Keep Me If You Can (If You Can #3)

15. Labelless

Chapter fifteen

Labelless

I f we had a room at the hotel, things might have gone differently.

If we had a room, we might have talked. Maybe with words and maybe with actions. I might have let JP kiss me and hold me and break me down bit by bit until all those things I’d never admit to spilled out of the cracks. I might have said things I did and didn’t mean, things I wanted that were at odds with what I needed, things that would’ve hurt me to reveal and hurt him to have taken away.

Because if we had a room, if we’d given in to this and that because JP Marchand had the audacity to say something that made me feel like I was less of a fuck-up, I might have believed him.

And in the morning, I would have had to pick up all the pieces, shoving them back through the cracks as best I could and praying he’d forget they’d ever been revealed at all.

If we had a room at that godforsaken hotel in Mont Tremblant, it wouldn’t have been just fucking, and it would have ruined everything.

But we didn’t. We had JP’s car, and two hours of driving down a dark highway, and two people who had no idea how to address what was going on. So we defaulted to our fall back.

Which was also fucking.

Because of course it was. Things with JP suddenly felt too intense? Better fuck it out. And when we couldn’t fuck it out because despite all my adventurousness, distracting a driver with road head on the surprisingly quiet highway as we drove back to Ottawa was not my idea of a good time?

Well, then we just spent the entire drive doing our other fall back.

Which was one-upping each other.

About fucking.

“So I’m telling them about this girl, right?” JP said as we motored down the highway. “And yes, in hindsight, I sounded like a complete douchebag, but in fairness, it’s because I used to be a douchebag.”

“You still are a douchebag,” I said.

“Yeah, but I used to be one, too,” he said. I rolled my eyes, which he obviously couldn’t see since I was staring out the windshield, but he laughed like he knew I’d done it anyway. “Anyway, I fully admit the shit I was saying was not cool. I know that now.”

“Like what?”

“You know. Commenting on her body. Telling them where I’d like to see her mouth. That kind of awful locker room talk that I should’ve known better than to be part of.” He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to tell you this story. It makes me sound awful.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I already thought you were awful.”

“Yeah, but actually awful.” He sighed. “I know better, okay? I would never say anything like that now.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” I said, which was true. Of course I didn’t like that JP had been that kind of guy once upon a time, but also, people do stupid things. At least he’d learned. Some of them never did. “But also, I’m really curious about how this led to the laziest sex of your life.”

He laughed. “Okay, well, I’m sitting there being a douchebag and talking about how I’m gonna get her number later, and one of the senior associates is laughing at me and says unless I’m exaggerating, there’s no way this woman is gonna go for a lowly intern like me when we’re at this swanky club. And with perfect timing, the girl I saw walks out of the bathroom on the other side of the room. So I point her out to everyone at the table and go, ‘Trust me, man, by the end of the night I’ll—.’” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Uh…”

“Just tell me,” I said.

“It was pretty vulgar,” he said. “Let’s just say it had something to do with where on her face my balls would be. And the senior associate turns to me and goes, ‘That’s my daughter.’”

“ No !” I gasped.

JP nodded. “And I think he’s joking at first, right, except all the other guys at the table look like they’re about to witness a firsthand castration. But there’s no way out of this. Like, I just told him I was going to fuck his daughter’s mouth so hard her chin would leave a bruise on the nutsack her dad was probably thinking of cutting off. There’s no coming back from that.”

“Oh, God,” I said. “So what did you do?”

“I looked back at her, then at him, and I go, ‘Well, I should’ve known that. Look at you, sir. Of course you’d make beautiful babies.’”

I snorted back a laugh. “And you thought that would work?”

“It shouldn’t have. But he just stared at me and then goes, ‘Shut the fuck up, Marchand,’ and slams back the rest of his beer.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, he also stormed across the club and told his daughter to stay away from me.” He grinned. “But he was apparently as much of a prick at home as he was at work and she didn’t like being told what to do. And let me tell you, there’s something to be said for the starfish.”

