Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one alone, I had probably spent more time in the city than at home.
I had been in every dank, dark, filthy bar, every upscale, pricey as fuck sushi joint, every kinky sex club, every museum, half of the clubs. If you were young and thirsty for experiences, well, you didn't exactly get them in Navesink Bank. Especially when you had an overprotective mother who had kept you on a choker collar your entire life, terrified you would end up like your father.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my mother, but there had always been a strain there, always been a bit of resentment at how she talked about our father after his death, how she belittled his memory when, in reality, he had been good. Maybe not a good man. He had done an unknown amount of bad things in his time, I was sure, under Reign's father's rule. But he had been an excellent provider, a loving father, and while maybe he hadn't been a devoted husband, had always given our mother respect, had always backed her up with whatever she wanted to do.
Hell, I once remember her throwing a fit at him about being fed up and needing to get away - from him, from us - and he gave her ten grand and told her to go refresh for as long as she wanted. Of course, that meant that me, Reeve, and Wasp were taken to The Henchmen compound to live for three months, which was where Reign taught me how to throw a ball, where Vin taught me how to shoot, where Wasp first learned how to do a solar plexus strike when she wanted someone to get the fuck away from her.
For our ma, she got to tan on the beach drinking mojitos.
But for us, it was a vacation as well.
Then Mom came home, whip in hand, and it was back to real life.
Dad was killed.
And Mom went into full-on dictator-mode.
While, as an adult, I understood it, as a teen and young adult, yeah, man, I fucking loathed it.
So as soon as I turned eighteen, I asked Reeve to crash with him.
But I didn't exactly do much crashing. I was bed-hopping most nights, or off in the city, or both.
So, yeah, I had seen about all there was to see in the city that never sleeps.
But I had never gotten to see it through Reese's eyes.
Apparently, well, she simply had better eyes too.
Because everything from the hot dog venders to the taxidermied corpses of extinct birds absolutely fascinated her. Her eyes went huge; her lips parted; her breath whooshed out of her; her cheeks got flushed in excitement.
Suddenly, it was like seeing it all again for the first time, but through a sharper, more beautiful lens.
Whereas my visits had maybe had me noticing the less fine details - the screaming car horns, the angry yelling on cell phones, the homeless begging for food or money, the gang graffiti, the tourists stopping in the middle of a sidewalk to take group photos and holding up foot traffic, and the general unpleasant smell that was a mix of cooking food spices and the overabundance of rotting dumpster garbage - Reese was in the rose-colored glasses phase.
I didn't have to ask to know that she hadn't visited before, that her life hadn't allowed her such luxury, even though Navesink Bank was only an hour away.
The fact of the matter is, I knew Reese grew up poor. The kind of poor that meant some weeks even with a multitude of coupons in hand, her mother didn't have enough money to get anything more than rice and beans and dollar pizzas.
So it made sense that, even though it was close, and there was a lot to do that didn't cost much, even the thirty dollars per person it would have cost to take the train was an ostentatious extravagance that her mother simply couldn't afford.
And, well, as an adult, Reese just wasn't the kind of woman to go exploring a new city all by herself. Unless exploring them in her books counted. To her, they very much did.
So, let me tell ya, it was a fucking sight to see to watch her bouncing with excitement at the museum, to watch her let out a foodgasm noise over a simple hot pretzel, to see her light the fuck up when I got her a stuffed goldfish.
That being said, that sight paled in comparison to seeing her eyes heat up as I touched her, to watching her back arch, body writhe, mouth open on whimpers and moans as I worked her wet pussy through the drenched material of her panties.
I had woken up before her, taking myself into the bathroom to shower and, well, deal with my own sexual frustration. I had never, not even in high school, not even when I was just starting out with women, had I ever slept in bed beside one without fucking her first. It was a new experience for me. And, surprisingly, not unwelcome. Maybe that was only because I did want to take it slow; I didn't want to rush through it; I truly wanted to experience it.