Quarterback Bait (12 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Landon

The older sister was in a far less charitable mood. She had
a big, rambling two story full of cool artsy shit—I stepped into her foyer and
almost hit my head on a hanging lamp. Though half of me was still expecting
nods of recognition from every Austin resident I happened to encounter, as soon
as I got to Doll's neck of the woods I realized I was no longer in
game-watching country. From the looks of it, Carson didn't even have cable. And
one look at her rigid face in the doorway told me that now was not the time to
dole out autographs.

“How's Anya?” I asked.

Carson cut me with a stare, but forced herself to reply like
a human. “She's resting comfortably. Couldn't get any painkillers because of
the preexisting condition, but I've made her some Kava tea and that seemed to
do the trick.”

“So she's not in pain anymore?”

“Not any physical pain, no.”

Walked into that one, Landon.

We paced around the entranceway for what felt like another
ten minutes, her sizing me up like I was a potentially dangerous stray. Which
was her prerogative. She had every right to be suspicious. I was a shit-stain.
I'd hidden an important truth from a trio of innocent women. I'd hidden an
important truth, I realized, from myself.

“Landon,” Carson said slowly, stopping her pacing. “We're
thinking about pressing charges. She doesn't want to, but I do.”

I assumed the
she
indicated the sleeping Anya. And
possibly Ash, who sure was taking forever and a half to get ready. I stopped
pacing, too, and took a look at Carson. She seemed the faintest bit...sorry.

I'd been trying to keep myself far, far away from Memory
Lane, but it was impossible to stay fully impartial. I didn't know exactly how
many nights had resolved with ten-year-old me hiding my mother from my father,
but it felt like a dozen at least. He'd always apologized in the mornings.
Sometimes, he'd cried. I would watch them make up and feel the deepest
confusion. On one hand, I had hated the man who could give my mother bruises,
who could come at me with an alien fury in his eyes, like I was the enemy and
he was still at war. On the other, there was nothing I could do—he was still my
Pop. Plus, it'd been so long ago. All of that had stopped when I was in middle
school, even if the fear lingered.

I knew the Pastor wouldn't do well in prison. But perhaps he
belonged in some kind of...other place. Some place where they could help an old
soldier get back to himself. Some place where he couldn't hurt anyone. I didn't
have to think about it too hard, and I didn't have to confuse it with love. I
simply nodded.

“If that's what you need to do, I'll support you,” I said. This
seemed to mollify the pacing she-tiger. Her eyes softened.

“Look, this is a really shitty situation. We're going to
think long and hard, before...”

“I understand.”

“And if you're willing to cooperate, then...”

“I understand.”

“He understands,” piped up a voice I recognized. I couldn't
help but smile, though I knew it was inappropriate. Ash hovered at the top of
the rickety staircase, looking exhausted, but somehow lovely as ever. She wore
ratty jeans and a snug band t-shirt (The Pixies), and her shorter hair fell
across her face in lanky waves. It looked good without the highlights, I
thought. Not that I super cared either way.

“We won't be out late,” Ash told her sister, and I was
reminded for a moment of what television described as typical-family-behavior.
It felt like I was about to take my stepsister out for an all-American date, to
the drive-in or something. The QB gets the girl...

Ash jerked me out of my reverie by tugging on my wrist. The
door slammed behind us, and suddenly it was just me and her sharing the moist
Texas air with a trillion chirping cicadas and the kind of humidity that could
make a hummingbird slow.

“So where are we going?” I started—but Ash was already
tearing towards shotgun, a feverish look in her eyes. I loped over to the
driver side of the Saab, trying to keep the highly inappropriate memory of the
last time we'd been in this car together at bay.

“You're a senior and a minor celebrity. Don't tell me you
don't know a bar that'll serve me.” Ash turned her attention to the radio
dials, just as I eased off the brake. “And don't forget—I'm one part legal
now.” Some particularly angry Green Day tune seemed to sate her. I watched her
mouth along to the lyrics as we pulled back toward school, where—as it happened—I
had managed to think of a place or two that would serve us.

