Without Promises (Under the Pier)

by Delancey Stewart

  Amber: I think she meant you should keep a peel on the banana. Wrap the wiener.

  Nice.

  Dani: Nope, not staying over. Just finishing up at the shop. Text me if you’re staying out late or sleeping over…

  Gotta go. Love you guys.

  Headlights flashed in the driveway, and a mad swirl of nerves unleashed in my stomach as I watched Trent walk up to the doorway with a rose in his hand.

  I pulled the door open after he knocked. “Hey,” I said, unable to stop the full-body scan as I took in the tailored dark slacks, the fitted oxford shirt with its rolled sleeves and open collar. He looked hot. Edible.

  “For you,” he said, holding the rose forward.

  I took it, smelled it quickly, and then put it behind me on the counter. “Thanks.” Every bit the player. Wonder if he has a special florist who keeps single roses on hand for him?

  I locked the house and got into the car as Trent held the door for me, trying to clamp down the nerves that were suddenly making me giddy and unsure of myself. “There’s a quiet little bar downtown I thought we might try,” he said, glancing over at me. His eyes lingered for a second before returning to the road. “You look great.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You look nice, too.”

  He grinned, still looking out the window, and I studied his profile. He was smiling, but there was something sad about him tonight, maybe hinting at another layer of the man I thought I’d had pretty well pegged.

  “Everything good?” I asked.

  He gave a quick nod. “Just coming off a post-family-visit adrenaline rush.”

  I nodded. “Got it.” I didn’t. All I had was Dani.

  Trent took me to a wine bar in Little Italy that was nestled between two storefronts in a way that made the small patio out front seem intimate and hidden. We took a corner table and settled in with a flight of wine in front of each of us.

  “Makes it easier when you’re indecisive,” Trent said, pointing at the five small pours in front of him.

  I smiled, surprised at how perfectly the statement—and the order—fit me. “I like this,” I said, nodding at my own variety of wines. “When I have a lot of options, I can’t ever decide.”

  “You seem to me like a girl who knows exactly what she wants,” Trent said, sipping one glass of wine and watching me over the lip.

  I shook my head. “Maybe in some ways. I didn’t grow up with options, you know? And I’m always kind of surprised when I have them. I guess we get used to things being a certain way.”

  “And how were things?” Trent asked.

  I took a healthy gulp from one glass, barely tasting the dark liquid as it coursed down my throat. “That’s probably a topic for another time.”

  Trent leaned back, his lips pressing into a line and his nose wrinkling. “Because?”

  “Because tonight is about having fun, right?”

  “Is it now?” he asked, the wide smile reappearing before he sipped from another glass. “What kind of fun are you hoping to have, Ms. Hodge?”

  “I think you know.” It was the most forward thing I’d ever said.

  Oh God. Why did I say that? Now what? Note to self: cut down on CW shows.

  “Are you saying you think I’m easy?” Trent raised an eyebrow and dropped a warm hand onto mine on the table.

  “Maybe not easy,” I said. “But, hopefully, willing. Or am I reading this wrong?”

  No turning back now.

  One side of his mouth lifted into the sexiest smile I’d ever seen, and then his hand left mine, and he scooted his chair closer.

  The darkness of the night and the hidden nature of the patio provided enough cover that when Trent’s hand landed on my bare thigh, no one else could see. I stiffened at the touch but then relaxed as his fingers stroked soft lines up my leg.

  “You’re not reading this wrong,” he said, his voice a purr as his free hand lifted one of his own glasses to his lips. His eyes never left mine. “Tell me if I am.”

  “You’re not,” I said. “At all.”

  “Good.” A wide smile spread across his face. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  Trent leaned in then, kissing me tenderly with one arm draped lightly around my back. The kiss was incredible—warm, sexy, and sweet. And when he pulled back, his smile made me want to lean in again, but then he spoke. “What are you looking for? With us. In general.”

  As if I had a clue.

  “Something casual. Light, I guess. I want to have some fun this summer before I have to focus on my responsibilities,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I have some experience with casual.”

