Punk and Zen (28 page)

“Let me help you,” she offered. She sat up slightly,
placed her hands on mine, and together we peeled her pants off. I crawled up
the bed and lay down next to her, and she twisted on her side to face me. We
simply stared at each other.

She drew her fingertips from my cheek down my neck, to
my chest. Her fingers whispered on the curve of my breast, and when she reached
my waist, her eyes traveled back to mine. “May I?” they asked, and I smiled my
answer. “Yes.”

I let her slide them off me, and she kissed my navel,
then my thighs as she bared them. I sat up on my heels and shivered in the
morning cold, and she flowed up the bed, bringing the blanket with her and
throwing it around us both like a cape. Her skin was soft against me as she
placed one hand on my face and the other on my waist.

The kiss we shared now had a new taste—it still held
hints of loss, and it spoke of desire; I didn’t recognize the other part, but
it was something I instantly craved. She trailed her thumb along the edge of my
jaw until it came to my chin again, resting and rubbing lightly in the curve
beneath my lip. I had never been so aware of that spot before as her lips
kneaded a path to that sensitive place between jawline and neck.

“Let me love you,” Fran asked, her voice a low
stirring in my ear.

My heart hammered in triple time: with an emotion I
couldn’t name, with pure arousal, and with confusion as she pulled back a
moment to look at me. What did she mean? Was this just another way of saying
“fuck”? But nothing about her spoke to anything I’d ever known. Bemused, I
smiled and shrugged—I didn’t know what to say.

Fran’s eyes went wide for a moment, then she gave me
such a beautiful smile my chest tightened with the joy of it. She took both my
hands in hers. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she promised as she kissed each
hand in turn, then held them both against her heart. She rose slowly on her
knees and leaned into me, touching my face as I pressed my hands against her
chest where I could feel the flutter of her breath and the solid thump under
her ribs.

She kissed my cheeks and my eyes; she stroked my hair
and ran gentle hands down my arms and up again before she embraced me and laid
me down beneath her.

At that very moment, I grew afraid, desperately
afraid—I don’t know why. I knew I could stop this, this whatever was going to
happen, knew I could change this, flip it; all it would take was a toss of the
head and a sharp twist and I could ensure that this would be just like any
other time, any other person, and I could walk away without having lost a
thing.

But I couldn’t. Fran’s touch was so tender, she’d been
through so much, and I could absolutely feel that she loved me. We’d been
friends before, and I knew that no matter what happened, we’d be friends after.
That, I could trust. She didn’t want points, she didn’t want bragging rights,
and she didn’t want a fuck. All she’d asked was if she could love me. And I
owed her something, didn’t I?

I twined my arms around her neck and buried my face in
it. Her hands trailed along my spine, then held my head very gently to her
shoulder. I pressed my cheek into her collarbone and laid soft kisses into her
throat before she raised my face to her lips again.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” she
whispered. Her chest pressed against mine again, and I wanted so much to simply
just believe as her heart pounded against me. I reached for her face and kissed
her desperately, then ran my hands through her hair and across the span of her
shoulders, down the narrow valley of her back, and spread my hands across the
tight width of her hips as she etched patterns down my ribs.

She slid down my body, licking and nipping along the
way while her fingers alternately splayed, then gripped my skin.

“I need to feel you,” she murmured into my navel while
her fingertips rolled my nipple. She fit her shoulders between my thighs and
bit the tendon next to my aching cunt, then placed her hands on either side.
Fran raised her eyes to mine.

“I need to drink you in,” she told me, and dipped her
head to my need, kissing my cunt the way she kissed my mouth.

I sighed with the sensation, and when her tongue slid
between the lips of my pussy, she did it with such perfect precision I
involuntarily arched my back and cried out. Fran’s tongue drew soft circles
around my clit, and I was floating again, my world coming to pieces as she
moved my pussy with her lips. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and as if
sensing my confusion, she reached up and laced her fingers with mine. I held on
to the only anchor I had as she brought me higher and higher. When she began to
use the flat of her tongue to stroke me, creating a constant pressure on my
clit, my body swam along the crest, riding the top, riding her tongue. Until it
reached the edge of entrance.

