“Way back.” Mikey pulled a bottle from the cooler and handed one to Gabriella, offering one to Connor next. He shook his head. “Dean was famous for the most detentions in the ninth grade, but Connor busted that record when he showed up in tenth.” Mikey looked up at him admiringly. “This guy really knew how to party.”
“Mikey—”
“Hey, remember the Fourth the summer we got our licenses?” he asked, apparently ignoring the warning in Connor’s voice. “When we tore donuts with Dean’s truck into Sheriff Roger’s lawn?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Connor said. “And I was so glad that I was the one who got caught for it while the two of you were already home.”
Dean tilted back his bottle for a long sip. “Good times.”
Gabriella could feel the muscles in Connor’s leg tense. It was obvious he didn’t want this story told, but her curiosity was piqued. She couldn’t help wanting to hear more about his rebellious past.
“Why did Connor get caught for it when it was Dean’s truck?” she asked.
“Well, Sheriff Roger already kind of had it in for him,” Mikey continued. “He was the one who’d practically knocked up his daughter after all—”
“O-kay!” Connor said loudly as he sat up straight, his body going taut like a switchblade. “I think we don’t need to go there tonight.”
Gabriella shouldn’t have wanted to hear the last part of that story. There was nothing about him being so reckless with someone else that should have turned her on, but it just reminded her of the night before and how willing Connor was to press her against that pole where anyone could see.
Exactly what else had he done? And why wasn’t he willing to do it with her?
“Oh I think we definitely need to go there, my friend,” Dean argued, sliding an arm across Gabriella’s shoulders. Connor’s jaw ticked, eyes flaring at where Dean’s skin touched hers. “Don’t you think our girl here deserves to know everything about the guy she’s into?”
Connor’s lips pinched together as he looked away. Whatever his friends were teasing him about was a layer he didn’t want peeled back right now.
“I think I know a lot about Connor already,” Gabriella said. “And I think there’s a lot more to him than you all know too.”
Connor smiled at the ground. It made all her joints go a little bit loose.
“Oooh,” Dean catcalled, releasing Gabriella from his grip. “You sure you want to know everything, Miss Ivy League?”
There was a dare in his words that flustered her, but it got cut off when Jamie suddenly stood up.
“Hey, you know what? I think the fireworks are about to start.” She started walking backwards toward the water. “I’m going to get a closer spot. Anyone coming?”
Dean looked after her, paused for a moment and then leapt to his feet. “Sounds like an invitation to me.”
He started chasing Jamie down the hill. Connor shot a glare at Mikey, who quickly stood too.
“Um, I’ll go get the other six pack from Dean’s truck,” he muttered before hurrying away.
Gabriella nursed her beer as the group scattered. The sky had darkened to a deep purple, and a sea breeze rushed in with the incoming tide. It made her hair fly about her face, and she rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to chase away the gooseflesh that rose from the chilly air. How unlike her to have forgotten to bring a sweatshirt.
“You cold?” Connor asked. “We can watch the fireworks from inside the tent if you want?”
“Sure. That’d be nice.”
He stood and helped her up. His hand felt warm and big as his fingers wrapped around hers. They ducked their heads inside the tent, and when they were sitting back down next to one another, Connor unzipped his sweatshirt and draped it over her shoulders. The fabric was warm. It smelled like him—a clean, woodsy scent laced with a hint of sweat.
She breathed in and threaded her arms through the sleeves. “Thank you.” Connor nodded and tied back a tent flap so they could still see the sky, then drew his legs up and rested his elbows on his knees. Despite his size, he looked like a little boy, lost and unsure.
“You okay?”
He made a sound that was a little too painful to be a laugh. He shook his head, his gaze falling down between his bent arms. “I’m fine. I’m really sorry about Dean and Mikey. They really are good guys. Most of the time.”
“They weren’t so bad.” She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile and carefully added, “I like getting to hear more about you.”
“You say that now.” Connor took a breath and looked up. He didn’t face her, though. Just kept his eyes trained on the ocean’s edge. “That wasn’t the worst of it. I told you I wasn’t a good kid.”
“You were young. Besides, good isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. It’s boring and entirely too overrated.”
Connor smiled over his shoulder at her. With his mouth pressed against his bicep, she could only see his grin in the way his cheeks lifted, his eyes crinkling at the corners. It made her heart leap in funny ways. Then his stare turned heavy, gaze dropping and lingering at the edge of her top. His eyes grew hooded, the look in them suddenly dangerous again, and Gabriella teased her fingers along the neckline of her tank in a silent suggestion. She wanted more of the Connor who kissed her on the dock, the rebel who trespassed and slept with local officials’ daughters. It went against everything she should have wanted, everything she’d come here to prove, but she didn’t care.
Connor lifted his head and balanced his chin on his arm.
“You don’t like being good, Gabby?” His voice was hushed, his words a slowly igniting flame.
She shook her head. “There’s a lot more to me than you know too.”
“Yeah?” He shifted around and planted one hand on either side of her hips, caging her between them. “You want to be bad?”
