LOL #3 Romantic Comedy Anthology Read online

  “Okay.”

  I started to crawl. And heard him moving behind me. “What are you doing?!” I hissed.

  “Coming with you. Easier than finding you again.”

  I couldn’t come up with a good objection to that, so I carried on crawling. It was hard to tell exactly how far he was behind me, but it didn’t sound like very far at all. His head must be just a few inches from my— I felt my groin tighten and throb. I felt the fabric of my jeans and panties pull and stretch across my sex with each shuffle of my knees. Pull and stretch. Pull and stretch—

  I reached the counter and stopped abruptly. He pulled up short behind me and—

  A hot blast of air, right on that stretched-tight fabric. The heat of his breath soaked straight through to the lips of my sex. I felt myself go mushy inside.

  “It’s just behind here,” I said in a strangled voice. “Just—” I felt for the flashlight with shaking hands. Switched it on—

  A fierce beam of light cut across the store, bouncing off the cheap ceiling tiles and lighting up the room. I rolled onto my back, sat up against the counter and looked at Jarrett. “There,” I said, trying to force my voice level. “Light.”

  An hour later, we’d found some battery lanterns and put them up around the store. It looked like a low-rent fairy grotto. We were sitting with our backs up against the counter, sharing the packet of peanuts. The power outage, we’d agreed, was most likely from lines coming down in the storm. That meant that the power would be out for days, not hours.

  I’d put my hat back on again and my hood up over it, but it didn’t make much difference. I shivered.

  “You’re cold,” he said immediately.

  “No I’m not.” Because I could see where this was going. “I was just adjusting my position.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  “No I’m not,” I said. And shivered again.

  “Why do you have to fight me on every little thing?” he asked. “The heaters are off. It’s probably almost down to freezing in here already. Of course you’re freezing. Are there any blankets?”

  Blankets actually weren’t a bad idea. I went to the back of the store and got our complete stock, passing him half. We wrapped ourselves up. That was better, but the temperature was still dropping.

  After a while, I shivered again.

  “We’d be warmer,” he said, “if we—”

  “We are not cuddling up,” I said instantly.

  “Just let me put my arm around you!”

  “No!”

  “Goddamnit Arabella, just let me cuddle you!”

  I caught my breath. His eyes were gleaming in the lantern light. My heart suddenly seemed to be booming in my chest. This is nuts. Of course he doesn’t mean it like that. I sat there staring into his eyes for a moment, debating. Trying to trust him.

  Just for warmth, I told myself. It’s just for warmth.

  “One arm,” I said stiffly. “You can put one arm around my shoulders and put your hand here.” I indicated a spot on my upper arm. “Nowhere else.”

  He gave me a look that was disbelieving, but there was a hint of a smile, too. He nodded.

  I scooched a little closer to him.

  “My arms aren’t that long,” he deadpanned.

  I scooched closer. Closer.

  His arm wrapped slowly around me under the blankets. His hand settled on my upper arm, just where I’d specified. I was surprised by how heavy his arm felt, solid and warm. And, as he pulled me against him, I realized I hadn’t given any thought to me touching him, but it was too late. My side nestled against his and I had to stifle a gasp as my side-boob squashed against his pec. God, he was so warm!

  “That okay?” he asked.

  I sniffed as if it was acceptable. “Fine,” I said. And then, because he really was being nice and the guilt was eating away at me, I mumbled “I’m sorry I was sort of… rude to you, before.”

  “That’s okay, Arabella.” At the sound of my name on his lips, something deep inside me did a little somersault.

  We lapsed into silence for a few minutes. When he spoke again, Jarrett’s voice was strained, as if he’d had to work up to what he wanted to say. “I never see you with anyone,” he said.

  “What?”

  “At college. Or in town. I don’t see you with anyone.”

  Did he mean friends? I had friends. “I have friends,” I said, a little defensively.

  “I meant… guys.”

  “… oh.” And it sank in that not only did he know my name, but he’d seen me around college. And in town. He’d been watching me.

  “I mean, is there someone?” he asked, trying to make it sound casual.

