I Found You (12 page)

He wasn’t even trying to grope me, not at all, just kissing me. I wanted so much more.

We were still dancing, slowly rocking against each other, back and forth, to the rhythm of the music.

Lindy?
I couldn’t think about her. I couldn’t stop. I was too caught up in this. My craving was beyond decision. I’d stepped across a line, and I was incapable of stepping back. I’d never been good at not going too far.

I shut Lindy out of my mind. If he wasn’t thinking of her, I didn’t want to.

I was messed up. Sick. That’s what I was. I’d learned to accept this, it was the rest of the world that couldn’t. But Jason didn’t seem to care.

The music changed to a faster beat and he broke the kiss. Our gazes met again, and I could see the questions in his eyes; neither of us really knew what we’d just done. But we’d done it now, there was no going back. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to go forward.

“Let’s get a drink!” he said.

We were both hot and sweaty. I just wanted to be without clothes.

“A Jägerbomb?” I queried when we reached the bar.

“No, I’ve had enough alcohol. I just want a soda!”

“Lightweight…”

“Maybe I am, but I’m just really thirsty!”

So am I, for you
…

The same woman who’d served us earlier came over. Jason leaned over the bar again, shouting across it so she could hear. “Just a soda and…” He looked at me.

I could keep drinking. I would usually keep drinking. But… things were different tonight. I felt different. I didn’t want to drink anymore. I felt almost sober in a crazy way. “I’ll stick with you and have a soda too!”

He smiled and then looked at the woman. “Two sodas then!”

Her eyebrows lifted and then she turned to pour them.

He took out his wallet.

I put my hand over his instantly. “It’s my round… Dutch remember!”

“Two sodas won’t kill me! We can call it quits now!”

Right after I’d kissed him? It was changing things already. But I didn’t care––just so long as he kissed me again.

He handed me my drink. “Let’s find a booth and sit for a bit!”

“Okay!”

It was strange, I’d never let anyone lead quite like this before. Demand, order, boss me about when they hadn’t got their way and it had got as far as an argument, yes. Lead, with me following? No.

Most people were dancing now and so we found an empty semi-circle of cushioned seating and slid in around the central table.

He gripped my hand and threaded his fingers through mine as he drank his soda, watching me.

I saw his Adam’s apple moving. I even found that sexy. I just wanted to be all over him.

I sipped my soda and took a breath.

He didn’t say anything. It was like he didn’t want to think of reality either.

I stared at him, as he looked at me.

I couldn’t breathe easily, my pulse was too quick as my heart raced, waiting to know what would happen next. He was nice. I didn’t want to scare him away.

He put his empty glass down on the table, and then his fingers touched my shoulder, before lifting to rub my hair.

I sipped the soda again.

He watched me.

I sighed as his thumb brushed my jaw, and then sipped my soda again.

“Rach?”

“Yeah?”

“Either hurry up and finish that soda or put the thing down.”

I put it down and immediately his hand moved to the back of my neck and brought my mouth against his.

He was as hungry for me as I was for him, I could feel it. It was going to happen tonight, I knew. I was going let it happen, and he was going to let it happen.

Rach kissed as she did everything else, full on, and there was no theatre to it, it was just what it was.

I’d never kissed anyone but Lindy before.

Rach would laugh her head off if she knew that.

But I didn’t want to think of Lindy. Lindy and I were over. We should have been over long ago. I put her out of my mind completely. I was thinking about Rachel Shears tonight, slightly battered by her secret history, and full of hidden insecurity, and full of
life
. Rachel Shears.

She was leaning into me as I kissed her, and she kissed me like she was trying to get inside me. I wanted to be inside her, but that would be too far, too soon. It had taken Lindy and I four years to get that far.
Forget Lindy. ‘You’re too nice, Jason Macinlay.
’ I heard Rach’s voice in my head, at the thought. Then I forgot thought and just enjoyed.

She tasted of the soda, and she smelt of her. I’d grown used to her scent after sharing a bed with her for over a week and half. Her body felt good beneath the thin jersey dress.