I frowned. “The starfish?”

“You know.” He extended one arm slightly to the side. “Flat on your back. Do whatever you want to me. All I had to do was lie there and keep my dick hard while she did her thing. Which was not difficult, considering how hot she was. I mean, her tits were just—”

“You’re a pig,” I said, but I was laughing.

“She wouldn’t mind me saying it,” he said. “We kept in touch after I left Quebec City. She’s got an OnlyFans now.”

“Really?” I asked.

He nodded. “And it’s her dad’s fault.”

“Daddy issues usually are.”

He chuckled. “Look, the guy was obviously loaded. But his oldest son fucked around in university and flunked out two years after she’d started business school. So he told both of them he wasn’t giving them a free ride anymore and refused to pay the rest of her tuition.”

“Seriously?! But she—”

“—didn’t do anything wrong, yeah.” He shook his head. “Bet he regrets both that and the fact that he made her go to business school now. She started up an OnlyFans to pay her bills and by the time he found out and cut her off, she was doing well enough that she could’ve just dropped out of school. She didn’t, though. Graduated valedictorian, actually.”

“Good for her,” I said. “For both of those things.”

He nodded. “She’s so good at what she does that she started running some courses for people wanting to get into the industry. When she retires from making content, she wants to start an accounting firm for people in the sex work industry.” He tapped his hands on the steering wheel again. “She’s a great person. If she ends up doing it, I said I’d help her out with the paperwork and contracts and stuff.”

“You think your dad would be okay with that?” I asked, surprised.

“Of course not. But I’d do it for her pro bono.”

“Pro bono or pro—”

“Don’t say it,” he said, but he was laughing. “Okay. Your turn. What was the best sex of your life? Other than with me, of course. So I guess, like, the eightieth best sex of your life.”

“We haven’t had sex eighty times.”

“I’m sure a few of those sessions were worth two or three spots on the list,” he said.

I couldn’t argue that. JP did have a number of the “best sex of my life” spots. Not all of them, though.

“Erin,” I said without needing to think about it. “She was a rugby player.”

“I am already liking where this is going,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “We were fuck buddies for a couple of months. She was kind of like… quietly dominant? If that makes sense? Like, she liked to be in charge, but she wasn’t into bondage or ordering me around or anything. She was very gentle about it.”

He tilted his head. “I wouldn’t have guessed you were into that.”

“I’m not not into it,” I said. “It’s not my usual thing, but most of the time our hook-ups were pretty good. Not, like, mind-blowing. Until this one night.”

Even in profile and with only the streetlights brightening his face, I saw JP’s smirk widen. “What happened this one night?”

“I was being a brat.”

“Now that I would’ve guessed,” he said. “You are a brat.”

“Shut up.” He was right, but that wasn’t the point. “Like I said, we were fuck buddies, but we weren’t together. So we were at this frat party and I was flirting with some people. And Erin came up to me at one point and asked if I was coming home with her. And I don’t know what I was thinking but I asked her if she was going to make me.”

“And she made you?”

“She dragged me to the backseat of her car, pinned me down by my throat, and growled ‘The safe word is red’—which, incidentally, was the colour of my ass the next morning—‘otherwise, keep your mouth shut.’ And then she just—” I stopped, sighing. “Not exaggerating, I’m pretty sure I came at least ten times. She was torturing them out of me by the end of it.”

“Holy shit.”

“I know.” I smirked, remembering the taste of cranberries on Erin’s lips and the feel of her muscular shoulders beneath my thighs, lifting my lower body off the seat of her car as she ate me out. “My abs hurt for like a week afterwards from all the orgasms. But she graduated last year. I wonder what she’s up to these days.”

“Fuck.” JP shifted in his seat. “Why is it so fucking hot?”

“I find it fairly temperate,” I said. “But you can open the window if you want.”

“I meant the thought of you getting fucked.”

