“No,” he says, with a quick glance at me. “I thought I’d just hang out here and give you guys a ride home.”
“We don’t need a ride,” she says. “I drove.”
He looks only at me when he replies. “Then I’ll just be waiting at home.”
She rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to wait, James. I’m 19.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m still going to wait.”
She frowns after he leaves. “He’s acting weird,” she complains. “The sooner he and Allison get back together, the better.”
I choose to ignore that last bit. “Weird how?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “He’s acting all, like, happy and mellow. I’ve never seen him like this. You don’t think he’s doing drugs with Max, do you?”
I try to hide my smile, and I can’t. Joy spreads through me, makes me feel airborne. I make him happy.
So I’ll continue doing something dangerous: hoping I can change his mind about what this might be.
Chapter 35
JAMES
I’ve spent the past 24 hours feeling like my dick’s about to break off. It’s too much, and it’s been building up for too long. Elle makes me feel like I’m nothing but hormones and need, at the mercy of a primitive brain that wants nothing more than to keep her locked up in my room all day.
Max raises a brow when I slide into a stool at his bar to pass the hour. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“I’ve come in before.”
He hands me a beer. “Yeah, before you had someone to go home with.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You and Elle, dude. It’s about time.”
I stiffen. I really thought Elle understood she needed to keep it a secret. Max is the opposite of secret. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw you two on the beach today. If I had ovaries, I’d have gotten pregnant from all the eye fucking that went on there. Not to mention the effort you expended applying lotion to her back. I’ve had full-body massages done in shorter time.”
“You’re imagining things.”
His jaw shifts, and he looks away for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m the one reminding you, but here it is: she’s 19. And I don’t know why you’re pretending nothing is going on, but you’d better realize that all the pretending in the world won’t mean it’s not real for her. So if you don’t like her well enough to admit you’re with her, then you don’t like her enough to sleep with her. That girl likes you, and it’s going to fuck her up if you just take off at the end of the summer like it didn’t mean anything. And if you do it, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“You can’t kill me. I’m taller, and I weigh more.”
“For her sake,” he says, “I’d manage it.”
He walks away before I can reply. And as appalling as it is to be lectured by Max, of all people, I know that he is right.
But if I can’t sleep with her, and I also can’t give her up, where does that leave us?
Chapter 36
ELLE
I spend the ride home with Ginny feeling like a kid who’s just won a shopping spree in a candy store. There are so many things I want from James, I don’t know where to start.
I go straight to the shower when we get home, and then I join James and Ginny on the deck. His eyes sweep my face and then descend, stuttering briefly over my thighs before he raises them again, darker than they were before. My hair is still wet, and my face is bare, and I’m in nothing but shorts and a tank, but the way he looks at me makes me feel loose-limbed and feverish.
“What’s up with everyone needing to shower after work?” Ginny grouses. “Now you guys are both clean, and I smell like a walking hamburger.”
If she was more observant, she’d notice how guilty we both look, but she’s too busy griping about work and Max to notice. For 30 minutes we sit there. He watches me. There’s something feral in his eyes, which I like—and something conflicted, which I don’t.
Finally Ginny yawns and turns to me. “You ready for bed yet?”
I definitely am, but not in the way she’s thinking. “No, not yet.”
“Come on,” she whines. “I want to hear what really happened with Justin, away from prying ears.”
I shoot a quick glance at James and watch that muscle pop in his jaw.
“I already told you what really happened,” I say. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Well, of course you’re going to say that with James sitting there acting parental. Come on,” she whines.
I take one lingering glance at James as I go inside.
What she really wants to talk about is Max, and the fact that he is once again not sleeping at home. When I have no comment on that, she asks if she should break up with Alex. I tell her yes, I think she should, and she proceeds to argue about all the ways he’s a perfect boyfriend and would make a perfect husband. My phone buzzes.
James: Can you come back down?
Me: When she falls asleep.
James: I can’t wait that long.
Me: You Campbells are very demanding.
James: You have no idea how demanding I can be.
That’s when I know I can’t wait for Ginny to fall asleep.
“I’m dying to start my new book,” I tell her. “Will the light bother you?”
I ask this only because I know it will. Ginny’s read some study about how light during sleep throws off your biorhythms and decreases your functional IQ. She won’t even allow a digital clock in here now.
She tsks. “You know I can’t sleep like that.”
“I’ll go downstairs,” I tell her, and she smiles at me so gratefully that I feel like an asshole for lying to her. Not enough to stop me, however.
I get downstairs and tiptoe in through James’ open door, closing it behind me.
He’s already in bed. “Thank God,” he groans. “Come here.”
I walk toward him almost shyly, and when I get to the side of the bed, he pulls me down and rolls me beneath him. It takes that much time for my nerves to evaporate, lost in a haze of want.
He runs his fingers over my cheekbones as his lips graze mine, then move over my face and neck, as if I am fragile. Soft, fluttering kisses, a promise of things to come, but they aren’t enough.
