Just A Small Town Girl: A New Adult Romantic Comedy by Jessica Pine Page B

the great great something grandson of Genghis Khan."
     I sniffed hard. "Well, he could be."
     "You're shitting me."
     "Is he Asian?"
     "No. Russian, I think."
     "Then he could be," I said. "If there was one thing Genghis Khan liked nearly as much as violence it was sex. And sometimes he liked to combine the two. There's a whole lot of Temujin DNA out there, and it's not just confined to Mongolia. I think Dostoevsky was one of his possible descendants."
     "Wait, I've heard of him. He was a writer? Russian guy?"
     "Yep."
     "Wow," he said. “You're serious? Bog could be the real deal?"
     "It's not outside the realms of possibility."
     He shook his head. “The things you know.”
     After the store closed that day he came creeping into the office and leaned on the back of my chair. "You okay?" he said, gathering my hair up in his hands.
     I tipped my chair back against him. "I guess," I said, feeling tired.
     "So...you want to come back to my place?"
     "I thought you'd never ask."
     He bent over me and I felt his breath warm on my scalp as he spoke. "Just...you know. Don't freak out at the mess. And don't say I didn't warn you."
     "I won't. I promise."
     It was enough just to get the hell out of Westerwick for a few hours. And a bed. An actual bed. He had Christmas lights strung over his bed, even though it was August. "It's ambient," he said, pronouncing it with an absurd faux French accent that made me laugh. "Like mood lighting."
     He stripped off his shirt, revealing his stupid tribal tattoo and another on his shoulder blade - an old-fashioned sailor design, all bluebirds, roses and scrolls, adorning a giant red heart. I sat on the end of his bed and tried to look demure, like I wasn't there for sex, but he made it impossible when he dropped his pants, taking his underwear with them.
     "Come on," he said. "I think it's about time we evened the score, don't you?"
     "I can't think what you mean."
     "Yes you do. You’ve seen me naked." He came over to me and pushed my knees apart so that he could stand between them. I pressed my face to his skin, my arms around his waist. "No fair," he whispered, swaying against me. His cock swelled under my heart and I thought about distracting him by sliding to my knees. "Clothes," he said. "Lose 'em."
     When I felt the touch of his bare skin on mine I regretted that we hadn't come here and done this a whole lot sooner. It was insanely sweaty and afterwards we were too hot to touch one another, so we lay side by side. I could see where the moisture pooled in the dip of his belly button, and the humidity had made a magnificent afro of his pubes.
     "I guess I should have mentioned the lack of air-con," he said.
     "I don't mind."
     He rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow. "No," he said, peering down at me, his hand on my hip. "You don't, do you?"
     "Nope. Why did you think I'd mind?"
     He traced the edge of my navel with a fingertip for a moment. "You got me," he said. "Projecting, I guess. This wasn't where I thought I'd be in life."
     "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."
     Clayton sighed. "No, maybe not." He sat up to rummage in his jeans pocket and I got a good look at the tattoo on the back of his shoulder. The scroll read 'Bryan'.
     "Your brother," I said, tracing it with my finger.
     He fished a joint out of his pocket and straightened it out. "Yeah," he said, lying back down beside me. He propped an ashtray in the middle of his chest. "I'm still surprised the tattooist even agreed to do it - I didn't think they tattooed drunk people."
     "The good ones don't," I said. "They have policies." I felt a weird little flash of fear - what if he'd got hepatitis from a dirty needle and passed it onto me? We'd been careful since that first night and from the way my hormones were acting I was pretty sure I couldn't be pregnant, but that was all it took. Just once, as they used to tell us in health class. I squashed it down - it felt somehow rude to think