"Well, what?"
"Well, I didn't have sex by myself."
So I made the first move? I tried to visualize myself reaching out to him, like Coach told us to visualize ourselves winning swim heats. But Doug looked so distant, staring me down from across the car with his eyes sexy and his arms folded.
"Maybe you could set the stage," I suggested. "Was the moon bright like this?"
He shook his head. "It was raining hard. I got a little worried."
"Then why didn't we leave?"
"There wasn't a tornado watch. There probably should have been, but there wasn't. I thought it was safe. I was wrong." He sighed, and his voice softened. "Anyway, I wasn't exactly thinking straight. I was so full of you."
I slid across the seat toward him. He watched me. I stretched up to kiss his neck, just where the collar of his sweatshirt ended. I kissed my way up under his hair, toward parts of his neck I only saw when his hair was tucked under a swim cap in the pool. Then his chin where his stubble started. I felt him shudder, but he didn't touch me, and when I pulled away he was still staring at me, almost angrily.
"Y did it before," I protested. "What's the difference?"
"It meant something before. Now it's all scientific. Y ou're recovering data."
"Y owe me." I slid my hand onto the front of his shorts.
His eyes widened. And in one motion he took off his glasses, tossed them onto the dash, and put his hands behind my head, drawing me closer. His mouth hit my mouth and opened me. His tongue swept inside me.
Doug was a great kisser. I knew this right away. And I wasn't surprised, because he looked like a great kisser. The girls on the swim team had talked about this before. We didn't want to mess with juvie, but we knew sooner or later whomever Doug finally hooked up with was going to get a mouthful.
Instead, I was the one who got his mouth. His lips were soft. His tongue was firm. His teeth were sneaky, nipping at me when I didn't expect it. We kissed for long minutes as our bodies slowly intertwined. My hand slipped between his shorts and the heathered boxer briefs. His hand shoved past my shorts and panties, onto my bare skin. Finally I was out of breath. I pulled a few inches away from him and gasped.
He wouldn't let me get away. He put his forehead to my forehead and chuckled. "That's exactly what you did before."
I rubbed the tip of my nose back and forth across his. "How did my earring get caught on your zipper?"
"Hm." He laughed. "I just said that to make you mad. We didn't do anything like that. We wanted to save something for later. Y earring came out when
our I put my hands in your hair. Like this." He wove the fingers of both hands into my hair and held me firmly as he kissed me.
A long time later, his mouth had done everything it could possibly do to my mouth, twice. My hands were growing restless. I whispered against his lips, "Is this when we moved into the backseat?"
He breathed rapidly through his nose and blinked at me. He seemed to have a hard time focusing on me, but maybe that was because he was missing his glasses. "Y but--"
es,
"But what?" I slid over the console into the backseat and opened the back door for him, holding out my hands to steady him as he leaned on the Benz and hopped from the front door to the back. As I pulled him inside I said, "This has got to be a lot more comfy than the backseat of the Bug."
"More roomy," he acknowledged as he closed the door. "But I didn't have a broken leg before. Equally awkward."
I pressed him backward until he lay on the seat and I lay on top of him. Not too different from the way we'd lain together in the back of the swim team van and the back of the police car, except this time I was in control. I kissed his mouth, his neck, and felt a new rush every time he moaned.
I tugged at his sweatshirt until he relented and helped me take it off him. I smoothed my hands across his lean chest and strong arms. I kissed from his neck down his sternum to the inny belly button I'd found so fascinating in the van. His belly button was mine for tonight. I dipped my tongue into it, licked the circumference and let my tongue trail down, just to get revenge for that joke about my earring getting caught in his zipper.
As my mouth reached the waistband of his shorts, he gasped, "Okay."
"Okay." I laughed, straightening so I could pull off my shirt. "Is this when you took off my bra?"
He squinted at me through the black hair in his eyes. "Y but--"
es,
"Is this the same bra?"
He propped himself up on his elbows. "No, it was blue with white polka dots, and it had a blue bow right there." He poked me between the boobs. "So you still don't believe we did this?"
"I believe you." I'd had some lingering doubts, but I believed him now that he'd correctly identified the bra. "I still don't understand how I ended up in the car with you when I'd wanted to go parking with Brandon. But I understand completely how, once I was here, things snowballed and we went all the way. I've lived all my life in Florida and I have no experience with snow."
"Me neither." He lay back on the seat again, then reached up with both hands and framed my bra with his fingers. "Zoey, if we do this, what does it mean?"
"We will do this, and it means you owe me this memory."
He dropped his hands. "If it doesn't mean more than that, I don't want to do it."
I leaned forward until I was on all fours, face-to-face with him, hovering over him. "Y will do it."
His eyes narrowed. I'd pushed him too far, telling him what to do. He shifted, feeling on the floor for his sweatshirt.
"Did I do this?" I asked quickly as I smoothed my hand inside his boxer briefs.
He said, "Mmmmmmmm," and then reached up with both hands again and pressed my head down until our lips met. We kissed so deeply that I hardly noticed when he unhooked my bra after all and unlooped it from my shoulders.
Eventually he slid lower on the seat and took my breast into his mouth. Every move my hand made on him, his mouth echoed on me, until I was buzzing with tension and eager to offer him everything.
We stayed just this way for long minutes, poised on the edge. I wanted to do more. I was afraid if I stopped what we were doing, I would lose it all. But after his tongue on my breast made me cry out, my fingers found a condom packet tucked into the seat. I'd let the gargantuan box of condoms lie on the floor of the car with a few packets scattered around it since I threw it there Tuesday, for the viewing pleasure of anyone who peeked into the Benz. Even my mother could have seen this Wednesday night if she'd had her faculties.