His mouth trails lower, along my neck, my collarbone. A single finger slides along my skin, pulling my tank lower, pushing my necklace aside so his lips can sink into the point in my cleavage where it normally rests. I hear him sigh then, contented, before he comes back up to find my mouth.
We kiss and kiss until I strain for more, arching against him. It’s a relief when his control begins to slip, when the sweetness grows heavy. When the hand at my hip finally slides beneath my tank, grazing my skin, pulling his name from my lips with a needy exhale.
His hand cups my breast, and it’s my response that seems to change things, that makes him abandon his patience and restraint. His breath rasps as he finds my mouth again, as he grabs the strap of my tank top and yanks it down. His hand slides inside, the rough pad of his thumb brushing over me before he pulls the other strap down and lowers his head, replacing fingers with mouth and tongue and teeth.
My hands go to his hair as I gasp his name, but instead of continuing, he pulls away.
“We have to stop,” he pants, flinching as if in pain.
“Stop? Why?” I think I could come just thinking about the way he pulled the straps of my tank down if I contemplated it long enough. Stop? Now?
“It’s enough just to spend time with you. It doesn’t have to be more.” But the quick pace of his breath belies his words. As does the erection currently wedged hard against my leg.
“But...do you not want more?” I ask. It’s an effort not to sound anxious.
He sighs and presses his mouth to my neck, planting a soft kiss there. “You have no idea how badly I want more,” he says, his voice low and quiet beside my throat.
“Then don’t stop,” I urge h
im.
“Elle,” he says hoarsely, “I’m trying to do the right thing here, and you’re making it so hard.” He rolls off of me, gently pulling my tank back up. “I told you it can’t be more than this. For a lot of reasons. And I really meant it. If we sleep together, there’s going to be a part of me that feels like I’ve taken advantage of you.”
“How could it possibly be taking advantage of me?” I demand. “I’m saying yes, James. I know what you said, and I still want to.”
He looks at me, his eyes beseeching me to understand things he doesn’t want to put into words. “I want you to picture it, Elle. Picture us spending the rest of the summer sleeping together, being as intimate as two people can be. And then picture that last day, when you leave for school, and I leave for DC, knowing that it’s over. For good. With nothing to show for it, nothing in the future. No visits, no emails. Can you honestly say, when that moment comes, that you won’t feel like you were taken advantage of? That part of you won’t feel hurt, maybe even used? Because I would, in your shoes.”
I picture it. I picture everything he’s saying, with my stomach sinking.
He watches my face, pushing the hair back behind my ear. “That’s what I thought,” he says quietly.
“So what are we doing?”
He sighs heavily, tucking me into the crook of his arm. “I don’t know. I just know I don’t want you to leave.”
I wake in the morning back in my own bed. I left on my own, before he could suggest it. In spite of the conversation last night, a smile spreads over my face. He likes me. After all this time. I have hours and hours of proof of that. We kissed for so long that my lips feel swollen this morning. I wish he didn’t have to be so moral about everything, but if this is all I’m going to get from him, I’ll take it.
My mother can make her bad decisions, my father can forget I exist, Ginny can continue to veer unpredictably between sweet and spiteful. James Campbell has finally chosen me. Even if it’s temporary.
It’s early, and I’ll feel it later, but right now I’m too excited to go back to sleep. I head to the kitchen, where Max is already up. He’s made coffee instead of matcha today, thank God.
“When do you sleep?” I laugh.
He just grins. “Life’s too good to waste it sleeping.”
“So who did you not ‘waste it sleeping’ with last night?”
“If I knew her name, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”
I look at him curiously. In a way, his sleeping around doesn’t seem to line up with everything else I know about him. Sure, he wants to have a good time, but he doesn’t have shallow friendships, and despite his jokes, he’s actually been a good friend to both Ginny and me.
“You seem like the kind of guy who would want a relationship, Max,” I tell him. “Is it really such a terrifying idea to you?”
“No,” he says. “But a relationship wouldn’t really work for me.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I lead a pretty unsettled life. Am I going to meet some girl in Colorado and then spend the six months I’m down here waiting for the next winter? Or vice versa?”
“Maybe you’d meet someone who wanted to migrate with you.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not the kind of girl I’d want to be with long-term. The girls I’m attracted to are more goal-driven than that.”
I laugh. “So your type is someone more like Ginny?”
“No,” he says, looking slightly panicked. “That’s not even vaguely what I just said.”
I take my coffee out onto the deck. The heat is already seeping through the pines, making the air heavy and fragrant. Because of this summer, it’s my new favorite smell.
“Hey,” says James, sliding the door closed behind him. That smile of his does things to me. The day is just getting started, and I think I may be spending it every bit as worked up as I was yesterday. He sits, turning his chair just enough that he can see me while sitting beside me. “I missed you this morning.”
“I snuck back upstairs in the middle of the night. You never know what time Max is getting home.”
He nods. “I know. It just would have been nice to have you there.”
