The Fifteenth Minute (15 page)

He groans. Then he stands up, lifting me, slinging an arm underneath my backside. While I cling to him, he carries me on a short trip to his darkened room. A few seconds later my back hits the bed, and I pull him down, too.

As DJ’s weight settles onto my body, he lets out a husky sound of approval, and it vibrates down my body, boomeranging at my toes and zipping upward again. I let my hands slide up DJ’s smooth back, enjoying the dip of the centerline and every single muscle along the way. Meanwhile, he’s kissing his way up my neck and onto my throat.

Suddenly, it’s just not naked enough in here, though the weight of his hard body is glorious. He’s winding his fingers into my hair while his mouth worships my skin. I am a puddle of need underneath him, and nothing he does is quite enough. The clothes that separate us are my new enemy. I want them gone, but it’s a problem. Because I refuse to push DJ even one millimeter away in order to fix it.

All I can do is roll my hips upward, willing my jeans and his sweatpants to vanish, like a bit of Princess Vindi sorcery. If there was a spell for getting naked, I’d utter it.

Luckily, DJ understands. In between scorching kisses, he presses up off my body and puts a hand on my fly. “Are these coming off?” he asks.

In answer, I pop the button myself and lower the zipper. DJ tugs the fabric and the jeans are history. I give his sweats a tug and
whoosh!
They disappear, along with his boxers.

My eyes are adjusting to the dark room. The streetlights beam through his one window, and it’s just enough to appreciate how beautiful he is. His abs could be featured in a fitness magazine, and that V of muscle diving down past his hip bones… Yum. Is it terrible if I just stare?

Two strong arms reach out and pull me against his body. He dips his head and begins dropping kisses at the top of my breast, just above the skimpy bra I’m wearing. Then he noses beneath the fabric and takes my nipple into his mouth.

I’m not expecting that, or the bolt of desire that rips through me. My gasp causes DJ’s head to pop up in surprise. We stare at each other for a second, until I shake off my stupor and flick apart the bra’s front clasp. Slowly, he lowers his head again, nudging the cups of my bra out of the way, grazing my overheated skin with his lips. “Mmm,” he rumbles.

“They’re small,” I can’t help pointing out.

He shakes his head, his aquiline nose brushing the swell of my breast. “They’re perfect. Just like the rest of you.” He cups one breast, then lowers his mouth and sucks.

God
. With a loud moan, I practically leap off the bed like a patient who’s been shocked with a defibrillator. DJ answers me with a sexy rumble. Then his hand slips straight down my tummy and into the underwear that I’ve already soaked through. Thick fingers slide low between my legs, coming to rest exactly where I want them. He begins to touch and tease me, and I’m trembling beneath him as he kisses his way across my chest.

It’s so, so sexy. I don’t even know what to do with so much desire. So I roll toward him, and we’re on our sides now, facing each other, and kissing again. Always kissing. His big hand keeps up its ministrations between my legs, until I’m full-fledged vibrating with arousal. His fingertips shove down my panties and I hold my breath.

“This okay?” he rasps, and my answer is a moan.

My panties disappear. He’s removed them with some kind of ninja move. I’m finally nekkid with the only man I’ve ever really wanted. There are nervous butterflies in my stomach, but only because I don’t want to do this wrong. But DJ takes my hand and places it right onto a very hard dick. I’m surprised at how satin-smooth he is and how
hot
. I give him an exploratory stroke, and he growls into my mouth. So I do it again. Every sound he makes seems to vibrate deep in my core.

His tongue pushes into my hungry mouth just as his hips roll me back into the bed. And… wow. A loud moan escapes from my mouth, and I decide to be embarrassed about it later.

DJ chuckles, and it’s the most beautiful sound, all low and sexy. “Lianne?”

“Mmm?”

“Are we having sex?”

Just hearing the words in his gravelly, turned-on voice gives me a spasm of nervous excitement. “Yes,” I whisper. I’m about ten seconds from spontaneous combustion.

The next sound I hear is the glide of his bedside table opening, and the crinkle of a condom packet. He tosses the packet onto the bed. Then he kisses me on the forehead. “You sure?” he whispers. “There are a lot of other ways I can make you feel good.”

I give a happy shiver, wondering if I could get him to start at the top of the list and tick them off one by one. But since I can finally have what I really want, I pick up the condom and hand it to him.

He takes it, holding my gaze. Then he leans down and gives me a single, serious kiss. “All right,” he says, as if deciding something. When he kisses me again, I grab him with both arms and both legs and hold on tight.

U
sing
the moment to cool down, I sit up and rip open the condom packet. Sheathing myself carefully, I take a couple of deep breaths.

