Chapter 16 #3
Harper looks at Vance. “What’s a dry spell?”
I smile. “I’ll let you handle that. See ya.”
With a bizarre and unexpected rush of excitement, I head straight over to Kennedy’s apartment. I haven’t been here since her drunken New Year’s Eve debacle. I wait for her annoyingly slow elevator and eventually arrive at her door, where I excitedly knock on it.
She opens it looking like she did the morning after in Vegas. Messy hair and not an ounce of makeup. She’s in tiny shorts and a tank top without a bra. I smile. “I see you got dressed up for me.”
She flips me the bird.
“You know it’s my favorite look on you, wifey.”
She rolls her eyes. “I look dreadful. It’s because I couldn’t even get myself off with my vibrator. My body is so damn sick of silicone stimulation. It needs dick. Real, soft-skinned, hard-muscled, veiny, angry dick that reaches deep inside me until I can’t see straight.”
I raise my hand. “I volunteer as tribute.”
She makes a look of disgust. “Ew. No. Do you think I’d dress like this if I thought I might have a chance of getting laid?” She exhales a breath. “I can’t believe we still have seven months and seventeen days of this.”
I chuckle. “Do you have a countdown?”
She nods. “Yes I do. I’m gonna fuck ten guys one minute after the annulment is finalized. Every hole, orifice, crack, crevice. Everywhere on my body will get drilled.”
I adjust myself. “Fuck, that’s hot. Can I watch?”
She sighs as she turns and walks toward her living room, shouting back, “I opened a bottle of wine. Want a glass?”
“Sure,” I answer. I’m not a big wine guy but I don’t want to be difficult.
We sit on her sofa, and she pours me a glass. Taking my first sip, I know right away it’s the good stuff. I pick up the bottle and read it aloud. “2018 Screaming Eagle?”
It’s not a cheap bottle at all. In fact, it’s damn expensive.
She shrugs. “It’s the closest to screaming that I’ll be getting for another seven months and seventeen days.” She takes a sip and closes her eyes as if savoring the taste. “Yum, this is the good stuff. This wine’s history is more complex than your entire personality.”
I smile. “Did you get this expensive little habit from your father?”
Coach Jeffries is obsessed with good wines. I know he maintains a huge collection in his wine cellar and is known to take a lot of time to order it at restaurants. He’s probably the only other person I’ve ever had wine with.
Her shoulders fall. “I suppose. I started stealing wine from his cellar at thirteen. I didn’t appreciate how much the bottles were worth at the time.
Then when I got older and started drinking shitty wine, I could taste the difference.
It’s kind of a curse, to be honest. At least with my expensive clothes, I can wear them again and again.
With wine, it’s gone once you drink it. Another in a long line of problems gifted to me by my parents. ”
I open my mouth as she holds up her hand. “Don’t ask. I’m not talking about it with you. I don’t discuss it with friends, let alone frenemies.”
“Ooh, we’ve graduated to frenemies?” I ask with excitement.
She twists her lips. “I suppose you’re more tolerable than you used to be.”
“Back at you, Cruella. You’re more like the redeemable villain instead of the irredeemable villain now.”
“How lucky for me,” she says with a heavy dose of sarcasm. She grabs for the remote. “There’s a documentary on the making of Cobra Kai. It’s my favorite show. Do you mind if we watch that?”
“What?” I shout. “That’s my favorite show.”
She tries to fight it, but a small smile forms on her face. “About time Johnny got to be the good guy. He was always the good guy, but nobody else saw it.”
I gasp. “I have a T-shirt with that written on it.”
She giggles. “Stop it. You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m serious. Dixie Chicks serious.”
She lets out a laugh at my Pitch Perfect movie line reference. “I’m guessing you love that girlie movie?”
“Of course. It’s one of the best movies ever. BJ loves to sing to it.”
“Your dog sings?”
“Yes, she has a majestic voice.”
“Hmm. I might have to see it one day.”
“You can’t. She hates women.”
“All women?”
“All except my sister. She doesn’t like to share me.”
