SWNOVELS The Red Zone: Chapter 13
“YOU’RE DRUNK.”
“I’ve had one beer. I’m nowhere close to being drunk,” Mae scoffed, popping the top off her second amber colored bottle of the night. “If anyone’s drunk, it’s you.”
“I haven’t had any alcohol…”
“That’s beside the point.” She snarled.
This girl. I swear she could argue with a tree, and, somehow, she’d still come out the winner at the end of it.
After putting our groceries away, and changing into swim attire, we were both out by the pool, once again, for the second Friday night in a row. By the looks of it, we were on the path to having two weekly traditions together. Strange how that happens, huh? Going from seeing each other nearly every day as kids, to not seeing each other for years, and now here we were seeing each other on a routine basis again.
What was next? Spending Christmas together? On second thought, that probably didn’t seem too far off—especially if Scarlett had a say in it.
Hanging out with Mae was easier than hanging out with other girls, though. She wasn’t trying to be someone she wasn’t. Or trying to impress me. In fact, I go as far as saying that she was trying to be as unimpressive as possible. It was refreshing to say the least.
I couldn’t think of a time in recent years where women hadn’t wanted something out of me—money, sex, game tickets, to be seen with me on social media. Most of the time I didn’t care, but being with Mae made me realize how much I’d been used in the past. How fake people were whenever they were around me.
It was a shitty feeling. But a humble reminder to keep my circle small once this season was over instead of getting caught up with the superficial bullshit.
“Weren’t we supposed to play a drinking game?”
“Yeah, and you’re already losing.” She eyed the unopened beer in my hand before bringing her bottle to her lips and taking down half of it in two giant gulps.
“Someone didn’t tell me we were already playing.” I shot back.
All week, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head. It probably wouldn’t have been nearly as bad had she not ditched out on family dinner last weekend. All that did was send an incessant stream of questions coursing through my mind.
Sure, we had fun last Friday, but I didn’t want her to be upset with me about leaving her to finish herself off. I also couldn’t deny that I’d thought of that exact scenario more than a few times in recent days.
The thought of her stomping back up to her room with her fists balled at her sides as she huffed up the stairs. Only to crawl into her bed and finish the job while thinking of my fingers taking the place of hers.
“Are you good over there?” There was a faint smirk on Mae’s face as she brought her bottle of beer to her lips and took a long pull. “Afraid you’ll get brainwashed if you come any closer?”
When I didn’t respond, she shrugged, heading for the pool steps instead. Tonight, she was wearing a barely-there bikini that was roughly two times smaller than the ones I’d previously seen her wearing. Her long, tan legs disappeared into the water until she was submerged to her waist.
For a moment, I contemplated following her in before deciding it would be best to take a seat on the edge, dipping my legs in instead.
“I’m not afraid of anything where you’re concerned.”
Mae came up and leaned her back against the wall of the pool next to my thighs. She took another long drag of beer before crossing her arms and staring off into the distance. After a few silent beats, she looked up at me with a small closed mouth smile.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“It’s going to take a lot more than a penny before I let you in on my secrets, Calhoun.”
What I wouldn’t give to get inside her head for just a few minutes. I didn’t need long, just enough time to figure out why she was coming onto me so strongly all of the sudden. She could claim it was Scarlett’s nagging finally getting to her all she wanted, but we both knew there was something deeper. Something she wasn’t telling me.
At the end of the day, I guess it really didn’t matter. I didn’t have the privilege to pry into her personal life. She was a big girl. I didn’t need to monitor her every move. Whatever was going on with her, I’m sure she’d figure it out. And if I was going to be the collateral that helped her get there, so be it. Better that it be me than some strange dude with questionable intentions.
How she managed to trick me into this I had no idea, but my mind was already made up.
Mae and I were going to fuck.
One time.
No feelings.
No strings attached.
That was it.
“There’s no game, is there?”
“Obviously, not.” She let out a huffed laugh. “October, you know me about as well as anyone. And even though it makes me want to die on the inside, I’d go as far as saying you know me better than most people on the planet.”
She looked up at me again only to be met with my confused expression.
Now that I thought about it, I guessed she was right. Aside from her more mature looks, and terrible argumentative skills, there wasn’t all that much that had changed about her in recent years.
