“Manly Movers?”
She lit up and snapped. “Yes! You definitely look like the Manly Mover type. All those muscles.”
I chuckled. “That’s super sexist.”
“Male model. That would have done too.”
I couldn’t stop smiling, and I hated thinking that my dimple was on display. “I guess I should be flattered that you think I’m hot enough to be a male model.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, you definitely are.”
“How about you? What do you do? Where are you from?” I asked, baiting her.
“I’m a tattoo artist,” she offered but didn’t elaborate, and I sensed a story there. “I’ve lived in New York since I graduated high school, but I grew up in Santa Cruz.”
“Me too.”
Her eyes widened, and she smiled. “No way. I went to Loma Vista. What a small world.”
She still hadn’t figured it out, and I found myself grinning like an idiot, wondering how long it would take her to put it together.
“Ever surf?” I asked.
She laughed. “No way. Sharks.”
“That’s what my buddy Phil says too.”
She glanced behind me, twiddling her fingers, presumably at Jude and Phil. “So, you’re a twin, huh?”
I nodded and took a sip of my Maker’s as “Rock the Casbah” kicked off, and everyone around us started bouncing and dancing. “Since birth.”
She laughed. “What a win for the universe that there would be two of you.”
“Double your pleasure, double your fun.”
That caught her off guard, and her bottom lip slipped between her teeth as a flush rose on her cheeks.
Just like that, I had one objective, and it began and ended with her lips.
“Although I should tell you now,” I stepped closer, slipping into her space, and her eyes widened, pupils dilating as she leaned into me, “I don’t like to share.”
The tip of her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, and her eyes were locked on to my mouth.
“Are you thinking about kissing me?” I asked.
She shook her head, though her eyes didn’t stray. “No, I’m thinking about what your dick looks like.”
I laughed from way down deep in my belly, shocked in the best way and turned on in the worst. And as the ocean of people waved around us, she rose up on her tiptoes, grabbed a handful of my T-shirt, and pulled.
I caught the smallest breath — a surprised, satisfied gasp — just before our lips met, and fireworks exploded in my brain. The kiss wasn’t soft or sweet; it was strong and determined, those red, red lips pressing against mine, opening to let me into her hot mouth, her tongue finding mine like she’d been looking for it her whole life.
The surprise left me as quickly as it had hit, and I leaned into her, my free arm winding around her back to press her body against mine. There wasn’t an inch of space between us, and all the while, our mouths worked each other’s in a long dance that left my heart chugging like a freight train in my chest.
She pulled away, her lips swollen and eyes lust-drunk as they met mine and held them while she kicked back her drink and grabbed my hand.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.
And I smirked, breathless. “Your place or mine?”
3
MR. DIDDLE
Bodie
For the record, I had every intention of telling her who I was.
It was just that I was so caught up in her as we hurried back to my apartment that my brain had short-circuited, thinking only from my raging hard-on in my pants. I didn’t have time to consider what it meant or what would happen, and I didn’t have the will to break whatever trance I’d found myself in.
I should have been surprised to have her by my side. I should have been confused about how I’d ended up with Penny’s hand in mine. But wondering felt like the absolute first and last thing I should be doing, so I didn’t. And as I towed her toward my apartment, I was unable to consider anything other than the feeling of her fingers twined in mine and the sight of her smiling up at me, eyes shining and hot.
The loft felt like it was on Mars for as long as it was taking to get there.
I took the opportunity to kiss her as we waited for a stoplight to change, slipping my fingers into her purple hair, closing my lips over hers, and she tipped her chin and gave me her mouth, her tongue, with her hands clutching my shirt, pulling me into her like she was starving and I was a porterhouse.
My keys were in my hand before we hit the elevator — another opportunity to kiss her, my fingertips brushing her bare collarbone, down the curve of her breast, around her waist to her ass. I squeezed, pulling her into my cock, pleased with the whimper against my lips.
