Beau stood a little taller. “Is there something wrong?”
Beau, Duane, and their older brother Cletus owned the Winston Brothers Auto Shop in town, hence the blue, grease-stained coveralls he currently donned. Cletus, son number three in the Winston family, was four years older than the twins but had always been a little…odd. Sweet, but odd.
As an example, he’d started attending my first period advanced placement calculus class two weeks ago. Apparently, he’d talked to my principal and had been cleared to sit in for the rest of the year.
The fire chief shook his head. “No, no. It’s not for my truck, son. It’s Red, the fire engine. He’s helping me get the old girl running again for the Christmas parade.”
“Ah. I see. Yeah, Cletus is playing his banjo.” Beau tossed his thumb over his shoulder. “Only one room is jamming so far tonight; I think everyone else is waiting until the trick-or-treating is over.”
Mr. McClure glanced in the direction Beau had indicated. “I’ll go sit in then and wait for a break.” He then turned a friendly smile to Claire and me. “Girls, I’d be honored to be your escort.”
Claire nodded for both of us; but before she could verbally accept the offer, Beau reached out and grabbed my arm lightning fast.
“Claire, you go on.” Beau pulled me away from my friend in a smooth motion. “I’d like to catch up with Jess. See y’all later.”
He didn’t wait for Claire or me to react.
Before I knew what was happening, he’d slipped his rough palm into mine, grasped my fingers, and turned toward the converted cafeteria, tugging me after him. I was so shocked by the sensation of his skin, the electric current running up my arm, that I could only follow mutely.
I loved the feel of him. In truth I was in danger of climbing him. I just wanted to be near him, touch him, snuggle against him. He was so epically enticing.
We wove through the crowd as I tried to memorize the feeling of his hand grasping mine. I had difficulty drawing breath; my stomach was an eruption of amorous butterflies. People said hi—to both him and to me—but we didn’t pause. I was his shadow as Beau led me to the buffet table; I dreaded reaching it because he would likely release me. To my surprise we kept on walking.
He didn’t glance back at me as we skirted around a table laden with lemonade and sweet tea, heading behind a curtain that ran the length of one wall—from ceiling to floor—and obscured a set of stairs leading to a small stage. The stage, likewise, was hidden by the curtain. Beau didn’t pause once we were up the steps or on the stage. Instead he continued tugging until he had me to one side, backstage, completely hidden by the curtain, around a corner, and behind a wall.
It was dark and my eyes required several seconds to adjust; likewise, my brain hadn’t yet caught up with where we were and how we’d arrived here, not to mention who I was with. A single light source overhead cast our surroundings in a grayish murkiness. Therefore, I nearly tripped over my own feet when Beau turned, his hands suddenly on my hips, and backed me into the wall.
I felt solid concrete behind me, Beau and all his gorgeousness looming before me, scant inches away. His glittering eyes ensnared mine. Then and only then did he stop.
I was so confused—really discombobulated was the word for it. This was like something out of my music video fantasies. (Did I forget to mention that my daydreams actually present themselves as music videos ala Paula Abdul’s Rush, Rush complete with glowing, imperfection-blurring lens filters?) Therefore I could only gaze up at him in wonder.
He leaned forward, and his forehead hit the rim of my hat. Scowling, he pulled it and the wig from my head.
“I like this costume,” he said in a low voice as his hands reclaimed their spot, his thumbs rubbing the area just above my hips like he was entitled to touch me and my body how he liked. The heat from his palms sent spiking shivers to my lower belly. “But I do not enjoy that hat.”
I’d known Beau for almost fifteen years, had dreamt of a moment like this since my earliest awkward stages of puberty. In all those fantasies, Beau had been sweet and slow, gentle and coaxing, patient. As well in my fantasies, nothing ever really happened. He’d kiss me, I’d feel warm and tingly. Basically they were the neutered fantasies of a young girl.
But Beau didn’t look patient now and he felt very, very real. Even in the murky dimness his eyes glittered like sapphires, like they possessed their own internal radiance. I thought mournfully of my plain brown irises and, like the weirdo I was, I hoped that our make-believe children would inherit his eyes.
