I sink lower and plunge my tongue deep inside her, and my balls ache to join the party. I press in and out, until I’m loving her like I’ve dreamed of a thousand times before, burying the groans in my chest because it’s all too fucking fantastic.
“Ace.” She lets out a hard breath, and I glide back to her pleasure point, flicking my tongue over her sweet spot until her body spasms into mine. She holds my head locked down in that position before evicting me from my post and cinching her knees together.
“I guess we’ve met our goal for the night,” I whisper, a dull smile riding on my lips. I swim up beside her and hold Reese in my arms, her heated body still quivering into mine. “Did you like that?” I press a kiss over her cheek as she shivers into me.
“Nope.” She twists around with her eyes glowing like fireflies. “I loved it.”
Reese loved it. A smile cinches on my lips for a brief moment as I tighten my grip around her. I want to hold her like this all night long. It might be game over to her as far as her body goes, but I’m hoping somewhere in the exchange her heart piqued its interest for me just a little. Tonight was magic, and I never want her to forget it. I know for a fact I won’t.
I land a careful kiss just over her temple and keep it there in an effort to stop the words I love you from slipping from my lips.
But, God, I love Reese Westfield.
Every single day, I do.
True to my word I drive her home, albeit at five-thirty in the morning once the sun has already kissed the lip of the horizon.
“Good night.” Reese snuggles into me as I wrap my arms around her.
“Good morning,” I counter, pressing a kiss over the top of her head.
Reese looks up at me, her mascara slightly smudged, her hair rumpled and sexy as hell. I remember all those nights she spent at my house when she and Neva still hung out. I remember getting up at the ass crack of dawn just to plant myself in the living room to watch her sleep, memorizing her sinewy limbs, her long, mirror-like shards of hair. I wanted her even then.
“You’re perfect,” I whisper.
“I’m not perfect.” Her chest rumbles with a quiet laugh. “Not even close.” She touches the side of my cheek with her hand. “But you are.” Reese leans in. A desperation grows in her eyes as she struggles for a moment. “Ace, I…” Her mouth closes, entombing the words she was about to say next.
“Go ahead.” I rub my arm up over her shoulder, encouraging her to finish. “You’re safe. You can say anything you want.” I damn well know what I want to hear, and I can’t help but think she was about to say it—say I love you. We’re on the cusp of something beautiful, something bigger than a summer fling, something that takes being someone special to a whole new level. If she says those words, I’ll drive her right back to the boathouse to finish what we started.
“It was stupid.” She shakes her head. “I’d better go. If Kennedy thinks I’m missing, she’ll call Warren then Brylee, and I’ll have to tell the whole world I spent the night in the arms of the best looking guy on the planet.” She bites down on a coy smile. “I wish we could tell everyone.” Her eyes widen at the prospect, and I get lost in the blue flecks that swim in a sea of silver.
“But they wouldn’t understand, right?” I brush the hair from her face and land a simple kiss over her lips. “Summer flings—special someone’s—are sort of hard to explain in general.”
She nods as her affect dims just this side of tears. “You are special to me, Ace.” Her eyes glitter like the surface of the lake when the sun hits it just right. “You’ll always be more than a fling.” She presses a hard kiss over my lips before bolting out of the car, and I never did get a chance to say anything in return. Her door closes, quiet as a whisper, and I drive back down toward the house, smiling like a goof.
The rim of the lake glistens a bright pink as it drinks down the salmon-colored sun. A duck takes flight over the unblemished sky, and I exhale a breath at the beauty of it all. Everything looks more defined, more satisfying to the senses—more real.
I park in the driveway and note dad’s truck is still missing. Looks like two Waterman’s scored last night, let’s hope it’s not three. Not that I consider what I’m doing with Reese a game. She might. It doesn’t mean I do.
I head into the house to find Neva on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her, cartoons playing softly on the television.
