P.S. Not if You Were the Last Man on Earth Read online

  “Oh?” I said lightly. “You weren’t always a looker?”

  “Believe it or not, I wasn’t,” he said softly.

  “I find it hard to believe.”

  “I didn’t blossom until college when I joined the baseball team. I was a walk-on with Finn. I’m not sure if I told you that already.”

  “Oh, yeah. I think you may have mentioned it. So you didn’t play in high school, then?”

  “Nope. I was a nerd, remember?”

  “I just can’t wrap my head around you being a nerd.”

  “Well, listen to this.”

  “What?”

  He cleared his throat. “Hi-ho, little Bobby Brown caught napping—”

  “What?” I interrupted him. “What are you saying?”

  “It’s the periodic table. It’s how I remembered it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hi, hydrogen. Ho, helium. Little, lithium. Brown—tell me if you can guess what that is.”

  I laughed. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Come on. Guess, Susie.”

  “What did you say it began with again?”

  “B. Be.”

  “Um, I don’t know. Bear?”

  “No, silly. Periodic table.”

  “I don’t know. Tell me.”

  “Beryllium.”

  “Um, never heard of it before in my life.”

  “You never took chemistry?” He sounded surprised.

  “I did, but I guess I wasn’t that good at it. So, wow. You really remember it based on that rhyme?”

  “Yeah. Hi-ho, little Bobby Brown caught napping on Friday night. Naughty Maggie always sings pop songs.”

  “Wow,” I said again. “So, that’s a periodic table.”

  “Yeah, those are the elements.”

  “You can still remember what they stand for?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen.” He cleared his throat. “Fluorine, neon, sodium—because NA is sodium.”

  “Okay, if you say so.”

  “Magnesium, aluminum, silicone, phosphorus, sulfur.”

  “Wow. That’s really cool.”

  “Chlorine, argon, potassium—and potassium is K.”

  “Are you going to recite the entire periodic table?”

  “No.” He started laughing. “Fun first date I am, huh?” He stopped himself. “Well, not technically a first date, but our first night together. And not even technically our first night together. Well, not in that sense anyway.”

  “Yeah, not in that sense at all,” I said.

  “So do you enjoy camping?”

  “You’re just changing the subject?” I said, surprised. “I thought you were telling me all about chemistry.”

  “Didn’t we already establish that I don’t want to bore you?”

  “It doesn’t bore me if it excites you. I’m just surprised. I’ve never met a jock that’s into chemistry before.”

  “Have you met many jocks?”

  “No, not really. I wasn’t in that crowd in high school, and definitely not in college.”

  “I wasn’t in that crowd in high school either,” he said softly. “In fact, I hated jocks when I was in high school.”

  “Really?” It was my turn to be surprised. How was it that Brody Wainwright, star baseball player, had hated jocks when he was in high school? That didn’t make sense. He was a jock, maybe the biggest jock of them all. I knew there was a story there, but I didn’t want to be nosy and pry.

  “So, you like camping?” he asked.

  “Not really. It’s not Marcia’s and my thing, to be honest.”

  “What do you and Marcia like to do?”

  “Shop, go to lunch, read, watch movies, go to the theater, play board games, go hiking—actually, that’s a lie.”

  “You don’t like hiking?” he said.

  “Well, we like going for walks, which is very different from hiking. We’ll walk around the mall. But when most people hear hiking, they think something different.”

  He chuckled. “Like climbing Half Dome.”

  “Oh my gosh. Don’t remind me. I don’t know how I’m going to make this climb.”

  “You’ll be fine, Susie.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Do you like camping?”

  “I haven’t been camping in a while,” he said. “When I was younger, my brothers and I used to go camping a lot. My grandparents were kind of country, you know? So we learned to shoot and hunt and fish. So, yeah, I was into it back then.”

  “Do you and your brothers go camping a lot now?”

  “No,” he said abruptly. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah.” I wondered why he changed the subject. I could tell by the harsh tone in his voice that he didn’t want to talk about his family.

  What had happened? Were his brothers jealous of his success? Had one of his brothers slept with his girlfriend? There was a story there, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it, but I wasn’t going to ask.

  “Have you ever kissed in the dark?”

  “What?” I started laughing. His question was so out of left field.

  “That wasn’t the response I was expecting,” he said huskily. “Can I tell you something?”

  I could feel his face getting closer to mine. My body was warming, and I was slightly out of breath, even though he wasn’t even touching me.

  “What are you going to tell me? More chemistry?”

  “Well, did you know the nucleus—” He stopped and started laughing. “No, that’s not what I wanted to tell you. And actually, I changed my mind. I’m not going to tell you now.”

  “You can’t do that,” I said softly.

  “I can’t do what?”

  “You can’t tell me you’re going to tell me something and then not tell me. That’s not fair.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “But now I’m always going to be wondering what you were going to tell me.”

  “I don’t think you’d care that much.”

  “I do. I want to know.”

  “I don’t want to get into trouble.”

