Memories of Us Read online

  But this time, she didn’t react the same way at all. As soon as I moved in, she turned away and eased into the car. She’d known exactly what I was going for. Why would she turn away from me? Didn’t she want me anymore?

  I walked around to the driver’s side and got in.

  I wasn’t ready to take her home yet. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed west.

  “Where we goin’?” she asked, fiddling with the sound system seek-scan.

  “Thought I’d take the long way home.”

  She settled into the seat. “Takin’ the back roads. I like it.”

  “Thought you might.” She loved to turn the music up loud and just drive. When I’d had the Jeep and the top was off, she used to stand up, brace her feet, raise her hands in the air, and let the wind whip her hair as I sped down the old county roads with the bass pounding.

  We drove, enjoying the music for a while before I asked, “So are you seeing anybody?”

  “No.”

  So, why had she shot me down? And why was I dwelling on it?

  “Hmm, me either.”

  “I know. You told me you were between flunkies, remember? Hence, why you need me to bring the party.”

  I grunted.

  “So, poor little rich boy, why are you not married by now to some investment broker type wife and working on the one point two kids already? Wasn’t that ‘the plan’?” She pulled out the quote signs.

  “Maybe I haven’t met the right girl yet.” And maybe I’d been fighting the inevitable. I wanted nothing more than to take her home tonight, but I was almost afraid she’d turn me down. I wasn’t sure I could take the rejection. Not from the sure thing. Shit! I grimaced, angry with myself for the wayward and disparaging thought. I was no better than the gossipers back at the refreshment stand.

  “Why aren’t you in some unhealthy relationship?”

  Fuck! I’d done it again.

  “I want more,” she said, turning her head towards the window looking out into the darkness. “So, how are your lovely parents?”

  “Good. Dad’s talking about retiring, but he hasn’t made any motions in that direction.”

  “Now why would he go and do that? He’s been waiting to have you at his side all these years. He’ll stay, I bet. You’ve both been working toward this for as long as I can remember. I think it’s great, the relationship you have with your dad, well, both your parents. They are really great people. Stands to reason they’d raise a really good son.”

  “Wow. Thank you. What’s your angle?”

  “I’m trying to get out of coming to your get-together.”

  “Why?” I chuckled.

  “Well, first of all, no offence but I think it’s going to be boring. Everyone is going to be on their best behavior because they won’t want to embarrass themselves in front of you or their co-workers.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” She tilted her head.

  “You said first of all.”

  “And I’m not really sure you should have me there.”

  “Why not?”

  “You heard those girls, Call. What if some of your people know me? Should you really be seen with me? You’re trying to earn respect not…”

  “I don’t care what people think.”

  “Since when?”

  Well, she had me there. I did appreciate the esteem others held for my father, and I aspired to carry it on not only in the company, but also as a member of the community. There were many instances when we were teenagers that I’d been embarrassed by her antics.

  “I want you there, Kare.”

  “I don’t know, Call. I should really get back home. This was only a quick trip to see my mom. I had no intention of staying. I’ve got things to do and…”

  “Pleeease? For me?”

  I pulled to a stop at a four way. There was no other traffic way out in the boonies. I fluttered my lashes at her and waited.

  “Fine. But if someone calls me a slut, they just might wear your store bought salsa. I’m warning you now.”

  “If someone calls you such a thing, I’ll toss their sorry salsa-covered carcass from my house myself.”

  She laughed. The sound went straight to my gut.

  “Well, okay. But take me home now. It’s been a long and worrisome day. If you’re going to have me up late again tomorrow night, I need some sleep.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Four

  After yet another horrible night’s sleep, something else I could blame the little tease for, I dragged myself out of bed then stood sleepily in the shower. I was drowning in memories of her. The good, the bad, and the torturous.

