Chapter Twelve
NICKY
Lucy pointed at the house, a small, gray-shingled thing with a screened-in front porch so big that it seemed to swallow the rest of the place.
Nicky parked the Jeep all the way down the driveway, near the detached garage that had a long string of lightbulbs coming off it, zigzagging back and forth from the house and the fence so that the whole backyard was lit up.
‘Nice place,’ Nicky said as he held the car door open for Lucy and watched her hop down to the drive.
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘It’s Kim’s dad’s. His bachelor beach shack after her parents got divorced.’
‘You’ve got it for the summer?’
‘It was his graduation present to us. Free rent in Rehoboth.’
‘Sweet.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, gazing up past the lights to the sky. ‘It really is.’
Lucy dug inside the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a key as she stepped up a couple of stairs to the back door.
Nicky followed her, close but careful not to get too close.
He didn’t want to pressure her, or for her to feel like he was only there to get in her pants.
Of course, he did want to get her right out of those jeans and peel off the leather jacket that was making it impossible to see her tits.
But he thought it was important not to be completely obvious about it.
The back door opened right into the kitchen. Lucy shucked her jacket and hung it over the back of a chair.
‘Want a beer?’ she asked, opening up the fridge.
‘Sure.’
‘I’ve got Rolling Rock or Yuengling,’ she offered.
‘Yuengling’s good.’
She popped the tops off two bottles with one of those old-fashioned opener thingies that was bolted to the heavy white cabinets.
Nicky took a long guzzle. To settle his nerves. To keep him from saying something stupid like ‘where’s your bedroom?’
Instead, he blurted, ‘Where’s your stereo?’
Lucy just chuckled and nodded her head toward the front of the house. ‘My CDs are on the porch.’
She led the way through a little living room crammed with oversized furniture that looked like it came from a much fancier house. A lot of leather and dark wood.
Lucy flipped on a lamp behind the sofa as she passed it, then went straight for the front door.
They walked out onto the deep front porch that stretched across the width of the whole house. The porch seemed much more lived in than the rest of the place, with ashtrays and empty soda cans. Bottles of nail polish and a stack of fashion magazines.
Lucy stopped at the coffee table and lit a couple of candles with a nearby lighter.
Then she went over to the corner and grabbed a massive binder with a zipper all the way around it.
She hit play on a boom box and handed the heavy binder to Nicky.
He plopped onto the sofa, the fabric slightly damp from the humid beach air.
‘Speedy Marie’ kicked up in the background, and it made him smile.
‘Frank Black?’ he asked, busying himself with the CD case so he didn’t come off like a damn grinning goob.
‘Yeah, it’s a mix,’ she said as she sat next to him and looked down at the CDs on his lap.
Thank God for the binder, because the heat of her next to him against the cold ocean air blowing through the porch screens gave him a raging fucking boner.
The light from the candles and the glow coming in from a streetlamp down the block made her look like a damn dream. A good one that he’d had before.
He cleared the lust from his throat and managed to croak out, ‘What else is on the mix?’
‘Um, on this one I’ve got some Liz Phair, some Zeppelin. New York Dolls. Runaways. Sugarcubes. The Cure.’
‘Cool. What do you call it?’
Lucy angled her body toward him slightly. Her breast skimmed the skin of his forearm as she slung an elbow on the back of the sofa. He could feel her eyes on him, so looked up.
Her eyes locked on his, and without a single fucking blink she said, ‘Lucy’s Make-out Mix.’
It was hard to say who moved first, but somehow within seconds Nicky’s hand was splayed on Lucy’s back and her fingers were in his hair. Her tongue slipped past his teeth and the relief of it made him actually shiver.
The CD case slid to the floor with a bang. Lucy must have taken it as an opening, because she pulled her knees up on the sofa and slung one around his hips, straddling him.
Nicky’s hands slid up her thighs and wrapped around her ass, pulling her closer. So close. Not close enough.
Lucy broke the kiss, rested her forehead on his as she tried to catch her breath.
‘I love this song,’ he mumbled as the first chords of ‘Summer Babe’ by Pavement started up.
Lucy laughed. The sound made his heart thrum like an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. Half admiration, half longing.
‘Should I go back over to my side of the couch?’ she teased. ‘Let you listen?’
‘No,’ he said into the hot, salty hollow of her neck. ‘I can do two things at once.’
He pulled her hips in hard to his, the fly of his jeans pressing into hers. She groaned, a frustrated kind of bellow.
‘More,’ she demanded.
‘Bedroom?’
