by Stella Rhys
“Like mother, like daughter, baby girl.”
No. No. Never. I shook my head and breathed deep, refusing to let the thought settle into my brain. You’re not like her, I repeated. Over and over. But it was barely working and when I opened my eyes, Nick was grinning at me, reading my face with satisfaction. “Glad you at least know it,” he smirked, walking into me and palming my hips. “Now, come with me and let’s give you the chance to be something special,” he murmured in my ear. “Maybe Theo’ll take you back if you give it to him good enough.” His sticky tequila breath coated my lips. “What do say, Lake?”
I didn’t respond. My head was spinning. I saw Sunstone. The couch, the bed, the needles. Between those vivid flashes and the words leering out of Nick’s boozy mouth, I was feeling nauseous. Sick to my stomach. Still, I tried to muster the strength to push him off me. I needed to. His hands were starting to slide to my backside as he whispered into my ear.
“Who knows. Maybe I’ll bring you to the bathroom and let you do a test run on me.”
He squeezed my ass. My insides lurched.
“Get off!” I shoved Nick so hard to the floor that he let out a cry as he landed. I ran as he writhed on the ground, my wild eyes searching frantically for Isabel.
Instead, I found Callum.
The look on his face took my breath away. He was across the room but the second his stare landed on mine, he had a muscled shoulder angled into the crowd, parting his way to me till he was in front of me, eyes blazing. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Where’s Theo?”
“He’s not here. It was Nick.” I felt a wave of guilt as I watched the switch flip in his beautiful blue eyes. I turned him into an animal and I knew he hated it. Under his fitted suit, I could see his muscled frame expanding, rigid with anger. “Callum, you don’t have to defend me, let’s just find Isabel and – ”
“Follow Oz. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Before I could ask who Oz was, a looming giant of a man gathered me and said “I don’t bite” before parting the crowd for us both. I turned back to look for Callum but he was already out of sight, so I hiccupped and wiped tears the whole way out of the club, down the elevator and out of the building. Oz, a wall of a human being with a full beard and man-bun, watched me in wary silence the whole time.
“Did someone hurt you tonight?” he dared to ask once he had me seated in the backseat of a shiny black SUV. He closed the door and spoke to me through the open window. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. “Whoever did it, they’re in for a world of hurt right now.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Two days back in New York and I’d already returned Callum’s life to chaos. How could I even blame him for being wary of me?
“You good?” When Oz called out, I snapped my head up to see Callum exiting the building with Isabel and Logan, both of them looking rattled to their cores. One glance at their faces and I knew to look down at Callum’s fist. His left. My hand covered my mouth when I saw his knuckles dripping a neat trail of blood onto the sidewalk.
“We’re good.” His voice was tight as he replied to his friend. We made eye contact but he fell back to let Isabel run to the window. Oz opened the door for her and she threw her arms around me.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I shouldn’t have let you come. I thought it’d be okay for you to see Theo. I swear he’s gotten better, but Nick… ”
“It’s not your fault,” I assured her, albeit shakily. I grabbed her hands. “Isabel, tell me what happened in there.”
“I didn’t see. I only heard the screaming and the glass breaking, but it’s over – the whole party. Security shut it down. We just need to leave now before Nick and them come out. Callum says you’re going home with him tonight, okay?”
I blinked with surprise. “I – what?”
“That’s okay, right?”
“Of course, I just – ”
“I’m going to call you tomorrow. Okay, babe?”
“Okay,” I blinked, letting her kiss my cheek and say sorry a dozen hasty times more before leaving with Logan. Then, in silence, Callum got into the front seat of the car, leaving me alone in the back as Oz drove us away.
Chapter Six
Lake
Oz dropped us off in front of a polished, black building in TriBeCa. It looked at least twelve floors, its penthouse wrapped with a sleek, glass balcony. Through it, I could see peeks of garden flowers and saffron umbrellas. It looked nothing like it but reminded me of the penthouse across the street from the townhouse I grew up in with Callum. It was atop one of those shiny new condos and as kids, we used to stare longingly out the window at it. It had a similar balcony and was owned by some older, obscenely wealthy bachelor. At least twice a week, we’d watch him throw lavish parties with cocktail servers handing out flutes of champagne and beautiful people splashing in his enormous pool. One night, we watched him go into his apartment with two willowy girls and leave the blinds open as they climbed into bed.
“I’ll have a penthouse like that someday,” Callum had said. When I snorted, he challenged me. “Wanna bet I will?”
“Sure.”
“What do you want to bet?”
I didn’t actually doubt that he’d become rich on his own and buy a penthouse someday, but the reality seemed so far away that I just smirked and said, “Infinite dares.”
His eyes had lit up like he’d won the jackpot in Vegas. “I’m holding you to that.”
“Go ahead.”
I wanted to smile when I thought about how long ago that was. His voice hadn’t even changed yet and he was the same height as me, our eyes at the same exact level. Riding the elevator in silence, indeed to the penthouse floor, I studied Callum. He was still rigid, drying blood off his knuckles. He was decided about avoiding my gaze. I couldn’t help wondering what was about to happen. Whether he remembered that conversation we had in seventh grade and how much of us he had really managed to forget.
