Rebound With Me Read online

  Pretty uninspired. Vince’s idea is much more elegant and fun. While I would never have come up with it in a million years and it doesn’t seem completely logical to me—who am I to judge? This is my first ever one-night stand. I don’t care what his motives are.

  Ever since I began teaching first grade, I started seeing glimpses of the six year-old boy inside every man that I meet. Vince has been all man since I met him, but when he was telling me the truth about how we were connected, and after he punched the wall, I could see it in his eyes. The six year-old boy inside of Vince is sweet and trying to act tougher than he is. He loves his mama and he’s not going to hurt me. It’s a gut feeling, but I trust it.

  When I’m ninety and looking back on my life, will I regret having sex with this man?

  Oh.

  Hell.

  No.

  In fact, if I had to live through three years of orgasm-less sex with a man that I thought would make me feel safe, just to get to this guy who has already made me feel things that I’ve never felt before in the span of a couple of hours…WORTH IT.

  “How’s that?” I ask, as I hold the bag of frozen peas on the top of his hand and wait for him to place his other hand on top of it.

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “Can you still use your hand tonight?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine. Good thing I didn’t punch the exposed brick.” He doesn’t get why I’m asking. “I should probably go, huh?” he says, hesitantly.

  I shake my head.

  I haven’t had a reckless heart since I was sixteen years old and had no idea that a heart could be broken, but tonight, with Vince in my apartment, and that blue drink coursing through my veins…

  I do something that I never would have imagined myself doing my whole life up until three hours ago. I let the throw pillow that I’ve been clinging to my chest fall to the floor. The look on Vince’s face as he takes me in, naked but for my soaking wet panties, is enough to get me over my nervousness. I grab hold of the waistband of his jeans, pull him towards me and kiss him. He lets the bag of frozen peas drop to the floor, grabs my ass with both hands and lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the bedroom. It’s almost as if there was no interlude, except there’s an intensity and urgency now.

  “You sure you want this?” he asks, as he lays me down on the bed, his voice husky and low, and so sexy I bet he could make me come while reading the phone book out loud.

  “Right now it’s the only thing I want. Just don’t break anything else.”

  “I will try not to break your bed frame, but if I do I’ll make you a new one.” He pulls me down so that my ass is at the edge of the mattress. “I also used to make furniture.” He winks at me, as he lowers down to kiss my neck, my chest, my belly, while dragging his fingers lightly down my torso, waking my body up in ways and places that are so unfamiliar to me, but I feel so open that I think that I would let him do anything to me right now.

  “For the record,” I say, all breaths and sighs, “the principal never did touch me the way you’re touching me.”

  He doesn’t pause from kissing my inner thigh, but I can tell that he’s smiling.

  “And you’ve already given me more orgasms than he ever did in three years.”

  “Well darlin,’ I hope you’re ready for more.” With a few swift moves he removes my panties, kneels on the floor, hikes my hips up, places my legs over his shoulders and looks down at my most private place while stroking my thighs, and it should make me feel so shy and vulnerable, but he’s admiring me. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

  I look up at the ceiling and try to relax, but I cover my face with my arms when I feel his warm breath over my lady parts. It tickles in the most grown-up way imaginable, and I have to force myself not to giggle.

  “Did he ever go down on you, Nina?”

  “No,” I squeak.

  “Fucking idiot,” he mutters. “You have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.”

  When I feel his tongue on me, it sends a shock of electricity up through my center, my thighs tense up and warmth spreads across my abdomen. He licks all the way around and then flicks his tongue at my clit, which is already so tense and sensitive that when he licks it and then gently sucks on it, I feel myself completely losing control. I let out a little squeal as my body shakes. My response seems to cause him to slow down by pressing his thumb against my clit and rubbing it while kissing my inner lips.

  “Ohhh. That feels so good.” I think I say it out loud, I don’t know. I try to keep still, gripping the bedspread, but my body wants to undulate. It feels like he’s kissing me all over, even though he’s just doing it down there.