“Probably because I’m hot.”

“That’s some of it. But there’s something about thinking of someone you’ve fucked being fucked by someone else that’s just… you know. Or am I weird?”

“You are weird,” I said, though I was picking at my thumbnail when I said it because I’d been picturing the girl he’d just told me about using his body while he lay there enjoying it. And that wasn’t even the first time; there was also the fantasy I’d conjured up about an anonymous girl sucking his dick that I’d been so into, I’d given up hooking with my tattoo artist. “But… yeah. It is hot. So maybe I’m weird, too.”

JP nodded but didn’t say anything. I glanced down and tried not to smirk when I saw the bulge on his lap.

“Do we need to pull over for a quickie?” I asked.

“As much as I’d love to, it’s probably not a great idea,” he said reluctantly.

“What the fuck, JP?” I asked, trying to sound mock-offended even though I was actually a little offended. “That’s the second time today you’ve turned me down.”

“I am not turning you down,” he said. “I am very aware that I’ve been up since four-thirty and if I fuck you the way I want to right now, I’ll be tired enough that I shouldn’t be driving.”

That was unfortunately, reasonable. “I’d offer to drive—”

“Absolutely fucking not,” he snapped, and so did the sweet longing of the atmosphere in the car. “I wouldn’t let you drive my car in the first place, but especially not after you’ve been drinking. Jeez, Nellie. You know better.”

I waited until a beat after he was done before finishing my sentence in a flat tone. “—but you probably wouldn’t let me drive your car even if I hadn’t been drinking.”

JP’s jaw twitched. “Right.”

“Apology accepted,” I said dryly.

“I’m sorry.”

I folded my arms and turned, looking out the passenger window at the streetlight-illuminated highway. “I’m not as stupid as you look either, you know. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have snapped. But you heard about the whole thing with Clinton getting arrested, right?”

“That’s how we found out Sydney was getting cheated on.”

He frowned. “Huh?”

“The woman who tackled Clinton was Olivier’s wife. The cop she was hooking up with.”

“Small world, I guess.” He drummed the steering wheel again. “Clinton could’ve killed someone. He almost did. So I’ve been thinking about Sam a lot lately.”

Oh.

Of course.

I couldn’t say I’d forgotten about Sam, JP’s friend who had been killed in an accident after getting into a car with a friend he hadn’t known was high. But I hadn’t known him. I’d never met him. And JP and I had only ever talked about Sam one time, right after sex that had been a little more emotional than it should have been and right before Anne-Marie had nearly caught us together.

So it wasn’t reasonable to assume I’d make that connection, not that JP seemed to think I should have. But it made sense that he was thinking about Sam. They’d been close friends and JP had been half-destroyed by the accident.

And even though I knew JP had other friends and people to talk to, something told me I was one of the few who really knew how hard he’d taken it.

“That’s understandable,” I said.

“It doesn’t excuse me snapping,” he said. “I am actually sorry, Nell.”

“Apology actually accepted,” I said. “I get it.”

Part of me thought he was going to chuckle dryly and tell me that no, I didn’t get it, because I’d never lost a friend to a car accident by an intoxicated driver, but JP wasn’t that kind of asshole. He just nodded, his cheek twitching, then cleared his throat.

“To make this slightly less depressing, I will say the way we fucked the night I told you about all that was the second-best sex of my life.”

“Really?” I said.

He nodded. “The way you grabbed my chin and said… uh…”

I’d said he was mine.

He’d wanted me to say I was his. To pretend that was what we were, just for a moment. And I’d hesitated. He’d cringed, the guilt pouring off him in waves as he tried to backpedal, agreeing with my unsaid thoughts that I couldn’t say that to him.

And then I’d put my fingers beneath his chin.

I’d forced him to look at me.

I’d stared into those deep blue eyes, no careful mask left to hide the vulnerability and shame of what he’d just said.

And I’d told JP that he was mine .

