“Yeah,” I say with a light choke before taking another gulp.
“Slow down, there, baby.”
“Yeah, Liv,” Lexi says as she comes into the room holding a cocktail of her own, “I swear if you get drunk, I will ban you from my wedding–which likely won’t be necessary, because Jacks will kill me and there will be no wedding.”
“I’ll protect you from Jacks,” Kyle says to her. “But don’t you dare get drunk anyway, Little Liv.” I roll my eyes at his nickname, something both of my dad’s brothers used to call me all the time. “I’m not dressed to clean up vomit tonight.”
Lexi glares at him.
“What?” he says. “In case it runs in the family.” He teases her, and by her expression, he’s struck a nerve.
“It was one time!” she says.
“The first time you drank,” he tells her.
“The last time I got drunk, thank you very much.” I look at her, wondering what the story is. “We were in Ireland. I felt compelled to blend in with the locals at a pub.”
“We were staying in a hostel,” Kyle adds, “in bunk beds. And she insisted on taking the top bunk, so guess who got to deal with the consequences?”
“Gross!” I tell him.
“Tell me about it!”
Lexi laughs. “I’m pretty sure you were buying the drinks that night.” She shrugs as if it wasn’t her fault. “Anyone want to play pool? Or darts?”
“Yeah,” Jon says without asking. “Oh, is that alright with you?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’m pretty good,” I warn him.
“Whatever.” He takes my statement as a challenge and picks up our drinks, carrying them down to the basement where Finn and Camille are definitely not watching a movie, and in fact are nowhere to be found in the media room or game room. The guest bedroom door is closed. I veer off into my room quickly, putting Nate’s book safely in my nightstand drawer.
Lexi knocks loudly on the door across from mine as I lead Jon into the game room. “You’ve got two and a half minutes to get out here, Finn,” she says through the door.
“Pool or darts?” Kyle says to us.
“I’d like to first challenge my girl here to a game of darts, if that’s okay.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Alright,” Jon says as he takes the darts from the board. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
I grab the first dart and try to stand steadily on my heels. I take a stance and launch the dart toward the board, hitting the wall next to the board. Fortunately, my dad had planned for people with poor aim, and had cork installed about two feet around the board. He apparently learned this the hard way when my cousins were much younger.
“I thought you said you were good.”
“I am. It’s these shoes,” I say, blaming them on my inability to stay balanced. I take the next dart and focus hard on the bull’s-eye.
“We’re gonna leave,” Finn says, interrupting our game. I turn around to see him and my best friend completely out of sorts.
“Finn,” Lexi says. “Come on. Can’t you two take one evening off and enjoy the company of friends?”
“Definitely not,” he says.
“Are you okay to drive?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “I didn’t even finish what I poured.”
“Camille,” I plead. “Stay, please. We haven’t been able to hang out in weeks.”
“Maybe we’ll come back,” she suggests, leaning into her boyfriend. I glare at her. She shrugs.
“We’ll let you know,” Finn says, taking her hand and leading her out of the game room. Lexi follows them up the stairs, presumably to lock the door behind them.
“Well, that’s just rude,” I say to Jon. “The only reason they came here was to have sex. We should charge them by the hour or something.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Jon says as he hands Lexi her cue stick when she comes back downstairs. “You’d understand if–” He stops himself from continuing, remembering that he’s the only one in the room who’s not a virgin.
“Wow, you wanna finish that sentence, buddy?”
“Nope,” he says, pressing his lips together. “It’s just rude.” He smiles and nods back toward the board, gesturing for me to take my shot.
Again, I miss the target completely. “That’s it.” I lean over to take my heels off while I hear Lexi and Kyle start their game of pool. I feel Jon’s hand on the small of my back, his fingers scratching lightly.
I clear my throat and stand up straight, looking back at the bullseye. “No distractions,” I warn Jon. He takes a step back while I pitch the dart toward the center. It hits the board so hard, it bounces off the metal circle and falls on the carpet.
“Let’s start over,” Jon suggests. “You have no follow through.”
“Yeah, I do,” I argue. Truth be known, I hadn’t played darts in probably two years. Back then, I was pretty good, but I’m definitely out of practice.
“No.” He laughs softly after gathering the darts back up. “Here, watch.” He plants his feet firmly in the carpet and closes one eye, taking aim. He launches the dart gracefully, and it hits close to the center. “Did you see my arm?”
“Was I supposed to be watching that?” I laugh. “I was watching your expression. You look so cute and serious.”
“Okay, focus,” he instructs me playfully. “One more time.” He takes his stance again and sinks another dart into the cork close to be the bullseye. This time, I watch his arm, and notice the follow through. Yeah, I wasn’t doing that. “You try.” He hands me the dart, and I take his place behind the line. As I start to aim, I feel his body behind mine, and his hand skims up my arm until his fingers close around mine. “So you’ll follow through,” he says, moving my arm in the motion. His other arm snakes around my waist. He kisses my cheek. “Got that?”
“I think so,” I tell him. “If I follow through, I get a kiss. Right?”
“If you need a reward system, that will work for me.”