  “No.” My brain was still playing catch-up. Why would he ask that? He can’t be meaning to—No, of course he can’t. “You? You’re with Georgina, right?”

  He shook his head. “I broke up with her.”

  I swallowed. So Jarrett West was sitting there under the blankets with me, hot and muscley and sort of flirty and single. That put a different spin on things. We sat there in silence while I turned things over in my mind. The silence in the store seemed to grow deeper and deeper and his arm around my shoulders seemed to move, squeezing infinitesimally. Everything was building, slowly but surely towards—

  “Arabella—” he said.

  I jumped up from the nest of blankets, my heart racing. Oh my God, was he really about to—

  “What’s up?” he asked, confused.

  “I just thought of something,” I lied. The truth was, I just hadn’t been able to take the tension anymore. And now I didn’t know whether to run for the other side of the store or cuddle back under the blankets with him and wait for… whatever had been about to happen. Now that I was standing and shivering, looking down at him, it seemed insane. We hadn’t really been having a moment, had we?! He hadn’t really been about to—

  No. That would be crazy. This was me, Arabella, nice sensible physics major Arabella. Things like this didn’t happen to me. And even if he had made a move, I wouldn’t accept… would I? Me, with the campus stud? That would be nuts. He’d use me and dump me, just like all the others.

  I realized I was still standing there. I needed to think of a reason why I’d jumped up. And then, as my eyes searched the store for an excuse, I actually found one. “Christmas dinner!” I announced, and ran across the store to a shelf.

  “Christmas dinner?”

  I returned to him with an outsize can. “Christmas dinner,” I said proudly, and handed him the can as I burrowed back under the blankets.

  “Christmas dinner in a can,” he read in a disbelieving tone.

  “It’s self heating!” I told him. “You pull a tab!”

  He looked at me, aghast. “People actually eat this?!”

  I didn’t want to say that I’d eaten worse, when I was flat broke at the end of the month. “I was thinking that we could warm our hands on the can.”

  We pulled the tab. The can grew warm, then hot. We took turns holding it, giving little moans of ecstasy as our fingers thawed for a few seconds. Eventually, there was a smell that might have been turkey cooking, if you really used your imagination.

  “Go on,” I said. “You’re hungry.”

  “I’m not sure I’m that hungry.”

  “But you’re curious,” I said.

  He looked inside the can. “I will if you will.”

  “Deal.”

  We did scissor, paper, stone to see who’d get out from under the blankets to go and get a plastic fork from the pot on the counter, and I lost. But, I insisted, that meant that he had to go first with the food.

  He lifted out a lump of glistening gray something and sniffed at it.

  “Do you think that’s supposed to be potato?” I asked.

  “I really hope not. What do you think the little purple things are?”

  “Cranberries?”

  He slowly bit into it and chewed. “It’s not potato,” he said at last. “It’s got the consistency
of potato but… I have a horrible feeling that’s meant to be the turkey. Your turn.”

  I dug in and got a sausage with a white worm of bacon fat around it. There didn’t seem to be any bacon, just bacon fat. The sausage tasted of nothing except chemicals.

  “This is the worst thing I’ve ever eaten,” I said. I put the can aside and grabbed a can of cherry cola off the shelf. “Here, wash the taste away with this.”

  “What about paying for things?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

  I felt my cheeks burn as I remembered how rude I’d been to him, back when he’d been just one of the goons. That suddenly felt like a long time ago. “Under the circumstances, I’ll make an exception. This is a culinary emergency.” I popped the top and handed the can to him first. He drank deeply and handed it back to me. I filled my mouth with the sweet tang of artificial cherries and nothing had ever tasted so good in my life.

  I lowered the can and looked at him and giggled. Why am I eating awful Christmas dinner in a can under a blanket with this guy?!

  He was grinning too and, suddenly, it wasn’t irritating anymore. He pointed to my chin. “You have some cherry juice—there.”

  I wiped my chin. “There?”

  “No.” He leaned closer and wiped my chin with his fingers. “There.”

