The List (The List #1) Read online

That’s the only word that makes it past my lips as the first wave hits me. The orgasm is like nothing I’ve felt before, swift and fierce and so powerful I nearly black out.

  Or maybe that’s the effect of having sex in total darkness. Pinpricks of light burst against my eyelids, and I bite down on Simon’s shoulder again to keep myself from crying out.

  I feel him shudder between my legs, and he stifles his own groan against my neck. Then he goes still.

  I wait for self-consciousness to set in. Shame for the public groping or the girl-on-girl kiss or the fact that I’m here in a broom closet with my dress hiked around my waist and my not-so-lightweight self being held up by a guy I’ve known just a few weeks.

  But instead of feeling embarrassed, I’m giddy. Releasing my grip on Simon, I lower myself to the floor and tug my dress down. I’m grinning in the darkness, and I can’t seem to stop.

  “That was amazing,” I whisper.

  There’s a low rumble, and I’m pretty sure he’s laughing. He finds my hand and squeezes it.

  “It was,” he whispers back.

  “Sex in a bar and girl-on-girl action,” I whisper. “That’s two on the list!”

  “More than halfway done.”

  I’m still glowing, but I feel my smile falter just a little. Maybe it’s the ebb of adrenaline. Maybe it’s the knowledge that we have to figure out a way to escape this closet unnoticed.

  But I don’t think that’s it.

  As Simon leans in to kiss me, I push back the knowledge that this whole crazy experiment will soon come to an end. I kiss him back hard, breathing in the spicy scent of his soap, grateful it’s too dark for him to see my face.

  Chapter Eleven

  Simon

  Over the next week, Cassie and I text each other sporadically. She’s out of touch for two days doing fieldwork at a remote logging site near the coast. I keep my phone switched off the afternoon I take Junie to the zoo for her birthday. We see pandas and gorillas, and I expertly dodge my sister’s questions about women.

  “Is Britney coming with us when we go to dinner?” she asks through a mouthful of cotton candy.

  “No, she isn’t.” I try not to grimace at the reminder of a girlfriend I haven’t seen for years.

  “Paula?” Junie scrunches her face in concentration, determined to get it right. For people with Down syndrome, retaining and relearning information can be a challenge. It’s always been a struggle for Junie. “Paula is your girlfriend,” she says with a note of uncertainty.

  “I haven’t had a girlfriend for a long time,” I assure her. “Want to go see the penguins now?”

  My sister frowns, and I can tell she’s trying hard to remember our previous conversations. To conjure a verbal or visual cue that might trigger her memory. “But I thought maybe you would get married,” she says. “I liked her.”

  It’s unclear which “her” she means, but the guilty pang in my chest is the same either way. “Nope!” I announce in the most upbeat voice I can muster. “I’m not getting married. I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

  I can almost pretend I don’t picture Cassie’s face when I say it. That I don’t wish things could be different between us.

  Or that I’m not desperate to see her by the time the weekend rolls around. It’s Saturday when I find myself in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck that smells pleasantly like potting soil and Cheetos. I keep stealing glimpses at Cassie beside me, her hair curling around her ears as she studies the map spread across her thighs.

  I’ll admit the first time I read item number five on The List, my nuts shriveled like a pair of prunes wedged between the ice trays. I’m all for creative sex, but sex in the snow?

  Not my idea of a good time.

  But four hours of round-trip driving alone with Cassie is my idea of a good time. I’m behind the wheel of her battered work truck, which was her idea. The four-wheel drive should prove handy where we’re going, which is apparently the middle of nowhere. Since she has a better idea than I do where we’re headed, she’s in charge of map reading and navigation.

  That works for me. Makes it much easier than explaining how I managed to afford a $220,000 Mercedes on a computer store clerk’s salary, and oh by the way, did I forget to mention I own the whole damn company?

  I’m not lying, exactly. I’m just not volunteering the whole truth. Maybe if I keep telling myself that I won’t feel so bad about it.

  “Okay, turn left here,” Cassie says.

  “Where?”

