I shrug and focus on the spreadsheets in front of me. I’ve been a bit immature in my interactions with Keeland. I know this. Maybe it’s time to just face our situation head on and have an adult conversation about it. “It’s just — we haven’t talked about — I just don’t know where we stand.”
His eyebrows inch up and he shoves a tense hand through his hair. “Oh?” he says, apprehensively.
Panic lights flash in my brain. I can see it on his face – I’m this close to making our situation complicated. I need to make it clear that I want this to remain simple. “I think we should just keep this casual.” The words spill out of my mouth.
I won’t allow myself to get attached to him again only to have him walk out, dragging my heart along with him.
When I finally find the courage to look up at him, those electric blue irises are trained straight on my face. For a second, it looks like it might be disappointment shining in his eyes, but then he says, “Yeah, yeah. Casual is great. Sure.” He scrubs his hand along his stubble.
“Yeah, casual is perfect,” I agree with an overly enthusiastic nod, “and we have to be careful because if Daniel finds out…”
He nods, too. “Yeah, if Daniel finds out…”
We sit there and just stare at each other a while.
I’m the one to break the awkward silence. “So, maybe I should get back to work.” I pull a stack of papers in front of me.”
Keeland pushes his chair away from the table. “Yeah. I’ll get going.”
“Yeah.” I keep my eyes on the document instead of allowing myself to watch him leave.
He opens the back door then turns back to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
When I glance up at him for a second it almost feels like he’s waiting for an invitation to come back later and spend the night. But then he gives me his trademark cocky grin and I know there’s no innuendo in his statement.
Almost immediately, my insides wrench at the idea of spending the night without him. Don’t be silly, stupid girl. All those years when he was away, you were fine. Don’t start acting needy.
I give him my brightest smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And with that he’s out the door.
Chapter 31
I feel like Sammie needs some space. And maybe I do, too. That’s why I’m leaning against the kitchen sink, flipping through last spring’s Master Ink tattoo catalogue when I’d rather be with her, inside of her, now. Admiring the beautiful inkwork is helping to keep my mind off of the hot-as-hell girl next door.
I’ve kept away for two days and it’s driving me crazy but I just need some time to cool off before I go over there again. Things are getting a little intense between us. She says that she wants to keep things casual so I need to take a step back – bringing her breakfast, tending to her lawn, fixing her car – I’ve been getting a little carried away.
But can you blame me? The girl is addicting. The sparkle of her smile. The smell of her skin. Even the frown that’s always on her forehead. There’s something about Samantha Trotten that could make a man fall head over heels for her and I’m fighting like hell not to be that man.
I only hope it’s not too late because what I feel for Sammie is anything but casual.
I’ve got to get myself in check before I embarrass the fuck out of myself, or worse, get hurt. I did not come to Reyfield to fall in love. I came to clear my head.
I’m not saying that I can’t fuck her until she clutches the sheets, screaming my name as she has one orgasm after another. I’ve just got to keep my head on straight through it all.
I turn the tiny, wall-mounted kitchen TV to the sports network and a group of talking heads make a bunch of noise about last night’s football game. That’s when I hear the doorbell. I’m not expecting anybody, so I take my time going to answer. But when I glance through the peephole, I see Sammie standing on the front stoop, red-faced and wiping her tiny little nose.
I swing the door open. “Hey. What’s up?” I move aside and let her come in.
“Ahhh! Warmth!” she exclaims, rubbing her hands together as she steps into the foyer. She yanks off her ridiculous fur-lined ushanka and thick, wool mittens.
“What’s up with you? Heater broken?” I ask as I help her take off her heavy coat and hang it on the rack by the door.
“A pipe burst in the basement two days ago and since my brother is a slumlord, he hasn’t sent anyone over to fix it.”
“Whoa, are you okay?” I ask. “How’ve you been holding up over there?” The snow came back overnight and the temperature dropped to below freezing. It’s unseasonably cold this year and, although it’s still technically fall, it looks like the snow might be here to stay.
