Vice, Virtue & Video: Revealed (The Vice, Virtue & Video Series) Read online

  My hand slides under her shirt and toward her perfect tits, but she reaches up and stops me before I touch her nipple. I head the other direction, taking my hand away and moving it down her body. My fingers slip under her shorts, and I can feel the dampness on her soft little curls as I start getting closer and closer to the Promised Land. She’s wet and ready for me, but she reaches down and grabs my wrist, stopping me from going any further.

  “James, no,” she whispers to me.

  “I want you so bad, Lola,” I say back. Even I can hear how strained and desperate my voice sounds. “I need you. I need this so bad, baby, you don’t even know.”

  “You don’t need it,” she softly protests. “This isn’t going to solve anything. This isn’t going to make anything better.”

  “It’s gonna make me feel good, and I’ll make you feel good too,” I reply, pushing my pelvis into her a little more so she can feel my hard cock pressing between her legs.

  She closes her eyes for a second, like it feels really good, but then she opens them and shakes her head at me.

  “I promise you’ll really like it. I’ll be really gentle, and I’ll go slow. It won’t hurt at all,” I offer.

  “You know we can’t,” she whispers as she looks in my eyes. “Let me just tell you what would happen if we had sex tonight, okay? It would be fun. It would probably be awesome and amazing and mind-blowing.” I grin at her prediction. “But we’d both feel like shit about it in the light of day tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think we would,” I respond. “I think we’d feel closer than ever, and we’d wanna do it a bunch more times.”

  She laughs and shakes her head before she reaches up and takes my face in her hands. “You’re hurt right now, James, and you think sex is the solution because you’ve always used sex to feel better when something bad happens. Remember when your mom freaked out because she found out you were failing math? And you went out and had sex with those two girls you and Joey met at the reservoir? Remember when your grandpa died and you had sex with about thirteen girls that week—I don’t even know how you pulled that off, honestly.”

  I snicker. She’s got a point.

  “Sex is easy for you, and it doesn’t mean anything,” she says, seeing right to the heart of things. “It’s fun and you can do it whenever you want because you’re good-looking and charming and everybody wants to fuck you.” That makes me smile a little bit. “But it doesn’t actually solve the deeper problems you’re dealing with emotionally. It’s a quick fix, that’s all.”

  I’m kind of taken aback by her observation. She’s completely right about everything she said.

  “Having sex with some girl—or a bunch of girls, or whatever crazy shit you do—it might be fun for a while, but it doesn’t actually fix anything. Your parents are still pissed off, and this whole porn fiasco will still be there after you come,” she says.

  I nod my head slightly. She’s totally right.

  She reaches up and strokes her fingers through my hair before she looks deep in my eyes. “Can you even imagine the guilt you would feel tomorrow if you fucked me tonight?”

  I can’t help but smile. Totally right. Impulsively taking Lola’s virginity would make me feel like a total dick.

  “You’ve always treated me like such a treasure, James. My whole life, you’ve made me feel special and precious. You’ve protected my virtue like you’re something out of a fucking fairy tale. I want you to seriously consider how you would feel about changing that on some kind of whim because you were emotionally vulnerable and you didn’t know how to deal with it,” she softly explains as she tenderly strokes the back of my neck. “You tell me all the time not to have sex until I’m in love, and now you’d fuck me because sex is a little Band-Aid on the gushing artery in your heart? How would you feel if you woke up in bed with me tomorrow morning knowing you’d basically used me for that?”

  “Horrible,” I admit.

  “Exactly!” She laughs quietly, playfully tangling her fingers in my hair.

  “Everything you said is totally right.” I smile down at her. “You just, like, nailed the truth in five seconds.”

  “I did get an A in Intro to Psychology,” she jokes.

  “You’re an amateur therapist, and a good one.”

  “You don’t need sex right now anyway,” she says, resting both her hands against my chest. “You need to feel loved and appreciated because you’re feeling really dejected after the way your parents banished you.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  “So I’m gonna hold you close and I’ll tell you all the reasons why you’re special to me and how you’re the best guy I know, okay?”