His hands slid up my body then pushed my cape over my shoulders with a whisper-light touch. He removed the staff from my hands. I watched as Beau leaned it against the wall with care, his boots scuffing against the wooden floor.
“Jessica James, you’ve been giving me hot looks that are difficult to ignore.” He said this in a near growl, leaning a fraction of an inch closer.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what a hot look was, what it meant, or how to make it on purpose. Regardless, I surmised my inadvertent hot looks were responsible for our alone time. Therefore, I mentally high-fived my hot looks. My heart twisted then leapt as he wet his bottom lip just before drawing the succulent flesh into his mouth, between his teeth, and biting.
That’s right, bite that lip.
I almost groaned.
I was maniacally and fiercely aroused, and I was completely ill-equipped to deal with these feelings. A broken hymen while horseback riding; a few inconsequential and forgettable gropings in high school and college; a drunken, laconic coupling in my dorm room with my physics lab TA last year. These were the pithy total of my sexual exploits.
In all honesty, I’d enjoyed the horse ride more than the man ride. At least the horse had been a stallion. Looking back, my lab TA was more like a Shetland pony—hairy and small.
Instinct told me to tackle Beau, maul him before he discovered his error and tousled my hair like I was still a twelve year old. At the very least, I’d made up my mind to force his mouth down to my chest. Nothing fantastic had ever happened to my nipples before. I was pretty sure I’d die a happy woman after Beau Winston did something fantastic to my nipples.
Speaking of nipples, I didn’t realize I’d brought Beau’s hand from my hip to my breast until hot sparks of desire radiated from where I pressed his palm against me, the only barriers between our skin my lace bra and the thin fabric of my sheath.
I didn’t know what I was doing. My experience was so lackluster, and in my fantasies we never made it to second base.
Beau stared at me, his mouth parted in stunned surprise. His eyebrows jumped, and his eyes widened at my forward gesture. I arched forward, again without consciously meaning to, straining to close the distance between our bodies, wanting to feel his hard against my soft.
And then I learned what a hot look was.
Because Beau Winston was giving me a hot look.
I wanted to label it as incendiary, but as it was the first hot look I’d ever been aware of receiving, I decided instead to make his hot look the baseline by which all other hot looks would be measured.
I didn’t get much time to mull over what units of measurement I would apply to hot looks—would it be Celsius? Calories? Watts? Or voltage?—because Beau did four things, driving all thought and ability to reason from my brain.
First, he tugged my beard off my face and over my head.
Second, his fingers at my breast worked, massaged, and caressed while his thumb brushed over the nipple. His hand felt greedy, rough, and fantastic.
Third, his free hand reached around, gripped my bottom, and squeezed as he brought me against him.
Fourth, he kissed me.
And, oh God, parts of me tensed, clenched, braced in a completely new way, a way that made no sense at all, but sent all the amorous butterflies diving straight to my pelvis and heat to my lungs. I was abruptly starring in the music video for Beyonce’s Naughty Girl and desperately trying to figure out how to get al
l Beau’s clothes off.
He dominated, pushing me against the wall, his hands under my sheath, on the bare skin of my hips then into my lace underwear, grabbing my bare ass. Nothing about him was soft. He was hard edges, solid granite everywhere I touched. And I touched him. I touched him in a fevered frenzy because I didn’t know what the hell was going on or when it would stop. I hoped never. Peripherally, I heard my wizard’s staff clatter to the ground.
I’d always thought of Beau as a really, really nice guy. But he didn’t kiss like a nice guy. He kissed with dangerous and punishing hunger, his mouth greedy and demanding. He bit me, my bottom lip, then soothed and tasted the abused flesh with his tongue while grinding his hips against mine, his hard length growing against my belly.
