Chapter 16
Shay
Everything changed after Landon and I kissed. At least for me it did. It was as if the wall we’d spent years building was falling down, brick by brick. After the night I showed him my scars and he showed me his, I was hooked. The candy and flowers were what pushed me overboard.
I craved being close to him because I liked how he sped up my heartbeats.
I’d text him to rehearse our lines, and we’d end each night kissing.
Sometimes his hands would try to wander, but I’d always slap them away.
Once I let him grab my ass, though. I liked that .
. . a little too much, which was why I went back to guiding his hands to my waistline.
He never pushed for more than I gave him.
It was as if any kind of touch was enough for him.
Me, on the other hand? I wanted more. Quietly, I thought about what it would be like to kiss him, to touch him, to have him lead me to his bed.
But in the back corner of my mind, I kept thinking about the bet.
If I slept with him, I knew I’d catch even more feelings for him.
The number of emotions I’d developed toward Landon was already concerning. I couldn’t add more.
Still . . . I wanted more.
Maybe I was letting my guard down a little too prematurely, but I couldn’t help it. My heart craved him even if my brain told me not to. I tried my best to listen to Aunt Paige’s advice, but hearts were stubborn. They beat faster for certain people without the brain’s permission.
Landon and I still had our sharp tongues. We still hurled insults toward each other daily, but they felt so lighthearted, flirty, and fun. Sometimes he’d smile at me, and I’d be smiling all day from his little smirk alone.
I wrote down everything about him in my notebook.
Before the bet had even started, I’d already filled a notebook with my thoughts on Landon.
I’d started it the night of his uncle’s funeral.
I couldn’t get him off my mind after that, and every now and then, I’d add my thoughts on the type of person Landon was.
After the bet, I started journaling about him a lot more.
Lately, the narrative had shifted. The story of the boy I once hated turned into something new every time he showed me a part of him that he hid from the rest of the world.
He was one of the most complex characters I’d ever had the honor of studying, and if we kept down this road, it would be my heart that was going to fall first and hard, not his.
Plus, he’d become my outlet from my home drama.
Tension was building up in my family, and now the arguments seemed much more common between Mom and Mima.
Those two had never fought when Dad was locked up.
They loved each other so much whenever he wasn’t in the picture.
I hated that he was creating a crack in a bond that was so strong while he was gone.
When I needed a break, I went to Landon and lost myself in him, in us—whatever we were. He always welcomed me in, too. No matter the time or the last-minuteness of me reaching out to him, he always told me to come over. I was thankful for that, for his willingness to let me in.
I told him it was simply so we could rehearse. I think he knew it was more than that. I think he was learning to read me the same way I was reading him. He never asked me for details. If anyone knew how important it was to escape from life sometimes, it was Landon.
That Saturday was no different. He was there when I needed him to be.
“We should really be rehearsing.” I giggled in between short kisses. I’d finally managed to enter his house to work on our scenes together, but I forbade myself from going to his bedroom.
“We are rehearsing,” he muttered against my lips as he placed his hands under my butt and pulled me into his lap.
I wrapped my arms around him and shook my head as I gently sucked on his bottom lip. “I mean we should be rehearsing our lines.”
“These are our lines,” he mumbled, sliding his tongue into my mouth and forcing a moan to escape me as I felt the hardness in his sweatpants. I definitely shouldn’t have been sitting in his lap, because as he grew, my desire to grind against him grew, too.
I slid off, moving to the left side of the couch, feeling bashful about it all.
It wasn’t the first time I’d felt Landon’s happy member since we’d started making out on the regular, but it still always made me blush.
I pulled my shirt up to my mouth and chewed on the collar, trying to hide my nerves.
“You do that a lot, you know—chew when you’re nervous,” he told me, running his hands through his hair.
“You do that a lot.” I nodded toward him. “Run your hands through your hair when you’re turned on.”
“Well, you keep turning me on.” He smirked, grabbing me again and placing me back onto his lap.
He rocked his hips upward ever so slightly, pressing himself against my jeans.
My thighs began to quiver, and my heartbeats intensified instantly.
Oh my gosh, he was dry-humping me . . . at least I thought that was what was happening.