“I set up the fireplace last night, so I was fine, but right now, I need a warm drink. Do you have any coffee? Tea? I’m all out.”
I can think of something extra warm for her to put in her mouth, but it might be a little inappropriate to suggest that right now since she honest-to-god looks like she might be a blink away from hypothermia.
“Jeez, Sammie. You should have come over sooner. Why the hell did you stay over there until you were hanging between life and death?”
“You’re being overdramatic. I’m fine. Really.” She follows me into the kitchen, sniffling all the way.
She leans against the counter and picks up the catalogue as I turn on the kettle and pull two cups out of the cupboard. “I’ve only got instant coffee. None of that classy, imported shit you drink.”
She scrunches up her nose in disgust then sighs. “Beggars can’t be choosers so…”
She’s still shivering a little, even after I’ve handed her a cup of coffee. And now, I just want to wrap my arms around her to keep her warm. I lean my hip against the counter next to her and get close, snaking my arms around her waist and burying my nose in her hair. “You always smell so good…”
She sets her empty cup on the counter and sighs, molding into the warmth of my body. “Coconut-lavender balm…” she whispers, nuzzling her cheek against my heart. I lean down to get closer. I take a whiff of her and press kisses to her ear, her jaw, her lips. She groans accepting my tongue. She kisses me the way she always does, passionate and eager. I slip my hands into the back pockets of her jeans and give her ass a good squeeze.
But instead of coming closer, she pulls out of my arms.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, shrouded in a fog of lust.
“I should go.” She tries to squirm out of my arms.
“Back to your igloo? No. Stay.” I stroke the side of her face, my cock already filling with blood as it presses against her stomach.
She looks kind of embarrassed. She’s hiding something. “I’m on my period,” she says in a low voice.
I throw my head back and laugh despite the small pang of disappointment that echoes throughout my body. “Come here, silly,” I say pulling her close. “You don’t have to go freeze to death just because you’re on your period.” I put my hands on her shoulders and guide her toward the couch. “Sit down. We’ll watch a movie…” I say and she breathes an audible sigh of relief. “…Then, you’ll suck my dick.”
She laughs and slaps me on the chest. “Get your hands off of me, you pig.”
I give her a wink. “Hey, I wouldn’t be a man if I didn’t find a way to benefit from the situation.”
Chapter 32
I’m curled up on the couch next to Keeland, flipping through his tattoo catalogue while some low-budget action movie plays on the TV. He drifts in and out of sleep, his body slouching against the cushions. I smother a giggle when he starts to snore ever-so-slightly.
I lied to him when I showed up here a few hours ago. Yes, my heating system is broken, but I do have coffee of my own. In fact, my coffee is much better than his.
But the truth is, I think I missed him.
He hasn’t been over in a few days and I kind of just wanted to see his smug, handsome face and hear the roar of his laughter filling the room.
<
br /> I don’t know what the hell is going on with me. It scares me. Why the hell am I here right now? Why am I not running far away from this man? Those are questions that I just can’t answer.
I know that he seems like a good man – volunteering with old folks and cuddling with babies and all – but I can’t trust him. I’m terrified of trusting him. Once a heartbreaker, always a heartbreaker. Right?
So why is it so hard to keep my distance?
While scanning distractedly through the catalogue, a small, simple tattoo catches my eye. Thick black swirls sitting under the model’s clavicle, near her shoulder. I recognize it from a poster at Isla’s yoga studio. It’s the sanskrit symbol for ‘compassion’.
Compassion is the remedy for perfectionism. That’s what Isla says at the beginning of her meditation recording.
“That’s what I need right now,” I murmur quietly into the air. Compassion for myself. Compassion for Keeland. Compassion to accept all the shit that isn’t going exactly the way I planned. Compassion to accept that sometimes, ‘imperfect’ is still ‘amazing’.
Keeland sits up straight in his seat. “Did you say something?”