I haven’t trusted anyone with my body in months. But nobody else gets to me the way Lianne does. When she looks up at me with those pretty, intelligent eyes, there isn’t a thing in the world I wouldn’t do for her if she asked me. And she’s asking for this. It’s in her shy smile and the way her body responds every time I touch her.

For the first time in months, I’m buzzing with both desire and optimism. Trusting someone enough to take her to bed isn’t easy for me anymore. But this is Lianne. She’s smart and fierce and lovely. And she’s reaching for me not just with her arms but with her entire being.

Lianne puts one of her small, soft hands on my hip, her thumb grazing my ass. There is love in her touch, and I close my eyes and focus on that. Tonight she’s pulling me back across this threshold. The way she showed up at my door with pizza and a smile when I really needed her.

I lie down beside her, pulling her into my arms for a hug. And as she sighs against my chest, I realize something important—it’s not just Lianne who I trust right now, it’s
me
. I know what mutual desire looks like. It looks a lot like the panting, happy girl in my bed. Her eagerness feeds my own. The volume on the confusion I’ve felt all year is lowered just a fraction of a decibel every time Lianne touches me. Because I’m not crazy, I’m not blind, and I’m not deaf to nuance. Not tonight, and not before.

Lianne kisses my neck, and it’s true joy that I experience as I roll her closer to my body. We are skin on skin, and it’s the best thing ever. “You make me happy,” I whisper, because it’s true.

“You make me crazy,” she returns.

“Crazy bad?” I kiss her neck. “Or crazy good?” I suck gently on her sensitive skin and she whimpers in my arms. When I slide one of my knees between her two smooth ones, she throws her head back and lets her legs fall apart. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m going to burst from wanting her.

I settle myself in the cradle of her body. We line up perfectly together, and I wonder if she’s noticed. Bracing myself on my elbows, I lean in for more kisses. No matter what, I will never get enough of her.

Her eyes lift to mine, and they’re heavy-lidded. Even in the dark I can make out a flush on her cheeks. Her lips are swollen from my kisses. She’s waiting, but I stop to watch her for a moment. Not because I’m uncertain. Just because I
cherish
this. While it’s damn hard to find a silver lining in anything that’s happened to me lately, I’m positive that I appreciate Lianne more right now than I would if my life were easier.

After one more doozy of a kiss—it’s almost impossible to stop at one—I take one of her hands and wrap it around my erection. Then I lower myself so that I’m right at heaven’s doorstep. On a sigh she pulls me into her body. When she removes her hand, I kiss her palm and then slide the rest of the way inside. And it’s beautiful. She’s soft and tight and gripping my hips with her knees.

I have to drop my head into the shelter of her shoulder for a moment to regroup. It’s been a long time since I dared to get so close to anyone, and I didn’t realize letting down my guard could ache like this. I’m facedown in the ocean, and she’s the lifeboat. I’m devastated by the way she’s holding me everywhere at once.

“Daniel,” she whispers, straining to hold me closer.

Hearing my name on her lips makes my heart skip a beat. “You good?” I ask, giving my hips an experimental roll.

“So much better than good.” When I roll my hips again, she lets out a shuddering moan.

Jesus H
.

I work it slowly, because I want this to last. It won’t, though, if Lianne keeps making those irresistible noises. I love how she sounds so out of control. Right now, she’s not the cautious girl who hides under her baseball cap. She’s eager and a little crazy, and I love it. Nobody gets this version of Lianne but me. Tonight, no one exists except the two of us. I would keep it this way forever if I could.

Kissing my way down her hairline, I pause at her ear. “First time I ever saw you, I wanted a kiss,” I whisper, punctuating it with a kiss on her cheekbone. “Now I’m totally spoiled. Forever.”

It was true, too. Lianne tugs my head down for another deep kiss as I sink into her once again. This is how it feels to get just what you need when you didn’t even know you needed it. It’s not just the shock of pleasure I feel every time I move. It’s the soothing beat of her heart against mine and the way she holds on as though she’s never letting go.

We meet again and again, and it’s beautiful.

Her breathing shifts, becoming hot and desperate. Her hands grip my arms, then my sides, then my back, as if she’s searching for something and not quite finding it. I take a deep breath, trying to hold myself together a little longer. Reaching back, I grab one of her smooth legs in my hand and bend it, kissing her knee and holding it tightly to my chest.

“
Oh
.” She grips my ribcage.

I bear down, closing my eyes, trying to resist the pull. But the erotic look on her face is burned on my brain, the way her mouth makes a perfect O of surprise. I groan against the pressure to burst from so much desire.