I’d never been in the dry-humping phase, seeing as how I’d never made it to first base with any guy.
“You’re just so easy to turn on,” I pushed out, my head feeling dizzy. I wondered if this was what it felt like to be high—dazed, confused, fan-freaking-tastic.
A slight moan escaped my lips as he pressed his hips up and kept them there. I closed my eyes in bliss as he began rubbing back and forth against my jeans. My forehead fell to his.
“Yes . . .” I whispered, which made him grind even more. My fingers landed on his shoulder blades, and I dug in ever so slightly as he moved his lips to my neck and began sucking. “Yes . . .” I muttered once more, loving it more and more as he continued doing it.
He groaned against my skin as his voice went deep and smoky. “Let me taste,” he begged, grunting against my neck.
My mind was clouded, I could hardly breathe, and oh my gosh, how did this feel so good?
“I . . . I’ve never . . .” I’d never had a boy go down on me before, and I wanted it, but I also knew if we crossed those lines . . . “No,” I said hurriedly, leaping out of his lap. “No, no, no.”
I stood and shook my hands and kicked my legs around.
He sat straighter and cocked an eyebrow, though that wasn’t the only thing he was cocking up, that was for sure. His rock-hard member was trying its best to burst right out of those sweatpants.
Guys shouldn’t have been allowed to wear sweatpants around us gals. It made it almost impossible to think straight.
“What is it?” he asked.
I started pacing back and forth. “This is just part of the bet. I got caught up in the moment, but this is the bet.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Shay, this isn’t the bet. This is just you and me right now.”
“And what are we exactly?”
“I don’t know, we’re just us. You’re overthinking it.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but I don’t know how not to. If the bet wasn’t hanging over my head, I would just be free willy about it and all, but the bet does exist, whether I like it or not. And I can’t just hook up with you, OK? I can’t.”
“OK.”
“Wait, what? That’s it? You’re not going to hammer the topic?”
“No. We don’t have to hook up or make out.
Listen, I get that we have a game going on, and I get that you’re on red alert, but if I’m honest, real honest, I just like being around you.
Do I want to screw your brains out? Yes, obviously.
But am I OK waiting until you’re ready? Of course. Especially since you’re a virgin.”
“What?” I stood straight. “Who said I’m a virgin?”
He snickered and pointed toward me. “That face right there. I wasn’t sure, but I wondered based on how you tense up sometimes when we’re making out and my hands wander.”
I felt embarrassed, exposed . . . like a child. He could tell I was a virgin, which obviously meant I was doing something wrong. But what? How?
“Stop that,” he told me.
“Stop what?”
“Overthinking and chewing on your collar.”
I dropped the shirt I hadn’t even noticed was in my mouth. “I just feel stupid, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s clear I’m inexperienced, and you’re not.”
“Chick.” He stood up and moved over to me.
He placed his finger beneath my chin and raised my head to make sure our eyes were locked for his next words.
“Kissing you feels like kissing heaven. You’re far from inexperienced.
You being a virgin doesn’t change the fact that you’re the best kiss I’ve ever had.
I could kiss you all day and not get sick of it.
But you being a virgin? That’s a big deal, and I won’t take that from you until you’re willing to give it away. OK?”
I shyly nodded. “OK.”
“Also, just for future reference”—he moved his mouth to my ear, and his hot breath had every hair on my body standing straight up—“there are a million ways I can fuck you and still keep you a virgin.”
My cheeks heated up. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He finally cleared his throat. “OK, well, I’m going to run to the bathroom really fast and handle this, uh, issue in my pants.
Then we can just talk and—fuck . . .” His voice faded as he realized my hand had slid into his sweatpants.
My fingers wrapped around his hardness, and I began stroking it up and down slowly.
My heart was pounding in my chest, and part of me worried Landon would hear it, but when I looked at him, his eyes were shut, and there was a smile glued to his face.
It was clear he wasn’t thinking about my wild heartbeats at all, because he had his own experience taking place.
I wasn’t completely sure what I was doing. Everything I knew about hand jobs, I’d learned from Raine, Tracey, and Cosmopolitan. Heck, everything I knew about sex came from Raine, Tracey, and Cosmopolitan.
