Popping the Cherry (30 page)

A look was exchanged between WPC Flood and the other two officers. It wasn’t a good look. He’d been running purely on adrenaline since he’d heard Lena’s cry for help, but now that he had her in his arms, and the police were here to take over, he had nothing left. Jake’s knees gave way and he missed the next step. The two officers who’d been ready to lynch him—and still might—sprang forward to catch him, stopping him from tumbling to the bottom of the stairs.

One of them reached for Lena, which only made Jake tighten his grip. A feral growl built in his chest and tension spread over his face as if he were about to bare his teeth at them; but, instead of arresting him on the spot, they seemed to understand, guiding him and his precious cargo over to the sofa. The police charged up the stairs the moment the route was clear. There was some shouting, and Jake could hear a guy cursing. Lena heard him too. She jerked at the sound of his voice and snuggled even tighter into Jake’s chest.

‘It’s OK, Tink, I’ve got you,’ he whispered.

Jake pressed his lips against her forehead and she relaxed instantly. A blanket appeared from somewhere and her eyelids fluttered closed. Her gentle breaths fluttered over his chest, delicate wisps of warm air that still made his skin goose. Jake sucked in a breath and let it out in a long sigh as he nuzzled his cheek against the top of Lena’s head. The police could do whatever they liked to him, none of it mattered. He’d do it all again if he had to, just so long as Lena was safe.

On the verge of falling asleep, Jake jumped when a hand tapped him on the shoulder, instinctively gripping onto Lena again. His eyelids flew open but it took a moment before he could focus. WPC Flood swam into view, and she offered him a smile, which had to be a good sign.

‘You’re free to go,’ she said. ‘Sounds like you were a bit of a hero, but make sure you’re both available tomorrow so we can take a statement.’

‘Sure thing.’ Jake paused. ‘With our parents away, is it OK if I take her back to mine?’ Realising just how bad that sounded—a drunk girl and a guy alone in a house—he quickly added, ‘My sister will be there too.’

‘As long as we know where to find her, that should be fine. Something tells me Lena’s going to have a sore head tomorrow, but I suspect she’s learned a valuable lesson today.’

‘Yeah, I reckon.’

‘So is there something between you two?’

WPC Flood’s question caught him off guard.

‘Not like that, no. She’s been my sister’s best friend for years, always hanging around the house, so she’s more like another sister to me.’ It was wrong to tell lies to the police but he was too flustered to think straight, so had automatically fallen back on the usual pretence he’d tried to drum into his head every time he took Lena out.

‘Shame. Is your van out front? I don’t remember seeing it?’

‘Ah … I don’t really know where it is. I dumped it the first chance I got and ran here. It’s probably about half a mile back towards town.’

‘No worries. Give me five and I’ll run you back to it.’

‘Thank you.’ He’d only just removed the hideous black wig and granny-net from Lena’s hair when WPC Flood gave him the nod.

It was the first time he’d travelled in the back of a police car, and hopefully the last. He wanted to cheer when his van came into view. He had to rouse Lena to transfer her from one vehicle to the other. As he settled her into the passenger seat and reached for the seatbelt, the pressure on her chest made her eyelids pop open; wild panic danced in her eyes but it vanished the instant she laid eyes on him. The absolute trust she had in him made his heart sing and lurch at the same time.

Oh boy
.

He was in even deeper than he thought.

Less than half an hour later, he pulled up onto the driveway and his eyes closed. Forcing them open, he popped the door and walked around to the passenger side. Lena had fallen asleep again, so he carried her into the house and got her settled in Gemma’s bed, removing nothing but her boots and her cloak. Finally, he staggered to his own bedroom, stripped off his jeans and shirt, then collapsed on his bed, not even bothering to get under the covers.

Lena’s blood-curdling scream had him back on his feet, out of the door and halfway across the landing before he could pry his eyes open. She was sitting upright, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, with her eyes wide open but unseeing. And then she threw up in spectacular fashion, all over herself and Gemma’s duvet.

‘Oh, no. I’m sorry,’ she croaked.

‘It’s OK, don’t sweat it,’ he whispered. ‘But you can’t stay in here, and the dress has got to go.’