“Oh, D…” She bites off my name on a gasp. Then she gasps again. And the sound of her coming apart ruins me. She grips my body everywhere and I let myself go, chasing down my own release with more urgency than elegance. Sensation clobbers me, and I let it all go—all the tension, all my anger. Like a burning arrow, I let it all fly. It singes me clean through, until there’s nothing left but our rapid breathing and sweaty limbs.

Heavy-limbed and spent, I roll to the side and pull Lianne with me. She wraps her arms around my neck and burrows in with a comfortable sigh. I don’t ask how she is because I already know the answer. A small, soft hand traces quiet patterns on my back, while her breathing evens out.

We hold each other for a while, until exhaustion weighs me down. I give her a tight hug, but then I struggle to sit up, leaving one hand on her perfect ass. “Be right back,” I practically slur. I stumble into the bathroom. After a necessary minute in there, I remember that I left half a pizza on the coffee table, so I shuffle out to put it away in the fridge.

A minute later I slide back into bed and pull Lianne’s small body against mine. “I’ve been awake since four,” I tell her as my eyes fall closed. “I have to sleep. I’m sorry.”

Her slim hand caresses my hair. “Can I stay?”

“Of course,” I mumble. “You got somewhere else you need to be?”

“No,” she laughs.

I try to give her a sleepy smile, but I’m too tired. The last thing I feel before falling asleep is her head on my bare chest.

C
onsciousness comes to me slowly
.

At first I’m only ten percent awake, and I discover that I’m lying on my side in bed. That’s nice. Somehow I know it’s Sunday, and there’s nothing on my calendar.

When my consciousness approaches the fifty percent mark, I realize I’m not in
my
bed. The light is all wrong, and the pillow too thick.

None of that matters, though, because I’m tucked against a deliciously hard body. When I glance down, I find a strong forearm wrapped over my hip. And a broad hand is splayed on my belly. The sight of it gives me a little spasm of happiness.

I’m in
DJ’s
bed.

I’m in DJ’s
bed!

Yay!

I reach one hundred percent consciousness in a hurry and then overshoot, clocking in at a hundred and fifty. There are voices outside DJ’s bedroom. My face heats at the idea of being caught naked in bed with a guy. Thank God the door is closed. I’d pulled it shut last night after I slipped away from a sleeping DJ for a drink of water and to borrow his toothpaste.

Just as I’m worrying about this, someone knocks. “Deej? Can I come in?” It’s his brother’s voice.

I’m frozen with indecision. If I answer, I’ll out myself. But if I don’t answer, that door is going to swing open.

DJ saves us by waking up enough to respond. “Not if you want to live,” he grunts.

“Okayyy…” Leo chuckles. “But I need to ask you how it went yesterday.”

“Why?” DJ sounds irritated.

“What do you mean,
why?
Because I care about your case.”

“Not now,” DJ growls, sitting up. “Jesus.”

“Sorry,” Leo says after a beat. Then he moves away from the door.

DJ tips himself back onto the bed, throwing a forearm over his eyes and sighing into the silence.

“Your case?” I echo before I can think better of it.

He grunts. “We’ll talk about that.”

“We will?” I roll toward him, and I’m rewarded with a view of his spectacular six-pack. But when I look up, he’s frowning.

DJ pulls me in against his chest. An impressive proportion of our skin is touching and it’s kind of glorious. “I don’t want you to hear it from anyone but me,” he says softly. “But we’ll get dressed and go out for coffee. Not talking about that here.”

I lay my cheek on his shoulder. “Okay.” Now that he’s promised to tell me, I feel a tingle of fear. For a short time I’d been wrapped in the DJ cocoon, where there was only sex and sharing his bed.

He holds me close, one hand stroking my back. I’ve never woken up nekkid in a man’s bed before, and it’s pretty great. The luxury of rolling over for cuddles? I want this every morning.

I don’t speak, because I don’t want to break the spell. But I wonder where DJ’s head is. I can almost hear the creak of his gears turning. After a little while he startles me by saying, “I hope you know I’m crazy about you.”

Squeak!
I barely restrain myself from blurting out any number of embarrassing echoes of this sentiment. But I stay quiet because I’m afraid of over-sharing, and also because DJ sounds sad. Like he’s saying it because he might not get another chance.

Instead of answering, I nestle closer, nuzzling his shoulder.

He pushes the hair away from my face, kisses my forehead and sighs. And I let myself drift.

“I’ll check to make sure the bathroom is empty for you,” he says after a while.

I take the hint and finally untangle my limbs from his.

