Noelle August - Boomerang

Some part of me knows we’re drunk, both of us, but that this is real. How could it not be?

Dipping my head, I take the soft part of her ear between my teeth, pressing a gentle bite there. “You’re so sweet, Mia. So hot.”

She reacts urgently to my words, framing my face with her hands and guiding my mouth back to hers. Her body presses against me and I’m instantly hard, fighting the urge to drive into her right now.

When have I ever wanted a girl this much? Have I ever?

“You taste incredible,” I say, sucking the champagne off her warm skin. I work my way down to her collarbone, and then to her breasts. She’s soft, the weight and shape of her so fucking perfect. I can’t push her dress and bra aside enough, so I suck through the wet layers and feel her nipple tighten into a bud beneath my tongue.

“Ethan . . .” Mia grips my hair and arches her back. “That’s amazing.”

“It’s going to get better.” I glance up. Her eyes are unfocused and heavy with desire. Seeing her that way only makes me want her more. She’s like liquid fire under my hands, so responsive. “But you know what’s getting in our way, Curls?” I smooth my hand down her hip and over her thigh, finding the hem of the wet fabric. “Your dress.”

Mia

Q: When was your last truly memorable night?

I fall onto my bed, drunk and spinning, trying to fix on the bright double squares of my bedroom window, which Sky’s opened so I can get some fresh air. I taste the night on my tongue—that metallic tang, like pennies, that comes right before rain. The breeze is cool and shivery and flutters along my sheet like fingers, so light, touching every bit of me.

Of course I think of Ethan, wishing for his fingers, his lips.

Remembering.

“But you know what’s getting in our way, Curls?” he says, and his hands travel along my body like he’s taking the measure of me, like he’s sculpting me to life there in his dimly lit galley kitchen. “Your dress.”

He turns me around and nudges me toward the refrigerator.

“What are you doing?” I ask, but I don’t care, not really. I just know I want him, want to taste him again, his tongue warm and darting in my mouth, his body pressed against me again, firm and powerful and radiating with desire.

“Zipper,” he says, bending close to my ear.

I put my hands against the cool surface, and it feels so good. I should be chilled, drenched in champagne—I remember now—but I’m feverish, floating, wanting his hands on me to keep me rooted.

The zipper gently scrapes my flesh, and I feel his closeness like a palpable force, keeping me there. The soft fabric of my dress brushes against my legs, traveling over my upper thighs, my belly, my breasts, until I’m free of it, and it disappears in the shadows like it never existed.

His hands come around me and caress the sheer wet fabric of my bra, closing over my breasts with just the right firmness, everything exactly the way I like it.

And the way I realize it’s never been before, never perfect like this.

He thumbs my nipples, squeezes them, then pushes my hair out of the way so his lips can touch my shoulder, my neck, his teeth grazing me, tongue warm against my skin.

“That’s not fair,” I protest.

“What’s not?”

“You’re still dressed.”

He laughs. “For now.” His mouth against my ear, he says, “You taste like champagne. Jesus, I want more of that.”

Not as much as I want you, I think and push back against him, needing the feel of his body again. It’s more than just a perfect physical match, more than just him knowing how to touch me. It’s this feeling of being perfectly free to express every part of me, especially my longing for him.

I move my hand off the refrigerator, needing to touch him, but he traps my hand and returns it to the cool stainless steel.

“I’m right here,” he tells me, and presses against me, hard against the small of my back. “Don’t move. Stay just like that.”

His arm comes around me again, wrapping around my waist. He bends me forward just a little, pushes a leg between my legs so that I feel his rock-hard thigh, the rough texture of his jeans pushed up against me. I groan and rest my face against my arm, feeling the stickiness of the champagne, the cool vibration of the refrigerator.

Ethan spreads my legs apart, and his other hand slides beneath the lace waistband of my panties, slipping down to rest against me, against the pulsing warm center of my body.

And then I can’t think. I can only feel. The brush of his fingers against me. Over and over. Perfect. So absolutely perfect. His lips on my back, my neck, his arm tight across my waist. I move against him, my body seeking his touch, my legs trembling from the impossibility of staying upright while his hand moves against me, while I move against his hand.