I take careful aim again and throw the dart, making sure to extend my arm for the follow through. I hit the outer edge of the board. The dart barely hangs on for a few seconds, and then falls to the floor. I turn around, ready for my kiss.
“What? You missed!” he says as he shakes his head.
“All I had to do is follow through!”
“You had to stick a dart, Liv,” he argues with me.
“That’s not what you said. Now you’re going to change the rules?” He quickly grabs me into his arms and kisses me hard. He starts to walk backwards slowly, quietly, taking me with him toward the door. We both glance toward the pool table. Lexi and Kyle are studying a shot with their backs to us, and Jon quickly picks me up and carries me out of the room. “Where are we going?” I whisper.
“Let’s just come out here,” he says as he sets me down on one of the media chairs. “I can tell there’s no sneaking away with your cousin around. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little privacy.”
“What do you want to do?” I ask him.
He raises his eyebrows. “What do I want to do?” He sits down in the chair next to me and lifts the arm rest that separates the seats. I bend my knees, pulling my legs up on the couch, and lean into him. He kisses me again. “What I want to do is what we did at my apartment,” he says, his voice low and wanting.
“We can’t do that here,” I tell him as I shake my head.
“You didn’t ask what was feasible. You asked what I wanted. And I want to make you feel like that, Olivia. It was so sexy, and you look so enticing tonight that I just can’t stop thinking about all the places I’d like to kiss you–”
“Jon!” My face gets hot and I bite my lip.
“Can I show you a few?”
I’m unsure, and tell him so.
He looks into my eyes and moves closer anyway. “We’ll go with five.”
“I don’t think so.”
“One,” he whispers, kissing my forehead first. I put my hand
on his cheek, running my fingers over the stubble on his chin. He puts his fingers on mine and holds my hand in his, moving them both to our laps.
“Two,” he says, leaning into my bare shoulder and touching his mouth to it. “That spot has been begging me all night,” he explains.
“I’m sure it has,” I agree softly.
“Three.” He takes my earlobe in his mouth and sucks gently.
“Oh, wow,” I breathe quickly, loving how it feels. “Four and five,” I tell him.
“What?” His mouth is right next to my ear.
“Just do four and five there, too,” I instruct him with a smile.
“You like that, huh?” He does it again, and it drives me crazy for him. I try to pull his mouth to mine to kiss me, but he holds off. “Not yet.”
“Please?” I beg him.
He shakes his head. “Four,” he tells me, touching his finger to my nose playfully before looking toward the pendant hanging from the necklace he gave me. He tucks the tip of his finger beneath my shirt and moves it over slowly, just above my left breast. He pulls the shirt down, not even an inch, and places a kiss over my heart. When he removes his finger, he trails it down the left side of my body slowly, settling his hand on my hip. His other hand does the same as he angles me toward him. I can feel my heart pounding everywhere.
“Five?” I ask him, clasping my fingers at the nape of his neck.
“Five,” he confirms, moving in, kissing slowly, his tongue tangling intimately with mine. My hands travel down his back, dipping under both of his shirts to touch his warm, smooth skin. I knead my fingers firmly into his muscles, feeling his body relax under my touch. His left thumb presses slowly down my side and over my hip. I suddenly feel his cold hand touching my bare thigh. We both look at one another steadily. I sit up slightly on my knees, hoping his right hand will follow suit.
It does.
I close my eyes and sigh as his lips move back to my shoulder again, and then to my neck. Needing to be closer to him, I pull his body into mine and swing my right leg over his legs. He stops all motion, tucking his head into my neck and breathing unsteadily.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper. He glances over my shoulder to the game room. I sense that Lexi is still giving us some time alone by the little smile that breaks across his face. He moves his hands back up to my hips and settles me into his lap. I gasp quietly at the contact. His fingers–still under my skirt–skim the edges of my panties. His hands eventually meet at the back and he pulls me into him, needy.
“Kiss me,” he says. I obey immediately. His lips move from mine to my cheek, and then close again once more around my ear.
“I really like that,” I tell him. He doesn’t respond verbally, but keeps doing it. I pull one of my hands from beneath his shirt and start playing with his hair. I want to take his shirt off entirely, but I know I can’t. He shifts beneath me slowly, and I begin to remember how wonderful it felt to be with him at his apartment. When he does it a second time, then a third, I start to respond myself, moving against him. His hands help to direct me. It feels so good. “I like that even more,” I admit.
“I bet you do,” he says, and I can hear the satisfaction in his voice. “We should go to your room.”
“We can’t.”
“Sure we can. She gave Finn and Camille two and a half minutes. And she may not even miss us for longer than that. I say we take the chance.” He continues his movements, which completely clouds my judgment.
“I don’t know.”
“Plus, she’s not as scary as your dad.”
“But she might tell him.”
“She won’t tell him.” He pulls back and looks me in the eyes, removing one hand from beneath my skirt and bunching my hair up at the nape of my neck. “She won’t.”
“He might come home.”