My dignity is mostly preserved as DJ escorts me to an empty bathroom. And while I’m trying to make myself presentable, he gets dressed and borrows Orsen’s car keys.

I’m putting on my socks when I hear DJ’s brother stop him in the living room. “Aren’t we going to talk?”

“Not now we’re not,” DJ says.

Luckily I’d fetched my shirt from the sofa last night before I fell asleep. But my shoes are still in that room. So I have to go in there. I’ve only ever done the walk of shame once before—from Kevin Mung’s trailer to mine. We were filming in Australia, and one of the catering people saw me. The next day, two hundred actors, filmmakers, costume and makeup people and key grips were talking about it.

That’s how it felt, at least.

I try to affect a blasé attitude when I walk into the living room. “Hey,” I say to Leo Trevi. “Morning.”

It doesn’t help that he’s visibly shocked to see me. “Hey,” he says after a beat.

DJ lingers in the doorway. “I’ve got Orsen’s keys. Ready?”

“All right.” I take my shoes with as much nonchalance as I can muster. As if sleeping over at a guy’s house and then looking his brother in the eye were perfectly routine.

“We’re going out for breakfast,” DJ says in the direction of his brother.

Leo recovers enough to give us a cheery wave. “Have fun! Just in case you didn’t, uh, catch the game on the radio, we won last night.”

“You score?”

“Twice.”

“Awesome,” DJ says, but his face is pained.

We get into the car together, and DJ drives us to a neighborhood I don’t recognize. It’s not far away, it’s just that I never leave the confines of the Harkness campus.

He is silent behind the wheel. But between shifts of the gearstick, he palms my hand where I’ve rested it on top of my knee.

“You know Harkness a lot better than I do,” I point out as he turns into the parking lot of a cute little diner with a neon sign in front. Through the plate-glass windows I see a bustling Sunday morning crowd, and I realize that for the first time in weeks I may have to deal with fans.

Who knew I’d grow to appreciate the shunning of my Harkness classmates?

DJ kills the engine. “Been coming up here for years now with Leo and to see his games. Paid attention because I thought I’d be around for a while.”

“Won’t you be?”

He snaps the keys from the ignition before turning to me. “Maybe not,” he says softly. “That’s what I have to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

Neither of us makes a move to get out. We sit for a moment listening to the engine tick. “There’s this sophomore girl,” he says eventually.

My heart does a dive off a cliff, with a triple flip, full twist.

DJ sighs. “See, I don’t even know where to start. With the shitty thing I did? Or the shitty thing she
says
I did.”

“What if you started at the beginning?”

“Right. Okay. She, um.” His eyes lift to mine. “She lived in my entryway last year. You know how it is on Fresh Court—the other freshmen are the only people you know at first. They become your first friends.”

I nod, even though I don’t really know this. Because my brilliant manager decided that Fresh Court wasn’t secure enough for Princess Vindi. That’s why I live in Beaumont House already, across the bathroom from Bella. The rest of my class won’t join me there until next year.

“She was my lab partner in Bio 114. We were friendly, but…” He clears his throat. “That’s all. Until April eleventh.”

He watches me for a reaction, but I’m only confused. “What happened on April eleventh?”

“Well, her sister was visiting, so she asked if she could stay in my room.” DJ swallows hard. “My roommate and I kept a camping mat for visitors. She brought her own sleeping bag and everything.”

After he falls silent, I wait a moment. But his reluctance is stubborn. “Then what happened?”

“Well, my roommate fell asleep. And he started to snore. Like really loudly. That happens when he’s been drinking. And Annie starts giggling. We’re both awake.”

Annie
. I have a feeling I’m going to wish I’d never heard this name. “Then?”

His eyes are on the gear shift. “She got up off the floor and climbed into my bed. She started kissing me, and I let her. Things went on from there. We had sex.” His voice is completely flat. The words “we had sex” are uttered with the same enthusiasm as a guy would use to say, “They gave me the death sentence.”

“That happens,” I lie. To me, sex with DJ was a Very Big Deal. But for him it might be just another Saturday night. I don’t like knowing that.

“And afterward she got into her sleeping bag on the floor. And when I woke up the next morning she was gone. I thought that was the end of the story. I mean…we didn’t talk about it afterward. I, uh…” He sighs. “I steered clear of the topic, because I wasn’t really interested in starting something up.”

That part sounds familiar. That’s
exactly
how it was between Kevin and me—we did it once. It was awkward. We never spoke of it again. “But you were still lab partners,” I point out. The awkwardness goes away eventually. Kevin and I are still good friends.