We practically ran down the hallway. She panted behind me as I unlocked the door, and we tumbled inside.
I closed it behind her and turned. “Hang on, there’s something I need to—”
She launched herself at me, and I caught her, my back hitting the door with a thump, as she wrapped her arms around my neck. Her feet dangled off the ground, and I held her around the waist, kissing her deep.
In that moment, there was no point in stopping to tell her I was the chubby, nerdy kid with glasses she went to high school with. If she even remembered me.
But I remembered her. I’d imagined kissing her a thousand times, but never in my life had I thought I’d ever get the chance. Until now.
I turned her around, the decision made and my mission singular, and pressed her against the door. She pulled my lip between her teeth, and I growled, moving down her neck, nipping and sucking a trail past her collarbone and across the tattoos marking the soft skin of her breasts.
I wanted her naked. I wanted to see every tattoo, every inch of skin. I wanted her in my mouth. I wanted inside of her.
But first, this.
I dropped to my knees, my fingers working the buttons of her shorts. There were four — two on each side of a panel — and my heart thudded in my chest as I dropped that panel to reveal a rectangle of skin covered in tattoos. Flowers framed two pistols just inside her hip bones, barrels angled in a V, pointing down. I slipped my hands into her shorts and around her naked hips, pushing them down her legs, and as she stepped out of them, my eyes caught on the gold barbells above and below the hood of her clit.
“Oh, fuck, Penny,” I whispered, my hands gripping her hips, my lips already on a track for it.
I closed my eyes and buried my face in the sweetness of her.
She braced herself with her hands on my shoulders, murmuring something I couldn’t make out and didn’t try. My tongue rolled against the bottom ball that rested right over her clit, circling until her nails dug into my skin through my shirt.
When I broke away and glanced up, she was looking down, her eyes half-shut and those red fucking lips hanging open in pleasure.
I smirked and lifted one of her legs, hitching it over my shoulder to spread her open. I trailed my hand down, framing her piercing in the V of two fingers, and when I squeezed gently and shifted in a circle, her eyes rolled back in her head that rested against the door, stretching her long white neck out.
For a second, I wished I could be everywhere at once, licking her neck, sucking her lip, my face in her pussy — everywhere. I wanted to devour her. So I started with what I had at my fingertips.
I moved my hand down to cup her, my fingers shifting against the slick line of her core.
“God, you’re soaking fucking wet.” My voice was ragged, my body coiled.
She whispered a plea, begging me with a single word, “Please.”
I happily obliged, licking my lips, bringing them just close enough to her hood that they touched only infinitesimally, waiting for a stretched out second before I slipped my fingers inside at the exact moment I closed my lips over her clit.
“Oh God,” she whispered, bucking against me, closing around my fingers as they slid in, out, in, reaching for the rough spot inside.
Her fingers slip
ped into my hair and twisted, and mine matched the pace of my tongue.
She clenched around my fingers, pinning me between her thighs as I moved faster, harder, and then …
Then, she came with a cry to a higher power and a burst that I’d be thinking about on my death bed.
As she came down, I slowed, softly kissing and licking her, every flick of my tongue sending another pulse through her pussy around my fingers.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathed. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
I closed my lips, reverently kissing her once more before looking up at her with a smile. “Santa Cruz. Loma Vista, Class of 2009.”
Her eyes went wide, and she blinked. “But there wasn’t anyone named Bodie in my class.”
“There was. You just knew me as Diddle.”
Her mouth hung open, and a shocked laugh escaped her. “No way. No fucking way. Diddle was …”
I moved her leg, putting her foot back on the ground, but she still hung on to my shoulders. “Chubby? Glasses? Into Dungeons and Dragons? With an equally dorky twin? Friends with Rodney Parker since the second grade when he moved in next to us and gave me that stupid nickname?”
I rose, and her hands on my shoulders stayed put until I was standing before her with my hands on her hips, feeling ashamed of myself for not telling her sooner. She stood there, stunned and still blinking at me.
