All Grown Up (14 page)

"Ah-hem."

My head shot up to see Max. Leo hadn’t put me down and his lips were pressed against my neck.

"What do you want
, Max?" Leo growled into my neck. My face went completely red. No, definitely maroon.

"Come on
, lover boy, we need to get going." Max chuckled.

"I’ll be there in a minute." Leo growled again
.

I tried to push him back, but his gri
p only tightened. I buried my face in his shoulder and neck from embarrassment.

"Well hurry the fuck up
, dude. Besides, you can’t fuck her in your parent’s living room. Well, at least not when they will be coming in here any second to tell you goodbye." Max laughed, walking away.

Leo’s mouth started
moving across my neck and jaw.

"Um…Leo, you have to go."

He mumbled something that sounded like okay. I started to push him back a little.

"I really don’t want you
r parents to walk in here and…"

With a heavy sigh, he
placed his forehead against my shoulder.

"It’s your fault." He
pulled his head up, looking at the questioning look on my face. "You’re too damn tasty." He smiled.

"Yeah
, well, what happened to our conversation about being friends?" I raised my eyebrow and smirked.

"What?" He asked innocently as he let me
slip down onto my own feet again. "Friends hug and kiss goodbye." He smiled and kissed my forehead.

"Uh-huh." I silently laughed, my shoulders shaking.

"Seriously, I just wanted to say goodbye. I got a little carried away."

There was the smile
. I wanted to climb up his body and slide down him like a firehouse pole.

Grabbing my hand
, he led me back outside where everyone was waiting around the car saying goodbye. I ran to Roni and squeezed her tightly.

"I’m going to miss you."
Tears formed in the corners of my eyes.

"I’ll be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas
. That’s not too long from now." She smiled. We hugged tighter.

After releasing Roni,
I hugged Max and Oliver goodbye.

As they all climbed in th
e car, Leo stood in front of me.

"What
? No hug for me?" He grinned.

I shook my head and hugg
ed him. He tilted his head down, his tongue sliding across my ear. I pulled back quickly, a pink hue warming my cheeks. He smiled and got into his car. They were gone and something felt oddly missing. An ache was forming. I wasn’t sure but I was thinking it's because of Leo.

Chapter
Fifteen
Thanksgiving Break

Chloe

Between working and school
, November flew by quickly. Thanksgiving was right around the corner and Roni would be arriving this weekend.

Leo and I text
ed and emailed. We never called each other. For me, I was still nervous about this thing going on between us. However, getting to know each other more had been going really well and I felt like we were much better friends, friends who happen to be extremely physically attracted to each other.

The
Mackeys, the Gallaghers and my family decided to join together for Thanksgiving. Elaine, Judith and Mina had been extremely preoccupied with planning the dinner. This, at least, left me a lot of spare time to work on some projects that I had going on. I also got to spend a lot of time with Michele. She was getting so big, so fast.

When the weekend had finally arrived
, I was antsy waiting for Roni to get home. I had missed her so much and couldn’t wait until we were all back together again. I was grabbing a diet soda out of the refrigerator when Kenneth came in the door with armfuls of luggage, Roni right behind him. I quickly sat my soda on the table.

"Yeah!"
I ran and basically tackled Roni. We fell to the floor laughing.

"You girls," Kenneth shook his head as he continued to take the luggage up to our room.

"I’m so excited you're home again." I offered her my hand to help her up.

"Me too," she smiled large.

"Roni!" Mina came bounding up to her through the front door. She jumped into Roni’s arms and hugged her. "We are all together again…yeah!" Roni put Mina down and we all headed upstairs. I grabbed my soda on the way up.

"So, what have you two been up to the past month?" Roni sat on her bed Indian style.

"Same old, same old." Mina said waving her hand back and forth before sitting onto my bed next to me. "What about you?"

"Well, mainly classes, but there were a couple of amazing parties." Roni smiled and crinkled her nose.

"I am so jealous!" Mina shrieked. "Tell me all about them, please?"

"Well
, they are typically like the parties here, but they are at frat houses or other houses. You know, no parents, nothing. They can get pretty crazy and sometimes out of control, but I’ve been hanging out with Brianne, who is really cool, we are in the same dorm building." Then Roni got a flash on her face that usually meant she had an idea. "You know, I think we should all just rent a house together when you guys come next year."

"You mean
if
we come there next year." Mina corrected her.