I ran my hand over her thigh and up her side and across her back, and then began the journey again.

Her fingers ran over my hair, brushing it upward then sweeping it down.

My temperature was soaring. I was going to explode at some point if we carried on.

Maybe I’d waited with Lindy, but I wasn’t an untried sixteen year-old anymore. I broke the kiss. “Rach, maybe we ought to stop this.”

“No, I definitely don’t think we oughta stop this.”

She shifted, rising and then straddling my thighs. Then her fingers were bracing my jaw and her lips were on mine again.

My hands rested on her thighs.

God. She was so hot. I was struggling to keep up with her––well, that was becoming normal.

Her tongue slipped into my mouth and her hips moved over my groin, as the music in the club dropped tempo again. I was rock hard for her and she knew what she was doing. I didn’t doubt it at all.

Rach
.

Her tight red dress had slipped right up her thighs. Because of how she was sitting, it barely covered her legs at all.

The first night I’d found her, she’d been commando. Was she wearing it tonight? My head burned to know.

Rach
.

I slid my hands up, and touched the top of her stockings. They were stay-ups, she hadn’t worn a garter.

All sorts of images rattled through my head as my fingers reached higher, over soft, bare skin and slid up and under her dress.

No panties.

No fucking panties.

Rachel
.

She was kissing me for all she was worth, and her hips were moving, and God,
Rach
.

My hands lifted to her head, bracing her scalp through her hair, to stop them shifting to other places where they really shouldn’t be. But she must know how turned on I was, she was straddling a very obvious indication of it.

I felt like I was being possessed. I’d thought sex was always meant to be the other way about.

We were kissing for at least another two songs before she finally came up for air. I couldn’t see the green of her eyes in the dark club, only that they shone with physical need.

I wanted her real bad. I mean it had been weeks since… and… well… She was just so hot.

“Rach?”

“I need to use the ladies room and I want some of my drink.”

I nodded, feeling like I’d been hit by a tornado or something.

She didn’t move off my lap yet, but turned back and collected her glass from the table, then took a couple of swallows from it.

Then she climbed off me and set it back down. She was just going to disappear, but then she stopped suddenly and turned back.

“Can I have my money?” I gave her the little money purse she’d given me to put in my pocket. “Do you want another soda?” I shook my head. “Don’t go anywhere will you? I won’t be long…”

Her face looked as though she thought I might walk out on her.

“I’m not going anywhere, Rach. I’ll be right here.”

She smiled and nodded, and then hurried off, looking sexy as hell. Her dress was so tight it clung to every contour of her body. Her fingers pulled it down a little more as she moved. I really liked her. I couldn’t deny it any longer. I really, really liked her.

I leaned forward and picked up her drink, then sipped it, hoping to cool my desire a little.

We were going to be sharing a bed tonight. Perhaps I ought to sleep on the living room floor.

I sipped her soda again watching the direction she’d gone off in.

My heart was racing and I didn’t feel drunk at all. I couldn’t blame this on the alcohol, she was right, I’d danced myself sober. That first kiss had been by choice and those that came after were from necessity. In my head I wasn’t with Lindy anymore; she just didn’t know yet.

Dammit, I shouldn’t have thought of Lindy. I was going to have to call her as soon as I woke up tomorrow and end it. I couldn’t do it now it was too late and it wouldn’t be fair. Tomorrow. Her parents would be in bed now. Tomorrow. She’d have them to console her. Or Mom. I knew Mom would be pissed with me. Shit, it was after midnight, tomorrow was today. Later then.

Rachel reappeared. She was weaving through the people. Her red dress made her stand out, but she would have stood out whether she was wearing a red dress or not; she was just stunning compared to every other woman around her.

She smiled and lifted a fisted hand in the air when she got nearer.

A sharp pain twisted in my midriff.

“I scored!” she cried, laughing, when she was close. Then she climbed a step up to the booth before hitching up her dress and moving to straddle me. “I got it…”

I frowned, not understanding. Then she began flicking something through her fingers like you would a coin.

