That placating and naive thought put a little spring in my Chucks and a smile on my lips.
We could have our last hurrah and let the chips fall where they may. Let fate take its course. Which, in my experience, meant I’d be absolutely over him and ready for whatever was next.
My heart folded in on itself at the fleeting thought that it might be me who’d be gooey over him. But I waved my thoughts away like bumblebees after the honey pot and resolved to text him when I got home.
But when I pulled open the door of the ice cream parlor, I stopped dead in my tracks as a smile spread across my face like peanut butter on toast.
I didn’t have to text him after all because he was standing right in front of me.
His broad back was to me as he waited in line, peering into the cooler at the flavors on display.
I swear to God, my heart did a roundoff back handspring and stuck the landing as I walked up to him.
“If I went binary, you’d be the one for me,” I said as I brushed against his arm, my knuckles grazing his.
He whipped his head around, blue eyes bright. And when they connected with mine, his smile could have lit up midnight.
He let out a laugh. “That was a good one. I didn’t know you spoke nerd.”
I shrugged, smiling. “I don’t. I speak Google.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Getting ice cream. Isn’t it obvious?”
Another laugh as the attendant asked him what he wanted.
Bodie turned to me. “Want to join me?”
“I’d love to.”
“Know what you want?”
“A scoop of salted caramel in a waffle cone, please.”
The attendant nodded and looked to Bodie.
“Mint chocolate, one scoop in a waffle cone too. Thanks.”
We stepped over to the register, and Bodie pulled out his wallet to pay.
“How’ve you been?” he asked, the question tight from hiding another — Why haven’t I heard from you?
But I smiled. He was still interested, and that right there was proof.
“I’ve been good, just working a lot. You?”
“Same. Jude kicked me out since I hadn’t seen daylight in days. It’s too hot to go outside without the promise of the ocean or ice cream.”
We were handed our ice cream cones and turned to find the inside of the shop packed.
I frowned. “Way too hot, but outside we go.”
He followed me to a table for two on the patio, and we took seats across from each other.
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I swear he’d gotten hotter in three days — his eyes were bluer, his hair blonder, his smile brighter as he grinned right back and put on his sunglasses.
Either that or my imagination was a sad, sad substitute for the real thing.
“Highway to Hell” came on the overhead speakers as I took a long lick of my ice cream and moaned.
Pretty sure Bodie was staring at my mouth from behind his shades.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” I started, sticking out my tongue to run my ice cream across it.
He wet his lips and smirked. “Me too.”
When he licked his ice cream and flicked his tongue at the top, I felt warm all over, and it had nothing to do with the ninety-five degree weather.
I crossed my legs, my mouth undeterred as I licked that ice cream like my future depended on it.
“It was so hard not to text you.” I closed my lips over the top of my scoop.
“How hard?” he teased me back.
I just kept watching that creamy ice cream on his tongue, squeezing my thighs together like a goddamn vise.
“It just kept getting harder and harder with no hope of release. Cruel really.”
“So why didn’t you text me?”
I shrugged, playing coy. “Didn’t want you to think I was easy.”
We both laughed for a minute.
“So how much did you think of me?” I asked innocently, fondling my cone.
“Oh, only about every minute of every day.” His feet sandwiched my foot on the ground and squeezed, shifting his sneakers up and down in slow, opposite strokes, just an inch or two’s distance.
Somehow, it drove me completely insane.
“You?” he asked.
“A time or two. Once when I was in the shower.”
“Mmm,” he hummed with his cone in his mouth.
“Another time when I was lying in bed, wishing you’d texted me. I thought about you a lot that night. Three times. Every time, I would think I’d gotten you out of my head and whoops — you’d pop up again.”
“Well, I can’t help popping up. Not when I remember you eat ice cream like that.”
I smiled and dragged my tongue around the diameter of the scoop.
“All that thinking and no doing,” he said. “I really feel like we should be doing a whole lot more than we have the last couple of days.”
I nodded. “Why didn’t you text me?” I tried to keep the uncertainty out of my voice.
If he’d heard it, he didn’t react.
He shrugged and echoed my words, “Didn’t want you to think I was easy.”
I laughed. “Maybe I like easy.”
“Well then, you’re in luck. Because when it comes to you, I’m so easy.”
Bodie’s elbows were on the table and so were mine, the two of us leaning toward each other.
“What do you say we get out of here?” he asked.
And I smiled back. “I thought you’d never fucking ask.”
7
COMMANDO
Bodie
We hurried down the sidewalk, still holding our ice cream, our free hands threaded together, fingers shifting and stroking each other’s. Only Penny could make holding hands feel dirty.
She lived just around the corner — we didn’t even have to stop for a light — and when we reached the building, we ran up the stairs, both of us laughing, bursting into her quiet apartment.
I closed the door, and our laughter faded to soft smiles as we watched each other, breathless, from across the room.
Penny took off her sunglasses and set them on the kitchen table, licking her ice cream as she kicked off her shoes.