“Yeah. We got a B-plus on our final project. I felt like a dick for awhile, though. Like maybe she was waiting for me to ask her out. But I wasn’t interested in dating her. Maybe that sounds mean, but she wasn’t really on my radar. And if she hadn’t climbed into my bed, nothing would have happened.” He gave his head a violent shake. “I thought that was the end of it.”

“But it wasn’t?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “I got a call four months later. In August. From the assistant dean of students. Turns out this girl told the dean’s office that it wasn’t consensual.”

At first I’m not sure I’d heard him correctly. It takes a moment for his words to play back in my mind. And when they do, a chill spreads across my shoulder blades. “She
what?
”

His eyes still closed, he nods. “But it did
not
happen like that. I’ve thought about that night a thousand times since. There are all these details I use to hold on to my sanity.” His eyes snap open. “She
wasn’t
drunk, either.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

And DJ keeps talking now, the words tumbling out. “She initiated
everything
. The kissing. Then the touching. She’s the one who asked me if I had a condom.” He pushes the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I didn’t force
anything
. I would never do that.”

That’s when I remember to breathe. “I know that,” I gasp. Because, on a gut level, I
do
know it. But I’m also confused. How could two people have such a different version of events?

DJ pushes his body back against the car door. “Like I said, I’m telling you this so you don’t hear it from someone else. But I know how crazy it sounds.”

“So…” I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. “What’s going to happen?” If the college really thought he raped someone nine months ago, why was he still here?

He gives his head a shake. “I wish I knew. The college has me on a kind of probation until they decide whether or not they believe me. There’s no criminal case against me. Harkness can handle me however they want. I have a lawyer, and he’s trying to get them to do a thorough investigation. But they don’t have to.”

I swallow, and my throat is dry. “Why do you think the girl would do this? Who wants that kind of attention?”

His expression flattens, as if someone suddenly turned out all the lights. My heart is thumping like crazy, and I realize my question sounds like an accusation. But I’m really just trying to understand.

DJ’s dark gaze travels to the ceiling of the car and stays there. “I don’t know, Lianne,” he says carefully. “But I’ve spent a thousand hours thinking about it. And I can’t
ask
her. I can’t even stand in the same room with her. The college has ordered me to keep back fifty yards.”

That gives me a shiver down my spine, because it sounds like something on
Cops
. It’s hard for me to reconcile the boy I slept with last night with someone who basically has a restraining order against him. But nothing of what he’s told me makes sense. “Okay, if she’s seriously telling the college you…” I bite off the end of my sentence, unwilling to put that word next to DJ’s name. “If that’s what she says happened, then why aren’t the cops involved? And why did she wait—” I do the math, “—four months to say something? That’s got to look weird, right?”

He shakes his head. “Real rapes are underreported all the time. Because girls are scared or embarrassed.” He has to stop and take a breath. DJ looks almost as stressed as I feel. “The college wouldn’t think the lag was weird. But the whole thing makes me feel insane.”

“I bet.”

“I mean
really
insane.” His voice cracks. “In the middle of the night I get all these wacko ideas. Like—what if she got raped for real, and was too traumatized to remember the details? Maybe her memory only offered up this random night in April. Or what if someone snuck into my dorm room that same night and hurt her? And I know I sound like a fucking crazy person right now. But these are the things I think about when I can’t sleep.”

Macbeth hath murdered sleep
, my brain offers up.

“And the worst part is that I can feel all my friends wondering, too. And my family. My parents say they believe me. But I can hear them wondering—if I’m innocent, how the
fuck
did I get into this situation?”

“I can’t even imagine.”

One of DJ’s hands grips the steering wheel, and his knuckles are white. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. His other hand fidgets with Orsen’s keys. “I know this is a lot to dump in your lap. I wanted to take you out for pancakes. You…” He frowns. “The only time I feel like myself is when I’m with you. But if you want me to drive you home instead, it’s really okay.”

He stares out the front windshield now, looking at nothing. I’m good at reading people’s emotions, and I can feel the stress pouring off him. Right now I have to decide what to do—are we going to try to have a semi-normal breakfast, like lovers do on a Sunday? Or are we going to go home?

And that’s when I realize why DJ didn’t tell me about this before. Because I can’t sit here without forming my own theories and opinions about what happened. Just like everyone else in his life, I have to decide whether I believe he’s telling the truth or not.

God
, how does he get through the day?

“Let’s have breakfast,” I hear myself say. “Can we order bacon?”

He tips his head back against the window, and I get a small, weary smile. But no dimples. “Of course we can.” He has the air of a man who’s ordering his last meal. But it will have to do.