Page 157 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
I swallow. Shake my head.
The tips of his fingers barely trace the edge of my jaw. “You looked at me in that elevator like you wanted to eat me alive,” he says softly. When I don’t pull away, his touch grows bolder, the palm of his hand pressing against the side of my neck. “And God did I ever want you to.”
The heat I’d tried to keep banked deep inside comes roaring to life, flooding through my veins.
He blinks and steps away and instantly I want to pull him back. But I don’t. “I’m not this kind of guy,” he says, gesturing between us. “Someone who comes on to a girl in an elevator—makes out with a stranger. Chases after her in the rain.” He runs a hand over his head.
“It’s just that when you talked about being afraid that fear would keep you from really living life—it sounded familiar. And I thought about all the decisions I’ve made in my own life—where to go to school, what to major in, what kind of job to get—because it’s what my father wanted. Because I was afraid of what would happen if I just struck out on my own and he yanked his support.”
He steps forward, eyes burning with intensity. “I stood up to him tonight for the first time. Because of you. Because in that elevator I decided to start making decisions based on what I want.”
He’s so close at this point that it seems impossible we’re not touching. “And what I want is you,” he whispers. “MacKenzie—”
But I don’t wait for him to say more. I push onto my toes and wrap my hands behind his neck to pull his mouth down to mine. Rain pours around us, but I don’t care.
His hands circle my waist, pushing me back, back, back until I feel the solid bulk of a wall behind me. “Let me walk you home,” he growls against my neck. I nod. “Let me take you out.” He nips at my ear and I shudder. “Tomorrow,” he adds. “And the day after that.” His lips trail across my shoulder. “And the day after that.” Down along my arm. “And the day after that.”
He lifts my hand, pressing a kiss into my palm, his tongue tracing along my lifeline. “And the day after that,” he whispers.
“You can have them all,” I tell him, laughing. Not demurring or second guessing like I always have in the past—feeling truly brave for the first time.
“Good,” he says, returning his mouth to mine. “Because I wasn’t kidding when I said that this is what I intend to be doing for the rest of my life.”
About the Author
CARRIE RYAN is the New York Times bestselling author of the Forest of Hands and Teeth trilogy and Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer as well as the editor of Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction. Currently, she’s working on The Pirate Stream, a four-book middle grade series co-written with her husband, JP Davis, the first book of which, The Map to Everywhere, will be out from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in fall 2014, and Turnabout, a romantic thriller, which will be released by Penguin Random House in early 2015.
Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Carrie is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full-time and lives with her writer/lawyer husband, two ornery cats, and one large rescue mutt in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can find
her online at www.carrieryan.com or on Twitter @CarrieRyan.
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Bunga Bunga
ANDREW SHAFFER
“YOU GOT ANY rubbers, or do we need to pick up a few here?” Allen asked, counting the quarters in his palm.
I eyed the rusty condom machine on the men’s room wall. There were two different types of condoms for sale (glow-in-the-dark and banana-flavored), plus some horrifying rubber monstrosity advertised as a “Dual! Stimulating! Pleasure Sleeve—Ribbed for His and Her’s Pleasure.”
“No way am I trusting my dick to a company that can’t even use an apostrophe correctly,” I said. “There’ll be candy jars full of condoms at the party anyway, right?”
Allen dropped four quarters into the machine. He cranked a knob and the machine spit out a small silver package into his waiting hand. “Here.” He handed it to me. “Just in case.”
I imagined myself amidst a sea of naked bodies, plunging balls-deep into a blank-faced stranger. Only this stranger turns his head, and he’s no random hookup. It’s Allen, grinning like a schoolboy. A schoolboy who just got fucked by his best friend.
“No thanks,” I said, snapping back to reality. “You keep it. I couldn’t possibly accept such an extravagant gift.”
“You have to take it. It won’t fit me.”
A middle-aged man in a beat-up Cardinals cap burst into the restroom, shooting us a wary eye before making a beeline for the urinals. “Prom night?” he asked over his shoulder.
Allen and I exchanged glances. Sure, we were both juniors in college. But with our black tuxes, baby blue cummerbunds, and matching bow ties, we could easily pass as a couple of twelfth-grade cherry-poppin’ daddies.
“We’re on our way to prom,” Allen said. “Fag prom.”
The man snorted. “Sounds better than my prom.”