She nodded slowly. Without a word, Connor took her beer from her hand and set it by the edge of the tent. He carefully slipped her glasses from her face, placing them to the side. He looked her over and smiled, then reached up to her ponytail and slid the elastic free. There was something intensely erotic in the feeling of that tight circle gliding out of her hair. Gabriella closed her eyes as he feathered his fingers through the loose strands. She could have purred at his soft touch, but then he made a fist at the base of her skull, and she gasped, her eyes flying open. The pull against her scalp felt too good, a sharp pleasure-pain that made her teeth sink into her lip. Connor smirked and curled her hair even tighter into his grip, pulling her down until she was lying on her back.
“Bad girl,” he whispered.
The fireworks began, the first loud explosion of light and sound echoing above them as Connor licked into her mouth, his tongue probing and seeking. He released her hair and gathered her wrists together, raising them up over her head while his other hand traveled down to the curve of her breast. He stroked over the stiff peak of her nipple, moving on top of her as he pinched and tweaked. The sensation sent off a spark that went straight between her legs. Gabriella’s hips bucked up against his at the stab of pleasure, settling him further into the cradle of her thighs.
“More,” she pleaded. “Please.”
“God, Gabby.” Connor began grinding against her, finding a rhythm that pressed his fly into her shorts, a delectable chafe that made her moan. “You make me want to be so fucking bad with you.”
“Do it. Show me how bad you can be.”
He kissed her deeper, teeth tugging at her lower lip as he let go of her wrists. She drove her fingers into his silky hair, and he rolled them to their sides, breaking the kiss to push his sweatshirt off her shoulders and fumble with her top. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from kissing her in between his desperate grappling with her shirt, ravenous kisses that stole her ability to breathe properly. Her tank was halfway up her torso when Mikey suddenly popped
his head into the tent.
“I got the beers—”
Connor twisted up angrily off Gabriella, his body shielding hers. Mikey froze.
“Oh. Dude. Sorry.”
He dropped the six-pack in the corner of the tent and quickly backed out. Once he was out of sight, Connor dropped his head and inhaled slowly, several times. Gabriella tried to do the same, her logical side knowing she had to even when her body screamed for more.
“Gotta calm down,” he said. “Shit, Gabby. It’s really hard to behave myself around you.”
“I don’t want you to behave.”
He laughed and when he looked away, her heart faltered. For a moment, she could see the same look on his face that she’d seen so many times before, the same words in his expression: You’re too much of a freak for me, Gabriella Evans. She waited for him to say it, to turn her down, to make her feel like there was something wrong with her, but instead, Connor simply smiled.
“Okay then. Maybe I won’t.”
Chapter Eight
This had to have been the dumbest decision Connor ever made. Either that or he had a death wish. He wanted Gabby so bad it was killing him. Still, if he was going to croak, watching the last of the fireworks go off overhead with her curled up between his knees was a pretty damn nice way to go.
After Mikey’s interruption, Gabby had put her glasses back on and crawled into his lap, breathing in a soft sigh of contentment as she drew his hands together over her belly. With her back to his chest, she drank her beer and he held her close, his weight shifted so the top of his left arm was hidden from view. Without his hoodie on, the sleeves of the shirt he was wearing didn’t quite hide the ink around his bicep. He didn’t know what she’d think of it, despite what she said about good being overrated. Besides, it was a symbol of his life in a different time, and it was another part of his rebellious past that he was trying to keep solidly behind him.
The final burst of color lit up the sky—rings of blue with red crackling around it, all of it ending in a waterfall of white that left glittering tracks in its wake. Everyone clapped and cheered, and Connor kept his arms tightly around Gabby as the crowd began to gather itself up, hundreds of feet about to make their way back out of the park. He pressed his lips behind her ear again and breathed in deep. She smelled of the ocean and summer and freedom.
“I always loved the Fourth,” she told him, her words nearly lost under the sound of so many voices, of engines starting and folding beach chairs. “It was my favorite time of year.”
“Are you a big fan of fireworks in general? Or just especially fond of the perils of our forefathers?” He nipped her earlobe and she wriggled in his grasp. “I bet you have the entire Declaration of Independence memorized.”
“Shut up.” She twisted away from his assault on her ear and then settled back down. “I loved it because it came at the beginning of summer vacation. I had lots of time left before I had to go back home.”
Connor felt something sharp burrow its way into his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the sadness in Gabby’s tone or the reminder that in a few weeks’ time she was going to leave him.
The wind picked up and he pulled her closer. There were so many questions he wanted to ask. What was the deal with her parents? And why the hell was she here all by herself? Hadn’t any of the guys she went to school with figured out how amazing she was?
“Jamie, Dean and Mikey are coming back,” she said.
Gabby put her empty bottle by the edge of the cooler, and Connor reluctantly withdrew his arms from the warm space underneath hers. She stood up and brushed her legs off, giving him a spectacular view of her ass. He groaned and rubbed the flats of his palms over his forehead, counting to ten and thinking of dissecting frogs, of Red Sox stats—anything other than the view in front of him—before standing up behind her. Dean and Jamie trudged toward them, Mikey in tow.
“So what’s next?” Dean asked as he flung an arm over Jamie’s shoulders.
