glassy-eyed?”
They were sitting on her living room floor, passing a tube of refrigerated cookie dough between them.
Marley bit down on a chocolate chip and didn’t answer. After the movies, she’d changed back into sweatpants. Well, she’d tried to go pants-less but Chad grumbled. He changed into some clothes that he kept there. He would probably sleep on her couch later, too. Hopefully she could convince him to make his stuffed French toast the next day.
“Mars?”
She looked up. Chad raised his eyebrows as he sipped his wine.
Boxed wine and cookie dough. The Lake siblings were pure class.
“Um…”
“Austin left after you did and never came back.”
She knew this fact. After their…encounter, he’d told her he planned to stay in the lobby to wait for Sydney. Marley had asked if he wanted to see the rest of the movie. He’d shrugged and said he knew how it ended.
And she’d walked away.
Her cheeks heated as she remembered when she had completely lost her marbles and allowed him to bring her to orgasm with his fingers in a fucking movie theater lobby.
Again, pure class.
Chad’s eyebrows were still raised. Maybe if she didn’t answer, they’d stay that way forever. She sighed. “We made out.”
Chad’s eyebrows rose higher and she marveled at his ability to contort his face. “You made out?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
She picked at a hole in her sweatpants. “In the lobby.”
“Holy shit.”
“Mm hmm.”
Chad leaned back on his hands. “He is super hot, even if he talks like my senior biology teacher.”
Marley snorted.
“Well,” Chad patted her knee. “Good for you. You need to let go a little.”
“I know. And it was…” Her cheeks heated again. “Amazing. But I owe him.” A giggle burst from her lips and she waggled her eyebrows at Chad.
“Yeah, okay, no more details.”
“But I don’t have time for a relationship.”
Her brother cocked his head. “Who said anything about that? Just have fun with a hot guy for once in your life, Mars. A guy who can get you off. Enjoy the release. Why do you have to make everything so serious?”
Not everyone can be like you , she thought. Her brother could do casual. That’s all he ever did. But she’d never done casual. She wasn’t sure she could.
But as she thought of Austin’s husky voice in her ear, the feel of his lips on her skin, his fingers inside of her…
She wanted that again. And again. And maybe one more time in the shower.
She stuck another ball of cookie dough in her mouth and spoke as she chewed. “Don’t even know if I’ll see him again.”
Chad dropped his head and eyed her. “You got off and he didn’t?”
She swallowed and nodded.
“Oh, Mars,” he laughed. “Trust me. You’ll see him again.”
She sure hoped so.
Later that night, after Chad passed out on her couch, she lay awake in her darkened bedroom, staring at her ceiling.
She had never dated much. She’d had a couple of long-term boyfriends who were nice and safe and weren’t threatened by her ambition. But nice and safe boys didn’t hold their hands at her throat. They didn’t slip their hands into her panties in a public place—no matter how secluded—and whisper dirty things into her ear.
She shifted under her covers as she began to get aroused just thinking about him.
She’d always had fantasies, but when she suggested them to her first boyfriend, he’d looked alarmed. Like something was wrong with her for wanting him to use a little force when she’d asked for it. She’d been embarrassed and ashamed and hadn’t bothered any of her other boyfriends with a similar request.
So her fantasies were for her only. She kept a private Tumblr account and a vibrator and she thought that was all she needed. Of course she longed for the real thing, but worried it could never live up to how she thought it would be.
Until Austin.
She picked up her cell from her nightstand and pulled up her Tumblr app on her phone. She scrolled to
Michel Houellebecq, Gavin Bowd