There had been a heartbeat or two or three, the world stopping as he stared at me, and then he’d lost it, coming inside me and clinging to me like he was in free fall.

JP laughed softly. “I don’t know how I went from not being able to finish to nearly passing out because I came so hard, and I still can’t explain what was so hot about it, but fuck.”

“Well, I’m a good actor,” I said, trying to keep my voice light as I subtly reminded him I hadn’t meant it.

That it hadn’t been real .

Thankfully, JP either got the hint or hadn’t needed the reminder in the first place. “You are a hell of an actor. You completely nailed the role of bedside rug after Anne-Marie burst in. Complete dedication, right down to wearing your panties on your head.”

“Thanks. It was all improv,” I said, and he laughed. “So if that was the second-best sex of your life, what was the first?”

“Guess,” he said.

“Does it involve me?”

“I wouldn’t be making you guess if it didn’t, babe.”

I didn’t bother telling him not to call me that. “Wow. I have your top two?”

“Top three, actually,” he said.

I looked at him incredulously. “You need to get laid more.”

“Or you need to stop being so good in bed.”

“Well, that’s not happening,” I muttered, and he laughed. “What’s number three, then?”

“Popping your cherry,” he said without hesitation.

“Oh, fuck you,” I grumbled.

“Yes, I did,” he said proudly. “For your very first time.”

“Shut up,” I said. “You and Anne-Marie and literally everyone said the first time sucks. How was my first time your third best?”

“Are you saying your first time sucked?” he asked.

I rubbed my finger against my thumbnail. “I… no.”

“Good, because I’d hate to call you a liar again,” he said. “But I don’t know what made it so good. Logically, it shouldn’t have been. You shouldn’t have been good at anything. Maybe it was because of how sweet and needy you were. Or maybe because I got to fuck you bare. Or maybe it was that you finally admitted you were a virgin and yet still swallowed my cock to the root when I came.”

I hoped the warmth of the streetlights was still dim enough that JP wouldn’t be able to tell my face was burning. “It’s not like you were my first blowjob.”

“I refuse to believe your high school boyfriend fucked your throat like I did.”

His tone was arrogant. Aggravatingly arrogant. Especially because he wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t going to tell JP that.

“So if that’s number three, then number one is after the Diamond Gala,” I said.

“How’d you guess?” he asked.

“Pretty sure you said something about it,” I said, not looking at him.

“Really?” he said. “I told you that? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“He says in the middle of a conversation where he’s telling me I’m responsible for his top three best sexual encounters.”

He snorted on a laugh. “Fair. Well, yeah. You’re right.”

“I know.”

He smiled. “So what’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Best sex of your life.”

“I told you. Erin—”

“Babe.” He glanced at me so I could see the patronizing look on his face. “That sounded super fucking hot, but I know I’m in your top spot.”

I gritted my teeth together. “You think so?”

“You wouldn’t keep fucking me if I wasn’t.”

Fuck. He wasn’t wrong. “Yeah, well… I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“You’re going to make fun of me.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“You will. You make fun of me for everything.”

He shook his head solemnly. “Not this. I promise.”

I fidgeted with my thumbnail again, looking out the window at the road zipping past us for a moment.

“It’s the same as yours,” I finally said.

It surprised him more than I thought it would. “Really? You liked anal that much?”

“I’m not saying I’d want it all the time, but… yeah.”

“Wow,” he said, then chuckled.

Instant heat bloomed on my face and my throat went dry. “I knew you’d laugh at me.”

“I’m not, babe. I’m—”

“—making fun of me,” I said.

“—so fucking hard right now it hurts,” he finished.

Obviously I couldn’t confirm or deny if it hurt or not, but a glance at his lap showed that he was definitely telling the truth about how hard he was. “Oh.”

“Like, yeah, I knew you liked it because you came so hard you started speaking in tongues—” I interrupted him with a scoff of annoyance and he laughed again. “But I still wasn’t sure if it was that good.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “I mean, it’s your ass. How good could it feel to take it that way?”