I didn’t stop wondering, especially as he led me out of the elevator and directly into his sprawling apartment. It screamed of his taste – spacious, neat and modern with dark hardwood floors as polished and shiny as the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up most of the wall space. He clicked a button on a remote to bring the blinds down. My breath shortened as I watched him lift his chin and pinch the knot of his tie. His eyes finally settled on me as he loosened the black silk. A chill licked over my skin when he yanked it off his neck with the sound of a whip.
“You’re not staying at Isabel’s anymore,” he broke the silence evenly. “You’re staying here from now on.”
I wasn’t going to argue. I just wanted to know why. “And the reason for that is?”
“It’s not a good idea for you to be there. I know Nick and Theo and they’re both going to want to talk to you after tonight, whether it’s to harass you or apologize, and they have all the access they want to you if you’re there. They’ll waltz right into that apartment with their dad living there, so to keep you out of the line of fire, you’re staying here.”
I nodded, watching him lay the tie out on the back of a leather chair. “I take it we’re nixing this whole forgetting that we ever existed thing.”
Callum’s eyes were none too amused as he looked at me. “Yes.”
I waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. I took time to muster up the courage for what I was about to say. “You know I want to be near you, Callum. All the time. But I won’t stay here if you’re not actively trying.”
“Trying what?”
“To forgive me. I don’t want to stay and be a burden that’ll make you increasingly bitter. I want to know that while I’m here, you’ll be trying to give me a second chance. I’m still me, Callum. I’m still the same girl you grew up with and I know it’s going to take time for us to be us again but it’s better than giving up before we start. We’ll just have to work on it. Actively.” My tone was steady despite the nerves ravaging my stomach throughout my speech. I was co
But then his voice echoed through the room. “And what do you suggest we actively do?”
I sucked my bottom lip in as I thought about it. I wasn’t sure if he was mocking me but I was in too deep to be self-conscious. So I went for it. “We can play the game.”
“The game,” he repeated as if I were a child. I refused to lose confidence.
“Yes. It’s the epitome of us. And it’s obviously going to take time before we can just talk to each other the way we used to. But at least this’ll help us slowly chip away at whatever’s between us right now. Whatever it is, I know I put it there, Callum. I take responsibility for that. So I’m telling you right now that I will do whatever it takes for you to trust me again. But that requires you to try, too.”
“Fine.” He agreed all too easily. “Truth or dare.”
“Dare.”
The hollows of his cheeks flexed. “Tell me everything that happened between the day you left and the day you came back.”
I paused, almost too afraid to correct him. It was silent for a moment. “First rule, Callum,” I murmured. “No daring out truths. You know that. But I’ll do everything else.”
He was silent. Livid. I locked my knees as flames burst behind his eyes and I waited for him to tell me to get out – that he had tried to give me my second chance but I’d made it impossible for him by choosing to keep the biggest wall up. I waited to hear that he was done with me. Truly and officially done with me. But then he spoke again.
“Fine.” He kept his frosty glare pinned tight on me. There was no expression on his face, no tone in his voice, but I could almost feel the spite fill the air as his lips parted to speak. “Then you’re going to take your clothes off for me.”
I blinked. “What?”
“That’s your dare. You said you were still the same Lake. Take your clothes off and let me see.”
I stared at him. It was my turn for silence. But he stood there resolute, waiting for me with intimidating patience. I refused to let myself hesitate for more than another second, so reaching behind my back, I found the zipper of my strapless dress. I kept my eyes on him as I pulled it down, sucking in a sharp breath as I felt the cold air of his apartment blast the skin on my back. His eyes dipped to the tan lace of my bra as my bodice fell forward, crumpling to my waist. I pushed the rest of it down my hips and my thighs till it fell around my nude heels. Stepping out, I lightly kicked my dress aside. My heart was slamming in my chest as I looked back up at Callum, standing for him in just my bra and panties as he leaned back on his heels. His expression was controlled but his glinting eyes devoured me. He slid his hands in his pockets with a short demand.
“Go on.”
I wasn’t naked enough for his liking. Reaching behind my back for my bra, I tried not to look turned on for fear that Callum would be sick enough to cut this short if he knew I didn’t hate it. Because I didn’t. I went as far as to enjoy it because I could see the flickering in Callum’s eyes and it reminded me of how we grew up answering our questions by exploring each other’s bodies. It started with innocence but ended with anything but. We bared our skin and souls for each other. It was what we always did.
His patience wore thin as my fingers caught on the hooks of my bra. “Faster.” His tone awakened my attitude.
“You do it then.”
He came right to me. I held my breath as he stood in front of me, eyes locked on mine as he circled a hand behind my back and unsnapped the clasp with ease. He made no contact with my skin. I barely felt him but I felt my breasts tighten as my bra fell to my feet. Callum’s stare remained on mine as I pushed my panties down and stepped out of them too.
“Shoes?”
