“You can’t really get to know someone at one. You usually just use them to meet people. You don’t need to meet people, why throw so many parties? Why not just hang out with friends?”
She gets a faraway look in her eyes and stares off across the lawn. “I don’t know. I guess I do still want to meet people.”
“Hm.” I take a sip of the lemonade, and then spit it out.
She gives me a disgusted look. “Classy.”
I wipe my mouth. “Too sweet. How much sugar did you put in?”
She bites her lip to suppress a smile. “Not too much.”
“Like, four times the suggested amount, or eight?”
She shrugs. “Somewhere around there.”
“You’re going to get cavities.”
“Nope, I have a great dental plan.”
“I hope you go once a week.”
“I didn’t know you were a health nut,” she says, taking my glass from me, emptying it on the grass, and taking it back inside.
I follow. “I’m not. I just don’t have a sweet tooth from hell.”
“Oh. You want something to eat?” she asks, pulling cookies down from the cupboard.
“Man, you like your munchies, huh?” I say, distracted by her cute butt, by her curves that are peeking out from her shirt as she climbs down from the cupboard, cookies in hand.
She freezes when she gets to the ground, her face paling, cookies still clasped in hands. Her eyes flash in indignation. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She sets the cookies down and puts her hands on her hips.
“I…uh.” Oh no, I’ve gone into forbidden territory by mentioning her eating habits. There’s no way for any man to win in this zone. If I explain that I didn’t mean what she thinks I meant, then it just looks like I’m digging. I don’t need to start off the night with her hating me.
She sets the cookies aside. “Whatever. I wasn’t that hungry anyway. I was just trying to be a good host.”
“No, let’s have them.”
She raises and eyebrow. “Don’t push it.”
“No, seriously,” I say, reaching past her easily, as she tries to fight me off. I grab the cookies, and her around the waist, and maneuver us both out the back door.
When she finally slumps back onto a lawn chair, I pull a couple cookies out, shove them in my mouth and throw the box at her.
She glares at them.
“I like my women curvy,” I say, winking. “Eat up.”
She scowls.
“Anyway, tell me about Mike, that’s why I’m here.” And to find out how much she knows about the night Camille was hurt.
Now she opens the box and digs around inside. To my disappointment, she takes her hand out, still empty, and sets the box aside with a sigh.
Note to self, don’t ever comment on her eating habits again. Also, show her how sexy I find her curves.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Start at the beginning,” I say, leaning back in the chair with my hands behind my head.
She leans back as well. It’s nice outside, cool and humid. Wind lifts her hair gently and I catch my breath as I look over her body, breasts rising and falling as she breathes, soft, bare legs enticingly curled beneath her.
“I guess it started just before you got hired. I mean, we all knew Dan and Mike were players, and I guess I thought Mike was cute. I’ve always been a bit confused, you know? So it was only really the aggressive guys who got through my shell.”
“‘Cause you tell everyone you like chicks.”
“I do. I just don’t think that’s all I like. I reserve the right to keep deciding what I really want.”
“Fair enough. So what happened?”
“Um.” She pauses and touches the hair at the side of her head lightly.
“What?” I say, a chill running over my spine.
“I don’t really know what happened. Maybe you could ask Rain. No, Knight wouldn’t like that. Hm…”
Even now, her face looks so serene, even as she’s chewing the ends of her hair.
She has gentle features, small, button nose, large brown eyes, and a chin you just want to tweak or take in your hand so you can tilt those full lips up towards yours…
But right now, I just want her to smile. To say nothing really happened. I don’t know if I even want to hear the answer to my own question.
Shit.
“I guess he tried to rape me.”
Double shit.
“We still aren’t sure if he put something in my drink.”
Triple shit.
“Stop looking so scary.” She wrinkles her nose at me, and I will my hands to unclench, my muscles to release the instant tension that comes with the word rape. “Rain came in and stopped them, and then Knight beat the shit out of them.”
“So why didn’t they go to jail?”
She bites her lip and looks away. I guess I’m not the first person to ask this question. “It’s not that easy.”
“Yeah, but you gotta try. I mean, otherwise they can just go on hurting other girls,” I say, my voice choking slightly.
She turns to me, eyes glistening with tears. “Don’t you think I wish I had been able to put him away? Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’m paying enough of a price as it is, with him stalking me, and me keeping everything a secret from my parents?” She swipes at her tears, and I come over to kneel beside her chair. I pull her head roughly against my chest and put my other arm around her.
“It’s okay.”
She holds my arms. “I mean, you can’t prove he was going to do anything. He was stopped. I was still fully clothed. The drink was gone. What could we do? And Knight, what if Mike sued him for assault? It’s a lot easier to prove that Knight beat Mike up than it is to prove that Mike was about to be a rapist.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean, you don’t. It’s not that clear cut. You don’t just get to lock people up because they are rapists. It’s hard to find them, it’s hard to know what they are, it’s hard to want to tell anyone what happened.”
“No, trust me,” I say, voice low and restrained. “I really fuckin’ know.”
