The First 100 Kisses: Practice Makes Perfect Read online

  Liam turned around and put his hands in his pockets. His shoulders slumped. His eyes hid on the floor.

  “Sex,” he whispered so low I barely heard him.

  “Come again,” I replied. He didn’t get the innuendo. I was used to that. He never got them—part of that subtext block.

  “You heard me,” he said, still looking at the floor.

  “Actually, I don’t think I did.”

  “Chloe…I… Sex, okay? I need help with a sex thing,” he repeated. He looked up at me, with his intense eyes.

  “Whoa, buddy, I know you wanna make a good impression with the ex, but is a threesome really the right play here?” I laughed, trying to ease his tension.

  Liam’s eyes grew wide for a moment then he vehemently shook his head.

  “No. Not that. God. No. Not that.” He was blushing, something he did quite a lot. Especially on Outlander nights. Not that I could blame him— Those sex scenes were hot.

  “Okay then, what do you need help with, lube, condoms, toy recommendations?” I wiggled my eyebrows. I could totally suggest some great things for him to try. I might be single, but I wasn’t dead.

  “No. Nothing like that.” His face was beet-red now. This was getting fun. It was amusing seeing Liam so out of sorts. It didn’t happen often. He liked to be in control of his environment, and this was a new situation to navigate.

  “Then what is it, Liam?” I asked, feeling totally clueless. “Help me help you. What exactly do you need help with around sex?”

  Liam let out a slow measured breath, then locked his crystal blue eyes with me to make sure I was listening. I was.

  “I need to know how to do it.”

  Liam was a literal man, so clearly, I was missing something. “You mean, like pointers?” I offered. “From a woman’s point of view? Types of things that will drive her wild, or what to avoid, that sort of thing?”

  “Wild? Um, well, yes. I suppose,” he admitted, “but mostly I need to know the physical mechanics of it. The step-by-step how-to manual.”

  The physical mechanics? What was this, a middle school sex-ed class? What did he mean by a manual—oh no. He couldn’t be…

  “Liam, are you a virgin?” I gasped.

  He took in a long breath and let it out, lowering his eyes even further.

  There was no way. Like literally no way a man this gorgeous was still a virgin. I refused to believe it. “Liam, stop joking. You can’t be a virgin. You’re like thirty-five-years old!” I laughed.

  “I’m thirty-three, and yes, I can be a virgin. People do wait, you know?”

  Holy shit. He was serious.

  “How is that even possible?” I stared at him, a blank look of utter shock on my face.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, Chloe, but I was waiting for my wedding day. While I may have disengaged with the church I was a part of as a youth, I haven’t given up on the plan of saving that part of me for the woman I marry. I know it’s considered old fashioned, but there is nothing wrong with waiting.”

  He was right, of course. His sex life was none of my business, and yet, I had questions. A million of them. Starting with the chicks he’d brought home “So, what about all those bimbos I saw you take into your apartment?” I challenged.

  “They weren’t bimbos. They were perfectly nice women that never stayed beyond coffee. Once I declined their advances and told them I wanted to move more slowly, they found excuses to leave pretty quickly.” He lowered his eyes back to the floor.

  Oh, my poor Liam. Could that be true? I didn’t really pay attention to when the chicks left. I only noticed them coming in because Liam walks like an elephant. Naturally, I would look through my peep hole to see what skank he was bringing to his place, then put headphones on for the next few hours because I didn’t want to hear it. The walls in this building were remarkably thin, or so Liam tells me after I’ve had a ‘friend’ over.

  My brain wasn’t letting his words sink in though. If Liam were just an average looking guy, maybe, but he wasn’t. He was an untouchable beauty for people like me, in the Average Joe world. There was no way he hadn’t been with multiple women looking as fine as he did. I mean, yes, he was socially awkward as hell, but his looks forgave him those idiosyncrasies. Beautiful people were forgiven a multitude of sins.