  “That little mile marker right there. Oh! You just missed it.”

  “That was a road?” I glance in the rearview mirror. “It looked more like a bike path for cyclists who like crashing into trees.”

  “It’s a Forest Service road,” she says as I make a U-turn in the middle of the highway. “It might be a little rustic.”

  Rustic is an understatement, but it’s also beautiful and untamed. A little like Cassie, who’s sitting beside me in well-worn jeans with tall snow boots and a green wool sweater that matches her eyes. She looks comfortable and soft, and I nearly drive off the road reaching over to stroke her knee.

  She grins at me and tucks a strand of hair behind one ear. “Thanks again for doing this, Simon.”

  “For driving you out into the middle of the woods to have sex in the snow where my balls will get hypothermia and require amputation? Don’t mention it.”

  Laughing, she folds the map over and trails a finger over the section that represents our destination. We’re climbing now, the narrow road-that’s-not-quite-a-road gaining elevation fast where the trees begin to thin. There are patches of snow on the ground, and I’m grateful Cassie has four-wheel drive and snow tires on this rig. She even packed a survival kit in the toolbox in back.

  “I know this is one of the weird ones on the list,” she says. “I almost thought about not doing it. But there’s something about the outdoorsy element that made me want to go through with it.”

  “Also, not your balls in jeopardy.” I smile to let her know I’m not really that worried about it. Truth be told, I’m kind of excited about experiencing this form of outdoor recreation. “You’ve always loved the outdoors?”

  “Always.” I see her smile from the corner of my eye, and though there’s a hint of sheepishness to it, there’s an unmistakable gleam of excitement. “It’s the thing I love best about my job. I know soil science seems like kind of a dorky profession, but it’s something I’m passionate about.”

  “When did you decide to be a soil scientist?”

  “Probably when I was a kid. I’m not sure I knew what a soil scientist was back then, but I used to play in the mud puddles in my backyard, gathering ‘samples’ and doing ‘experiments’ on them. God, my poor mother spent a fortune on Spray ’n Wash to get all the dirt out of my clothes.”

  “I’ll bet you were adorable.”

  “Adorable,” she repeats as though the word is unfamiliar to her. “I don’t know about that. I didn’t have much in common with my sisters. We had a tough time playing together sometimes.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They wanted to play with Barbies, and I wanted to bury Barbie in the dirt to see if she’d decompose.”

  I laugh and take a sharp left turn as Cassie points me onto another dirt road. The patches of snow are getting thicker, and I’m almost disappointed to know we’ll stop driving soon.

  “So, what does a soil scientist do, exactly?”

  “All kinds of things,” she says. “I evaluate soil and interpret the data for agricultural purposes or for environmental quality. Farmland and forests and mining operations and urban land—all of it has soil, and all of it tells a story.”

  “I never thought of it like that. That’s really cool.” I’m not sure if I mean the dirt trivia itself, or Cassie’s enthusiasm. Either way, it’s true.

  I’m loving how brainy she is. How fucking smart and passionate and excited about a career that’s so utterly unique.

  “Sounds
like you ended up in the right profession, then.”

  “For sure,” she says. “I love my job.”

  “I love mine, too.”

  I see her head swivel to look at me, and I worry I’ve opened Pandora’s box.

  “How long have you been working at Hot Swap?”

  “Eight years,” I tell her, which is true. I started the company from scratch when I was twenty-two years old.

  “I didn’t realize it’s been around that long.”

  “Yep. It’s one of the fastest-growing companies in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon Business magazine named us the top employer in the state last year, and Forbes is running a feature on us in the next issue.”

  Shit, that sounded way too braggy, at least for a guy who mans the front desk. I open my mouth to try and cover my mistake, but Cassie points a finger out the window.

  “Here!” She gestures to a section of dirt below a copse of frost-fringed evergreens. “This is a good spot. You can pull over in that little clearing.”