Suddenly the wave I’d been riding gave way and crushed
me under it. Van’s smirk and Trace’s eyes, the feel of her hands pushing
against me in the skybox, the sudden hard cool of the floor smacking my head
when my mother tried to beat the gay out of me, Cap’s enthusiastic “there’s the
money shot,” and the sound of every woman I’d ever fucked, all combined with
the guilty knowledge of Fran’s tears, were pulling me, shoving me into a
tightening spiral, and I was going to drown.

I sat up almost involuntarily. “Fran—don’t—” I gasped,
fighting to breathe.

She’d stopped before I’d even really asked.
Wordlessly, she shifted until she was next to me, and while I didn’t resist
when she wrapped her arms around me, I couldn’t look at her. I felt about
twenty shades of stupid. Maybe Jen was right; maybe I was just a ABC Page
139kid.

Fran wrapped her legs around my waist so that one
supported my back and pulled me closer. I leaned my head against her cheek, and
she played with my hair, brushing it off my neck and shoulder.

“Nina,” she said gently, “I would never do anything
you didn’t want to do. I don’t want to take anything you don’t want to give.”

I smiled despite myself, because deep inside, I knew
that. “I know that, Fran,” I replied just as softly, “it’s that…I’m not the
person you think I am.”

Fran shifted until she kneeled next to me, and I
instantly missed her warmth as I gazed out the window. It was so gray out, I
couldn’t tell if it was still snowing or not.

“Look at me,” she requested gently.

I glanced over and met her eyes, then dropped mine. I
couldn’t. I was such a jerk.

“Nina, please,” she said again, and laid tender
fingers on my face, “look at me.”

It was her touch, matching her tone as it did, that
convinced me, and I finally turned my face to hers, afraid of what I’d find. I
stared at her wordlessly and discovered nothing but kindness shining out at me.

“I know you,” she told me, stroking my face, and her
perfect smile beaming at me. “I
know
you.”

I shifted restlessly and tossed my head in negation.
“No, you don’t,” I told her sadly, staring at her. My hands wanted to touch
her, but I stopped myself and put them in my lap. “And I don’t think you’d like
me.”

Fran closed the space between us and cupped my face in
her hands. “You’re wrong.” She smiled at me again, a soft lift of her lips. “I
do
know you.” She stroked my cheek, then placed the flat of her palm against my
chest. “I know this—I’ve seen it.”

I was touched, but I shook my head again. “No, Fran,
really. I’ve changed—a lot. I’m not who you think I am.”

I met her eyes once more, and she gazed at me with
such warmth I wanted to cry. I wanted her to understand: the girl she’d known
was
dead, had been dead for a long time. I didn’t know who I was, but I wasn’t her—not
anymore, anyway.

Fran sighed, cupped my face with one hand again, and
drew soft lines along my shoulder with the other. I leaned into her touch.
“Don’t you think I’d know you’d be different? And,” she kissed my lips softly,
“think, Nina. Would you have walked me home, lent me your scarf, God,” she
laughed lightly, “saved me from breaking my ass in the snow?”

Fran had my attention, and this time, I didn’t look
away. Could she be right? Was a part of me, any part of me, still the person we
both remembered? I shifted self-consciously.

“I’ve done some pretty callous things.”

“Who hasn’t?” she asked me simply.

“But they haven’t done the things I’ve done,” I
responded. “They haven’t—”

Fran hushed me and gripped my shoulder. “Nina, you
could have lied to me about Candace from the start,” she said, staring at me
intently, willing me to understand. “You didn’t have to say anything—she won’t
tell Samantha more than she told me. Well,” she smiled wryly, “maybe a little
more, but not much. There’s a very good chance that no one would have known
anything.” She cupped my chin with her free hand and again ran her thumb into
the hollow she was fond of. “Don’t you see?”

