He pulled his delicious lips away and croaked against my burning cheek, “We should get to class.”
“Fuck that.” I managed to get my hands between us and pulled the zipper of his hoodie down, stroking his chest and hard abs all the way down to the waistband of his jeans. He groaned as my hands slid under his T-shirt, my thumbs rubbing those hipbones I’d been at eye level with in the library.
Just like that day, I had the urge to kneel down and lick them, but I settled for copping a good feel. I’d never given anyone a blow job—I wasn’t sure I was ready for that—and getting on my knees and licking that general area was sure to lead to a dick in my mouth.
Instead, my hands ghosted up his back, drawing him against me. The discordant thud of basketballs on polished wood only just registered—a gym class was starting. I vaguely hoped they wouldn’t need any other equipment.
Turner kissed me deeply, in smooth, rhythmic strokes of his tongue against mine. His hand went to the back of my head and, finding my hair up in a ponytail, gripped the hair tie firmly and tugged. It stung for a second, and then my hair tumbled down around us.
He inhaled deeply and broke the kiss to whisper against my lips, “You smell so good. Like strawberries.”
My response was an incoherent moan. I was beyond words, completely lost in the lust; the heavy, heady feeling low in my belly; the ache between my legs.
I rolled my hips against his, and his body responded, his hips meeting mine in a steady rhythm.
“You feel fucking good too,” he growled.
I forcefully pushed my lips once more against his. I could drown in his voice, find bliss in the gritty quality I’d put there. But I needed his lips on mine.
I widened my legs, bent my left knee. He took it in his big hand and hooked it over his hip.
And then I could feel him, his hardness right there, giving me exactly the friction I was craving.
I moaned loudly. Too loudly.
The sound bounced off the walls, reminding me where we were. My sudden rush of adrenaline only added to the heady cocktail of pleasure already coursing through my veins.
Turner started kissing and licking my jaw, his mouth moving down toward my neck as his hand traveled up my front. He caressed my breast over the fabric of my T-shirt, his hand almost completely covering it, while our hips kept up a steady rhythm.
Then he was pushing up under my T-shirt, pushing my bra out of the way so he could fondle me skin-to-skin.
He groaned into my mouth, the sound going straight to my core. Maybe I was ready for a blow job after all—I wanted to hear him make that sound over and over. I wanted to be the one to wrench it from his throat. I wanted all our clothing gone. I wanted a bed instead of the stinky old gym mats at my back.
Something banged against the door, making us both jump.
We stopped kissing and froze, only our hips still rocking slightly as we panted and listened, suddenly thrown back into reality.
“I said no contact, Andrews! How in the hell did you two end up there?” The coach sounded mad but a little amused.
The class’s chorus of laughter followed, along with a loud male guffaw right on the other side of the door. The door that stood between an entire class of sophomores and Turner and me.
“Shit.” I pushed gently against his chest, and he removed his hand from my breast. I missed it already. I never wanted to wear a bra again—Turner could just walk behind me, holding my boobs in place with his big, warm hands, all day every day.
“Since you’re there, grab the orange cones, would ya?” The coach shouted again.
“Fuck.” This time it was Turner’s turn to curse.
I adjusted my bra and ran a hand through my hair. Snatching up my bag, I rushed in the general direction of the football-field door and ended up walking right into it, bumping my knee with a grunt.
“Mena?” Turner hissed into the dark. “Fuck, what are we gonna do?”
“I’m sorry. I gotta go. Just hide or something.”
“What?” He sounded panicked, but I was running on pure adrenaline now. I had to get out of there immediately.
I found the door handle just as the other door creaked open. Thankfully, mine opened inward, blocking me from view as light flooded the room.
I closed the door behind me and threw my hood up, thanking every deity imaginable that no one was on the football field as I powerwalked away. I’d go to the bathroom to get my shit together and kill more time before my next class started.
No one—not even Turner—stopped me as I hurried off, and I smiled, my chest heaving. I couldn’t believe we’d gotten away with it. I just hoped Turner hadn’t been busted.
“Not too dark on the eyes, Philly. I want to look sophisticated, not slutty,” my mom directed me as I started applying eyeshadow to her lids.
“Eew! Why the hell would I make my mother look slutty?”
We’d set up at the kitchen table, all my makeup spread out, Mom at my mercy. She’d come home in almost as good a mood as me—declared we’d get Chinese for dinner, but it would be just me and Dad, as she was going to a seminar thing, and could I please do her makeup?
I took pretty much any excuse to do makeup, so there we were.
She smiled. “I didn’t mean you’d do it on purpose, sweetheart.”
“So, you just think I’m shit at makeup,” I deadpanned.
“What?” She backed away from my brush and opened her eyes. “No, Philomena, I was just trying to crack a joke.”
I snorted and let my grin burst through. “I know. I’m just messing with you, Mom.”
She breathed a massive sigh of relief and closed her eyes again so I could get back to work. “I just don’t know these days. And please don’t take this the wrong way, but you get in your moods, and I . . . well, I worry about you sometimes.”
I paused for a second and looked into my mom’s face, her eyes closed, her chin tipped up. We looked so similar, but her eyes were a little more tired, her lips marred with a few lines. She was still pretty. It didn’t make sense, because I wasn’t pretty. How the hell did that work?
I got back to work, fighting the urge to tell her everything. The messages, the taunts, the way I was ignored at school, even the few incidents where I’d actually been attacked.
But then I swallowed around the lump in my throat and shoved down that urge. There was literally nothing she could do. No point in adding further stress to my parents’ already frantic lives.
“Anyway, you’re in a good mood today.” Mom broke the silence before I could. “It’s nice to see.”
“Yeah I . . . had a good day.” I couldn’t stop the smile pulling at my lips as I thought about what Turner and I had been doing in the storage room just hours earlier.
Mom cracked one eye open and gave me a sly grin. “I know that smile.”
“You know nothing, woman. Close your eyes.” I gave her a very serious look, but the smile broke out again as soon as her eye closed.
“You have a crush,” Mom sing-songed.
“Mom.” I laughed, then after a pause, added, “It’s more than a crush.”
What the hell had just possessed me to imply to my mother I was seeing a boy? Maybe I was just desperate to tell someone, bursting with the excitement Turner made me feel.