"I think I do." She sounds surprised at the realization.
I grin softly at her, grateful for the trust she’s placed in me, and back the car out of the parking lot. I head to the beach on autopilot, having been there enough times over the years to know exactly where I’m going without conscious effort to remember the way.
She didn’t ask where we were going, content to patiently ride along and be surprised. We rode in relative silence with the radio playing faintly in the background. When we approached the last turn I roll the windows down halfway and enjoy the smell of the ocean. Before long I pull down a dark, sandy road and slowed my speed to a crawl. I park in the sand, careful not to drive too close to the water to avoid getting stuck in case the tide rises while we’re here.
Lacey takes a deep breath, her eyes closed. She enjoys the smell of the salty sea whipping through the windows. Within moments she rolls up her window, eager to get out of the car and head closer to the shore. I do the same. There’s a half drunk bottle of tequila stuffed under the back seat and I grab it on my way out.
Seems like a tequila worthy night if you ask me.
She hops out of the car and lets the wind gently blow her hair around her, much the same as she did on our walk back to her apartment. It was hard to believe that happened earlier tonight. Seems like weeks ago.
She looks like a fucking model standing there with her hair blowing in the breeze and I take a moment to admire her beauty before shutting my car door and cutting off the only source of light we had.
I open the flashlight app on my phone and lead us to the water’s edge. She kicks off her shoes and plops down in the dry sand several yards back from where the water laps at the shore. I settle beside her with about a foot between us and gaze out at the stars twinkling over the water. They reflect off the ocean as the waves relentlessly crash across from us, steady and certain.
There have been times I’ve come to watch the waves because they were the only thing in my life that was steady and certain. It was grounding to know that every ten seconds or so a new wave would lap at the shore, wiping away any markings in the sand as if they never existed.
It was nice to think that something in this world worked that way. No matter what happened the sea forgave the sand of any indiscretion and wiped away the imperfections for a fresh start.
Nothing ugly ever lasted here.
Lacey digs her toes into the sand. There’s a peaceful expression on her face as she enjoys the feel of it. Enjoying the sound of the waves. She stays like that for a long time lost in thought. I find myself slowly getting lost in awareness of everything about her.
Her hair dancing in the salty breeze blowing in off the sea. Her barely there smile induced from peace and awe of the vast sight before us.
The way the moon reflected in her eyes, lighting them up as she finally looked over at me.
Without realizing what I was even doing I leaned across the space between us. Her lips parted. I propped up my weight with my arm, only a breath away from her. Our exhales mingle and merge, becoming one. My eyes begin to shut when she sucks in a sharp breath and jerks straight up, back ramrod, breaking the trance we were both under.
“I’m sorry Max. I can’t. David wasn’t lying about what he said. He...you know.” She whispers, sounding tortured and horrified at having to tell me. “It feels too slutty to kiss you in the same night.”
I nodded my understanding but made no move to leave or scoot away from her. I was in her orbit and unable to sever myself from it. Didn’t want to. The waves continued to crash on the shore, roaring in the distance steady as ever. Lacey pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them, closing her body off to me and the roaring waves.
“I’m sorry.” She repeats so quietly I can barely hear her.
She was worried I would be angry at her. That I would want to leave. To take her home and drop her off if she wasn’t going to give in to me. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I’m sorry. I know you’ve had a rough night.” I hope my words reassure her. “I shouldn’t have even done that. I wasn’t thinking.”
Despite the awkwardness I had caused she scoots closer to me in the sand. Our arms brush together and cause warmth to seep up my arm.
“Why were you fighting with that dickhead tonight?”
“I came home from work and he was fucking another girl.”
I reach for the tequila bottle I had settled into the sand, unscrew the lid and pass it to her. She takes a swig straight from the bottle and passes it back.
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to fuck someone else when they could have Lacey. I can’t voice that thought though. Instead I take a pull from the bottle and let it hang loosely from my hand, arms resting on my knees as I stare straight ahead.
“I haven’t been sleeping with him. He was right about that.”
Her voice holds a hint of guilt. She was blaming herself and that was bullshit.
“It’s not your fault.”
“How do you know?”
“Look. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t fucked him in months. He should’ve gone to you about the problem and worked it out like a man or dumped you and fucked whoever he wanted. Why cheat?”
“Yeah.”
The crashing waves nearly drown her soft voice out again and I shift closer to her so I can hear what she says. I offer her the bottle again and she takes it without hesitation.
“You think you’ll get back together?”
“Fuck no.” She’s adamant and sounds as if there’s no doubt in her mind. She passes the bottle back to me and I nestle it into the sand between my legs without drinking more. I’ve had enough. Patting the sand around me I find the lid and screw it back on.
“If you came home and found him fucking some other girl how did you end up sleeping with him after that?”
As soon as the words leave my mouth Lacey jumps to her feet and walks to the water’s edge. I regret asking that nosey ass intrusive question instantly and give her a minute alone before following. My feet pad over the wet sand and the lines of foam where the water’s reach ends.