  Is that disappointment in his voice?

  We were both quiet for a moment. Did I just kill the chances of having a fling by admitting I want one?

  “If you just want to have fun, then I’m all for it,” he said. “I’ve never been the kind of guy people really rely on, anyway.” His face darkened as he said this last part, and I thought back to what he’d told me about his dad.

  “You’re a firefighter. Lots of people rely on you.”

  “Totally different,” he said, the smile returning to his face and his voice. “But I’m in. Let’s have fun, Amy.” He raised a glass, and I met it with one of mine, not entirely sure what we’d just agreed to, but eager to find out.

  Chapter Seven

  Trent

  The weeks slid by, and Amy became a part of most of my waking thoughts. Scary. Things had already gone on longer than most flings I’d had before—although most flings involved sex, and Amy and I hadn’t quite gotten there. Everything between us was good. It was easy, and if I was good at anything, it was enjoying things while they were easy.

  But nothing stays easy forever, and maybe there’s something to be said for complicated. Amy was already talking about what would happen at the end of the summer.

  “I can’t keep my job and go to school,” she said, standing in front of the glass windows in my living room and looking out at the dark water of the Pacific roiling at the shore. “But I’m going to have to do something for money.”

  I stood behind her, my arms around her waist and my nose buried in the soft smooth skin of her neck, inhaling that crazy-sweet vanilla scent that was all Amy. “Mmm,” I agreed, not sure what to say about the need for money. I had plenty of issues, but that wasn’t one of them. Instead of offering baseless advice, I placed tiny kisses along the expanse of skin between her ear and her shoulder, moving up until I was nibbling gently on the outer edge of her ear and her breath was coming fast.

  Over the weeks we’d shared, I had come to know Amy’s body. Her ears were sensitive, as was the nape of her neck. I could bring her practically to screaming by just holding her this way, facing away from me while I kissed, licked, and bit.

  My hand found one breast, and she braced herself against the window. Seeing the outline of her slim fingers on the glass silhouetted by a breath of steam and the darkness pressing in from outside sparked an edge of desire inside me.

  The gloom that had hung over the Pacific all day had made me thoughtful, and when I’d picked Amy up for dinner, the mood hadn’t gone away totally. It was nice to be near her now, and I pulled her closer, fending off the lonesome feelings. I slid a hand over her soft skin and under the fabric of her shirt across her stomach. She sighed, and I kept exploring, eventually dropping my hand beneath the waist of her jeans and pressing down farther to caress that hidden bundle of nerves between her legs.

  She moaned as I worked her body, and pressed herself against me, grinding and sending spikes of need and want shooting through me.

  My grip on her wasn’t exactly gentle, but the noises coming from her as I pinched and bit told me she was enjoying it. We stayed there against the glass for a few minutes—or it could have been an hour—time changed when I was with her like this.

  Rob had moved out this week, and Amy had been spending more time at my place. I didn’t want to put off sex any longer. Hell, I hadn’t really wanted
to put it off in the first place. It had been a strategy to keep this fling going for as long as I could. I just hadn’t realized how important it would become the longer I postponed it.

  “I don’t want to wait any more,” Amy breathed, turning in my arms to face me. Her hands worked at my waist, and she unfastened my pants and pushed them down my hips with my boxers.

  Thank God.

  And then she knelt and looked at me for a long second before she took me in her hands and licked the tip of my dick in the most agonizingly slow way.

  “Shit,” I moaned, my voice ragged.

  Amy rose after a few minutes, and I reached for her, removing her jeans and her blouse carefully until she stood before me in a matching lavender lace thong and bra.

  Perfect. She is completely perfect.

  “You’re the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” I told her, surprised to hear my own words, because I hadn’t planned them.

  Amy moved against me again, trapping my erection between us as she kissed and nibbled her way up my chest, my jaw, sighing as she went.

  I can die happy now. Or maybe in like fifteen minutes.

