The Fifteenth Minute (24 page)

“What are you doing?”

He looks up, grinning. “We have to get in the tub, smalls. It’s eight feet from our bed. How could we not try it?” Whistling, he picks up a bottle of something off the ledge beside it, unscrews the top and then pours it in.

I wander over in time to see bubbles forming on the surface of the water. “Wow.” It does look inviting.

DJ winks at me. Then he starts unbuttoning his shirt. His belt is next.

The rest of his clothes follow, and he drapes them neatly over the luggage rack. We have no luggage, of course.

A very naked DJ, still whistling, bends over to test the water with his fingertips. I admire the powerful body on display, and the fact that he isn’t self-conscious in his nudity. “Coming, smalls?” He twists off the taps, then lifts one muscular leg over the side, stepping in.

I can’t stop ogling him until almost all of DJ disappears under the surface of the water.

Finally turning away, I lift my sweater over my head. Then I drop my jeans. That leaves me wearing a skimpy little black bra and panties, and DJ whistles his appreciation. “Jesus H. Is this my best idea ever, or what?”

Slowly I turn to face him. He’s sitting in the bath, sculpted shoulders visible above the bubbles, and he’s eyeing me like he’d like to take a spoon and gobble me up like I just did to the brownie sundae.

I lift my chin, trying not to remember the shortcomings I see whenever I look in the mirror. Because DJ seems to like the view. So I focus on his face, and the way his eyes track my every movement. There’s heat there, and I feed off it.

Since I’m down to my underwear now, I’m basically performing a strip tease whether I’d planned to or not. I slip a thumb under the skinny elastic band at the hip of my panties and inch it down. When they finally fall to the wood floor, DJ lets out a groan. The sound of it is like liquid courage.

Taking my time, I find a hair clip in my bag, then gather up my hair and pin it high on my head, while he watches appreciatively.

Then, reaching behind me, I unhook my bra. But when it falls, I take my (small) breasts in my hands, my thumbs just grazing my rapidly hardening nipples.

“You’re killing me, smalls.” His voice is like gravel. “Get in, would you?”

But now that I’m comfortable with his eyes on me, I’m not ready for it to be over. Turning around, I bend over and grab my underwear off the floor, while DJ lets out a grunt of pure shock and desire.

I’m a little shocked, too. In a good way.

After tossing my things on the bed, I finally make my way over to the tub. I step in and sink down into the warm, soapy water on the unoccupied end. I sit down between DJ’s outstretched feet. There’s nowhere to put mine except over his legs.

DJ grasps my feet, one in each hand, and squeezes the arches. Then powerful thumbs go to work massaging the muscle there.

“Ohhhhhh sweet-holy-mother-Mary-omigod,” I mumble while he works on my feet. Since I like it so much, he drops my left and uses both hands to knead my right. It’s perfection. It’s amazing. I tilt my head back and moan.

“Jesus, smalls.” He chuckles. “That’s some really intense moaning for feet.” He switches my right for my left and starts in again.

“Goddamn-just-don’t-stop-ever,” I beg.

“Uh huh,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. But I can’t see it, because my eyes are closed. I’m in heaven. It’s warm, and lots of parts of a very wet DJ are touching me right now. I can feel the roughness of the hair on his legs beneath mine, and then there’s the sweet torture of his ambitious foot massage.

He’s got my ankles in his hands now, and his fingers are slowly working their way up to my calves, rubbing and smoothing the muscles in my legs. Warm, slippery fingers press and glide until he’s passed my knees, and my thighs are wrapped in his big hands. And I’m suddenly so ridiculously turned on. With my legs spread as they are, my body feels open to him. And clever hands are working their delicious way up…up…

They stop mid-thigh on a gentle squeeze. I open my eyes in protest.

The look of love in DJ’s eyes is unmistakable. “If you want me to touch you, come here and show me,” he whispers. “But you’ve had a really shitty day, so if you just want to soak, that’s okay, too.”

Oh,
hell
no.

My lazy body agrees to stir just enough to tuck my feet under me so I can kneel in between DJ’s legs. He reaches for me, pulling me down on his chest. “Hi, sexy,” he says.

“Hi.”

