Torn (26 page)

“You’d better go in, don’t want
to break your curfew on the first night,” I reminded her, reluctant as I was to
let her go. “I don’t need any more reasons for your dad to disapprove of me.”

“You’re not the heartbreaker, Ace,
I am. I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive me.”

“They will, they just need time. Everyone
gets a rough deal sometime in their lives, you have to shrug it off and get on
with it.”

“Your mom hasn’t,” she reminded
me softly, kissing my neck. I returned the kiss on the top of her head,
breathing in her coconut-scented shampoo.

“She’s the exception. Come on,
you need to get in, it’s five to twelve.”

“When can we see each other again?”
She lifted her face, her stunning eyes pulling me in, making me feel like I could
lose myself in them forever.

“I don’t know, baby. I’ve got a
crazy week ahead. Tutoring Saunders tomorrow after college, baseball practice Wednesday
night, and I’ve really got to fit in an assignment that’s due on Friday
morning, then I’ve got practice Friday night, too.” I hated the small flare of
disappointment on her face.

“Saturday?”

“I’m at JT’s all day, but you
could always come over and we could head up to the roof during my break?” I
suggested.

“As long as you promise to spend
that hour kissing me to make up for lost time, it’s a date, Ace.”

I held her face firmly, kissing
her one last time, making sure it would keep her, and me, going until the
weekend. She slipped out of my clutches and the car long before I was ready to
let her go. I quickly smeared the steamed-up windshield, just so I could watch
her skip happily down the sidewalk, and she turned to give me a wave before she
hooked left into her driveway. Fuck, I had it so bad for her. I was missing her
already.

After a pit stop for a cold
shower and some serious tension relief at JT’s, I headed home to find Josh
sitting at the kitchen island with a bottle of beer in his hand. I raised my
eyebrows. Even I was still underage, but more to the point, we had a “no
alcohol” policy in the house. One bottle of vodka for Ma a day, that was it.
Nothing else to tempt her.

“It’s one bottle, I needed it,”
he retorted as he took a pull from it. “And you don’t wanna know how I got ahold
of it either.”

“Ok,” I replied, reminding myself
to cut him some slack. “You gonna avoid me again tonight, or can we talk about
it?”

“What’s there to say?” he sighed,
setting down his beer and absentmindedly picking at the damp label. “She picked
you, no great surprise there.”

“How about we talk about why you
think it was a foregone conclusion?” I suggested, as I tossed my keys and
jacket, then strode over to pull up a stool so I could sit facing him.

“Come on, Nate,” he scoffed,
flicking his chin up at me before knocking back more beer. “It’s you. Women
fall at your feet. ‘Ooooo, Nate Hudson,’” he mimicked in a girly voice. “‘He’s
such a hottie, his body is so buff, he has such a big cock, he fucks so well,
he pitches so well, he’s gonna be a superstar.’”

“Josh.” I shook my head, doing my
best not to chuckle. It was true enough, I’d heard them say those things about
me.

“Like
that’s
not bad
enough, you play Dad to me and Billy, run the house, keep Ma in check, and
despite the cocky exterior you like to portray, you’re one of the nicest guys I
know. She’d have been stupid not to choose you.”

“You wanna know something?” I
replied, reaching over to grab his beer and taking a sip of it myself. “I told
her she’d be stupid not to pick you.” I slid the bottle back over to him and
registered the surprise on his face. I nodded when he gave me a questioning
look. “I’m not exactly lacking academically, Josh, but you got the real brains
in this family. You take after Dad, you can pick anything up fast. Me, I have
to work at it. You’re genuine, down to earth, and for the last two years, while
I’ve looked after Ma, and you to a lesser extent, you’ve done exactly the same
with Billy.”

“Shut up.” He broke my gaze and
started picking at the label again. He’d never been good with compliments.

“You’re a great guy, Josh. Ok,
maybe you’re not buffed and handsome perfection like me,” I teased, “but you
come a close second.”

“Yeah, second,” he repeated.

“Only with Sky,” I reminded him.
“I’ve seen the looks you get, bro, but you have your head in your damn books
too much to notice them. You’re one of the most honest and generous men I know,
and I’m proud of you.”

“Nate,” he grumbled, his neck
flushing pink the way it always did when he couldn’t handle the praise.