  Standing under the warm stream I was suddenly transported back to the beach. I’d had a hell of a week away at school. College was different. Classes were fine, easier than I’d expected. It was the being away from home that I was having a hard time with. I missed my dad and mom and my friends. Though, I wasn’t the only one feeling a little homesick. I found out Pete, Trey, and Brady were going home for the weekend, so I loaded up and headed there too.

  ****

  A memory of us…

  The weather was glorious, a perfect late summer day. The entire gang congregated at the beach for one last hurrah.

  It was hot as fuck and the girls were wearing next to nothing. A teenage guy’s dream. As well as his nightmare. Because let’s face it, at that age, tits and ass equaled hard-on for most of the entire day, in thin sometimes wet clinging shorts. Kinda hard to hide.

  But Karis was in my face that day. Not that she’d been going out of her way to be. In fact, she’d pretty much ignored me for, Max, the newest a-hole in her long string of loser boyfriends.

  The guys and I watched her walk by with Max in tow.

  “Who’s that?” Brady asked Trey.

  “Max,” Trey responded, his eyes narrowing.

  I noted the distaste in his voice. “What?” I demanded.

  “Just a couple things Mom has let slip. I don’t think I like the way this guy treats Kare.”

  Straight away, that bothered me. For Trey to even give a shit was shocking. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It almost seems like he has some kind of weird control over her. He snaps his fingers and she hops. She’s copped an attitude.”

  I was about to say Karis was the definition of attitude, when he answered as if I’d shared my thought out loud.

  “I mean, even more than usual, which just makes the already strained relationship between my folks and her that much more tenuous. Mom says, more than once Karis has pulled the ‘I’m eighteen now’ card and threatened to go live with him.” Trey thrust his chin in their direction.

  Shit, and I’d forgotten her birthday.

  “Things are still pretty bad at home?” I asked, but I didn’t really want to know.

  With an offhanded shrug, Trey continued. “Our old man is just counting the days until she moves out for good to go to college. Wouldn’t he just fuckin’ die on the spot if she decided to go to some community institute and she stayed here?” He elbowed me. “Pfff, maybe they should just let her move out. Perhaps not with him but…”

  I just didn’t understand their dynamic.

  It was one of those days when I couldn’t keep my eyes from Karis. And now that I knew there was some kind of question about the way Max treated her, I was on full alert.

  About twilight, Karis led the charge to jump off the bluff in the buff. And the sight of all that glorious bare skin made my constant boner downright painful.

  After she and all the other half-buzzed adventurers had taken the plunge, I stood at the top looking down at them.

  “Hey, Call!” She shouted up at me. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” she invited playfully.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on, chicken. Ya got nuthin’ to lose.”

  I opened my mouth to respond when she finished. “‘Cept your clothes.” She grinned, unashamed, to which I couldn’t help but smirk
back. She was so comfortable in her own skin. I wished I had just a little of the don’t-give-a-shit attitude. But the standing of my family in the community was always to be considered before I did anything.

  At that point, Max swam up to her and grabbed her. At first she’d laughed and tried to throw her arms around his neck. I’m not sure what he did to her, the water obscured my view. I could imagine by the way she cried out and how quick she was to slap his hands away.

  “Ow! Max. Don’t.”

  Roughly, he grabbed her by the upper arms. Her body jerked.

  He said something to her and the feisty girl I knew turned with her head bowed, shoulders down, and walked out of the water. I lost sight of her, the hillside blocking my view. I walked quickly to the rock cut in time to catch sight of her going into the women’s change room.

  I made my way down and waited for her outside. When she came out it was obvious she’d been crying. She walked right by without seeing me.

  “Hey,” I called, catching up. Then I took her arm. She actually flinched. “What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing. He didn’t do anything. He’s a bit like you. He doesn’t like the way I act. I get it. You can relate to that, right?” Although she was trying to put on the tough act, I could tell she was a little off her game.

  “He’s nothing like me. I’d never hurt you.”

  With a sad look, she said, “No?”

  Confused, I didn’t know what she’d meant.