“Keep them on,” he said, holding his stare for a moment. Then, finally, he took a step back to take me in. I breathed jaggedly as his hungry eyes traveled unblinkingly across my shoulders and down to my breasts. My hair covered them and I waited for him to tell me to move it but he didn’t. Instead, his gaze moved slowly down the line of my stomach before settling on my right hipbone.
My scar. I blushed as he came forward to study it. It was faint but it was still there and I felt my lip quiver as I watched Callum remember how I got it.
“I told you to jump to the left.”
“I know.”
We were silent, the same pictures of blue sky and clear water running through our heads. I knew we were both recalling exactly when and where I’d gotten that scar. It was during a vacation in St. Barts, with Callum, Caroline and my grandmother, Elena. We were fifteen. Callum had just dislocated his shoulder during wrestling so when he spotted a gorgeous thirty-plus-foot cliff, he dared me to jump off of it for him. My pride refused to let me back out. I always ached to prove that I was just as good as he was – just as good as any of them. But I psyched myself out on the edge and because of that, I forgot Callum’s advice to go left when I finally jumped.
Every second in the air had been pure, exhilarating bliss but I shrieked in pain when I landed. Not from the impact with water but from the jagged rock scraping my entire right side. I muffled the sound with my hand but Callum heard it and in seconds, against doctor’s orders, had jumped right in after me. “I told you to jump to the left!” I could hear him shouting it again, so angry but worried about me as he wrapped his bad arm around my waist and swam us to shore. I could’ve limped back to the villas but he refused to let me. He carried me the whole way and as I bled on him, he went back and forth between cursing me out and murmuring into my hair that I was fine, that I did awesome and everything was going to be okay.
He took the fall when both my grandmother and Caroline screamed at me for doing something so dangerous. I cried my eyes out because while I was used to it with Elena, Caroline never yelled at me. I was her perfect girl. So Callum spent that night with me in the villa, taking care of me and keeping me distracted with funny stories about Theo and Logan and the shitty things they did to the other guys in the locker room after wrestling.
By the time we were home, the only scar I had left from that ordeal was on my hip. And in the years that I was away, I grew kind of grateful for it. There was something oddly comforting about looking down and seeing a memory of Callum marked onto my body. I liked carrying it with me wherever I went. It was my reminder that we once existed.
See? I stared at him. Still the same Lake.
Callum caught my look as I recalled the memory. My eyes were wet, brimming with tears for the way we were but I didn’t let them fall. I stood there and waited for his next request. “Move your hair,” he finally said, standing squarely in front of me.
I did as I was told, the backs of my hands brushing my thick waves past my shoulders. As I cleared the view for him, Callum’s eyes fixed on my breasts. I watched his mouth part just slightly, the tip of his tongue wetting the inner part of his bottom lip. His gaze traced the shape of each full mound, his head shaking so slightly I barely noticed it. I knew he was mesmerized and yet he still wouldn’t let himself touch me. He hadn’t touched me once since I’d come back and it was starting to drive me insane. I’d missed it so much. It felt like I’d been waiting a couple different lifetimes to feel it again.
“Lift your hands in the air,” he demanded.
I didn’t question. I arched my back and crossed my arms behind my head, my elbows pointed at the ceiling. I was a million times more naked in that position, tits lifted up and pushed out for Callum’s eyes to feast on. It felt vulnerable, erotic. I was bared naked for him, my breathing short and ragged, bouncing my breasts in a way that demanded his unyielding attention, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. Callum was silent but I knew he was swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as my bare chest rose and fell with each hard breath. I could taste the thick air between us as he came forward to me, his eyes filled with intent. The closer he came, the tighter his body stiffened. I wet my lips, watching his shirt stretch taut over his broadening chest.
And then he touched me.
I let out a faint moan as his warm hands brushed my skin to cup the bottoms of my breasts, his fingers spreading wide to form over their size. I soaked in the heavy sound of his arousal as he let himself squeeze, soft at first but then harder and harder till he let out a throaty groan. “Fuck,” Callum hissed. He bounced the weight of my breasts in his hands. His tongue lolled as he watched my nipples pebble for him. They ached to feel his lips wrap around them and he knew it so he stared for a predatory second. Arms still over my head, my fingers dug into my hair.
Take it. Please. Take what you want. I was ready to tell him but he did it without me. I gasped as he jerked my waist, arching my back like a bow. My hair spilled like a waterfall as he presented my tits for his mouth. They begged for him, as close as they could possibly be without touching his lips. Please, please, pretty please. The hot air he breathed onto my peaks blasted me with sensation that shot straight to my core. My skin spread with unbearable heat as I waited for the relief of his mouth, his lips, his tongue. I could see it, practically feel it ready and watering, just waiting to claim me. I didn’t need him to be gentle – I just needed him to take my body and treat himself to whatever he wanted.
However he wanted.
But with a curled lip, he tore away.
Fuck! My eyes fell shut. I shattered to silent pieces as his hands promptly went elsewhere. They traveled with a purpose to my ribcage, running down my side and stopping at the third bone down from my breast. Yes. I opened my eyes and the breath hitched in my throat as his right thumb ran over the little tattoo usually covered by my arm. I watched his wolfish gaze move over the black ink – the promise I had made to him a year before I left.
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