She keeps her back to me as I cautiously approach her. Her feet are in the water and it laps over the tops of the feet before retreating back to the sea.
“That’s none of my business.” I say to the back of her head. “I shouldn’t have even asked you that. I didn’t mean to sound like I’m…” I struggle for the words. “Like I’m judging you.”
Her back was still to me and she remained eerily still. “I didn’t want to.”
I step closer to her, hoping I heard her wrong. Hoping the crashing waves screwed with my hearing and she said something else. Anything else but that.
“What did you say, angel?”
“I didn’t want him to fuck me.” She raises her voice. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
She pulls her baggy sweatshirt over her head and tosses it behind her in the damp sand. It lands near my feet and I stare down at it in shock. Then she peels off her pants and sends them flying in a different direction, further up the beach. I almost reach out to stop her when she unhooks her bra. The last thing I want is to scare her with my touch after what she just told me.
“That water is cold as fuck.”
Panties fly past my head and she steps forward.
“I don’t care.”
“You’ve had a lot to drink, Lace.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to swim.” I admit, hoping it’ll stop her advances into deeper water.
“You definitely shouldn’t get in then.”
She disregards all my warnings and wades out chest deep before turning back to me. The moon lights her face and the water barely covers her breasts from my view, gently lapping and exposing her nipples for several seconds before the water rises to provide her coverage once again. Despite what she just told me blood rushes south of the border.
I feel like a piece of shit for my body’s reaction
but it reacts just the same, completely against my will.
She wades out deeper.
“That’s far enough.” I warn as I unbutton my pants and kick them off haphazardly into the damp sand next to her sweatshirt in case I need to jump in after her. My boxer briefs stay on, providing a semblance of modesty for her benefit.
I wasn’t lying when I told her I couldn’t swim so I doubt it would do much good preparing to jump in. But I wasn’t sure what else to do. The alcohol had set in, creating a sense of fogginess in my judgment. Clearly not as much as it had with her though. I wish I had cut her off a couple chugs from the bottle ago and maybe we wouldn’t be out here.
She ignored me and didn’t stop until the water was up to her neck. She was treading water at this point. Her head bobbed up and down with the swells of the sea.
“Stubborn ass.” I mumbled, bracing myself for the freezing water as I stepped in and walked out waist deep. Being about a foot shorter, she wasn’t far ahead of me. If I had to reach out and grab her I could.
I hadn’t been in an open body of water in years. Not since before my mother drowned when I was eight. I remembered that day vividly. It was hard to forget a moment like that. That level of trauma tended to imprint on the mind. The soul.
I often came to the beach over the years and listened to the waves crashing as a way to feel closer to her. To remember her and the goodness she always tried to instill in me and my brother. Sometimes I definitely needed that reminder.
Or maybe it was just to torture myself with the painful memories of spending my childhood out here in the sand and sun with her and the knowledge there was no goodness or light left in our fucked up little family without her.
Please don’t do this Brad! Not in front of the boys! Think about what this will do to them!
I squeeze my eyes shut trying to fight off the memories that forced their way back to the forefront of my mind. The flash of my mother’s voice. The last thing I need is to have a meltdown out here. Lacey needs me to be strong for both of us tonight. I may not know her very well but I was the one that brought her out here and coaxed a confession out of her that sent her running out into the freezing ocean.
The least I could do is be here. Just be here. And make sure she gets safely home when this wave of pain subsides. Other than that I wasn’t sure what I could do to make things better.
“Lacey.”
“Max.”
I take a step closer to her. Water laps against my abs and I suck a sharp breath through my teeth.
“It’s fucking cold out here.” I repeat. Maybe if I keep saying it she will begin to feel the stabbing cold too and want to get out.
“No one told you to get in.” She points out. I can hear the shivering in her voice and hope she sees reason soon before we both end up with hypothermia.
“You know what sounds good?”
“What?”
“Getting back in my car. Turning the heat on h-high. Finishing off that bottle of t-tequila and the cheesecake.”
Yeah. That’s hypothermia setting in alright. If my life starts flashing before my eyes it’s going to be a disappointment.
“Hm.”
“Come on, angel. I’m freezing my nuts off over here.”
She giggles in the darkness that separates us. Despite the cold that’s managed to seep deep into my skin, in the marrow of my bones, warmth blooms in the center of my chest. I can’t even feel my feet or hands anymore but I can feel my heart rate speeding up.
“Ok.”
“Thank you, Jesus.”
But only for the cheesecake.”
“Whatever it takes.”
Chapter 7
Lacey
I trust Max.
Trust this man I hardly even know because honestly he’s shown me more respect tonight than David ever did for our entire ten month relationship. Any man willing to put himself between me and David’s fight and follow me into freezing waters when he can’t even swim is deserving of that.
Pulling away when he leaned in for a kiss hadn’t been easy. I wasn’t sure if he would get pissed at me. And then when he didn’t guilt swelled up inside me in place of the fear.
