Badd Luck Read online

  Which is what I did.

  The sun was warm and golden as I sat there, eyes closed, absorbing the warmth and the shush of the breeze, the tweeting and whistling and fluttering of the birds...the sense of peacefulness and serenity was so overpowering in that moment I could have cried.

  In fact, an actual tear or two may have slid down my cheek, just because I was so deeply content in that moment.

  Which, of course, is when I heard footsteps approaching on the dock. I smelled him first, and knew, without looking, that it was Corin. I felt him slip beside me, and then he sat on the dock at my feet. My legs parted automatically, and he slid backward into the open space between them, resting against me. My fingers slid down to his head, tugging his hair free of the dumb little topknot, and I knotted my fingers into the silky soft locks.

  Neither of us said anything for a long time.

  "I woke up just in time to see you leaving the cabin like something upset you," he said, eventually. "Is it about what happened last night? Or something else?"

  "It's hard to explain."

  "Care to try? Not pushing, just sayin', I'm a good listener."

  I sighed, and ignored the fact that I was still playing with his hair, which felt too intimate and too tender and too personal considering how short a time this thing had been a thing.

  "I just...god, I don't even know how to put it into words." I hesitated, thinking through what to say. "It's not last night--that's something I'm not even ready to think about yet." I was realizing that if anyone would understand what I was feeling, it'd be Corin. "It's about...home. The idea of home. Where I belong. What I want."

  Corin huffed a laugh. "Wow. Pretty heavy stuff for barely past dawn."

  Corin was wedged into the V of my open legs, his arms resting on my thighs, hands on my knees, head tipped back against my belly, and I had his hair spread out so I could comb my fingers through it, occasionally pausing to massage his scalp. I knew without looking that his eyes were closed, as were mine, both of us not willing to risk disturbing this moment by even opening our eyes. His thumbs were rubbing in circles, a minute, innocent, but powerful little gesture of affection.

  "Yeah, well...sometimes this stuff just hits me all at once. I tend to suppress this kind of thing, and this is the first opportunity I've had to really think about it." I tried to sort out my thoughts, and eventually words started pouring out. "Obviously you're familiar with the basic course of Aerie's and my lives since we left Ketchikan. We started out small, going to high-profile parties with Mom and husband Bob. Bob is, somehow and in ways that are a complete mystery to us, part of the familiar circles of a lot of different prominent New York socialites. He's a complete tool, and we both hate him, but he did provide us entry to that whole world, which is just weird. Anyway, we went to parties, started a blog, took photos, got into the whole fashion scene, started Instagramming ourselves in various outfits, which led to a couple different clothing companies asking to sponsor us...which led to more serious modeling stuff.

  "And, of course, mixed in there is the whole wealthy Manhattan party world, which is a very small world, actually, believe it or not. We'd frequently attend mixers and fundraisers and various events, and sometimes it would be on the arm of some rich, arrogant Manhattan asshole, just because that's how things work in that world. You get invited to an event with someone, and you go, and you wear a specific gown provided for that party, and you wear heels and jewelry, and get your hair and makeup done, and it's all very structured, and then you go to the party on the arm of the guy who invited you. They pick you up in a fancy limo, or sometimes, if he's really important and rich, he'll just send a car for you. Usually, that's about it. You mingle and network and except for posing for photographs at the very start, but you don't even have to stay with that guy the whole night. It's all about seeing and being seen."

  "Sounds like absolute hell if you ask me," Corin mumbled.

  I laughed. "It's actually kind of fun, most of the time. You get to dress up in really expensive stuff--which unfortunately you have to give back, which sucks, but whatever. You pose for photos in front of those black and white sponsor boards, and mingle with celebrities and stuff. I can't even begin to list the famous people I've bumped elbows with. I could name-drop all day!" I joked.

  "Anyone cool you've bumped more than elbows with?" he asked.

  I knocked him on the top of the head with my knuckles. "Don't be a dick, Corin. We're not trading that info just yet, okay?"

  "I wasn't trying to be a dick," he said with a laugh. "We used to talk about that shit all the time."