“I’m sorry for what’s gone down
with her, but I need you to know that this isn’t some casual fuck for me.” I
winced when his eyes flashed back up to mine with pain in them. “Not that we
have, we’re taking it slow because it’s more …
she’s more
, you get that,
right? I’m crazy about her, but if you’re not cool with this …” I huffed out
and ran a hand through my hair, not sure I could vocalize it, but if I didn’t
say it now, I knew each day I spent with her would mean the chance of me saying
it again would diminish.

“But what?” he prodded.

“If this is gonna come between
us, Josh … you’re my brother. You’re blood. Doesn’t matter how I feel about
Sky, you and Ma come first.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, surprised at how
much that statement hurt. Could I really walk away from her if my brother
wasn’t cool with us dating? I cursed with surprise when he cuffed the back of
my head and dropped my hands, my eyes shooting open to see him leaning across
the island with a furious look on his face. “What the fuck?!”

“You’ve got to stop that, Nate!
For once in your God damn life, stop putting everyone else first! You’ve done
more than a brother should ever have to do, you think I begrudge you finally
finding a bit of happiness in your life?”

“But I know how much you like her,
too.”

“Well, yeah, of course, she’s …
she’s amazing, Nate, and she picked you! Sure, on some level I’m upset for me,
but you need this, you need her. I don’t know how I’ll react to seeing you both
together, but if it makes you happy, I’ll get happy. It might just take a bit
of time, ok?”

“You’re sure?”

“Just don’t break her heart, or
we really will have a problem,” he warned.

I got up and walked around to
him, and we did a fist bump, but then I grabbed him in a bear hug, which he
immediately reciprocated, and we repeatedly slapped each other’s backs.

“I love you, little brother,” I
murmured, as I kissed the side of his head in an uncharacteristic display of
emotions.

“Me too, Nate, me too,” he replied,
his voice cracking.

We only let go as Ma woke up and
started yelling for me.

“I mean it, Nate,” Josh hollered. “Don’t
be a heartbreaker.”

Nate

Christmas Eve

I leaned on the low wall of JT’s roof, trying
to see into Joelle’s, the only place on the street still open. Though it was
dark, the street was brightly lit by the mini lights wrapped around the trees
that lined it on each side, not to mention the Christmas decorations in bright
colors that hung from one side of the street to the other, which, while
atmospheric, were a pain in my ass, as they were blocking my view of her. I was
beyond impatient for her to come out. Like our relationship wasn’t hard enough
as it was with my limited time, Sky had gone and taken up a waitressing job at
Joelle’s on the three nights I practiced, then on Saturdays, and the busy
holiday periods. It sucked that I couldn’t earn enough money for us to go out
on nice dates often enough to stop her needing to work to chip in. Sometimes
she insisted on treating me to a meal or the movies. I appreciated it, but at
the same time I hated it. It was my job to take care of her, like I did my
family, not the other way around. I heaved a sigh of relief as I saw the lights
in Joelle’s turn off, and heard voices and laughter drifting through the air. I
finally smiled, I could see her at last.

 We’d been dating for almost a
month, which was a record for me. Prior to Sky, my longest relationship had
been a week, with Jamie Westley back when I was eleven. I’d thought at the time
that I was going to marry her, after we’d kissed under the bleachers. I’d been
heartbroken when she’d told me she was dumping me. I chuckled at the memory.
I’d actually cried, and when I’d told Dad what had happened, that I must be a
really bad kisser, he took it on himself to talk me through the finer points in
the art of kissing. I started kissing as many girls as I could to practice
those tips and get better, and when Jamie came running back for more, when she
heard how good I’d gotten, I’d told her to go to hell. It wasn’t long before
Dad had to give me the real talk, even though I was young. He’d said I was
going to have sex anyway, so I may as well be prepared and stay safe. Sex had
therefore become my main focus with girls from an early age. I’d enjoyed it and
didn’t want to get tied down, so I’d made it clear I was a casual sort of guy.
When it didn’t put them off, I’d made the most of it. In six years, I’d never
gone this long without sex, or at least having someone relieve the tension by
other means, other than when I had my piercing done. It was damn frustrating
only being able to kiss Sky and touch her tits over her clothes, but at the
same time I wanted to wait until she was ready. I had a feeling she’d be worth
it. I was in this for the long haul, I could wait, even if it was slowly
killing me.