A cloud of regrets hung over me. It was suffocating. I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even think of kissing anyone or anything along those lines after everything that had happened.
Max wouldn’t take anything from me that I didn’t want to give. I could see that. I sensed it instinctually. That knowledge was proven firsthand when I rejected his advance.
He probably thought I was a nutcase by now. Those signals had certainly been given off all night.
Despite how much I wanted to know what his lips would feel like pressed to mine, to taste him, I couldn’t do it. Not with the dull pain that continued to throb between my legs. The feel of David’s grip holding me down on his bed burned through my arm, my thigh, my hip.
Everywhere he grabbed without my permission still ached. Pretty sure he left bruises on my hips where he painfully dug his fingers deep into my flesh to keep me still.
I couldn’t taint a kiss with Max with such a dark cloud. Maybe if it was any other guy I could’ve gone through with it. Used it as a distraction. But this wasn’t any other guy and something pulled me back seconds before our lips met knowing it was terrible timing. There was something brewing between us that was deserving of a moment more special than that.
Max blasts the heater as soon as we get back in the car as promised. I hold my fingers in front of the vent and hope sensation returns soon. He chuckles under his breath as he watches me and mumbles about how stubborn I am.
He’s right.
My gaze drifts down his bare chest to softly defined abs. Then to a sizable bulge beneath the wet, clinging fabric of his red boxer briefs. Something ignites in my veins. To say I’m attracted to Max would be an understatement. This was something beyond that.
But the timing couldn’t be worse. It’s as scary as it is exciting.
The cold water had been just the shock I needed to dampen that lusty thoughts and avoid talking about what happened earlier tonight, spilling my problems to him and unleashing the pull of attraction between us both. Sitting next to him in the confined space of the car made it hard to remind myself why I shouldn’t be noticing him in that way.
He pulls his sandy shirt over his head and reaches to the backseat to grab the to-go box with our cheesecake, completely oblivious to my pervy thoughts and stares. It was probably better that he didn’t know. It wasn’t like I was in the state of mind to do anything about it.
Hell, he already tried to kiss me once tonight and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
My fingers slowly thaw as he opens the container, sets it on the console between us and opens the bottle back up. He takes another drag from the bottle and hands it to me just as we had done on the beach.
I take a healthy gulp from the bottle, not liking the burn at the back of my throat as it goes down. The spontaneous swim must have killed my previous buzz. When I get enough in my system to last me the rest of the night I screw the top back on and stuff the bottle on the floorboard.
Max is already stuffing a piece of cheesecake in his mouth with his fingers and managed to fit about half the slice. I grab my piece, take a small bite and fumble with the radio. I’m just about to keep scrolling past an old Ludacris song when Max stills my hand.
He begins rapping along, complete with exaggerated hand gestures and head bobbing. It’s so silly that he has me laughing hysterically by the end of the song. He knows all the words and I find myself laughing too hard to take another bite.
And that’s how the next hour passes. The two of us warming up and finishing our cheesecake between rap performances. He hooks his phone up to the USB and starts YouTubing the songs he wants me to sing, tilting his phone to include me in the selections.
We end up taking turns choosing songs for the other to sing, alternating between silly duets for us to share and serious ballads for me to perform solo.
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The sun begins to rise as I yawn loudly.
“You ready to get home and get some sleep?”
“I have to work at seven.”
He glances at the dash. It’s 5:46. Enough time for me to get home, shower and maybe eat breakfast before going into work.
“Maybe you should call in. Go to the doctor?” He suggests, giving me a quick onceover as if he will be able to see any injuries that might need tending to.
“No.”
I don’t want to go to the hospital. I don’t want to get examined. I don’t want to explain to anyone what happened. And I sure as hell don’t want to be getting poked and prodded and violated all over again.
I refuse to even consider the idea.
“Ok.”
He accepts my refusal without argument and starts the ignition, heading back to my apartment without directions. It’s a quiet ride as I fight from dozing off against the passenger window. When we pull up I thank him for the ride, the cheesecake and the night of distraction and I remember something.
“Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My car is at David’s. I forgot the keys in his apartment.” I lay my head back against the seat and close my eyes. “What the hell am I going to do? I can’t go back there.”
“It’s ok. I’ll bring you to work and pick you up.” He assures me in a calm voice. “I can help you get your car back when you get off.”
“Are you sure you aren’t busy? I’ve already taken up a lot of your time.”
“I’m not busy. And I had fun with you tonight.”
I roll my eyes and laugh at the statement. “I made you get in freezing water, got your leather seats soaking wet and sandy. Then I ate the rest of your cheesecake when you were busy singing.”
“You did.” He nodded his head. “But you also sang for me. And you made me laugh all night. I don’t do that very often.”
“I sure did.” We stare at each other for a charged moment. “I’m going to pay you back for dinner when I get a new bank card.”
Sparks Fly (Davis Brothers Book 1) Page 4