“Where were you?” Her hair is twisted in a rat’s nest on top of her hair. Her makeup is dripping halfway down her cheek giving her that zombie vibe she’s been after these last few years. Sometimes I seriously miss the cute little kid she used to be.
“None of your business.” I head to the kitchen and start a pot of coffee, tossing in a few extra scoops to intensify the pick me up. “What has you up so early?”
“I always get up early, but you wouldn’t notice.” She grumbles something under her breath, and I miss that last part. “So, were you with her?”
My arm freezes, midair, as I’m about to reach for a mug. That goofy grin is itching to make its reprisal.
“Yeah, I was with her. We were just hanging out.” I turn on the coffeemaker like it’s no big deal. “We must of fell asleep.”
“Just hanging out, huh? Where? In your car?” She sounds incensed that it could have happened at all, let alone in the Cougar.
“No, not in the car.” I head over to the table and flip open my laptop. “Again, it’s none of your business.”
“Well I sort of feel like it is my business.” Neva snaps like she’s about to start ripping off heads. I glance up just in time to see the fire in her eyes.
“All right, I give. What’s the deal? You cut Reese out of your life, and now, you want me to join in on the fun? Too bad. It’s not happening.” Not now, not ever.
“Yeah? How about some family camaraderie? What happened to all that I’ve-got-your-back-no-matter-what bullshit you fed me when Mom died?”
My heart stops because for a minute I think maybe I blocked out some huge life event.
“She didn’t die, Neva. She left.” I cut the air with my words as if I were somehow using my mother to deflect the blow she wanted to inflict on Reese and me.
“Same difference,” she huffs as she tosses the blanket to the floor. “I guess I could have figured that you’d be the next in line to abandon me.”
“How am I abandoning you by hanging out with Reese?” I rub my eye until it feels like it’s going to invert into my skull. I’m too fucking tired to do this shit with her.
“Did you sleep together?” Neva’s voice rails through the air and saws over my last nerve.
“Not in the biblical sense.” Not yet anyway.
“Then why did she come here dressed to impress with her feet pressed into her fuck-me gear?”
She did, didn’t she? A dull smile rides low on my lips at the memory.
“Look, I know you don’t like her. I get it. For whatever reason she’s your mortal enemy. But, for the record, I’ve never once heard her say anything bad about you. And that’s true as shit, so get off my fucking back.”
“Right.” Neva drills into me with those raccoon eyes. “She’s only screwing my brother. I think that goes a little further than talking behind my back to her stupid ivy-league friends.”
“You’re friends with all the same people.”
“And I know for a fact they think they’re better than us.” She picks up a magazine and glances over it before tossing it to the floor. “Look, I know you were with her last night, but I also know she’s pretty serious with her boyfriend, Warren. He told me so himself.”
I don’t bother glancing up, just finish perusing the Yeats’ rowing team’s homepage to see if they’ve added my name to the roster yet. “Don’t believe everything you hear. They’re not that serious.”
“Then why did he show Brylee and me the engagement ring he bought for her? He said he was going to pop the question on the Fourth of July.”
My insides boil with heat.
“Really?” I straighten in my seat, trying to remember if she ever mentioned breaking things off with him the other night at the Blue Crab. “I doubt it’ll happen. Even if he does, she won’t say yes.”
“Why’s that? Because she’s so in love with you?” She storms over to the table with the look of mockery ripe in her eyes. Neva leans in and bares her fangs in a sarcastic smile. “You’ll never be anything but some cheap throwaway toy to someone like her. Just watch—she’ll be engaged to Warren McMoney by summers end, and she’ll have you chopping the firewood to heat their happy home. That’s all you’ll ever be to her is some tool she fucked for the hell of it.”
“Shut up,” I say it low. My palms flattened over the table to keep from turning it over.
“Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut,” she shouts as she stomps her way down the hall. “But I’m only trying to stop you from getting your heart broken. You may not have my back anymore, but I sure as hell have yours.”
The slam of her door goes off like a gunshot.