  I heard some noise in the background, some familiar buzzing I didn’t identify right then, but it made Amy pause. “Don’t stop,” I told her. She stepped back, slid off the thong, and stood looking at me with lusty expectation in her eyes.

  “Do you have a condom?” she asked.

  There’s only one right answer. I bent to retrieve my jeans and pulled my phone and wallet from my pockets, removing a condom from the wallet.

  Amy watched, her fingers tracing lines across my chest while I rolled the condom on, and then she gently pushed me backward until I was sitting on the dark leather couch. She straddled me, one knee on either side of my hips. My hands found her waist and slipped up the smooth skin along her sides, meeting in the back to remove the lacy bra.

  I took a moment to appreciate the anticipation of Amy kneeling over me, completely naked, all that smooth, soft skin right there for me to touch, to taste. And finally, I was going to find out what it felt like to be buried inside her. I groaned in anticipation and pulled her closer, the tip of my cock grazing the wetness between her legs.

  She sucked in a quick breath, and one of her hands wrapped around me just as her lips pressed into mine. My tongue was in her mouth as her hand guided my tip to the exact right spot, and I swear to God, the world stopped spinning when she lowered herself down on me. She was tight and hot and wet, and holy fuck—

  “Do you need to get that?” Amy’s voice seemed to come from a great distance, though it was a rough whisper in my ear.

  All I need is this. You.

  My mind was twisting and flying, miles from anything except the feeling of her around me, under my hands, in my mouth, clenching my dick.

  “Trent.”

  “What?” I pulled back to look at her.

  “Your phone. It’s been ringing for the past few minutes nonstop.” Amy’s eyes were wide and dark. I dropped my head back on the couch, still buried inside her. I didn’t care who was on the phone; my mind was completely absorbed in one thing only. Amy.

  “Trent. It’s ringing again.”

  Amy lifted herself off me and stood to get my vibrating phone, and reality rushed back in when she handed it to me.

  Why does it feel like I just lost something I never even had?

  “Fuck.” I had several texts and voicemails, all from my mother. “I’m so sorry,” I said to Amy. “Just a second.” I picked up the call when the phone started to ring again, feeling suddenly inappropriate sitting naked on my couch with a condom on my stiff dick as I addressed my mother.

  “What’s going on, Mom?”

  “Why won’t you answer your damned phone?” she shrieked in my ear.

  “Mom.” I tried to keep my voice calm, though she clearly was not. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re at the hospital in La Jolla. Your father’s had a heart attack.” Her voice had a squeaky, panicked edge.

  “I’m on my way,” I told her. “I’ll be right there.”

  I dropped my phone onto the couch and took a shaky breath. “I’m really sorry about this,” I told Amy, but she was already dressing.

  “What’s going on?”

  “My dad. I have to get to the hospital.” I dressed quickly, and we went downstairs to the car.

  “Are you okay to drive? Do you want me to?” Amy asked me, concern making her eyes liquid and huge.

  “Would you come?” I asked, reaching for her hand. I could tell the request surprised Amy when her eyes widened. It surprised me, too, actually, but all I could think was that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her, and that whatever might be coming would be easier if she was there.

  What’s happening to me?

  She nodded, and I followed her downstairs to the garage.

  “I’m really sorry,” I told Amy as we parked at the hospital. My hands shook. This all felt like walking through a dream.

  Amy’s sandals smacked the hard concrete while she practically ran to keep up with me as we pushed into the emergency room. The nurse at the front sent us upstairs. Dad had already been taken up, and Mom was in the cardiac unit waiting room. Amy seemed to know exactly where to go.

  Thank God she’s here, even if it means she’s about to meet my mother. Well, too late now.

  Mom sat with her back to us, her blond hair perfect and her shoulders shaking.

  “Mom.” My voice was loud in the quiet of the waiting area.

  Mom rose and turned slowly to look at me, and the wide vacancy of her eyes turned my blood to ice.

  Chapter Eight

  Amy

  You don’t usually meet the parents when you’re having a fling, right?

