The Puck Drop by Jaqueline Snowe
CHAPTER TWENTY
Naomi
I shouldn’t have watched Michael’s back muscles as he walked away from us. It made me regret not going with him. Even though I couldn’t. Not when we agreed to keep this a secret between us. It was too important to remain friends in public, and worry etched its way down my spine. Cami totally saw us holding hands.
Was this thing ruined before I even got to sleep with him? My intent had been clear until my damn sister showed up. Irritation danced on my spine as I eyed her. She watched Michael’s ass and whistled.
“He is hot.”
Anger reared its head, and I made a fist at my side. “Going to go after him too?”
She scoffed and popped one hip out to the side. While my expressions gave every emotion and feeling I had away, my sister was the opposite. She could be thinking about serial killers or cute babies and no one would know the difference. Still, a part of me, a small part, wanted to make her feel bad.
To see her squirm.
But she didn’t. She arched one brow and laughed. “You must think the worst of me.”
“I’ve lost track of the good, Cami.” I pushed my hair out of my face, forcing the final thoughts of Michael and the heat in his eyes away. Later. I could worry about him later.
“Could we talk?”
“I mean, sure. Like I’ve done most of my life, I’ll adapt to your schedule.” I put my backpack on my back and pointed like I was a freshman tour guide. “Where do you want to go?”
Cami played with a buckle on her outfit, and for one half second, she looked sad, a flash of vulnerability on her ice-cold face. My soul hurt for my twin who had once been someone I shared my entire life with. But as quick as it happened, her regular resting bitch face returned, blocking off any hint at what she was thinking.
“Here’s fine. I want to feel the sun on my face anyway.” She sat on the grass and leaned back, her tiny outfit rising up. When the light hit her, I noticed the bags under her eyes. My sister had a skin-care routine that was intense, so this was a new development.
“Did you walk here to find me, or did you see me with Michael and want to intrude?” I asked, sitting down and looking over my shoulder.
“Our phones still show our locations. I realized you were on the quad and thought it’d be the perfect chance to talk.” She still closed her eyes, but there was a lilt to her voice. “You didn’t tell Dad about Saturday, right?”
“No, Cami, I didn’t.”
“Thanks. He’s been on my case enough.” She sighed and ran a hand over her face and groaned. “He didn’t ask you about Gage though, right?”
“He cancelled on me last minute, so we never got dinner,” I said the words fast as my face flushed with embarrassment.
“He’ll make it up to you, don’t worry. He’s done that with me a few times and always brought me lunch to apologize.” She grinned, like her words were supposed to make me feel better.
“It was days ago, and he won’t respond to a text, Cami.”
“Hm.” She pursed her red lips as a brief frown line appeared between her eyebrows. “He said he sees you every week for your project though. You’re doing a data report for him on game stats? That’s good, right? You talk and stuff?”
“By talk, you mean he has me reporting to Michael? Sure. Yeah, it’s great.”
“Michael is easy on the eyes, Nana.” She winked and let out a slow whistle. I didn’t know how to respond with all the thoughts of our dad intruding. He cancelled on Cami but made it up to her. He told her my project was game stats? He belittled my project to my twin sister?
My face prickled with the urge to cry. I sniffed and looked at the sun to act like my watering eyes were from the brightness. Cami didn’t seem to pay attention though.
She shifted her position and lowered her voice as she asked, “Nana, do you really think I go after guys you’re into on purpose?”
Ah, we were getting right to it. Move over, Dad drama, Cami’s taking spot one right now.
I blew out a breath, focused on settling my racing heart, and nodded. “It’s happened three times. So, yeah, I do.”
“I had no idea about Gage. I ran into him at a frat party, and he pursued me. It wasn’t until Michael mentioned something at the diner that I realized you two had a past. I swear it.” She picked up a blade of grass and ran it through her fingers. “Who else?”
“Isiah from high school. We kissed three times before he dumped me for you. Then, Henry the summer before college.”
