Only a short time ago, I’d been sitting on the car with Tarryn by my side. I’d felt more... real than I had in a long, long time. The stars had blinked down at us. The skies had been clear, and so had my mind. Things change so fast. Too fast.
Opening the car door, I didn’t bother to shut the windows. More rain would get in, the droplets racing sideways as if the clouds above had a personal vendetta against me and my car.
Moving around the front, the neon green paint almost glowing in the low lighting coming from inside the house, I tried to control my heartbeat. Tried to control my breathing, but I couldn’t control anything. Everything was crashing downward, ever wall I’d built after Lane had left, ever empty compartment of my heart that should be filled with blood and other life-affirming vitals.
“Drake?”
A voice from the past reached into my body and forcibly compressed my heart. I choked against the pressure of it, my hands clawing at my shirt because right now the lightweight cotton was the heaviest fucking thing in the world.
Blinking through the rain, I focused on the porch.
And there she was.
Her ginger hair glowing under the porch light. She wore a slip of a dress, nearly see-through. Peach... my goddamn favorite color on her. It brought out the undertones of her skin, highlighted the freckles that danced across her body.
“Lane,” I breathed out her name, the sound barely audible even to my own ears. I doubted she heard me.
I almost yelled for her when she disappeared back into the house. She couldn’t leave now, not when I’d just seen her for the first time in forever. But she came out seconds later, before her name could escape my lips again. She ran out into the rain, wrapping a towel around my body, and she steered me into the house gently. She said nothing; I couldn’t speak, even if I wanted to.
When we were across the threshold, warm air pressed against our bodies. I shivered, despite the heat... maybe because it reminded me that I was soaked, reminded me that I was alive. That this wasn’t a dream. She wasn’t a dream.
“What are you doing here?” She finally asked, facing me and my towel-wrapped body, a look of concern in her eyes.
“I don’t want your pity,” I mumbled out incoherently. I hated that the only emotion I saw on her face right now was worry and concern and, yes, the pity that made my stomach pang and my heart ache.
“Why are you here?” She asked again, her face going neutral.
This wasn’t the warm woman I’d once known. This wasn’t my Lane.
I took a step back from her.
“Look, I’m sorry my dad ran you out of town. I’m sorry he treated you like shit. But why the fuck are you being so cold? Stop it, Lane. Just stop it.” I couldn’t keep the moisture from building in my eyes. How many dreams had I had about her since she’d left? How many nightmares...
“It was never supposed to be forever, Drake. I thought he’d have told you the truth by now...” Her voice trailed off, the neutrality of her expression melting a fraction.
“He did tell me the truth,” I protested, arms crossed over my chest as I tried to hold myself together. “You were pregnant. He blackmailed you—lose your job or leave town. But he kept supporting you. Until…”
“I wrote that the baby died,” she completed for me, since my voice locked up and I couldn’t speak to finish the sentence.
As if it was planned, that the big wheel of fate would turn at that moment and kick me when I was down, a baby’s cry filled the space around us. Lane hurried over to a table, picking up a small white receiver and clicking it off. She walked swiftly from the room, and all I could do was stand there and try not to fill sick. Sick… sad… happy that maybe I’d just heard a child’s sob in the middle of the depressive, dark night.
My child.
Our child.
I didn’t care about our age gap. I was old enough now. We would be okay. No one had to know how we started.
Lane came back into the glow of the hallway, a ginger-haired child in her arms. The baby blinked at me, brown eyes catching amber in the light. A pale blue bow was caught in her hair. A little girl. She looked at her mother and babbled.
“She didn’t…” I swallowed down the lump in my throat, and I took a step back towards Lane. “The baby didn’t—”
“She’s not yours,” Lane shifted her body, taking the baby from my view.
Her words hit me like bombs, shattering the little bit of dignity I had left. The tears couldn’t be held back now; they fell freely from my eyes, burning bits of salty acid that taunted me as they slid down my cheeks.
You’re an idiot for hoping.
Tear one.
An idiot for wanting.
Tear two.
An idiot for being here.
Tear three.
Too many tears.
It wasn’t worth counting the ways they hurt me.
“What do you mean?”
“I did lose our baby, Drake. I miscarried.”
“But—” No, the kid had to be mine.
“Drake, I was paid by your father to watch over you. To keep you in line. He said to do anything I needed to, to earn your trust. You wouldn’t talk to him anymore, or your mother. He wanted to take care of you, wanted to know what you were thinking and who you were becoming. He wanted to make sure you were… that you were a Castleton.”
“So, he paid my teacher to what? Fuck me?” I bit out the words. “And then what? You got pregnant and the deal was off.”
“He realized that I… I had feelings for you.”
“So, you could spy on me, screw me, but you couldn’t like me for real?” I backed further away from her until my back hit the closed front door. “God forbid someone love me.”
She nodded, her own eyes watering now. “I’m sorry, Drake. I shouldn’t have ever taken the money. I shouldn’t have done it. But your father is convincing… and he’s scary. And a teacher’s salary isn’t much...” Her voice trailed off.
And I could tell she was in pain. Maybe in as much pain as I was.
No, that wasn't possible.