  I ease the truck onto a flat patch of dirt, marveling that we’re the only ones around. True, it’s late winter in the middle of the woods at five thousand feet above sea level, but I’m amazed no one else has discovered this place. The air smells fresh and clean, and the sky overhead is stunningly blue. It’s like we’re two million miles from the hustle of Portland traffic, even though it’s less than two hundred.

  Cassie pulls on a puffy gray jacket and jumps out of the truck, her boots landing in a patch of snow that’s a couple inches deep. I zip up my own coat and walk around the truck to join her. She’s tugging on a pair of red wool gloves and staring at the trees like a kid with a new puppy.

  “Wow,” Cassie says. “That’s the biggest Pinus contorta I’ve ever seen.”

  “Wait till I take it out of my pants.”

  That quip earns me a swat on the shoulder and an eye roll that makes me want to annoy her again just to watch those beautiful green eyes in motion.

  “Very funny,” she says. “Pinus contorta is a lodgepole pine. That guy right there.”

  She points to a twisted evergreen with densely clustered needles and pinecones the size of eggs. It’s a beautiful tree, and I’m not the kind of guy who normally admires trees. There’s something about being here with Cassie that makes me marvel at everything. From trees to rocks to the empty Starbucks cup on the ground—it’s all somehow picturesque with Cassie standing next to me.

  Junie would love it here.

  The words almost tumble out of my mouth before I can think them through. I clamp my teeth together, not willing to go there. No sense introducing Cassie to the idea of my kid sister. Ensuring the two never meet—that Junie never has a chance to get attached to another woman who won’t be in the picture long—is crucial to my sister’s happiness.

  “So, did you bring a blanket?” I ask.

  The question seems to startle Cassie “A blanket?”

  “I’m assuming you weren’t planning to lie down naked on the ground and have me pound you into a snowbank.”

  “I—uh—I guess I didn’t think of that.”

  It’s surprising, considering Cassie usually thinks of everything, but I know she’s been distracted this week. Work has been crazy, and her sisters have been hounding her about plans for a bachelorette party. I smile to let her know I’m not upset as I slip an arm around her shoulders.

  “I guess we could call that the Post Hole Digger,” I tell her. “I hold you up by the ankles while you’re facedown in the snow, and we cross number one off the list.”

  She laughs and looks around the clearing. White-capped mountains shimmer in the distance, and a bird swoops overhead and screeches something at us. A beam of sunlight bathes Cassie’s hair in golden light, while patches of snow sprawl out in the shady spots like glittery pillows of ice.

  Very cold, glittery pillows. We’re supposed to lie down on one of those?

  I have a better idea.

  I bend down and scoop Cassie into my arms. She yelps but twines her fingers behind my neck, nuzzling against my chest like she belongs there. “Where are we going?”

  “I’m giving you a chance to perform an up-close-and-personal inspection of the Pinus contorta,” I tell her.

  She giggles as I carry her over to the lodgepole pine she admired. There’s a patch of snow beside it that looks like the wind piled it up there. It’s smooth and pristine, maybe ten feet long and five feet wide with a pillow-like surface unmarred by footprints. I set her down in it and watch her sink past her ankles in tall boots.

  I let go to adjust my glasses, but Cassie keeps her fingers twined together behind my neck. She pulls me down for a kiss and I go willingly, tunneling my hands under her winter parka. She takes a step back so her back’s against the tree trunk. Breaking the kiss, she smiles up at me.

  “We’re in the snow,” she says, “so you should probably be in me.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  We fumble a little with our clothes. She drops one red glove in the snow as she yanks at my belt buckle. I burrow my hands under her sweater, touching her through a thermal undershirt. I’m hungry for bare flesh, but my fingertips are icy, so I don’t dare graze her naked belly.

  Our boots crunch in the snow as we kiss and touch and expose the least amount of skin possible while accessing all the vital parts. Cassie draws back, her breath coming fast in visible little puffs that seem to hover in the frozen air.

  “I want you.” The air around us is arctic, but there’s fire in Cassie’s eyes.

  I want her, too. More than I did the first time, or the second, or the third. How is that possible?