  He moans. “I like how you taste.” He runs his hand up my thigh to my knee and back down again.

  I realize that I’ve been slowly spreading my legs wider for him. He brings his tongue to my clit again, lapping over it and on either side, circling it delicately, and then once my body starts shaking, he nibbles and clamps down on it with his lips, sucking with perfect pressure. I arch my back and scream out, then his tongue gets fast and rough as I come undone, writhing around, like I’m so full of energy but melting at the same time. It almost sounds like I’m crying because it feels so good, my body and mind can barely process it.

  I don’t even know when he stopped doing things with his mouth, but by the time I’ve finished riding the waves of ecstasy and opened my eyes, he’s standing above me, wearing nothing but a condom and a proud smirk.

  Holy Schmidt there’s more?! I would have liked to do something for him first, but his eyes are hooded and he looks very intent on putting his big glorious erection inside of me immediately and I am not about to stop him.

  I barely get the chance to wonder how it will be possible to experience even more pleasure in one night before I feel the delicious weight of him on top of me, my soft breasts pressed against his hard chest and hear him say, “You ready?”

  “Mmmmhmmm.” We are both well aware of how lubricated I am, so I have no concerns about whether or not I will be able to accommodate him. “You’re so much bigger than anyone I’ve been with before,” I whisper.

  He groans and lowers his head like he’s in pain. “Fuck, Nina, you turn me on.”

  I wrap my legs around him and feel a sharp jolt as he enters me, then relax around the heat of his shaft as he slides in deeper. He waits for me to start rocking my pelvis before kissing my mouth and then pulling out most of the way and thrusting in. I catch my breath and dig my fingernails into his back.

  “You feel so good.” He says it like he’s never said it to anyone before, and even though I am one hundred percent sure that he has, I believe it. It can’t be possible for it to feel so good to me and not feel good to him too, can it?

  He grabs onto the headboard with one hand and hooks his other arm under my shoulder, holding me in place as he slides in and out of me. I’ve never had so much confidence in a man as he did this to me, it frees me up to enjoy how it feels—and it feels freaking amazing. That doesn’t even cover it. It feels fucking amazing.

  My body is relaxed and joyfully bouncing around under him, I’m thinking I could let him do this to me forever, until suddenly he changes his angle and plunges up and inwards, stimulating the depths of me and making me jerk upward and call out, “Oh God!”

  No sooner than I’ve gotten used to that rhythm and feeling, he deftly flips me around so that I’m on top and he’s sitting up, kissing my breasts, hands on my waist, guiding me to bear down on him. I rock back and forth and the pressure is heavenly. I feel an entirely new kind of orgasm coming on, but he seems intent now on bringing me to the brink and then shifting gears to make this last longer.

  Resting back on his elbows, he thrusts upwards. I place my hands on his pecs and watch his abs contract and release, over and over. I smile and close my eyes as I remember Marnie telling me that I should ride this beautiful man like a bull. I am, but he is the champion. I have never had so much fun or felt so sexy w
hile having sex before. I need him to know how much I love this. “Nobody. Has. Ever. Fucked me. Like this. Before!”

  I look down at his cloudy eyes. His jaw is tight, his whole face tense like he’s holding onto something for dear life. There’s such strength and beauty and intensity in him, I don’t know if it’s what he’s doing to me or just him that’s making me feel so good but I close my eyes again and feel warmth and electricity radiating from the center of me out to every inch and cell of my body. My head falls back and I feel a sound I’ve never made before vibrating against my throat. It’s the sound of total satisfaction.

  He somehow manages to move me around to face the headboard, on my hands and knees. He holds onto my hips, thrusting with urgency, skin slapping against skin, I didn’t expect it to feel good for me in this position, but oh wow does it ever feel good. I hope it’s good for him too. He grunts and makes another deep animal sound as his movements get bigger and more graceful, and then I feel him come as his whole body stiffens and releases into me.

