On His Knees by Tabatha Kiss
Chapter 29
Seth
“No,” is all I can say.
Jenna drops her phone onto the bar. “Oh. My. God.”
“You’reFancy-Bitch-69?!” I ask.
“You’reDeek-4-U?”
Our jaws drop as with both realize...
I sent Jenna Abrams a picture of my dick.
Jenna shifts backward in disgust. “Ew.”
“Ew?” I repeat.
“Yes, ew! I can’t even look at you anymore.”
“Don’t play the innocent damsel here, lady,” I say. “You were as down to fuck here as I was.”
She shudders as she swipes her phone and jacket off the bar.
“Wait,” I say, overwhelmed yet… amused. “Hold on.”
“No, I am out of here.”
“Wait, Jenna!” I shout after her, making her pause a few feet away. “Come back.”
“I am going home,” she murmurs, not looking at me. “I am burning this dress and bathing in disinfectant until my skin burns off.”
I bite down hard, but it doesn’t stop the words from flying out of my mouth. “For Christ’s sake, Jenna, just get your pissy ass back here and sit down. I dare you,” I add to the end, making Jenna inhale sharply.
Jenna Abrams never turns down a dare.
Her tight shoulders roll back as she stands a little taller. It’s a fighting stance, I suppose, one of a girl who doesn’t take too kindly to someone barking orders at her. Not that I blame her at all. I don’t care for it much myself.
After a moment, to my surprise, she relaxes. She slides back onto the stool next to mine and sets her clutch and jacket on the bar as the bartender pauses in front of us.
“Good evening, Seth,” he greets with a nod.
I give him a friendly smile. “Hey, Billy.”
He looks from me to my “date” and back again with the same smile of approval Polly gave me before. Yeah, yeah. She’s hot. I know.
Irrelevant.
“What can I get you?” he asks.
“Whiskey,” I answer. “Neat.”
“And for you?” he asks Jenna.
She takes a quick breath, still a little speechless. “Same,” she says.
Billy nods and reaches beneath the counter for two lowball glasses. As he pours, Jenna and I sit silently, barely moving as we eye each other.
How did this happen?
What are the odds of it exactly? That out of the, like... half a million-ish eligible women on the Little Black Book app in Chicago, I pick up her? Her? The one girl I wanted so badly to rid myself of now sits beside me looking stunning as always… because she came here to fuck me, too.
Billy sets the glasses down in front of us. “Here you go.”
“Leave the bottle, will you?” I ask, not caring about the hit it’ll give my next paycheck.
He chuckles. “You got it, bud.”
“Thanks.”
He leaves the bottle with us as he takes off to help a guy waving to get his attention down the bar.
We each take a sip. I pour it all down, letting the alcohol buzz my throat until the glass is empty. I set it down; the glass touching the bar at the same time as hers.
I grab the bottle for a refill. Ladies first.
“Thanks,” Jenna mutters before sipping at it again.
I bob my head before downing another swig myself.
“Did you have something to say, or what?” Jenna asks me, quickly dabbing the corner of her lips with a bar napkin.
“I had nothing planned, no,” I say. “Honestly, didn’t think that’d work.”
Somehow, she laughs. It feels nice. And new. I realize that in the fifteen-some-odd-years I’ve known her, I’ve never once made her laugh. Or even smile.
After another few sweet, silent moments, Jenna turns to me and exhales. “Truth or dare, Seth?” she says.
I snort. “Is that really how we’re going to talk to each other?”
She doesn’t answer. She just waits.
“Truth,” I say.
“Was that...” Her mouth quickly closes as she thinks twice.
“Was what?”
She takes another sip first. “The picture...”
I nod. “Was that really me?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes.”
She arches a brow, though I can’t tell if she’s impressed or disgusted.
Not sure which would be worse.
“Does that usually work?” she asks. “Be honest.”
I shrug. “Worked on you, didn’t it?”
She hesitates. “Okay. Sure.”
“I rarely whip it out like that. It takes a certain type of vibe; one I very much detected in your post.”
“What kind of vibe?”
Careful, buddy...
“Thirsty,” I answer.
She bites her lip, her eyes dropping toward her glass. “Thanks for not saying desperate.”
“I didn’t feel like wearing that whiskey,” I say. “It doesn’t match the tie.”
Another smile. Another warm kick to the gut.
“Well, it was… nice,” she says.
“Thanks for not saying desperate.”
She finishes her glass again. I slide the bottle in her direction. “Is that how we got here?” she asks. “Are we both this desperate?”
“I think so,” I say, my tongue loose from booze. “I was ready to stick it in just about anything after last night.”
Jenna pauses, her breath held in tightly. She has a lot to say about last night, I can tell. So do I, but I’m not sure where to even start. Picking up a girl you like is one thing. Picking up a girl you hate is another thing entirely.
I reach for the bottle to top myself up. Silence lingers in the air again, framing the two of us in a bubble far away from the rowdy bar crowd — or as rowdy as a fancy place like the Botsford Plaza bar can get.
“Anyway...” Jenna clears her throat as she reaches for her stuff. “Thanks for the drink, Seth.”
Another clench to the gut. “Where are you going?” I ask.
She slides off the stool with one eye on me. “I am going home.”
“You should stay,” I hear myself say.
Really?
“Really?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Seth...” She steps forward until her hip presses into the bar, hovering close to me to make sure I hear this. “We’re not doing this.”
