17. Nick
17
NICK
T he absence of my sound machine wakes me. I suppose that’s counterintuitive, but in my exhaustion last night, I forgot to turn it on. Traffic out on the street isn’t even bad, the silence is just too loud. I roll toward Jasmine, only to find she’s not there. I stretch my hand out, keeping my eyes purposefully shut. If I don’t open them, technically I’m not awake. The sheets are still warm, the pillow still smells like her.
“Jazz.” My voice is scratchy and thin. “Jazz,” I say again.
The mattress shifts, and then her warm hand covers mine.
“I’m here.”
A knot in my chest uncoils. “I thought you left.” I sound more relieved than I probably should; with those four words I give away too much of what I feel for her.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she says.
I roll back to my side of the bed. “I forgot the sound machine,” I say, slapping at the milk crate nightstand I DIYed with a glue gun and two-by-fours left over from when we last repaired the stage.
“It’s okay,” she says, sliding a hand up my arm. “C’mere.” She tugs.
I roll back to her, finally surrendering, and open my eyes. My heart catches. “Damn.” I should have opened my eyes a lot sooner.
A combination of city and moonlight paints Jasmine in silver and shadows. Her hair is still down, a delight I haven’t been able to luxuriate in yet. She leans on one hand, her breasts round and full, her nipples begging to be sucked, one leg curled over the other. Like this, she could easily inspire a Renaissance artist to create a masterpiece.
“What?” A small V of concern appears between her eyebrows.
“If I had any artistic talent,” I say, grasping a strand of her hair between my index and middle fingers. “I’d paint you like one of those French girls.”
She blushes, just like I hoped she would, and turns her face toward my hand, kissing my palm, first with her lips, then with her mouth open, sending a spark of arousal to my groin. She slides her hand across the bed and presses something hard and cold against my other hand.
It takes a moment to register that it’s the lube I brought earlier. “Is it my turn now?”
She flushes again, the color barely discernible in the low light. “You’d want to do that?”
I walk my fingers up her arm, watch her skin raise in response. “Have you done it before?”
After a moment of intense studying, she nods. “Yes. Have you?”
With a chin lift, I let one corner of my lips turn up. “My motto is to try everything at least once. As long as we’re all consenting adults.”
Pulling her to me, I guide her so she’s reclined on the mattress. I hook her leg over my hip, palm her ass. Jasmine is so proper, so good. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the thrill she gets from considering anal play is just as hot as the actual acts.
I brush a hand down her ass, over her pussy. “You were sore.” I don’t want to be overbearing, she knows her body best, but even with lube, penetrative sex won’t make that any better.
“I don’t want it for there,” she says quietly.
I draw my hand back up her ass, pressing my middle finger to the top of her crease. She smiles, shaking her head. I reach for my own ass, but she stops me, places my palm over her breast.
“I thought we could do that,” she says with such ease it leaves me confused. “I want you to fuck my tits, Nick,” she whispers, her voice low and steady. The arousal I felt a moment ago is nothing compared to this, to my fantasy come to life. She tucks her hair behind her ear—she slept in her pearl earrings—drags her fingers down her jaw, her throat. “I want you to come here.”
All I can say is “Yeah.” Then, “Okay.”
She laughs, her green eyes lighting. “Do you want to?”
I sit back so fast the bed shudders, and nod emphatically. “Yes. Absolutely, I do. Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Yes.” I’m hard, ready to go. I need to take a beat, slow down. With a deep breath in, I force myself to stop, then slowly reach for her. Jasmine said she’d never been kissed the way I kiss her. The truth is, I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone the way I kiss her. I could kiss her, only kiss, for hours, days. Her scent in my nose, her taste at the back of my throat, the weight of her jaw on my fingertips, the slide of her hair against them, and the sounds she makes, the huffs, the moans, the sighs. Every kiss its own little serotonin hit until I’m addicted.
That’s how I kiss her now, with the urgency of addiction. We lie side by side. Kiss, mouths and skin. She rubs herself, hot and wet, up and down my leg. I lick her nipples, suck her until her skin shines. Pushing her to her back, I move down her body, remind myself to be gentle with her, take care. Kiss her pussy, fuck her with my tongue. Her taste, her smell, her hands in my hair, her skin on my skin, how wet she is, the way there will be a puddle on my mattress later, a wet spot we won’t have to argue about.
I’m happy to lie in it.