“You know my brain inside and out. In the span of a minute, you can make me feel a rainbow of emotions. You know exactly what makes me tick. You can read my facial expressions like you memorized them a thousand lifetimes ago. So, while you might not know my favorite color or how I take my coffee… you know me. Far better than I’d like to admit.”
“Blue.”
“What?”
“Your favorite color is blue. Light blue to be specific. And you don’t drink coffee, you drink tea. Ginger tea twice in the morning and chamomile once at night. If neither of those are available then you’ll settle for green.”
She sucked in a breath. “How do you rememb—’
I cut her off. “And around the holidays you’ll trade out the ginger tea for peppermint instead.”
Mae looked at me slack jawed—half in disbelief, and half something I couldn’t entirely make out. She was right. I knew her like the back of my hand… and I thought about her a lot more than I should have—then and now.
It was time to stop denying myself the truth.
Setting my beer on the hardscape next to me, I pushed off the ledge and entered the water. I turned toward Mae and grabbed the mostly empty beer from her hands and placed it next to mine. Facing her, I placed one hand against the ledge on both sides of her.
She just stared at me with her big blue eyes, not moving a muscle as I inched closer to her face. I could feel my breaths go shallow as the pull toward her grew stronger. The draw between us had always been intense, but right now… it felt unbearable.
I skimmed my lips across hers. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
“Well…” She smirked, pulling back slightly. “I know that I make you angry…”
“Fantastic observation.”
Both of us grew more breathless by the second.
“And… I make you flustered…”
“Questionable.” The corner of my mouth lifted up.
She might have shocked me the other night by getting stark naked in front of me, but right now I was feeling the furthest thing from being on edge. In fact, speaking of edging, I had every intention of doing that to her again, and again, until she was in tears if that’s what she wanted.
She tipped her head down, peering up at me with those big doe eyes. “I make you turned on…”
“And then some.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “You’ve been eye fucking me since the day I moved in.”
“You must be mistaken, because I’ve hated your guts the entire time.”
“No, you haven’t. You just wished I was rearranging yours.” I challenged. “Which I find funny considering you claim that you don’t like me. Yet, somehow, you continue making excuses to be in my presence—pushing me in the pool, your birthday party, your late-night swim, coming to the pool house tonight. You’re up to four occurrences in the last week alone.” She didn’t say a word, so I continued. “If I were a betting man, I might even go as far as saying that you’re seeking me out. You’ll deny it, of course, but we both know it would be a lie.”
“I can assure you that I’m not interested.”
“In anything other than my dick, right?”
“Your dick is the only thing about you that I’m remotely interested in.”
Our lips grazed each other as we spared back and forth.
Our eyes locked and everything about us went silent as I leaned forward.
At the last second, Mae dodged my kiss, ducking into the water under my arm and coming out the other side. Flipping onto her back as she swam away with a smirk. “This was fun. Sorry I can’t stay longer. Early morning tomorrow.”
“Is this your way of getting back to me for last weekend?”
“What happened last weekend? I don’t have any memory of it.”
Ahh, so she was trying to get back at me. That little minx.
“Not so fast.” I reached out and pulled her foot, dragging her through the water until she was close enough that I could wrap those long legs around me. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
“Sounds like something I should be saying to you instead.”
I had one hand underneath her ass, holding her in place, and the other on the back of her neck. She rolled her hips against my growing length and I had to fight the groan threatening to break free from my throat.
“One time,” I rasped, working my fingers through her hair.
She knotted her brows at me.
“We’re only doing this one time… that’s it. And just so we’re clear, I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to have tea waiting on your nightstand the morning after. And I’m certainly not going to be your shoulder to cry on when you have a bad day. So, if that’s what you’re in the market for, then you should follow in your sister’s footsteps and find a guy like Abel to take care of you instead.” I took her silence as an invitation to finish my statement. “Because I don’t plan on playing nice.”
“I’d be disappointed if you were. And just so we’re clear…” she started. “I’m not the kind of girl who’s going to be the sideline cheerleader at your games. Or the one who tends to every ache and pain after a bad practice. This is just sex. Nothing more.”