“Are you mad I didn’t tell you?”
At that, a smile spread across her lips. “How could I be mad at a guy who just ate my pussy like it was his last meal?” And she laughed, pulling me down to kiss her, running her tongue across my lips to taste herself.
When she broke away, she looked up at me with the devil in her eyes. “Now, if you don’t fuck me and show me what the rest of you can do, I might actually die.”
I laughed and bent to sling her over my shoulder, smacking her bare ass once I had her where I wanted her.
* * *
Penny
Everything was upside down — his apartment, his ass I was clinging to, my insides after the orgasm I’d just had.
I’d been diddled by Diddle.
I giggled at the thought of that and the fact that I was slung over his bohunk shoulder as he carried me down a hallway and into what I assumed was his bedroom.
He kicked the door closed behind us, and with his big arms wrapped around my legs, he tilted, dumping me on the bed with a bounce.
I watched him walk around the room, clicking on a couple of lights, as I stared at his face, looking for the kid I had known in high school. Rodney was my ex-boyfriend — the last boyfriend. And Diddle — Bodie — and his brother, Dee Dee, were always hanging around Rodney’s band practices or at his house. I couldn’t connect the dots that they were the same person.
When he reached back to grab a handful of his shirt and yank it off, I quit caring.
He had muscles on top of muscles, his arms touched with ink here and there. I itched to get a closer look. But that could wait. There were other things I needed a closer look at first.
I sat up as he walked to the bed, and I moved to the edge, parting my legs. My eyes were on his — his were between my legs.
His cock was right in front of me, tethered by his jeans, though I could see the bulging outline of it like a beast. I bit my lip and unfastened his belt with a clink, unbuttoned his pants with a soft pop, and dropped his zipper with a buzz I felt all the way up to my elbow.
He wasn’t wearing underwear.
The sight of the tight skin so low on his stomach, the V of his hips, the shape of his cock still tucked into his pants — all of it hit me with a shock that hit me straight between the legs, so I reached out and freed him, leaving my fist closed around his base.
The head was the same dusty pink as his luscious lips, and I smiled, my pulse picking up and tongue sweeping my bottom lip, as I leaned forward and placed the silky-soft crown in my mouth.
Bodie hissed, his hands slipping through my hair as I grabbed his ass, pulling him to me as I leaned into him, taking him as deep as I could, which was deep. Perks of not having a gag reflex.
“Fuck, Penny,” he whispered, his fingers tightening, pulling my hair just enough to sting.
I let his base go so I could grab his ass with both hands, guiding him, and he matched the rhythm with his hands in my hair, pushing me farther as my throat relaxed, his cock rock hard in my mouth.
He pulled out with a pop, and before I knew what was going on, his hands were on my face, his lips against mine, his tongue deep in my mouth, like he was trying to taste where he’d been.
“When I come,” he whispered against my lips, “it’s going to be inside you. Now, take your clothes off, Penny.”
My heart thudded against my ribs as he backed away. I didn’t have much on, just the bustier and my wedges, so I stood, smiling as I turned my back to him and folded over at the waist, unbuckling one shoe, then the other. When I peeked at him through my hair, his jeans were hanging off his hips, his hand was rolling a condom onto his cock, and his lips were pinned between his teeth, the line of his jaw hard and his eyes locked between my legs.
I turned around to face him and unhooked the corseted bustier one blessed hook at a time before letting it fall to the floor.
His eyes raked over my body for a long moment before he rushed me, grabbing me around the waist, and we tumbled into bed together as our lips connected. He nestled between my legs, and my arms wound around his neck, my legs around his waist. And when he shifted his hips, I felt the tip of him press against the center of me.
“Oh God, Bodie,” I breathed. “Get your fucking pants off.”
I scrabbled for his jeans that hung half off his ass, sliding them down enough to hook my foot in the crotch to push them the rest of the way until he was blissfully naked and lying on top of me.