“Fuck, Jess…” He growled, pulled his mouth from mine, his breathing labored. He bent to bite my jaw, lick my ear, suck the soft skin into his hot mouth while one hand pushed my little gray dress up to expose my breasts. The fingers of his other hand danced around the hem of my panties but moved no further. I felt his hesitation and I clawed him. I dug my nails into his shoulders and bucked instinctively, wanting him to touch me.
In response he tugged the cup of my bra down. Then his wet mouth was on the center of my breast. Then his tongue swirled over my nipple as a tortured-sounding moan rumbled in the back of his throat. Then I panted because it was fantastic.
I reached for his white shirt, drawing him closer, then roughly pulled it off. He acquiesced as my fingertips fumbled for the hem of his boxers then delved into his pants. My hand closed around his hard length, and he sucked in a startled-sounding breath, releasing it raggedly as I stroked him.
“Oh, God...” he breathed, his eyes moving back to mine. I’d expected to find them dazed with desire, instead he looked a little shocked, panicked even. “Wait, wait a minute.”
He reached for my wrist, and I saw his intentions clear as day. We were moving too fast. He was going to put on the brakes.
But the thing was, I didn’t want brakes. I wanted acceleration. I wanted velocity. I wanted reckless, heedless, crazy, passionate sex with Beau. And I wanted it right now, against this wall, at the Green Valley Community Center, while children trick-or-treated and Mrs. Sylvester traded recipes for blueberry muffins, ignorant to the fervent and erotic moment on the other side.
I stroked him again, pressing my chest to his and lifting on my tiptoes to bite his neck. He shuddered, moaned, his hips instinctively jutting forward and into my palm even as his fingers tightened around my wrist and gently tried to force my withdrawal.
Instead I rubbed my body against his, my thumb circling the head of his erection. With my other hand I brought his fingers back to my panties, pressing them against my center, and nipped at his parted lips.
His breathing was labored, and he moaned again, cursing. His eyes were squeezed shut like he was trying to separate himself from what was happening, like he was trying to strengthen his resolve, like he was losing control.
Abruptly, and with an audible growl, he yanked my hand out of his boxers and turned, walking ten steps further backstage and away from me.
I felt the loss of his heat first, then the loss of his touch. I didn’t try to pursue him because I felt dizzy and disoriented and out of breath. Instead I leaned against the wall at my back, closing my eyes, my body humming and protesting the loss of promised comprehensive sexual fulfillment. I don’t know how long I stood there, gulping air and trying to figure out what had just happened and why it ended.
“Goddammit…” I heard him say, again like a growl. His voice closer than I’d expected.
I opened my eyes and found him standing a few feet away, shirtless, hands on his hips. His chest visibly rose and fell as he breathed. His gaze flickered over my body then to the floor of the stage. Numbly, I adjusted my bra to conceal my breasts and tugged my tiny dress down to my thighs even as I allowed myself to devour his muscled torso, the ridges of his stomach, the plane of his hard chest.
“Jessica, you have got to stop looking at me like that.” He sounded irritated, desperate, catching me off guard and pulling my eyes back to his.
I was surprised to find that his teeth were clenched, his eyes flashing; however, despite the fact that he’d just reprimanded me for how I was looking at him, Beau was giving me an extremely hot look. Regardless of his words and the fact that he’d been the one to end our frantic grope-fest, he appeared torn. He appeared to be struggling.
He appeared to want me very, very badly.
I stared at him mystified as this realization paired with the reality of the last twenty minutes caught up with the here and now. He was watching me as I was watching him. My stare was undoubtedly one of inviting and anxious expectation; whereas his glare oscillated between blatant desire peppered heavily with longing and then fierce frustration.
I waited silently, witnessed his resolve waver, his eyes lose focus as they moved beseechingly between mine. He was still breathing hard.
He took a step forward as though he were pulled, stumbling in a daze, had no choice; words tumbled from his lips in a rush, “Jessica, I’m not who you think I am and—fuck me—but I want you, I’ve always wanted you, and I can’t do this without you knowing—”
“Duane, you dummy. Are you back here?” A man called from my left, and I heard the telltale sound of boots on steps.