She winced, surely remembering how she flaunted those guys around. Henry was the worst because he was so out of my league, I knew better than it think it was anything. It was my idea to keep our hooking up private. Kinda like Michael…
“Isiah…he said he wasn’t seeing anyone, and Henry… fuck. I had no idea, Naomi. None. I would never intentionally hurt you.”
“You did though, Cami.” I took a shaky breath and waited for my sister to meet my eyes. “It’s not about the guys, well, not all of it. It’s everything that’s happened in the past six years.”
She sucked in a breath and let her guard down. My real sister was here, not the painted version she put on for everyone else. “The divorce.”
“Part of it, yeah.” I too, picked up some of the grass and ripped it in half. It gave me something to do with the nervous energy filling me head to toe. At this rate, there’d be no grass remaining in the center of the quad. “You got Dad. Mom got a new family. I was left behind.”
“That’s not my fault,” she said, her voice raising. “I can’t help that—”
“I’m not saying it is. I’m telling you where I’m at and how I see things.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I lost everyone, so I stopped assuming best intentions. You and Dad have the jokes, and you got the parent to lean on while I lost you all. So yeah, we grew apart which is fine, but what was I supposed to think, Cami? You stopped wanting to hang out with me. You stopped viewing me as an equal. We never did anything just the two of us after we turned fifteen. Not once. You stopped our movie nights and milkshake runs. You hung out with your shitty mean girl clique and partied.”
“Did you ever think that I didn’t want to spend time with you because I was jealous?” she said, saying the thing that shocked me to my core.
My beautiful, popular, had-everything-in life sister was jealous of me? No way. I laughed. “How is that possible?”
“You think I had it all?” She smiled, but it was filled with pain that I felt in my soul. “Dad’s terrified I’m going to elope or get pregnant. Mom thinks I’m too much and a bad influence on her new kids, so she never talks to me anymore. I have no idea what I want to do in my life, and yeah, I’m pretty and can dance. Those are useless skills, Nana. You have brains and real friends who’ve got your back. Even in high school, you had genuine friends. I never did. Plus, Dad doesn’t have to worry about you. Sure, we have jokes, but we don’t openly fight in front of you. Where he tells me he’s embarrassed about my actions and that I should be more like you.”
Cami sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her arm. My mouth hung open, my mind shattered at her confession. I was utterly speechless. My perfect sister was maybe a little broken.
She cleared her throat and looked at the sky. “I was at a strip club because I needed to feel something other than pity. I went out with this shady as fuck dude, and we ended up there. He went down on a dancer in a private room and wanted me to join. Apparently, they’re together and bring in third parties for fun.”
“Jesus,” I said, exhaling as I tried to analyze her pain, her words, her perceptions. I’d be a fool if I didn’t admit I was a little relieved to hear our dad didn’t hate me, that my sister’s life wasn’t all rainbows. We each had our struggles, but the saddest thing about her confession was that she’d truly felt she was utterly alone. I reached over and said to hell with it. I pulled her into a hug, and she fell on top of me.
“What are you doing, you weirdo?” she said, laughing as I squeezed my arms around her. “Nana, stop it. People are watching.”
“I don’t care. I feel like I have my sister back.” God, those words filled me with a sense of home. Finally.
She stilled, and slowly, she wrapped her arms around me and returned the hug.
“You’re never by yourself, Cami, and I’ve been jealous of you too. For years. It sounds like we’re both a little messed up.”
“Yeah, we are.” She sniffed again, and we adjusted so we both lay in the grass, our faces up toward the sky. She reached out for my hand, and I grabbed it. “I truthfully never tried to date guys you were into. I need you to know that.”
“Okay.” I squeezed her hand. “I believe you.”
It was weird to forgive her for years of strife that quickly. But seeing her break down changed things. Cami didn’t cry. Never in all our lives. My sister was hurting.
“I think we need weekly dates.”
“Yeah?” she asked, a little lilt of hope to her tone. “Me and you?”
“Yup. To work on us. To go back to being friends, not just sisters.”
“I’d like that.”
“Me too.”
