Full of Grace Read online

  Her tongue tastes like alcohol. I realize I’ve got to be closer to five or even six bananas drunk, because when I shut my eyes to kiss her, it feels like we’re free-falling off a building and spinning in the air, except that our bodies are touching in most of the right places. And her body is so damn soft, I can’t get enough of it. I tug her earlobe into my mouth, or maybe it’s her lip…I don’t have a clue. It’s just soft and warm and makes me think of nipples. I open my eyes to scout around for those instead and the free fall comes to an abrupt halt. I’m back on Oscar’s guest house bed, but lucky for me, this incredible little girl is still beneath me.

  The music from the wedding tent barely whispers through the walls, but I hear Saul talking to guests outside. He gives someone directions to the bathroom, and it occurs to me that someone could still walk in on us. Sher seems just as nervous and urgent to get things moving, which totally turns me on. I step up my game.

  I pull up her dress and hook my fingers into her panties, slipping them down over her silky legs.

  “We’re going to have to hurry,” I whisper in her ear, “before somebody gets by Saul.”

  “Then stop talking,” she whispers back, her lips growing a little firmer against mine. “Just do it.”

  Not exactly romantic, but romantic enough for me.

  “You’re amazing,” I tell her, leaning back to rub my thumb against her opening. It’s not just sweet talk. In the dim light from the window, I can see she’s a gorgeous, slippery pink. She makes my mouth water. I glance up at her and the edge of her lip is caught between her teeth. Sexy. Saul’s voice mumbles outside again, and it reminds me that this bedroom could go public with the twist of the door knob.

  I slide my knee between hers and she stiffens up. I’m sure Saul’s voice is throwing her off too, so I kiss her and murmur, “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. If anybody comes in, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Okay,” she says and she squeezes her eyes shut. I chuckle.

  “Seriously, it’ll be fine,” I tell her, lowering my mouth to hers. She takes my kiss as if she’s desperate for it and it makes me swell so much that it’s almost painful. She gives me one of those deep, do me kisses that I prefer to interpret as shut up and fuck me. So I do.

  She’s so tight and hot and wet that I almost explode the second my tip makes contact. But I can’t get in.

  “Oh my God,” I moan, “You’re so tight...spread a little wider for me, baby.”

  I’ve got a good package and Sher is tighter than a welfare Christmas. She grips my forearms and I take it as a signal of all-systems-go. But she grunts as I push into her. I was kind of looking for a fuck me harder moan, but with each thrust, what I get instead is a throbbing kind of grunt. It’s not real sexy. In fact, it sounds more like she’s trying to heave a car off a relative. I stop moving.

  “You okay?” I pant. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she pops them open the second I stop, releasing her lip from her teeth at the same time.

  “Yeah,” she nods. Her thighs quiver against the sides of my hips. She slides her hands beneath my shirt and grips my shoulders. “Let’s just do it, okay?”

  Maybe I’m going too fast. I thrust into her again, soft and slow, but she still sucks in a breath. Her fingernails dig into my skin. I try to relax her by taking the soft, fleshy rise of her breast in my mouth. I roll my tongue around her nipple and the muscles in her back soften slightly. I’m on the right track.

  I move rhythmically and her body grips me so tightly that it feels like she’s about to come. Her eyes are open, but the edge of her lip is in her teeth again and the swell it creates on the opposite side of her mouth makes me groan. My hips take over with one solid thrust, and I’m repaid with her fingernails slicing into my shoulders. Between the pain of her nails and the suicide-grip of her velvet skin wrapped around me, I can’t hold back. I haven’t come this fast since high school and the release is like punching a hole in the Hoover Dam.

  Sher squeals, her hips seizing up and sucking me in a little more. I cover her mouth with my hand, so she doesn’t bring Saul running. I whisper in her ear, “That’s right, baby, come with me.”

  And she bites me. Hard. I curse, pulling my hand away.