I hold up the magazine to him. “I want this tattoo,” I announce confidently, pointing at the photo. He gives me a groggy, skeptical look. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. I just want you to give me this tattoo,” I say.
He lifts an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Tattoos are forever, Sammie.”
“I know that. But I want you to ink me. No joke.” I give him my most earnest expression.
He studies me for a while. “Okay, but I don’t want you whining later if you change your mind.”
“I’m not a child, Keeland. I understand what I’m getting myself into.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m lying flat on the kitchen table and Keeland is rubbing a disinfectant wipe across the flesh beneath my collarbone.
“It’s not too late to back out of this, y’know,” he says as he empties a small amount of black into the plastic tray sitting next to his tattoo gun.
“I’m sure,” I say, even though my heart beats faster as the whirr of the tattoo gun fills the air.
“Here we go,” he mumbles just before the needle hits my skin and my body becomes his canvas. I flinch at the first bites of the needle. “Hold still,” he says, his eyes, narrow and focused.
I chew into my lip to take my mind off of the stinging, and before long, Keeland applies a transparent plastic film to my red, swollen flesh and announces that he’s finished.
He follows me to the mirror hanging on the wall next to the front door. “Do you like it?” he asks, his skeptical eyes moving from his creation and finding my gaze in the mirror.
“I love it,” I say. “Thank you, Keeland. Really.”
Chapter 33
Keeland and I stroll unhurriedly down Bonfire Lane. Mr. Lucky leads the way, racing through the open park gates without our instruction as if he knows instinctively exactly where we’re headed.
“Slow down there, boy,” I call after him as we take a seat on a bench near the edge of the jogging path.
The dog circles excitedly around the bench a few times before Keeland reaches down and releases him from his leash. Mr. Lucky dashes off across the grass, stopping a few times to sniff around in the dirt.
“Uh – I don’t think we should do that,” I say warily as I look around at the bigger dogs playing in the park. “I don’t think that Nancy lets him run free like that.”
Keeland waves me off dismissively. “Nancy isn’t here and I’ll never tell. Let the boy have some fun.”
Nancy’s feeling under the weather today, so she asked both me and Keeland to take Mr. Lucky for his morning walk. She wore a conspiratorial glint in her eye as she sniffled her nose and insisted that the both of us should take him to the park together. I didn’t complain because, oddly, I’m starting to enjoy spending time with the guy. It’s weird – not too long ago, I was convinced that I hated him.
I sigh and purse my lips, collapsing against the bench. “If he gets into any trouble, you’re taking the blame.” I take the leash from him and wrap it around my wrist.
Keeland shrugs. “Fine, then.” He smiles at me and our eyes hold for a long moment. I finally look away.
We sit in silence as people jog by, taking their morning run. Keeland leans back against the bench and pulls a scrap of paper and a pencil from his pocket. I watch quietly as Mr. Lucky’s silhouette takes shape on the page with each stroke of Keeland’s pencil. It’s sort of relaxing, watching him draw. His talent is so easy and natural.
Eventually, a blond-headed boy, about six or seven years old, comes charging into the park, chasing after a dark-haired girl of about the same age. The kids shriek and laugh as they run by. Their mothers trail behind.
“Tag, you’re it! Tag, you’re it!” the boy screams gleefully as the little girl does her best to get away.
Keeland laughs and turns to me. “That was totally us when we were kids.”
“I know, right?” Amusement warms my tone. He was constantly chasing after me and pulling on my ponytail when we were younger. His obsession with playfully yanking my hair survives to this day.
“He’s totally in love with her,” Keeland says thoughtfully, his gaze still trailing the children as they run off. “Too bad he won’t figure that out until he’s about 15.”
“Oh, really?” I say lifting an eyebrow at him skeptically.
“Yup.” He’s silent for a while and then, he looks me straight in the eye and says. “Do you know how much I was digging you in high school? “
Wow – that came out of the blue.
I give him a look that lets him know I think he’s bullshitting me. “What? No, you weren’t.”
“I totally was,” he insists.