Music to my fucking ears.
The last thing I wanted was her getting her feelings caught up in this.
“You’re certain you don’t like me?” I asked one final time, trying to figure out if there was a hidden bluff she was concealing.
Her gaze heated. “Who said I have to like you to fuck you?”
I pulled her in closer and our breaths grew faster and more audible as her eyes locked on my lips. My mind raced, spiraling through all the reasons I shouldn’t be doing this with her, of all people. If there were a pro con list to be made the cons would far outright the pros, but there was a part of me that wanted to give into the heat that soared between us when we argued. Figure out if our attraction to each other transferred over to the bedroom or if it was just a figment of my imagination.
I shouldn’t be doing this, but fuck, I really want to.
“Fuck it.”
Closing the gap between us, I crashed my lips to hers and she slipped her tongue into my mouth. My grip on her ass got tighter as she rolled her hips against me again. With our mouths fused together, I walked us over to the edge of the pool until her back was pressed against the concrete. It was only then that I got the strength to pull back from her mouth. Staring into each other’s eyes, we panted, our chests rising and falling in unison as a physical depiction of our desire.
“I hate you,” she moaned breathlessly against my lips.
“Likewise.” I grabbed her waist and lifted her up out of the pool and onto the ledge. “Now pull your swimsuit over to the side and spread your legs so I can taste your pussy.”
Mae broke apart her knees and before she had the chance to make some snide joke, my mouth was on her center. Mae sucked in a breath, tensing for a moment, but by the time I had circled her clit with my tongue twice, her muscles had eased completely.
It took everything in me not to let out a smirk and make some crass comment after seeing how effortlessly she melted at my touch. Never in my life did I think I would see Mae like this, but I was enjoying the sweet taste of her pussy too much to ruin things this early on.
She leaned back against her hands and I held her in place with my hands gripping firmly on her outer thighs. I continued lapping circles while her moans grew louder and more frantic as she lifted a hand from the concrete and slid it through my hair, tugging gently as her desire grew more intense.
Fuck me. She was better than I could’ve ever imagined.
I backed away from her—unhappily, I might add—and jumped out of the pool. Careful not to completely drench her with water on the way out and unleashing her wrath.
“What are you—’
Bending down, I wrapped my arms around her waist helping her up until she was standing, then grabbed the back of her thighs and hoisted her over my shoulder. Mae might’ve been okay being the naked neighbor, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d let one of our neighbors get a free show of all the ways I was about to make her come for me.
“October!” She squealed, thrashing her legs around as I took the fastest route to the pool house. “I’m soaking wet!”
A smirk curled at the corner of my lips while I turned the handle to the front door with one hand while holding Mae firmly by her thigh with the other. “I know you are.”
She wiggled her legs trying to break free from my grip which essentially turned into her ass wiggling in my face. With my newly freed hand, I smacked her ass gently and the desperate moan she let free made my dick twitch. Although, it was immediately followed by a feminine squeal filling the entryway alongside a spat of her giggles.
Such a brat.
Not caring that we were still drenched from the pool, I walked us through the entryway and down the small hall, making a left into the bedroom. I made another left, carrying her into the bathroom and setting her on the countertop where I quickly toweled us both off. Future October could deal with the puddles all over the floor later because right now that was the least of my goddamn worries.
The only thing on my mind right now was imagining how good Mae was going to look in a few minutes when she was begging for my mercy.
Once we were dried off, she tugged me in by my shorts, tilting her chin up as our lips locked together. I slipped my fingers through her hair and pulled gently so she was peering up at me. “I thought you didn’t fuck during the pre-season?” Her chest rose and fell, and desire flashed through her eyes with each passing second.
“I was willing to make a one-time exception. Besides, the official season starts Sunday and that’s when it really matters.”
“What did I do to deserve such an honor?” She gasped. “Is this, like, the equivalent to taking your virginity?”
With a laugh, I wrapped her legs around my waist, carried her into the bedroom and tossed her on the bed. Placing both hands on the mattress on either side of her head, I bent down so our faces were only a few inches apart letting the hunger build for a few more seconds.
The equivalent to taking my virginity?
This girl had no idea what was coming for her… literally.