She was on my lap, her thighs bracing mine, and her breasts hovering at my chin level, wobbling a little as she moved, and her hand was at about my eye level, but too close for me to focus.

“What?” I caught her wrist and stilled her hand.

“A condom.” She said it at the same moment I saw it, and something hot and hard and hungry flared inside me.

“Rach, are you serious?”

“Course I’m serious.” Her fingers touched my groin. “You know you want to.”

I did want to. “But––”

Her fingers covered my lips. “No strings, just the perfect end to a perfect night.”

My heart was racing in an erratic stutter. It wasn’t going to be a one-night stand though. We lived together. “Rach, this isn’t a drunk thing is it?”

“This is just a thing, thing. Come on, let’s just do it.”

“You’re crazy mad, you know that.”

“Yeah.”

I wasn’t sure if she was drunk still.

Her fingers dropped to the buttons of my pants.

“What? Not here, Rach…” Like the entire night, this was travelling at a pace I wasn’t used to.

She pouted for an instant and then her hand gripped mine and she was smiling again. “Then we’re gonna get our coats and go.”

Thump, thump, thump, all I could hear and feel was my heart pounding, but I was following before I knew it.

Chapter Eight

My hand gripped his, and Jason threaded our fingers again, like I really belonged to him, like this was real.

“Let’s find a cab,” he said.

“Not yet…” I didn’t want to do it back at the apartment. My blood strove for recklessness and urgency, and madness. This was my disease, this addiction, this need… this abandon. “Come on.” I pulled him along the street.

“To where?”

“To anywhere!”

Now the cold air hit me, I felt tipsy again. We were swaying at times. We walked a block away from the club before I saw a narrow alley we could use without too much danger. I didn’t really want to get caught. I just wanted to feel like we
might
get caught.

I pulled him around the corner and into the darkness of the alley, then pressed back against the wall, my fingers reaching for his nape and pulling him to me. “
Here
.”

“Rach, this is crazy, if the cops…” His eyes were wide, dark and deep like plunge pools.

“I’m daring you.”

“You are seriously mad.”

I didn’t let him say anymore, I kissed him hard and pressed the length of my body against him. I wanted him. I didn’t want him to deny me. I was in the lead again, my arms about his neck.

He responded, kissing me back. But he wasn’t moving fast enough. He wasn’t going any further. He was holding back.

I dropped my arms, still kissing him, and pulled his shirt out of his waistband, beneath his leather jacket, and then my hand touched his skin beneath it.

He broke the kiss, “Rach, it’s freezing and I think we ought to think this through.” His breath was steaming in the cold air.

“Too much thinking is bad for you, didn’t you know?” My breath steamed too, but I was warm as his body covered me against the cold. “Do it, Jason…” My words were half urging, half plea. I didn’t want him to say no.

I gripped his crotch. He’d been aroused in the club. He was aroused now.

“Rach…” My name sounded half question, half plea.

I knew he wanted to. “Jason.”

We were kissing again, as a cop car whizzed past the end of the alley, sirens blaring, and we heard people laughing. But we were in the dark and far enough up the alley so no one would see us unless they came into it and looked.

My fingers rubbed him as he kissed me, and then I felt and heard his sigh pour into my mouth, through parted lips, before he deftly slipped the buttons of my coat open.

His hand was inside my coat and covering my breast in a moment, while his other stayed braced against the wall on the street side.

It was like he was shielding me, protecting me. No one had ever protected me before. It only made me hornier.

I reached for the condom in my pocket and broke the kiss, grinning at him, though we could barely see each other in the dark, then used my teeth to rip it open.

His hand slipped below my breast as he watched me. “Rach, are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Why, aren’t you?”

I’d never been rejected by a guy in my life. My heart was racing with the rush of fear and hope.

He breathed heavily and it steamed in the night air. “I want to, yes, but here, Rach?”

“Here and now. Live a little wild, Jason. You’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done tonight.” My fingers ran over the back of his hair, brushing across it as I kissed him again, while my other hand held the open condom.