I groaned as I saw her stand on
the sidewalk and check for traffic before skipping across the street, her long
hair flowing behind her. Fuck. I reached down to squeeze my cock. No matter how
many times I tried to talk it down, around Sky it just had a one-track mind.
She glanced up and scanned the roofline as she stood below. When she spotted me
watching her, she broke into a smile that made me feel like it was Christmas
morning already. Jesus, those smiles made mine come out full force, and my
heart beat a little faster. She was wearing a sparkly gray sweater that hung
loose on her and those sexy, tight, black ripped jeans with some gray sneakers.
Other than some light eye makeup and lip-gloss that made her plump lips look
even more kissable, she didn’t bother with anything else. And she didn’t need
to. My attraction to her was deeper than that. I started pacing as I waited for
her to come up. JT knew that we didn’t have anywhere to meet privately, other
than my damn car, so he’d let her have a key to come up here to meet me. I’d
managed to save up for a patio heater now that the nights were cold, and a storage
box that contained some warm fake fur blankets. Most nights we talked and made
out on the sun lounger, under the stars, getting so hot the blankets were
usually discarded within a few minutes.

“Hey, baby,” I murmured, as I
hauled her into my arms the moment she appeared through the door, breathing the
scent of her in and forgetting about all of my troubles instantly. She had that
effect. Worries about my coursework, my pitching speed, work, Ma, the house
repairs, none of it mattered when I was with her. She was my beacon in the
darkness, a light that guided me to the only safe and calming place I’d known
in years. Her.

“Hey, Ace,” she replied, her
voice low and seductive, making my body shudder with need. Her lips immediately
sought out mine as she dangled from my chest, her arms tightly around my neck,
her feet not touching the floor. This was the payout for all that kissing
practice over the years, the validation that the one woman I wanted couldn’t
get enough of my kisses. I loved feeling the way she melted when my tongue was
in her mouth, the little sighs of pleasure that escaped her, the way her
fingers pulled urgently at the hair on the nape of my neck, and the moans.
Jesus,
those moans
. I lived for them. I felt like I’d die without them. “Hmmm, how
did we get here?” she asked, her eyes completely unfocussed as she opened them to
find I’d already laid us both down on the bed, my body partially smothering
hers.

“I told you once that my kisses
have superpowers,” I reminded her, as I gently clasped her throat with one hand
and worked my way across her already swollen lips. “They make time vanish.”

“They also make me really horny,”
she giggled, as she slid her tongue inside my mouth and swept it slowly around
mine, teasing me. I closed my eyes and groaned, then jolted with surprise as I
felt skin on skin, her fingers inching their way under my tight gray Henley
shirt.

“Jesus!” My cock stiffened
further as she made it underneath, her palms sliding up my back to my shoulder
blades. It was the first time she’d touched me anywhere but my face, arms, or
hands and …
fuck
, if it didn’t send a surge of electricity through my
body, sparking me to life. I overrode her gentle teasing with forceful plunges
of my tongue, far into the deep recess of her mouth, overcome with the primal
urge to mate. With one hand still restraining her throat, my fingers tightening
a little, I slid my other hand from her hip, dipping in at her petite waist and
flaring out again as my thumb touched the fleshy side of her breast.

“
Ace
,” she moaned, the
word muffled as our tongues danced an intense and furious paso doble. Right
now, she was the bull and I was the matador, hunting her down, primed for the
kill.

My thumb moved and slid under the
heavy weight of her breast, the span of my thumb and index finger cupping it,
lifting it, desperate to feel her flesh for real, to see if her nipples were
the same dusky pink as those lips of hers that I loved so much. I wanted to
take one into my mouth, to tease it, make it hard, lick it, suck it, bite it. I
wanted her to moan my name as I feasted on it. I wanted her to beg me to slide
my fingers down into her panties to see how aroused she was, to find out how
much I turned her on. The thought that no one else had experienced any of that
made the tip of my cock damp, without even considering how it might feel to
ease her thighs apart and see her soaked and swollen pussy for the first time.
I sucked her lower lip into my mouth, biting it as I imagined sucking on her
clit, tasting her. Would her pussy taste like cotton candy too? Fuck, I needed
to know. I ground my pelvis against her hip, desperate for some relief on my
throbbing cock, and released her lip as I groaned with pleasure at the
sensation that shot into my abdomen to feel some pressure at last.

