'd managed to help her forget some of the pain. Her smile was almost as good as the feel of her deft little fingers on my back, pressing, pushing...

“Fuck. We have to get out of this car now.”

“Oh, I'm really so irresistible as all that?” Doll wiggled her eyebrows and bit her lip. I felt my better half quiver, hopeful, in my jeans. In one fast swoop, I rammed towards her face, dragging her mouth into mine.

I knew we couldn't get tangled in the kiss (someone give me a medal, please—I am such a good-fucking-guy), but it was still damn near impossible to drag myself away. I'd try to make for the door, and she'd throw her hair back and expose a bare swatch of her neck. I was like a vampire again, needing to suck. She anticipated my every move and coiled her body accordingly, foreshadowing a great chemistry in the sack.

“No!” I finally shouted, jerking myself out of the driver's seat so I was suddenly yelling up at the Austin sky. “No! We are adults. We have self-control! Time for some PG fun!”

“Dork!” she tittered, climbing out of her side of the car. I stared at the ground while she adjusted her sweater, seductively. We could do this. I could do this.

“Where are we anyway, Landy?”

At that moment, the bar sounds rose out of the silence to answer my question. A few theatre-y looking kids pulled the door open, and a smattering of terrible voices joined the Texas night. Doll took one look at the neon sign and then turned back to me, shaking her head.

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no.”

“You're not a real UT kid until you've torn it up at karaoke,” I twinkled. Then I jogged over to her side of the car before she could protest anymore. I grabbed her wrist and gave it a tug.

Inside, Derby's was mayhem as usual. I hadn't actually come to the karaoke bar for something like two years—hey, an athlete's social life had its perks—but I had great memories from freshman year of screaming out Primus lines with some of my fellow pledges before I'd shirked the whole frat thing to focus on football. For one thing, Derby's was famous for never carding anybody. For another, they made a “specialty Hurricane” in a big glass shoe that could send Andre the Giant down in one, and said cocktail was a shockingly reasonable six bucks.

We had to thwack our way through a lot of sweaty co-eds, but I knew I'd picked the right spot when Doll's eyes lit up. Some art-y kid had taken to the stage with some sad man song.

“The Smiths!” she bellowed into my ear, cutting over the noise. “I didn't know they'd have, like, actually good music! I love The Smiths!” Her earnest grin made me mirror her face back to her, and I watched her wiggle out of the corner of my eye as I ordered our drinks.

“Sterling Silver! Long time no see, my bud!” cried the bartender. Same guy as it had been for years, apparently—this tall, skinny raver type named Blaine. I appreciated Blaine. He'd made me feel like a local celebrity long before I actually was one. I was pretty sure there was still a humiliating photo of me somewhere over the cash register, a still of me and Denny singing a Spice Girls song. We'd lost a bet.

“Who's the cutie?” Blaine asked, nodding over my shoulder. Doll was dancing crazy, having apparently taken on a whole new personality. Whoever these “Smiths” were, it seemed that they got her hot.

“Chick has good taste,” the bartender nodded approvingly. I made to fake punch him on the arm. If memory served, Blaine was famous for expressing open dislike of certain people's partners. I suddenly remembered one ill-fated evening when I'd taken Zora there. She'd pouted in the corner all night about how Derby's didn't serve white wine.

“Look out!” cried my old friend, and his pointer finger snapped me out of my reverie—Doll, who hadn't had anything to drink yet, had somehow wormed her way onstage to finish the rest of the sad man song. She started bleating into the spare mic, to the visible chagrin of the little singing hipster dude. Yet no one tried to scoot her offstage.

Her voice was small and nervous at first, but then the pure joy took over—and it was totally badass. She started tooling around with harmonies, and then took the mic from its stand and started dancing around, hopping from foot to foot. The whole bar started hollering. Somebody started a rhythmic clap.

“And heaven knows I'm miserable now!” she sang, all smiles. It was totally ridiculous to see such a happy girl screaming such sad lyrics, but no one seemed to care. It all felt weirdly in place with our emotional rollercoaster of an evening. The little hipster dude even ceded her the last chorus, joining in the clap parade. Suddenly, Doll shaded her eyes. She looked around the room for a moment, and then her eyes found my corner of the bar. She grinned wildly and pointed in my direction.

“Oh, yeah,” Blaine was saying, as he scooted the two bootfuls of what was basically grain alcohol towards my waiting wallet. “I'd say this one's a keeper, hoss.”

After taking several bows, Doll raced back over to us and wrapped her sweaty arms around my middle.

“I thought someone didn't like karaoke,” I teased, prodding two fingers into her belly. Now, it was her turn to swat me away.

“I shouldn't have judged,” she panted. “I dunno what came over me! I love that song!” Ashleigh eyed the boot of blue booze and raised an eyebrow at me before pulling the drink closer. In one highly unladylike move, she gripped the glass by its heel and tilted a substantial gulp of Hurricane down her throat. I watched her neck move up and down as she swallowed, and tried not to get any ideas.

“Woo!” she hollered, after washing down some more of the blue concoction. “This place RULES! I LOVE COLLEGE! YAY, PG FUN!”

I was yanked up onstage for the following: June and Johnny Cash's version of “Jackson,” then, “Thriller,” then “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Doll wanted to make sure that we covered all the bases. Around us, hours flicked by and the rest of the bar grew disinterested in us. After the third pair of blue boots, even Blaine's response time started to lag.

At one point I looked up and we were the only two customers left. The sour-faced karaoke DJ was putting away his big black binders of song choices and Blaine was taking out the trash, but Doll was still warbling her way through a song I didn't recognize by Britney Spears.

“She's so lucky,” Ash croaked. “She's a star, but she cry-cry-cries...”

It had been years since I'd unconsciously stayed out so late. And as much as I didn't want to admit morning (and with it, the fact of my AWOL Dad, or my beat-up stepmother, or whatever the hooligan Longhorns had gotten up to last night)...it was totally time. I approached Doll slowly, like she was a skittish cat. I gently peeled the mic from her hands and led her towards the parking lot.

“Last two are on me, you party animals!” Blaine called from the back room. I saluted a thank you. Doll was suddenly so tired it seemed she couldn't stand—her eyelids fluttered, and she wavered back and forth like she was threatening to do a trust exercise. Finally, I just bent over and picked her up. She wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. I could feel the bones in her rib-cage, the pillows of her breasts, the rhythm of her breath rising and falling.

“Should I take you to Carson's?” I murmured into the crook of her ear. I was shockingly upright, given the three gooey cocktails. But then again, we'd been at Derby's for hours and hours, and had likely danced out some of the alcohol. And I could probably beat Tiny here in any kind of tolerance contest.

“Take me to your place,” she whispered. It was barely a grunt. But I realized that I, too, was exhausted—definitely way too exhausted to argue. I'd take her to my apartment. It'd felt bigger since Denny had cleared out, anyway—leaving behind a four bedroom for a mere three guys. With a thrill mixed with a bit of dread, I realized: I'd be waking up next to her tight little body tomorrow morning. She'd be all mine.