Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,51

something to say. “Bound to be something as vintage as the theater, though.”

“Ah,” Chelsea says. “The black-and-white days when men lit the ladies’ cigarettes and the women wore high heels to bed.” I guess I toss her a stunned look, because she teases me with a shocked expression of her own and shoots a popcorn kernel at my head.

We laugh—in that moment, it’s easy. And maybe, I think, it’s supposed to be. Still, something in me keeps pressing closer to the door, like any minute I might just jump from the cab and bolt.

Chelsea crosses her legs, making the hem of her sundress fall back an inch. Licks the tips of her butter-greased fingers.

Ouch.

You want me to beat the bullshit out of you? I can still hear Greg yelling at me, telling me it’s time to move on, as he kicked me in the middle of that dirt road. And as I listen to those words circle through my head, I think of the compass—and remember that when Chelsea pulled it from my shorts, its arrow pointed straight from her to me.

I’m still nervous, but as I stare at her profile, desire starts to bubble inside me. Starts to eclipse the fears I’ve been carrying around for two years.

This is what I want.

The blond, beautiful, peach-scented creature sits next to me, waiting for me to touch her.

Chelsea

charging

After a Road Runner cartoon, the opening credits reveal that the night’s feature is an Alfred Hitchcock number—Vertigo, with Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. The movie makes me wonder what it’d be like to love someone so much, you’d stalk their double. Really—what would it be like to be that infatuated?

I glance sideways at Clint. In so many ways, this black diamond of a man, his insides obscured by darkness, is nothing like the overtly romantic Gabe, who wears his love for me like a screenprinted message on a T-shirt. Is it completely bizarre to be drawn to two guys who are practically polar opposites? What does it mean about how I feel for Gabe when I’m drawn to someone else who’s so completely different?

Clint begins to run his fingertips down my arm, erasing the question marks that have been swirling through my mind, replacing them with bold-print exclamations. His touch is gentle, but I feel like he’s just lit my skin on fire.

He’s never reached out and touched me this way.

I lean toward him, locking his gaze for a minute before closing my eyes and finding his lips on mine.

God, he tastes as good as the butter-laden popcorn—better. Forget Jimmy and Kim—Clint and I are the night’s hottest couple.

Wait—couple?

“Chelsea,” he murmurs in my ear. “Do you give a crap about this movie?”

I flash what feels like a devilish grin, shake my head no. He throws himself back into his seat, starts the engine, and reaches for my hand as he steers out of the drive-in.

I’m soaring as I feel Clint’s hand in mine. I swear—Publishers Clearing House winners couldn’t be any happier when they peer through the curtains to see balloons and a five-foot check waiting for them on the porch.

Clint and I ride quietly back toward the edge of the lake. The eerie shriek of loons and the creaky-screen-door call of crickets fill the cab with their music.

He cuts the engine in a secluded area—a rough and rugged section of shore. No dock, no kayak rental, no signs proclaiming when the next fishing boat will leave the dock. Just the moon, the crickets, the loons, and the trees.

Without a word, Clint covers my lips with his own. I savor the feel of him a moment before deciding to test him a bit; I strengthen the kiss. But Clint doesn’t pull away. He answers back—his mouth plunges deeper against my own, no reservations. I sink my fingers into his hair.

We make out for who knows how long. Kissing like that—deep, soulful—it just doesn’t seem to have any time attached to it at all. We kiss until kissing’s not enough. Until Clint’s hand starts to stroke one of my thighs.

A need builds deep inside of me, more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt before. A hunger unfolds—only it isn’t coming from my stomach. It’s coming, to be honest, from a region decidedly lower. I close my eyes and nearly drown in our seclusion, our solitude. Clint reaches up beneath my sundress as his lips start to rove toward my neck. But I wiggle until our mouths meet again.

Clint draws his hand out from underneath