I ignored what she’d said. I didn’t need anyone else telling me what my father was like. I knew damn well. Byron Castleton didn’t take no for an answer. He always got his way—whether in business or relationships. He’d been stringing on his secretary forever, promises of helping her fuel her career as long as she stayed with him. He thought people didn’t know.
I knew.
“If the kid isn’t mine, then whose is she?”
Lane hung her head slightly, clutching onto the baby girl more tightly. “I met someone after leaving. He was there for me when I lost the baby. We jumped into things fast. We weren’t smart.” Lane tilted her head up now, pointed chin a defiant line. “But he loves me. And I love our little Anna. And that’s what matters now.”
“He loves you? Why the hell isn’t he here then?” My voice was no better than a growl, feral and furious.
“Because,” Lane spoke slowly, neutrally, “he had to work. The house sold, and someone had to come and pack up the things I left behind.”
If she’d been angry, and screaming, and passionate, I would have felt better. But she was too calm, too controlled. There was nothing left for her here. The things she’d once felt for me were gone, buried beneath a package deal of husband, baby, and picket fence.
“Does your husband know the truth about you?” I asked the question, rage and fury and bitter disappointment dancing in my stomach in a sickening ménage waltz.
“Yes. He knows everything.”
“And the idiot still wanted you. Guess damaged goods aren’t a turn-off for everyone.” Ugly words. Stained words. Shadowed with all the things I wanted to confess.
That I’d missed her terribly.
That a part of me still loved her.
That a part of me would always love her.
“That’s not fair, Drake.” She was holding her Anna tightly, but she wasn’t crying. She wasn’t overcome with grief th
e way I was.
“I need to go,” I mumbled out, my body starting to shake—not from the cold this time, but from the pain of realizing that a memory I’d held onto like magic, meant little to the woman who’d defined my personal ‘awakening’ in so many ways.
“I think that’s for the best, Drake.” She frowned, still keeping her baby out of sight. But for a moment, there was a flash of honesty in her gaze. “For the record, I did really care about you. It started as a job from your father, but deciding to…to really be with you, that was separate.”
I opened the front door, standing at the threshold and feeling the hollowness she’d left in her wake so long ago trying to return in full force. “It doesn’t matter now. Go back to your husband. Be happy. Maybe teach your daughter to be a better fucking person than you are.”
I ran back out into the rain, leaving her door open behind me.
4.
D R A K E
The only thing I could do was sit, dumbfounded, as Tarryn stood up and stripped off her clothes.
She was beautiful, the right balance of athletic muscles and softer curves. In a million years, I hadn’t expected her to do what she was doing. She splashed into the water with a startled laugh. When she was deep enough, she waded into the water and began to swim. Sharp, measured strokes as if she’d been on a team at her old school.
I finally broke through the shadows that were holding me immobile and I took off my own clothes, stripping to my boxers. I raced after her. She was halfway to the dock, but I was fast swimmer.
Cleaving through the water, I was nearly to the dock by the time Tarryn was pulling her body up onto the treated wood decking. She turned her body as she mounted, sitting on the edge and dangling her legs into the lake. I followed suit, knowing exactly how I looked erupting from the water, streams of wetness flowing down my shoulders and arms and abs. She watched every movement I made, biting her lower lip and looking like she wanted to say something, but she wasn’t sure what.
“What, speechless at the sight of me?” I gave her a sly, half-cocked smile. She laughed.
“You’re not that good looking, Drake,” she scoffed out, and I could tell she was lying. Her cheeks were bright pink.
“Liar.” I pushed my shoulder against hers, tilting her upper body playfully and using the opportunity to sidle up even closer. The lengths of our legs touched now, our feet playing beneath the waves.
“You want to talk about it now?” she asked tentatively, her posture slumping a little.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“You’ve told me about her already,” she pressed gently. “Just fast forward to last night.
“She was there, at the house. So many goddamn memories. For me, they were good. For her? They were a job that turned sour.”
“A job?” she sounded confused now. I didn’t blame her. Christ, I was still confused.
“My dad paid her to keep an eye on me, to see what kind of person I was becoming. He wanted to make sure his only precious son was growing up to be a Castleton he could be proud of.”
“He paid her to have a relationship with you?” Tarryn’s face crumpled and she put her hand on my thigh. The touch thrilled me, despite how empty I was still feeling inside.
“Sort of. Fuck,” I pushed my hand through my damp hair. “He told her to get close to me. She said she developed feelings for me.” I sighed then, dropping my hand to my lap, my fingers were close enough to brush her hand. “But then she got pregnant, my dad forced her to move away or lose her job, possibly go to jail. He supported her until she lost the baby.”
“God, I’m so sorry.” Tarryn leaned into me, lowering her head to rest it against my shoulder. “I don’t even know what else to say.”
“She’s married now. Got pregnant again when she first met him. Has a baby now, looks just like her. She seems happy. Maybe not totally happy. But happy enough.”
Silence lapsed over us, a suffocating blanket for me… and I had no idea how Tarryn was feeling. I wanted to know everything about her, her innermost thoughts. Or at least I had, before my past had come calling again to slap me in the face. Now I didn’t know how to feel.