I hold her open with my thumbs. She moans my name, and other words like please . Her thighs a vice around my head, pinning me in place. As if I’d stop or leave or not give her this, my mouth, or anything she asked for, if she’d only ask. Her body shakes as she gushes all over my tongue, coming with a sharp cry. I trail my lips across her stomach, her ribs and breasts, petting between her legs as her trembling slows. Eyes still closed, she pulls me forward. I crawl up her body, my knees sinking into the mattress on either side of her, my cock in one hand, the bottle of lube in the other.
“Ready?”
Her legs still saw behind me, but she nods, biting her bee-stung lower lip.
She hisses and her eyes widen as I dribble the lube across her breasts. “Cold.”
“Sorry.” I wince.
But she pushes her breasts together, drawing her finger through the lube, along her cleavage, around her nipples. When her skin is slick, I brace myself on one hand and hover close, kiss her.
“Hold yourself together,” I say as I pull back.
She obeys, and as my cock slips against her skin, between her tits, my head peeking out, a wave of ecstasy washes over me. Fuck. I move slowly, unable to take my eyes off her, off us. It feels like my first time again. Like when I had to watch my cock enter a woman’s body just to make sure it was real.
This isn’t the most sensation I’ve ever felt. It’s far from the kinkiest sex I’ve ever had. But the way she grips herself, when she traps her nipple between her fingers, how she watches my cock with the same intensity I do, then opens her mouth, letting my head kiss her lips? It’s enough to have tingles building at the base of my spine far too quickly.
I clench the pillow in my fist. The sound of my cock, her skin, the lubricant; the gentle suction of her mouth, her lips.
“Is it okay…” I gasp. A string of pre-come trails from my cock to her tongue. “ Fuck. If I come…”
She lifts her chin, presenting her neck, her collarbone. I can’t hold back any longer. I barely gasp out a quick “Coming” before my orgasm barrels down my spine, hot and hard.
She whimpers as it hits her throat. With her chin tipped up, her earrings glint in the light, my come glistens across her neck. She whimpers again because this time my come paints her chin, her cheek. Her fucking lips.
“ Oh .” She looks up at me, her eyes huge.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says, so quiet, gentle.
She’s covered in my come, a mess. Her eyes shining, her lips glistening.
All the air is stolen from my lungs. “You look so fucking beautiful.”
She takes my face in her hands and lifts her mouth to mine. She stops short of kissing me, giving me the choice to opt out. She should know by now; I’ll never opt out of kissing her.
When I press my mouth to hers, she hums a happy sound against my lips. I’ll do almost anything to hear that sound again.
The next time I wake up, the bed is empty again, but this time, Jasmine is moving around the apartment. The floor is too creaky and old for anyone to manage stealth.
“What time is it?” I ask, sitting up slowly.
She doesn’t answer right away, and when my sleep-logged brain catches up with my eyeballs, I understand why. She was trying to sneak out.
“You could have woken me up,” I say, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and stretching. “Do you want a cup of coffee to go?” I grab a T-shirt from the floor, sniff it, and put it on.
She stands by the door, bags in hand. Fidgeting. That’s not good.
“Jasmine.” My tone is the same one I use when I find newly minted nineteen-year-olds doing bumps in the bathroom and want them to question their choices. “What’s wrong?”
She sets down her bags, clasps her hands in front of her, transforms in front of my eyes into that controlled woman I first met. “Thank you so much for your help and for allowing me to help you.”
My stomach bottoms out at her polite tone. “What are you doing?” I’m standing in the middle of my home, but I feel lost. Where is the woman I spent last night with? The one who was brave and beautiful and bare, not just of all clothing but pretense.
She swallows, her steely gaze faltering. “Now that we’ve helped one another, I think it’s best for us to go our separate ways.” With a deep breath in, she holds out her hand.
A laugh threatens to sputter out of me, so I do my best to hide it behind my hand, turning the move into some sort of masculine, jaw-working action she doesn’t buy for a second. “You want me to shake your hand?” I close the distance between us, ignoring her still proffered palm. “Jasmine.” I lean in close, drop my voice like we are sharing a secret.
She plasters herself against the door as if she’s suddenly uncomfortable with our proximity. As if she’s fucking scared of me.
“My tongue was in your pussy last night. You were wearing my pearl necklace hours ago.” I thumb her pearl earring, understanding now why she wore them to bed. For me. “Now you want to shake hands. Like this was some sort of business transaction?”
Her skin flushes a deep red as she scowls. She pushes me away and I go, taking the space she needs because fuck I need it, too.
Teeth gritted, she says, “I’m sorry if my actions last night gave you the wrong impression.”