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”
She blinks. And blinks again. “Are you serious?”
I turn up a hand. “There’s obviously some tension between us.”
“No.”
“I almost kissed you last night,” I admit. “You know. You were there.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I wanted to,” I say over her. “I wanted to kiss you, and I think you wanted to be kissed.”
She licks her lips. I wait for her response, but she says nothing.
“Jenna.” I tilt my head. “Come on. A decade of fighting and all it took was a few days of living together in close proximity before it happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Andthat, Fancy, is what they call tension.”
“Okay, fine,” she says. “There’s tension between us, but it doesn’t mean anything. There’s tension between me and carbs, but I’ve never had the urge to fuck a cupcake.”
“You might if it fucked you like I would.”
Her mouth opens, then closes again. She squints, the question building on her little pink tongue. But I’m not sure she’s had enough liquid courage to come out and say it.
“How would you fuck me?” she asks.
Guess she’s had enough, after all.
“However you wanted,” I say.
Seems like I’ve had enough, too.
“Convenient answer.”
“It’s true. You want it fast, I’ll go fast. Slow, I’ll go slow. Tender. Rough. Upstairs. Downstairs. Right hole. Wrong hole. You want it, I give it. That’s how I do.” I sip my drink, casually gazing at her out of the corner of my eye. “I believe Fancy-Bitch-69 had a request for the night. Wouldn’t be here if I weren’t looking forward to it.”
I finish my drink and set it down before turning to her again. When I do, I catch the last bit of blush in her cheeks before it fades away.
“What are you suggesting, Seth?” she asks. “That we get a room? What happens at the Plaza, stays at the Plaza?”
“If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”
I stare at her, waiting for the better idea. Jenna presses her lips together in thought, the hesitation in her eyes as palpable as this tension.
Finally, Jenna shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says.
I smirk. “Sure you can.”
“No, I really can’t.”
“Why? Because I broke up your family?”
Jenna’s brow twitches. I instantly regret those words, but her expression gets no harder than that.
“No,” she says. “It has nothing to do with that.”
“Then, why?”
She opens her big eyes a little wider, gawking at me like it’s obvious. “Well, I didn’t think I’d have to point this out to you of all people, but you are my best friend’s brother.”
“So?”
She scoffs. “You literally had a public freak out when you found out about Heidi and Drew!”
“Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad.”
“Not that bad?” she repeats. “You still don’t let them hold hands around you!”
“Hey, public displays of affection are inappropriate in all situations regardless of context.”
“You didn’t seem to have a problem with that lap dance Ellie gave at the beach the other night.”
“There is nothing affectionate about a lap dance. Okay? And besides, Heidi and Drew were a completely different situation.”
“How?”
“They fell in love,” I argue. “I just wanna bone.”
Jenna shakes her head in disbelief. “You are such a moron.”
“And you have an open invitation to take that frustration out on me.” I give her a bit of classic sex eye. “Let me put it to you this way, Jenna. I came here tonight to fuck a fancy girl for one night only. Wouldn’t you like it to be you?”
She looks down. Her smile drops, too. “I thought you said I looked cheap.”
“I lied.” I let my gaze drift down her cleavage while her eyes remain averted. “I wanted you the moment I saw that lipstick. Fuck, I wanted you last night in a messy bun and sweatpants. It’s frustrating as all hell, but I’ve accepted it.”
“Accepted what?”
“My attraction to you.”
Jenna arches a brow. “You’re attracted to me?”
“Oh, come on. Don’t act like you don’t know you’re attractive. Watch.” I turn around and nod toward the nearest man sitting two stools away. “Hey, buddy.”
He looks over; a tired man with slouching shoulders and a loose tie. Rolled up cuffs. Five o’clock shadow. Must have been a long day at work.
“Yeah?” he says, breaking eye contact with the bottom of his highball glass.
I point at Jenna. “Is she attractive?”
Jenna exhales in annoyance.
The man looks — a long, creepy look — and nods. “Yup.”
“Thank you for your time, sir.” I give Jenna some attitude. “See?”
She sighs. “I know I’m hot. I spend a great deal of time and money to look hot. The question I asked was about you, not some random dude in a bar who now… won’t stop staring at me.”
I spin around, instantly making hard eye contact with him. “Mind your business, guy,” I say through clenched teeth.
The man glares for a moment longer before grabbing his glass and wandering away to an empty table.
“Sorry about that,” I say to Jenna once he’s gone.
“Thank you,” she says. “You find me attractive?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“Since fucking when?”
“Like you don’t feel the same way about me.”
Jenna squints. “I don’t feel anything for you, Seth.”
“And yet, you’re still here.”
“Because you won’t stop talking!”
I smirk. “I can think of one way to make me stop.”
Jenna sighs, the blush in her cheeks completely faded now. She takes the final sip from her glass and pushes it away as she steps back from the bar again.
“Goodnight, Seth,” she says.
I exhale.
Well, I tried.
“Goodnight, Jenna,” I say, not in the mood to argue with her more.
She leaves. I watch her go, waiting until the last bit of red disappears.
That went… not well.
“No shame in striking out, buddy,” Billy says, suddenly in front of me over the bar. “It means you swung.”
I raise my glass to him. “You’re a modern philosopher, Billy.”
He smiles and bows his head in respect before moving on down the bar.
Fuck.