All the girls since Lane had been a coping mechanism.
But Tarryn was right.
No amount of sex was ever going to help me heal.
“I feel like,” I made a fist and put it over my chest. I didn’t hit myself this time though, not like before. “everything’s been emptied out until I’m this goddamn shell. I became a different person after she left, someone I didn’t even like. You ever feel that way?”
She didn’t answer immediately, but when she shook her head, I could tell she felt sorry that she couldn’t empathize. “No. I guess I’ve been pretty sheltered. I never had a lot of friends, I guess, but good parents, a stable home. I felt okay about being the sporty nerd who did her own thing.”
“I don’t know what any of that is like.” I flexed my fingers out of the fist I’d been making and laughed sharply. It was a sad, jarring sound against the pleasantness of our surroundings. “Good parents. A stable home. Being okay with who I am.”
“You’re nothing like you want people to think you are, Drake.”
“Yes, I am.” I argued. “I’m the rich kid whose Dad always bails him out of trouble. I hurt a girl once. Went at it too hard, left bruises. Her family threatened to sue until the great Castleton family bought their silence. That’s who I am, Tarryn.”
“So change what you don’t like. Be a better person. Don’t be your family.” She lifted her head and turned to face me, pulling one leg up onto the dock and leaning forward.
I flinched when her hand lifted into my sightlines.
“Relax, Drake,” she whispered, I’m not going to hurt you.
“I’m not scared of you hurting me, Tarryn. It’s the other way around.” I tried to look away from her, but her fingers touched my face and gently pulled me back. She was dangerous, I knew that in my marrow. She was too gentle, too forgiving, too ready to see past my flaws.
She’d make me believe I could change.
“You’re not going to hurt me, Drake. I’m too tough for that.” She smiled, and her eyes crinkled, and wispy pieces of her hair had started to dry and fly about her face as a breeze kicked to life.
“You’re not tough at all, and you know it.” I leaned forward until I was so close that our lips hovered mere centimeters apart. “You can’t lie to me.”
“Funny, since the whole foundation of our relationship is based on lies.”
“Don’t be such a square,” I teased.
And then I closed the gap between us. Her lips were soft and yielding, her breath warm and tasting like summertime. I pushed my fingers into her hair, gripping gently and loving the way she gasped quietly against my mouth. I lifted my legs out of the water, pulling myself up to kneel next to her, and never once letting our lips part. I needed the feel of her, I didn’t want it to stop.
Tarryn already had one leg pulled up on the deck; now she pulled the second one out of the gentle waves. She rose up on her knees until we were facing each other, mouths still connected, lips dancing, tongues darting gently together. I wrapped my arms around her to pull her closer, my hands kneading her back gently as our bodies pressed together.
My lips left hers and I worked kisses down her chin and neck, my back arching away to allow me access to the rounded curve of her breasts, pushed upwards by the bra she was still wearing. I wanted it off her, wanted to see the rest of her beautifully-athletic body. My hands moved from her lower back to inch towards the bra. My fingers played with the clasps, waiting to see if she’d protest. When she didn’t, I unhooked the bra, reveling in the uninterrupted expanse of her newly-uncovered back. I slid my fingers beneath the straps, pulling them gently off her shoulders and down her arms. I held her to me again, our bodies touching the only thing keeping the front of the bra from falling completely away.
I lifted my head, finding Tarryn’s gaze steady as she l
ooked at me.
“Are you okay?” It was a new one for me. I never asked if a girl was okay. I never cared.
“Just take it slow.” She bit her lower lip, cheeks reddening. “You’ve got a lot of experience.”
“I’m guessing you don’t?” I pushed a strand of hair from her face.
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t have any.”
I pulled away from her in surprise, and the bra fell further down her arms. I couldn’t help myself. My gaze roved from her face, down her neck, to the breasts that I knew, without even having to look at them, would be perfect. Pert and rounded, just enough for more than a handful, with nipples a darker tan than the rest of her body.
“God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” I murmured, hand lifting to touch her right breast. I let my fingers hover for a second, before moving them forward to give her nipple the slightest brush of touch. Both of her nipples hardened and she shivered—from my touch, from the light breeze blowing across the lake, from what was happening…
“Drake,” she murmured my name and my eyes left her breasts. The way she was looking at me—with so much trust—it made me do a double take. “I’m not going to have sex for the first time out in public, in broad daylight, in the middle of a lake.”
“You’ll go topless though?” I cocked a grin, glancing down at her tits for emphasis.
“No sex,” she repeated.
I started to nod, but before I could, she pulled the bra off her arms, letting it fall to the wooden dock. She moved closer to me, arms sliding around my neck. And then she kissed me, moving her upper body so that her hard nipples rubbed against my pecs.
“Saying no sex, and then kissing me like that,” I spoke against her mouth as she continued to kiss me, my words muffled, “sending me real mixed messages here, Square.”
“There’s a lot we can do that’s not sex?” She stopped kissing me, heavy lashed eyes searching my face. It was a question. She really didn’t have much experience.
Brawl: A Bully Romance (King of Castleton Book 3) Page 3