As I stroked up and down, Landon seemed to like it, seemed pleased, which made me pleased. We moved back to the couch when I noticed his legs about to buckle, and as he sat down, I got on my knees and kept stroking, nice and slow.
“More pressure,” he said as he exhaled between groans of pleasure. “You can hold it tighter, Shay. I promise you won’t break it.”
I did as he said, and his smile grew even more.
I pulled my hand out of his pants for a moment, slid my tongue along my palm, and slid it back in for more strokes.
Cosmo hand jobs 101: Make him sweat, make it wet.
“Yes . . . yes . . . and the head . . . rub the head . . .” He sighed, obviously enjoying every second of it.
Odd kink, but OK.
I cocked an eyebrow, and even though I didn’t understand completely, I did as he requested. I began rubbing his head with my free hand, tangling my fingers in his hair as I kept stroking his privates.
Within seconds, Landon burst out laughing, making me lean back, a little puzzled. “Not my head head, Shay. My dick head. The tip of my cock.”
Oh.
Well, that was shockingly embarrassing.
I yanked my hand out of his pants, horrified, and covered my face with my hand. Then I realized I’d been stroking Landon’s penis with said hand and now I had penis face, and he was probably staring at me and my penis face and—
Ohmygosh this is where I die.
The complete horror that sat in my gut was nauseating, and I thought about darting out of his front door, transferring schools by Monday, and never seeing Landon and his stupid penis again.
Bet’s off, Landon. Moving to Europe. ?Adiós, mi enemigo!
“It’s OK.” He laughed.
“It’s not,” I coughed out through my hands that were still hiding my surely red face.
“No, trust me, it is. These things happen when you’re figuring this stuff out.”
“I doubt anything like this has ever happened to you.”
“Trust me, it has.”
I spread my fingers against my face and narrowed my eyes as I peeked his way. “Tell me.”
He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, which I’d gone ahead and messed up for him.
“OK. The first time I ever went down on a girl, I was going at it like a madman, licking, slurping, having a damn feast, and when I asked if she was enjoying it, she replied, ‘Uh, that’s the back door, not the front.’”
“Oh my gosh . . .” My hands dropped to the ground, along with my jaw. “You ate a girl’s butthole?!”
“You don’t have to sound so entertained by it,” he spat out, but I couldn’t help it. The fit of giggles wouldn’t stop escaping me. He wrinkled his nose. “Stop laughing,” he ordered, but I couldn’t.
The squeals kept flying out of my mouth at a rapid speed, and I bent over into a howling fit at the idea of young, naive Landon licking a girl’s butthole.
“Stop,” he ordered again, but with a slight smirk on his face. I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to; it was all too perfect and wrong.
The more I laughed, the bigger his smirk grew.
Then he leaped toward me, tackling my body.
“Fine, if you want to laugh so much, let me help.” He began tickling me, making me burst into more laughter.
I was rolling back and forth, trying to break away from him, but he kept tickling me nonstop. “Surrender!” he commanded.
“OK, OK, I surrender!”
“Say ‘Landon is the best and Shay was wrong for laughing at him.’”
“Landon is the best and Shay was wrong for laughing at him,” I echoed.
“OK then.” He stopped tickling me, and I instantly missed his fingers running along my skin.
Our breaths were both heavy and tired from the wrestling. He boxed me in with his body and lowered his face so it was inches from mine. I pressed my hands to his chest and felt his heart beating. It was wild, erratic, untamed—like mine.
“Kiss me,” I whispered.
He did as I said.
“Again.”
Another kiss again.
And again, and again, and again . . .
After a little bit more kissing, I knew I needed to head home, even though all I wanted to do was stay. “Walk me to my car?” I asked.
“Of course,” Landon replied.
We walked out and he opened my car door for me like the gentleman I’d never thought him to be.
“Thank you. I hate you,” I said with a smile as I slid into the driver’s seat.
He leaned toward me, laughing, and gently kissed my forehead. “I hate you, too.”
That kiss felt so much more intimate than anything we’d done before. Forehead kisses had officially become my favorite thing he had given to me.
“Drive safe, Chick,” he said before closing my door and tapping the roof of my car. I missed him before I’d left his driveway.