Beginning of chapter 10, about 1850 words.
I’m so fucking tired right now that even if I would have *wanted* to write more, I couldn’t.
Chapter 10: Lashing
She was sitting against him, warm and comfortable and at once too far away and too close to him. Reese was sure that June could sense his weird mixture of bliss and discomfort, but she did not do anything about it for a bit. “What do you think they’re talking about?” he asked her a minute or two after Robin and Marit had left and music and human voices babbling and laughing had filled the silence between them.
“Maybe they are fucking in the snow like you said,” she said, looking up at him with a sardonic smile playing around her lips.
He chuckled. “I did that once. It’s very cold.”
“I can imagine that.”
“After a while the snow that you’ve heated up with your body packs together and becomes like ice. And even though you’re busy, you’re still cold. I felt like a fucking icicle afterwards.”
June turned around and tucked one of her bangs behind her ear in that cute manner that she had. Her smile wasn’t all that cute. “I bet your girl just didn’t make you warm enough inside.”
He met her eyes boldly and responded to her unspoken challenge in kind. “Might have been so,” he answered. “Do you say that you can do better then?”
“Marlene used to say so,” she said. She was challenging it right back. He could feel it in the air, see it in her eyes and her whole body language. “And one of my lovers longer ago called me a spitfire. As a compliment.”
“Really now.”
Still that staring contest, still that battle of wills. Fuck if it didn’t turn him on.
“Yes.”
He responded: “I don’t believe anything until you prove it.”
A challenge; a dare. /Kiss me if you dare. Fuck me if you want. Finish this damn game for once and for all June, and I will have you gladly. You know I will./
The next moment she was all over him.
He nearly fell off his barstool until he regained his wits and kissed her right back. She all but climbed on his lap and pulled him tightly against her, predatory. Like a lioness, perhaps. She was ferocious but he had not been kidding when he challenged her. He liked spitfire girls. Spunk, was what he wanted. June was all spunk. And she kissed like a goddess.
Her hand slid over his chest and his stomach, down between his legs. She cupped his balls and caressed there, uncaring who might see them. It only made it worse; the longing, his arousal. If she would lead him to a bathroom stall or out into the snow, he would do her right there. It was time to end this game. He wanted her so bloody badly.
In the end he did not know how long they’d been making out passionately. All he knew was that he indeed practically was on fire and that he wanted this sweet moment to last forever and to pass, because then they could move on to the next stage.
The sad thing was that this never happened.
Suddenly June jerked up and whirled around. Again she made him lose his balance and he nearly came in a painful collision with the ground when she slid off his lap and raked a hand through her dark hair. It took him one moment to gather his mind to notice that Robin and Marit had returned. And both of them were glowing with happiness and holding hands in a way that only couples who had something wonderful happen to them would do. Marit was nearly radiating. He had seen brides who looked less blissful than Marit did at that very moment. There were only two possibilities: either they just got engaged, or Marit was pregnant. And he knew them well enough that Marit wouldn’t be happy about that. She would be about Robin proposing to her.
And she was wearing a ring with a diamond around her left ring finger that he had never seen before. Shit, no wonder that Robin had been complaining about money lately. That thing must have cost a small fortune.
All it took was one look to understand, so he looked at June. What he saw was something he did not expect. There was pure naked horror on her face, before she got herself well in hand again.
“No, you didn’t…” It wasn’t audible over the music, but he read her lips in a split second while Marit was gazing up at her husband-to-be. June was shocked and terrified to the core of her being. For that one split second she looked like her world was collapsing about her – and Reese understood.
He understood her ploy.
She’d kissed him not for him, but to make Marit jealous. When she had kissed Marit she had not done it to seduce him, but /her/. It had all been about /her/ from the beginning. He had lost his game and his girl. She had played him for a fool the whole fucking time.
It was a heart-stopping, time-chilling moment. He didn’t know whether to slap her for what she was doing to him, or console her for how she was hurting.
Time speeded up again. The lights flashed and the world turned again. Marit looked away from her fiancé and smiled at them. “Something wonderful just happened,” she told them with that brilliant, radiant smile. As if it was a surprise to them. She was completely oblivious for what was going on here; she was completely in her own world at the moment.