  And then we locked eyes. And he kissed me.

  An impetuous press of his lips at first, over before I could process it. I blinked at him, one hand raised towards my mouth, reliving the memory of his lips against mine. God, the hard, male feel of him and the jolt that had gone through me as we touched. It had zapped all the way down to my toes, igniting a thousand little fires on its way.

  We both stared at one another.

  And then we were kissing again, long and hard and, this time, my eyes had time to close and I let out a soft little moan, twisting my head to seek him out. I felt my lips open under his, unbidden, and suddenly his tongue slipped into my mouth. A second jolt went through me, an ohmyGod, this is really happening jolt. My hands flailed for something to grab hold of and found his shoulders and I clung onto him as if we were both falling through space. His hands were on my back and then pushing away my hood and hat so he could stroke his fingers through my hair.

  He turned me, pushing me back, and my back pressed against the counter. His lips were on mine, our panting mixing into one, and his hands were coming up the front of my coat, tracing the shape of me through the thick layers of fabric.

  He pulled back slightly, enough to look into my eyes. A what are we doing? look passed between us. I searched his eyes for any sign that he was toying with me, or making fun of me. But he looked helpless, consumed by his lust.

  “Senior year, high school,” he muttered. “That’s when I knew I wanted you.”

  “What?”

  “Senior year. You did that science talk for your project. In the black turtleneck.”

  My mind was spinning. “No one even came to that!”

  “I came to it.

  I stared at him for a moment and then kissed him hard, my heart on fire. His hands were on the peg-style buttons that fastened my coat, popping them through their loops one by one. I felt it start to gape open at the top. The only thing it revealed was my sweater but, after so long swaddled up in layers of clothing, to lose even one made me feel naked.

  As he reached my waist, our position meant that he couldn’t get to the buttons. So he pulled me down with him, my back sliding on the tiles, until we were lying, our legs sticking out from under the blankets. We both kicked them into place so that they were covering us.

  He went quickly through the rest of the buttons and then spread the coat open wide like a butterfly’s wings. I was wearing a scarlet sweater beneath and I could see my breasts heaving under it as I panted. Lying down had changed everything. We weren’t just kissing, anymore. This was getting serious.

  “It’s cold,” I said.

  “I’ll keep you warm.”

  The wind howled outside as he began to kiss me again, perfect little explosions of pleasure across every inch of my lips. I felt his hands on the hem of my sweater, tugging it up together with my t-shirt. I lifted my body and the cloth rose up my back, baring me. When I came down again, my back was against cold tile and I gasped. But my body felt red hot, throbbing with need, and I could feel the warmth seeping into the tiles already.

  He stopped kissing me and drew back, kneeling there above me raised up on his arms. It took me a second to realize that he was just looking at me, looking at my breasts in their simple white bra, and the feeling sent a hot squirm through me. Then he was reaching under me, unhooking my bra—

  I gasped as he pushed the cups up and my breasts spilled free, the icy air puckering my nipples instantly. He took them in his hands and squeezed them gently, just once, and then his mouth was on them, his heat and wetness bathing them, and I ground my ass against the floor and groaned. His tongue licked and flicked, circling the areola, running over and over the aching bud, and then he switched to the other one while his thumb worked the slickened flesh of the first. I started to squeeze my thighs together, desperate for friction there.

  I reached up and unzipped his coat, helping him off with it. Then I pulled his t-shirt and sweater off in a bundle over his head and gasped as I saw the muscled form of him. His skin was flawless tan over thick swells of muscle, his shoulders seeming twice as wide as my own. He moved down towards me again and his muscles flexed and bulged, his hard chest pushing against me. God, all that raw power, and he’s on top of me… .

  And then his leg was pushing between mine and his knee started to grind against my sex through my jeans. He began kissing me again while he worked my breasts with both hands, squeezing and kneading, rubbing the nipples. I started to suck my breath in, taking quick little gasps, and I knew he’d be able to feel how turned on I was. He’d certainly be able to feel the heat between my thighs as his leg rubbed back and forth against me.

