One Reckless Summer (10 page)

The universe is unfolding as it should.

Edwin Hubble

M
ick responded by moving down her body and parting her legs. She let him. She was nervous, but she
did
want this. She
did
believe her pleasure mattered. It
was
enough. At least right now. And right now was what counted.

As he sank his mouth over her, she let out a soft moan. The bliss was thick and scintillating, spreading through her whole body in an instant. Terrence had done this sometimes, of course, but already, with Mick, it was different. Mick, she instantly understood, really
wanted
to be doing it. It showed in how deeply he moved his tongue over her, how slowly and thoroughly. It showed in the way he touched her, using his hands to caress her as he delivered the mind-numbing ministrations, eventually using two fingers to enter her wetness below where he kissed.

She quickly forgot herself. She forgot this was the same couch where she’d watched cartoons as a child. She forgot her bare foot was anchored on the same coffee table where she’d done homework. She knew nothing but the pleasure being delivered by the mysterious Mick Brody, so very different from the
harsher
pleasure he’d given her in the woods. She sobbed her delight as each lick and kiss vibrated through her; sometimes she closed her eyes, but other times, like before, she had to watch, because he was amazing to look at, and because he was really
here
, doing
this
, with
her.

Before long, she found herself clutching at the couch cushion beneath her, simply needing to hold tight to something as she lifted herself against his mouth, felt the sensation rising, rising, toward that glorious peak. Her movements became faster as moments passed, the whole thing less gentle, but she needed it that way now, and was soon clenching her teeth, writhing against his giving mouth—until she tumbled into the abyss of ecstasy, low, hot moans leaving her throat as everything in her world but Mick disappeared for a long, heavenly moment.

And then the waves of orgasm receded and it was a little like in the woods, coming back down to earth to remember where she was and what was happening—until Mick rose above her, looking so masculine and pleased that she forgot all her worries again and said, “Oh God, I want you.” She even reached for the elastic at his hips and pushed downward.

When his erection burst free, she gasped at the sight, then worked to get his underwear all the way off.

“Wait, I have…” he trailed off as he reached down for his jeans.

A moment later, he produced a condom and she said, “Hurry.” She’d never once told Terrence to hurry—never, even back in college. But Mick she needed
now.

She watched as he sheathed himself, a little sorry when he was hidden beneath the rubber, but she forgot all that when he spread her legs again.

She tensed, trembled, looking up at him,
pressing
her palms to his chest. Their eyes met briefly until his dropped below as he reached down to position himself. She parted wider, instinctively, wanting him deep inside.

And then he was. And she was crying out, “God, oh God!” then arching into him, accepting his full length at the same moment as she wondered how she could take his size so willingly.

“So tight,” he whispered.

She bit her lip. Said the obvious. “So big.”

And he sank a little deeper and they both groaned.

He began to move inside her, gentle, thorough, rhythmic. She met his thrusts. It was the closest Jenny had ever come to total abandon. It felt like hurtling through space and time, like nothing mattered but existing, and feeling.

Every thrust made her whole body pulse with pure pleasure like she’d never known. She clawed into his chest and shoulders, simply trying to touch him as much as she could. She wrapped her legs around his back.

Soon Mick moved harder, faster, and she cried out at each powerful stroke. She curled her arms around his neck and held on for dear life. She felt
his
abandon, along with a certain feminine pride for having taken him there.

She had no idea how long he pumped into her accepting body, how long she met each hard, welcome thrust. She only knew she’d completely surrendered to him and that she never wanted it to end. She loved his groans, loved the low growls that left his throat. She loved being beneath him, feeling his strength, everything hard and masculine about him.

And she loved it when he came, just as much as she had in the woods. When he said, “Aw…aw, now,” she could have sworn she felt him emptying inside her, and she sensed the tension leaving his body when he collapsed gently onto her a few seconds later.

They lay quietly that way a long time, neither talking. The music had long since quit playing, leaving the room quiet and softly lit. But still light enough for her to be reminded once more where she was, and to catch sight of the rose-colored dresses on the wall across the room.
Don’t think about that.

And yet somehow it reminded her. Not only that she was a good girl, but that Mick Brody was still dangerous. Probably a lot more dangerous than he’d been as a boy. It just hadn’t felt that way when he kissed her. And as for whether it felt that way when he was inside her, well, maybe he
did
feel dangerous in those moments, dangerous and hot and tough, but she couldn’t deny liking it
then.

After a long, still moment, Mick reached up to brush his thumb gently across her breast, then
lean
in to kiss her on the cheek. “Am I crushing you?” he whispered in her ear.

Figuratively or literally?
she
almost asked, but held her tongue. Then laughed lightly and said, “A little,” and together they rolled to their sides, facing one another, bare legs intermingling in a way that made her think of that tangled forest across the lake.

“You okay, pussycat?”

He’d asked her that last time, too, and she’d lied. This time was better. “Yeah,” she said. Even if she was starting to remember again that she
didn’t have sex with guys she hardly knew.
Or she didn’t used to anyway. “Although
I
should have separated us.”

“Huh?” he asked, understandably confused.

She explained. “
I’m
a teacher. So
I
should have separated us when we were, you know, making out while we danced.”

“Really? You’re a teacher?”

Oh God, did that make her sound boring? Even naked on a couch with Mick Brody, she was still “good Jenny,” like it or not. “Yeah,” she said.

“Well, you
tried
to separate us,” he reminded her, his voice warm, slightly teasing.

A sheepish smile claimed her. “
That
didn’t last long.”