I kicked mine off too, my eyes on her.
She wasn’t wearing a bra — her nipples were hard, the barbells of her piercing straining against the fabric of her T-shirt as my cock fought the confines of my shorts.
Her fingers trailed down her sternum, and my eyes locked on them as they hooked under the hem of her shirt. And then she pulled, dragging it up until it rested just above her breasts, exposing her tattooed torso to me. Large etched and watercolor flowers climbed up her ribs, stopping under the curves of her breasts, meeting between them in a point, like a corset, and the artwork above framed them with perfect symmetry.
She stuck out her tongue and put it to the scoop, spinning the cone to coat it, but she didn’t swallow. She left her tongue out, dripping creamy ice cream down her chin as she took her cone and dragged the scoop between her breasts and down to her belly button.
I tossed my ice cream toward the sink without looking, thankful to hear the thunk as it hit its target. There was no way in hell anything was going to stop me from getting to her.
I rushed her, closing my mouth over hers, sucking the sticky sweetness from her tongue as she moaned. It had been too long without her, too long since this. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and I stood, lifting her off the ground, her body pressed against mine like I’d been dreaming of.
“Bedroom?” I panted.
She jerked her head toward a room behind her. “That way,” she breathed.
“Don’t you dare leave that ice cream.”
She smiled and kissed me, wrapping her legs around my waist as I blindly carried her through the apartment, bumping into furniture along the way.
I lowered her onto the bed and moved down her body, sucking on her skin where she??
?d left a trail to the promised land, cupping her breast in my hand.
I missed you, I thought, saying nothing with words and everything with the long caress of my tongue on her body.
When I reached her shorts, I looked up while I unfastened them — she lay there, head propped up by pillows, watching me as she ate the fucking ice cream cone that might be the death of me.
I pulled off her shorts and threw them before gripping her naked hips, my thumbs stroking that soft skin in the crease of her thighs.
“Do you ever wear panties?” I asked.
“Never. Can’t stand them.”
I laughed and pulled my shirt off, tossing it, and then my shorts, tossing them too.
One of her brows rose. “Do you?”
I smirked as I climbed up to meet her, nestling between her legs. “Nope, I never wear panties either.”
A little laugh passed her lips before I kissed her silent.
Her shirt was still hitched up to her collarbone, giving me all the room to touch her that I wanted, so I did, my lips against hers as I squeezed and cupped, thumbed and twisted until her hips were rocking under me.
Her arms were around my neck, the ice cream dripping down my back from the cone still in her hand, and after a minute, she broke away and smiled.
“Roll over.”
I smiled back and did what she’d asked, stretching out in her bed, vulnerable, waiting for her to do what she wanted.
Our eyes were locked as she straddled me, though she didn’t lower her hips — she hovered above me, and I looked over every inch of her body that I could see.
She was a work of art — pale, pale skin covered in ink, purple hair and piercings, winged black liner that made her look like a cat, full, pouty lips that parted like she wanted to taste the world, starting with me.
Penny ran that ice cream across her collarbone — I touched her thighs: I had to touch her — and down her breast to circle her nipple. Then around the curve of her breast — God, I was so rock hard it hurt — down her ribs, and then lower still, dragging it over the hood of her clit.
I wanted to move, wanted to lick every part of her until she came, but before I could, she took that ice cream and dragged it up the length of my cock.
I hissed, the pleasure of touch and the icy-cold shock a mixture of sensations I hadn’t been ready for.
She brought the cone up to her smiling lips and bit off a chunk before hinging at the waist, angling for my cock. And without any more pretense, she wrapped her hand around my base, lifted me up, and slid me into her mouth, dropping down until I hit the back of her throat.
I drew a shuddering breath with one hand on her shoulder and the other cupping the back of her head as her hot tongue dragged a lump of freezing cold ice cream up my shaft and down. And then, she bobbed her head again, sliding back down.
My fingers tightened in her hair — I wanted to slam into her mouth until I came, but I closed my eyes, trying to breathe.
Closing my eyes made it worse.
Over and over again she took the length of me, humming and sighing through her nose, eyes closed, long lashes against her cheeks, purple hair in my hands, her body rolling and shifting like its only mission was to make me come.
My cock flexed in her mouth, and I squeezed her shoulder in warning.
She let me go and crawled up my body — apparently she didn’t want me to come yet either.
I sat up to meet her halfway, and my hands holding her jaw, tilting her head so I could get deep into her mouth, wanting to take her. I twisted to guide her onto her back, and when I broke away, her mouth hung open like it didn’t know I was gone.
I reached off the edge of the bed for my jeans and growled, “Take your shirt off, Penny.”
She opened her eyes lazily, ice cream cone somehow still in her hand, and half-reached for the nightstand. “Condom,” she murmured.
“I’ve got it. Now take your fucking shirt off.” I ripped the packet open and slipped that fucker on so fast it was a blur of hands and motion before she was shirtless, the ice cream had disappeared, and I was between her legs again, resting at the tip of her heat for a moment as we stared at each other.