We sat there, chatting idly about her dance team and about my internship with our dad. Conversation flowed easily when I didn’t assume the worst, and the uncomfortable wedge driven between us chipped away a bit. Not all of it. That would take time. But a good chunk had shifted. We parted ways after a good hour with plans to meet at the student union on Thursday for lunch. She had to get ready to dance at the game Friday, and it was the only time we were both free until next week.
After I put my headphones in and headed back toward my place, I realized the first person I wanted to tell was Michael. He’d be so happy to learn we were working on things. I sent him a text.
Naomi: Are you home?
Michael: Yup.
Naomi: I’m coming over.
Michael: Sweet. I hope the talk went well. Really. I know that’s been weighing on you.
He meant the words too. Even in our lust-fueled haze, he’d known how much Cami meant to me and left so I didn’t have to ask him to. Dangerous territory for me. That was for sure.
Something stung on my lower back as I made the journey there and then again on my side. I scratched at the spot but winced at the continual stings and went faster toward Michael’s place. All my thoughts about getting him naked, about confiding in him about Cami evaporated from my mind as the stings grew worse. I slammed my fist against his door, and he opened it not two seconds later.
“Hey—what’s wrong?”
“My backpack.” I dropped my bag on the ground and lifted part of my shirt. Red dots covered my side and back, and a little black thing crawled on my skin. “What the hell is that?”
“Ants.” Michael winced and swatted at my skin a few times. “Shit, they’re all over you. Come on, you need to take this off.”
I cringed and wanted to throw up. Ants were so gross. SO GROSS. I followed him into his bathroom and started stripping. I had one thing on my mind—getting these little insect fuckers away from me. “I must’ve sat on them or something.”
“They’re on your bag too.” He cringed and held it up. “Is anything valuable in here?”
My shirt was on the floor. Then my shorts. “My phone. Wallet.”
Michael frowned as he opened the large part of my backpack and pulled them out. “I’m setting this outside. Be right back.”
He left the bathroom. An ant was in the waistband of my panties, and that was it. I stepped out of them, kicking them across the room and yanking my bra off. This was my worst nightmare. Ant bites. What if they’d crawled inside me? I shook in disgust and turned the water on in the shower, not waiting for it to get hot before I went in.
“Here I brought you a—” Michael froze at the doorway. His shower was a clear glass wall, and I stood, naked as hell, three feet from him.
His throat bobbed, and the tube of medicine dropped as he joined me in the bathroom and shut the door. His eyes trailed from my face to my chest, to my pussy, then down my legs. He ran a hand through his hair, and he cleared his throat. “Uh, do you need me to uh, check out the bites?”
“Could you? I can’t see on my back.” My voice came out strong and smooth, which was the opposite of my insides. He looked at me like I was the sexiest thing alive, and my lower stomach tightened with lust. He swallowed and took a step closer to the shower. I turned, giving him full view of my back and my ass, and he reached out to trail a finger over my bites. The hot water blasted over my already burning body.
“Shit. They look infected.” His touch gave me goosebumps, and he totally saw me shiver. His fingers lingered on my lower back, then trailed up my spine. “Naomi.”
The way he said my name had me closing my eyes. He said it like it mattered, like I mattered, totally shattering the let’s hook-up plan. I turned around slowly, watching how his gaze heated as he glanced at my mouth. I bit down on my lip, unsure what to do when Michael stepped into the shower, clothes and all. He was getting soaked, but he didn’t seem to care.
I didn’t have time to react when he slammed his mouth on mine, searing me with a kiss that made me weak in the knees, all tongue and teeth. Holy boner town.
He backed me up into the shower wall and kissed down my neck, biting my earlobe as he groaned. “Fuck, Naomi. You’re a walking dream.”
I shivered at his words and gasped when he hoisted me up and wrapped my legs around him. He was soaking wet and clothed. That was a real problem.
“This. Off.” I tugged at his shirt, unable to form normal sentences now that he was here kissing me, looking at me with the same hunger I felt in my core. He smiled before using his hips to hold me in place as he yanked off his shirt.
His muscles were divine. No other way to describe them. I ran my hands over every curve and bulge, and he groaned into my mouth again. He moved his hands to graze the sides of my breasts before he gripped my waist, hard. He panted when he rested his forehead against mine.
