Chapter Twelve #2
Then Nicky did move over her, taking one of her nipples in his mouth and smiling at the gratified moan she made as he slipped between her thighs. He ground his dick shamelessly into the mattress to relieve the ache her noises were stirring up.
He felt Lucy’s leg slide up, her knee gliding against his arm. Her fingernails found his scalp as he licked and nipped at her breast. Her hips rose and fell beneath him, seeking him out.
‘Are you ready for me, Lucy?’ he rasped.
‘Yes!’
The intensity of her answer sent a chuckle bursting out of him. He laughed into the smooth skin of her stomach, which set her off, too. He felt her laughter in his lips, felt it move the hair falling over his eyes.
Still laughing he pushed up and said, ‘Let me get a condom.’
‘Bedside table,’ she instructed, before pulling him back down to her and kissing his shoulder.
He slid his body higher, reaching for the drawer and she licked at his neck, dug her thumbs into his hip bones.
As Nicky’s hand fumbled around the drawer feeling for condoms, The Cure started up on the stereo and he couldn’t help but smile. It was perfect. Sweet and bubbly and right, like grape soda on a hot day. It was everything he felt in his gut in that moment. Happy , he realized. He was happy.
It had been so long since he’d felt that way, it rushed over him like cool water, like diving into a swimming pool. He felt like he could float on it.
Nicky finally set his fingers on something vaguely condom-like and pulled it from the drawer, whooping in victory as he spotted the Trojan label on the wrapper and sat back to rip it open.
Suited up, and pretty sure he was going to blow his load any second, he looked down at Lucy to settle himself.
That was a fucking mistake, because with her knees up and open for him he could see everything he was in for, all the hot, wet glory of it. His cock twitched like it was screaming ‘what’s the holdup?’
Still on his knees, he touched the tip of one finger to the glistening pink core of her. Inside of her. Soaking. So ready. Amazing.
‘Nicky,’ she begged, as his finger trailed lazily over her clit.
‘I’m coming, baby,’ he whispered.
He crawled up over her again and nestled himself between her legs. Used his hand to line up and drag his cock through her wetness.
She moaned and he smiled. Again. Had he ever smiled so much during sex before?
Nicky pushed his hips forward and slid inside her. Slow and easy so he didn’t lose his goddamn mind.
He watched her then, watched her mouth make a perfect rosy circle as she whimpered.
He pushed in further and marveled as she inhaled, sharp and infused with something like disbelief or amazement.
‘So good, Lucy. So fucking good.’
She nodded in agreement, eyes locked on his, as though she couldn’t even form the words.
He began moving then, pushing and pulling in and out, Lucy matching his rhythm with her hips. He could feel the place on his bones where he’d have a bruise from hers. He wanted it, relished it. The pleasure and the pain of it. The black and blue mark that he might have as a souvenir.
He leaned in closer to her, dragging his teeth over her bottom lip, her neck, anything he could reach.
Their breathing synched up somehow so that he could feel her exhale in time with him.
It was different. New. Wasn’t just two bodies doing a thing biology made them want.
It wasn’t just two people in their own heads, in their own worlds, using each other to get off.
Looking at Lucy, with sweat beading around her temples and her lips raw from his kisses, it struck him how fucking stupidly lucky he was that this smart, beautiful woman let his dumb ass see her bare and raw.
That she let him into her body. He was grateful and awed by her.
How she looked him right in the eye as he thrust inside her.
Her unbelievable blue eyes right there with him.
Nicky adjusted his position, and pulled her knee up high to her shoulder. He slid up and down, in and out so that each stroke grazed her clit.
‘Oh, fuck,’ she screamed.
Jackpot.
‘That’s it, baby.’
Her hands slapped against his ass, pushing him forward, and holding him hard against her for a beat each time he was balls deep inside her.
God, she was sexy. Every damn thing.
Nicky’s pace increased, his body shifting to a higher gear without any input from his mind.
He felt the tiny flutter of the muscles inside her, right before she wrapped her legs completely around his hips, holding him hard and fast inside her. With small, purposeful movements he ground into her, increasing the pressure on her clit.
And then Lucy goddamn detonated.
She panted his name, over and over as her back arched and her legs quaked. Her body squeezed his cock so hard it was just short of painful. So unbelievably good as he rocked inside her.
He alternately cursed and prayed into her hair as spasms of release racked his body. His whole fucking body. His earlobes. His kneecaps. Every-fucking-where.
‘Holy shit,’ he rasped as the flashes of light began to clear from his vision. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Yeah,’ Lucy breathed. She laughed, pure and unrestrained as her hands worked a clumsy path over his back.
‘What was that?’ he asked, like a complete moron.
He felt a little less like a doofus when she answered, ‘No fucking clue. I really don’t even know.’ And then began laughing again.
They lay like that, laughing like weirdos as he slowly went soft inside her.
Then Nicky kissed her, tender sweeps of his lips. Her mouth. Her cheekbones. Her eyelids.
Suddenly, he realized he was probably suffocating her with the full weight of his body and rolled off to her side. He quickly dealt with the condom, tossing it in a garbage can that was so close he didn’t even have to get up.
He breathed out a sigh and maneuvered himself and Lucy, bendy as a rag doll, so that his arm was wrapped around her and her head was on his shoulder.
The bed was a disaster. The comforter was in nine different kinds of lumps under them, with pillows hanging half-off the bed, but it didn’t matter. Her head on his shoulder was everything he needed.
The song on the little stereo turned again, another Cure song, and Lucy’s eyes closed. She smiled, like she had in the car when ‘Little Wing’ was playing. Her foot, with its neon-blue-painted toenails, began moving in time with the music.
‘Which one is this?’ Nicky asked.
‘“Just Like Heaven.”’