  “Okay.” I grin widely.

  With that, I move off her and lie back on the pillow next to her. She rests on her side with her head on my shoulder and her palm against my chest, just above my heart.

  “Okay,” she says sweetly, “here are all the reasons you’re a wonderful person.”

  I laugh, and I feel truly touched as she starts listing off all these things she likes about me. She covers everything from the way I always stand up for her when people are mean to her, to the fact that I’m better at driving in the snow than her, to how I make the best basil gnocchi she’s ever tasted. By the end of her pep talk, I feel like I could conquer the world.

  “See?” She grins when she’s all done. “I told you you’re the best guy I know.”

  I pause and look in her eyes. The pain is gone. All those awful feelings in the pit of my stomach from the way that my dad looked at me and the sound of my mom crying, have all kind of melted away. The relief of it is overwhelming, and I grab my chest as I try not to get emotional from this surge of happiness she’s just given me.

  “Lo,” I say sincerely, “you’re the best person I know—in fact, I’m pretty sure you’re the best person who ever lived. You’re my angel, kid, and I want you to know that I love you and I appreciate every second that I get to spend with you—not just now, even back when we were little. I don’t think anybody’s ever cared about me as much or made me feel as happy as you do.”

  “Aw!” She smiles and gives my chest a little reassuring pat. “It’s because I adore you, James. I truly, genuinely adore you, and anything I can do to make you happy makes me happy.”

  I turn to her and caress the side of her face before I give her a sneaky peck on the lips.

  “Down, boy!” She giggles and gives me a playful little smack on the shoulder.

  “It was just a peck.” I laugh innocently.

  “I’m not leaving this up to willpower,” she says, smiling a little flirtatiously, “because that’s a battle nobody’s gonna win.”

  I laugh with surprise. Ah ha! So she was into it!

  “No kissing, no more touching, just two best friends cuddling like we are now,” she says with a grin as she shakes her head a few times like she can Etch-A-Sketch away her attraction to me.

  “Then what am I supposed to do about this?” I joke, looking down at my body.

  “About what?” she says.

  I shift so I’m on my side, and I press my hard-on into her hip.

  “Still?” She laughs, her eyes wide with an adorable expression of surprise on her face.

  “Huh?”

  “You still have a boner? I saw you were hard when I came in, but you’ve really sustained that thing,” she teases.

  I have to cover my mouth to keep from laughing too hard. I definitely wouldn’t want to wake up Theresa right now. I have a feeling she wouldn’t be so nice to me if she came into the bedroom to find me in bed with her teenage daughter while sporting a raging hard-on.

  “You knew I was hard when you got into bed with me?” I ask with surprise after my laughter subsides.

  “Kinda.” She shrugs, and her cheeks are just a tiny bit rosy with embarrassment. “I mean, I saw something going on—I’d have to be blind to miss that thing—but I figured it’d just go away after a while.”

  “It would ha
ve, but then I was on top of you and your nipples were all hard…and it got a lot worse,” I admit, thinking back to those few hot moments we just shared.

  She snickers and rolls her eyes. “You say that like it’s an affliction.”

  “It is, dude.” I give her a sly smile. “Maybe you could fix it for me, baby. Maybe it needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Maybe you could nurse it back to health,” I joke, cranking the flirtation up to eleven.

  “Eeeew!” She giggles wildly, covering her mouth with the blanket to muffle the sounds.

  “And then we could swap and I’ll do it to you too,” I continue to tease. “And then maybe we could both do it at the same time. You ever tried a sixty-nine, Lola? I think you’d like it. You’re a good multitasker.”

  “James!” She flushes pink and keeps laughing as quietly as she can.

  “Then you could try putting your ankles behind your head or doing a little reverse cowgirl action,” I say, trying to get her all the way to that full blush that I’ve always thought was the cutest. “By the end of tonight, you could have tried doggy, maybe up against that wall, a little spoon action, and I could get you where we’re both sitting up facing each other—you’d definitely like that one ’cause it’s more intimate.”

