Boys Next Door (24 page)

‘Variety is the spice of life,’ I said, and my eyes inadvertently went to the neighbouring houses. Two lit up, one dark. Deke’s house was dark. My stomach bottomed out and I had no idea why.

Was he out with another woman? On a date? Sleeping over?

Keith caught my gaze and then said, ‘True, but sometimes finding something that really suits your palate and sticking with it is just as spicy.’

Sigh. Now I had a Yoda mailman. Just what every confused, distracted, twenty-eight-year-old needed.

‘Right,’ I whispered.

‘Night, Farrell. Sleep well,’ he said, and then he was gone. His car zipping off into the dark, kicking up dead leaves and some twigs.

I watched until his red tail-lights were no more than pinpricks in the night and then I took my food inside. I looked at Brutus, who seemed to know that the stuff in the bags was all edible and said, ‘So, B, do you like pickles? I think at least one of these kinds has no garlic.’

* * *

I’d had to promise the store owners, Mr and Mrs Dean, that I’d come to dinner one Sunday night. They’d promised a big family meal with a big close-knit family. Something I’d never had. It had just been me and my parents and though they’d doted on me, there were periods of trauma and turmoil that I didn’t care to remember.

At fifteen I had run away. At eighteen I’d returned. They’d taken me back into their lives, but never truly forgiven me my error. My mother held the grudge more than my dad and when she was gone, he truly let it all go. Realising that life was short; that life was fucked up, and each life was each life and no one person could dictate another’s.

It was around that time that I’d set my twenty-eight rule. Never thinking I’d see it. Figuring by then that I’d be married and have kids – I’d have forgotten all urges to be an actress. I was about twenty-one when I stopped wanting to be an actress, but I was too afraid to tell anyone. I was afraid to say that I didn’t know what I wanted to be. And I knew if I dropped the actress bit, I’d end up having to explain that I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.

So I’d stayed. Until my dad was dead and my deadline arrived. Then I decided I had no one to let down anymore but myself. And I sure as fuck didn’t want to do that.

I let the dog out onto the dark, back porch and I followed him, clutching a cup of hot cocoa. I’d taken a quick shower and I could feel the sudden, startling cool night air rush along my scalp beneath my wet hair.

I shivered, but it felt nice – it allowed me to pull my big wool barn coat tight around my body and clutch it there. ‘Go do your business,’ I whispered to the dog.

Brutus eyed me, seemed to grin and took off like a shot into the dark. I pushed the kitchen door shut to keep the leaves out and leaned against the siding. Looking up at the dark night sky I felt about two inches tall. And suddenly alone. But not.

As if that made sense.

I was building a tiny little world of people and places and events and it was all mine. Far from perfect – almost imperfect, actually – but mine.

‘Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood.’

I almost dropped my mug but managed to clutch it tighter.

‘Dear fuck, Deke, you scared the pee out of me.’

‘Doubtful.’ He came closer. I could smell him. The intense, sexy outdoor and man-scent of him.

‘And it’s not a little red hooded coat. It’s a big chequered barn coat,’ I laughed. I sounded nonchalant but my body was on high alert. With him so close and so …
Deke
, I was having trouble breathing.

I had a moment of remembering. My limbs tangled with his as we fucked in that elevator. His mouth on me, his hands on me, and his body mashed to mine. Why did that memory float up to haunt me at the weirdest times?

I had no idea.

But somewhere in me I did.

‘Little Chequered Barn Coat, doesn’t sound nearly as sexy as Little Red Riding Hood.’

‘True.’ I laughed softly and he inched closer. ‘Are you trying to sneak up on me?’

‘Yes,’ he said, his body only a foot from mine now. His fingers emerged from the shadows and stroked down through my wet locks. I felt the shimmer and shiver of it in my entire body, mostly in my cunt and my chest.

When he touched me the logical part of my mind shut down. Fast.

‘Well, you are terrible at sneaking,’ I informed him breathlessly.

‘Am I? Are you sure?’

He took the mug from me and set it on the banister. Then Deke was pressing his face to my face, his lips to my lips, his body to my body.

He was hard and I was soft, and suddenly everything I’d said to the three of them was meaningless. It wasn’t as if I actually had managed to stay away from them at all. Right?