“Oh God. Do it,” she begged.
I flexed with a moan, and her head lolled to the side. I pulled out and flexed again, slipping in even easier as my lips found trails of ice cream on her body and licked her clean. Then again my hips pumped, and I hit the end with a jolt that ran up her thigh, jerking her leg. I grabbed that leg and pushed it open wider, spreading my own legs to get low, and when I slammed into her, her breasts jostled.
She gasped, head kicking back into the bed.
“God, Penny,” I huffed. “I could fuck you all day. All night.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Do that thing—” Another gasp as I ground against her piercing. “Oh, fuck. Yes, please. That. Oh God. That.”
I didn’t stop the motion once I knew what she wanted, only pressed harder, moved faster until her brows drew together, her lips parting, and she came all around me like thunder.
That face, her face. I couldn’t stop myself, no matter how bad I wanted to. Three pumps of my hips and I came with her hands in my hair and my name on her lips like a prayer.
When I pressed my forehead to hers, when she trailed the tip of her small nose up the bridge of mine, I caught a glimpse of just how deep the deep end was.
And I had no idea how to swim.
* * *
Penny
It took me all of about two minutes to come down from my orgasm with Bodie in my arms and the glorious weight of him pressing me into the bed before I freaked the fuck out.
I liked him.
I wasn’t supposed to like him.
And now it had to end. All the fun. All the happy. All the Bodie. All that glorious D and laughing and excitement. Over. Poof. My three dates were up, and now my carriage was gonna turn into a pumpkin.
I had to walk away.
I didn’t want to walk away.
Fuck.
My heart hammered, and I clawed my way through my thoughts. How could I tell him it was over? Did I even have to? Could I let him leave and just let the whole thing die?
I told myself I could. I also told myself I was a liar.
He propped himself up, holding my face in his hands as he smiled at me, and my insides trembled and fluttered in response. I was smiling back, betraying my freak-out so easily, I almost got whiplash. Or dicklash.
What is happening to me?
“I’m glad to see you, Penny,” he said, his eyes on my lips.
“I can tell.”
He kissed my nose and rolled away.
I sat up in bed and leaned against my pillows, pulling the covers over me as I watched him walk out of my room, stark naked. He turned the wrong way for the bathroom, and I forgot all about my anxiety, laughing when he passed the doorway again, pointing in the other direction.
God, I was in the deepest of shit. All the way up the creek of shit with no paddle.
Screwed.
Fucked.
And only partly in the literal sense.
I sat there, panicking over what to do. I should have been ready to tell him goodbye, but I wasn’t. But I had to. It had to end.
Didn’t it?
Maybe if he bugged out on me, everything would be easy. I would probably follow the old pattern, and I’d be turned off so fast, I could wave sayonara without question. There was still time — his dick was barely out of me, which was something I was really, really missing already.
But then again, maybe he won’t bug out at all. Maybe he doesn’t actually like you, a little voice in my head said.
I’d named the owner of that voice Peggy about eight years ago (thanks, Rodney!). My psychotic alter ego smoked Pall Malls and whispered around her cigarette, shuffling around me in her bathrobe with rollers in her hair, reminding me that I was a good lay and that was it. Because that was what I was good for — sex and tattoos. The good-time girl.
He’s probably got another girl or two in his rotation, one who’s less of a mess. Once he leaves, I doubt he’ll ever speak to you again, she said, which was a point that should have given me a modicum of comfort but gave me absolutely none.
That sick feeling in my stomach was back. I fucking hated Peggy. She ashed on my soul and existed solely to make me miserable.
Peggy was why I wasn’t allowed to have feelings.
I stole her imaginary cigarette and put it out, which shut her up long enough to light another one. It was the only thing that worked to keep her quiet — making sure she was stocked with beer and cigarettes and all the dick she could eat.
And when she was finally quiet, I wondered if I would be the one to bug out.
That thought sent my heart chugging so fast, it hurt.
He came back a second later with a cool, wet washcloth for me, which he handed over with a smile that panicked me even more.
Bodie made his way around the room, gathering his clothes — first his shorts, which I mourned as his ass disappeared into them, and then his shirt, another sorrowful moment of my day. And then he climbed back in bed with me, flopping down on his stomach at my side.
“I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for him to profess his undying love or pledge to cherish me forever or admit that banging me was nice but he really thought we should call it.
But instead, he smirked. “Do me a favor and hit me up sooner rather than later next time, okay?”
I laughed, surprised and relieved and filled with traitorous hope. “That’s it?”
His smile fell. “What do you mean?”
“I mean …” I paused, not sure what to say. “You don’t want … more?”
His brow quirked. “You said no strings. This is what no strings looks like. Penny, you don’t owe me anything.”
I watched him, unsure if it was a trap. “You really mean that?”
He laughed at that. “Yeah, I really mean that.” He crawled half into my lap, his arms on either side of my thighs as he looked up at me. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be hard. It can be easy. And I’m around. Whenever.”