Lena nodded, then slipped out of bed. She swayed, fought for balance, then raised her arms straight up in the air. Her gaze begged him to help and to make it quick. Still in practical mode, he didn’t hesitate in reaching for the hem of her dress and rolling it up to make it as small as possible before lifting it off over her head, trying not to notice that Lena was left wearing nothing more than fishnet stockings and lacy black knickers underneath. He tossed the dress into the centre of the bed, and gathered Lena in his arms. The mess could wait until morning.

Lena slumped against him as he carried her back to his room. To his bed. Jake laid her down gently, then raced around the other side and climbed in behind her. He drew her back into his arms, his body spooned around hers. She sighed and all the tension left her body. Jake allowed himself a smile and drifted back to sleep. Falling asleep with a practically naked Lena in his arms wasn’t his smartest move. It led to some of the most bizarre, most erotic dreams he’d ever had.

He might be able to fool his waking mind that there was nothing to tell between them, but his subconscious mind enjoyed playing tricks on him. Like now. If he wasn’t so sure he was dreaming, the feel of Lena’s lips meshing against his could be almost real, but there was no way she’d be writhing on top of him. Jake tried to wake up, to clear the dream, but the sensations only grew stronger.

What the …

Jake dragged his eyes open and found Lena pinning him down, kissing him, and he’d even started to kiss her back. The writhing on top of him was real, too, with just the thin cotton of his shorts as a barrier. Now he was awake, and then some. Too awake, in fact. He opened his mouth to ask Lena what the hell she was doing but his bedroom door opened, the usual creak giving way to a high-pitched squeal.

Gemma stood in the doorway, her eyes bugging out, and she looked ready to kill. ‘I knew there was something going on between you,’ she screamed. ‘I just knew it.’

Lena

Gemma’s yelling made spots appear in front of my eyes, and I already had the headache from Hell. My muscles turned to jelly and I collapsed on top of Jake. His heart pounded like a runaway train against my chest, challenging my heartbeat to a race.

Of all the lousy goddamn timing for Gemma to make her grand, dramatic entrance, it had to be right at that moment, just as Jake was starting to kiss me back. Two more minutes and she might have walked in on me having sex with her brother, getting rid of my virginity once and for all. OK, so he’d actually jumped out of his skin when he’d woken up but his body had been more than up for it.

‘There’s nothing going on.’ Jake lifted me off him as though I were nothing more than a sheet of paper, then rolled over to dump me on my belly on the empty side of the bed. No longer trapped underneath me, he leaped out of the bed as if it were on fire. Maybe it was—my cheeks were certainly flaming enough.

‘Then how do you explain this?’ Gemma shrieked, and I could just picture her sweeping arm gestures. ‘You. Her. She’s in her knickers, for fuck’s sake, and not a lot else, from what I can see.’

Omigod
.

I sent out my hand and fumbled around for the quilt but it was out of reach down by my feet. Jake must have noticed what I was trying to do, as the quilt suddenly flopped down on top of me, creating a breeze strong enough to lift my hair off my face.

‘It’s not what it looks like,’ he said.

‘Then what the hell is it?’ Gemma spat.

With Gemma standing on one side of the bed, and Jake on the other, there was no way I could look at them both at the same time. I didn’t have the stamina to ping-pong between them, so I stayed on my belly and buried my head into the pillow instead, only to get assaulted by Jake’s scent.

‘It does look bad,’ Jake conceded. ‘But you’re only seeing what you want to see.’

‘Is that so?’ Gemma said, in full-on snark mode. ‘Because what I
saw
, with my own two eyes, was
her
mounted on top of
you
, and both of you practically naked.’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘Only because I turned up just in time.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Oh, come off it, Jake, you were snogging each other’s face off.’

‘Wrong again. She was kissing me.’

‘You seriously expect me to believe it’s all perfectly innocent? I might not be as brainy as Piper but I’m no idiot.’

‘Believe what you like, Gem, but I’m not stupid either.’

Gemma and Jake continued arguing over my prone body, flat out in the middle of the bed.

‘Then why the hell is she in your bed?’

‘Well I tried putting her to bed in your room, where you were supposed to be, but you should have heard her screaming. And she puked all over it too. You might just want to get onto that instead of screaming at me.’

‘What is she even doing here?’

Her? She?

‘Hey,’ I said, lifting my head from the soft pillow. ‘I am here, you know.’

Jake spoke at the same time though. ‘Because her so-called best friend convinced her to sign up to some cock-and-bull mission, then left her to fend for herself at a party, where some dickhead tried to take advantage.’

