by Faith S Lynn
I follow as she turns to go back in the bathroom and watch as she turns the water on in the tub. “Twelve? Why were you on birth control at twelve?”
She gets in the shower and shuts the curtain before she answers. “My mom didn’t want to deal with a teenage pregnancy. She said the bad press that would come from something like that could ruin the family’s name for generations.”
“Were you having sex that young?” It wasn’t supposed to come out as harsh as it did. I know I shouldn’t, but I feel possessive over her.
“No, but she wasn’t going to take any risk with it. She always said everything would have been easier if I was a boy,” she admits.
She has me curious so I ask, “How so?”
“Well, if I had been a boy and messed around and knocked some girl up, she could be paid off to forget everything.”
I open the back of the shower curtain and climb in. When I turn around after shutting it back, I find Sage covering herself with a ‘what the fuck’ look on her face.
Sage
“What do you think you are doing?” I ask as I do my best at covering my girlie bits.
“What, we can have hot, sweaty sex together but we can’t shower together afterwards?”
“It’s not the same. That in there was in the heat of the moment. Now that it’s wore off it’s just…” I trail off hoping he catches my drift.
“It’s two adults getting a shower together.” He reaches over me and adjusts the shower head so that it hits us both, then grabs a rag off the holder before continuing, “Now, back to our conversation. I find it pretty fucked up that they would pay off some knocked up girl to save the family name, but they won’t spend any money to bring their daughter home safe and sound.”
“It’s just how some things are in my world, Lynk. And I thought you said I was safe with you?”
“Beauty, the way your world works is completely opposite of how it should be. And what I said goes, I couldn’t hurt you no matter how much you piss me off sometimes,” he tells me as he lathers the soap up in the rag and turns me away from him.
“What are you doing now?”
“Go with it,” he says, throwing the same words at me that I used on him no less than an hour ago. So, I do. I stand there stiff as a board as he steps into me and holds onto my hip. I jerk when I feel him press the cool rag against my back. “Relax,” Lynkin says into my ear, and I swear every inch of my skin covers in goose bumps.
He washes every inch of my body, purposely going as slow as he can. Teasing me as he passes over my already hardened nipples, and again when he slides the rag between my legs and over my still very sensitive nub. He doesn’t try anything more than just washing me. It’s weird because it’s something that is to intimate, but yet feels so natural with Lynkin. We have been stuck with each other for almost five weeks in this small room, only getting a break when Jen comes in for an hour or two every few days. To be honest, I don’t think I have spent that much time consistently with anyone in my life before.
My parents don’t count because our house is so big we can spend days in it without seeing one another, and I love Amanda, but one of us would end up choking the other out if we spent more than a day together without a break. Richard! He has taken me on multiple getaways for weeks at a time before. The more I think into each of those trips though, the more I realize that we end up going our separate ways most days. He gets wrapped up in business and I don’t want to be stuck with him working bored out of my mind so I go shopping or explore.
“What are you thinking about?” I raise my eyes to see Lynkin looking at me with a concerned look to his features. I didn’t even noticed that he has already turned off the water and is holding a towel in between us. When I don’t reply right back, he drapes the towel over my head and starts drying my hair with it. “Momma always said not to go to bed with a wet head or you’d catch a cold.”
“There you go, looking out for me again.”
“Oh no, I was being selfish and looking out for numero uno. I don’t need to be getting all sick.”
“I see.”
“But I suppose if you did, I could fix you up real fast,” he says as the biggest grin I have ever seen from him appears.
I know by that shit eating grin I shouldn’t ask, but curiosity gets the best of me. “Really? How would you do that?”
“With a big ol’ dose of petercillion.”
“Petercillion? Oh my god, are you serious?” I try, I mean I really try but I fail at hold back my laughter.
“That’s fine, laugh all you want now, but when you are dying from pneumonia or just your usual bitchiness, don’t come crying to me for a dose,” he states all matter-of-factly.
“This petercillion cures a wide variety of ailments?”
“Dear sweet girl, it is a cure-all. From headaches, heartaches, and yes, a cold.”
I let out another laugh as I make sure the towel is secure around me and walk by him into the room. We get dressed without saying another word.
“This is some messed up shit, huh?” I asks.
He laughs at my obvious statement. “Yeah, it is. Why don’t you try sleeping off some of that tequila, and we can discuss it more in the morning.”
“Ok.” He places a soft kiss to the end of my nose and goes to his chair. I catch him before he sits down. “The bed is big enough for the both of us.”
“Go to sleep, Sage. I’m fine over here.”
“Please?” I don’t really know why I keep pushing for him sleep in the bed with me. Then again, I do know, it’s just another battle with myself I continuously lose, the one where I tell myself that Lynkin hasn’t wormed his way into some part of me.
I look at him one last time before I climb under the covers and lay down. It isn’t long before he gives in and climbs in next to me. The bed moves for a minute while he gets settled. I fight the urge to roll over and look at him and instead say, “Goodnight, Lynk.”
“Goodnight, Beauty.”