  “Let me.” I tug at the button on her jeans. I haven’t thought it through completely, how this will all work. I just know I need to be inside her. That I’m desperate to feel her again.

  That urgency gives me pause. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want Cassie Michaels. Not just her body, but her mind. Her personality. Her whole self.

  That scares the ever-loving hell out of me.

  But I can’t think of that right now with her hand sliding into my jeans. Her fingers wrap around my shaft, and I give a soft groan of pleasure when she strokes the full length of me.

  I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in, devouring every spot of flesh not covered by wool or nylon or down.

  “Simon?”

  “Mmmhmm?”

  “I didn’t want to mention this before, because it’s not like we know each other all that well—”

  Oh, God, oh, God, where is this going…

  “—but the thing is, I’m on the pill. And, um—well, I went in for my annual exam only a month ago and got a clean bill of health. I know we’ve been using condoms, but if you’ve been checked recently and know about your status, maybe we could—”

  I draw back, trying to process her words as she trails off and waits for me to fill in the blanks. Or fill in something else.

  My brain is fuzzy from all the touching we’ve been doing, and it takes a moment for her meaning to sink in. When it finally hits me, I feel my cock surge against her palm. I swallow hard and look into her eyes.

  “I had my yearly physical three weeks ago,” I tell her slowly. “I always have them do an STD panel. I could pull up the results on my phone if you—”

  “It’s okay, I trust you.”

  I feel a sharp pinch of guilt in my abdomen, and it has nothing to do with STDs. I’m not lying about that, but I haven’t exactly been forthcoming about who I am. The companies, the money, the huge house, the private jet. I open my mouth to tell her, but she cuts me off with a kiss. Her fingers are still wrapped around my dick, and my brain goes to mush again.

  I kiss her back, hard and wet and deep as Cassie keeps stroking me. Her words are still echoing in my head while I breathe in the honeyed scent of her hair. Dizzy with need, I kiss her back hard and deep. I’ve never felt such a rush of anticipation. Are we really going to do this? Am I really going to be inside Cassie with nothing
between us?

  “Yes,” she whispers as she leans up to nibble my earlobe, though I haven’t even asked the question out loud. It’s like she’s reading my mind, which is fucking terrifying.

  But terror isn’t the dominant emotion right now. Lust is. Desire. As I slide my fingers into Cassie’s jeans and between her legs, I’m hit with a powerful surge of it. She’s slick and soft and hot, and I want her so badly that I ache all over.

  “Okay,” she says, and presses a hand to my chest. I’m not sure what she has in mind at first. She gives me a mischievous smile, then turns around and wriggles her jeans down over her hips. They slide to mid-thigh, baring her lush, beautiful ass to the chilly air. I place a palm on each cheek, wanting to touch her almost as much as I want to be inside her.

  Cassie leans forward against the tree and braces herself on her forearms. Then she shoots me a look over her shoulder. A look that says, ‘fuck me,’ even though she hasn’t uttered a word.

  I don’t need a verbal invitation. I shove my jeans down in front, letting my cock spring free into the chilly forest air. I breathe in and out, savoring the pine-laced breeze and this breathless moment of anticipation. These frozen seconds before I slide inside her with nothing at all between us.

  “Please, Simon. I want you so much.”

  Those words nearly send me to my knees.

  But that’s not where I need to be right now. I position the head of my cock at her opening and slowly ease inside. She’s still looking at me over her shoulder, and I watch her eyes go wide. A soft moan fills the air, and I’m not certain if it’s her or me.

  As I ease inside, I wonder if this feels different to her, too. Part of me assumed this was just a concession to my pleasure, but watching the look on her face as I move condom-free inside her makes me realize it’s different for both of us.

  “You feel so fucking good,” I groan as I slide all the way in. She’s tight around me, hot and wet.

  She grinds her hips back into me, taking me in as deep as she can. “So do you.”

  I pull back and then slip in again, feeling the pressure building already. Too soon. I want to savor this. The first time being bare inside her with the walls of her sex so snug and slick. Cassie closes her eyes, and I know she’s doing the same thing.