I smile. “If Max wasn’t sitting in the kitchen, I’d suggest we go there right now.”
His eyes darken. “Max just left.”
“Ginny won’t be up for hours,” I reply.
He pulls me to my feet. With a quick glance inside, he puts his hand at the small of my back and hurries me to his room. The second we’re inside and the door is shut, he presses me to the wall. “This is better,” he whispers against my mouth. “Good morning.”
He kisses me sweetly, and then his lips part, as do mine, and we meet each other—slowly at first, our breath mingling, tongues gliding. But then he leans into me, all weight and heat, and something is triggered. There’s a low hum in my throat—a sound of desire, of acquiescence—and he is suddenly kissing me harder, his hands digging into my skin as if he can’t grip me tightly enough. He scoops me up and throws me on the mattress, and then he is above me, consuming me, pressing me into the bed with his weight.
“Take off your shirt,” I demand.
He hesitates for just a moment and then pulls it off, throwing it onto the floor behind him. I place my palms flat against his stomach—the smooth skin stretched taut—and watch the way his eyes flutter shut, as if he’s being absolved. He flips us so that I’m on top, and this time it’s my turn to taste his neck, to run my tongue along every line of definition in his chest. To go lower, pressing light kisses over his stomach as I slide, until my chest is pressed against his erection, my fingers at his waist.
“Fuck,” he winces. “Stop. Stop.”
I am sorely tempted to continue, but I give in, though not without intentionally grazing him with the flat of my hand. I know what he said last night was true. If we spend the next month sleeping together, I’ll convince myself of things I shouldn’t. I’ll start to believe we are a couple. I’ll fall deeper in love with him than I ever thought possible.
The problem is, I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen either way.
Chapter 37
ELLE
“I feel like every time I bend over now you’re looking at my ass,” I tell him quietly as I pick up my drinks.
It’s different, working with him now. His eyes follow me everywhere I go, with a tension between us that is intoxicating and grueling in the same moment.
“Every time you ever bent over I was looking at your ass.”
I lean over the bar so my mouth is close to his ear. “Stasera voglio vederti nudo,” I whisper. Tonight I want to see you naked. “Two gin and tonics.”
He laughs. “You did not just ask for gin and tonics.”
“Reply in French,” I demand.
“Mon crayon est grande.”
I lean toward him again, keeping my voice low enough that we won’t be overheard. “Yes, James. I’m well aware of how large your crayon is. I think it’s the biggest crayon I’ve ever seen.”
“You haven’t seen it.”
“Some things are pretty easy to assess in other ways,” I reply, glancing at his crotch. “Although maybe I should see it, just to be sure.”
“Keep talking to me like that, and the whole bar will be assessing it.”
“Voglio vedere il tuo pene,” I reply as I head to the kitchen.
Two seconds later, he’s behind me with his hands on the small of my back, nudging me toward the supply closet.
The moment we’re inside, he pushes me to the wall, kissing me softly at first and then harder, pressing the length of himself against me.
“You’re making it impossible for me to work,” he whispers, his hands sliding low. I arch against him, giving him access he doesn’t take. Sigh.
“Because I’m such a bad waitress?” I grin.
He laughs. “Yeah, there’s that too, but not what I was talking about.”
“You know, it’d probably be a lot easier
for us if we didn’t enter the restaurant so worked up. Are you ever going to tell me why you don’t want to date me?”
He laughs. “I thought we were dating.”
“Fine. You know what I mean.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Unless it involves quantum physics, I think I can keep up.”
“I’m just trying to keep this from getting too serious. I want to know we’ll both be cool with this at the end of the summer.”
What James wants is to be able walk away from this in a month without guilt. But what I want is for him to not be able to walk away at all. I try to avoid seeing similarities between myself and my mom, but it’s unavoidable at this moment: I want to get my way, and I don’t mind playing dirty.
I find him in his room, waiting. His pupils dilate as they graze over me—the tiny boyshorts, the thin tank that leaves nothing to the imagination.
“You can’t walk through the house in that,” he says roughly.
“No one’s home but us,” I say.
Ginny’s travel schedule and Max’s whorishness are really working in my favor, of late. I crawl toward him from the foot of the bed, and I don’t stop until I’m straddling him, our faces an inch apart.
He winces. “I’m probably better off not seeing you like that too.”
I lean down and kiss the corner of his mouth, and then I move to the other side, to the angle of his jaw, to the paler skin beneath it, relishing the feel of him growing hard beneath me, the small, stifled sound he makes as I press against him. His hand moves to the back of my neck, pulling me toward him while his fingers twine through my hair. His tongue parts my lips.
I lift my hips so I’m centered directly on top of him. Air hisses through his teeth at the contact. And then I pull my tank over my head. “Elle,” he begs, his gaze heavy-lidded and feral. “Don’t do this.” But he’s looking at me, his jaw grinding, and his hands come up to span my rib cage. “You’re fucking perfect,” he groans.
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