Lust Thy Neighbor (17 page)

Her lips curved up at the edges. "What do you call what you did this morning?" To her disappointment, he hadn't come over to her place the night before, but she awoke this morning finding him in bed with her, his body spooned tight behind. Later, when she nudged him awake, he proceeded to explore her body with his tongue, claiming the territory as his with demanding lips, hands, and everything else.

"I call that very adult touching. NC-17 with a triple X finale."

She rolled her eyes theatrically. "Come on, we better get going. I'm sure Jacob is getting an eyeful right now."

"No he isn't," he promised. "He can't see from this angle."

"Really?"

"Want to be sure?" He wiggled his brows. "We could make out and see if he says anything."

She laughed. "Oh, grow the hell up!" Taking his hand into hers, she dragged him as best she could over to his truck. He opened her door for her and she inclined her head at his show of manners.

"What?" He grinned. "I'm not a total caveman."

"Never said you were."

When Declan was buckled in, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic baggie, and handed Jacob a little round pill. "Here, take it."

Violet screwed up her face, her teacher instincts kicking in without warning. "What are you doing? Are you giving him drugs? Please tell me you’re not giving him drugs.”

"No." Jacob plucked the pill from his brother’s fingers, his ears turning scarlet. "I get car sick."

"Oh." Thoroughly embarrassed at her outburst about drugs, she bobbed her head. "I had no idea.”

Declan laughed at her and it only added to her mortification. "Unless you want Jacob throwing up out the window and onto the truck and probably your hair too, you're going to thank me for those little miracle pills."

She tossed him a dirty look. "Are you done making fun of me now?"

He leaned over the center console and before she could protest on account of Jacob being present, he dropped a quick kiss on her lips that lingered a moment longer than necessary for a peck. "You're cute when you blush," he muttered under his breath. “Really, really cute.”

She didn't know how to respond. Under her fiery flush and the prickly exterior she tried to adopt, his single touch affected her more than she wanted to admit.

Behind them, she heard a groan and then Jacob said, "If you’re planning on making out every five seconds, the pills aren’t going to help keep the vomit down.”

Before she could reply, Declan jumped in, his usual sarcasm at hand. "Don't worry; you won't be awake to see. I gave you the original formula, not the non-drowsy kind."

*

"T
ell me about your first time,” Declan said over the sound of the radio. He kept one eye on the road while the other reached for her hand. Her fingers felt warm and delicate, making him want to protect her from everything big and bad in the world, even though the rational part of his brain told him he had no real claim on her.

But he felt like he should. She felt like
his
now. And that had to count for something, right?

"He was this boy I dated in high school. He lived in the same town, went to the same school."

When she went silent, he skimmed his thumb over the back of her hand. “Hell, don't fall all over yourself spilling the details."

With her free hand, she twisted the hem of her sweater, reminding him of the candy bar wrapper she’d massacred the night of her grandparents’ party. "Well, it's not like you're a wealth of information either. Who was
your
first?”

"My neighbor.”

“Imagine that,” she drawled. “Seems like you have a thing for neighbors. So, tell me what happened.”

“Her name was Nicki Lawson. She was a few years older than me, and I was curious. Afterwards, she told me I was the lousiest lay ever. It must not have been too bad because we repeated the act every other day for the rest of that summer, but it was still a giant stab to my ego."

“Pun intended?” Violet laughed, and he shot her a dirty look. “Aw, you poor baby. So how old were you?”

"Fifteen."

"For what it’s worth,” she said, dropping her soft voice to an even tinier whisper as Demi Lovato and Fall Out Boy wailed about someone being irresistible on the radio, “I think your old neighbor was very, very wrong.”

"Suck up."

She held up her hands defensively and granted him a satisfied smile. “I speak nothing but the truth, Mr. Pierce.”

“Alright, now it’s your turn.”

