by Vivian Lux
Soft Wild Ache
Kings of Crown Creek Book Three
Vivian Lux
Copyright © 2018 by Vivian Lux
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
To Kacey Musgraves, for Slow Burn and Lin-Manuel Miranda, for Wait for It, both of which I listened to on repeat while writing this book. I think it’s no coincidence it’s the longest one I’ve written yet!
I'm alright with a slow burn
Taking my time, let the world turn
I'm gonna do it my way, it'll be alright
If we burn it down and it takes all night
It's a slow burn, yeah…
- Kacey Musgraves - Slow Burn
Contents
1. Rachel
2. Beau
3. Rachel
4. Beau
5. Rachel
6. Beau
7. Rachel
8. Beau
9. Rachel
10. Beau
11. Rachel
12. Beau
13. Rachel
14. Beau
15. Rachel
16. Beau
17. Rachel
18. Beau
19. Beau
20. Rachel
21. Rachel
22. Beau
23. Beau
24. Rachel
25. Beau
26. Rachel
27. Beau
28. Rachel
29. Beau
30. Rachel
31. Beau
32. Rachel
33. Beau
34. Beau
35. Beau
36. Beau
37. Rachel
38. Rachel
39. Beau
40. Rachel
41. Rachel
42. Beau
43. Rachel
44. Rachel
45. Beau
46. Rachel
47. Beau
48. Rachel
49. Beau
Epilogue
More from Crown Creek
Also by Vivian Lux
Chapter One
Rachel
I smiled at the bartender and waved my empty glass. "Another Long Island Iced Tea?" he asked over the noise of the party.
I grinned and nodded my thanks. Sticking with iced tea was a wise choice, and I was proud of myself for making it. The last thing I wanted was to ruin my housemate Everly's party. She was my only friend, and she watched out for me. But I didn’t want her thinking I couldn't handle myself when she was gone.
“Thank you!” I shouted once he handed me my drink. Everly’s goodbye party had gotten really noisy in the past few minutes. It seemed like the entire town of Crown Creek had come out to wish her and her rockstar, celebrity boyfriend, Gabe King good luck as they headed overseas to shoot his TV series. This was the kind of party that would have gotten me in trouble a month ago. But I’d wised up since then.
Yes. Drinking only iced tea was a good choice. I grinned to myself. Pride made me feel loose-limbed and slippery.
Seized with the urge to move, I shimmied back onto the dance floor, taking another big sip of my iced tea. It was hot in here, I suddenly realized, then spun in a circle to get closer to the open door. Everly was watching me with an odd look on her face. I grinned at her and waved. “I love you!” I shouted. It was true. She was like a sister, no, more than a sister since my sisters and I had never really gotten along. I waved to her and Gabe. "Hey guys!" I shouted over the music. “Come dance with me!”
“Nah, I’m pretty comfortable right here!” Gabe called back, draping his arm over Everly. Then he shot me a wicked grin. “I bet he’ll dance with you though!”
I felt heat on my skin and turned to see that Gabe’s brother Beau was watching me. When Everly and Gabe had started dating, she’d dragged me along and introduced me to Gabe’s younger brother, who had also been dragged along. I knew that all four King brothers had been in a band at one point, which should have scared me. But there was something about Beau.
Something completely confusing.
He was calm. He was quiet. Being with him was almost…restful.
That is, until he looked at me like I was the only thing worth noticing, with warm hazel eyes that seemed to heat my skin to scorching.
He was over in the corner now, sitting with his twin brother, but his eyes were on me. If I went over to him, I knew that would be the end of the night. When Beau and I got to talking, I lost all track of time. And I wasn’t here for Beau tonight. I was here for Everly.
I needed to focus on her. She was my friend and she was leaving. My best friend. "I can't believe you’re leaving, Everly!" There was a strange echo in my head and I wondered if I had already said that.
Then I felt her arms squeeze me tight and wondered how I was already hugging her when I didn't remember crossing the room. "It'll only be a few months," she said and I heard that same echo in my head.
This time I was certain we'd already done this, so why couldn't I stop my mouth from whining, "Who's going to teach me about secular life?"
My drink suddenly lifted itself from my hands. I blinked and realized she was setting it on the bar. "Right, well I'm clearly a bad influence, how much have you had?"
"Nothing!" I protested. I leaned in, stumbled and braced my hand against the bar. "It's just iced tea!"
But even as I said that I knew it was wrong. I was drunk. I had no idea how it had happened, how iced tea had made the room start spinning like this, but it had happened and now I was far drunker than I ever had been before.
"Goodness," I mumbled, turning away from Everly. She was asking me a question, but I was too preoccupied with remembering how to put one foot in front of another. Guilt was pouring into my veins like I was standing in front of my community during a Shaming.