She sighs in disbelief as she turns on the documentary. We watch in comfortable silence for about an hour. My hands are clasped together behind my head, causing my T-shirt to lift a drop. I see her eyes staring directly at my tattoo, though she’s trying unsuccessfully to hide that fact.
“You can ask me about it if you want,” I eventually offer.
“About what?” she asks.
“The tattoo. You’re staring. You’ve mentioned it before. I’m an open book. Ask whatever you want to know.”
She chews her lip nervously for about ten seconds.
I have flashbacks to what those lips felt like on my lips, on my chest, on my neck, on my cock.
They’re so plush and feminine. I love them without lipstick even more.
They have a natural pink hue. I bet women pay for lipstick in a shade that she has naturally, yet she always chooses to cover them.
I have an urge to storm into her bedroom and throw out all her lipsticks.
She eventually interrupts my thoughts by admitting, “Fine. I want to know. Who is she? Your high school girlfriend? College girlfriend? The love of your life? The one that got away?”
I lift my shirt a bit more, and her eyes move all over my stomach. If I didn’t know better, I’d think lust was washing over them. She even goes so far as to lick her pretty pink lips. I don’t think she’s aware that she did it, but she did.
“Look closer,” I instruct.
“Is this just a way to get me to put my head in your lap?”
I chuckle. “No, but I might use that in the future. It’s a good tactic. Thanks for the tip.”
She rolls her eyes before bending a bit to get a closer look. She gently rubs her fingers over the rose, starting at the flower itself and then working down the stem. I see the moment it hits her. “Are these birth and death years?”
I nod. “My mom. Her name was Rose. My dad and I both got them shortly before he got remarried. It was his way of telling me that while he might be marrying another woman, she wasn’t taking the place of my mother for me or for him. That he would always love my mother.”
She lifts her head back up. “Was your stepmom pissed?”
I shake my head. “Not that I know of. She’s kind of ditzy, but she doesn’t have a bad bone in her body.
I despised their age difference, but she makes him happy, she’s good to him, and she gave me my little sister, who’s the most important person to me in the world.
If he hadn’t married Ashleigh, I wouldn’t have Jagger. ”
Her face softens a bit as she nods in understanding. “I’m trying to build a better relationship with Pierce. I’ve been a shitty big sister for most of his life, but I’m doing my best to make up for it now.”
“He can’t be that mad. I think he came to every home game of yours last season. You can hear him cheering for you all over the stadium.”
She smiles. “You’re right. It was awesome to have him there. He knows my stats better than I do.”
“He’s a good kid, Kennedy.”
She nods. “I know.”
“It’s not too late.”
Her eyes uncharacteristically fill with tears. “I hope you’re right.”
She shifts a bit and stretches her back as if it’s stiff.
“Do you want me to rub your shoulders like a good hubby is supposed to?” I offer.
Her eyes widen a bit. “What made you ask that?”
“When I carried you home drunk on New Year’s Eve, you told me no less than a thousand times that you measured a good marriage by shoulder rubbing.
That you never once saw your father rub your mother’s shoulders, but your friends’ dads did.
That it’s probably why you love having your shoulders rubbed as much as you do. You then begged me to rub them.”
“Did you do it?” she asks softly.
I smile. “I did…over the toilet.”
She smacks my arm, and then I tickle her side, but she doesn’t laugh. “You’re not ticklish?” I ask.
She shakes her head with a mischievous smile. “If a woman doesn’t like to be tickled, it means she likes to be choked. And you know firsthand how much I like to be choked.”
I gulp as I will my dick to stay down at the thought of wrapping my hands around her neck again.
Not able to help myself, I slowly run my fingertips over the smooth, firm skin of her neck. The bruising is long gone, though I have the sudden need to give it to her again. To mark her as mine again.
I expect her to slap my hand away, but she doesn’t. Her eyelids flutter, and she emits a sound that’s something between a breath and a moan.
It goes on for a bit, but I eventually move my hand to her shoulder. “Come sit on the floor in front of me. I’ll rub your shoulders like a good hubby is supposed to.”
She wordlessly nods as she does as she’s told, and I think to myself, good girl.