‘I am sure,’ I said against his lips as he kissed me. ‘What is it with you people? You can’t follow directions.’

‘Because you said stay away.’

‘I did, didn’t I?

‘Well, yeah, but you know …’ His hand slid beneath my coat, my sweatshirt. His skin was warm as he trailed it along mine and when he cupped my breast and pinched my nipple gently, I hummed.

‘What?’ I gasped.

‘I thought that was a suggestion,’ he chuckled, his lips against my throat.

I touched him – gripping him tight through his jeans, feeling the heat and heft of him. ‘Why are you here?’

But this time I nipped at his throat and he moaned.

‘I missed you, Farrell. You’re like an earworm.’

I squawked. ‘A what?’

He grinned in the dark and all I caught was a flash of his white teeth. The smell of him filled my head; the feel of his heat bathed me in what was eerily similar to security. Somewhere, far back in the yard, Brutus howled.

‘You know a song that gets in your head and you can’t get it out. You wake up with it in there and shower with it in there and go to bed with it in there. It’s in your dreams and you find yourself humming it or singing it to the point of lunacy. That’s you. You’re in here.’ He tapped his head.

When he grabbed my hand and pressed it to his broad chest, I splayed my fingers to feel the hammering of his heart. ‘And in here,’ he said.

‘Fuck,’ I hissed like he’d hurt me. Something in my chest twisted and I sighed.

‘Is that an offer?’ he laughed.

‘It’s a demand,’ I said. Then I popped his button and yanked his zipper. Now that I’d decided to touch him, the only thing that would allow me to draw a deep breath was to actually touch him.

‘Don’t tell them,’ I whispered, pushing his pants low, snagging his boxer briefs with my fingertips too. I shoved it all to his knees as he kept kissing me, touching me. His hands warm against my cool skin as he slid his palms along my flanks. Air whipped under my coat and a sudden tremble worked through me.

‘Who?’

‘Them. The other two. No one will take me seriously.’ I took him in hand and he grunted. I squeezed and he sighed.

‘I don’t give a fuck what they think, Farrell. Just you. I only care what you think.’ He pushed my grey sweats down a bit, found me hot and wet and bare beneath. Then I was turning in the circle of his arms and all the air whooshed out of me as my back hit the side of the house and Deke yanked my leg up high.

‘I know. I know. But fuck, I just … can’t. I can’t not do this with you. Right here. Right now.’ I was babbling.

‘We could go inside,’ he said, bending his head, shoving my top up, finding my nipple with the searing heat of his mouth. He sucked and I hummed low in my throat.

‘No. Right here. It’s …’ The wind blew, nibbling at our exposed skin, making our shared heat that much more intense. ‘It’s better.’

‘Put me in.’ He said it roughly, lips pressed to my ear, stubble biting at my skin. His breath was hot through my damp hair and he thrust just a bit when I nudged my slick opening with the tip of his cock.

I ran him along my wet slit, up over my clit, teasing myself to the point of holding my breath. Teasing him too. I could feel him shaking just enough for me to know that he was fighting to control himself.

‘Farrell,’ he said. Half plea, half warning.

‘Don’t tell them,’ I demanded. Sliding him all along me again. Over the knot of my clit, the slippery split of my cunt. All the way back so we both felt the nudge of him at my ass. And then all the way back up again.

‘I won’t.’ He grunted, forcing my hips to the rough siding with his strong hands. He pinned me. ‘God, I fucking want to, but I won’t. I’ll behave. But. Put. Me. In.’

I did. I tipped my hips and pushed the head of his cock into the wetness that waited for him. He felt so good. So hot compared to the cold fall night. We gripped each other with tense hands as we tried to drag it out. Deke slid into me, oh so slowly, and I took him as lazily as possible. My breath was a shuddery mess, whispering out of me in a jittery hiss of air.

When he was fully seated, my leg wrapped around his waist, his hipbone banging my clit so that I had to shut my eyes to get myself together, he kissed me. His hands moved up my body, cradling my curves, touching me almost reverently. I was the one to set us in motion – I was the one to tip my hips up so he went a bit deeper and the root of his cock brushed my thumping clit. I was the one who bit the exposed bit of neck I could reach, hard enough to make him growl like some wild thing.

I did it.

