Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I shiver and he pulls my face closer so he can kiss me again. This kiss is playful. He nibbles on the corner of my lips. Then he nips along my jawline, murmuring as he goes. When he reaches my ear, he bites the lobe.
Is Carter a biter? Do I want him to bite me?
I think I do. But do I just ask? I should, since we just talked about that. But I don’t know how to say it though, and I’ve done enough thinking for one night. Enough asking too. I’ll figure it out another time since I can’t really think anyway when he presses another new kind of kiss to my lips.
This one’s possessive.
And in the span of one night, I’ve learned Carter Hendrix can kiss hard, soft, and teasing.
He can kiss like this too—like he owns me.
And he does just that as I ride him on the couch till I’m so far gone, I barely realize I’m tugging his face to my chest and asking for something without words.
That’s new too. Trusting my body to ask. Trusting my instincts.
In the morning, with him long gone, I look in the bathroom mirror, running a hand down my throat to my chest. There’s a mark above my right breast. A dark red bruise.
I love it more than I ever knew I would.
21
NICE SCARF
Rachel
The second I walk into Elodie’s home on Saturday morning, my friend is all business. She points to the stools at the kitchen counter, then taps her wrist. “You’ve got ten minutes till Amanda is back from ceramics class.”
“I gave you the headline over text,” I point out coyly as I breeze over to the counter. Juliet’s here too, her eyes wide and eager, already waiting for Tales from the Great Wednesday Night Banging. We’re all heading up to Petaluma to have lunch with my parents today. Elodie’s driving, so that’s why we’re here at her place. “Wasn’t that enough?” I tease.
Brooking no argument, Elodie shakes her head. “Text does not count.”
“We need the full story, and we need it now,” my sister puts in, then grabs the stool and shoves it at me. Bossy thing. “Sit. Spill. Share.”
With a satisfied smile that I haven’t been able to wipe off my face for sixty hours—that’s how long it’s been since my last O with Carter—I pop up on the stool, tapping my chin. “Where to start…?”
Elodie stares sharply at me. “How about with the scarf you’re wearing?”
Way to read a bestie.
But despite the ticking clock, I’m going to have fun with them. Fun—that thing I haven’t had a lot of till recently. I finger the soft, light blue chiffon number wrapped artfully around my neck. “Oh, this?”
Juliet rolls her eyes. “Don’t act innocent. You’re the one who taught me about scarves and turtlenecks.”
Elodie groans, as if deeply aggrieved. “Mon cheri, please tell me you never taught your little sister about turtlenecks. I’m still hoping Amanda goes through life without learning those fetid things exist,” she says with a shudder.
“I had to teach Juliet about turtlenecks,” I say, pointing at the brunette troublemaker with my last name. “In eighth grade after the Spring Fling, she came home with a hickey the size of Texas. She spun this elaborate story about how she was drinking fruit punch at a dance, and then the red Solo plastic cup broke and it scraped against her neck.”
Juliet cringes. “Uh. Shut up. I’ve tried to block that from my memory.”
“The hickey or your terrible lying skills?” I ask.
“I wonder where I got those from,” Juliet fires back.
With a sympathetic tone, Elodie turns to Juliet. “You need to learn the art of the coverup from someone more skilled. Moi.”
“Yes, of course. Your years at a French boarding school taught you skills,” I tease.
“Chocolate skills and life skills,” Elodie says, then tugs on my scarf, like she’s disarming me at a Clue-themed dinner party.
It was Carter, with the wicked mouth, on the couch.
Juliet points to the offending hickey. “Well, that answers everything about what happened,” she declares.
I clasp the bruise. “It got a little bigger,” I say defensively, maybe a little protectively.
Elodie hums in obvious approval. “I’ve been waiting for the dirty details,” she says, clearly pleased with my mark. “And this is a good start.”
While I still don’t want to tell them about my discovery of his solo shower session earlier in the week—that’s private—they both know I had planned to ask him for girlfriend lessons. They’d encouraged me when we watched the game last Sunday. They know, too, that he said yes.
But this is the first time I’ve been able to…indulge in details. “Well, he came over on Wednesday night, as you know, and one thing led to another. And now I have this,” I say, still proud of the mark. Is it weird I’m so proud of it? I don’t know why I love it so much. I just do.