  She gasps and covers her face as she giggles. I love making her shy like this. She’s so innocent, and I really love that about her.

  “Or maybe we won’t do any of that shit, and I could just cuddle with you and try to concentrate on something not-so-sexy until it goes back down,” I say sweetly as I pull her hands away from her face.

  “Filthy!” She gives me a pretend glare.

  “And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg, cupcake!” I tease.

  “Cupcake?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, cupcake,” I say with a playfully overconfident grin. “Would you prefer baby doll? Honey pie? Sugar tits?”

  Her shoulders are shaking with how hard she’s trying to mute her laughter.

  “What? I’m just trying them out. I don’t get to call girls anything besides ‘baby’ or porno shit like ‘slut’ and ‘little whore’ in movies, so I’m workshopping it.” I snicker.

  “Testing the waters of terms of endearment,” she says, chuckling as she shakes her head.

  “Exactly.” I nod. “So just go with it…angel pussy.”

  “James!” she gasps before laughing.

  “All right, all right, all right,” I playfully concede. “Just Lola, then…and maybe angel pussy on evenings and weekends.”

  She gives me a smile and then shakes her head like she thinks I’m nuts. I wrap my arm around her and pull her close to me. My sweet, funny, kind, warm, beautiful best friend. She’s my treasure. My little angel. This girl means the fuckin’ world to me.

  We get quiet after that as exhaustion starts to set in. It’s been a long-ass day. After a while, I can hear Lola breathing deeply, and I know she’s already nodded off. I take a few moments to savor the feel of her skin and the warmth of her body, and I start to feel very calm and content. As much as I want to hold her in my arms tonight, I know Theresa will flip the fuck out if she discovers me in bed with her daughter in the morning.

  I gently scoop Lola up and peek out the doorway to check that the coast is clear. It’s really late and Theresa’s still asleep, so I quietly tiptoe down the hallway to Lola’s room. I’m half naked and Lola’s exhausted like she’s been thoroughly fucked, so getting caught right now would not be good. I deposit her in her bed before pulling up the covers and getting her comfortable.

  “James,” she says, her voice all soft and sleepy.

  “Yeah, Lo?” I whisper.

  “Are we in my room?” she drowsily asks.

  “Yeah,” I quietly reply. “You passed out in my bed and I didn’t want your mom to get pissed. Now get some sleep so you’re not totally wiped out in the morning.”

  “Okay, James,” she sighs as she lies back on the pillow.

  “Goodnight, Lo,” I whisper and kiss her forehead.

  “Goodnight…cupcake,” she says back with her eyes closed and a playful smirk on her lips.

  I snicker all the way back to my room. When I get under the covers, I don’t feel so cold and frozen inside. Lola’s my heart. If I were Popeye, she’d be my spinach. She gives me so much strength by just being there for me and talking things out with me. I love her, and I appreciate her so much. I’m really, really glad she stopped me tonight because I can’t imagine how bad I’d feel if I actually did anything to her. She’s too perfect, and I’d feel like I was defiling her. It’d be like fucking a sunset or something. I love the way she just sort of laughed it off, too. She’s so cool like that, and she never gets weirded out by the nasty shit that I do. I know that, no matter what may happen, me and Lo will be best friends for the rest of our lives because our bond runs a whole lot deeper than anything I’ve ever felt for anybody else.

  Chapter 10

  Lola

  MY FINAL ISN’T UNTIL twelve thirty this afternoon, but I can’t sleep, so I wake up around eight thirty, just in time to see my mom leaving for work. The guest bedroom door is still closed as I quietly go to the kitchen to put the coffee on. I fill up the pot with water and turn away from the sink when I gasp. James is standing there in just his boxer briefs with that sweet, shy look on his face.

  “Sorry.” He smiles bashfully. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Christ, you’re like a ninja!” I laugh at the way he surprised me.