  “Get your hand off my mouth, porn star,” she murmurs. I do what she asks and she pushes herself up against my chest, her nipples two little points of warmth against me. She rewards me with a long, slow kiss that makes me feel like we’re flying.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE PROBLEM WITH FIVE or six bananas is that you feel perfect. It’s that seductive mix of happy and loose, almost like your bones aren’t connected. You’re still with it, but you feel like you could take on the world and win.

  And that’s the problem, right there.

  At the five or six bananas mark, it always feels so perfect, it seems like one more drink might make it that much closer to achieving nirvana. Then one more drink turns into two or three or ten, and you blast right past the eight bananas mark. And that’s when things always take a sharp turn away from perfection and end with you kneeling on the bathroom tiles, shouting down into the shameful abyss of the porcelain megaphone.

  I was not going to ruin this night by skipping over the ultimate seven banana threshold. Sher insisted we take the most leisurely stroll back from the guest house to the wedding tent. I don’t know if she wanted to enjoy the ambience or if I really wore her out that quickly. She tugged my arm to slow me down and I obliged, but almost immediately we ran into Hale, who whisked Sher away from me. I was stuck, well, more like left, to make my way to the bar alone so the girls could go off and talk shop. I watched the two of them disappear into the gardens, leaning close to one another. The last thing I heard was their giggling.

  And then I got to worrying.

  And ordering rounds.

  Hale’s dad comes and pounds me on the back and insists we raise glasses in honor of his daughter’s wedding. I doubt he even knows who I am at that point, but he is filling his tank and I am happy to do it with him. Mr. Maree shows up and we toast the happy couple again. Then one of the Maree’s biggest clients, Jack Pound, orders us cognac and we talk politics a bit. I’m not sure I’m even making sense anymore. Mrs. Hammond, who was once Mr. Maree’s ‘companion’, claims the spot right next to me, rubbing against my thigh as she laughs and dangles her diamond earlobes nearly into my mouth, until Oscar shows up and pulls me away from the bar.

  “Ten bananas, buddy,” he says.

  “No!” I laugh, shooing him away like it’s impossible.

  “How many fingers, then?” Oscar asks, but I catch sight of the garden path and then all I can think of is what Sher and Hale might be saying to one another. If Sher enjoyed it, if she didn’t, if it was too fast, if it wasn’t romantic enough, if my breath was too boozy, if she can’t stand the way I talk during sex, if she didn’t like who the hell knows what...the million things that girls can come up with not to like. My brain is just an alcohol-soaked question mark at this point and generally speaking, I wouldn’t care, but for some crazy reason, all of my heads keep looking for Sher to return from that garden path. The more she doesn’t, the more I want to go back to the bar for another drink. Oscar’s laughter draws me back, momentarily, from the garden path to his face.

  “Fingers, buddy. You have no idea, do you?” He laughs again. He’s my best friend, but he’s annoying the ever-loving-shit out of me, by insisting I look at him instead of watch-dogging the garden.

  “Nope,” I say. Oscar follows my stare this time.

  “You and Sher?” he asks.

  A grin spreads across my face.

  “She’s a good girl,” Oscar says.

  “Very good.”

  “No, I mean good,” Oscar repeats with a pointed stare. It’s not just the booze that makes me look at him the way I do. Good. He can’t mean good. His words must’ve gone cross-eyed.

  “Not good as in good,” I shake my head slowly, thinking of how Sher’s eyes were squeezed shut, how she kept biting d
own on her lip, how my shoulders are probably bleeding through the dress shirt beneath my jacket from the way her fingernails shredded my skin. I think of how she seemed so nerved-up afterward, how she insisted on walking so ridiculously slow all the way back to the wedding tent. Oh shit. “Not that kind of good. Tell me you don’t mean that kind of good.”

  But Oscar shakes his head sadly. “I mean exactly that kind of good, my friend.”

  “Shit,” I say. I want to bash my own head against the bar. I want to scream at her.

  That kind of good and I just jack-hammered her with a quickie? Why didn’t she tell me? Now, I’m a part of this girl’s life history. I’m not just some ‘good time’ she did at a wedding; I’m her first. That’s an epic load of responsibility.