I wake up sweating my ass off. I pull my eyes open and find myself snuggling to someone. What the fuck? Things slowly start coming back to me as I lay there recapping the night before. Holy shit! I slept with him. I slept with Lynkin. I do my best to stay still and not let him know I am awake. Just as I open my eyes, I feel a hand on my face. He drags the back of his hands down my face and back up again, then he runs his fingers through my hair until he reaches the ends and wraps his arm around me and pulls me in closer to him.
As I lay there with his arms tucked firmly around me and I hear his heartbeat pounding in my ear, I wonder if he is thinking the same thing that I am. I fear that my feelings for him are sliding up the scale from just lust to something more.
I flinch as a piece of my hair falls in front of my eye.
“You awake?”
Shit! I’m caught. “Yeah.”
“How long have you been laying there playing possum on me?” he asks with a hint of laughter.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. I wasn’t playing possum,” I joke back at him.
“You weren’t just lying there acting like you were still asleep? That’s my bad then,” he says, and then gets up and walks into the bathroom and shuts the door. After a few minutes, he comes walking back out completely dressed. “My mom called yesterday and needs me to come help her in the garden today. I’m going to call Jennifer to come over. Do you need her to bring you anything?”
“You’re going to pick flowers? Didn’t peg you as the roses and daises type.”
“I’m not, I prefer lilies actually, but I am helping Mom in her food garden. It’s tough on her to do all that leaning over and carrying it all back. Plus by herself it could take all day,” he explains.
“I could come help you,” I suggest, knowing before I say it that he isn’t going to go for it.
“Seriously? I know you worked the bar last night, but you do realize that you are going to get filthy, right? Dirt under your pretty little nails and the sun beating down on you is
going to cause you to get all icky.” He laughs. And I mean really laughs. Bending over at the waist, hands on his knees to hold himself from falling over, laughs.
His laughter dies out, and he starts to gather his things, placing his keys and wallet in his pockets. He really still thinks that I can’t handle a little manual labor. I shake my head and sit back against the headboard in defeat. I will always be a spoiled rich girl that can’t do for herself in his eyes.
“If you’re coming, get to moving.” I jerk my head to see if he is serious. He has his arms crossed across his chest in an impatient stance. “You still have to get dressed and god knows what else.”
I’m on my feet gathering some clothes and in the bathroom before he finishes what he is saying. I throw on a tank top and some old jeans, then pair it with the pair of ninety-nine cent flip-flops Jen got for me at the dollar store. I run brush through my hair then pull it on top of my head in a bun. When I walk out, Lynkin is propped up against the wall window under the window I tried to escape from, arms crossed, one of his legs bent with his foot propped on the wall. His head is against the wall and I can’t help but notice how drop-dead sexy he is.
Seconds, minutes, hell I don’t know how long it is before he realizes I am standing there making a list of all the raunchy things I want to do to him. He gives me this strange look, then puts on his usual carefree expression, “You ready?”
Lynkin
There is no telling how long Sage has been standing there before I finally realize it. As soon as that door closed, I started beating myself up for inviting her to come with me. Hell, I’m beating myself up for more than that, if I’m being honest. I can’t believe I slept with her. Well…actually I can, but dammit to hell I shouldn’t have. This is one hell of a sticky situation and we just made it stickier by sleeping with each other. I should have been stronger at handling myself when it comes to her.
“You ready?” I ask her. I’m hoping like hell that she will say she changed her mind and doesn’t want to go, but I don’t get so lucky.
“Yep!” she says so cheerfully.
I motion for my hand for her to walk ahead, and I follow behind her. Once out of the door, I grab her elbow, make sure the door is shut, then walk her to the car door and put her in. Just because we both gave into our needs, doesn’t mean I can trust her to not go screaming bloody murder down the street again.
On the road to my mom’s, I can think of million reasons why I should just call her and cancel. I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to tell her about Sage? ‘Hi Mom, this is Sage Donavan, my ex boss’s daughter. Yeah, the big socialite. Well, I kidnapped her to get back at him. Oh, and I fucked her brains out last night, too.’
Yeah, I could see this whole trip turning out great! I turn the radio on and my favorite song ‘It’s Over When it’s Over’ by Falling in Reverse starts playing. Ironic? Yes. The song is about coming back from the lowest of the lows. That you can either give up after you hit rock bottom or you can pick up all the pieces and go again. It’s only the end of the road when you decide it’s the end. It is always your choice.
We arrive at my mother’s in no time, and I climb out of the car. I barely make it a few steps past the front of my car before Mom comes running down the steps of her porch, wrapping her short arms around me.
“Oh, my baby! I missed you so much. That job you have keeps you too busy, you should really find something that lets you have a life, honey,” she says as she pulls back to get a good look at me. She takes a breath to say something else when a door closes, and she looks around me to see Sage. “Maybe I spoke to soon. Who is this doll?”
Oh lord, here we go. “Momma, this is Sage. Sage, this is my mother, Chrissy.”
Sage rushes up to my mom and instead of the formal and proper greeting that I’m sure was imbedded into her since birth that I expected, she embraces her with both arms.