  “What do you mean? How are you going to get in trouble?”

  “Because if I tell you what I wanted to tell you, then you’re going to be upset, and you’re going to tell Marcia, who’s going to tell Finn, who’s going to blow up at me and say that I’m ruining his relationship.”

  “I promise I won’t say anything.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I want to risk it.”

  “Oh my gosh, Brody. What were you going to tell me?”

  “I was just going to tell you that the first time I saw you, I thought you were very pretty.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “And I thought you had beautiful lips.”

  “Okay.” I could feel my face warming as I smiled. I was grateful we were in the dark, and he couldn’t see how happy he was making me.

  “And I was also going to tell you that I thought you had a wicked…”

  “What? You thought I had a wicked what?”

  “I better stop while I’m ahead.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Brody, tell me.”

  “Why? So you can tell me off?”

  “I’m not going to tell you off.”

  He unzipped his sleeping bag.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m feeling warm, so I’m going to lie on top of it for a little bit.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said.

  “Are you feeling warm too?”

  “A little bit.”

  “I can help you unzip it if you want,” he said, and before I knew what was happening, he was unzipping the bag all the way down. I could feel his breath close to my face as he leaned over me. His eyes were looking into mine, and he was grinning. “So, Susie.”

  “Yes, Brody?”

  “I was thinking…”

  “
Yeah?”

  “That you have a really nice rack.”

  “Really? How old are you? Who says rack?”

  “Would you rather me say breasts or tits or titties or boobies? I thought you had a fine set of boobies.”

  “But you’ve never seen my boobies,” I said softly. He groaned then and stepped back so that he was on his own sleeping bag.

  “You’re flirting with me, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Me?” I said innocently. “How am I flirting with you? You’re the one that brought up my boobies.”

  “I can tell from your tone that you’re trying to tease and seduce me.”

  “I didn’t know I had a tone, Brody.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said, and then his arms wound around me, and he was tickling me. I started giggling loudly, as I was very ticklish, and I tried to push him back.

  “No, you can’t tickle me,” I said as I reached my hands up and tried to tickle him too. I was giggling harder and harder, and we started wrestling around on the sleeping bags. “Brody Wainwright, I’m going to get you,” I said as he pushed me back.

  “Not if I get you first.” We were both laughing and rolling around until, suddenly, we both stopped. I was breathing heavily as I straddled him. His hands were pressed under mine, and I grinned down at him.

  “I got you exactly where I want you.”

  “Something tells me you really want me,” he said huskily. I realized then that I was sitting on top of him. That I could feel his hardness between my legs. I quickly rolled off and lay on top of my sleeping bag.

  “Well, I didn’t anticipate having a tickling match tonight,” I said.

  “Me neither,” he said as he reached over and brushed the hair away from my face. “But I’m glad that we did.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Why do you think?” he said.

  I swallowed hard. Brody had a way of turning me on with the things he didn’t say or do. I was definitely beginning to understand why he had so many women under his spell.

  Ten

  Brody

  I could still feel Susie’s hair tickling the side of my face, even though she was now on top of her own sleeping bag. I looked over at her, and I could tell she was slightly embarrassed, but also slightly turned on, which was an understatement for me. I had a hard-on as tall and stiff as Plymouth Rock, and it didn’t seem like it was going to lessen in size anytime soon. Normally, in situations like these, I would roll over and pull her into my arms, kiss her, and touch her softly before eventually making her mine. But this wasn’t a normal situation. Susie wasn’t someone I could just fuck. She wasn’t someone I could just have a night of fun with and forget about in the morning.

  For one, I didn’t want to do that. And for two, if I did, Finn would absolutely kill me and would probably end our friendship, and I wasn’t willing to risk that. He was a good guy, and I quite liked hanging out with him, Marcia, and Susie.

  “You surprise me,” Susie said softly, her voice barely a whisper. She had a sexy voice, and I wondered if she knew how much it turned me on when she spoke in the dark. I could listen to her talk all night.

  “How so?” I chewed on my lower lip. I wanted to make a comment about her being surprised at how hard my dick had felt against her when she’d been on top of me just now, but I was trying to be a better man. I was trying to be more appropriate, even though it was very hard for me—pun intended.

  “I just thought you would’ve had me on my back by now,” she said with a girlish giggle.

  “Oh?” I was getting even harder now.

  “Yeah.” She leaned closer to me, and I could see her peering at me. “I thought you were some sort of playboy. I thought you’d have your wicked way with me.”

  “I’m trying to be respectful, Susie,” I said as I moved closer to her. My hand found the side of her face, and I brushed hairs away from her forehead. Her lips trembled slightly, and I rubbed my thumb against them. “I don’t want to do anything you’ll regret.”

  “I wouldn’t let you do anything I’d regret,” she said, staring at me unabashedly.

  “Are you coming on to me, Susie?”

  “No.” She shook her head quickly. “I was just saying I’m surprised, you know, given your reputation.”