  I went back to playing with his hair. "Yeah, but things are different now, Cor."

  I felt him tense. "They kind of are, aren't they?"

  "Kind of?"

  "Okay, a lot different." He wiggled his head a little, seeking a more comfortable spot against my belly, which was less my belly than the upper swell of my core, and I was fighting and failing not to think of it as erotic. "So, that's the lowdown on your lives since you left Ketchikan. What was with the sudden departure from the cabin?"

  I let out a slow breath. "I've been all over the world, you know? London, Moscow, all over the Caribbean and Mediterranean, Thailand, Australia, Japan, lots of little South Pacific spots. Mom and Bob live in this condo in the Upper West Side that's worth, like, into the eight figures, easy. I've been in Bentleys and G6s, bumped elbows with...not to name-drop too much, here...but Brangelina, Iggy Pop, Madonna, Matt Damon, Paris Hilton, Donald the Orange Cheeto Hitler, back when he was still just a rich real estate slash reality TV tycoon--which was a truly weird and slimy experience, let me tell you--Bono, Cher, James and Kirk from Metallica...that's been my life, and I'm not even twenty-one. It's been...charmed, there's really no other word for it. Just absolutely charmed."

  "But?"

  I huffed a laugh that he'd heard the "but" I hadn't actually admitted yet. "But...the moment I walked into that cabin, I just...something hit me. This is hard to put into words. A sense of...longing, sort of? And a sense of belonging. A sense of...of home. Not the cabin itself really, since obviously I've never been there before, it's just feeling like being here, in Alaska, where it's rough and wild and not all that sophisticated and just...real...it's home. It hit me so fucking hard it scared me. Like, there was this palpable moment of...what was I doing out there, living that other life? That's not my life, this is my life, here. But there's so much else attached to that that I can't put into words. Responsibilities, obligations to my sister, to my mom, wondering what I would do here, and with whom, and how, and when...so much.

  "That doesn't even scratch the surface, that's just what I can actually verbalize right now. All of it...all at once...it felt like being tackled by JJ Watt, whom I've also met once, and no, all we did was talk for a minute at a party. It just overwhelmed me. Then I came out here, found this little dock, and it's so peaceful and beautiful and..." I blew out a breath.

  "There. An unloading of the inner workings of my mind. You should feel privileged, Corin Badd--I don't share that kind of thing with just anyone...not even Aerie, most of the time."

  "Really?" He tilted his head all the way backward so he was looking at me upside down. "I thought you guys shared everything."

  "We did as kids. We still do share just about everything. Boys, clothes, gossip, all that...yeah, we talk about all that. But the deep stuff, like what I just dropped on you? That's hard for me to talk about."

  He smiled upside down at me. "I do feel absolutely privileged, then, Tate, seriously. Thank you for trusting me."

  I'm such a hopeless idiot. Know why? Because with him upside down like that, smiling, looking goofy and earnest and sexy all at the same time, I couldn't help but kiss him.

  I know, I know--I'm supposed to let him kiss me first, right? That's how it's sexiest, right? When you stand there in the porch light staring up at him, waiting, waiting, waiting, all but puckered up, mentally chanting Kiss me! Kiss me! Kiss me!

  I'm not that gi
rl. I take what I want, I do things my way. Fuck the patriarchy, right? It's also just that when I want something, I'm going to take it. Why am I going to wait for the guy to make the first move? Out of some sense of obligation or tradition? That's a laugh.

  In this case, though, I very simply and truly could not help it. Corin, thus far, had a way of pushing me past the bounds of my control. My body acts without consulting my better sense. Like, I know, mentally, it's way too soon to be kissing.

  But then, we've held hands...

  And he's pinched my butt and groped my breast...neither of which I actually did mind, by the way. Like, at all. I may have fought and protested and acted one way, but inside, I liked it. I liked the game, the anticipation, and the feel of his hand. I liked all of it.

  And now, after pouring out my heart to him, unburdening my most intimate doubts and feelings to him...