I needed to get out of here. I stumbled, then cursed myself silently as I pushed open the front door and staggered out into the cool night air. A chill shivered up my overheated skin and I vaguely remembered leaving my jacket in Everly’s car, but there was no way I could turn around and ask her for it. She’d be horrified at me.
No, I needed to get out of here and get home before I ruined Everly’s night. Guilt was throbbing in my head right along with the drunken haze. Drunk... how was I drunk? How had I gotten this drunk when I didn't even mean to...
That thought cut short when I felt myself suddenly go airborne. I was falling, no I was flying, no I was floating parallel to the ground, borne up in a pair of arms.
I knew who they belonged to, without having to turn and look at him. I knew by the way my skin heated under his gaze.
Chapter Two
Beau
"Put me down!" she shrieked in a voice that was half squeak, half slur.
It was really cute.
I obliged her, setting her gently back down on her feet. "You were going to fall," I explained. Then stepped back.
Even when she was as drunk as a sorority girl during Rush Week, Rachel Walker was beautiful. She had the kind of beauty that crept up on you. I’d first met her when my brother explained that he needed me to come be his wingman. I was tasked with dealing with his girlfriend’s housemate so they could engage in some serious PDA without Everly feeling guilty about it. My first impression of Rachel was that she was a shy girl who was weirdly oblivious to my pop culture references and deflected most questions I asked her about what she liked to do
. It wasn’t until the second time we hung out that I noticed how shiny her long braided hair was. The third get-together I noticed the amber flakes in her brown eyes. By the fourth meeting, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the way her hands fluttered like birds when she got excited and was willing to make a complete fool of myself just to see the pretty way her cheeks pinkened when she thought she was being bad. I started keeping an eye out for her around town and calling to check in with her at night. Slowly, without me really noticing, Rachel Walker had become someone I cared about.
And I took care of the people I cared about.
That’s why, when I saw her stumbling to the front door like that, I’d immediately jumped up to follow. Which was why I had been there to catch her when she fell.
Now she was looking at me through half-slitted eyes. Probably trying to understand why I'd picked her up in the first place. Sure I'd caught her before she pitched forward and wrecked that pretty face of hers on the blacktop. But I definitely didn't need to keep holding her cradled against me for several paces.
I exhaled. That had been for me. I took advantage of the situation to have her in my arms for a second. But she was drunk, and that definitely made me an asshole.
Fuck.
"Can you walk?" I asked, putting a steadying - friendly - hand on her shoulder. "I'm right here if you need to lean on me."
"I'm fine," she mumbled, and very deliberately put one foot in front of the other, making sure it was fully planted before lifting her back foot. She looked like she was walking on some planet with stronger gravity and the way she was concentrating was so adorable I had to bite back a laugh. I had a feeling she wasn't in a laughing mood.
"Good," I said, instead of laughing. "I'll just walk you home then."
"You don't have to," she said quickly.
I shrugged and tried to look like I wasn't watching her every move. "It's a nice night," I said.
And it was. There was still a bite of chill in the air, but it had softened enough that it felt good to be out without a jacket. The rush of the creek from last month's flood had died into a burble after a month with no rain, and the gentle shushing sound was a soothing backdrop to the quiet evening. Above us, the little spring peepers trilled out their high, piping calls, talking to each other in the trees. That was probably my favorite sound in the world.
Second favorite, I thought to myself when Rachel spoke up. "You were watching me," she said.
She turned her head to look at me as she said this, which made her stumble a little. I reached out a steadying hand. "Was I?" I said, even though I very clearly was. I hadn't been able to keep my eyes off her the whole party. Even when my twin brother Finn was talking to me, I was still captivated by the sight of her dancing. Even when I was talking to Gabe and Everly, I'd been worriedly counting the number of drinks she'd been buying.
I had no right. I knew that. For one thing, it was her business how much she cut loose. Hell, if anyone had a right to party hard, it was Rachel Walker. I only had the vaguest inkling what she went through, growing up in that environment, but I definitely understood why she'd want to break free of it. She had every reason to go crazy.
The problem was that she had no idea what she was doing. I was pretty sure that growing up in a restrictive, fundamentalist cult didn't exactly prepare you for knowing your own boundaries. Which was another reason I had no right to have my eye on her the way I did. Rachel was a grown woman - beautifully grown too - but she had the life experience of a young child. She was naive and sheltered and she trusted me to be her friend.
"I guess I was," I confessed. Then I lied. "Just a friend looking out for a friend, right?" It was such a bold-faced lie, but Rachel was pure enough to believe it.
"Just a friend?" she repeated. "Really?"
