Vanilla Read online

  I remembered muffled shouting behind closed doors. Trips to the grocery store with my mother, who’d ticked off items on her list with increasing vehemence and made me put back the sugary cereal I wanted because it was “too expensive.” I thought of the scent of minty gum and cigarettes clinging to her when I hugged her before I went to bed, and how I’d known that my mother smelled of Wind Song perfume and fabric softener, how unsettled I’d been by this strangeness, but how I’d also put it out of my mind because Alicia had called to tell me that David Birnbaum had a crush on me.

  My father had moved out just before school started for my and Evan’s sophomore year. No explanation, no forwarding address for six months. I’d listened to my mother crying in her bedroom, her shrieks cycling up and up. The crash of broken glass. The late-night sound of the telephone and silence if I answered it before she did. I’d always thought it was my father, too ashamed to say hello to the daughter he’d seemingly left behind without a second thought, but now I thought it must’ve been Sam Peters.

  I was still sitting at my table when Niall knocked at the front door. With my head in my hands, I considered simply texting him that I’d gone to bed sick, but there was something beautiful and terrible about having someone in your life who was more than a fuck buddy. I could tell him all about this upheaval, and he would comfort me. The kicker was, if I told him all about what I’d learned, then I might have to let him comfort me.

  “Hey...” He stopped at the sight of my face. “What’s wrong?”

  There was still a silly few seconds when I thought I would lie and pretend nothing was wrong, but then without another word, Niall took me in his arms. He kicked the door shut behind us, and he held me without speaking. His lips to my temple. His breath warm on my cheek. His hands smoothed up and down my back, and I melted into him. Clung to him, in fact, hard and desperate and on the verge of tears.

  Something crinkled between us.

  I ignored it at first, but when he pulled me closer, the distinct sound of rustling paper pushed me away from him. “What’s that?”

  “It’s... I brought something for you. But it can wait.” Niall brushed his fingertips across my forehead, smoothing my hair off my face.

  “You brought me something? Honestly, I could use a present.” I poked the front of his shirt, trying to find the source of the noise. I found it in his breast pocket. A piece of paper, folded into quarters. I looked up at him, confused.

  Niall looked sheepish and pulled it out to hand it to me, though he held it just out of reach. “It can wait, Elise. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on first?”

  I shook my head. “It’s just...some family stuff.”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “Everything ok?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. I mean, no. I don’t know.”

  He hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but...is it Evan and Susan?”

  “What makes you say that?” I reached again for the paper, but he pulled it again out of my grasp.

  “Just some things he’s said at work lately. Nothing specific. It’s not really any of my business...ah, sneaky.”

  I’d managed to snag the paper and take a few steps away so he couldn’t grab it back. “Ha!”

  “There’s a smile anyway,” he said.

  I unfolded the paper. Printed in gray ink, at first the tabulated contents meant nothing to me, but I got it after studying it for a few seconds. I looked at him, unsure what to say except, “Wow.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you until I had all the results,” Niall said. “But you can see it all right there. I’m safe as houses.”

  I blinked and looked over the test results again. Then at him. “You did this for me?”

  “Well...I guess I did it for me,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small plastic shopping bag wrapped around a box of condoms. “But I also brought these. Just in case.”

  * * *

  Upstairs, I let him take me to bed. Kissing, kissing, kissing until I couldn’t breathe. Niall laid me back on my bed, his weight covering me but never too heavy. Propped on his elbows, he again smoothed my hair from my face, his eyes searching mine. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but I didn’t have time before he kissed me again.

  Long, deep thrusts of his tongue had me gasping. I rolled my hips against him. He ground against me, then moved to kneel over me. He looked down at me and swiped his already glistening mouth with his tongue so that I groaned.

  “Touch me,” I whispered, arching my back so my breasts, naked beneath my thin T-shirt, could tempt him.

  He ran his hands up my sides then cupped my breasts for only a moment before moving back to the hem of my shirt and sliding beneath. At the touch of his skin on mine, I shuddered. He groaned. He pushed my shirt up to bare me to him, and I helped by tugging it the rest of the way over my head.

  “You have such amazing tits...breasts,” he corrected. “Is it cool to say tits?”

  I cupped them, thumbing my nipples as I gave him a look. “What do you think?”

  “I think,” he said, kissing me again, “I want to slide my cock between your amazing tits. How about that?”

  I laughed and gasped and moaned a little, too. I put my hands on his chest, digging my nails in a little bit. “Fffffff...”

  “Go on. Say it. You know you want to.”

  “Fuck,” I finished, breathless. “Say it again.”

  Niall shook his head and pulled away before I could capture his mouth with mine. “I changed my mind.”

  “What? No!” I nudged his thigh with my foot. “That’s not fair.”

  “I’ve waited too long to be inside you,” he said matter-of-factly, though his gaze burned me. “I want to make you come with my cock deep inside you and my mouth on those luscious tits, instead. Is that better?”

  “Much.” I fell back on the bed and toyed with the zipper on my jeans. Niall was idly stroking himself through his khakis.

  He stopped long enough to unbutton his shirt and toss it onto the floor. Idly, he ran a hand across his chest, fingers tapping on his belly. He stretched out over me to kiss me again. Side by side, we lingered in the kissing, joking gone. Hungry for each other, but not urgent. Slowly, he undressed me, following with his mouth every bit of skin his fingers revealed. Then himself, and I lay back to watch him in, for me, unaccustomed acquiescence.

  I liked watching Niall get naked for me. I didn’t have to tell him which way to turn to show me his body. He moved exactly the way I’d have asked him to, if I’d been commanding. Right now, it was a pleasure, simply watching. When he moved over me again, his cock thick and hot on my belly, I put my arms around him and held him close, and he let me without trying to force us along any faster.

  Niall kissed me slowly. His hands moved over me, finding the places I liked best to be touched. A few times I moved his fingers to the left or right, or shifted so he could get to me a little better, but mostly I just reveled in being so completely and utterly...known.

  Because he learned me, you see, inch by inch. Moan by sigh by gasp and groan, Niall paid attention to every noise that slipped from my lips, every shift and shudder of my body. Slower, faster, a little harder, sometimes softer, he taught himself the way my body worked, and I barely had to correct him.

  Trembling, I arched when he at last slipped his fingers up my inner thigh to press inside me. I was so wet I was almost embarrassed at how easily and deeply his fingers went. Almost.

  His thumb pressed my clit as his fingers moved, and in moments I was moving beneath him. Then grumbling when he stopped. He laughed into my mouth.

  “I told you it would happen when it happened.”

  “It hasn’t happened yet,” I murmured, circling my fingers on his wrist and guiding him back between my legs. “So get back to it. Please.”

  “So polite,” Niall breathed. “How could a guy say no to that?”

  He was kissing me when he pushed inside me. We both sighed. I tensed a little, unable to stop myself.