She looks up. Man her eyes are pretty. So warm and dark. “Oh, your sister?”
It’s my turn to look away. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t get caught?”
“What do you think?” I say, instantly regretting the harsh tone. But how is someone supposed to talk about something like this, your sister being raped? I can barely hold myself together when I think of it. I was supposed to protect her.
“He didn’t? Did she tell you who it was?”
I shake my head. “I have clues. I could never get her to say. I don’t think she told Knight either.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if she had, Knight would have come and told me, and then we would have killed him.”
She pushes back from me, stares into my face with open shock. “Geoff!”
“What?”
“Kill him?”
“Yes,” I say matter of factly. “We would have killed him. In a second.”
“But, you.” She blinks rapidly. “You can’t just kill someone. It’s not right.”
“Don’t talk about what’s right and not right. All I know is some things in this world are too evil for me to stand. I know what I would do with them. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, I guess all I’m saying is it would be worth going to hell if I could remove them from the world, keep them from hurting any other Camilles.”
“Geoff,” she murmurs, wrapping her hands around my waist. “I’m so sorry, Geoff.”
My eyes widen, stinging a bit. I put my arm back down around her reluctantly. I’m not as comfortable being the one comforted as I am being the one doing the comforting. I try to pull douchebag Geoff back around me as a shell, but the situation is just too wrong for it. Right now requires me to be soft and gentle, with Amy in my arms telling me her secrets.
“So anyway,
yeah I get it. I know it’s complicated. I’m still trying to find the dude,” I mutter.
“So you can kill him?” she says quietly.
I nod, knowing she can feel it.
“And go to hell?”
I nod again.
“Don’t do that. You need to be with Camille again.”
“If you believe in that shit,” I say.
“I do,” she says. “I really do.”
“All right.” I stroke her hair. It’s so unbelievably soft. I don’t know how I’m ever going to take my hand off it. I curl another hand around her waist. So damn soft, warm, and amazing.
Sexy.
“Hey, don’t touch my fat.”
I squeeze her side, loving the soft skin in my hand, the way she curls into me. “I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“I’m touching you,” I whisper, bringing my head down close to hers. I can hear her breathing, feel her heartbeat increase against my chest. “I love your sexy curves.”
“You pick the weirdest times to come on to me.”
“You pick the weirdest times to be sexy as hell.”
“Yeah, like it’s my fault.”
“Well come on, cuddling into me, letting me feel your soft hair. I am a dude you know. You want me to stop though?” I pull my hand back, sliding it along her waist as I go.
She shakes her head. “I didn’t say that. Feels good.”
I wrap both arms around her, feel the smooth skin of her back at the gap between shirt and shorts. Run a bit under the shirt.
After Camille died I had lots of sex. Lots and lots. So many women, beneath me, smiling up at me, trusting me like I wasn’t some horrible failure that didn’t ever deserve to be loved by a woman again.
I don’t deserve Amy in my arms now. I’ve been wanting it since I saw her, have always been torn between my motives regarding her and her place in Camille’s death. But man does she feel good. And I’m not holding her like I held those other women. It’s not for comfort.
She just feels and smells so damn good. And she’s not just trying to pity-fuck that guy with the dead sister.
I hold her at the back of her head, run the pad of my thumb over her lips. She looks up at me, eyes dark and smoky, lips parted, face flushed. Damn.
I kiss her. It’s gentle. Her lips are so soft. Velvet. Pure velvet. She tastes like lemonade. I run my tongue over her smooth teeth, along her lips, and then take her mouth again. Just her lips against mine are enough, so soft. And her hands clutching the front of my shirt. I put them around my back.
“Go ahead and hold on baby,” I say. She digs in and I take her in my arms.
I stroke her neck with one hand and her waist with the other. So soft and luxurious. She sighs and presses closer to me. The opposite of the Amy who calls me a brute and a Neanderthal. And I guess right now I’m the opposite of the douche who tells her he just wants to do her.
The air around us is so warm now. I want to be warm like this forever. To forget, forever.
“Wait,” she says, pulling away. “Weren’t we supposed to be actually talking about something?” She seems to be trying to remember how to breathe normally.
Guess the Neanderthal showed her. I want to put my hands on her again, but she said wait, and for all my talk, the last thing I would do is try to push a girl who didn’t want it.
“We were?” I tilt my head innocently.
She narrows her eyes, and then laughs. “Yes. We were.” She pulls her hair back behind her ear and my hands itch to touch it again. I take a deep breath and sit back, needing a cold shower, after just kissing her, for Pete’s sake.
“Alright, fine. First talking, then kissing.”
“Just talking.” She raises an eyebrow at me, back to looking like a stern teacher type.
I shrug. “Fine. We’ll see. Your call.”
“So I told you about Mike. Now your turn. Tell me about Camille.”
“Hey, hold on. I told you a little. I still have more questions about Mike.”
“Shoot then.”
“Okay,” I say stretching my hands out in front and cracking my knuckles. “I will.”