“That was a veiled threat, and you know it.” I think it was, but still don’t give him the okay that he wants. He kisses my collarbone, then drags his tongue against the hem of my peasant top. The sight of this is a complete turn-on. He goes back across my chest, this time with gentle kisses. The hand that was in my hair moves to the side of my breast tentatively. “Is this okay?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him, pressing against him again. “I want more.” I can’t stop myself.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah.” He smiles and moves both of his hands to support my back as he stands, picking me up. I wrap my legs around him as he carries me to my room. He shuts the door so quietly that I don’t even realize he did it, my thoughts consumed with my desire for him. I trace the shell of his ear with my tongue, which seems to enlist a sort of primal growl from his throat.
Quickly, he lays me down on the comforter and crawls onto the bed with me. He kneels in between my legs and places his palms against my calves, dragging them up slowly. When he reaches my skirt, he keeps going, pulling the red fabric up with his touch. He glances up to meet my gaze before returning his focus to my legs.
“Wow,” he says with a smile as I feel his hands reach my panties once more. “Pink?” he asks. I blush as he describes my undergarments to me. “These feel expensive,” he says. “Lace? Silk?”
“Yeah. I went on a little shopping spree, by myself.”
“Really now.” He pulls my skirt up all the way so he can get a full view. I can see the rise and fall of his chest, his expression thoughtful but content. “They’re very thin.”
“I know.”
“You can probably feel a lot through them, huh?” As he says this, his thumb ventures curiously.
“Oh.” I breathe quickly at the contact. He smiles and lies down on top of me, glides against me.
“Does that hurt?” he asks.
“Not at all.” I move my body beneath him without thinking. My body knows what it wants. What it needs.
“These jeans cannot be comfortable against you like that.”
“They’re not that bad. The friction–”
“I wish I could take them off,” he says. “I want to feel you better. I could feel you better without them, and I’m sure it would be better for you.”
“You know we can’t do that.” I put my hands in his back pockets to stop his motions. Even though I want nothing more than for him to continue, I don’t want to lead him on too much.
“I know,” he says, smiling down at me and moving my hair behind my ears. He kisses my cheek and then my lips. I pull him into me again, allowing him to continue. “Does it feel good?”
“Yes.”
“Livvy!” Jon immediately moves off of me at the sound of my cousin’s voice. “You’ve got two minutes to open this door.” He looks at me, eyebrows raised.
I push down my skirt and sit up on the bed. “We’re just talking, Lexi,” I call back to her.
She cracks the door and peeks in. “Well, you can talk with the door open, right?”
“I apologize,” Jon says. “It was something kind of personal, so I closed it.”
“Are you finished?” Lexi asks.
“Two minutes?” he asks her for the time she’d offered us. She nods and shuts the door. He glances over and smiles. “Good cover,” he compliments me. “I think if I had asked for ten minutes, she might have actually given it to us.”
“Two minutes, ten minutes... what’s the difference? I wouldn’t ever want you to stop.” I jut my bottom lip out, pouting. He captures that lip between his, wrapping his arm back around me.
“Believe me, I want to continue.” He pulls me on top of him and puts his hand back up my skirt.
“Now if she walks in, I can’t talk my way out of where your hand is.”
“I promised I wouldn’t invite you to the apartment again, but–”
“Yes,” I tell him quickly.
He laughs and shakes his head. “Let’s go, then.”
“Tonight?” I ask.
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“We can’t go tonight, you know–” He stops me with another kiss and rolls us ov
er on the bed so he’s back on top of me, back where I want him.
“Not tonight, baby.” He once again presses his mouth to mine gently. “Saturday. Maybe while Mom and the boys are gone we could hang out over there for a little bit.” I bite down on my bottom lip, thinking about his offer and wanting nothing more than to spend some unsupervised time with him. I nod quickly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whisper as I run my fingers through his hair and wriggle out from beneath him. I check myself in the mirror, grabbing my lipstick and applying a thin layer of it.
“Hey, Olivia, would you mind getting me some water?” he says, still lying on the bed with a pillow tucked beneath his chin.
“What, did I paralyze you?” I ask him. I look at him pathetically.
“A little bit, yeah. I can’t just hop up and go.” He laughs.
“Oh,” I say puzzled, but then catch on. “Oooh.”
“Yeah.” He lifts his brows and cocks his head. “Water?”
“Sure, of course.”
“It’s the least you could do,” he taunts me playfully on my way out of the room. I go into the game room past Lexi and Kyle and grab two bottles of water out of the fridge.
“Actually, it’s the only thing I can do,” I tell him with an apologetic tone when I bring him the drink. He rolls over on his side and makes room for me to sit next to him. I run my thumb along his cheekbone, gazing into his eyes.
“Tonight, yeah,” he admits, removing the cap and taking a sip of the water.
“Um, Jon?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not sure I’ll be ready for that on Saturday, either.”
“No, that’s not what I was implying. What have I told you?”
“That you want to marry me someday and make love to me all night long,” I say softly, knowing that’s not the answer he’s looking for, but I think it’s a good answer nonetheless.
He smiles sweetly and takes my hand in his. “I have told you that,” he confirms. “But I’ve also told you that I wouldn’t pressure you, and I won’t. Do I hope we can make out on Saturday? Yeah. Do I expect it? No way. If we just spend the afternoon lying by the furnace talking, I will be happy with that.”