Damn how soft her voice sounded. Damn that note of pleading. I was this close to kissing her already and her wide-opened eyes weren't helping. "Yeah," I grunted and looked away from her. At the rising moon, the fading light in the sky, the first stars winking into existence. Anywhere but at that face, those lips. She was drunk, and I was not an asshole.
She opened her mouth, about to say something, but mistimed her odd, heavy steps. She stumbled, pitching forward.
It was all instinct. I had her back in my arms before my next breath, sweeping her up to cradle her against my chest. "I've got you," I said, and that was instinct too.
The light was draining from the sky, but there was enough shining down from the streetlights so that I could see the way she was looking through her lashes at me. And if I didn't see that, I could feel the slow slide of her fingertips before she laced them around my neck. Her lips parted a little and I spotted the pretty pink of her tongue. The blood was pounding in my ears and every part of me was laser focused on that mouth. I could feel it already, the softness, the slow slide of that pretty tongue against mine. I was already bending my head to kiss her when she closed her eyes all the way. "Yoou'ff got meee," she slurred.
That slur went through me like a jolt of electricity. Instantly I straightened back up again. My blood still felt super-heated, but it was cooling rapidly.
She's drunk, Beau. You fucking asshole. She's completely shitfaced drunk.
I clenched my teeth together and started to jog. She made a little whooping sound as her head jostled, and then rested it against my chest. With every jogging step I cursed myself for how wrong I was for enjoying how it felt there, but at least I wasn't trying to kiss her anymore.
The little three room cabin she shared with Everly was situated on a spit of land that bordered the creek. Even though it was only a half a mile from the bar, and she was pretty light, my arms were still burning by the time I reached their sunken porch. "Rachel," I whispered.
"Mmm," she protested, half asleep.
"I need your keys."
"Pocket," she mumbled, snuggling into my neck and sighing.
"Jesus," I hissed through my clenched teeth. I braced her up with my knee against the porch rail and then slid my hand into her pocket. I wasn't feeling the heat of her thighs, I wasn't thinking about how close my hand was to... to... "Rachel, can you stand up for me?" I growled, setting her down a little too roughly.
She was too drunk to notice how I tugged at the crotch of my jeans. She just leaned against the side of the house and mumbled something before smiling. I was clenching my teeth so hard I was getting a headache. "Thank fuck," I muttered when I finally got the door unlocked. "Can you make it in?"
She mumbled again, her head lolling. Fuck, she was really far gone. I stepped in, catching her just as she pitched forward. "Okay," I winced as my hand accidentally brushed her breasts. "Fuck, ah, okay, right in here, right? Let's get you in bed. Right, good girl, just like that, no, lie on your side, here, I'll get the wastepaper basket." I set it on the floor right next to her head. "There."
"...iced tea," she slurred.
"What was that?"
But she passed out.
I stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. Her waist length hair was tumbled all over her in a curtain, which would get pretty gross if she ended up puking. With my lips pressed together, I gathered the silky strands up in my fist, pulling them back from her face and then tucking them all back into her shirt. She let out a muttering sigh and shifted in her sleep, then moaned.
"Okay," I said aloud. "You're okay now, right?" Of course there was no answer. I shifted in place, watching her breathing even out. “You're going to be fine now," I said, more for my benefit. But I still wasn't moving away from her. I still wasn't leaving her alone.
I couldn't leave her alone.
"Fuck it," I grumbled. I took one more look at the beautiful face, those plump, parted lips.
Then I undressed and made a pillow of my clothes. I checked her one more time, then fell asleep on her floor.
Chapter Three
Rachel
Everything hurt. My head hurt. My stomach hurt. My hair and my eyelashes somehow even hurt.
I tried to o
pen my eyes and moaned when I finally succeeded. The sun was like a knife driven right into between my eyebrows. I tried to clap my hand over my face, but the motion made the room start spinning. "Merciful God," I groaned and shut my eyes again.
There was a soft sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door. I must have woken Everly. "Hey," I croaked, licking my parched lips. "Would you mind getting me a glass of water?"
"If you have water right now, you're just going to puke," came a deep, sleep-clogged voice.
I shot straight up in bed and stared at Beau. Merciful heavens, what was he doing there, standing in my doorway all shirtless and rumpled and looking like every kind of sin I'd been warned against? I stared at him just long enough for his mouth to kick upward into a smile...
And then everything hurt again. I wondered if I had the flu. My little sister Miriam had said it felt like this when she got it. Everything hurting,
I fell back onto the bed, feeling like I'd been kicked in the stomach by a cow. "Dear Lord above," I panted.
"Do you have any juice in the house? I'll mix you up something to help your electrolytes."
I had no idea what he was on about, but I nodded weakly. "In the fridge." Talking felt like dying.