  Trent had created a terrifyingly stern image of his parents in my mind, but when Trudy McNeil turned to face us in the hospital waiting room, I didn’t see a scary socialite at all. I saw a terrified woman.

  “Trent.” Her voice was a whisper. She said his name and moved toward him, her face pale and her eyes wide and frightened.

  Trent’s arms were open to pull her in, but before he moved near enough to catch her, her knees buckled and she slipped to the floor like a wet cloth off a countertop. Her head hit the hard linoleum with a thump, and my brain shifted into high gear. I shot a glance at Trent, who stood dumbstruck as his mother crumpled to the floor.

  Within seconds, I was at her side. I took her pulse, kneeling and calling for a nurse. She wasn’t in crisis—she was breathing, and her pulse was returning to normal. Once my own heart rate slowed, I looked up to see Trent standing frozen as the nurses arrived.

  “Trent,” I said loudly. His eyes cleared, and he knelt at his mother’s arm as her eyes fluttered open.

  “What happened?” The nurse across from me asked.

  “She stood up and then passed out,” I told them. “Might’ve suffered a concussion. Her head hit the ground.”

  One of the nurses shone a light into Trudy’s eyes, and a whimper erupted into an indignant, “That’s enough of that!” She swatted the nurse’s hand away and sat up. “Oh for God’s sake,” she said, struggling to her feet.

  Trent helped her up. “Take it easy, Mom. You passed out.”

  Trudy looked far angrier than ill at this point, and she shooed away the nurses trying to check her vitals. “I’m not the sick one,” she said, still teetering at Trent’s side. “Save your stethoscopes for my husband, for God’s sake.”

  I’d never seen a person less grateful for help or attention, and I couldn’t help but stare a beat too long. Mrs. McNeil raked her gaze up and down me before she turned her back and pressed herself into Trent’s arms.

  Yikes.

  Trent held his mother and whispered in her ear, patting her shoulder and finally maneuvering her back into one of the cushioned chairs.

  I bent down to pick up my vintage Dior bag and stood awkwardly nearby, trying not to feel out of place. This isn’t about me. It doesn’t matter that
I’m a complete stranger in the midst of Trent’s family drama.

  “He just went down,” she was saying to Trent in an urgent whisper-shout. “We were out by the pool, and he just went down. Thank God he wasn’t in the water. The ambulance took forever, of course, and I had no idea what to do. Your sister wasn’t home… They’ve come out once to tell me he’s stable, but that’s all I’ve been told,” she said, sounding indignant. The nurse at the station near the door looked up at this and kept her expression impressively blank. Yeah, so they’ve probably already had plenty of interaction.

  “Mom,” Trent said, motioning for me. He took my hand when I came to stand next to where he sat with his mother. “Mom, this is Amy.”

  Trudy McNeil affected a tiny polite smile and looked up at my face. “Hello,” she said, though it seemed like a mighty effort. “Trent, I hardly think a hospital is an appropriate place to have a date.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. McNeil,” I tried, but her gaze had moved on, and I was invisible.

  “Mom, we were already on a date when you called. We didn’t plan a date at the hospital.” Trent sounded amused by his mother’s rudeness, and I kind of wanted to kick him. “Amy is the girl I told you about, the one I’ve been seeing.” He shot me a smile.

  Shock bubbled inside me. Trent told his parents about me? I couldn’t fathom why. A little ember of heat flickered to flame as I thought about it. Is this turning into something else? Do I want that? I batted the thought away.

  The older woman eyed me again, her gaze lingering on the smear of food on my chest where I’d dropped mayonnaise at dinner. “Well,” she said, her voice tight. “It’s nice to meet one of Trent’s friends.” She didn’t meet my eye or reach out to shake my hand, and she might as well have not spoken at all. I stepped back, stunned, and moved to the other side of the lobby.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what Trent and I were, but it sure as hell wasn’t “friends.” When Trent stood again and turned toward the registration desk to see if he could get information, I caught his elbow. “I’m gonna head out. You don’t need me—”