Dean was like that, the kind of guy who saw bare skin and wanted to touch it, never caring who that skin belonged to. Jamie didn’t seem to mind, but Dean was a dead man if he ever touched Gabby again. The memory of his arm draped casually over her shoulders made Connor’s stomach churn. He was going to make sure they had a talk about that later.
“Next?” Gabby glanced over her shoulder at Connor and then at Dean again. “There’s a next?”
“Sure. The night is young,” he replied, lowering a hand, no doubt, to slip into Jamie’s back pocket. “I’d say let’s chill here, but we finished all the beers in the cooler, and I don’t think Mikey got to drop the second six pack in.”
He said the last bit with a wink at Gabby. She pinched her lips together and glanced up at Connor with an embarrassed smile, her cheeks now adorably rosy from her beer. He smiled back at her. Mikey avoided eye contact with both of them.
“How about the tavern by SMCC?” Dean suggested.
Connor tensed. Mikey raised a hand and called out, “Shotgun.”
“We’re walking, douchebag,” Dean replied, shoving him to the side. “There’s five of us. We won’t all fit. Or are you gonna make the ladies sit in the flatbed?”
Mikey frowned. “Gabriella can ride with Connor.”
Gabby hooked her bag over her shoulder, head cocked to the side as she threw a quizzical gaze in Connor’s direction. “You guys didn’t come together?”
Dean’s eyes flickered to his.
“Oh we did,” Dean answered quickly. “But I really don’t feel like driving through that huge mess of people. And—” he added with a satisfied grin, “—I’m drunk.”
Jamie’s giggle masked the sound of Connor’s sigh. The tavern wasn’t a bad spot. Just a local joint he’d been to more times than he cared to count. People who knew him might be there, people who knew the old him and didn’t have quite so much discretion as Dean, although that wasn’t saying much. Connor didn’t like the idea of taking Gabby there, but then again, he didn’t like the idea of having to say goodnight to her yet, either.
He held out his hand. “I’m in, but since you just made that announcement, hand over your keys. You’re not driving until you sober up.”
“Since when did you become the responsible one?” Dean reached into his pocket with his free hand anyway, fished out his keys and slapped them into Connor’s palm.
They packed up the tent and the cooler, dropped the contents in the back of Dean’s truck and then walked until they reached the campus edge. A line was leading into the bar, a bouncer checking IDs at the door. Connor watched Gabby bend over to fish her wallet from her bag. The move made the back of his sweatshirt ride up, once again showing off her ass in those tiny little shorts. It wasn’t fair, the way she made a scrap of blue and white cotton into the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
He stepped in close behind her in the line. “I like you in my sweatshirt,” he whispered in her ear.
She turned so her cheek brushed over his mouth. “I like wearing it.”
Connor slid his hands around her hips. Everything about his stance said mine. He’d never cared about anyone enough to want to stake his claim this way. The change felt good.
They moved in a pack toward the door, flashing their IDs before going inside. The tavern was crowded, music playing loudly and a line three people deep at the bar. Connor glanced around. No one he knew was there. He exhaled in relief.
“It’s been a while since I let Dean beat me in pool,” Jamie said. She took Dean’s hand, leading him toward the back of the bar. “Come on, you. Let’s wait for a table to open up.”
Mikey glanced uncomfortably back at Connor and Gabby.
“I call winners,” he said, hurrying after them.
A high-top by the window was open, and Connor gestured toward it. Gabby nodded, her eyes bright. He liked her this way—smiling and relaxed, like she’d un
wound a part of herself and let him in. He wanted to be let in, wanted answers to the questions he’d had about her all summer. Maybe now, while they were in a place where he’d be forced to behave, was his chance to find out.
They hopped up onto the chairs, and Connor said, “All right, now that you’ve heard about my past, I think it’s my turn to get to know more about you.”
Gabby seemed to consider this. “Fair enough. But I don’t think I’ve heard nearly enough about you yet. How about a deal: a question for a question?”
Just like at the café, Connor was unprepared for the way she got inside him, how she edged herself under his skin in a way no other girl ever had. He was beginning to think he’d let her ask him anything.
He held a hand across the table for her to shake. “Deal.”
She shook it, business-like, and then her expression dissolved into a broad grin.
“You first,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
He’d start off easy. “When did you get into hiking?”
The sparkle in her eyes softened a little. “It was something I did with my grandmother. We’d go on these nature walks and she’d tell me all about flowers and plants. It was really different from my life at home, the vigorous schedule, the expectations and school.”
Her eyes went glassy. Connor wanted to reach across the table and touch her cheek, comfort her somehow.
“You must really miss her.”
She nodded. It was a brisk movement, one that begged for him to change the subject.
“Will you take me hiking with you?” he asked.
She found her footing then and gave him a sly smile. “Now, now, Mr. Starks. That’s two questions in a row. That wasn’t part of our deal. But yes. I will.”
“When?”
“You aren’t very good at sticking to your agreements, are you?”
“I never said I was.” He wasn’t backing down until he got another date out of her. “When?”
She crossed her arms. She was smiling, though. “Saturday.”
The Duality Principle Page 7