  “Shit,” I say again, dragging my hand down my face. A guest tags Oscar on the arm with congrats. Oscar thanks the guy before turning back to me.

  “You lost some bananas on that epiphany, huh?” he says.

  “All of ‘em, I think.”

  “So, they’re still out in the gardens for sure. I haven’t been able to find Hale either.”

  “Yeah. She’s still off talking to your wife.” Just saying it makes me gloomy.

  “So they’re talking about you,” Oscar laughs.

  “Yeah, great. Thanks,” I say, and just as I glance to the garden path again, there’s Sher, walking back, still at a snail’s pace, holding Hale’s hand. It just about cracks me in half.

  I leave the bar and as I make my way to them, Hale drops Sher’s hand and kisses her cheek before walking right past me, to Oscar. Sher’s barefoot, her stilettos looped over her fingertips, and she stops on the path when she sees me coming.

  “You shouldn’t walk around barefoot like that,” I tell her, because I don’t know how

  the hell I’m going to start this conversation. “You could get something in your foot.”

  “I’m fine,” she says.

  “Ok, well, good,” I say, glancing around at the guests. They’re mulling around all over the place, making it even more impossible to talk about what I need to talk about with Sher. I point back down the garden path. “You want to walk with me?”

  “I’m kind of down with sitting around for a little bit,” she says. She adds quickly, “My feet are killing me. It’s my shoes. I’m not used to sky-scraper heels. I’m a hillbilly. I’d rather go barefoot than anything. Or Chucks. I’ve got a good collection of Chucks...”

  All her babbling brings it home to me, just how young she is. I knew she was eighteen, but she looks like she’s twenty. Maybe it’s just the wedding, and the heels, and the endless flow of champagne and shots that made me think that. But she sure looks every bit of eighteen now. Maybe even younger than that, with her shoes dangling from her hand. I’m only twenty-four, but I suddenly feel like a creepy old guy. Like I took advantage of her.

  “Let’s just go someplace so we can talk,” I say. “We can find a bench out in the garden.”

  She winces her smile, but she turns and shuffles along beside me, into the garden. The second bench we come to, Sher stops.

  “Seriously, Landon? Do we really have to walk all the way into the pit of the jungle? If you’re looking for privacy, this is fine. My feet are killing me.”

  I don’t think it’s her feet that are killing her. It gives me another jab to the gut.

  “Wait,” I say, before she sits on the stone bench. I take off my tux coat and fold it up so it’s almost a cushion. I put it on her spot on the bench. She doesn’t argue and another wince pulls at her smile as she sits down on my coat.

  “Thanks,” she says. I sit down beside her, still unsure of how I’m even going to start the conversation. I take a breath and when nothing brilliant comes to me, I just dive in.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”

  She looks away. “Probably because it’s not your business.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask her. She’s still not looking at me. I stand up and move around to block her gaze. “Not my business? You don’t think that’s kind of important to say? You should have told me. I would’ve been a hell of a lot more careful.”

  “It’s just virginity, Landon. It’s no big deal.” A shamed giggle straggles out of her, but my mouth still falls open. I’m the youngest, with five sisters ahead of me, all raised by a single mother. Not one of my sisters ever thought virginity wasn’t a big deal. There were frequent talks around the dinner table about it. Two of them insisted on saving it for marriage. One held out till she was engaged. One just wanted to save it for the ‘right one’ even though the first ‘right one’ that popped up was completely wrong. One sister is gay and she waited until she thought she had found true love. It didn’t work out, but she’d given it a solid effort.

  It’s not even just about how she should feel about her own virginity. I grew up hearing most of my sisters sobbing about guys who broke up with them because they wouldn’t give in. I heard my mother and sisters call men assholes enough times that I made it a goal not to fall into that category. All the women in my family drilled me endlessly on respecting women and how to be a gentleman and, most of the time, I think I do alright by them. So, I know the protocol for virginity and this isn’t it.

  “It’s a big deal to me,” I tell her and she giggles. It’s a maddening sound.

  “Well, it isn’t to me. You just helped me get rid of something I didn’t want.”

  “I still wish you would’ve told me first,” I say. “I could’ve made it a whole lot better.”