“You're a little young for these guys, aren't you?” I asked,
eyebrow cocked at the radio. Ash fixed me with a sullen stare. And I couldn't
help it. I knew the situation was serious, the stakes incredibly high—but
something about that chick made me crack a smile. We drove on in a rock n' roll
silence.

But soon, Green Day gave way to commercials. Ash sighed. She
knocked her pretty head gently against the headrests. “What I don't understand
is, how could anybody do that to someone they love?” she asked suddenly, her
voice thick with emotion. Her tone reminded me that she was a teenager, and
that there were still some things of which she remained innocent. The things
people would do to one another, under guise of love. I didn't have the heart to
offer my own cynical explanation, so I just shrugged.

“I don't understand it, either.”

“Like—you love someone, you should want them to be safe and
happy at every second, right? When you're not with them, even. You should be
taking seconds out of every minute to wish them the best. Even when they make
you mad or make you crazy, the right kind of love should be enough.” Her eyes
were boiling again. Tears were hovering on the tips of her long lashes.

“It should be,” I said, fighting to keep my attention on the
clogged roads. We were hitting some post-game traffic.

“She's a good person.”

I could feel her eyes on me. Was
this some test? Was she waiting for me to rush to the Pastor's defense? I
waited to feel the love she spoke of for my father, the unconditional concern.
But I didn't even know where my old man was. I'd called him once from the car
on the way over, and hadn't even left a voicemail. My fury with him remained
blinding.

“Some people learned to show their love in kind of...
crooked ways,” I finally ventured. No sooner were the words out than I started
to feel anxious. Was it possible that I was this kind of person? Had the Pastor
passed his wickedness onto me? I hadn't loved Zora the right way. It wasn’t a
stretch that I would always have this problem with women, that I would always
seek out the people who I could never love the right way, the people who could
never truly love me back.

“Turn here,” Ash said, in sotto. We were coming up on the
nightlife-y part of town, but she pointed toward a cul-de-sac loop that veered
back toward residential Austin. I was confused, but didn't question. All I
wanted was for her to feel safe.

“Will you stop the car a second?” she asked, as soon as I'd
eased off the gas in front of a pretty green clapboard house. I'd never been in
this part of town before, but I did as the lady asked and slid the emergency
brake into position. We sat in silence as the city sounds pressed in around us.
The clicking of the car ceded back into the anxious whirring of cicadas.

I turned to Ash, who had closed her eyes and was now rolling
her head back and forth across the headrest. I smiled. She was beautiful. The
best part of her beauty was how un-self conscious it was. Unlike Zora, even
unlike Yvette—Ash walked around like she didn't give a fuck who was looking at
her. And as a result, it could have been everybody. I was grateful, in that
moment, that it was me.

“What can I do?” I whispered after a beat, half-hating how
wormy I sounded. But I was in a position to worm. She had reason enough to
never give me the time of day again, and yet here she was, waxing poetical in
my Saab. Her eyes slid open. They were bleary and desperate and warm.

Without thinking, I lurched towards her, faster than I could
even unbuckle my seatbelt. I held her face in my palms, tilted it gently up so
some stray moonlight could fall on her pale cheeks. I held her for a moment
like that, heart beating like a jackrabbit's, until she nodded. Very slightly,
but just enough so I could feel her certainty. I tentatively slid my thumb over
her warm, slightly dewy lips. Her mouth parted, as if to welcome me. Then her
neck seemed to collapse forward, and we fell into one another.

I remembered kissing her, on that happier day in our past. I
remembered the shape and feel of her bow-like mouth. Her tongue was anxious and
grasping, it wouldn't let me go. I tilted my own face so I could wriggle deeper
inside her. The car made shifting sounds as we moved together, straining
against our seat-belts. I wanted to break away the strap so I could climb on
top of her, but I was worried that if I pulled away—if even for a second—when I
came back she'd have changed her mind.