“Why don’t you take it in the ass and find out?”

“It wouldn’t be a good comparison,” he said. “You don’t have a prostate.”

I blinked. I’d thought he’d laugh and immediately shoot it down, but that sounded like…

“Have you done it before?”

“Never had the chance.” I stared at him until he flicked his gaze towards me for a moment. “What?”

“You would, though?” I asked.

“Take it in the ass?”

“No, go berry picking in a strawberry patch,” I said. “Yes, take it in the ass. You know, the thing we’re talking about?”

He chuckled. “I mean, yeah. Absolutely.”

“Like, from being pegged?” I asked. “Or…”

“Are you asking me if I’d fuck a guy?”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes.”

“Yeah.”

I glanced at him. “You would?”

“I have.”

“You’ve fucked a guy before?”

He glanced back at me. “I didn’t expect you to have a problem with that.”

Part of me wanted to be livid at his assumption that I had a problem with it, but I buried the flare of anger. I’d come out to enough people and gotten enough unexpected reactions to know that sometimes people weren’t who you thought they were, especially about sexuality.

“I don’t,” I said. “I was clarifying what you were saying to make sure I understood because I didn’t know you were bisexual.”

He was staring straight out the windshield, but a passing streetlight revealed the small smile on his face. “Is that what I am?”

Shit. That had been an assumption on my part. “I… no. I was saying… I mean, you can call it whatever you want. I meant—”

“It’s okay, babe. I’m not saying I’m not. I just mean I don’t… know. What I want to call it.”

“You don’t have to label it at all, either.” I tapped my fingernail and thumbnail together. “I guess I was just curious.”

“About what?”

“What else you’re attracted to.”

“Isn’t that the question,” he murmured, then chuckled. “I think that’s the problem with labels. Like, I… If a person consents and is into it, I probably wanna fuck them. But sometimes naming something feels like too much.”

“Yeah,” I said.

His head tilted towards me. “Yeah?”

“Labels can complicate things.”

My voice came out in a soft tone that I hadn’t intended. JP quietly considered what I’d said. Probably because we both knew I was talking about more than whatever his sexuality was.

“So you’re not judging me for not knowing?” he asked.

“Oh, of course,” I said. “How dare you take time to figure out a complex thing like your sexuality and not be able to give me a detailed breakdown of what your specific pre-approved labels are?”

He started laughing. “Okay. Well, anyway, yeah. I have hooked up with a guy before. Neither of us were quite ready for anything past some making out and blowjobs and it took me a while to accept that I was… whatever I am. So he was the only one. But I wouldn’t say no to trying more one day.”

I nodded, chewing on my lip as a comfortable silence filled the car. A few streetlights went by, lightening and darkening the interior of the car, before either of us spoke again.

“So… would you let someone peg you?” I asked.

“Are you offering?”

“Offering, no. I don’t like wearing strap-ons.”

He shrugged. “Fair.”

I couldn’t tell if he sounded disappointed, not that he’d actually answered the question. But I’d never had much of an interest in pegging. It wasn’t a deal breaker, but if JP did want to explore something like that, I was more likely to suggest a butt plug or a dildo or something. I couldn’t picture getting behind him and grabbing his hips as I tried to fuck him, thrusting in a way that didn’t feel natural to me and hoping that it felt good for him.

Getting him on his back, on the other hand? Pushing his legs apart so I could watch his face twist while I slid a dildo in his ass? Leaning down to suck his leaking cock as he squirmed beneath me?

I might be able to picture that.

“What are you thinking about?” JP asked.

“What are you thinking about?” I replied.

“On the count of three, both of us say what we’re thinking,” he said. “Okay?”

I held in a smile. “Sure.”

“One, two, three.”

“I think you should fuck me in the ass when we get home,” I said.

“I should fuck your ass when we get back to your place,” he said at the same time.

“Deal,” we both said.