Oh fuck.
“Hey, Mom, I’m just going to put this stuff away,” I say, shaking the bag, throwing up a prayer to Jesus—if He still listens to me—that my mother can’t see that there are extra-large Trojans inside.
Mom waves me off in herI don’t want to be any troubleMidwestern way, even though she is being, at the moment, ametric fuck-ton of trouble. “Oh, I’m just planning to head to bed. And you should too. It’s really quite late, Carson.”
“Absolutely,” I tell her, even though it’s barely ten, then glance over my shoulder at Dan, silently ordering him to follow me.
As soon as we get to the kitchen, I open the pantry and hide the bag of condoms on the top shelf behind the ancient salad spinner we never use. Then I whirl around to face Dan.
“So I guess this will have to wait,” he says, giving me a look so hot it nearly melts the rest of my clothes right off.
“This isn’t funny!” I hiss. I give my hands a shake, like that’ll help me release some of the stress that’s currently approaching a boil inside my body. But no. No matter how hard I shake, my chest still feels tight. Suddenly I’m sixteen again, worried my mother is going to find the romance novels I hid in the back of my closet, the sex scenes dog-eared and underlined.
Dan seems to catch on to the fact that this is not a joke, because he steps forward, his voice dropping low in a way that is entirely too sexy for my state of mind right now.
“I didn’t want my parents to know I have a boy living here!” I whisper-shout.
“A boy?” His eyebrow quirks, and I can tell he still doesn’t quite grasp the seriousness of this situation. And why would he? Dan grew up practically feral, one of many wild kids barely supervised by an overburdened father. Mr. McBride is incredible, but it’s not a stretch to say that as teens, the McBride boys practically raised themselves. Dan has no idea what it’s like to beraised. To be watched, worried over, monitored like you have your own personal NSA agents living in the next room. I had to achieve international life of crime levels of slick to get away withanythingin my house, and if I stacked up all my sins, they’d still look pretty tame. Mostly I just had that closet full of bodice rippers procured from library sales and candy hidden all over my bedroom like a Gen Z Claudia Kishi.
“What, you think ‘I have a man living here’ would go over better?” I ask, backing into the counter, because I need the supportright now. The whiplash of this night—going from panty-melting orgasm to greeting mymotherin my living room—is making me lightheaded.
“She doesn’t have to know we’re sleeping together.”
“She absolutelycannotknow that,” I say, horrified.
Dan looks confused. “Carson, you’re twenty-five years old.”
“And my parents still think I’m thirteen. To say nothing of the fact that my mother is the church lady to end all church ladies. If she found out you and I were planning on fucking tonight, I wouldn’t put it past her to call Pastor Steve over here tomorrow. And by the way, that would be the very first time she’s ever acknowledged the existence of sex to me.”
This does not seem to compute with Dan. “You never got a talk?”
“I got whatever my public school saw fit to offer, plus a ‘check yourself before you wreck yourself’ lesson in Sunday school. Frankly, I was floored my mother signed the sex ed permission slip. I’m guessing she didn’t realize what it was, because if she had, my butt would have been in the library during ‘Family Life Class.’” I make sarcastic finger quotes so aggressively I fear I’ve given myself carpal tunnel. “We are an abstinence-only household, Dan.”
Dan bites his lip to suppress a grin. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
“This isn’t funny!”
He shrugs, and it’s infuriatingly adorable “Come on. It’s a little funny.”
“Just…you have to sleep in your room. I’ll sleep in mine. My mom will sleep in hers, and for the duration of her stay, we will pretend you haven’t seen me naked.”
Despite his teasing, Dan doesn’t argue. He nods, accepting my terms, because apparently, despite my advanced age, to be involved with me is to participate in parental subterfuge.
“Okay,” he says, his voice even. He leans back against the counter opposite me, his hands in his pocket, and nods. Then hegazes at me from beneath hooded eyes. “But just know that every time I look at you for the rest of the weekend, I’m thinking about this.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out my panties, letting the white lace hang off one of the long, strong fingers that brought me so much pleasure earlier this evening. Then he holds them up to his nose and inhales.
My head fills with static, and I nearly throw myself at him, mother in the other room be damned. I want him so badly, my desire is practically a living thing. I don’t know how I’m going to fall asleep tonight when I’m so wracked with need, my mind filled with all the filthy things I’m eventually going to get to do with Dan.
“Honey, where are the towels?” My mom’s voice dissolves the thick cloud of desire that surrounds me like French perfume. “I checked the linen closet, but I didn’t see them.”
“I moved them to the laundry room,” I shout back.
“Why would you do that?”
I sigh. “Because I’m turning the linen closet into a coat closet.”
Mom shuffles into the kitchen just as Dan shoves my panties back into his pocket.
“Well, that’s silly—that’s what the coatrack’s for.”