  He chuckles and then takes the coffee pot from my hands and pours it in the machine.

  There’s a slightly awkward pause while we’re waiting for it to percolate. I’m thinking about what happened last night, and I’m pretty sure he’s feeling just as sheepish as I am. It was no big deal, only a few minutes of action, but there were some lingering emotions there—at least for me. I don’t want to admit it, but I liked it. I knew we shouldn’t have done it, which was why I put a stop to it, but I can’t deny that the way he kissed my neck felt pretty amazing.

  “So…I totally tried to feel your tits last night,” he says, breaking the ice in that blunt, direct, oh-so-James way I’m so used to.

  “Yes. Yes, you did,” I laugh.

  “Lo, I’m sorry about that. I just—” he starts.

  “James, it’s okay,” I say. “Really, I mean it. Seriously, it’s okay. No harm, no foul. It’s in the past.”

  If this turns into a big discussion, I’m worried that I’ll reveal how much I liked it and how I’m currently imagining a scenario in which he’d tear off my shorts and take me right here on the kitchen counter.

  “I think…I just feel like we should talk about this,” he says tentatively.

  I swallow hard and nod. Yes, it’s true: we probably should talk about it, even though I don’t really want to.

  “Um, I think it’s obvious at this point that I find you very attractive,” he says, avoiding eye contact with me. “I kind of…got carried away with that, and…uh…I acted on impulse.”

  “I understand. It’s no big deal,” I say before conceding, “I think you’re very attractive too. I wasn’t all that bothered by what you did; I just knew we shouldn’t let it progress any further.”

  “So…you’re not, you know, creeped out about it or anything?” he asks shyly.

  “No,” I laugh. “God, no, not at all!”

  “Really?” He smiles and exhales a big sigh of relief.

  “Yeah, man. I’m not going to bullshit you and try to tell you that I didn’t like the way it felt. I did, and I’m sure you were very aware that I did—”

  “Your nipples are your tell, kid,” he teases.

  I give him a sarcastic smirk. “Anyway,” I say with played-up exasperation, “it’s nothing more than what happened at the pool party that time, so it’s not really that big of a deal.”

  As the words leave my lips, I realize that this is the first time I’ve ever mentioned the incident at Dave Keegan’s house that fateful summer. James ha
d this look on his face when we were all alone in that hallway: I call it the James Laird Sex Laser Beam, and I was locked in his sights for those few precious moments.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what happened to me back then.” He chuckles, scratching the back of his neck in an unconscious gesture of embarrassment.

  “I didn’t have a problem with it, really.” I shrug, trying not to give away how much I fucking loved it. “It was very…spontaneous, but it was kind of fun, actually.”

  “You dug it?” he says with a sly grin.

  I nod my head, and I can feel the pink rushing to my cheeks.

  “Seriously?” he says in a softer, more sensual tone as he steps closer to me.

  I nod again, and he stands right in front of me, hovering over me. I’m practically shaking as I vividly recall the way his lips felt on my neck, both the day of the pool party and last night.

  He puts his hands on my hips and looks into my eyes with the diet version of the James Laird Sex Laser Beam. I can feel my heart flutter a little as he moves higher up, gently gripping my ribs before resting his palms on the sides of my breasts. A hint of a smile crosses his lips as he moves his hands forward and softly cups me, not squeezing or making any major motion, just looking in my eyes and subtly caressing my breasts. My lips part, and I can feel my breathing getting deeper as I anticipate his next move.

  The coffeemaker shuts off, signaling that the coffee is ready. That seems to break the spell because James drops his hands and shakes his head as he looks away. I take a deep breath and go to the cupboard to get two mugs.

  We sit down at the table and take the first few sips in silence, looking everywhere but at each other.

  “Lo, I think I should go back to Cali,” he finally says.

  “What? Why?” I whine. I don’t want him to go. I love having him around, even with this strange, sexually charged air between us.

  “I’m worried, babe,” he says with a new sort of vulnerability.