  “It was fine,” she shrugs.

  “That’s why you’re walking like Pinocchio just gave you a nose job?”

  “Gross.” She slaps me with the back of her hand. The awkward silence springs up in every dark corner of the garden. I finally clear my throat and decide to figure out what she really wants out of me. My sisters were almost unanimous that virginity = you’re in a relationship, and with my first girlfriend, they’d been right, but Sher seems like she’s trying to throw a curve ball in the equation. My sisters warned me about stuff like this. How they’ll say they don’t want a relationship when they do. Since virginity has always equaled relationship, I’ve got to go with the reliable math and assume that’s what Sher really wants too. Whether she says it or not.

  “So, what you’re trying to say is that you just used me, is that it?” I nudge her with my shoulder. “And now what? You’re throwing me away?”

  This next stream of giggles is unreal. I wait for her to exhaust herself. The giggles ebb and flow, ebb and flow, and finally, she takes a breath.

  “You want to date?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say. Why not? She’s cute. I just hope she can throttle back on that giggle. “Don’t you?”

  “Sure,” she giggles again. I should have made the request conditional: that she stop giggling long enough that I can kiss her. Since the giggles don’t stop, I offer her my hand instead.

  “Come on, Date,” I say. “I’ll take you back to the party and buy you a piece of wedding cake or some aspirin.”

  “I hear sugar is a great pain reliever.”

  She giggles even as she wobbles stiffly onto her feet. I’m hoping a piece of cake will stopper up her nerves. If I can just slow down the giggles, I’d be more than happy to coat my tongue with icing and apply it anywhere she needs it.

  ***

  The rest of the night, I ricochet between enjoyment and guilt. I could stare at Sher for hours. She’s got blond hair with all kinds of colors in it, so it looks like she could be blond or red headed or even brunette, depending on the type of light where she’s standing. Her eyes are large and expressive; the way her lids lower and the way she looks to the side before she giggles, my God, she nearly sends me to my knees. And she’s sharp as butcher knives, effortlessly holding her own and even going toe-to-toe with the biggest mouths that show up around the bar and at our table.

  But it’s the damn giggle, the one that follows every question I ask and every
answer she gives, that actually sandpapers my nerves. By the end of the evening, I liken her giggle more to a grinding chainsaw that never finishes the job.

  That’s what churns up my guilt. I was this girl’s first and there’s no way to change that now. I should’ve eased out gracefully while we were in the garden and she gave me the chance, but even then, it was the guilt that got me. As I knock back another shot, I realize how much the giggling is already wearing on me. Even a bottomless shot glass can’t fix it. But then, when she asks me to dance with her, I sway around the dance floor, breathing in her gorgeous girl perfume and feeling her incredible body against mine, and I almost convince myself that I can make this work.

  “Can I see you tomorrow?” I ask.

  “Yeah, sure,” she says. She looks up at me with those incredible eyes and her giggles spray out of her like an assault rifle. Thankfully, her head lands back on my shoulder before she sees my smile go jagged. I loosen my grip on her waist a bit and begin to devise a smooth exit plan from this guilty little relationship.

  ***

  There’s no reasonable explanation for it, but Sher doesn’t answer my calls.

  The first call, I didn’t even want to make, but I did it out of duty. I wasn’t going to be the guy that slept with her for the first time and then dumped her like a huge douchebag the next day. I planned on taking her out, and being a complete gentleman for at least one more date, in which I would quickly highlight for her how extremely incompatible we were for one another. If all went well, she would arrive at the right conclusion and let me down easy, no harm done.

  But she didn’t answer my call and by the end of the week, I started to worry that maybe I hadn’t dialed right or that there was some fluke and she didn’t get the call at all. So, I called again.

  The second time, I made sure that the numbers, recited by the computerized voice on her answering service, matched the ones she’d written down for me. They did. I left her a carefully friendly message—nothing amorous or even too charming—with a polite offer to take her to dinner. I hung up and the relief and reprieve from the guilt lasted only until the end of the second week, when she still hadn’t called me back.