James Axler – The Mars Arena

Dean swallowed hard, amazed at how all the air seemed to have gone from the room.

Phaedra jammed a thumb in the corner of his eye.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Dean said, struggling to keep his voice low despite the flash of pain. Blood swam across his vision.

“Sick bastard!” Phaedra snarled.

Dean couldn’t believe no one was coming to beat down the bedroom door. In a desperate move to shut up any more outbursts from the girl, he put his mouth over hers. It wasn’t a kiss; it was just a seal of flesh against flesh.

Phaedra fought hard for a moment or two, wrapping her bedclothes around them. Then all the fight drained from her. Without warning, her lips sought Dean’s.

Thinking maybe it was a ploy designed to win his confidence, Dean kept his mouth in place. The kiss happened without intention. Somehow he just wasn’t able to keep his lips together. Then he wasn’t able to keep his teeth together as Phaedra’s tongue invaded his mouth.

He felt as if he were on fire, suddenly swollen up too big to fit inside his own skin. Not just in his crotch, but all over. He even felt light-headed. But he didn’t for an instant believe he would be able to stick his tongue outside his own mouth without having it bitten off.

At length Phaedra broke off the kiss and lay quietly under him, her eyes closed. When she opened them, however, she said, “You’re bleeding!”

Dean had noticed the liquid seeping from his eye, running down his face to moisten her cheek. He’d figured it was tears from his injured eye, but the injury hadn’t seemed important at the time. Nor had the pain.

“Did I do that?” she asked, suddenly all innocence. She tried to pull her arms free.

Dean squinted the injured eye closed and tried to ignore the hurt again. It was definitely harder now, and the eye pained him badly, too. “I don’t see anybody else who’s been hitting me.”

“I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You going to tell me you didn’t mean to hit me in the nose, either?”

“I meant to do that.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t intend to hurt your eye.” Pink strands of watered-down blood streamed from her cheek to her pillow.

Dean gazed down at her, letting his uninjured eye take in the sight of the creamy flesh open for his inspection. He looked at her breast, the nipple standing so proudly, flushed with blood and dark against the strawberry aureole. “You’re pretty,” he said before he had much time to think about it.

“Thank you.”

He looked back into her face, noting that she didn’t act embarrassed at all with his looking. “You kiss good, too.”

“Thank you again. You kiss pretty good yourself.”

He shifted on her, knowing she had to be noticing how excited he was against her leg, feeling kind of embarrassed about that himself. His dad had mentioned such things were natural; otherwise, what would bring men and women together long enough no matter what the hardship or circumstance to bring babies into the world? Of course, his dad had also said that bringing babies into the world generally wasn’t on most people’s minds at those times. But it was nothing to be ashamed of.

Still, Dean didn’t feel comfortable.

“Have you been kissed before, Dean?” she asked.

“Sure.” His response was automatic, defensive. He started to add that he’d been kissed lots of times even though that wasn’t exactly true. Then he remembered that every time he tried to answer more than just the question on the table, he’d ended up in trouble. He wasn’t stupe, so he kept his mouth shut.

She seemed happy enough about that. “Did you like it?”

“Yeah.”

Her face darkened.

“But not as much as this time,” he added.

“Why?”

He was confused. “Why what?” He was also aware of Calgary Ventnor struggling on the eaves of the house, either because he couldn’t get his balance or because he was trying to better peer into the room.

“Why didn’t you like it as much as this time?”

Dean wished he had more time to think. Hell, he wished he didn’t feel so confused by everything his body was telling him that he could think. Telling her that he didn’t know didn’t sound like a good move.