Her lips said, ‘Yes,’ but her tone said, Finally.
She scrambled out of his hold and headed for the door. She flipped a light switch as she went past, and the music around him went dead.
Her voice drifted out from somewhere inside the house. ‘Nicky! Are you coming?’
He blew out the candles and took off after her.
Nicky found her down a little hallway, an open door with a soft haze of light drifting out. As he crossed the threshold, ‘Summer Babe’ started up again, this time from a small pink boom box on the nightstand.
‘The same mix?’ He laughed.
She nodded. ‘Copies.’
‘I always knew you were a smart girl,’ he said.
She crossed the room to him, and immediately grabbed the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up over his head in one swift tug.
‘What’s yours called?’ she asked as she went to work on her own shirt, whipping it off without a hint of self-consciousness.
Nicky’s brain shorted out. Her bra was black and lacy, and he could just make out her nipples. ‘My, uh, what?’
She tugged off an elastic band from one hair bun, and then the other. They came loose with a pop and unfurled like a magic trick. Long, smooth brown hair cascaded down over her shoulders.
‘The mix. In the car,’ she said, unbuttoning the fly of her jeans.
Oh, Jesus. Matching black lace panties.
Nicky watched her legs slide out of the jeans. Slowly. One, and then the other. He spotted her tan line. Bikini. God he’d love to see her in a bikini.
‘Earth to Nicky,’ she said with a smile.
Right, the mixtape. ‘It’s called, uh … Kitty.’
One eyebrow lifted up into her bangs as she asked, ‘As in … pussy ?’ She pulled at the scrap of black lace at her hip and it snapped back with an audible smack .
‘Yes,’ he said. Both an answer and a plea.
Lucy took one step closer to him, and unbuttoned the top of his jeans. Slid the zipper down so slowly against his dick that he thought he might lose it right then and there.
She peeled the jeans wide and he watched as a grin spread across her perfect lips. He knew what the grin was about. The Joe Boxers with the yellow smiley faces all over them. Goofy as hell, but comfortable.
Lucy looked up at Nicky, through her lashes, focusing her eyes right on his.
‘Mind if I take these off?’ she asked, just above a whisper.
‘Please.’ All plea.
She slipped her hands inside his boxers, cupping his ass. Then, dragged her fingernails down his thighs as she pulled his jeans and boxers all the way down. The sensation sent shockwaves blasting in his chest.
When he looked down, she was on her knees. Like she had no intention of coming up.
With gentle hands, she helped him pull his feet free. Then she stayed down there, looking up at him.
Lucy licked her lips.
Licked her fucking lips. And leaned in, dragging her tongue from his balls straight up to the tip of his cock.
Nicky felt the room spin. He grabbed at the nearby dresser, just in time to keep himself upright. He’d been with plenty of girls over the years. All kinda girls, all kinda ways. Nothing – not anything – had ever felt like that .
As she gripped the base of him with firm fingers and he felt the soft, wet heat of her mouth close over his dick, Nicky was lost. His thoughts were nothing but miles of tan skin. Black lace. Soft brown hair. Blue eyes. The curve of her back. Her lips. Her hands. Jesus Christ, her tongue.
Nicky’s skin was electric. The Zeppelin starting up on the stereo was the sound of his blood pumping.
‘Bed,’ he scraped out like sand in gravel. ‘Lucy, baby,’ he said, stroking her hair, then the smooth curve of her back. ‘Get on the bed.’
He helped Lucy to her feet, then wrapped his arms around her. Kissed her. All teeth and tongue and growls. He was hungry for her. Felt it in his bones. In the hairs on the back of his neck. Starving for her.
She sat on the bed and reached her arms back to unhook her bra.
‘No,’ Nicky said, sitting next to her. ‘Let me.’
She turned her back to him to give him access. Nicky brushed her hair forward over her shoulder, revealing those tan lines again, a narrow stripe across her back. He traced it with the tip of his finger before opening the bra clasp.
Nicky slid the bands slowly off her shoulders, and watched as goose bumps erupted down her arms. He couldn’t say why, but he felt sort of proud that he could do that to her.
He guided her to her back, gently resting her head on the soft white pillows.
He resisted the urge to dive right on her and lick those sweet pink nipples, standing hard and ready for him.
Instead, he grasped the panties at her hips and slid the lace over her long firm thighs.
He dropped them to the floor and stood up, to get a better look.
‘Fuck, you’re beautiful,’ he said.
Her eyes lit up with delight, and maybe a tiny bit of mischief. ‘You’re not bad yourself, Broome.’