Amy
Geoff is such an enigma. I would never have guessed that the guy who’s been tormenting me ever since he started working at the park could also be this guy.
Hot, serious, and intense. Sitting forward with clasped hands and asking intelligent questions and processing the answers. He’s sharp and analytical, and it makes me wonder why he hides this Geoff away from the world, and puts the burger stuffing Geoff out instead.
Curious.
“And that’s when he started showing up at the house?” Geoff asks. He blinks long, dark lashes. Oddly pretty and soft, in an otherwise hard face. “Hello, earth to Amy?”
Oh. “Yeah. That’s when it started.”
“So about two weeks after the incident?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn, that’s fast. I think we’ve got a real psychopath on our hands. Too bad he doesn’t have dark hair.” Geoff rubs his chin. It’s square and hard, and lightly shaded by stubble. He’s just the epitome of ‘man’, for better or worse.
“Why dark hair?”
He frowns and sits back, looking down at his hands. A move that’s oddly endearing. “Camille’s rapist had dark hair.”
Now it’s my turn to frown. “What do you mean? Is that why you want to know about Mike?” I ask, feeling a bit betrayed.
“No, not at all,” he replies. “It would just be nice if it coincided.”
“Why?”
He narrows his eyes on me, a dark gray flash peeking from beneath his lashes. “I think you know why.”
“Geoff, you gotta let it go. Camille wouldn’t want you to be obsessed.”
He sits forward, gripping the sides of his chair. “I’m never going to let it go. Never. I’m prepared to go to jail if that’s what it takes. I’m never, ever letting it go. Letting her go.”
“Geoff, that’s crazy.”
He shakes his dark hair off his forehead. “I lost my sister. My sister died. In my mind, she was as good as murdered. Someone’s going to pay.”
“I just don’t understand how someone paying is going to make things better.”
“It’s just fair,” he says, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand. I’m helping you with Mike because I hate rapists, or any guys like that, you know. But I don’t expect to get lectured. I liked making out with you, in fact I’d like to do that some more, but you aren’t my old lady and you don’t get to tell me what to do with my life. If I want to go to jail, I go.”
He has this crazy look in his eyes, though his face is deceptively relaxed. He’s so handsome when his face is relaxed. It’s so easy to see his perfect features. Long lashes, square jaw, rough, stubbled cheeks. Full lips. Tousled dark hair falling around his face softening his harsh features.
But looking closer, it’s like there’s an animal in there.
“Did you have therapy after Camille died?”
He blinks. “Of course.”
“And what did the therapist say about, about this?”
“I didn’t tell him. He would have had to report me as having intent to harm someone.”
“But you do have intent to harm someone.”
He shrugs. “I know. But I left that off the table. I was hoping if I just stayed in therapy, kept working through things, maybe I would naturally let go, if I was supposed to. But it never happened. I still need to find him.”
I nod hesitantly. I feel like I’m seeing the full scope of the Geoff roller coaster ride and I need to decide now if I want to be on or off. But when I listen inside myself for what I’m really feeling, like my mom Shannon taught me to do, I think I know. When I think about helping Geoff, continuing to work through things with Geoff, and relying on Geoff, it’s an expansive feeling, even if it is slightly frightening.
Being with him is uncomfortable, but I don’t necessarily think it’s in a bad
way.
He is my opposite after all, and maybe I can learn from him.
I stop my hand from going to my mouth as Geoff looks off to the side, zoning out. I keep wanting to touch my mouth, ever since he kissed me.
I’ve never been kissed like that. At least, it’s never felt like that. It was electric. It was almost too intense, but I didn’t want it to stop. I’ve never felt excited all the way down to my toes like that. I didn’t want him to stop. What’s wrong with me?
“Anyway, I guess all we can really do with Mike is have you call me if he shows up again. I can put the fear of God in him.”
“I guess.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t get him on anything, because I’m not going to let him close enough to do anything to you.”
“But if he did, wouldn’t it help us catch him and maybe hold him responsible this time?”
Geoff blinks again in that maddening way, like he’s never even thought about what I just said. “No. Not that way. I don’t want to catch anyone that way.”
“So you’re just going to be my on-call bodyguard?”
He smiles a little and nods. Runs those huge hands over his muscled thighs. “Sure, I guess so.”
“What can I do for you? In return?” I ask, expecting him to say something lewd.
Instead he goes serious and quiet. “I guess there is something.”
“Yeah? Name it. Anything.”
“You were popular in school, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Camille was, well, she went to some of your parties I think. Maybe some of the big ones.”
“I threw a lot of them…” I say, not liking where this is going.
“I just, think the guy she met may have been at one of them. The night she was hurt.”
“Do you remember which one she was at? Why do you think it’s one of mine?” It’s a horrifying thought.
“Camille didn’t get invited places much. But you were always really free with your invites. Other than that time, Camille just hung with me and Knight.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling caught off guard. “I guess. How did you find out?”
“I guess I’ve done what research I could on who it could be. I have a couple clues from Camille. I know he has dark hair. I know he has something to do with a snake.”
Stronger Page 6