  Something about him being upside down was what did it for me. Upside right, he's almost intimidatingly gorgeous, rock star hot, and also just plain beautiful, to the point that it's difficult to absorb, sometimes. Upside down, though, it made him seem more vulnerable.

  He was just upside down, smiling at me, hair down and loose, and I was feeling emotional and happy at the same time, and everything was beautiful, including and especially him, so I found myself leaning forward over him, and my hands were palming his cheeks. And god, his lips were so soft, warm and moist--sorry, I hate that word...his lips were damp? Nah, that's not any better. I don't know. They felt like heaven, is what they felt like.

  It was like that moment from that Spiderman movie, where Tobey Maguire's dork-a-potamus Spiderman is hanging upside down in the rain and Kirstin Dunst rolls his mask down and kisses him upside down--that's the only good scene out of that version of Spiderman, if you ask me. It's hot and sexy and romantic, and you could almost feel the tenderness in the kiss.

  This, with Corin, was on that level.

  I felt his smile fade as my lips touched his. I hadn't leaned slowly, hadn't really given him time to absorb the fact that I was about to kiss him, so I think it came as a bit of a surprise to him, and thus took a moment for him to realize what was happening. When he finally got with the program, though, he came alive. His hand drifted up to grip my braid, pulling at me, and his other hand slid up from where he'd been gripping my knee, sliding up my thigh to cup the side of my butt. He lifted up, deepening the kiss. Which, being upside down, was kind of bizarre and awkward, but seared it all the more indelibly into my mind as the best kiss of my life up to that point.

  I say up to that point, because as we kissed, I suspected each next kiss would be the new best kiss of my life.

  Corin moaned, his grip on the side of my thigh tightening, and that sound sizzled through me, a sound of raw male pleasure, just from a mere kiss.

  I had to moan back, had to. My moan was high pitched, more of a whimper than anything else.

  We were kissing eyes closed--or at least, I was, right then--because who doesn't close their eyes for a kiss? And, for some reason, I opened my eyes...and caught him subtly and surreptitiously sliding his hand into his pants to adjust himself. And, from the angle I had, him being stretched up and back, I caught another glimpse of that plump, pink, glistening cock of his.

  Which made me moan again, which made him deepen the kiss...

  It was untenable, long-term, this upside-down kiss.

  One of us was going to either break the kiss, or take it right side up.

  I kissed him first, but Corin was the one who changed it, upgraded it, made it not just a sweet, hot, weird, upside-down kiss moment. He made it into something scorching hot, took it from a flickering tendril of flame into a wildfire raging across a tinder-dry forest.

  I'm not sure how he did it, but he managed to twist around to face me and rise up to kneel between my legs in one smooth move, and his palm was on my cheek and he was wrapping my braid around his fist to jerk me closer, roughly, demandingly. His lips were fierce and firm, now, rather than soft and pliant. The hand palming my cheek slid down to my waist, then around and down, and he cupped the upper swell of my ass where it met the chair, pulling me to the edge of the Adirondack, and he was kneeling upright between my open thighs, and his grip on my braid vanished, dropping to clutch my thigh in a needy vise. Up, then, from my thigh to the crease of my hip, his grip powerful and rough. Demanding, just like his kiss.

  This was a Corin I didn't know, had no understanding of. The Corin I knew was sweet and funny and vulgar and brash, thoughtful and artistic and impatient and kind. This Corin, the man kissing me...he was wild and fervent and demanding and rough, whereas Corin was always gentle, even when he was being crazy and crude, he was never rude about it, just...crazy and funny. This Corin was...

  He was erotic as fuck, is what he was. The way he kissed me was wildly arousing. My core throbbed and pulsed and dripped with need, and my hands shook as I buried them in his hair to return the rough and demanding touch, moaning into the kiss as I knotted my fingers in his hair next to his scalp, pulling him closer even as he clutched his entire arm around my ass to jerk me more tightly against his hard, lean body.

