She was shaking, but she didn’t feel the cold—could feel nothing, except the painful, empty hole in the pit of her stomach. Her bare hand, which had so recently been warmed by his touch. And finally, after a few blocks and a few deep breaths, the rage.The hot blaze of anger—and the cool certainty that this was not over, that this was not a fight she was prepared to lose.
Adam would be hers … and Kaia would be sorry.
They went back to the abandoned motel. Of course.
Adam felt like he was watching the scene happen to someone else. That couldn’t be him, clutching Kaia’s hand, following her down the long and dusty hallways and into one of the cramped, dark rooms. It must be someone else giving in to her warm touch, the soft pressure of her hands forcing him down onto the mattress. It couldn’t be him.
All his willpower had drifted away, all the excitement and energy that had surged through him in the club as he finally let himself go and ran his hands over her body, as she nibbled his earlobe and whispered, “Let’s get out of here”—all that had seeped away. This wasn’t a crime committed in the heat of passion—it was a crime of omission, a failure to stop the chain of events that had started in the bar, that had brought him here.
But who could stop an avalanche? Who could stop a train wreck?
Inevitability.
That was the word he was groping for. Everything had taken on a strange tinge of inevitability, as if everything that had happened in the last few weeks, everything since he’d first seen her, first taken her hand in his, had led directly to this moment. To Kaia.
She stood before him and, with a sultry smile, pulled off her halter top, revealing the black lace bra that lay beneath.
Then off went the shimmering silver skirt.
Off went the lace.
She crawled into bed beside him.
“Your turn,” she whispered, and began unbuttoning his jeans.
A warm heat flushed through him and he felt his lost passion returning—and along with it, his doubt.
“Kaia,” he said softly, allowing her to pull his T-shirt over his head, to kiss her way across his bare chest as his hands, as if of their own accord, massaged the soft contours of her body. “Kaia, I’m not sure we should …”
“Shh,” she whispered, stopping him with a kiss. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”
And off went the boxers.
chapter
12
The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. As the voice mail kicked in again, Adam hung up in disgust. He’d left too many messages, and his voice was beginning to take on a distinct tinge of desperation. But where was she?
(Screening your calls, his inner voice whispered. He ignored it.)
He needed to talk to her, needed to see her—and for what? He didn’t even know. When he’d woken up this morning, the whole thing, the foggy memory of their bodies wrapped together, of their feverish wrestling, thrusting, caressing, moaning—it had all seemed like a dream.
But it had happened.
And it could never happen again—except that there was nothing he wanted more than to see her, to touch her, to feel her hands all over him.
Guilt burned through him every time he thought about what he’d done, and he thought about it constantly. And maybe the pain of guilt was worth it.
He decided to go outside, shoot some hoops, burn off some nervous energy. His mother had yet to return home from her own escapades the night before, and the house was too empty, too quiet. He didn’t want to face anyone else—not now that he had a secret that was weighing down on him so heavily. Besides, normal human interaction might bring him back down to Earth, penetrate the haze that seemed to lay over him, that gave every moment a heightened clarity, every sensation a powerful charge. He felt different, somehow, and he wasn’t ready to share the feeling—or to lose it. He didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts, though—well, more than anything, he wanted to be alone with his thoughts and his fantasies, but that seemed too dangerous. Because the more he thought, the more he wanted.
He changed into a ratty T-shirt and some running shorts, grabbed the ball out of the garage, and jogged over to the driveway. It was a blisteringly hot day, the heat billowing up in waves from the black concrete. Good. Maybe he could sweat out this disease that Kaia had infected him with, this bottomless craving for her body, for the feel of her skin against him. He needed to stop thinking about her, to stop thinking at all, to just focus on the feeling of his muscles straining in exertion, his feet pounding the ground, his hands on the ball, sending it flying toward the basket. He would lose himself in the moment.
He brought the phone outside with him, though. Just in case.
Adam didn’t know how long he was out there, dribbling, racing back and forth across the length of the driveway, trying to force himself into an oblivion of exhaustion. It almost worked. Finally he stopped, out of breath and every muscle screaming. He bent forward, letting his arms dangle freely toward the ground, then straightened up and dumped a bottle of water over his head.
And there was the phone, lying on the ground, taunting him with its silence. He wrestled with himself, then slammed the ball into the pavement in frustration. It bounced with a resounding thud; Adam scooped it up with one hand—with the other he picked up the phone. He flipped it open, just in case he’d been so in the zone that he’d missed a call. But he hadn’t.
And then, as he shuffled up the walkway toward his front door, it rang in his hands. Startled, Adam fumbled it for a moment, almost dropped it—dropped the ball instead—and finally flipped it open to check the caller ID.
Beth.
She’d been calling all weekend.
He flipped the phone shut again, ignoring the tension creeping through his body. For now, at least, what was there to say?
The phone rang and rang, but Harper didn’t even bother to see who it was, much less consider answering it.
It would be Miranda, of course, as it had been the last twenty times, calling to see where she’d disappeared to, wondering what had happened Friday night. Harper’s mouth twisted into a sour grin—maybe Miranda was imagining her and Adam holed away in the bedroom together, an isolated lovers’ tryst. Right.
