Roni Loren - Not Until You

Pike drank his shot, and Foster sent him a curious look. When he’d met Pike, the kid had barely owned enough clothes to get him through a week. He and what passed for his family wouldn’t have been in a place to fund a pet.

Pike shrugged. “A stray cat used to live under our house when I was a kid. I named him Jagger and fed him, so I think that counts. I wanted him to be mine.”

Cela looked between the two of them. “I’m dragging both of y’all to the vet school shelter. Clearly, you need a pet.”

Pike laughed. “Doc, we can barely be trusted to care for ourselves. Let’s not inflict a poor animal with owners like us.”

Owners. Foster could think of one thing he’d like to own right now—at least for a little while. He dragged his focus away from Cela and nodded at Pike. “Your turn, drummer boy.”

Pike narrowed his eyes, that nickname always serving to annoy him, which is why Foster loved using it so much.

“Fine. Let’s see if I can come up with something less depressing than yours.” Pike sat back on the couch, his eyebrow arching in challenge. “Never have I ever …”

The pause was long. Too long. Pike smiled and leveled a gaze at Foster.

Oh shit. Foster knew that look. Don’t do it, Pike .

“Gotten off while eavesdropping on my neighbor,” Pike finished.

You fucker .

Cela’s expelled breath was audible even over the music. Well, shit. Now he was going to look like a creepy asshole. Foster ventured a glance her way, his gaze colliding with hers. Her panicked-rabbit expression made him wish time could be rewound and deleted.

“Dammit, Pike,” Foster said, gearing up for damage control. “Cela, look, Pike’s just messing around. He likes to—”

But before he could finish, Cela reached out, lifted her shot off the table, and downed it. When she finished, she wouldn’t look up. She stared down at her hands and the empty glass, her knee bumping up and down—as if she were contemplating running.

The silent admission and ensuing bashfulness were like strokes to Foster’s cock, oil on a fire he was trying to tame. This girl may be inexperienced, but she was brave—bold in a way that had him getting surprised at every turn. And it’d been a helluva long time since anyone had surprised him. He leaned forward in his seat. Like a predator scenting blood in the water, the dominance rose in him, locked her in its sights.

“Cela.”

She put her hand over her face, shaking her head. “Let’s just go to the next turn. Please.”

“Look at me, Cela,” he commanded, his tone harsh.

Her attention snapped his way, as if she couldn’t stop herself from obeying.

He held her eye contact and slowly drained his own shot.

Poured another, drank again.

Then another, drank again. “I could keep going.”

In Foster’s peripheral vision, Pike gave a slow, satisfied grin. “Honesty. I like it.”

Cela’s throat worked as she swallowed hard, her lips parted, closed, opened again as if she had words to say but couldn’t pick which ones.

“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” Foster said, keeping his voice even. “You don’t need to be afraid to say what you’re thinking.”

She licked her lips, the pulse at her throat visibly jumping. “First, I need to know what this is—tonight.”

Pike angled toward her on the couch. “We told you, doc. It’s your night to have a good time, whatever that may be.”

She looked to Pike, then back to Foster and lifted her hand to the neckline of her dress. Her fingers dipped underneath the material and moved along her sweat-dampened skin, riveting Foster’s gaze. She pulled a small square of paper out.

“What’s that?” Pike asked.

“In less than a month, I’ll be back in the small town I grew up in. Everything there is planned out for me in a nice, neat path. The job I’ve always known I’d have, the guy I’m supposed to date, the place I’m going to live.”

She hesitated and stared down at the paper, her thumb rubbing across the smooth white surface over and over again. Pike put a palm to her back, a gentle grounding touch that seemed to replenish Cela’s resolve. She gave them both a wavering half smile before continuing.

“I’ve lived my whole life working toward exactly that goal. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long. But I realized tonight that I’ve missed out on a lot of experiences that weren’t bullet points in the plan. I don’t want to go back home with a Never Have I Ever list a mile long.” She set the square of paper on the table, let her fingers linger on top of it for a moment, and then pushed it toward the center. “And I was hoping you two might help me scratch some things off the list.”

Foster’s attention zeroed in on the note, his heartbeat climbing up a notch.

“Whoa,” Pike said, her declaration apparently stunning the nothing-shocks-me musician.

Before Pike could take the liberty, Foster reached out and laid his palm over the small square, the paper slightly damp from being against Cela’s bare skin. He resisted the urge to bring it to his nose and inhale.

“That is,” she rushed on, her eyes darting toward Foster’s grip on her note. “If y’all are, you know, really interested in me or whatever but if not …”

“Shh …” Pike said, pressing his fingers against her lips. “Doc, if what’s on that sheet has anything to do with getting to touch you again, I have no doubt we’ll be all for it.”

Foster lifted the paper, unfolded it carefully, and stared down at the neat, bulleted list Cela had written on half a notebook page.

Never Have I Ever …

Broken the rules.

Had a one-night stand.

Lived out a fantasy.

Slept with the hot neighbors I’ve been crushing on for a year.

Lost control.

But I want to …

The paper crinkled beneath Foster’s fingertips as all sights and sounds around him seemed to fade, the words on the page nearly glowing at him. But I want to … He looked up at Cela, the vulnerable expression on her face reminding him of her youth, her innocence. But his stampeding libido trampled over those concerns, his cock hardening past the point of maybe. Yes, she was sweet. Inexperienced.

But the woman who wrote this list knew what she wanted, what she craved.

And he’d be damned if he was going to let someone else give it to her.

If Cela wanted to lose control with someone, he knew the guys for the task.

He stood, tucking the note in his pocket, and holding out a hand. “I think we’re done dancing.”

* * *

My heart was pounding hard enough to make my chest hurt, and a fine sheen of sweat had gathered on my neck, but I managed to get to my feet and take Foster’s offered hand. This is what I had wanted when I’d knocked on their door tonight. Wanton abandon. A departure from all that my predictable life normally was.

But now that I was standing with my toes peeking over the edge of the precipice, preparing to leap, the ingrained voice of my father was firing in my head like a machine gun. What are you doing? You don’t know these men. You’re not this kind of girl. What would people say?

And the ever popular, Don’t shame the family.

My father had used that one ad nauseam throughout my childhood. My older sister, Luz, had fallen into the wrong crowd in high school, had a boyfriend who’d stolen from people in town, and had gotten pregnant at sixteen. The taint of that had hung over us for years, even after my father had sent Luz away, disowning her after she terminated the pregnancy. So with my oldest brother away in the military and Luz gone, it had been left to me and Andre to prove that “those Medina kids” weren’t all bad.