She probably never even noticed that they had been all over one another but a minute ago. Her usually so keen sense of perception had gone out of the window, she was completely the blushing bride right now. “Robin just proposed to me,” she shone. “I said yes.”
“So we figured,” Reese said. He felt completely numb inside. “Congratulations.”
“Yes, congratulations,” June added.
Reese stole a glance at her and found her smile fake, as if it was plastered all over her face. He saw Robin look at well, but Marit just squealed and began to talk about how romantic it had been, how happy she was, and that they were planning on marrying somewhere this summer, perhaps at the beach where they’d done the campfires at her birthday, that would be so lovely, didn’t they think so?
He nodded at all the right places and smiled at all the right moments, but there was an awkward silence whenever Marit stopped prattling for just an instant. There was something very wrong here, and not just with him. June was looking at Marit with a sort of tortured look that badly concealed suffering, but when she looked at Robin her eyes steeled into emotions that were a whole lot darker. It was jealousy, Reese assumed. She hated Robin for having Marit.
/She never loved you to begin with,/ he thought, clenching his jaw together as his heart broke along with June’s. /She loved Marit./ But June was being rejected as he was right now. Perhaps that was the only thing that kept him from hating her forever. She was as forlorn and foolish as he was for loving someone who could not be reached.
June held out for half an hour before she claimed to be really tired. “I’m glad that you are so happy Marit,” she said warmly before she left. She gave the blond girl a tight hug. “You deserve happiness. You’re a beautiful person.”
“So are you,” Marit hugged back.
Reese just watched them. He still couldn’t make up her mind. Did he love her or did he hate her? He couldn’t feel it right now. He was just so numb inside; he couldn’t feel /anything/ anymore. At any other time he might have been overjoyed with the news that his friends had brought him, but not tonight. Still, he tried to be as good a friend as he could under the circumstances.
Marit, in her glowy haze of happiness, never noticed. She went to bed long afterwards, when they had walked home through the snow and they had one last drink in the lobby of the hotel. The velvet-draped room was a nice place to hang out when all the pubs closed off, one after another. The lobby was always open, and there would always be somebody at the bar that gladly served them drinks and graciously accepted their tips. Staying here felt a bit like guilty decadence and Reese couldn’t help liking that.
“Good night, Reese,” Marit told him, giving him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. He kissed her back in the same fashion and said: “Sweet dreams, Marit. May you dream of your wedding.”
She beamed back at him and then made her way to the elevator that would take her to the room she shared with Robin. He watched her walk away. She was practically bouncing with joy. It was a wonderful sight to see. June was right: Marit did deserve happiness.
When the elevator had closed and was moving upwards, he finally looked at Robin.
His friend was staring him with a dark look that would put a moonless stormy night to shame. He was tensed in his shoulders and seemed to clench his jaw together in anger, as if he were going to punch someone. “What the /fuck/ is up with your lukewarm response?” Robin spat.
“I’m happy for you.”
“No, you’re not. Do you think I’m stupid or something?”
Reese sighed. “I am. I am genuinely, truly, totally glad for you, dude.” He took a healthy swallow from his liquor shot. “You scored yourself an awesome woman. You will be married to her, and you two will be great together.”
His words hardly seemed to help. Robin was still seething. “Then what is wrong?”
/God, you’re as fucking blind as Marit was tonight. What the hell are you thinking? Do you even live in the same world as we are right now?/
He said none of it. Instead, he just finished his glass and snatched one of Robin’s cigarettes out of the package. Lighting the cigarette, he kept his eyes on the glowing tip and did not meet his friend’s eyes. “Did you see June?” he asked finally.
“Yes,” Robin all but growled. “So she’s jealous. What of it? She’s not my problem.”
“Before you guys walked in, she was kissing /me/.”
“She…” his dark eyes widened a little. “She /what/? Why?”
Reese stared at the table. “Because I thought she loved me. Because she thought it would make Marit love her. Because she only loves herself. Hell if I know.”
“Do you?”
“Know? I’m just saying-“
“No dude!” Robin exclaimed. This voice echoed unexpectedly through the large lobby. They were both surprised to hear the place echo, especially with as many draperies like this hotel seemed to have. “Dude, did you love her? /Do/ you love her?”
Reese stared at his friend. It was nothing like him to be so direct.
OMG Dont end it there! Come back here right now lannie and finish this story!