The first few calls, she’d raced to the phone, expecting it to be Adam, begging for forgiveness. Not that she would have answered, she reminded herself—but there would have been a certain satisfaction in listening to his voice on the machine, groveling for mercy.
Saturday had passed, and most of Sunday—and the call had never come.
She would like to think that he was in his bedroom even now, staring out the window at her house, too racked with guilt to call her, too afraid of what her response might be. Agonizing over whether he’d thrown away a twelve-year friendship for a one-night stand.
Somehow, she doubted it.
She knew all she had to do was pick up the phone and Miranda would appear, complete with the requisite care package of trashy chick flicks and a bottle of Absolut. Miranda had a secret stash hidden in an old suitcase under her bed for moments just like this. She could easily have slipped a couple of bottles out of the house and spent the weekend over at Harper’s, under the guise of keeping Harper company while her parents were out of town. She knew she should have called Miranda at some point, regardless, as the two of them had arranged to meet at the Cedar Creek Motel earlier that day to supervise the team of sophomores that Harper had suckered into cleaning the place. (They’d been sworn to secrecy about the location but offered admittance to the party—if their Lysol and vacuuming efforts were deemed up to snuff.) Too bad. Miranda would just have to take care of it alone or leave the sophomores to fend for themselves. She’d be pissed off, but Harper knew she would understand—there were plenty of extenuating circumstances.
And Harper just wanted to be alone. Her mother had dragged her father off for a weekend of “antiquing”—both he and Harper knew this was code for “digging through unwanted, flea-infested crap at roadside junk sale
s,” but neither had much desire to puncture Amanda Grace’s illusions. Harper’s mother spent her time in a world of her own making, one that was infinitely richer, more elegant, more high society, more appropriate than the dirty present, in which the Grace family, once lords of the manor, now struggled to keep their heads above water.
But Harper was trapped in the harsh reality of the present: an empty house, empty hours to fill. As the phone began to ring again, Harper moaned and pulled one of the couch pillows over her head to drown out the noise. She’d been self-medicating with vodka and cookie dough, but forty-eight hours of that had only left her with a persistent thudding headache and periodic waves of nausea. In a few hours she would crawl into bed, hide under the covers, and pass out, trying not to think about waking up Monday morning and facing the world.
Struggle with a smile, she thought. It was her mother’s cardinal rule. Do whatever you need to do—but never let them see you cry.
Kaia shut off her phone.
She was sick of seeing Adam’s name pop up on the caller ID what seemed like every five minutes—and face it, it’s not like anyone else would be trying to call.
She shuffled down to the kitchen to snag another pint of Ben and Jerry’s. When she’d arrived in town a few weeks ago, the refrigerator and freezer had been completely empty, the sparkling stainless steel kitchen with its state-of-the-art appliances virtually unused. Typical bachelor pad. Even though the bachelor in question was a fifty-two-year-old defense contractor with two ex-wives and a seventeen-year-old daughter. Kaia didn’t know what her father had been eating—it’s not like there were a lot of takeout options in town, and she somehow didn’t see Keith Sellers pulling his BMW sedan into the Nifty Fifties lot on a regular basis.
Since she’d arrived, she’d had the cook stock up on her favorite foods—at least the ones that could be purchased nearby or shipped in—and, after so many years of nonstop restaurant cuisine, she had to admit that night after night of home-cooked meals was actually a welcome change. Even if she did usually eat her gourmet food spread out on a TV table in the den—the dining room was too large and impersonal for one. And one was the most she ever got.
Anyway, she’d sent the cook home for the weekend, and instead of her usual diet of whole grains, soy, and fresh greens, she was treating herself to a couple of days of soggy pizza and Ben and Jerry’s. Why not? Hadn’t she accomplished her mission? Didn’t she deserve a little reward?
Kaia scooped some Chubby Hubby into a ceramic bowl (ecru colored, to match the walls) and squeezed some chocolate sauce on top. Perfect. Grabbing a spoon, she headed back into the living room and settled onto the couch, just in time for the beginning of a ‘Very special” Lifetime movie. Like all Lifetime movies, it was a cautionary tale of teen pregnancy or anorexia or domestic violence or something—Kaia didn’t really care. She just liked to watch all the fucked-up people sort out their problems in such reliably melodramatic ways. And it helped kill the time.
“You’re grounded!” her father had shouted in exasperation when she’d strolled in the door a little before dawn.
She’d just smirked. Grounded? As if that were a punishment in a place like this—as if there were anywhere else in this town she’d rather be than on her couch, watching shitty movies. Grace was nothing but tedium. Which her father might have known if he’d spent more than five minutes with her since she’d come to town. But no—he’d swooped home on the one night she was out until dawn, freaked out, grounded her, then disappeared before she woke up the next morning. Off he went on another “business trip,” along with his omnipresent personal assistant, who, conveniently, looked like a low-rent Playboy Bunny.
As if the maid was really going to enforce the whole grounding thing if Kaia decided to leave the house. In fact, Kaia realized, it would almost be worth the trouble of venturing out, just to force the confrontation….