  “What about college? You didn’t sleep around in college?” I asked. Every guy I knew, even the ugly ones, got laid plenty in their 20s. It was like their rite of passage or some shit. Was he seriously trying to convince me he was a hold out looking the way he did?

  “For starters, I went to an all-boys school, Chloe, so, no. I did not ‘sleep around.’ Not that I would have even if I hadn’t. I was resolved to wait.”

  Then it hit me. Why this conversation was happening now.

  “You were waiting for Angel,” I said.

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. One that made this screwed up puzzle work. From what I’d gathered over the scraps of information he let slip on Angel over the years, was that they knew each other in high school. She was insanely religious, and he sort of tagged along with the idea because he liked her. She dumped him sometime after he graduated high school. He never wanted to talk about her, but it was clear she had broken his heart. I had a sudden urge to hug Liam, but I knew he wouldn’t like that.

  Liam looked up at me, his eyes filled with a sadness I’d never seen before. “Yes,” he admitted. “I was waiting for Angel.”

  And there it was. In all that time, he hadn’t given up his virginity. He had been waiting for her to come back to him, and now that she may have, he needed to be ready. I had to help him. I would not let this woman hurt my friend again.

  “Okay, well, maybe she’s been waiting for you, too,” I offered.

  Liam took out his phone. Pushed a few buttons and showed me the picture of a beautiful brunette with model bee-stung lips. Huh. Not blonde. She was brunette. Her clearly massive boobs were slightly obscured by the toddler she was holding.

  “She has a kid,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “She does. Out of wedlock,” he shook his head, seemingly disappointed. “The father served in Iraq and died there shortly after she got pregnant. She’s moving back home to be closer to family.”

  Alarm bells went off.

  “And the first thing she does is to call you?”

  Liam nodded. “She said she wanted to reconnect. And that she missed me.”

  “Oh, Liam. My poor, sweet, ignorant, yet beautiful, Liam,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What?”

  “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that girl isn’t interested in you. She’s shopping around for a dad for her kid,” I said. “She’s playing you, Liam. She’s taking advantage of your good heart and better paying job.” Liam was a financial consultant and made a shitton of money, though he rarely spent it. He was never frivolous with finances. He was saving it. For what, I had no idea. He was the poorest rich person I knew.

  “I’d considered that, actually.” Of course he had. “And perhaps she is, but I’m advancing in my years. And I have always wanted to have kids one day…” His face seemed to crumple under the weight of running out of time to squeeze out those 2.5 kids society says we all need. “Maybe this is God’s way of providing me a ready-made family?”

  God’s plan my ass. Angel knew a good bet when she saw one. Maybe it was unfair, but I didn’t trust this Angel chick as far as I could throw her.

  “So, you need to know about sex because now that she has a kid you figure you don’t need to wait until you’re married to her? Is that it?”

  Liam rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know, Chloe. You said it yourself. I’m thirty-three. What am I waiting for? She certainly didn’t wait for me!”

  “Did you really expect her to?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  He sighed. “No. Of course not. I suppose a small part of me wondered if we’d ever get back together, and now that she’s back in town I might get t
hat chance. But if I don’t then I’m still in the same situation I was before.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m a grown male who doesn’t know how to be intimate with a woman. I’d like to correct this inefficiency. Angel is the catalyst, I realize, but I hate not knowing things, Chloe. You know that about me. I thought maybe my floozie of a best friend could help me learn her ways.”

  I folded my arms over my chest waiting for him to register that he called me a whore. Again. At first, he didn’t understand why I was cross, then his eyes shifted, almost as though he was rewinding his brain.

  “Sorry. I just heard how that sounded,” he said. We’d worked ridiculously hard over the years to tone down his brutal honesty. I know it wasn’t ever intended to be mean, it’s just how his brain worked, but it didn’t mean it didn’t sting every time he slammed me.

  I walked to the kitchen and hopped onto the counter. Liam hated it when I did that. He thought it was unsanitary and unladylike but screw him. This was my apartment, damn it.