But then he took over, hiking me up against him so my back rode against the siding and my legs wrapped around his waist and he was fucking me. Lord, fucking me hard enough to make tears spring to my eyes and for my throat to tickle and quiver, because in a heartbeat I was damn near ready to come. That fast.

‘You missed me,’ he chuckled against my neck. His fingers were rough on my ass, my sweats dangled from my one ankle and I was pretty sure I had a splinter in my lower back.

It was perfect.

‘I didn’t have time to miss you,’ I gasped, the first greedy flex of orgasm seizing me.

I came with a low sultry moan and a quick bucking motion.

‘And yet, you did.’

We dropped to the deck. Leaves, twigs and the smell of earth everywhere.

My fingers tangled in his hair and I yanked, splaying my legs to let him in deeper. I thrust my hips up hard, desperate to get him closer as he drove into me. I kissed him hard, tangling my tongue with his before nipping it so he went rigid against me.

It made no sense that I had missed him. He hadn’t been
gone
. At all. Only in my grandiose announcement for them to all go away. And yet, I had missed him. I had missed the thought of him. Thinking I could tell him something, or run into him, or see him, or he’d sneak up to my door and knock and –

I bit his tongue again, clutching at him, shoving myself up roughly so our bodies banged together. He pinned my arms above my head in one rough hand, licked my lips, my throat and the skin that thumped above my pulse.

‘Say it,’ he said.

‘It,’ I said, being an utter brat.

He drove into me so hard I slid across the deck and a cluster of leaves complained.

‘Say it,’ he said, his voice rough and wounded, and so, so needy. There was a catch in it that caused something in my heart to crimp.

‘I missed you,’ I whispered and then kissed him before he could answer or say a single word. I didn’t want him to say anything at all.

He didn’t. Instead, he applied more pressure to my tender wrists and cried out into my hair as he thrust hard and harder and hardest before coming – his body stiff against mine. The sounds he made, the palpable electricity between us tipped me right back over and I came with him. I held him close the only way I could. My legs wrapped around his hips and locked at the ankles to keep him flush against me.

He didn’t try to linger, so I didn’t have to freak out. Just yanked my pants up, laughing. Brutus came barrelling up and ploughed through the drifted pile of leaves.

‘Look, Farrell, I know you don’t know what you want. I don’t either, not for sure. But I’m fairly sure what I feel when I see you means I want you. And I’m willing to wait and see what you decide. Unless you tell me to go fuck myself.’

I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again. Deke grinned and put his finger to my lips. ‘Don’t say anything now if you don’t want to. It’s not a test. I want you, that’s all you need to know. You don’t even need to know yet if you want me back.’

‘I –’

‘Good night, Farrell.’ He kissed me quiet, tugged up my collar and turned to go back into the dark from which he’d emerged. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Oh, and I can’t wait to see you perform tomorrow.’

I groaned, throwing my hands up in the air. ‘Good way to deflect my attention!’ I yelled.

I heard him chuckle as he walked away. ‘Yes … I am
that
good.’

We’ve all had those dreams where we show up at school in our underpants.

I showed up to the stage naked. How can you perform if you’re already naked?

Stephen turned from me into the arms of his pretty blond boy with his cool high top sneakers. Cooper raised an eyebrow at me and asked me why I hadn’t been more prepared. Life was harsh, it was intense, you had to always be on your guard – like him.

Deke rushed forward and tossed his coat over me. Pulling me in, kissing my ear, saying
I like it better when you start out naked, anyway.

My eyes popped open and I saw the colour of my living room. A watercolour grey that said it was a chilly day. I really needed to go buy a fucking bed.

‘Great. Just what I need.’

This shindig was outside. These were small town people. Cold didn’t bother them. They worked outdoors often. Did things like run vegetable stands, butcher deer, hunt and farm. Me … I lived in a city. Or I had. I spent my days hurrying from one building to another trying my best – barring Christmas tree shopping – to be out of the outside as much as humanly possible.

And now I was going to take my clothes off on a stage. Outside. On a grey autumn day – a Monday, no less.

‘I have moved to the
Twilight Zone
. Or a Bill Murray movie,’ I sighed.

The clock said I had two hours to get my ass together and get down to the square. I had the suit, I had my song; I had my idea. Now I needed accoutrements. And I’d put it off as long as possible.