"Oh
, like you both won’t be able to get into Seattle, give me a break." Roni rolled her eyes. "Besides, I think it would be better than those damn dorms. I don’t care what people say about getting the experience, it sucks." She laughed.

We all sat around catching up for about an hour when the conversation took an uncomfortable turn.

"So, Chloe, how’s your
friendship
with Leo?" Roni giggled.

"
Har-Har. We’ve learned more about each other, become better friends." I shrugged and racked my brain to think of a way to change the subject.

"So
, how often do you guys talk?" Roni was in full interrogation mode and Mina was just smirking at me.

"Well, we just email and text. We haven’t talked
, per say." I shrugged again.

"Whoa…wait!" Roni put her hands up. "He hasn’t called you? You haven’t called him? I don’t understand." I heard Mina laugh, since she had given me this same reaction a few weeks ago.

"We just haven’t and I feel weird calling him, so we just talk other ways." I threw myself back onto my bed knowing that this was not the end of it.

"That’s just ridiculous. Get some balls and call him.
Sheesh!" Roni exclaimed.

"And just when I thought I was happy that you were home…" I said sarcastically.

Roni threw a pillow at me. It landed on my face. Mina laughed and I threw it at her.

"Fine, how are you and Max doing
, Roni? It was pretty obvious that you were actually becoming a one man kind of girl the last time you were in." I smirked at her and Roni blushed.

"Holy shit!
Did Veronica just blush over a guy?" Mina exclaimed. I rolled to my side and held my head up with my hand.

"Oh
, shut it!" Roni stuck her tongue out. "I just like him, a lot." She mumbled the end of her comment.

"Oh. My.
God." Mina and I seemed to say at exactly the same time.

"You mean to say that Veronica has finally been tied down?" I said overly dramatic. "Has hell frozen over? Do we need to send out notifications to all
your little black book contacts?" Before I could say anything else, Roni was on top of me tickling me.

"What was that you were saying smart ass?" Roni laughed.

"Oh God, please stop. Roni! Rohhhhoooon!" I screamed in between fits of laughter. "STOPPP!! PPLLLLEASE!!! Someone HELP!! Helppppp Meeeeeeeeeee!!!"

"Oh
, no way are you getting off that easy!" Roni continued her threat to my sides until I felt her disappear quickly from on top of me. I was still trying to catch my breath before I realized who had helped me.

"Now
, as hot as that was really starting to make me, watching two girls roll around on a bed together and all, the screaming was just a bit too much for my ears." Max smiled large until Roni smacked him in his arm. He pulled her close and down onto her bed to sit with him. The way he looked at her was priceless. He was completely smitten.

I sat
up and shoved Mina in the arm.

"Thanks for the help
, skank!" I laughed.

She smiled. "What? I
just had my nails done." I shoved her again. She slid off the bed with a thud onto the floor, which made us start laughing again.

When I felt my bed dip on
my left, I looked over and saw Leo smirking as he lay back onto my bed. I smiled and turned back to Mina.

Dear
God give me the strength not to just jump on top of him and do horribly wonderful things to his body with my friends in this room! Please?

"
Where did you guys come from?" Mina asked as she climbed back onto my bed and crawled over to lay her head on Leo’s stomach. "I thought you guys weren’t coming until Sunday?"

"We didn’t have to wait on Oliver, since he went home to his family in Texas, so we left earlier." Max shrugged and pulled Roni down to lay with him on her bed.

"Okay, so why do you two think you can break into my bedroom?" Roni teased.

"Hey
, the balcony doors were unlocked. I swear I knocked but you just didn’t hear over Chloe’s screaming." Max pleaded his case.

"Why do I still not believe you?" Roni looked at him with one eyebrow raised. Max kissed that eyebrow before curling up next to her and closing his eyes. It was too cute.

After hanging out for about an hour talking, Mina, Leo and Max headed over to the Mackey’s place and Roni and I went downstairs to see if Judith needed us for anything.

Kenneth was seated at the table waiting for dinner when we got downstairs. We sat with him and h
e talked with Roni about school. Roni asked him about how things were going at city hall and around town. Dinner was pleasant and it felt nice to have us all there, though Christy and K.C. would have made it complete. Christy was not feeling well and K.C. would not be home for Thanksgiving, instead he was staying near school because of his job.