He hummed against my neck, teasing me, as he moved down my body to my breasts. For a long minute, he cupped one, closing his lips over my tight nipple, sliding the barbell back and forth with his tongue, the sensation sending a pulse directly to my aching clit.
“Fuck, Bodie. Please.”
He ran his teeth across the tip of my nipple, sending another shock down my spine as he brought his body to mine. And, when he pressed his wide crown against me, my breath froze in my lungs.
He propped himself up, his lids heavy. And when he moved, when he filled me up until he couldn’t get any deeper, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
His hips rolled like he knew my body, rocking against my piercing exactly where I needed, pressing against my clit, hitting me in the perfect spot, inside and out, with every pump of his hips. He stayed propped up, somehow maintaining his cool while I wriggled underneath him like my body wasn’t my own.
With every slow wave of his body, I lost my mind a little more with no idea what to do with myself. The whole thing happened in bursts — his hand on my breast, kneading and toying with my nipple ring; his thighs pushing my legs open wider so he could get deeper; his lips on mine, not that I could kiss him back. Because I felt the orgasm building, the heat of it deep inside me, spreading through me, and when he took my nipple between his teeth and hummed, my body didn’t know what else to do but explode. My heart, my legs, my arms, my pussy — everything flew apart and back together, pulsing and squeezing as I breathed his name on a loop.
I barely registered him coming — I was too high from what he’d done to me — but I could feel his fingers in my hair, the sting as he pulled, exposing my neck, making a space to bury his head as his body rocked, slamming into me with a guttural noise that made what was left of my insides turn into mush.
All I could hear was my panting and the thundering of my heart in my ears, a steady da-dum that matched the feeling of Bodie’s heartbeat against my breasts. I was surrounded by him — his arms bracketing my head, his face in the curve of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair, his body pressing me into the bed — and it was absolutely and utterly glorious.
It was the feeling I lived for, everything I wanted. Who needed love when you could just have the good? The rush, the easy rightness of being together without demand? Love only complicated things, weighing down the good until the high was gone. I never wanted the high to end.
After a little while, he shifted his face to kiss my neck, sending a warm tingle up to my ear and down to my nipple like some sort of sorcery. I smiled out of sheer instinct from the sensation, bending my neck to press my cheek to his head.
“Mmm,” he rumbled.
I clenched around him, still inside of me, and he twitched in answer.
“Seriously, where have you been hiding?” My voice was rough and lazy against his ear.
Bodie kissed my skin again. “LA. I’ve only been here a week.”
He twisted, rolling us onto our sides so he could pull out, leaving me empty. I didn’t like it, not one bit.
“What brought you?” I asked, propping my head on my hand to admire his back as he turned away.
He sat on the edge of the bed and cleaned himself up. “I got laid off.”
“Oh God. I’m sorry.”
He smiled over his shoulder at me. “Don’t be. That just made the move about a hundred times more worthwhile.”
I smirked as he lay back down next to me, mirroring my posture. “So, what did you do?”
“I was a software engineer for a start-up that was bought out. They canned all of us and replaced us with their own people.”
I chuckled, my eyes raking over his gorgeous face, his massive body. “You don’t look like a computer geek.”
He laughed at that. “Maybe not now, but back in my Diddle days, you wouldn’t have thought twice.”
“True. I still can’t get over it. I can’t even see Diddle in there.”
“You sure?”
He leaned a little closer, smiling that brilliant smile of his that forced the sexiest dimple I’d ever seen. I didn’t even know dimples could be sexy.
It was his eyes, electric blue and sparking with intelligence — that was where I saw the boy I used to know.
Just like that, I was taken back years to the boy who would pick up my pen when it rolled off my desk, the boy who would share his notes with me and give me rides home when Rodney had left me somewhere. His braces were gone, and the softness of his face had filled out into hard lines and full lips. I was left wondering just how I’d missed it, how I’d missed him.