She stayed quiet briefly. "His name was Josh. He was the new kid in school my senior year. I thought he was cute and the way he paid attention to me made me feel special. He took me out to dinner and a movie one night, and when he carried me home, he asked if he could come inside. My mom wasn't there, and I'm sure you can guess how that story ends.”

"He took you to dinner and a movie?”

Violet scowled. "Yeah. Why? What's wrong with that?”

"Nothing at all but let me guess: Rom-com. PG-13 rating. Am I on the right track?”

She looked straight ahead at the Interstate, fighting the smile quivering her full lips. “It was
50 First Dates
, and he said that it was our
first
first date.”

"God, where did you find this guy?” When she laughed, his expression softened and he asked, “So, what happened after your
first
first date?”

She gave a half shrug. “We dated for six or seven more months but eventually it fizzled out.” It seemed like the story of her life, but she was terrified to tell Declan that. What she had with him was so wild and raw that the thought of it deteriorating sent a sharp pain to her chest.

“That’s usually how it happens with high school romance,” he spoke up.

"And your brother? He's a high schooler, you know?"

Declan peeked in the rearview mirror and saw his brother knocked out, his head bent back at an odd angle and his mouth wide open. "Nah. He's a good kid."

"Good kids don't have sex?" She was laughing silently at him. “Just in case you haven’t figured it out, I was the epitome of nerdy and pure and somehow I ended up putting out on a first date. And don’t forget that I’m around teenagers the majority of the time, so I get a glimpse into their thought process.”

He recoiled suddenly at the thought of his little brother doing even half of the things he’d done at that age. "God, I don't want to think about him sneaking out of the house and all that. I’m not ready for that kind of shit."

She laughed, casting a glance back at Jacob. "You mean sneaking out of the house like you do now?”

"Yeah, like me." He took a turn off the main road and onto a back road. "I'll be honest, I'm really nervous right now."

"Why?"

"Meeting a girlfriend's mom is a big deal,” he said, and her pulse raced as she processed that he’d just called her his girlfriend. “This is going to sound lame as hell, but what if she doesn't like me?"

"Then I'm just going to have to break up with you right away. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to make decision on my own." She snorted then pulled her long dark hair away from her face and into the ponytail holder she wore around her wrist. “Not that I think you’ll have anything to worry about, but if she doesn’t like you, we’ll find a way to deal.”

He massaged the back of his neck. "Alright, I get it. I'm being irrational.”

"I'm just kidding." She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed the inside of his wrist, rubbing her lips back and forth across his skin as she watched his fingers tense. "I'd be nervous too if I were meeting your parents." As soon as the words left her mouth, her entire body went taut and she drew in a sharp breath. She dropped his hand and sat upright. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"It's okay." And it was. His parents weren't around anymore, and he was getting to the point of truly accepting it. "It was a slip. No problem."

She was quiet for a moment, raking her teeth over her lip like she was trying to make up her mind about what she wanted to say. At last, she turned to him again. “Tell me about them."

"What about them?"

"How did they meet?"

“College." Declan's smile widened, remembering the story his parents used to tell him. "Dad had a one night stand with my mother’s roommate. When he was sneaking out the next morning, Mom caught him and got mad. She said he should at least have the decency to get rid of his trash."

"Dad said that he fell in love with her when she threw his condom wrapper at his head and told him to fuck off." He gestured with his free hand that wasn't holding the steering wheel, remembering how his father’s eyes would go soft when he told the story. "Obviously, it wasn't exactly love at first sight for my mom, but it happened eventually. They got married. A year later, they had me. They wanted more kids but were never able to. When I was a senior in high school, BAM! Mom got pregnant again."

"And Jacob came along,” she finished in a soft voice.

"Yup. Jacob. The baby of the family."

"How was that for you? Being so much older than your brother?"

He shrugged. "It wasn't really that big of a deal. I was headed off to college, so I wasn't home much."

"So you guys weren't that close, right?"