Almost, but not quite.
No, on Monday morning she’d go back to work, so to speak—continue her pursuit of Jack Powell, enjoy the taste of her conquest over Adam, sit back to watch the chaos that would inevitably ensue. And if anyone asked, she would describe a whirlwind jaunt to Manhattan, a jet-setting weekend filled with star-studded parties and risqué encounters—much like the weekend she was sure all her East Coast “friends” were currently sleeping off. Not that any of them would bother to tell her about it—or take a break from the high life and visit her in exile.
But no one had to know that. She turned up the volume on the TV—it was anorexia this time, with an “all star cast” featuring some guy from 7th Heaven and that woman from The Facts of Life (she showed up in 70 percent of all Lifetime movies—and Kaia would know).
It was a guilty pleasure, Kaia acknowledged, scarfing down another spoonful of her ice cream. Embarrassing, yes—but all in all not such a bad way to spend a weekend.
chapter
13
By Monday, Adam had less of a grip than ever on what he wanted to say to Kaia—he just knew that he needed to talk to her, needed to see her, needed it more with every passing minute. The guilt of what they’d done was crushing him; he’d managed to avoid Beth all day long, but his luck couldn’t last forever. Even so, his nightmarish visions of what might happen were far less vivid than his impassioned memories of what had happened, and …
And basically, he was completely confused.
“Kaia!” he called, finally spotting her glossy black hair in the crowd as the final bell echoed through the halls. “Kaia, wait up a minute!” He jogged to catch up with her, breaking into a bright smile as she turned to face him. She was wearing a form-fitting black shirt that laced up the front and jeans so tight they could have been painted on. The indecision and complexities of a moment ago seemed to melt away.
“Adam.” She sighed. “What is it?”
“Where were you all weekend?” he asked, hoping not to sound too desperate. He was, he reminded himself, a superstar on this campus. He was beloved by the masses, adored by throngs of girls. He shouldn’t need to be chasing one through the halls, even if she was so beautiful it hurt, even if her touch made him forget that there’d ever been anyone else. No girl was worth humiliating himself. And yet—he heard the panic creeping into his voice. And couldn’t stop it. “Didn’t you get my messages?”
“I was away,” she said shortly. “Back in New York. So what did you want?”
“I wanted—“Adam broke off. What did he want? That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? He wanted her, of course, right here, right now. But didn’t he also want to be with Beth, his sweet, innocent girlfriend? Other than the awkwardly mumbled hellos exchanged at their neighboring lockers, they hadn’t spoken in almost a week, which was the longest time in months he’d gone without hearing from her. And he missed her, he did—but it was hard to remember that when his eyes, without his permission, remained riveted on Kaia’s deep red lips.
He pulled her out of the path of the crowd and into a small alcove behind the lockers and lowered his voice. He’d just make it up as he went along.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he said urgently.
“So you got me. Talk about what?”
About what? What else?
“About, you know, about what we did,” he whispered, darting his head around to make sure no one could overhear. “About what we’re going to do about it.”
About whether we’re going to do it again.
“What’s there to do about it?” she asked, sounding mystified. “Or to talk about? We did it, and”—she touched his cheek briefly, gently—“it was great. But, you know, it’s done. What do you want from me?”
Adam was stunned. “I just thought we could—well, you’d said—and when we were at the motel—I just thought you wanted—”
Kaia laughed—it was a musical sound, lighter and more spontaneous than anything he’d seen her say or do in the short time they’d known each other. That was the difference, he suddenly realized: This was real—and everything else had all been ca
lculated.
“Oh, Adam,” she said, her voice dripping with a patronizing sympathy. “What? Did you think we were going to date or something? Were you thinking this was going to be a relationship?” She pronounced the word as if it tasted rotten coming out of her mouth.
Then she laughed again, and Adam finally got it. He may have been slow, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Whatever,” he said brusquely. “I just wanted to be sure that you didn’t get the wrong idea. I’m with Beth, you know. I love her.” The familiar phrase sounded unconvincing, even to him. Especially to him.
“I know you do,” Kaia assured him, grinning brightly now. “So you must be pretty terrified that she’ll find out about this, hmm?” She gave him a cryptic look. “But hey, who would tell her?”
Shit. Adam had never before understood what it would feel like to have one’s heart leap into one’s throat. Now he knew. It felt like your chest was an empty shell about to collapse in on itself. It felt like strong hands had wrapped themselves around your neck, squeezing like a vise, choking the air out of you. He saw it clearly now, every step of her—what, her plan? Seduction. Betrayal. All that, just to get him into bed? Or to make him feel like a fool? Or was the true prize whatever was about to come next, all hell breaking loose when Beth learned the truth? Would anyone really go to so much effort, just to cause themselves a little pleasure—or someone else so much pain?
“Kaia,” he said warningly, “you wouldn’t—”
Who, me? she mimed, the picture of innocence.
“I’m hurt,” she said aloud. “Don’t you know me at all by now?” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and skipped off down the hallway. “You know you can trust me!” she called over her shoulder.
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