  “You need some work in the compliments department, I’ll give ya that.”

  “This is precisely what I mean, Chloe. I don’t know how to be around a woman. I don’t know the right things to say, let alone the right things to do.” He was agitated. Which meant he was gonna bolt. He scooped his keys of the coffee table. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.” As he walked past me to get to the door, I found myself reaching out and grabbing the corner of his shirt.

  It surprised both of us, but I didn’t let go.

  “You still love her, don’t you?”

  He closed his eyes in affirmation and it broke my heart. He was right to be nervous. Without help, he was going to be a bumbling idiot and blow his second chance with the woman he clearly still loved.

  “I’ll help you,” I said, finally letting go of his shirt, “but you have to promise me one thing, okay?”

  “Of course. What is it?” There was a level of relief in his tone I wasn’t expecting.

  “Not so fast. This will be hard for you to agree to.”

  He stood up taller, ready for his marching orders. “What is your condition?”

  “You, Mr.-Know-It-All, will have to succumb to the fact that in this, in this one area, I am the expert. Not you.”

  His face shifted seeing the gauntlet thrown down. I watched as his eyes narrowed. His lip twitched like he wanted to say something, but he was silent.

  “Fine,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  “I need to hear you say it,” I smirked.

  He sucked in a breath but relented. “You, Chloe Clark, Goddess of all things sex related, are the expert, in this one area.”

  I ignored the jab. “I could get used to being called a Goddess,” I mused.

  Liam rolled his eyes, but I giggled. This might actually be fun. I’d never played with someone so green.

  “Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together, “lay it out for me. What do you know how to do so I know where to start? What are you already comfortable with? Like, when you and Angel were together, how far did you get?”

  “Well, we held hands and kissed, of course.”

  I nodded. “Naturally. With tongue, yes?”

  “Um.”

  “Um?” I repeated.

  “That wasn’t really allowed. They were quite chaste kisses. Quick pecks on the lips, or cheek.”

  Rolling my eyes, I frowned at him. “Okay, fine. What about girls who weren’t Angel? How far did you get with your bimbos?”

  He didn’t answer me. He just swallowed.

  “Liam, please tell me you at least kissed those women.”

  “I’m quite certain we would have kissed if I hadn’t told them I had no desire to do such things on a first date. Is that wrong to say to a woman?”

  Yanking his arm, I forced him to look at me.

  “Hold up. You mean to tell me that in addition to not having sex with a woman for thirty-three years, you also haven’t slipped a woman the tongue?”

  “Would that be a bad thing?”

  I studied Liam for a moment with my mouth agape. I wasn’t exactly sure where to begin with his er…’training.’ He didn’t need help with just sex. He needed help with everything.

  Maybe I wasn’t the right person for this job. How do you give sex pointers to someone who’s never frenched a girl? How do you even describe how it feels if you’ve never done it?

  “Okay. Answer me this, Liam,” I said, trying to understand his endgame. “Is your ultimate goal to marry Angel, or just sow some wild oats?”

  He pondered my questions with great consideration. He always did. He was never rash with the things he said. Often times, it seemed like finding the right words agonized him.

  “I suppose for the purposes of this date, I’d like to feel confident giving her a goodnight kiss. I don’t want her to think she’s stalled my life in any way. I don’t want her to think I was waiting around for her to come back to me.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Even if it’s true?”

  “Especially, if it’s true,” he whispered.

  Shit. This was going to be hard.

  “Well, given your inexperience I think what we need to do is start with some basics. Something simple. Maybe we can watch some movies with great love scenes and dissect them?”

  Liam made a face of disapproval. “We watch the same movies, Chloe. And I don’t think I need to tell you that seeing a passionate kiss on screen and performing that same move on a woman in real life would, I imagine, be quite different.”

  “That’s true. My pillow never kissed me back the way Johnny Miller did in 11th grade.” I sighed at the memory. “That boy knew how to kiss.”

