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She glances back over her shoulder, lips split apart with each gasp as I ram into her, and I lean forward and kiss the hell out of my girlfriend. She has to arch back, causing me to slide deeper.
“Thatcher,” she gasps against my mouth.
I knead her breast, and once she’s back on her forearms, I’m all the way inside, touching a sensitive place that causes Jane to cry in soft breaths. Sweat caked on our skin, hair damp, and blood on fire.
“Deeper, deeper,” she moans.
I’m deeper than any man has ever been in this girl, and I’m not letting up. Not as her legs throttle. Not as I ascend a peak. Not as her fingers clench the blankets.
We come together in a spine-tingling, head-whirling, body-transporting climax, and I milk the sensation in a few more pumps while she searches for lost breath.
When we’re done, I pull Jane in my arms, and she splays on my chest like she’s lounging belly-down on a pool floatie. I make sure she’s under the blankets, as the night grows cold, and our eyes stay on each other for minutes upon minutes.
She’s lost energy to speak.
I’m not sure if I can say what needs to be said, and in time, we both drift to sleep.
19
JANE COBALT
“It was some of the best sex I’ve ever experienced, by far,” I whisper quietly to Moffy. Not that many people are in earshot. The tiny pub is nearly empty as the sun drops. One local drinks hard cider at the bar, and the bearded bartender chats leisurely with him.
We relax on the small sofa section, nestled around a fireplace and mounted TV. I love the old charm of northern Scotland. Coat of arms decorates wooden-paneled walls, and the oaky aroma of Scotch permeates around us.
“Even though you started out pushing him away?” Maximoff asks under his breath.
I press my knuckles to my lips. “I hate myself for that.” It pains me to admit. “I’m not even certain how it derailed there.” I stare at my lap. “But then again, I can’t see myself just…letting him take complete fault for everything and I’m trying not to be guarded about my feelings.”
We glance over at the bar as Thatcher, Tony, Donnelly, and Farrow order drinks. Oscar and Charlie are talking at a high-top table near the fogged window, and I hope my brother plans to stay longer. Most everyone will be here soon, and all of us only arrived earlier for a meeting with a local chef.
Charlie even asked genuine questions about catering, and I thought Maximoff’s smile would shatter the window. It’s almost like high school again, the three of us on good terms.
Wedding business is actually fun to discuss, but Moffy changed the subject to my relationship before we dove too deep into his nuptials.
“Janie.” Moffy scoots closer on the tufted leather sofa. “It’s pretty much normal to need the person you love.”
I slip my frilly pen in a binder pocket. “Do you feel as though you need Farrow?”
“Yeah.” He nods a few times. “Christ, I think I needed him before he even joined security.” He makes a face. “Don’t tell Farrow that.”
“Cross my heart,” I smile, but my lips fall quickly. I place my binder on the cushion beside me. “But regardless, you can still survive on your own without Farrow. Correct?”
He cracks a knuckle, lost in thought. “Maybe, but it’d be…” Grief clouds his eyes. “I don’t know. It feels like death.”
“God,” I murmur. “I don’t want to feel like I’m dying if my boyfriend isn’t with me.” Sudden panic scorches me, and I waft my sequined pink sweater. “I think I lied to him last night.”
“Wait, what?”
“I told Thatcher that I’d rather survive with him than without him, and sitting here, talking to you, I know that I’d rather be able to survive on my own more than anything else.” Yet, my throat closes like that’s not entirely truthful either, and my cheeks crinkle in a wince. “I’m not being logical, am I?”
He hugs my shoulders with a tough arm. “I don’t know if there’s a lot of logic in love.”
That frightens me.
I lean into my best friend and stare off at the wall.
He can tell I’m strangely quiet. “Maybe you should talk out your feelings with Thatcher and see what he says.”
“I’ve tried, and I set myself up for failure every time.” Being around him tends to tongue-tie me, and whenever I delve into emotions and fears, I feel like a panicked, spinning and wobbling coin. And I’m always scared I’ll land on the wrong side.
“He said he’d go at whatever pace you set,” Moffy reminds me. “He’s here for the long haul, so if it takes you a millennium to blurt out what you need to, he might still be around.”
“I know.” Thatcher is too good for me and my insecurities. I’m not so sure I deserve to have a man who’s sacrificed everything for me and who also has to wait forever for me. Sadly, I mutter, “He deserves better.”
“No,” Maximoff snaps. He touches my forehead like I’m running a fever.
“Moffy.” I start to smile.
He drops his hand. “Tu es la meilleure. Il a même de la chance de respirer le même air que tu respires.” You’re the best. He’s lucky to even breathe the same air you breathe.
“It’s hard to feel that way when he just had to announce how many times he thinks about fucking me in a single day.” Charlie made us flip a card an hour ago, and it’s not like either of us has kept a count of our impure thoughts. So we did our best to estimate an average.