  He supported himself for a moment on one elbow, reaching down between us to do something, and I suddenly felt my jeans loosen. I looked into his eyes and my jaw dropped open. The mood shifted again: from kissing to clothes off to sex.

  I was panting. What am I doing? This is not the sort of thing I do! I just met him! We’re not even going out! He’s just going to use me—

  But I looked up into his eyes and it didn’t feel like that was what was going on at all. This felt like something that had been building inside him for much, much longer, a desire that came from a deeper place. He didn’t seem like the heartless jock I’d taken him for. And suddenly, I didn’t feel like being nice, sensible Arabella anymore.

  I felt his hand diving down the front of my jeans, sliding inside my panties… Oh God! His fingers brushed through the soft curls of hair and then smoothed down the length of my lips. I quaked and shuddered under him.

  He leaned down and started kissing me, taking his weight on his knees. He had my legs slightly open, now, and he started rubbing the juncture of my lips with two fingers. With his other hand, he stroked my breast over and over, circling and teasing and lightly pinching my nipple in a way that sent me insane. I could feel the heat coiling and building inside me, the pleasure throbbing down through my body to turn into liquid heat at my groin. I could feel myself getting wet under his fingertips and it wasn’t long before I opened for him and his fingertips were inching inside.

  I arched my hips off the tiles and he slipped deeper. I bit my lip at how good it felt, his strong fingers stretching my satin-smooth flesh. He began to probe, every millimeter a delight, and his tongue was in my mouth mimicking what he was doing down below.

  After long, agonizing minutes, he broke the kiss. His breathing was tight and his whole body seemed to have gone hard—primed and ready. “We don’t have to,” he panted. “If you don’t want to.”

  I stared up at him. “I want to,” I said helplessly.

  He slid out of the blankets and hurried behind the counter, returning with a cellophane-wrap
ped box. He dived back under the covers and started struggling with the packaging. “Get your jeans off,” he told me, his eagerness making it sound like an order. A deep, hot throb went through me at that. I quickly pushed my jeans, panties, socks and sneakers off in one tangled mass. When I pressed up against him again, the feel of him against my naked legs made me gasp.

  He got a condom out and tore off its wrapper. He put one knee between my legs, then the other. He nudged my thighs wider and that, too, sent a throb through me. The feeling of being spread for a man, opened up for him.

  He unfastened his belt and shoved his jeans and then his jockey shorts down his thighs. His cock sprang out and I gasped. Thick and long—God! I wanted to touch it. I reached up and wrapped one hand around the shaft, but I needed two to cover its length completely. I caught my breath and gave a little tremble at the thought of it inside me… but the tremble turned into a deep, hot slickness as it reached my groin.

  He rolled on the condom and positioned himself between my thighs. i glimpsed the rubber-coated length of him, hard and unyielding between my pale legs, and it was an image I’d remember for the rest of my life. Then he pulled the blankets over us again and he was hidden from view and I had to rely on sensation.

  I felt the tip of him probing at my lips and I actually inched my hips away from him, sliding along the tiles. I wanted him, but I was a little scared of his size.

  He reached down and smoothed my hair back from my face. “I’ll be gentle,” he said.

  Then I felt the head of him nudging between my lips, spreading them… spreading them… OH GOD spreading them. It felt incredible, satin on silk, hard on soft. He opened me wide, but there was no pain, just a delicious fullness. And then the head was sliding in and he was surging up into me, filling me. I grabbed his shoulders as he went deep… deeper. Three long strokes and he’d filled me completely, hilting himself. We lay there for a second, completely still.

  “Okay?” he asked gently.

  I nodded quickly. It didn’t hurt and the sensation of him there was sending me wild. My breath started to come in high little pants and I began to run hands up and down his sides, stroking the hard muscles there. I could feel the sexual heat throbbing outward from that hard length, soaking outward to every part of my body. I wanted him to fuck me. Needed it. The heat inside was spinning and tightening and I had to release it or I was going to go crazy. I slid my hands up and around his back, then down to his ass, pulling him into me.