  “My reputation precedes me, I assume.”

  “I guess it does.”

  “But I’m curious. What do you know of my reputation? I thought you weren’t interested in sports, and you had absolutely no idea who I was.”

  “Well, I don’t, but—” She looked away quickly.

  “What? What is it? I’m curious.”

  “Google is my friend, and I looked you up.”

  “Ah, I see. So you know all about me now, do you?”

  “Not really. Surprisingly, there wasn’t that much information about you other than the baseball teams that you’ve played on and the many women you’ve dated.”

  “Ah, the models and the actresses—even a princess or two.”

  “You dated a princess?” she said, her eyes widening in shock. I could tell by the way she was staring directly in my eyes that she was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not.

  “Well, I don’t know that she would call it dating. I certainly wouldn’t.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Wow.”

  “Wow indeed.” I laughed. “So what do you imagine I would’ve done if you weren’t Finn’s girlfriend’s best friend?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Perhaps I would’ve kissed you,” I said, moving my lips closer to hers, but not touching them. “And then perhaps I would’ve run my fingers down your arms like this.” I ran them softly down the side of her arms, and she shivered.

  “And then perhaps my hand would’ve slid to your stomach.” My hand moved to her stomach and slid her T-shirt up so that the palm of my hand was resting against her skin. It was warm, and I could feel her heart beating through her skin.

  “Finn wouldn’t like this,” she said.

  “But does Finn have to know?”

  “No. What would you have done next?”

  “Then I would’ve moved my hand up.” My fingers inched their way up her stomach and stopped right underneath her right breast.

  She gasped. “And then?”

  “And then my hand would have cupped you.” I ran my fingers across her bra and then pulled them away. “And I would have slipped your breast out of your bra and teased you, squeezing your nipple before bending my head to kiss and suck. Do I need to go on?”

  “You’re not going to show me?” she said breathlessly.

  I could hear the stress and tension in her voice. I could tell she wanted me to touch her as badly as I wanted to. She was as caught up in the moment as I was, and if she were anyone else, if I cared even just a little bit less, I would’ve made her mine.

  I licked my lips slowly and then gazed down at her beautiful face. Because even though it was dark and shadowed, I could still make out the outline. I could still see her eyes, wide and innocent, staring up at me.

  “Are you a virgin, Susie?” I asked her softly, my lips mere inches from hers.

  “No.” She laughed—a loud sound that delighted me. “Why would you think I’m a virgin?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you just act like one.”

  “How does one act like a virgin?”

  I pressed my lips against hers, unable to stop myself. She kissed me back and wrapped her arms around my neck. Her fingers were in my hair, and I moaned against her lips as I slipped my hand up the side of her shirt and cupped her breast. I adjusted myself on top of her so she could feel the full weight of me, and she opened her legs. My tongue entered her mouth, and she sucked on it eagerly, her fingers now on my back, running down so they could slip inside my T-shirt. Her hands traveled my warm skin, and I’d never felt more alive in my life.

  I pulled away then and gave her one kiss on the forehead. “Now, now, Susie. I’m going to think you’re trying to sedu
ce me.”

  “Well, Mr. Wainwright,” she whispered in my ear, “perhaps I am.”

  Eleven

  Susie

  “So who’s ready to hike Half Dome this morning?” Finn’s voice sounded unbearably cheerful as I exited the tent.

  “Not me.” I shook my head. “I’m feeling really nervous, guys. I’m not even trying to downplay this, but I’m not a hiker.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Finn said. “Right, Brody?”

  “Yeah, it’ll be fine, Susie.” Brody held up his cup of coffee and smiled at me. There was a warm expression on his face, and I smiled back at him. We hadn’t yet talked about our little dalliance a couple of nights earlier, and the previous day had gone fairly smoothly.

  We’d done some shorter hikes around Yosemite, and after we’d eaten dinner and cleaned up, I’d fallen asleep. I’d been surprised because my body had been anticipating some more kissing and perhaps some touching, but I’d been exhausted. I’d woken up this morning expecting him to have some sort of joke for me, but he hadn’t been in the tent. He must have gotten up a lot earlier than me. They were already sitting here drinking coffee, fully dressed.

  “Hey, sleepyhead,” Finn said as Marcia exited their tent.

  She yawned. “Morning.”

  I looked over at my best friend and her pretty face. “Morning. I’m just getting up too.”

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s because it’s six o’clock in the morning,” Finn said.

  I groaned. “I wish you hadn’t set alarms for that early.”

  “If we’re going to hike Half Dome, we have to start early,” Finn said. “I’m not trying to scare you girls, because it’s not the craziest climb, but it is intense.”

  “I don’t like the sound of intense.” I was starting to get worried. I wasn’t in the best shape of my life, and I didn’t like the sound of an intense hike.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  Brody stood up and walked over to me, a mug in his hand. “This is for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “A special tea.”

  “A special tea! Not even coffee?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “This will give you the pep you need without the crash. Trust me.”