I shake my head. “You lie. You were always flirting with the popular girls at the back of the class or holding hands with some chick from the private high school at the mall.”
“But you were the only one I could be silly with, the only one who knew about my family. You were the only one who knew me.” I feel more butterflies in my stomach with each word.
My voice is small, nearly inaudible, when I say. “Whatever…All you did was pull my hair…”
He turns so that he’s facing me head-on. With the crook of his finger, he tips my face toward him. “I’m serious, Sammie. I really liked you…The way that things turned out – the prom and everything – I never meant for that to happen. I’m really sorry about it. I am. I’ve thought a lot about it over the years. I never got to apologize, but I’m apologizing now…I’m sorry, Sam.”
I’ve waited eight years to hear him utter those words. In all my fantasies about him apologizing to me, I’d felt strong and vindicated, on top of the world. But hearing him say it now, I don’t feel that sense of satisfaction that I’d always expected.
I look at him with a small, sad smile. “You know that I sent you a ‘friend request’ on Facebook? You never replied.” I feel silly as I say it, but I’ve got to get it off my chest. It’s something that’s bothered me for a long time.
He gives me a hang-dog expression. “I…I was embarrassed to accept it. I didn’t want to have to explain myself to you. I didn’t want to have to admit that the Masters’ skipped town because we were too broke to keep the roof over our head for one more month. I was embarrassed that we owed that money to your dad. I was embarrassed that we just disappeared without a word. I know that I hurt you. I was a kid with an ego and I didn’t handle the situation properly. I know that…so, I’m apologizing now.”
It can’t really be that simple, can it? I’d always imagined that there’d been some big story as to why Keeland’s family had left Reyfield. “But you weren’t some helpless little kid, Keeland. You were 18, almost 19. You could have called me or emailed me or whatever. To explain what happened.”
“Look, I’m sorry, Sammie,” he snaps. Then, he immediately looks guilty. He lowers his voice and stares down at his
feet. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.
My eyes tingle with tears as I stare out at the children again. The little girl trips over her feet and goes flying to the ground. The boy stands back, pointing at her as he laughs cruelly. I sigh. “It’s too bad that it’s always the little girl who ends up getting hurt, huh?” I stand, Mr. Lucky’s leash in hand.
“Cryptic, much?” Keeland says sarcastically, pulling on a blade of grass sprouting beside the bench.
I wipe my fist against my cheek, pushing back a wayward tear.
“Sammie…” He watches me with pleading eyes.
I give him that melancholy smile again, trying to assure him that I won’t break down in tears. I’m not that fragile. “Keeland, don’t. It was a long time ago. I’m over it. Let’s not mention it again.” I call after the dog, “Come on, Mr. Lucky. Time to go.”
But I’m not over it. I may be smiling at him now, I may be having sex with him every chance I get but I have to remember that we can never be anything more than sex buddies. Because a piece of Samantha Trotten’s heart is still broken and Keeland Masters is the one to blame.
Chapter 34
I give Keeland a sly glance over my shoulder before I slip onto an empty stool next to Gracie. I run my fingers through my hair and smooth down the fabric of my forest green pencil skirt. He flashes me a wink as he picks up a cue stick and joins Daniel and some other guys at the pool table.
Faith leans across the bar to look at me. “Hey, where were you?” she questions, eying me over the rim of her martini glass.
I try to keep my tone even and aloof as I say; “I was in the ladies’ room, freshening up.”
Faith looks at me with a quirked brow. “Freshening up? You look more disheveled than you did when we got here.”
Before tonight, I never thought I was the type of girl to fuck in the washroom of a seedy dive bar. But now, I guess I am, because when Keeland discreetly grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me to the restroom nearly half an hour ago, I hadn’t protested. In fact, I’d been thrilled. The very real possibility of getting caught had made me wetter than a sponge in a bucket of water. My legs had been wrapped around his waist and my back pressed into the door as he’d slipped on a condom and fucked me quick and hard, all while swallowing my moans with his kiss.
Lover Boy Page 32