  As much as I found him strong and intense and beautiful before, the way he comes is just magnificent and I feel such a rush at being a part of it. It doesn’t matter who he was with or who I was with or why he decided to do this with me. What we just did together erases everything else.

  We must have both fallen asleep and it seems we’re both waking up to the sound of a phone vibrating around on the floor.

  Vince, who is lying flat against my back, jolts up and looks around. “Shit.” I feel him crawl down to the end of the bed and hear him pick up his jeans.

  I turn over and see him looking at his phone. “Shit.” He puts his phone back into the pocket of his jeans. “I need to use your bathroom and then go, okay?” He doesn’t look back at me as he says it. He disappears into the adjoining bathroom, shutting the door.

  I sit up, unsure if I should get dressed to see him off, but he’s out of the bathroom before I can even make a decision, his jeans back on.

  “I uh, I’ll come back tomorrow and fix the drywall, okay? I mean it.”

  I nod, holding the sheet up over my body. He starts to bolt out of the room, then comes back to kiss me on the top of my head, saying a perfunctory: “That was great, thanks.” I see him pick up his shirt in the living room, and then hear him open and shut the front door.

  So that’s how a one-night stand ends?

  Well, flork me.

  Chapter Five

  Vince

  I have left a lot of apartments in a hurry in the middle of the night, but I’ve never done it with a smile on my face before.

  I wish I didn’t have to leave like that, and I’m kicking myself for forgetting about Charlie, but I guess there would have been no good way to make my exit from Nina’s place without exchanging information. No need to complicate things. But fuck. I have to go back to fix that drywall. Why did I do that?

  Can’t think about it now. I need to get to my Dad’s place, like an hour ago. I text Michelle to let her know I’m on the way and wave down a cab on Smith Street. The driver gives me a look in the rearview mirror when I tell him I only want to go about ten blocks, but I promise him a good tip. Asshole.

  Leaning back into the seat, I have nothing else to think about besides Nina for the next couple of minutes. I know without a doubt from the way she looked at me that no one has ever made her come like that before, and that makes me feel so damn good. This turned out to be the best dumb idea I’ve ever had. My hand doesn’t even hurt the slightest bit. All those endorphins I released took care of that. I can’t believe she got me a bag of frozen peas after I punched a hole in her wall. Who does that?

  Nina.

  Why would the principal leave a woman like that? I mean, I get the appeal of Sadie, obviously, but it’s mostly skin-deep. Mostly. Nina’s something else. Something fresh and real. I only got a taste of it, but it’s enough to know that any guy would be lucky enough to have her. Any guy who was good enough for her, that is. Mr. Principal isn’t good enough. I wish I were.

  Michelle’s standing facing the door with her arms crossed, foot tapping when I let myself into my Dad’s Cobble Hill townhouse. I still can’t believe how nice this place is, every time I come here. The old guy made a great decision when he bought this place for Clara, even though she was such a mess. But if it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t have Charlie.

  “Eleven-thirty,” she hisses. “No later than ten, you said. Should have known.”

  I pull my Dad’s neighbor in for a hug. “Michelle, my belle.” She’s warm and squishy and I’m going to hug the anger out of her.

  “Fuck you Jack!” she yell-whispers at me and spanks my ass. “I was this close to calling your father. I gotta work in the morning and you come back smelling like pussy, you dog.” She picks up her purse. “He’s in his room, not asleep.” She points her finger at me, inches from my face. “You gotta find a regular babysitter. A professional. It’s been months. I can’t do this every night if you guys are gonna be out plowing every woman in New York.”

  “Aww, Mich. You know we only plow women in this borough.”

  “Animal. If I had a daughter I would tell her to stay the hell away from you.” She’s grinning and her eyes are sparkling, but on some level it still hurts me to hear her say this.

  “Darlin’ if you had a daughter who was anything like you I would have cleaned up my act and married her by now and you know it.”

