Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 38

“Thanks.” I pushed the bag her way. “Pick your color.” I felt…something. The sociopath in me was taking a long hibernation, and I was suddenly curious to know what she saw that was good in me.

She handed me a pale pink. Hardly a color.

“Wuss.” I raised my eyebrows.

She grabbed the bottle back and picked up a bright purple.

“Alright, you’re brave.” I took the bottle and examined the glittery color. “But maybe also a little reckless.”

“Is this your first time?” She started to smile at her own joke, but the smile got stuck halfway between flirty and something way more serious.

“You have officially popped my nail polish cherry.” The air in the room sizzled, hot and tense.

“I guess there aren’t many girls who can say they’ve popped any of your cherries.” It made us laugh and burst whatever tense, weird-ass thing we were feeling. She held out her hand to me.

I’m a big admirer of the female body, and certain parts get more worship than others. Hands usually aren’t in the running. This time, I was going to have to make an exception. Her hands were soft and small, but the nails were short and clean, for work. Even her knuckles were nice, kind of lovely ridges, and I brushed my thumb over them experimentally. It felt good.

It didn’t exactly do it for me like a handful of tits or a nice ass grab, but it really felt good. Like essentially, elementally good.

I copied Cadence as best I could, setting up the paint and holding her hands out so that I could see all of her fingers.

“I think your hands are nice,” I said, and it sounded awkward. Especially for me. I’m usually a little more glib, just by definition.

“Thank you,” she said a little stiffly, but with the sweet hint of a smile.

I took the brush and blobbed a dot of purple on her finger nail. She tried not to laugh at me outright. “Not so much,” she warned. “Thin coats. Here.” She reached over and got out her bag of cotton balls and the nail polish remover. She rubbed it on the nail and it all came off. “Okay, Casanova. Again.”

So I did it again, and it was better. When I had done one coat on the first three fingers, I felt confident enough to multi-task. “So,” I began, “tell me about your dating life.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a pretty lame story.”

“I love lame stories. For example, I’ve seen The Notebooktwice.”

“That is a classic,” she gasped, horrified. We laughed again. “My love story is pretty basic. I meet a reasonably attractive guy, we date a little, he turns out to be a complete loser, I get dumped. Wash, rinse, repeat.”

I halted progress on her ring finger and stared at her fallen-fucking-angel face.

“You get dumped?”

“Yes.” She pinched her lips tight and nodded. “People think that if you’re a good-looking girl, it just doesn’t happen. But I guess I’m dense. Because I’ve been dumped. A lot.”

“Why?” But I was already answering my question in my head, because the answer was obvious; Cadence didn’t put out.

“I don’t like to rush things.” Bingo. “I mean, guys want to do a lot when you’ve only known them for a few weeks. Then, once they dump me, I feel kind of glad that we didn’t do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.” She looked up at me. “Did you stay with any of the girls you dated longer because of sex?”

“Nope.” I had to refocus because I was squeezing her fingers tighter than necessary when the memories popped up. “Actually, the girl I liked the best wouldn’t even think of it. And, frankly, I didn’t want it if she didn’t.”

“That’s cool.” Cadence looked intently at my not-half-bad paint job. “Jeff has been bringing it up a lot. He says I have Puritan ideals about sex.”

“Sounds like the big man took an intro to psych course,” I said between clenched teeth. “Look, if a guy likes you for you, he’ll wait, okay? Speaking as a walking hard-on, sex doesn’t mean faithfulness. If you were my girlfriend and you wanted to wait, I’d wait because I was into you and that’s what you wanted.” Then I looked down at her nails and blew gently.

I heard her draw a quick breath in. What was so sexy about blowing on fingernails? Crazy!

“Did you mean that hypothetically, or were you being literal?” Her voice was a mix of breathy and high-pitched.

I blew again, slowly, before I answered. “What do you mean?” I knew what she meant. I just didn’t want to get duped. I wanted her to say what I wanted to hear.

“I mean, do you think about me as a girlfriend or is it just a general--”

The doorbell rang. It was loud in the hushed house, and Cadence jumped up to get it. I followed right behind her. She reached out to take the food, but I reached over her.

“Your nails are wet,” I reminded her.

“Oh. Yeah. Of course,” she fumbled.

I paid the guy and over-tipped, just in case this became something Cadence and I did once in a while.

I was already plotting time together, thinking about us as something like a unit.

We unpacked the white paper cartons and spread them on the coffee table in the living room. We sat cross-legged in the dim yellow light and ate our food, laughing now and then in between. Slowly, we got closer. Before we knew it, we were sitting right next to each other, close enough that my breath moved her hair.

“You need to have a boneless sparerib. They’re the best I’ve ever had.” I was going to scoop it onto her plate when she opened her mouth and closed her eyes.

I didn’t even hesitate. I picked up a piece and put it in her mouth, then tried to control my raging wood when she sucked the meat off of my fingers and licked at the sauce with her hot tongue. The entire thing couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but I felt on fire, turned-on like I’d never felt before.

I pulled my hand away reluctantly. We ate in silence for a minute.

“You didn’t eat any of the dumplings. I think I ate seven. You need the last one.” Cadence snatched it up with her bare fingers and I opened my mouth.

I know I had talked a big game about taking it slow, but I was talking thebig game: sex. Once I had a taste of her, even if it was a highly polished taste, I wasn’t about to let go without at least taking a swing and trying for some kind of anything physical. I ate the dumpling, then grabbed her hand so she couldn’t pull it back. There was a second where we both just stared across the couple of inches that separated us. Then I licked the dumpling sauce off of her fingers. Her eyes were big, but eager. She was waiting for me to make the next move.

I kissed her fingers, then down to her palm, then along her wrist. She was wearing an old tank top that was rapidly becoming see-through from too many washings, which was a boon for me. I kissed up to her elbow, along her bicep, nicely shaped from lifting so many trays, and up her shoulder.

That’s where my mouth stopped.

I hovered over that smooth skin, breathed in the smell of her that was partially clean girl, partially something sweet and fruit-like, and mostly just Cadence. Her hand moved then, and I watched it, the purple paint I painted on it rising up until she grabbed at my face, then quickly with her other hand, she pulled me up to her mouth.

My mouth found hers hot and fast. What had started at barely a simmer exploded into a full-blown kitchen fire.

Her mouth opened up and licked at me, nipped and bit, and I gave her lips and mouth similar treatment. Our bodies strained up and towards each other, her hands ripped at my t-shirt, pushing up underneath it and spreading out over my abs and chest. I lifted her onto my lap, facing me and let my hands roam every good, warm place on her. I didn’t venture under her clothes; I wanted to. Holy fucking hell, I wanted her. But I had a feeling letting her be in charge would serve me well.

I didn’t know if I had ever been kissed the way she kissed me. It was like her entire body threw itself into the kiss. She was wild, her mouth was sweet and hot, her hands were greedy and quick. I was strained against my pants, and she rubbed against my erection, moaning a little into my mouth. I pulled away from her mouth and sucked down along her jaw and onto her neck. She dug her nails into the bare skin of my back and ground down against me.