That was one way to shut me up. It put Gemma on the back foot too at least, so she stopped screeching. The damage was done, though. My blood drained from my face and beads of cold, clammy, sweat gathered on my forehead, absorbed instantly into Jake’s pillow. I rolled onto my back and pushed myself up onto my elbows.

The room was still spinning.

Take deep breaths
.

‘Lena, are you OK?’ Gemma asked. ‘You look gree—’

‘I think I’m gonna be sick again.’

‘Shit,’ Gemma said, ‘I’ll get a bowl.’

‘No need.’ Jake scooped me up and carried me to the bathroom. He placed me carefully next to the toilet but, instead of leaving me, he stayed and held my hair off my face as I hurled my guts up. ‘Hangover,’ Jake explained to Gemma as she hovered in the doorway.

‘Here, get this on her,’ she said, handing over a dressing gown. ‘And what d’you mean hangover?’

‘She got blind drunk.’

‘When? At the party?’

‘No, over breakfast,’ Jake said, hitting Gemma with snark of his own. ‘Of course at the party. When else could it have been?’

‘Yeah, all right. Keep your hair on.’

‘The police will be coming by at some point to speak to us.’

‘Police?’ Gemma’s voice couldn’t get much higher. ‘Us?’

‘Yeah, me and Lena. I only just made it in time, Gem. The muscled-headed moron wasn’t taking no for an answer.’

Cue another bout of hurling from me.

‘Oh, God. So is that what happened to your hands? Your face?’ Gemma asked.

Say what?

What was she was talking about? It hadn’t even occurred to me that Jake might have been hurt. He seemed so … invincible.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘So she was nearly …’ Gemma’s words dried up, the implication left unsaid.

‘Yeah.’

‘But you …’

‘Exactly. So don’t you dare go blaming this on me. I was there for her. Again.’

‘Shithead!’

‘Language!’

‘So why was she coming onto you just now, then?’

‘I didn’t get chance to ask: some drama queen appeared. But I figure it has to be related to that damn mission. She wouldn’t be throwing herself at me—the first nice guy she set eyes on—if she wasn’t so hell-bent on getting laid.’

‘So you’re saying it was just some kind of knee-jerk reaction?’

‘Why else?’ Jake said. ‘But I’m not about to let anyone use me as a pawn in some crazy cherry-popping mission.’

Oh, no
.

I wanted to tell Jake that he had it all wrong, that Operation: Popping the Cherry was the last thing on my mind, but it would have been a lie—or a half-lie, at any rate—and he would have seen right through it. In a way, it was me making a last-ditch effort to rid myself of my virginity, but there was more to it than that. Much more.

‘Hello. Sick girl in the room.’ I waved my hand in the air, even though I couldn’t risk lifting my head. ‘Stop talking about me like I’m not here.’

‘Sorry,’ they mumbled as one.

‘You should be.’ My words cut off the rest of their conversation, only to be replaced by a tense silence, except for my retching sounds.

‘Do you want me to take over?’ Gemma asked a couple of minutes later. She phrased it as a question but it came out as more of an order for Jake to back off.

‘Fine by me. I’ve got to get to work, anyway,’ Jake said, getting to his feet to switch places with Gemma. ‘Don’t even think about leaving her on her own today. You owe her big time. If you’ve got plans, cancel them.’

‘Yeah thanks for the guilt trip, Jake. You can go now.’ Gemma reached to take hold of my hair.

‘Fine.’ The looming figure in the doorway disappeared.

As soon as Jake had left, Gemma let go of my hair again so it fell across my cheeks and dangled inside the bowl. I flicked a glance at her from behind the curtain of hair and saw her staring into space, her jaw tense, not even trying to go through the motions of comforting me. She might as well have been a million miles away. Jake pottered around in his bedroom, opening and closing drawers. He crossed the landing to use the shower in the
en suite
of the master bedroom, since I was still hogging the bathroom. Gemma still hadn’t said a single word to me when the shower cut off again.

‘I’ll just be a sec, OK?’ she said, startling me by speaking. She gave me two quick pats on my shoulder and then stood, ready to leave. I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I could do much else, and she hadn’t been the slightest bit helpful, anyway. ‘And I’ll only be across the landing, so yell if you need me.’