  “I gotta go,” she said briskly, heading back toward the shore.

  That night, the brews were still flowing, marshmallows and weenies toasting, the music blaring. I’d been contemplating calling it a night, when Max and Karis disappeared into the shadows. Being the surrogate big brother that I was and a little suspicious, I followed at a distance, of course. And it was a damn good thing, the jerk tried to take advantage of her.

  It was when I heard Karis, say don’t and stop that I burst onto the scene. Bare-assed, his shorts down around his knees, Max was half on top of her. I yanked him off, then promptly decked him. He was so wasted, he didn’t even move again. I pulled Karis to her feet. “Go get in my Jeep.”

  “No!” she spat, crossing her arms. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, Call. You’re just jealous. You don’t want me, but you don’t seem to want anyone else to have me either.”

  “Everyone’s had you!” I yelled, then wanted to bite through my own tongue for saying it, especially when her expression changed. I knew I’d hurt her after I’d bragged I never would. But it was true. Her reputation wasn’t lily white because she kept doing things like this.

  Her jaw tightened. Then she hauled off and slapped me across the face. “Fuck you, Call.” I deserved it.

  She left us both then.

  I nudged Max with my foot and promised myself I’d hunt him down in town the day after and we’d have a sober chat. I’d take the boys with me.

  After, I’d gone looking for Karis, but couldn’t find her. I’d hoped she’d gotten a ride. But when I got to my Jeep to go home myself, she was curled up in the passenger’s seat asleep with a blanket. It was a cover-up I kept it in there mainly for her. Sometimes she got cold when we were out for one of our drives.

  My heart kinda went out to her, but that only lasted about a half mile down the road when she reached over the console and palmed my dick.

  “Stop,” I demanded, trying to elbow her away.

  “I don’t know why you bother to deny it, Call. Nine times out of ten, you’ve got a hard-on when I’m around. Why won’t you let me take care of it for you? We’d both enjoy it.”

  “I said stop. I’m trying to drive.”

  “Then pull over.”

  “You have a boyfriend. You really shouldn’t be trying to give me a hand job.”

  “He’s manhandled me for the last time. He’s history. Pull over, let me—”

  “No. I don’t want you to take care of me.”

  “Did you already find a snooty girl at school, Call?”

  “No.”

  “Then? What’s the problem?”

  Angrily, I shook my head.

  “Fine.” She hit the lever on the passenger's seat and leaned it back, practically lying down in the car. I thought she was going to go to sleep or pass out, and I was relieved.

  But then she started to almost pet her stomach. For some reason I found the action overly stimulating, though I thought almost everything she did was pretty arousing. She flattened out her palm and caressed lower. Then, I couldn’t believe my eyes, she snaked her hand down her shorts and she squirmed under her own attention.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Well you interrupted my action. So I need a little taking care of.”

  “Jesus Christ!” My cock surged to a painful length.

  “Ah, you don’t know how many times I’ve played with myself while thinking of you, Call.”

  I tried to concentrate on the road, but my gaze kept straying to her hand moving inside her shorts.

  She moaned and I wanted to cry. Her breathing had spiked and that’s all I could hear. It was the freakiest thing a girl had ever done in front me, and I was so fucking turned on I was going to explode.

  “Oh, yeahhh, Call, right there. Mmmm. Sooo good. You make me feel so good.”

  “Fuck!” I imagined her saying those things to me because I was really doing it for her and it was about more than I could take.

  “I love to come,” she whimpered, her hips listing invitingly.

  “Who doesn’t?” I all but moaned, more to myself than her.

  “But I mean, I’m never happier than when I’m having an orgasm. Sometimes it’s all I want to do. Even as I’m coming down, I want more. I want it again. I should have been a guy.”

  I couldn’t quite picture it. And deprive mankind of all that?

  Her hand rotated faster. “Unh!” Her supple little body wriggled.