I’m losing my mind. This is a dream. Whatever this is, it isn’t real. “Are you a fucking robot? What the hell is going on?”
Finally, she drops her white-knuckle grip on the act. “This wasn’t supposed to turn into a thing , Nick,” she hisses.
“So fucking what?” I don’t yell, but only just barely. My chest aches so acutely I worry I’ll have a cardiac event right here and now. “It turned into a thing.”
“All of the reasons I thought we wouldn’t work when I thought you were the real Nick?”
Wow. Real was certainly a choice. What am I, a puppet from the imagination of Jim Henson?
“Those reasons still apply,” she bites out. “Look at you. I have to go to work now. Meanwhile, you don’t have to be up for hours because you work at a bar .”
I throw my head back and laugh, mostly to push away the way those words slice into me. “Is it that our hours aren’t compatible? Or is it something else? Like say…” I shrug. “My bank account balance?”
“Fuck you,” she says quietly, looking over my shoulder. Her eyes shine with unshed tears.
I should stop, but something snapped in me back around the word real . I want her to hurt as much as she’s hurt me.
“Everything is a transaction for you. Even sex.”
“Fuck. You ,” she shouts, coming at me with both arms outstretched. “You.” She pushes me back. Once, twice, again. “Lied.” Until the back of my knees hit my bed and she pushes me down. “To me.”
Her tears spill over now.
“You pretended to be someone you weren’t. Do you know how fucked up that is? You’re a fucking liar. A fake.”
“I’m the liar? I’m the fake?” I snarl.
I stand, loom over her, but she doesn’t back down. We’re chest to chest, nose to nose. I hold my breath because the scent of her perfume will just confuse me.
“You’ve spent your whole life trying to convince everyone that you’re the perfect girlfriend, the perfect sister.” After years of arguing with my dad, I’ve gotten too good at the kind of retorts that cut to the bone. “Everything about you is fake.”
It isn’t until that last part is out that I register the pain on her face.
She turns away, dashing at her tears with the heel of her hand. “At least I don’t live my life as if it’s a joke,” she says quietly. “Playacting as some Peter Pan man-child.”
Back turned, she shuffles to her bags and picks them up. She takes a beat, her shoulders by her ears and fuck if I want to go to her, apologize. Fucking beg her not to go, not to choose him.
Choose me .
She faces me again, her face void of emotion. “And sex, by the way, is transactional by its very nature. Remember that the next time you judge me for the sexual partners I choose. Not all of us have the luxury of running to our daddy when we want to buy a fucking bar.”
She opens the door, pauses at the threshold.
“That’s why I did matchmaking in the first place. To find the person I wanted, not the one I needed.”
My heart stutters, because I wanted her to want me. I thought she did, maybe she could.
“That’s why I need to make things work with the r—” She stops herself. “The other Nick. He’s my perfect match.” She puts her hand on my chest, and my heart beats hard against her palm.
“I’m sorry,” I say, fast and breathless.
“Do yourself a favor, Nick,” she says, her words ghosting across my throat. “Save for retirement.”
Wow. Low fucking blow.
Then she’s gone.
Dad calls, because of course he does. This man has a sixth sense for the absolute worst time to pick up the phone. I let it ring, watching clouds collect above the skylight until there is nothing but steel gray above me, low and dismal and cold. Just as the snow begins, he calls again. Now the cloud cover and snow have turned the sky so dark I can’t tell what time it is. If I blow through my opening shift, Rocco will come get me, so I stay where I am. Don’t bother checking the clock. When Dad calls a third and fourth time in quick succession, my gut twists. I can’t put this off any longer. Part of me hoped if I never picked up again, he’d just forget. About my request, about me.
“Hey,” I say.
“Where were you?” he asks.
My mind is as blank as the sky above me. “I...” Why did I say that to her? What the fuck is wrong with me? “I was here.”
Dad’s pause is what Merriam-Webster might call pregnant. “Why didn’t you answer before?” At his core, Dad is a businessman. He doesn’t like to feel his time is wasted.
She’s right, though. I am fake. I lied to my family to get access to my father’s money. “I’m a fraud,” I say.
Dad stutters, laughs uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Dad, I…”
“Listen,” he cuts in. “I called to let you know that we can do a transfer of funds, in three installments?—”
“No.” Panic washes like cold water over my body. This cannot happen. I cannot do this. “Dad, no. I don’t want the money.”
He says my name, exasperated now.
“Dad. I lied. We lied.” I take a deep breath, garner all my strength. “Jasmine isn’t my girlfriend. She never was.”