Intensity rains down on me in uncontrollable spasms. Jensen grips me, refusing to let me leave his tongue until he’s drained every last ounce of orgasm from my spent body.
I collapse on the bed next to him, burying my face against a free pillow. I’ve no idea how I’m going to walk out of here when I can’t feel my legs.
“Waverly,” he says.
“I know, I know. I’ll leave in a second.”
“No, I was going to say, you don’t have to leave. Your mom and Bellamy are asleep, right? And your dad’s at Summer’s?”
“You want me to stay?”
“I wasn’t done drawing you.”
“So that wasn’t a ploy to get me to…?”
“No,” he laughs, his full lips arching wide. His fingertip scratches the spot just above his left brow. “That just, um… that just happened.”
We lie on his bed, neither of us in a hurry to grab our clothes off the floor.
My eye catches a round, dime-sized scar on his chest, hidden between two points of his tattoos. I’d never noticed it before, and I trace it with the tip of my finger. “What happened here?”
Jensen doesn’t flinch or move. He doesn’t wince or scowl. “Cigarette lighter.”
“How?”
“My dad was mad at me one Sunday after church. I talked back to him on the way home in the car. Reached down, grabbed the cigarette lighter, jammed it into my chest. Burned clear through my shirt.”
My body tingles with empathetic pains, and I breathe through clenched teeth. “All you did was talk back, and he burned you?”
“If it wasn’t cigarette lighters it was red pepper flakes in the mouth, no dinner for a week, belts, paddles. Corporal punishment was a way of life.”
“And he got away with all of that?”
“If you lived in Charter Springs, you’d see. The whole goddamned town thinks he’s the second coming of Christ.” Jensen’s face is blank. I can’t read him. I feel like I should feel sorry for him, but I don’t get the impression that he feels sorry for himself. “He let up on the beatings when Juliette came into the picture.”
“Juliette?”
“My father’s girlfriend. She became his target after that. She couldn’t do anything right.”
“Why’d she stay with him?”
He shrugs. “I suppose because it was better than being out on the street. And I don’t think Juliette really knew what love was, because she believed my father loved her. I don’t know much about love, but I know that wasn’t it.”
“And…” I’m scared to ask, but I have to know. “You and her? How’d that happen?”
He rakes his hand through his hair and blows out a lungful of air. “This is really heavy, can we—”
“Please. I want to know. I won’t judge this time. I promise.”
He pouts. “I don’t know, Waverly. I could sit here and say that she seduced me. I mean, she was older. She knew better. I was just sixteen when it first happened. But she wasn’t my first. I was experienced. It wasn’t a perverted sort of thing. We were both in a bad place, and we found comfort in our own way, with each other. Looking back, was it wrong? Yes. But it happened. Can’t go back now.”
“And that’s how you ended up here?”
He nodded. “That shiner I walked in here with? A parting gift from my father.”
“What ever happened with Juliette?”
“No clue.” He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine she left him. I just try not to think about it too much. Doubt I’ll ever see her again.”
I take his hand, as a friend, as someone who cares. It’s all starting to make sense. One by one, all those dislocated parts of Jensen Mackey are fitting together like pieces of a puzzle.
“Why are we holding hands?” he chuckles. “God, don’t look at me like that—with those sad eyes. Don’t feel bad for me. Seriously. I don’t think I could ever fuck you again if I know you feel sorry for me.”
“It’s okay to be vulnerable.” I squeeze his hand.
He untwines our fingers, reaching over and grabbing me to pull me on top of him. I’m straddling him, his fingers tickling my inner thighs and tracing up to my under arms before trailing down to my stomach.
“Tickles? Really?” I can’t stop laughing, pushing his hands away until he finally stops.
“It was way too heavy in here for a second.” Our hands are matched up, our fingers interlaced. Smiles fade from our faces the second our eyes lock. Jensen sits up, though I’m still straddling him.
We lean in, meeting in the middle, our lips finding each other in the dim light of his bedroom. It’s not a carnal kiss. There’s nothing animalistic or passionate about it. There’s something sweeter behind it. His lips trace mine between slow, deep kisses, our tongues grazing. My stomach swirls, matching my heart flutter for flutter.
And then I pull away.
I have to.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
At the end of the day, he’s still my brother. Stepbrother. Whatever.
His mom and my dad are sealed for eternity.
And I’m under a microscope until I convince my father to give me another chance.
Nothing else matters.
“I should go.” I climb off Jensen, searching for my clothes, and redress as he shamelessly watches. “Oh, and burn that sketch, okay? I mean it. Destroy it. Not kidding.”
His smile fades as he reaches for his book, rips the sheet, and begins tearing it into millions of tiny pieces. I wait for him to sweep them all into his trashcan before leaving.
When I slip out into the hallway and tiptoe five steps down to my door, I hear a cough.
My heart stops.
“Waverly? What are you doing up?”
“Dad?”
I thought he was at Summer’s?
CHAPTER 25
JENSEN
“My dad almost caught me leaving your room last night.” Waverly stops me in the hallway in the morning between showers. A towel is wrapped around her wet body and her hair’s in a turban. She’s all fresh-faced, peppermint-y, and sexy as fuck.
“Shit. I thought he was at Summer’s?”
“He came back over here to get his antacids, or something. I don’t know. We’re good, though. I told him I was leaving Bellamy’s room, not yours.”
“Do you think he bought it?”
“He seemed half-asleep. I don’t know. He didn’t say anything.” She worries her lip. I want to believe for both of our sakes he doesn’t think twice about it.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll just have to be extra careful next time.” I realize I’m committing myself to her—at least physically—in a roundabout way. Sneaking around with her is kind of fun, though, and I have no intentions of stopping anytime soon. I warned her that night in the laundry room. I told her after she kissed me I wouldn’t be responsible for what happens. Waverly’s kiss, her body, her light and airy presence, is addicting, just as I suspected it would be.
She tugs her towel tight, fighting a smile. “So there’ll be a next time?”
“You’ll know when I’m done with you.” I glance both ways before reaching down and pinching a tight ass cheek through her towel. She yelps and I push past her to hit the shower.
***
When you want something badly enough, you find a way to make it happen. For weeks and weeks, well into the thick of summer, Waverly and I manage to sneak around. On nights when Mark stays with Summer or Kath, we meet up around eleven, click the lock on her door, and fuck each other senseless. Nights when Mark is down the hall is pure fucking torture.
Neither of us has put a label on whatever it is we’re doing. I’m not sure we even know what we’re doing, we just know that it feels good, and when we’re fucking like bunnies, we kind of forget about life’s bullshit for a while.
The last night of Camp Zion is a sort of prom-like, chaperoned celebration complete with a live band playing church songs and punch bowls filled with Country Time lemonade. There’s even a sheet cake with a group photo laser-printed onto the frosting. It doesn’t get much more G-rated than that, but still, Mark refuses to let his kids attend.