  “Fuck…me…” My concentration was not on the road but on her hand. I slowed, then swerved into the gravel and almost lost control. I barely managed to keep from rolling my Jeep into the ditch.

  Pissed off and beyond hard, I rammed the shifter into first then pulled the e-brake. I flipped around the cramped cab working my way to the front of her seat, half crouched over her with the low roof. She looked up at me, her eyes glassy and sexy as all fuck. I didn’t know what the fuck I was gonna do. I wanted to touch her so fuckin’ bad, but on the other hand, I didn’t want anything to do with Karis. I wanted to bury my aching cock so deep inside her that she moaned for me, the way she already had. But I also didn’t want to go where half the male population in this town had gone before, either. But she was driving me insane.

  While still diddling herself, she reached up and caressed my dick, molding her fingers around it. She stroked and my hips jerked of their own volition. She pulled her hand out of her shorts, then the brazen little bitch that she was, she placed the finger she’d been using to jill herself to my lips. She traced it around, wetting my lips. When I inhaled, I could smell her juice. It made my mouth water. I opened. She inserted the tip and I sucked the juices right off her finger. I moaned at the taste and she gasped as I sucked it greedily. At the same time, she palmed my cock.

  It was all too much. “I’m gonna cum…” I murmured, like an idiot, right before I blew my load, in my shorts. As my hips jerked, she squirmed in the seat. I knocked her hand away and I dove at her crotch, having every intention of licking her pussy. I gummed her through her shorts and the minute I did, she came, bucking against my mouth, groaning with ecstasy and disappointment. “Ohhh, gawd, nooo!” It brought me back to my senses.

  What the fuck was I thinking? I threw myself back in the driver’s seat. I rested my head back against the rest and tried to catch my breath, berating myself for losing my cool.

  Without a word, I started the Jeep and drove her the rest of the way home. I stopped out front of the Hirt house.

  But in typical Karis fashion,
she couldn’t just get out with a ‘thanks for the ride’. Or better yet, act like a real lady and ignore it all together and get out and run to the door, embarrassed. No, not Karis.

  “Thanks for the orgasm, pretty boy,” she purred, grinning. “You should come home every weekend.” She stepped from my Jeep.

  I didn’t even wait to make sure she got in the house okay. I rammed the stick in gear and peeled off down the street, squealing the tires and kicking up grit, trying to put as much distance between us as I could.

  But the entire night, every time I closed my eyes, I could still see her with that look of rapture on her face. Or picture her hand moving under the soft canvass of her shorts. And each time I licked my lips, I remembered her taste and my dick would tug. At that moment, I hated Karis Hirt, with a passion.

  ****

  I grabbed the body wash and lathered up. I fisted of my stiff cock and began to tug rhythmically, images of the woman who invaded my every other thought still filling my head.

  I’d rejected her all through school and I’d denied my own feelings for her. But for some reason, I couldn’t seem to get a strangle hold on them now. I wanted her. Bad.

  I pictured her, on her knees before me, sucking my cock, pretty much as I had the night with Joy and the abandoned bj. My hands in her hair. Her mouth open wide, jaws firm, as I plunged in and out.

  “Uh, fuck!” I opened my stance and I put an arm out. I placed my palm against the shower stall, steadying myself as I continued to jerk off. Faster, harder, longer strokes, simulating what it might feel like for Karis to suck my cock.

  “Fuck, yeah, her hot sweet mouth. Ah.”

  Call, if your cock was ever in my mouth, I don’t care how drunk you were, you wouldn’t forget it.

  My entire body tightened and juddered as I blew my load into the warm water spray, wishing it was hot sweet pussy.

  I cleaned up and hosed off.

  Yeah, she could turn me on. It was a mutual thing, but she could also pull at my heartstrings.

  ****

  A memory of us…

  The night after the beach party, I stopped by their house to see if Trey and the boys wanted to hang out. But when I rolled up, Karis sat on the front step, all folded up on herself. Her head was in her hand.