Punk and Zen (19 page)

“That’s it for me, I’ve had it for the night,” Nico
announced, pushing away from the table and rubbing his stomach.

I dug into my pockets and pulled out my keys. “Here
you go, Nico,” I tossed them at him, “you know where my room is.” He was
staying at my place tonight since we were drinking and I didn’t want him to
drive. Since I lived ABC only two blocks away, this was not a problem.

“Yeah, I didn’t wear my drinking clothes,” he joked
with me, referring to those parties all that time ago and the guy who always
wore a plastic garbage bag just in case he puked.

I laughed with him.

Somebody said something, I don’t remember what, and I
quipped back to the table at large.

“Shut up, Nina!” Trace called jokingly down the table.

“Why don’t you make me?” I joked back and returned to
my conversation. Come on, now, I had every right to say stuff, too.

In what seemed like half a second, Trace came over and
yanked my chair out. Momentarily off balance, I raised my arms trying to get my
bearings, and, in a flash, Trace slipped around, threw a leg over mine, and
stood before me, straddling my legs.

I looked up into her eyes, unreadable in the dim
light, and kept my face expressionless.

“I think you should shut up,” she warned me, her voice
a deadly quiet. The bar had gone silent around us, and I could feel everyone’s
eyes on us in the ringing emptiness.

“Yeah?” I asked insolently, tilting my head in
challenge. “I think you should make me.” There was no way I was going to let
Trace intimidate me, especially not in front of my brother or my band.

We watched each other a moment, no quarter on either
side, then suddenly her hands were on my shoulders, her lips were on mine, and
her tongue slid deeply into my mouth; and while my brain was stunned, I gave
back as good as I got. This was war.

We battled in that sensuous way for however long until
we mutually declared temporary detente. Trace lifted her head from mine, her
hands still on my shoulders.

“Got anything else to say?” she asked, a triumphant
laugh in her voice.

“Yeah, actually.” I curled my lip at her. “That the
best you got?”

Good. Now she was shocked, and I grabbed her hips,
bringing her down firmly onto my lap. Don’t ever dismiss the notion of Dutch
courage, because that must have been what was fueling me now. Well, that and
the fact that I absolutely refused to lose face.

Releasing one side, I touched her face and gently
brought it to mine. I looked into her eyes and whispered, “I don’t think you
can handle me,” then kissed her softly, my lips and tongue an ABC easy
glide against hers. Her fingers slipped from my shoulders to run through my
hair as she responded to me, her stomach pressing into my ribs.

“Hey, get a room!” someone called out, probably Cap, I
thought, and various other catcalls followed. Again Trace lifted her mouth from
mine, and she carefully stood up directly in front of me, sliding her body not
half an inch from my nose. It would only have taken the slightest movement for
me to catch her between my teeth.

“Do you wanna take this outside?” she asked me, her
voice all throaty challenge.

Her smile was ironic, but the silent gray of her eyes
had deepened, and they searched mine with an intensity that I knew was no joke.
But still…that smile…and the message everyone got…I knew how to play this.

“Nico, take my guitar home?” I asked him, and didn’t
even glance his way when he agreed.

When I stood I deliberately gripped her hips for
leverage and let my breasts skim lightly against her on the way up. The sharp
hiss of her breath as I did it made me smile. Finally, we were eye to eye, and
I dropped my hands.

“Fine, then.”

She neatly stepped out from our almost-embrace and
made way for me, and I strode to the door, stopping only when I got there. I
faced her, mutely waiting. This was the last chance to back out and down, and
the perfect opportunity for either of us to crush the other in front of
everyone. Forget points; we’re talking burning scorecards here.

Everyone in that room must have known this could go
only one of two ways: we could either punch the fuck out of each other or fuck.

If the room had been quiet before, it was now
graveyard silent. It seemed like every eye was upon us as Trace sauntered over,
all liquid curves and predatory grace. I held out a hand for the last few
steps, and when she grasped it, she reached up with her free one and drew me in
for a bloody, searing kiss.