“It is so nice you meet you, Miss Conner,” she then releases her quickly, “I’m sorry, was that inappropriate? I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“My dear, I can assure you that if I was uncomfortable, I wouldn’t have let you hug me,” Mom tells her with a pat on the back and continues, “Now, let’s go inside and you can fill me in on all you have heard about me, and I can inform you which things are just over exaggerated rumors and which ones are not.”
My mother keeps one of her arms draped around Sage’s waist as they walk to the porch and into the house. I follow behind them as they giggle and talk so low I can only catch pieces here and there until we reach the kitchen. In there, I see she is completely prepared for canning and freezing of anything beyond what she will use before it goes bad.
“So what are we tackling first?” I question her.
“I figured we would hit the ones closer to the ground first and work our way up.”
“Why don’t you just sit on the porch? Sage and I can handle this,” I plead.
“I’m not an invalid, Lynkin Boyd Conner, so don’t treat me like one. I can help,” she argues right back.
“Fine. You’re such a stubborn ass woman,” I just mumble the last part to myself, but I should have known better than to think I could get away without her hearing me.
“Watch that mouth. Don’t think you are too old for me to bend over my knee,” she scolds.
I grab one of the buckets on the counter and duck my head in shame as if I was still a kid, “Yes, ma’am.”
I don’t care how old you are, your mother can put you in your place faster than you can snap your fingers. I don’t look back as I make my way out the back door and to the garden. I start with the cucumbers first, breaking them from their vine and tossing them into the five gallon pale. By the time I am finished, it’s almost full. I walk to the side of the house towards the porch when I hear the screen door smack closed and Sage saying, “…you should be proud of him.”
I stop and step closer to the house so they don’t know I’m here, knowing good and well I shouldn’t listen, but needing to hear out this conversation.
“I am very proud of him.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming on.”
“Growing up with me working all the time and still struggling to make ends meet has made him want more for himself, and that is good, but I just worry. He has worked so hard his whole life to make something of himself, but I think he has forgotten to live in the process. I just don’t want him to let all the good things pass him by.”
“He is just twenty-five. I’m sure once he gets to where he wants to be in his career, he will make time for other things.”
“I’m not so sure. Lynkin has always been distant, only allowing a few people to get close to them. He really likes that boss of his though. I remember when he came over nearly in tears when Mr. Donavan offered him a full-time job after his internship. He just kept telling me how much he looked up to him for taking a risk on someone like himself.”
All that went out the window with a snap of his fingers. I don’t want to hear anymore. I walk up next to the porch and set down the bucket of cucumbers down.
“You’re going to have pickles for life with all these,” I tell Mom. They both look at me for a second. Mom’s face is full of worry, and Sage is a mixture of pity and sorrow. It pisses me off, and I snap, “Come on. The damn things aren’t going to pick themselves.”
I dump the bucket onto the porch and head back to the garden. It’s obvious that Mom has connected with Sage on some level, it’s also obvious to my mom that she doesn’t have a clue what she is doing as Sage stares at the plants like they were aliens from another planet. For the next hour or so, she educates Sage on every little thing she can as we go through four more rows of various veggies in the garden. We call a break when it’s downright miserable with heat. As we reach the porch, Mom tells us to take a seat and she’d bring us some lemonade.
“Can’t we come into the air conditioning?” Sage asks.
“Lord no, dear. If you go in there right now and cool down too fast your bo
dy could shut down. Just stay out here in the shade and I’ll bring you a nice cold lemonade.”
I sit down on the steps, with my back against the wall and Sage drops to ground and lays on her back in the grass with her hands stretched above her head. I watch as her chest expands and deflates with her breathing, drawing my attention to the neckline of her tank top. What cleavage that is showing is glistening in the sun light from the sweat that has accumulated on her skin.
I think all woman are beautiful in their own way. I have never dated or had a relationship with anyone other than casual sex, and they have all been pretty, but this damn woman tops all charts. I’m not even sure she realizes how damn tantalizing she is. My eyes travel from her chest to where her shirt is up just enough to show a sneak peak of her hip bones, and keep going down to her longs tan legs that are bent into the air, feet planted on the ground.
I imagine myself in between them, the reason for her sweating and panting, just like last night. As my eyes wander back up her body, I am startled to realize that she is staring at me too. From the desire on her face, I assume she is thinking about the same thing that I am.
Our eyes lock. I don’t know how long our eyes stay locked onto one another. One, two, five minutes? Hell, it felt like forever before the screen door opens.
“Here you two are, a nice tall glass of ice cold lemonade.” She hands me a glass, then walks out to Sage and hands her one. She looks back and forth between us both a few times before she takes a swig from her own lemonade. We sit in silence as we finish our drinks, and when we are done Mom takes the glasses from us and says, “I’m going to go in here and start us up a good supper. You two go ahead and get some more of that garden done. I’ll be back out to help finish in just a bit.”
Sage jumps to her feet but sways a little when she takes a step. I rush up to steady her. “Easy there, Beauty.”
“I’m fine. I just got up too fast.” She grabs my hand and pulls. “Let’s get moving. We are wasting daylight!”