The day before Thanksgiving I had retreated to my room working on some of my computer projects. Judith and Roni were baking. Everyone knew that cooking and I were not a good idea, so there was no objection when I disappeared.

I heard footsteps coming across the tree house and figured it was Mina. I kept my back turned and continued working on the program script. Typing the final sequence, I felt two arms lift me up from my seat. I squeaked, clutching for something to hold onto.

I snapped my head around.

"Leo? What–" Before I could finish, he sat down in my chair and placed me on his lap. I shook my head. "What are you doing?" I asked still having my head turned in his direction.

"Just visiting."
He smiled.

Damn him.

"What are you doing?" He nodded toward my screen.

I readjusted myself and turned back to my computer. While I was trying to explain what I was doing
, I felt him brush my hair around and over my left shoulder. Then I felt his lips press to the back of my neck.

"Leo?"

"Hmm?" He hummed into the crook of where my neck and shoulder meet. Instinctually I rolled my head to the left as his hand slid around my waist and up my body between my breasts. He caressed me around my throat, his other arm wrapped around my waist as his lips still worked my skin.

"Ah-are,
Mmm…Are you even paying attention to what I am saying?" It was hard to speak at first, and still came out a little breathless, but I got it out.

"Hun-uh," He shook his head and I could feel the smile spread on his lips against my neck. "You are too distracting." He grazed his teeth across my skin and I completely forgot what I had even asked him.

I leaned my head back onto his left shoulder as his lips moved across my skin in a fiery trail. Once I couldn’t take it any longer, I turned myself around, straddling him in the chair. I attacked his mouth instantly and reached for his hair.

God
he tasted and smelled even better than I remembered.

When his hands knotted into my hair
, pulling me closer to him, I wanted to devour him. His urgent hands moved around my body gripping and massaging me until he found home on my hips.

When he pulled my hips into him roughly
, I moaned into his mouth, my aching center already fully aroused at what his mouth had been doing. I could feel how stiff he was and the sensation from our friction urged me to lock my feet around the chair and rock into him rhythmically.

He tightened his hold on my hips and kept the rhythm that I had begun. When air was necessary
, I pulled back to inhale deeply as he moved his mouth across my collarbone. I was breathing heavily and reclaimed his mouth.

The rhythm between us
started to intensify and the friction built an inferno inside of me. I moaned Leo’s name as he pulled back from our kiss and placed his forehead against my shoulder groaning.

"Fuck Chloe…I’m gonna…"
And then a feral moan ripped up from his chest, as the inferno inside of me combusted throughout my body.

Leo wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me tightly as he rested his head with his face buried into my neck, both of us panting. My hands were still tightly laced into his hair and I slowly released my fingers sliding my hands down his neck to his shoulders, he shivered and I smiled knowing that I made him feel like this.

"Chloe, you are…." he paused and sighed. "I don’t know what you are but I fucking love it!" He kissed my neck again and pulls me even tighter.

"Le-Leo," I gasped. "That’s –
huh
- a little tight." I breathed unevenly.

His grip loosened.

"Sorry." His hands moved and he cupped my face with both of his hands. "You know I have never…." He paused, looking a little nervous. "I’ll just say that this was a first." His crooked smile appeared right before his lips were against mine. The kiss wasn’t urgent. It was slow and passionately sweet. I could feel the fire moving from my lips into my cheeks, down my neck and through my chest where my heart was trying to leap out. Our tongues felt as if they were dancing together.

"Chloe!"

I jumped up quickly from his lap.

"Shit! It’s Judith
." I said in hushed voice.

He stood quickly and pulled his shirt down over himself, quickly kissed my forehead and headed out of my balcony toward his house. I ran my fingers through my hair quickly and straightened out my clothes.

"Chloe!" Judith said loudly as I opened the door to see her face. "Oh…sorry." She smiled. "Can you come help us in the kitchen?"

"Me?" I pointed at myself
giving her a questioning look.

"For clean-up duty."
She smirked.

"Ah-hah."

I smiled. I followed her down the stairs, still feeling a little flustered from what happened with Leo and almost getting caught by Judith.

"Are you feeling okay
, dear?" Judith asked me with concern on her face.

"Yeah, why?"
I responded as I scrubbed some mixing bowls.

"You look a little flushed." She continued wiping down the counter tops. "I hope you aren’t coming down with anything.
”

I
smiled at the dishwater in front of me and felt a nudge to my right side. I looked up and saw Roni eyeing me suspiciously.