Then he pulls me into a kiss, and it’s the best one ever. It’s like that perfect kiss in
The Princess Bride
, but without the pirates or giant eels or the fire swamp. DJ cups my backside in two hands while I crush my mouth to his. The kiss goes wild immediately, his tongue seeking out mine, then worshiping me. Meanwhile, wet, slippery skin is sliding over wet, slippery skin. As he kisses me, I press down onto his big, strong frame. He’s hard between my legs, and I brace my feet against the end of the tub and begin to slowly rock against him, back and forth, until we’re both panting.

On a groan, DJ pulls his head back a bit, breaking our kiss. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No,” I murmur, dizzy from the kissing. “I’m trying to fuck you.”

He gives a grunt of surprise. “Smalls! You said it.”

I did, and not daintily. But do we have to rehash it? “You want to chat about it some more, or what?”

He laughs. “Sit up a little.”

I do, and he slips out of the bath, dripping on the mat. He grabs two fluffy towels and spreads them out on the bed. Then he offers me a hand, which I take. When I’m out of the tub, he steers me over to the bed and sits me down. I scramble backwards, lying down on the towels.

Now it’s my turn to stare.

I watch as a gleaming, nekkid DJ fishes his wallet out of his discarded pants and removes a condom. And I keep watching as he takes his erection in hand and sheathes himself.

My good-girl complex must have fled the building entirely, because when he walks back over to the bed, planting one knee on the edge, I spread my legs.

“Ungh,” DJ says, closing his eyes for a hot second. I expect him to finish climbing onto the bed, but that’s not what happens. Instead, he ducks his head and kisses me where I’ve never been kissed before. Just a soft kiss, and tender.

“Oh-what-the-holy-omigod-yes,” I babble, melting back onto the towel like a puddle of fudge.

A warm, soft tongue begins to tease my lady bits, and I gasp. And who knows what I say next? Nothing intelligible. Because he’s grasped my thigh and buried his mouth between my legs, licking and teasing and gently sucking. There has never been anything as good as this.

I’m wild for it, grasping his hair and speaking in tongues. But just when I sense that sweet release is imminent, he backs off. This happens twice more, and I finally realize that he’s doing it on purpose. “DJ,” I croak. “Come
here
.”

“What do you want?” he asks in a husky voice.

“You. Right now.”

He kisses my thigh very sweetly. “We have all night.”

“But I’m not that patient!”

“Hmm,” he says to the juncture between my leg and my pelvis. “I see,” he says to my belly button. He kisses his way up my body, then rises up to kneel above me. He lifts one of my legs, bending my knee up to my body. I busy myself by watching every muscle in his chest flex as he straddles my other leg and leans forward. His gorgeous hips give one smooth push. And just like that, he fills me.

“Yesssss,” I gasp.
Finally
.

“Mmm,” my boyfriend agrees. He begins to move, but his pace is slow. DJ is in the mood to take his time. So I kick my leg free of his grip and pull him down onto my body, where he can kiss me. And when he does, it’s so, so good.

I try to relax and enjoy every sensation. But after several lovely minutes, the pull of my own lust is too strong. It’s coming, and it’s going to be epic. Gripping DJ’s back, I arch my hips into his and groan.

“Aw, yeah,” he pants. “Use me.”

That sounds wonderfully dirty. I grip him everywhere, with everything I’ve got. Another gravelly groan from DJ pushes me over the edge at last. And I’m like a film at double speed, everything happening at once. And the soundtrack is DJ making his own set of erotic noises, until a few moments later when we both flicker and fade to black, collapsing together in a steamy, satisfied heap.

“Best night ever,” I pant.

DJ grins, his dimple showing. “See?”

“Mmm…” I’m rapidly turning immobile and weary. “Sleepy.”

He pats me on the hip. “Get into the bed if you’re going to crash, smalls.”

I make a brief trip to the sleek bathroom then collapse in the bed.

Beside me, DJ texts his parents to let them know we stayed in the city, so they won’t worry.

By the time he stretches out beside me, I’m already asleep.

I
’m not
sure why I wake up in the night. I’m exquisitely comfortable, parked against DJ’s chest, his hand curled around my hip. We’ve only got the sheet over us, because DJ’s body is like a furnace.

I love it so much. This sweet moment together is our reward for all the awful stuff we’ve been through. So even though I’ll be tired tomorrow, I lie awake, listening to DJ’s heartbeat.