“Last I checked, we’re not normal, everyday people,” Moffy tells me. “Unless we’ve left this universe and entered one where our faces aren’t plastered on every amazing tabloid that I just love reading front to damn back.”
I tip my head. “We are excruciatingly abnormal.”
“And your boyfriend has to do abnormal things to be with you,” Maximoff says. “And I saw you smiling when he answered 102 times a day.”
I did.
And Thatcher looked enamored by me when I answered, 81 times.
I breathe in more, and I rest my hands on his shoulder, my chin on my knuckles. Feeling better. “Did you ever imagine our first time in Scotland would be with your fiancé and my boyfriend and we’d be preparing for your wedding?” It bursts love into my heart just thinking this.
Maximoff tries to restrain an uncontrollable smile. “No.” He licks his lips. “Because I never thought I’d get married. If anything, I thought it’d be your wedding, and I’d be over here a forever bachelor.”
“I like this better—and I’m not hijacking your wedding,” I note. “Don’t fret.”
Media and tabloids keep speculating that Thatcher and I will marry first. Based off a complicated history where my mom and dad sort of commandeered Aunt Lily and Uncle Lo’s wedding.
Their past choices keep affecting us in strange ways.
“I’m not worried about that,” Moffy says with a weird look.
“What is it?”
“You know if you want to marry Thatcher before I walk down the aisle, I get it. It’s not like I’m planning on marrying Farrow tomorrow. It’ll be a couple years.”
My eyes bug. “I just started calling him a boyfriend, and he just moved in. I’m not ready, and I doubt he’d want to put a ring on a girl who can barely utter I love you.”
“Okay, okay,” Maximoff nods. “I just don’t want to be the reason you’re holding back.”
I give him a weird look now. “Would you really want Thatcher to be the man I’m with forever?” Thatcher has been Farrow’s least favorite person, and Maximoff hasn’t been too fond of him in the past either.
“Weirdly, yeah. He’s good to you, and he makes you happy.” He nods. “But if he hurts you, I’ll slit his throat with a hacksaw—a rusted hacksaw.”
I laugh at his amendment.
Maximoff smiles. “This is surreal—you and me in serious relationships and traveling with our men.” He shakes his head in disbelief, and I feel that same overwhelming feeling breach the surface inside me. “I’m gl
ad you’re here, Janie.” His chest rises. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
Emotion wells my eyes. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
I’m drunk.
Scottish whiskey is delightful, and I nurse my third glass. Or is this my fourth? My head floats, and the noisy pub sounds melodic to Feel-Good Drunk Jane. Seventeen bodies pack in, our group overrunning the establishment.
A glittery sequin on my sweater snags my blue tutu. I rip them apart with one hand, and the tulle tears.
Oh well. Torn skirt, missing sequin—life could be so much worse. A rumor could hit the internet that I’m fucking my cousin.
I sip my whiskey with a smile. I never thought I could even mentally joke about the incest rumor, and one year later…
I smile more, huddled around the warm fireplace with my two female cousins. The sofa and bar area are crowded with bodyguards who stay on-duty, unable to drink alcohol. But they mingle with each other.
“I really fucking love that he never put pressure on me to kiss him.” Sulli bites her lip, as though she can feel Will Rochester on them. “I was so comfortable with him last night. It was perfect.”
My little sister would’ve swooned for eternity just hearing Sulli describe her make-out session with Will. How he brought extra blankets to the living room of Mackintosh House. How they cuddled by the fire and he caressed her cheek and drew her in slowly.
I wrap an arm around her waist. “That might be one of the most romantic first kisses I’ve ever heard.”
“Uh-huh,” Luna nods, popping the tab to an energy drink. “Fan-fiction worthy.”
“Really?” Sulli grins, gripping the neck of a beer. She hasn’t loved the taste, but she’s still been timid to sip mixed drinks after passing out so quickly. Sulli feels comfortable enough here, surrounded by family and SFO, to drink though. “I bet your first kisses were fucking rad.”
Luna bobs her head to the top-hits channel that plays throughout the pub and smiles into her sip of energy drink. “He made me a sandwich afterwards.”
“Is that a euphemism?” I wonder.
“Nope. A real peanut butter and banana sandwich. Eliot, Tom and I crashed some senior’s party, and I hung out in the kitchen with this guy named Mike…or maybe it was Rogan.” She shrugs, unconcerned. “Never saw him again.”
“You’re a badass.” Sulli fist-bumps Luna, then asks me, “What was your first kiss like—oh fuck…” She reddens in embarrassment, hand to her mouth. “I forgot. I’m so fucking sorry.”
My first kiss was with Wesley Rochester, Will’s younger brother. “It was a kindergarten kiss. It meant very little.” I squeeze her in another side-hug before letting go, and I accidentally slosh whiskey out of my glass.
Merde.