“No, and I’m damn glad.” He smiled sexily into her eyes, gave her a short kiss,
then
asked, “What do you teach?”

“Middle school science.”
Yep
,
just pass me my nerd glasses and pocket protector.

She was pleased when he didn’t seem to hear it the way she feared and simply said, “So that’s why you’re all into looking at the stars.”

“Or the other way around. I loved the stars before I started teaching about them.”

“I saw your books about it, too.” He motioned to the coffee table, where the Brian Greene book lay next to a bigger one. “You’re really into that sort of thing, huh?”

How could she explain the majesty of the universe to him? “Have you ever looked through a telescope?”

He gave his head a light shake against the throw pillow they shared.

“Once you start to grasp how…
vast
it all is, and that the whole earth is just a tiny pinhead in space, well, let’s just say it can put things in perspective, make your problems seem smaller.”

The expression on his handsome face gave the impression he was actually thinking about what she’d just said, absorbing it. “Hmm, smaller problems,” he finally murmured. “I could go for that.”

“Maybe…I can show you the stars some night,” she heard herself say unplanned.
Oh God
,
did I just ask Mick Brody out on a date?

Apparently she had, so relief flooded her as he smoothly replied, “Maybe so, pussycat.” But wait—
should
she be relieved? Or terrified?

No time to examine that now, though—instead, she bit her lip and lifted her gaze to his in playful challenge. “Of course, given all the trees in my yard, it’ll be difficult since you won’t let me on your side of the lake.”

He winced, grinned, as if to say,
Touché
. “Sorry about that.”

So did that mean she was welcome now, to show him the stars on his side…or not? She was about to ask, when he said, “I gotta take off, honey,” and sat up, reaching for his underwear.

Hmm. At least she’d gotten a
little
snuggling this time.

Followed by an abrupt departure.

But I guess that’s how it is in casual sex. Wham bam thank you ma’am.
She’d had sex with him twice now
without hardly
knowing him at all, so she had no right to complain that he was leaving, even if it tugged at her emotions a little.

As he pulled on his boxers, then his jeans, she finally got a good look at the tattoo on his arm—a rather menacing-looking skull and crossbones. “Interesting tattoo,” she said.

He glanced down at it as he zipped up.

“So why’d you pick that,” she asked, “out of any tattoo in the world?”

The look on his face said he found her inquisitiveness cute. Or maybe silly. He winked and said, “I didn’t think a butterfly or heart would suit me.”

She giggled softly,
then
said, still smiling, “Seriously. Why that?”

He looked down at his arm again, his expression reflective, and honest. “I got it a long time ago. Guess maybe I wanted people to think I was a bad-ass.”

“Are you?” Her heart beat a little harder at the question.

Yet he only answered with another wink. “Probably depends on how you see the world, pussycat.”

Maybe he was right. The tattoo didn’t mesh with the Mick Brody who’d just made love to her. And though she knew he’d never call it
that, that was what they’d just done—made
love. But maybe it made sense for the Mick Brody she’d known as a girl, and even the Mick Brody she’d had sex with in the woods.

The part she couldn’t figure out was: Who was the
real
Mick Brody?

As he pulled his T-shirt over his head to hug the muscles in his chest and arms, he looked down at where she still lay naked on the couch. “See
ya
soon.”

How soon?

No
,
stop
,
don’t ask that. It’s so stage-five-clingy.
“Does this mean you still don’t trust me to keep your secret?” she came up with instead.

A wicked little grin made his eyes sparkle once more. “Could be. Or could be I just want to get in your panties again.”

Walter Tolliver pulled his cruiser into the gravel lot peppered with pickup trucks and a few
souped
-up cars to park right outside the front door of the Dew Drop Inn, a dive bar along a lonesome stretch of highway skirting the Destiny city limits. The building was a flat, drab, one-story establishment with low ceilings that left the smell of stale beer hovering in the air. Neon beer signs hung in windows lined with strings of Christmas lights, many of the bulbs extinguished. Behind the building stood a small dingy white house with tilted green shutters that had also seen better days.

Walter knew
Digby
Woods had sold the whole place recently and headed off to parts unknown, but he hadn’t yet met the new owner. Since he’d broken up more than one fight here over the years and figured he was apt to break up more, he’d thought he should stop in and introduce himself.

It was nearly
midnight
when Walter pushed through the door, mostly unnoticed, and he was pleased to find the place quiet. A few slightly rough-looking characters shot pool in the corner, but no one was causing any trouble. Bruce Springsteen’s “Cover Me” filled the room, echoing from an old-fashioned jukebox near the door, as peanut shells on the floor crunched beneath his shoes.

The bar itself was empty of customers, so he ambled to a stool at the end nearest the entrance. He didn’t see anyone tending bar, but he wasn’t in a big hurry—he dug his fingers absently into a dish of peanuts, shelled a few, and popped them in his mouth.

When his eyes landed on a folded newspaper a couple of stools down from him, the horoscopes on top, his thoughts turned to his daughter. She didn’t follow astrology, but she did look to the stars for solace. When he’d asked her a couple of days ago if she’d gotten out her telescope yet, he could hear the disappointment in her voice when she’d explained that the trees around the house and road were just too tall. They’d been
nearly
too tall when she was a teenager, but time had passed and they were even bigger now. So he’d offered to call up his friends Betty and Ed, who had a big, empty meadow on their farm across town, and ask if she could bring her telescope over, but even as he’d said it, he knew that wouldn’t meet Jenny’s need to look at the sky in private. Ed would come out and want to look, too, and Betty would come rushing out with cold drinks.