“Touch me, properly,” she
whispered breathlessly against my mouth as I panted. My eyes shot open to meet
her hooded ones, drunk from our heavy making out, not sure if I’d heard her
right. She gave a slight nod and slipped a hand out from under my shirt,
grabbed my hand, and moved it down to slide it up under her sweater. I swallowed
hard as I spread my fingers, feeling the warmth and softness of her bare skin
as we held each other’s gaze. She nodded more firmly, so I moved higher,
feeling her ribs rising and falling rapidly as the pace of her breathing
increased. Christ, mine was too. I moved higher and my jaw went slack as I groaned
to realize that she was braless.

“Fuck, Sky.” My palm was
smothering her right breast in an instant, rejoicing in the feel of it, how it
was soft and malleable, yet firm and hard all at the same time. She sounded like
she was at the point of hyperventilation as I pinched her pebbled nipple
firmly, her lips parting to gasp in some air, which was released seconds later
on a moan that made my cock flex. “Ok?” I rasped, my voice betraying how turned
on I was, if the torpedo trying to dent her hip wasn’t giving her a clear
enough signal.

“Don’t stop,” she ordered
breathlessly, her black pupils dilated, eating up the glossy brown that usually
circled them. I tested the water by removing my hand and moving it down to the
hem of her sweater, inching it up a fraction, waiting for her usual warning to
slow things down, but it didn’t come. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, so as not to
freak her out, I hitched it up, bit by bit. The fairy lights and multi-colored
lanterns, and the orange glow of the patio heater, made her lightly tanned skin
seem luminescent as it was unveiled. My breathing was coming as fast as hers,
as the hint of the underbelly of her breast was revealed. I seriously couldn’t
ever remember being so excited at the thought of looking at a girl’s tits. But
these weren’t just any tits, they were my girl’s. They were
mine
.

“I knew it,” I grunted as a large
pink puckered nipple came into view.

“Knew … what?” she asked,
trembling as I ran circles around it with my index finger, watching it stiffen
even further.

“The color, the size, how pretty
they’d look,” I replied, unable to tear my eyes away.

I pinched it again, making her
cry out and forcing the pointed peak of her nipple up, as I dipped my head and
slowly ran the tip of my tongue over it. The noise she made was like nothing
I’d ever heard. Christ, if she got that excited over a tiny lick, what the hell
would she be like when my cock was buried inside her? I tested the water again
and licked a little firmer, letting the ball of my piercing stimulate her. This
time she mewled and clamped her hand on the back of my head, holding it in
place as the fingers of her other hand raked at my shoulder blade. I released
it with my fingers, using my whole hand to squeeze her breast instead as I
sucked her nipple into my mouth forcefully. Her back arched off the bed
instantly, her hips rising with it as a long, low, sexual moan escaped her
lips.

“Oh God, Ace, I …
Oh God
.”

Her skin tasted just as good as
her mouth, and I spent some time licking and suckling, nosing her sweater up to
free her left breast, moving my mouth from one to the other as I tried to
contain my excitement. My hips were grinding faster and faster at the sound of
cries and moans of my name coming from her mouth. I got more turned on with
each sound, nipping and biting until she was panting so hard I had a feeling
she was close to coming. I needed more, I always needed more with her, but
tonight I couldn’t seem to restrain myself. I’d avoided giving her any hickeys
to date, not wanting her dad to have any more reason to disapprove of me, but
nothing was stopping me from giving her one here, out of sight. Her fingers
tore at my hair as I bit and sucked on her flesh at the same time, a feeling of
pride filling me to know I was marking her, claiming her as mine for real. I
still needed more. My hand slid down to the apex of her thighs, nudging my
fingers to where her pussy was concealed by her jeans. A test to see how she’d
react. She tensed up a little, but after a few deep breaths, she slowly parted
her legs, letting me move lower to cup her, press against her hard. I grinned
as she lifted her hips into it, needing more pressure.

“Nate?” Her voice was barely
audible, but there was an unmistakable undercurrent of desire and nerves in it.

“What, baby?” I murmured, sucking
on her nipple again, not sure I’d ever get my fill of tasting her.

“I want … I want you to touch me
… there. You know, proper second base,” she added. My mouth was off her flesh
in an instant, my eyes homing in on hers as they widened in surprise. Damn, if
I didn’t want that too.

“You sure?” I gave her a second
to change her mind, but she bit her lower lip and nodded her head, her already
flushed cheeks turning a little darker. “Don’t ever be embarrassed to ask me to
look after you, Sky. Christ, it turns me on even more to know you want me, to
hear you ask for me to touch you.”