But minutes passed, and she didn't seem interested in
changing her mind. Her skinny, long fingers wormed their way toward my torso.
She seemed to stutter on my muscles, and made carving gestures around them as I
flexed for her benefit. I wanted to be strong for her, I wanted to be the
reliable, sturdy guy. I also wanted to fuck her, good and long, soft and hard,
for as long as it took. Until she quivered with pleasure. Until her beautiful
mind was stripped of anything that could cause it pain.

Chapter Twenty

Ash

Even before we'd moved to the backseat, his cock was rigid
in his pants. I brushed against it by accident, while tugging on the fabric of
his flimsy t-shirt. I found I wanted to touch this taut expanse of a football
player, this body so contra to Nate's. I wanted to sink into the arms of
someone strong enough to hold me up.

He continued to kiss me, fingers moving through my hair. He
was gentle. I waited for the moment to reach a natural conclusion, or for some
reason to seize us both and pull us apart—but I couldn't stop. I was hungry for
him. I kissed harder. When I came up for a brief lungful of air, his eyes were
pinned on me with such an intensity I might have swooned right then. I directed
my mouth to his neck, and began to suck. He'd liked that, before. This time, I
heard him whimper with want before digging lightly into my scalp, drawing me
further in.

“Doll,” he gasped, chest rising and falling fast. “Oh fuck,
Doll. You're so fucking amazing. You've got me so fucking hard.” Then, as if to
prove this last statement, he lifted my hand from his coiled bicep and placed
it on the bulge of his jeans. I opened my eyes and read a question in his gaze,
an arched interest in taking things slow. A part of me wanted to be the
reasonable girl, the no-we-can't-you're-my-stepbrother-girl—but I couldn't. I
nodded my head firmly:
yes.

Then my eyes swiveled towards the beast between his legs. My
own stomach was rising and falling with a desire I'd never experienced before.
I was feeling what I'd only read about, or seen in movies. A pure,
unadulterated thirst for another body.

“Wait,” Landon was saying, struggling to get the words out
as I stroked his cock through his jeans. “Wait. Fuck. This... isn't right.”

But I didn't feel like talking anymore. So I leaned forward,
and took his earlobe very gently between my teeth. I moved my hand from his
crotch and felt him strain in my absence. Then, I unbuckled my seatbelt.

“I don't want to take advantage,” Landon
continued—admirable, given his state. I was just about to lift my dizzy hips
from the bucket seat when his last words seemed to reverberate in the car.
Take
advantage, take advantage, take advantage...
I paused.

“You don't want to?” I asked him. “What about all that shit
you said before? On the roof?
When I fuck you,
blah blah blah?” A
strange silence fell. Then:

“I've seen
St. Elmo's Fire.
I know this
whole...thing.” Landon's eyebrows scrunched together on his forehead, and for a
moment he looked like an adorable basset hound puppy.

“I've never seen
St. Elmo's Fire,
”—I kissed him—“So,
I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Right. You'd be too young.”

“Oh, can we fucking cool it with
that
excuse? We're
four years apart, plus I'm way smarter than you.”
This seemed to slough off some of his reserve. The smile started at the corner
of his mouth, just a crooked little line appearing. For a stupid, girly second,
I had to look away—he was just too damn cute.

“You had a terrible day,” Landon continued. I met his gaze
again. His kind, warm gaze. In that second, I didn't think about my mom, or my
sister, or the Pastor, or school, or Mr. Dempsey, or the past...there was just
this humid car. There was just this man, before me.

I pressed my head towards his like all the bones had been
magically removed from my neck, and he met me in kind. His mouth opened wider
this time, and I found no resistance—just thirst. His fingers found the back of
my scalp again, and he grappled with my tangling hair. The humidity was getting
to me, in more ways than one.