“Fuck,” I grunt, before heading outside to clear my head.
A smooth, clean line bisects the water, and I recognize the kook stroking through the lake. It’s bright and early, and Warren is already doing laps like he’s training for the Olympics.
“What the hell.” I jump into my canoe and paddle out until we’re parallel.
“You and me,” he shouts, pointing over to the buoy at the distal end, and I give a thumbs up.
We start neck-in-neck as we race over toward the forest end of the lake. Warren and I have done this a million times. Hell, I credit myself for getting his sorry ass into rowing to begin with. Way back when, it was me who spent hours training him before he took flight on his own, and now, here we are, going at it like the prize was Reese herself, only Warren wouldn’t know that because he thinks he already has her—owns her.
I pull out a good twenty feet, and he never catches me. We spin around, and he points to the other side, and we do it all over again.
Warren and I glide up onto the white sandy beach of Pleasure Point and roll out of the tiny boats. My muscles are on fire, and I can’t catch my breath.
“Dude,” he pants. “You must have wanted that bad. I don’t think I’ve ever had my ass kicked so hard.” He slaps his stomach as he lets out a howl.
“I usually get what I want.” Not quite accurate but in this case, with Reese, I hope to God it’s me who’s the last man standing. “So what’s up? What’s going on in your life, bro?” I’m not sure what I’ll do if he fesses up to wanting to pop the question. There’s no way Reese and I could carry on this summer charade unless she clears the air with him—that is if she wants to.
“Just the same bullshit day after day—doing an internship for my dad, playing lackey.”
“Cool.” My stomach loosens with relief. He didn’t even mention her. Maybe she’s not that important to him.
“I’m having a big party next week, you up for some bro’s and hoes? We got to get you laid, dude.”
“The party sounds good. I might have plans though.” A vision of Reese moaning beneath me bumps through my mind, and I don’t fight it. “Don’t worry about me. I’m pretty damn lucky these days. And you?” I know for a fact he’s not getting any.
“Got me a wild one. Sucks me off like it’s nobody’s business.” He gravels out a laugh, and I flinch. “She’s got some douche on the side, and I don’t even fucking care, man. It’s sort of an open relationship right now, anyway.” He gets up on his elbows and stares off at the water. My stomach pinches tight, and that cup of coffee I just downed burns through me like battery acid. Why do I get the feeling I’m the fucking douche. “Reese and I will do the whole monogamy thing once we tie the knot, but for now, it’s a summer of sowing some serious oats if you know what I mean. We both know we’re buckling down come fall.”
Shit. Is that what I am? An oat?
“She’s really okay with that?” I find it doubtful.
“Hell, yes”—he cinches his head back a notch—“she’s the one that suggested it. Don’t let that sweet, innocent routine of hers fool you, Reese is nothing but a bad girl waiting to let loose. It’s her best kept secret. But don’t tell her I said so. I’ll deny it every single time.” He gets up and jumps back in his canoe. “Do yourself a favor and find yourself someone like Reese. Life doesn’t get any better than that.” He sails off, and I watch as he pumps his way toward his father’s overgrown house.
I thought I did find someone like Reese.
Now I wonder if I know Reese at all.
5
Catching Shadows
Reese
“So?” Kennedy stares at me from over the rim of her coffee cup. Her nose is bunched up, her lips set to a snarl, giving her all the drama of a demon, and her ears peak back like an elf’s. I’m guessing over breakfast isn’t the best time to let her know I think she looks like a demon elf. “How’s the big race for your virginity?”
Kennedy has long since dubbed herself the keeper of my V-card. As soon as she lost hers, she put mine on a timer.
“It’s getting pretty heated.” That’s like saying the surface of the sun is a little hot. I want to keep all the orally delicious details to myself, but a fire rips through me, and I’m pretty sure she can see it blistering over my skin—goose bumps in the shape of a thousand little penises.