This time, the room erupted with cheers, and when we
broke off that kiss, I glanced around to see everyone on their feet, even Nico,
Stephie, and Jerkster. Nico’s expression was inscrutable, Stephie gave me a
small grin, and Jerkster, well, he held his beer up in a congratulatory toast.

The sharp sound of glass being struck rang out across
the crowd, and we all saw Cap putting down the cutlery he had just used to ring
his glass with.

“Nina, Trace,” he began, his tone somber, but his eyes
twinkling, “go. Go and either discover that it’s destiny or…” and he paused
dramatically, then grinned at the rest of the room before focusing on us again,
“get it over with, so the rest of us can get some peace!”

Everyone laughed, and somewhere, almost under the
table, I heard Van’s muffled, “Hear, hear!”

Trace rolled her eyes and turned away, ready to leave,
but I couldn’t just let it go yet. “Fuck you!” I mouthed to him with a slight
grin, then followed Trace to the door.

“Ah, ah!” I heard Cap call out to our backs as we made
our way outside. “That’s not who you’re fucking!”

Not even half a step past the door, Trace pounced. It
was all tongues and hands, aching, grinding need and nipples hard enough to
hurt—and that was the way back home. My next conscious moment, I found myself
in Trace’s bed, and as her lips and tongue tortured me on their way to the
waistband of my button-fly jeans, I groaned when she reached the top one.

“God, I want you, Nina,” she stopped a moment to tell
me, and her hand splayed out against my belly. She ripped the first button open
with her teeth. “I want you so fucking bad,” she whispered into that first
opening. Then one by one, she released the rest of the brass buttons—her lips,
teeth, and tongue sending waves of sensation that crashed through me.

When Trace opened the last button and discovered that
I wore no underwear, she planted heated kisses at the
V
where the fly
ended. I squirmed lightly under her, and as she reached to jerk the jeans off,
I sat up and blindly reached for her face, pulling her up for another deep
kiss. We lay back down together, and while her hands continued to push my jeans
off, my hands reached for her waist to help her remove hers.

Between the pushing and the pulling we somehow finally
managed to get everything removed, and as I lay between her legs, I gently
stroked the high sharp planes of her cheeks, the luxurious length of her neck,
and the sharp cut of her shoulders. She was so achingly beautiful, I wanted to
cry from the pain of it, because I was touching her skin and I wanted to touch
her heart.

Some of this must have translated through from my
fingertips to her, because that’s when she asked me what I wanted, and as I
closed my eyes and enjoyed the trail of fire that Trace blazed down me, an
image of sunset over the desert formed behind my eyes.

Her lips came softly to the top junction between my
leg, and my desire and I exhaled a long, low breath as she pressed her lips
first to one side, then the other.

My whole body ached with a deep, wrenching need, and I
wanted this—I wanted Trace, and here she was and I was, together, in this
intimate space, and I certainly thought that I was ready when she pressed her
lips against that desperate ache. I groaned and arched my back a bit as her
tongue slipped between my folds and teased my clit lightly.

With a slight tilt of her jaw, Trace stroked me with
her lower lip from right below my opening to the base of my clit, and she
pulled her head back a moment before bringing it back down and sucking my clit
between her lips, hard.

That felt really nice, truly, but somehow not as
intense as the anticipation had been. Maybe it was positional, so I sat up on
my elbows and flexed my legs, raising my knees. That did help somewhat, and
Trace wrapped her arms around my thighs, using her hands to spread me as her
hair draped over my legs. I had a flash of memory—of the last time I’d been in
that room, of the last time I’d seen her over the edge of that bed.

Van. Fucking Van. Mother. Fucking. Van. I shoved that
thought down as hard as I could.

Oh, but this wasn’t working, and as much as I knew
that I should just relax and enjoy this, and I really, really wanted, no, I
needed
to get off, I was slipping out of that desire-induced haze and feeling less
and less physically, and more and more acutely conscious of the blue sheets
curled under me and how quiet the room was, of the light coming through the
window to tell me the sun was coming up, and of the fact that I was naked with
a beautiful woman’s head between my thighs, lips riding my pussy, and I was
feeling absolutely nothing, not physically, not emotionally—just a dull gray
weight that seemed to spread through my chest. I knew two things: I was the
desert, and the desert was cold.