  He shifted his grip upward again, from the crease where thigh meet hip to my waist, underneath my T-shirt, the heat of his hand branding my skin. I expected him to go for the gold, continuing his hand's upward journey to the promised land of my boobs, but he surprised me by not doing that. Instead, he brought his other hand up under my T-shirt to span the bare expanse of my waist just above the waistband of my jeans. The feel of his hands on my bare skin was enough to ratchet my pulse into heart palpitation territory, feeling so crazily, nerve-wrackingly amazing that it scared me, putting my heart in my throat and my stomach somewhere near my ankles.

  That's all he did, clutch my back and my waist. His hands slid up and around from my waist to my back, teasing near my bra strap, and then smoothing back down to my sides, and he did this again and again as we kissed.

  And the kiss itself? God, oh god, oh god. It felt like I'd never kissed anyone before. It was thrilling, intoxicating, and arousing to a degree that I'd never experienced in my life, making my whole body tremble with need, making me whimper into the kiss helplessly. My nipples were painfully hard peaks, and my clit throbbed. I needed more, and Corin wasn't giving it to me.

  I wanted to crawl on top of him and devour him, taste him, feel him. More. More.

  I tried to wait for him, but he was maddeningly precise in his touches, never quite daring to move where I expected and wanted him to go. His hands moved around to my stomach, and his thumb traced my diaphragm and ribs just beneath my breasts, and even traced the lower line of my bra, but he never cupped or fondled or even grazed my breasts by accident, instead traveling back down to my stomach, and then to my waist, and then around to my back and upward once more.

  I lost patience.

  My hands fisted in his T-shirt, lifting it so I could palm his chest, moaning as I slid closer to the edge of the Adirondack, wedging his body between my thighs so I was levered above him, face tipped down so he had to tilt his head upward to kiss me. I wanted the heat of his skin under my hands, needed to feel his muscles.

  Somehow, I don't know how, his T-shirt ended up on the deck behind him, and now I had his shoulders and sides and back all to myself, unhampered by a stupid thing like a damn shirt. He was still infuriating me with his non-erogenous but so intoxicatingly amazing wandering hands, and I was scouring his torso wherever I could reach, teasing around the waistband of his jeans. He was wearing a belt, but it was for looks rather than function since his jeans were pretty tight, which meant he had it buckled loosely. And the waist of the jeans had some play, as well. I knew these things, since I found myself allowing my hands to delve under his jeans to cup his bare ass, fondling the taut hard mounds of muscle, alternating between clutching and grabbing, and tracing with fingertips and gently smoothing with my palms.

  This, my hands on his ass, was yet another catalyst of change, altering the kiss f
rom a handsy make-out session to something hotter yet. He moaned blissfully as I palmed his butt with both hands, and this made something in my brain short out, and I clawed my fingers into the firm flesh and muscle. His groan turned into a growl, of something like frustration, and he broke the kiss momentarily, the first time we'd broken lip-lock in several minutes. He gasped, sucking in a breath, tongue toying with his lip ring, and the breath became yet another growl, and then he bit my lower lip sharply, nipping hard enough that I squeaked a yelp, and he soothed the sting with his tongue, the stud cold and hard against mine, intense and arousing

  I laughed, and then roughly slammed my mouth onto his, shoving my tongue into his mouth, tasting him, demanding him. He rumbled in his chest, and his hands stuttered over my flesh from my waist up to the middle of my back, and he nimbly unhooked my bra in a single deft movement, and then his hands were under the bra and cupping my bare breasts, thumbs flicking my nipples and then his palms grazed over the taut peaks before he clutched the soft pliable mounds of flesh in his hands, moaning raggedly as he fondled them with expert appreciation.

  He knew how to touch me, just knew. No pinching here, not yet. Just soft, gentle, affectionate touches. His palms were flat against my nipples, then sliding down to frame their weight in the V of his thumbs and forefingers, lifting them up until their heavy weight slid back down his palms, and then finally he ever so gently pincered my nipples between his thumb and forefinger, rolling the aching, turgid points until my gasp of shocked pleasure became a helpless whimper. My hips flexed automatically, grinding my core against his stomach, needing friction, needing touch. Needing more.