She pumps a dry smile like a lioness ready to pounce her virginal prey.
“Spill the semen, like Ace did,” she insists.
“I’m not discussing bodily fluids over breakfast with you.”
Kennedy is fresh from the shower with her white plush robe pulled snug around her body, her hair wrapped in a towel two feet above her head like a pile of whipped cream. She smells sweet like sugared pears. It reminds me of a dessert my mother used to make. Mom would boil the pears once they began to bruise and sprinkle brown sugar over them. I still do it now and again just to keep her culinary traditions alive. Only next time I’ll pretend I’m boiling Kennedy and her foul mouth, and I find that mildly amusing.
We sit at the table, overlooking the lake, and my eyes keep catching on the yellow and orange tents that materialized overnight across the way. There are so many camps up here in the summer, but mostly they’re all on the other side, which is nice since they tend to get rowdy. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I think of Ace and me sneaking off to a tent of our own—nothing but God, and sky, miles of evergreens, and not a dollar bill or Warren in sight.
“So what’s up with you and McCarthy?” Kennedy chooses to carry on her interrogation of my private life, and I don’t know why. I don’t make it a practice to ask about the state of her vagina, not that Warren has anything to do with mine but still. “He’s been asking me a million questions.”
“Nothing’s up with Warren. I told him the other night I think we should see other people.” True story and he didn’t even bat an eye. Something tells me he’s been on board with that idea a lot longer than I care to know about.
“You broke up with him?” Her mouth elongates into a perfect oval. It’s so rare to see Kennedy shocked by anything, and that alone sends a mild panic railing through me.
“No,” I say it slow to defuse the gossip bomb just dying to go off in her. “You see, I would have had to be going out with him in order to break it off. One cannot break off something that technically never began.” I give a satisfied smirk because that was some serious ninja word-fu I just did there.
“Okay, Confucius, you can relax.” She lowers her dark gaze into me and gives a knowing smile. “For the record, I don’t think he heard that whole part about you seeing other people. That boy is insane when it comes to his little, Reesie pie.”
“For the record”—I mimic her tone—“Warren has never called me that ridiculous nickname once, and if you ever use it in public, I’ll tell everyone you smoke tampons recreationally.”
“How do you know what he calls you while he’s fucking my brains out?” She kicks me from under the table, and I shake my head at her stupid attempt at humor. For one, I sort of wish he was launching grey matter through her ears because that would solve a hell of a lot of problems for me right now.
“Would you be quiet?” I roll my eyes while Kennedy laughs her turban off. “And he’s insane if he thinks we were ever together to begin with. Paternal expectations do not a relationship make.”
“And what about Ace?” She settles down just enough to dig her fingers into her eyes. “Does he think you’re together? Are you his little, Reesie Pie?”
I wish.
“He wants to keep things status quo,” it sails from my lips robotic. “He likes having me as a friend.” It guts me just to say it, to think it. After all, I’d swear on my life that his tongue catapulted us well past the friendly phase of our relationship. Maybe Ace is just afraid to admit it, the way I am. Who am I kidding? Ace has always been fearless. I’m simply feeding his boner addiction for the summer.
“And what happens once August rolls around?” Kennedy swivels her finger around the lip of her mug in a never-ending circle, sort of the way my mind cycled in a never-ending loop over Ace all last year.
“I guess we go back to the way things were.” God, how I hate the way things were. I like yeast infections more than I like the way things were with Ace and me. “But what I really hope is that nothing goes back to the way it was ever again.” I come to just as the words slip from me.
Crap. I just gave Kennedy an inch, and she’s going to—
“Oh my, God.” Kennedy’s eyes widen, her forehead wrinkles, perplexed. “I call bullshit. You are so falling in love with him.” She shakes her head. “Oh crap.” She belts out a laugh. “You’ve always been in love with him haven’t you?”
A bang emits from behind followed by footsteps, and we turn to find Beverly and Dad storming the room with their suitcases.
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