“I should take care of your bites. That was my goal,” he said, just above a whisper. The hot water pounded onto us, filling the air with a mist, and the shower smelled like him. His soap.
“Take care of me then,” I said into his mouth. He broke our kiss and turned me around, getting a bar of soap from the ledge and running it over my back. He was so gentle, feathering kissing on my shoulder, neck, back as he cleaned the bite marks.
He spent a lot of time on them before returning the bar to the edge. But now, he gripped my ass. He kneaded each cheek and spread them apart before reaching between my thighs. I sucked in a breath, and he stilled.
“No, that wasn’t stop gasp. That was an about time gasp. Touch me, Michael, please.”
Still with my back to his chest, he reached between my legs, and I sighed in relief when he slid a finger inside me. The fact I couldn’t see him made this better, kinkier. More friends with benefits. It fit what I needed us to be, but after a few seconds of his thrusting finger, he slid out and turned me around.
His eyes were hooded and filled with heat as he brought the finger to his mouth. Oh my word. He flashed me a dangerous smile before getting onto his knees. Michael Reiner, who still wore pants, was on his knees in the shower. It was possible I could pass out from lust.
“I’m being selfish right now, but god, look at you.” He eyed my legs, running his hands up and down my thighs before spreading them and lifting me. He had my legs resting on his shoulders, my back pressed against the wall, and he looked up at me with water falling from his lashes. “Tell me what you like, okay? I’ll start slow.”
Oh, start slow he did. He dragged his tongue along my inner thighs, nipping the sensitive skin before moving over to my pussy. I trembled with a terrifying need as he flicked my clit once, twice, then again. He didn’t move fast. Not at all. He flattened his tongue on me and stroked like he had all the time in the world.
I saw stars behind my eyes as the water pounded against us. I gripped his hair to steady myself as pleasure built. This was the most intimate act, and instead of feeling worried or self-conscious, I felt safe, wanted, desired. Each stroke of his tongue had me whimpering. Despite his slow rhythm, my orgasm ripped out of me like it was desperate to escape. I trembled, tightening my legs around his shoulders as he never picked up his pace. His hands dug into my bare hips as I came apart, and when I caught my breath, he stared up at me with awe in his eyes.
“Delicious. You are delicious.” He licked his lips and stood, grabbing the front of my neck and dragging me closer to him. He led this show, and I was happy to let him. My toes tingled from that orgasm, and I wasn’t sure which way was up at the moment.
“How’s your back feeling?” he asked.
“Um, don’t even know where my back is.”
He laughed and pulled me out of the shower, turning off the water and handing me a towel. He stripped down, his very erect dick hitting his stomach, and my mouth watered at the sight of him. Strong toned thighs with a dusting of dark hair. His full thick cock jutting out against his washboard abs. His tattooed arms hung at the side, and I couldn’t stop staring at him.
“You’re beautiful,” I muttered, like a drooling fool.
He winked. “I have plans for you.”
I literally shivered at the promise of his words. He took my hand and led me to his room, and I wanted so badly to stare at all the parts of him he kept hidden. The photos on the wall, the stickers on his laptop. What did they mean? Why did they matter to him?
I didn’t get a chance though.
He backed me up until my knees hit the bed, and he crawled over me. “You, Naomi Simpson-Fletcher, are distracting as hell. Now, is your phone on silent, or is someone else going to interrupt me before I devour you head to toe?”
I shook my head, my stomach exploding into millions of butterflies. Not just a few. Millions. They swarmed and danced, and my breath caught in my throat when Michael pressed a soft kiss on my mouth. This kiss felt personal, tender, deep.
It didn’t take long though. Michael’s eyes flashed with heat as he took a nipple in his mouth and pulled. It stung at first but then it felt hot.
“You’re mine for the next hour, Naomi. If you have any hesitation, tell me right fucking now.”
“No, none.” I meant it too, even though my heart galloped inside at the way he stared at me. Because having Michael look and kiss and touch me like this? It was a fantasy come to life.