‘I need to listen to The Cure more.’
‘Good idea,’ she muttered dreamily.
Then she rolled over, folding her arms on his chest and gazing up at him, little wisps of her bangs stuck in her long eyelashes.
‘You know a lot about music,’ she said.
‘So do you.’
‘But I’m just a fan,’ she said, curling her leg over his. ‘You actually play. Do you write?’
The sappy-ass grin that took over his face couldn’t be helped. Couldn’t be resisted. He was that fucking gone for this girl.
He smacked a kiss to her nose and said, ‘Wait right here!’ before hopping off the bed.
Nicky ran out of the room and through the house.
He heard her laughter and a garbled ‘Where are you going?’ from behind him.
Nicky barreled out the back door and hissed at the cold night, cursed June in Delaware because it was a ball-shriveling sixty degrees at night. Like it was geography and not the fact that he was buck-ass-naked that was the issue.
He raced to the Jeep and yanked his battered old guitar case from the back. A gift from his mother. A parting gift, as it turned out, before she ran off to Florida or wherever the fuck she went first.
Nicky’s bare feet slapped on concrete and grass. On wood planking and then the cold linoleum of the kitchen. He made sure to lock the door behind him and then charged back into Lucy’s bedroom holding his guitar case up like a prize.
‘Wanna hear a song?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’ she screamed.
‘Good,’ he replied, pulling a little chair out from against the wall. It had a slightly damp bath towel draped over it, which seemed as good a cushion as anything. He sat down and pulled the guitar out of its case.
Lucy sat up on the bed, still gloriously naked.
She hadn’t even bothered to get under the covers or put a shirt on or anything.
And he was beyond fucking thankful. And amazed.
And humbled. Though, he had to focus on tuning the guitar and not looking at her tits because he was already chubbing up again.
She reached over and shut off the stereo, then waggled her ass deeper into the comforter. She crossed her legs and rested her elbows on her knees, excitement on her pretty face.
With the guitar on his bare knee, and probably too much enthusiasm, he played Lucy Rollins a song he’d been working on.
He’d been calling it ‘Rain Delay’ but didn’t know if that would stick.
Truthfully, he didn’t know if any of it would stick.
But he played it anyway, managed to sing without dropping the tempo or any notes.
Remembered all the lyrics he’d just finished two nights before.
When the last chord drifted off, he finally found the courage to look up at her.
‘Holy shit, Nicky. That was fucking great ,’ she said. With awe. With amazement. The truth?
‘Yeah? You don’t have to say that just because you want my dick again.’
‘Ha!’ she tutted. ‘Trust me, if I didn’t like it … well, I might not tell you because your dick is pretty great. But I would’ve said something like. “Oh, that was nice” or, I don’t know …’ She stopped to think. ‘Maybe something like “your fingering was very accomplished.”’
‘My fingering is very accomplished,’ he said with a wink.
‘I meant the guitar, you horndog.’
‘Sure, you did.’
‘Come to think of it, I might have just said, “Touch my tits,” to distract you from my non-answer.’
He laughed, but she continued on. ‘Nicky.’ Her voice more serious. ‘I really mean it. That song is good . Like, put it on the radio good. Do you play for people? Like bars and whatnot?’
‘The whatnot thing, for sure.’ According to his dad the guitar wasn’t practical. Wouldn’t get him into college. Wouldn’t ever pay the bills. So instead of trying to make a few bucks playing for people somewhere, he spent all his free time working in a damn diner.
Her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. Her head tilted to one side as she asked, ‘Got any more?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Play ’em,’ she demanded.
She smiled at him, and that was all it took. He strummed out another song, and then another.
And somewhere in the middle there, with Lucy Rollins listening to him – really listening – and moving her toes in perfect time, he was finally able to breathe.
It was like he could suddenly see that maybe the weight that he’d been feeling in his chest all year wasn’t actually drowning.
Maybe it was just the pressure of expectations and intentions and fucking potential that his dad had been piling on since senior year started.
The weight wasn’t inside him. It wasn’t doubt from within him.
It had been on the outside all along. He could peel it off and finally fucking breathe.
It wasn’t like Lucy gave him permission to let go of all the bullshit. It was more like she gave him confirmation. Dreams are fragile things, easily destroyed by doubt and conflict. Sometimes it’s easier to convince yourself you’re crazy than it is to convince yourself to take a chance.
Nicky sang out the last note of a song, and Lucy leaned back on her elbows, stretched her legs out, crossing them at the ankles.
She said, ‘Look, I’m not an expert by any means.
I don’t know the first thing about the music business.
Not really. But to my ear, those are real songs.
Like, you could have strummed out some bullshit to me and I think I would know the difference.
A terrible song is a terrible song, right?
There are plenty of those on the radio, too.
I think I could tell. But what you played me was not terrible. Not even close.’
Nicky tossed his guitar in the case, then kicked it aside. He jumped on the bed, making Lucy’s whole body pop up and land back on the mattress.
He pulled her into his lap.
‘You’re going to be here all summer?’ Nicky asked her, with that stupid grin plastered all over his face again.
‘Yeah.’
‘Then so am I.’
‘Right in this room?’ she teased.
‘I mean, I hope every once in a while, you’ll let me in. But I’ll crash with Mike and those guys. Or I have a buddy, Travis, who has a place in Bethany.’
‘Really?’ Lucy asked, like she was shocked or something.
‘Really,’ he replied, with the kind of certainty that can only be delivered by the very young.
Lucy shifted in his arms and wrapped her long, bare legs around him. She rested her arms on his shoulders and pressed their chests together.
‘Okay,’ she breathed, before canting her hips to press her heat against his growing erection.
‘Good,’ Nicky said against her lips. ‘Now, about this accomplished fingering …’