“Fuck,” he groans, and the sound of his voice makes me weak, makes me wish that stainless steel weren’t so goddamn slippery. “You feel good. So fucking good.”

He holds me hard against his body, his fingers coaxing me, making my breath come faster, making my whole body tremble.

I can’t stand how good it feels, like a miniature sun is burning inside me, radiating through my every cell. Like I’m about to go supernova.

And then I do.

He slips a finger inside me, and heat rushes through every part of me, the delicious intense pulse of it almost knocking me off my feet. It rolls through me in wave after wave, sharp and overpowering, almost painful but the opposite of pain. My body can’t stop moving against his fingers. Every part of me craves more, and I’m drenched in this place of dizzying, gorgeous surrender.

“Holy shit.” I want to kiss my own hand in gratitude for being part of my body, with blood and nerves and skin. I’m only upright because he’s holding me upright, because I only exist where I connect with his powerful arm, his skilled, beautiful touch.

My breathing slows, and his hand slips out of my panties to join the other one resting against my stomach. “Thanks,” he replies, and I can imagine his slow, satisfied smile, which may very well be my undoing.

I turn in his arms. His hands plunge into my hair, and I rise up on tiptoes to kiss him, to tongue all my pleasure and gratitude into his body, to give him a little bit of what he just gave me. We kiss and kiss for what feels like hours but like no time at all, like there will never be enough time to taste him, to know all there is to know about his lips against mine.

My fingers move down his neck, trailing across the sturdy “V” of his chest, slipping down the contours of his stomach to the button on his jeans.

“Now you,” I say, so hungry with the need to touch him that my fingers are clumsy.

“Not yet, Curls,” he tells me, and before I know it, he’s lifted me off my feet, like I’m nothing. His hands settle beneath me, and my legs come around his waist. I wrap around him, and he kisses me again, then starts to carry me toward the living room, his lips still pressed against me so we’re clumsy, bumping into the walls.

“What are we doing?”

I feel his smile against my own, and then he settles me on the couch. Vaguely, I think we should probably go to his bedroom, but most of me doesn’t care. I just want more of this. Want to swim in it.

“First, I think we need to get you out of the rest of your wet clothes,” he says, with mock concern. “And then I’ve got a few ideas.”

Ethan

Q: What’s your favorite hangover cure?

Ethan?” Mom knocks on my bedroom door. “Time to wake up. It’s six o’clock.”

“Sleep. My head . . . needs more sleep.”

I sound like Frankenstein. With strep throat.

“It’s six p.m., Ethan. Your head’s slept all day.”

“What time?” My face is mashed against my pillow, and I can’t lift it. I think they may have become one. I peer at my window, seeing the fading daylight through the blinds.

“Are you decent?” my mom says, cracking the door open. “Guess not.”

“Geez, Mom.” I drag the sheet higher so it covers my ass. “How about some privacy?” I say, but I’m used to living in a family where nothing is sacred.

Mom looks from the clothes I wore last night piled on the floor, to the bottle of aspirin on my nightstand, with the same analytical blue eyes as Chris. “Looks like you accomplished your goal of making yourself sick.”

She waits for a beat, and I know she wants me to talk to her. She wants to know what’s going on, but I’m about ten years past the point of telling her. What I want to tell her is that I’m fine, but I can’t do that, either. Lying to people you care about is fucked. I thought so even before Alison.

“I’m a goal-oriented kind of guy,” I croak.

She laughs. “I just ordered pizzas and Matt’s on his way.”

I push myself onto my elbows, riding the swells of a monstrous headache as I try to figure out who Matt is. Then it clicks. “Coach Williams is coming?”

“He’s not your coach anymore. You can call him Matt now. He’ll be here in half an hour—and he’s bringing his wife, Tricia.”

I have no idea how my former coach found out that I was home, or why he’s coming to the house, but it’ll be good to see him. I feel myself crack a smile—which makes my mom smile—which gives my mood an honest boost.