“How goes the night, smalls?” he whispers a few minutes later, startling me.

“Good,” I say. “Really good. Didn’t know you were awake.”

“Love being here with you,” he says, kissing my hair.

I roll over to face him. “Something’s on your mind, though.”

He smiles. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I say immediately. “What’s wrong?”

His smile slips. “I don’t know if you want to hear it.”

“I do. No matter what it is. Aren’t we done having this conversation?”

He smiles again. “Yeah. But it’s sort of wrong to talk about
her
when I’m in bed with you.”

Oh
. For a second I feel a familiar wave of discomfort, because I know exactly what he’s thinking about. But then common sense prevails. There’s only one girl in this bed with DJ, and it’s me. “That was a long time ago now,” I point out.

“True,” he sighs. “Before I got into bed I found an email from her.”

“Really? What did it say?”

“It was an apology. She said, ‘I’m sorry I dragged you into my awful family drama. Blaming you is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I hope you’ll forgive me.’”

“Wow. That’s awfully brave.”

“Sure is. Because I’ll bet we’re having a much better midterm break than she is. I can’t even imagine living in that family. Her sister got up there and repeated all these awful things their father had told them—that if they had sex before marriage, it was like becoming a used tissue. That no man would ever want something ruined and dirty.”

“Ew!”

“I know. The sister—Caroline—she cried. She pointed her finger at her father and said she wouldn’t listen to him anymore. That nobody should. She said she was in therapy at U Mass for depression because their family and their wacko church was so oppressive, and she had all this shame for wanting things she wasn’t supposed to want.”

“God.” I can’t even imagine. “DJ? I have a small confession to make.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. The day of your meeting I figured out who Annie was, and I saw her sister. I didn’t hear much, though.” I tell DJ everything about Hosanna’s hurried visit to class to excuse her absence, and how I stumbled around campus to try to tell him what I’d learned. Only it didn’t matter.

“She couldn’t read the plays?”

“Nope.”

“I never knew,” he says, rolling onto his back. “I mean, she dressed kind of conservative, but some people do, right? She didn’t, like, wear a sign that said,
I grew up with crazy people who do mean shit and call it Christian
. I mean—I went to church my whole life. But it wasn’t like that.”

“Yikes. Do you think they’ll let her return to school? And are you going to reply to her apology?”

“That’s what’s keeping me awake. I want to reply. At the very least I want to tell her not to worry about me, that I’m fine now. The thing is, I kind of want to apologize, too. But that won’t be easy to word.”

“Also? Your lawyer would kill you.”

He groans. “You’re right. I mean—I know I didn’t do anything like what she accused me of doing. But just because it was consensual doesn’t mean it was a great idea. I wish I could say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t care enough to wonder if you’d end up sad about it.’”

“Ouch.”

“I know. But that’s how it was. I just took what was offered, and I didn’t ask questions.”

“A lot of people would have done the same thing,” I remind him.

“Yeah? A lot of people are assholes.”

This makes me giggle, and that makes him chuckle. So there we are at three in the morning, laughing and snuggling in the dark.

It really is the best night ever.

F
rom
: the Office of the Dean of Students

T
o
: the Harkness College faculty, fellows, and student body

D
ear colleagues
,

O
ne of the
most important goals of the dean’s office is to ensure that all members of the Harkness College community can live and study together in a safe and supportive atmosphere. As part of our commitment to equality and safety, our efforts against sexual harassment and sexual violence are ongoing and constantly under review. We take our commitment very seriously.

As part of our continued effort to improve our policies and procedures, I write to you today to announce that Harkness College has retained the services of Dreyfus and Arlington, Inc. This firm, staffed mainly by retired judges and other legal experts, will be occasionally engaged to assist in the college’s efforts to investigate and adjudicate cases of suspected sexual assault and misconduct.

While the college retains the certainty that we are the last best arbiters of our own systems and beliefs, certain cases may require timely intervention and investigation by persons with lifelong experience in these matters.

By contracting their expertise, we can make our campus and community even safer and more equitable than it already is.

Any questions regarding this decision may be forwarded to my office. Thank you.

S
incerely
,

Dean Wilma Waite, PhD