My eyes bulged. My jaw dropped. My breath caught in my throat. And my head whipped to the side and toward the newcomer.
It wasn’t that I feared getting caught in a heated moment, not at all. The cause of my intense shock was the sound of the approaching voice.
It was Beau’s voice.
The steps slowed, then stopped, Beau once more calling out to us, “Should I… uh, do you need some privacy?”
My body jolted as understanding punched me in the stomach. I turned my attention back to the man of my dreams.
Except he wasn’t.
My companion was most definitely not Beau Winston—hero, world’s sexiest, nicest guy. No, no, no. This man was not Beau. This man was Duane. And this man had just done fantastic things to my nipples.
As soon as our eyes tangled, Duane winced—almost like I’d sucker punched him—and he turned away. I watched his chest rise and fall with an expansive breath just before he reached for his shirt and pulled it on.
He cleared his throat then called out, “Yeah, a little privacy would be nice.”
“Who’s back there with you? Is it Tina?” Beau’s deep, velvety chuckle met my ears, and my stomach twisted painfully.
I felt like I was going to be sick. My eyes drifted shut, the back of my head hitting the wall behind me. My chest seized. I was so stupid. I wished for a black hole to open up under my feet and swallow me, send me to the other side of the universe.
“None of your business, asshole. Go away,” Duane answered his twin; his voice sounded thick, gravely, and I felt his eyes on me though mine remained firmly closed.
“Alright, alright. Fine. Tell Tina I say hi, but we’re leaving for Bandit Lake in twenty minutes.” Beau's response was paired with the sound of boots descending the stairs.
The first notes of a new song played between my ears; Radiohead’s Creep. Ice entered my veins even as a mortified flush spread up my neck, over my cheeks to the top of my head. Gritting my teeth, I opened my eyes and glared at Duane Winston.
If he thought I’d been giving him hot looks before, then my look now was the polar opposite. It was the equivalent of midnight at the arctic pole during the winter solstice.
His hands were on his hips, and I watched him slowly nibble on his bottom lip, like he was tasting it, like he was tasting me. His eyes were on the floor of the stage, his breath beginning to even, though not yet completely normalized.
I’d never wanted to stab and/or maim someone so much in all my life, therefore I was not surprised when I said the words I was thinking.
“You are such a bastard.”
His eyes lifted then, glitteri
ng sapphires that held just a whisper of bitter amusement buried under another hot look.
“Now she speaks,” he said flatly.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Now you speak.” He raged, accused, sounding so different to my ears. Instead of the friendly and adorable Beau, I heard Duane. Sarcastic, sullen, snappish Duane. “This whole time, since I walked over to you and Claire, you haven’t said a single word. Not when I take you away from your friend, not when I pull you through the cafeteria, not when I bring you here, not when I’ve got my hand in your panties and your tits in my mouth. But now, miraculously you find your voice.”
God, how I loathed him.
“You are such a bastard!” I repeated, louder and a little more violently this time as I pointedly tried to ignore the confusing, swirling, humming desire that still twisted in my belly. I used the lingering passion to fuel my anger.
“Nice to see you again, Jess. I admit, you’ve filled out very nicely,” his eyes blazed a path from my strappy sandals to my breasts, “but you’re just as bratty as ever.”
I charged forward and pushed against his chest. “You lying asshat! I thought you were Beau!”
Before I could claw his eyes out, Duane caught my wrists and walked me backward, against the wall, holding my arms hostage over my head; his body trapped me, keeping me in place. I tried to knee him in the groin, but he deftly sidestepped and pressed his legs against mine to keep them immobile.
“Ah, there now, Princess, we’ll have none of that.”
This unfortunate position meant that his impressive erection was digging into my abdomen and my breasts were flattened against his chest. Again, confusing, swirling, humming desire ignited, and I clenched my jaw to keep from rubbing my torso along his. Our eyes locked. His look was still hot but now tempered with something else, something that felt like contempt flavored with bitterness.
“I hope you wander into a hornets’ nest and die of an acetylcholine overdose,” I spat.
“You say the prettiest things.”