  He didn’t laugh at my joke.

  “That’s not really the sort of help I need, Chloe.”

  I looked up at him. His skin had turned quite pale, and it dawned on me in that second what he was really asking of me. He didn’t want a description of how to be intimate with a woman. He wanted first-hand knowledge.

  “Liam, you want to practice kissing on me, don’t you?”

  I saw him swallow once before he clenched his jaw.

  “If it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience, that is.”

  “Ah.” I said weakly. My best friend wanted to kiss me… so he could impress another girl. It was all kinds of fucked up. So why was I considering it?

  “It’s just that…you and I are such good friends. I thought this might be the ideal working relationship to conduct such an education. I, of course, would expect you to be brutally honest with me, as only you could be.”

  I had to hand it to him. Liam was ever a thinker. Always trying to find the most logical solution to a problem even if it was completely wackadoo. Still, he did have a point. Who better to ask help of than someone he trusted to give it to him straight and who wouldn’t confuse the situation for something other than what it was? A friend helping a friend.

  My feet swung back a few times on the counter as I considered his proposal. He leaned on the edge of the couch about a foot away from me, awaiting my answer.

  “Stand up,” I said after a moment.

  He did. His back was ramrod straight. His hands tucked themselves into his jeans pockets.

  “Take your hands out of your pockets and come closer, moron. I can’t kiss you way over there.”

  His eyes grew wide. “Now? You want to do it now? Don’t we need to talk about the techniques first? A flip chart maybe? Or perhaps a drawing to illustrate movements?”

  I shook my head. “This sort of thing you don’t practice by the book. It’s a lips-lips sort of experience.”

  He stood frozen as though not sure what to do.

  “Liam, I am not going to beg you to kiss me. You asked me to help you. You either get your skinny ass over here, or the deal’s off.”

  That seemed to kick him into gear. He took one small step towards me. I frowned and grabbed his arm, pulling him closer. I looped my legs around his waist, so he wouldn’t
run. That seemed to panic him.

  “Relax. Honestly. This won’t hurt.” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “I’ll do the work this time. All you need to do is receive. Okay?”

  There was an inhale from him as I locked my ankles around his waist. The movement forced our torsos to be pressed close. We were nose-to-nose and he was absolutely freaking out. I smiled. It was great fun watching him squirm, but I took pity on him.

  “Fine, ya big baby, here’s your blow by blow of what I’m going to do. I’ll run my hand up your arm slowly, put my hands on your face, then pull you in for a kiss. Okay?”

  He nodded quickly but his eyes stayed just above my head, seemingly too nervous to look at me. I decided to let that slide. For now. I’d work him up to eye contact.

  Trying to be as gentle as I could, I placed my hands on his elbows. He flinched but steadied himself. His skin was warmer than my own as I slowly worked them upward. His arms flexed against the movement, allowing my fingers to feel the curve of his biceps, which I’d sort of forgotten he had.

  I could hear his breathing pick up knowing this was probably the closest he’d ever been to a woman. There was something strangely sexual about that, but then I reminded myself that this was Liam, not a boyfriend. When my hands touched the sides of his face, his eyes finally flicked down at me. They were wide with fear.

  “It’s okay, Liam. It’s just Chloe. I won’t hurt you.”

  He nodded, but the terror was still there.

  “I want you to close your eyes. It will be easier for you.”

  They stayed open for a moment, but he finally relented to my command. With his eyes pinched shut, I pulled myself close to his ear.

  “Relax,” I whispered, being sure to breath hot against his ear. My hand worked to the back of his neck where I felt the hairs rising against my touch. He smelled so good that I was unable to resist a small suck on his ear lobe. His breath caught, but he didn’t move. It was time to go in for the kill. Scooting my ass forward to the edge of the counter I pressed my breasts firmly against his chest, just as Angel would do with those knockers. I licked my lips in preparation to kiss him. And that’s when my ass hit the floor.