He shook his head. "Not really. I was graduating and he was a baby. We were as close as we could get, I suppose. After college it was a little better. I moved back home for a while, looking for jobs and all that. I spent some time with Jacob. He was walking and talking and potty-trained." Declan laughed, recalling how he found out the hard way when one day he was left to baby-sit and Jacob told him that he had an 'accident.' "I was the cooler older brother by then. I could drive him around and buy him shit."

"But you moved away to New York?"

He nodded. "Got an entry level job at the paper and worked my way up."

"And then the accident happened."

His chest clenched painfully. He could still remember the phone call from the hospital. The social worker had phoned him while he was at work. At first, Declan had been scared that something had happened to Jacob, but then found out it was his parents instead. Jacob had been practically catatonic by the time Declan hopped on the first flight out to California. His brother wouldn't talk to anyone, didn't even seem to register that Declan was there with him. "Jacob had been in the car with them in the backseat. The head-on collision demolished the entire front end while Jacob walked away with a mild concussion and a broken arm."

"Oh my god...."

Declan tightened his knuckles on the steering wheel. He hadn't spoken about the details of the accident since it happened. And even when he called various family members and friends, he'd given them the condensed version. For some reason, he felt compelled to give the entire story to Violet. Lay it all out there.

"I didn't handle it very well." He wasn't proud of that. "Jacob needed to stay in the hospital for a few days, so I went out and got drunk after I identified my parents."

Her soft hand landed on his shoulder and she squeezed it. "You were in shock."

"But Jacob needed me, and I wasn't there. I couldn't even look at him for the first few days. Every time I saw him, I saw Dad. I didn't give him a choice. I didn't even talk to him about it. I just made the arrangements, packed up his things, and moved him out to New York with me. I sold the house without thinking twice. I didn't want to see it anymore."

"You did what you thought was best."

Unconsciously, he looked in the rearview mirror again at his brother. "I didn't give him a choice."

"What choice could you give him, Declan? And be realistic. He was just twelve. It wasn't like he could stay out in California by himself."

"But I never considered moving back home for him."

"Your life was in New York."

He shook his head. "My
job
was there."

There was silence. And then a hesitant, "You feel guilty, don't you? Why?"

Declan couldn't speak for a solid five minutes.
This
was what he had never told anyone. What Jacob never mentioned, even though they both knew it was the truth. "They were driving out to see me."

"What?"

"I told them I couldn’t make it out there for Christmas. Dad thought it'd be fun to drive across country to bring the holidays to me so that we could spend it together as a family." Declan's mouth filled with a horrible metallic taste, the tang of it overpowering his senses, burning his nostrils and corroding his throat. "They never made it out of Los Angeles."

"Wow," she breathed out next to him. Telling him she was sorry just didn’t feel like enough this time. “I know nothing I can say will make things better but if you ever need to talk—or not, we could sit and do nothing—I'm always here for you. If you want me to be."

And
that
made him feel better. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to hear another person tell him they were sorry for him. But he did want her. And he wanted her with him. "Thanks."

Following the GPS directions, he made a right turn down a residential street and she gestured for him to stop at the bright, yellow-painted house at the end. "We're here,” she announced in an excited sing-song voice.

As he placed the car in park, a woman with long dark hair and dressed in what he'd later refer to as the turkey sweater came out of the house, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Is that your mother?" Declan asked, his eyes wide, bewildered.

"Yeah," Violet groaned at the beautiful brunette dancing toward them. "She's probably all jacked up on Mountain Dew and coffee."

"Oh."

"Come on.” She grabbed his hand. “Time to meet my grandmother’s polar opposite."

"M
om!” Violet hopped out of the truck as Alice sprinted down the driveway to wrap her daughter in a tight hug. While they embraced, Declan watched silently from behind the wheel. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He was ...
nervous
. He hadn't been nervous since he brought Jacob to live with him, and before that? Hell, the only time Declan Pierce had been truly worried about making an impression was the night he lost his virginity to his neighbor when he was fifteen. Even then, he didn't feel the taut knots intricately forming in his stomach like he did now