Our breath co-mingled, becoming a hot cloud between our
faces. It got hard to breathe, but I didn't care. His hands were on the sides
of my face, the damp skin of my neck, just barely grazing my breasts through my
shirt—still a little tentative, but secretly gunning for further contact. I
kissed him deeply. I kissed him in a way I prayed would tell him:
yes, yes,
a thousand times yes.

His hands had found the bottom of my shirt before long, but
he moved too slow for me. I brought my sweaty fingers to my sides and tugged,
sharply—so sharply that my hair was briefly caught in a web of my clothes. This
made Landon laugh. But no sooner had his face broken into another endearing
smile than his eyes turned rapt at the sight of my décolletage. So long
un-admired, so long a burden to me—sensing his eyes on my swollen rack sent me.
I leaned back, and my hair fell against my shoulders. Landon seized the
opportunity and buried his lips in my skin.

It felt incredibly right, to be fulfilling a pact we'd made
months and months before. He knew exactly what to do. His mouth was soft and
sweet on my bare skin, finding the sensitive hollows fast. I pressed against
him. He grabbed my back, nails digging into my sticky surface.

“Landon!” I cried, bringing my fingers up to root through
his hair. He rolled against my touch at the contact, though his lips managed to
remain focused. I felt my nipples rise, hard, against my thin bralette. I wished
it were cooler. I wished it were faster. Mostly, I wished.

Landon had apparently read my mind, as his fingers had
wended their way to the back of my bra. He fumbled for a second, but then
regained some expertise. Just as the hooks of my sheath fell away, his mouth
had slid the fabric to the side so his tongue could attach itself to my nipple.
Now it was my turn to whimper.

He sucked long and hard on my bare tit; he sucked like he
was thirsty for me. I lost sight of the car and the world around us for a moment,
as his rhythm grew urgent, back and forth, back and forth across my sensitive
flesh. He’d ripped my bra clasp open in one cool gesture, so the fabric landed
on the floor somewhere between our coiled forms. The gear shift, the bucket
seat—everything was an impediment. I was unwilling to wait.

Yet.

“No,” Landon pressed. Just as I'd wrested the zipper of his
jeans to half-mast, he pulled his muscular body all the way to the far side of
the car, where he coiled like a rat.

“I don't want to do it like this,” he said, wiping the back
of his bitten-looking mouth. His hair stuck up all over his head, a crown of
funny angles. With an athlete's grace, he bent down, tossed me my bra, and
turned the ignition in one fluid gesture.

“You're not seriously going to give me Lady Blue Balls, are
you Landon?” I pawed at his bare chest, pulse quickening again when he
involuntarily flexed against my palm. But no cigar.

Landon swiveled toward me, and took my cheeks in his open,
warm palms. His dark eyes shone in the streetlight. He kept them fixed on my
own.

“When we do this,” he said slowly, “we're going to do it
right.
Okay?” The rest of Austin, accomplice, began to seep back in—cars were
honking somewhere, music was playing. I saw the effort in his gaze and
understood that he was serious. And that maybe, just maybe—
we
could be
serious.

“Fine,” I said, after a beat. Ever the gentleman, Landy
waited for me to yank my bra across my bare chest before guiding the Saab back
towards the freeway. I didn't ask where we were going. Landon seemed to know. I
thought I would be disappointed, or feel humiliated at the least (it's not
every day, after all, that a lady throws herself at her stepbrother and is
brutally rejected)—but instead what lapsed between us felt comfortable. Landon switched
the radio back on. We both wiggled a little bit to Blondie, in our seats. I
caught his hammy dancing face in the rearview mirror, and we both broke into
shy giggles.

“Oh!” Landon screeched—so loud and impromptu that I jumped a
little. “I know where we're going. Don't you worry, Doll.”

There was plenty to worry about,
but somehow—I listened.