“But, Fran.” I shook my head in confusion. I mean, I
thought my reasons for telling her were pretty self-evident. “Why would I lie?
I mean, you had to know. This is your home, for chrissake.” I could feel the
heat rise up in my face as I said it, but I said it. I mean, how could I
not
tell her? And even if it hadn’t been her home, it was someone she knew,
people she knew. She had a right to know who she was dealing with so she could
make informed choices, right? Well, I thought so, anyway.

“You’re proving my point for me.” She smiled and
pressed her fingertips lightly against my sternum again. “This is the same. All
the rest? It’s just the outside. You know,” she laughed lightly, “you were
always so tough. Even as a freshman you had this fierce nobility.”

I took her hand in mine. “Fierce, huh?” I chuckled.
“In that uniform?”

Fran tossed her head back to laugh again that pure
bell note, her hair flying about her like a golden mane. “Are you kidding?” she
asked. “You actually made postman blue look hot!”

I laughed with her—those uniforms were terrible. “I
thought you and Sammy Blade had, you know, a thing?”

Fran shook her head and told me with a wry smile, “We
did—until you.”

“What?” I asked, shaking my head a little with
confusion.

Fran placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “Nina, we used
to fight over you. First I’d said it was because of detentions, but that wasn’t
exactly true.” She grinned at me, charmingly half embarrassed. “And then you
joined the swim team, and it became who was going to give you a ride if you
needed one, whose car you’d borrow, all sorts of things. You know, I’m amazed
we didn’t try to kill each other, but it was a relatively unspoken rivalry.”
She laughed, and that sound took me back to a place, a place where we’d all
been together, back racing competitively in ABC school.

We’d called her Kitt back then because under the cool,
collected, and ever-poised exterior, Fran was fire, a jungle cat in school
colors, so fucking hot and so fucking fierce she never left the pool without
placing first. Hence “Kitt,” because she’d been a tiger in the water ever since
she was a cub.

Samantha had just come out of a first-place win in the
pool, and I hurried carefully over. “Hey, nice dice, Blade!” I gave her a hug.

“Thanks, thanks,” she said, returning the pressure
before we awkwardly let each other go.

“Oh hey, refreshing electrolyte drink?” I asked her
and waved in the general direction of the large orange monstrosity that held
water and what we generally referred to as powdered urine, colored for
misdirection.

“Definitely. Required. Now,” she answered with a smile
as we tried not to slip on the tiles over to the cooler.

I grabbed us each a cup, then handed one over.

“Nice. Very nice race,” Kitt said to Samantha over my
shoulder.

“Thanks,” Samantha answered shortly, then downed the
cherry-flavored drink. I glanced over to see a bored expression on her face.
Not a good sign.

“Well, we’ve had the slice, we’ve had the dice. You
guys will have to show us all how it’s done in the third heat—after the next
event, to give us a break.” Kitt’s eyes traveled to the other side of the pool,
where the overstocked opponents sat. Samantha looked with her.

“It’s a little rest, better than none,” she commented
flatly.

The silence dragged out.

“Hey, Sam, where’s your towel?” Kitt asked into the
silence.

She shrugged in response. “Probably in the locker
room,” she said blandly. “Don’t worry about me.” This time, Sam stared at her
and I watched as Kitt’s face worked.

She opened her mouth as if she’d wanted to speak but
had thought better of it, then took her towel off her shoulders and tossed it
at me.

“Share it,” she said curtly, “I’m up for the medley
now.” She stalked off to the starting blocks.

Well, that was certainly bizarre
, I ABC Page
142thought. Maybe it was me, and I walked in a circle of chaos, bringing those
around me into confusion and personality morphs. That sounded about right. Or
maybe everyone was PMSing. That was more likely. Whatever.

“And you?” Fran continued, bringing me back to the
present. “You were so immune to either of us.”