  All the tension slowly melts away from her face and she smiles and I get a rare glimpse of the beautiful young woman that still lives inside her tired stressed-out sixty year-old body. “I’m getting the hell out of here before you say another word.” She shuffles towards the door. “We baked cookies—don’t eat them all. Go say good night to your brother.”

  “Good night, Michelle, thank you. Sorry I was late.”

  She waves me away and is out the door, grumbling. I honestly don’t know what my Dad and half-brother would do without the ladies of this neighborhood. Even when Charlie’s mother was still around, they helped out with almost everything. It takes a village. At least it does when there’s just us three bonehead Devlin guys trying to raise a sweet kid who deserves better.

  I make my way over to the closed door to Charlie’s room and knock on it softly. “It’s me, buddy.”

  “Finally!” he says.

  I open the door and find him reading in bed with a battery-operated light clipped to his book like a nerd. It’s hard to believe he got the book nerd gene from Clara’s side, but it sure didn’t come from my Dad…I remember seeing a lot of books around Nina’s place…But I can’t think about that now.

  He doesn’t even look up from his book when I plop down on the edge of his bed. He’s so serious for an eight year-old boy. I’m always trying to lighten him up, but maybe he’s meant to be the anchor for this family.

  “Whatcha reading?”

  He tilts his book so that I can see the cover. Holes by Louis Sachar. My brother Gabe and I can’t say the title without laughing and thinking about the kinds of holes that this book is not about. Yeah. Charlie’s the mature one. “How many times have you read this one?”

  He shrugs. He’s mad at me for coming home late. I don’t blame him. “Sorry I got here late.”

  “Were you with Sadie?”

  I haven’t told him about Sadie yet. She was his part-time nanny for about a year and a half, which is how I met her. Then a few months ago she got a full-time nanny job for some rich people’s kid. She was still coming around to hang out with Charlie on weekends for a while, but he misses her. I’ll tell him tomorrow. Not now. “She was busy.”

  “With the other kid?”

  “I guess.” Could be true, who knows. “Come on. Book down. You gotta go to sleep. You got camp in the morning. Hey—how was your first day?”

  “I liked it.”

  “Yeah?” He’s going to a day camp for the summer. Keeping kids busy and cared-for is so fucking hard, especially when school’s out—I honestly don’t know how people h
ave been doing it every day forever.

  “Yeah, but there are too many girls.”

  “Too many, huh? Any good ones?”

  He shrugs. “Some of them are okay, I guess. Rory’s cousin is in it and she keeps saying my name and laughing. It’s annoying.”

  “Sounds like she’s got a crush on you.”

  He wrinkles up his face. “Gross.”

  “She hot?”

  “Shut up.” He snaps his book shut and switches off the little light. “When’s Sadie coming over?” I think he knows something’s up. Kid’s got a sixth sense, it’s creepy.

  “I dunno. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Go to sleep.” I put the book on the shelf under his bedside table.

  “When’s Dad getting back?”

  “Soon, probably.” My Dad just started dating a woman who lives in Park Slope. She’s surprisingly age-appropriate and I think she really likes her, but we all know better than to get our hopes up. He hit the jackpot once in his life, but when my Mom left this earth it’s like she took all his good sense with her. God bless him for always getting back up on that horse, though. I don’t know if I could if I’d been through what he has.

  Charlie’s watching my face as he lies back on his pillow. I pull the covers up over him and mess up his hair. “You gonna sleep here?”

  “Course. What do you want for breakfast?”

  “Waffles,” we say at the same time.

  “Okay, but we’re gonna have to put a few berries on them or something so we can pretend to be healthy.”

  “Okay.”

  “G’night.” I turn off the bedside lamp and the nightlight turns on. My older brother thinks Charlie’s too old to have a nightlight, but fuck him. We all need a little light in our lives. Charlie is ours. He should have whatever he wants.