Finally, I reached down and gently lifted Trace’s face
away from me. “Trace…” I spoke into the silence that filled the early morning
air.

Her gray eyes filled with concern as they met mine.
“Are you okay? Something wrong? I really want to…” She trailed off as I shook
my head negatively.

Yeah, something was wrong, probably with me and my
retarded body, I thought wryly to myself, but I was careful to keep both my
expression and my voice gentle, because her expression was so vulnerable, so
childlike. I didn’t want to hurt her. “No, I’m fine.” I smiled. “Just, come
here,” I invited her, indicating that she lie either on top of or next to me.

Trace slid up my body and settled next to me, one leg
still between mine. I put my arms around her and cradled her head to my
shoulder, then leaned back against the pillows. We snuggled for a moment, and I
kissed her forehead. All I could think of was Van fucking her.

She raised her eyes to mine a moment, then shifted her
hips so that she lay between my legs again. Trace wrapped her arms around my
ribs and kissed my chest, over my heart. “I really want to make you come,” she
murmured, pressing her lips against me again.

I ran my fingers through her hair and lovingly stroked
her shoulder. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

She slid a hand down and cupped my pussy. “Well, what
if we…” she asked me with a sexy grin as she began to press her palm against
me.

I put my hand over hers to still it. “It’s not, it’s
just…” I pulled her in for a kiss, hoping to distract her or something, I’m not
sure what. We broke for a moment.

“I think I drank too much,” I lied. “Just stay with
me.”

I thought of all the girls I’d had and the way they
made me feel. I’d really, really want to, then whammo! Nothing. But I always
made sure they came. Maybe, just maybe, the difference here was that Trace was
drunk. I’d wanted this so much, but I’d wanted it clear and memorable, not
accompanied by a headache and a hangover. But right now, it wasn’t Trace’s
fault, no matter what. For the record, I have to say that from the moment Trace
had grabbed my chair, I was stone-cold sober.

“C’mere.” I smiled at her and pulled her up over me so
that her legs tangled with mine. “Now let’s,” I licked her neck and flipped her
over, “just not worry about this…” And I lightly nipped and licked a path down
her chest as our hips ground against each other.

Frankly, Trace was way too drunk, and while it became
an incredibly sensual makeout session (and I think I still have scars from it
on my back—somewhere), eventually, every caress became slower, and her eyes
stayed shut a bit longer. Finally, she snuggled under me and fell asleep, but
not before turning one last time. She nuzzled the space between my breasts.

“You’ve got perfect breasts,” she breathed with sleepy
warmth against my nipple before she pulled it lightly between her lips, teasing
the peak with her tongue.

“Thank you,” I whispered, and kissed her ear. “Shush
now…sleep,” I said, stroking her shoulders and carefully removing myself from
her kiss. Her lips were soft on my breast once more, then, with a little sigh,
she rolled over, tucking her body into mine.

We lay like that for a while and I listened to her
breathe, the cadence soft and easy as it always was when she slept in my arms.
I slowed my own breath and tried to sleep, but I was now overtired, overwired,
and overwrought.

Finally, when I knew that Trace was fully asleep, I
left my arm under her neck as I rolled onto my back, tucking her against my
side so she wouldn’t get cold.

This wasn’t the first time I’d wanted, really wanted,
sex, but somewhere, somehow, I’d lost the desire. It was frustrating, touching
and not being able to be touched, and although I usually was able to avoid the
awkwardness, there were times, like tonight, where if Trace had been more
sober, it would have just gotten stressful. I mean, what person, except for the
occasional callous asshole, isn’t going to have their feelings hurt if the
person who just made them come can’t reciprocate? I know it would bother me if
I was on the other end. But I couldn’t fake it, either, so I just avoided it
altogether when I could and made it up to myself later.