With one giant leap, she dove forward, flipping in the air and shrieking with glee as she raced toward the water below.
Hayden was instantly at the ledge counting the seconds until Joy’s head emerged from the deep blue water below. After an excruciating amount of time, she popped up, flipping her wild hair out of her face and waving up to him.
“Your turn,” she yelled.
Shit. “Now or never, Hayden. Time to man up.”
He was seriously criticizing his judgment as he kicked off his shoes and walked back to the edge of the cliff. His heart hammered as he stared down at the lengthy distance of nothingness between himself and the water below.
“You realize you’re about to throw yourself off a cliff for a girl right now?” he muttered to himself. “Probably the craziest thing you’ve ever done to get laid, Hayden.”
But we do crazy things for love, his heart answered back.
The answer his heart had just given was suddenly more frightening than the jump. He wasn’t in love. He was in lust. He’d just met this girl. And yes she was wildly beautiful with a body that wouldn’t quit and lips that seemed to have been cast to do nothing but kiss him. But this wasn’t love. It was just five weeks . . . five weeks of . . . Of what?
Of falling in love.
Hayden wanted to run from the fear that thought evoked. So he did. He ran right off the edge of the cliff, screaming as he fell.
31
Joy
It seemed their date was back on track. After Hayden jumped he seemed to emerge from the water reborn. Jo knew he was scared. She’d seen it in his eyes before she left him standing on the ledge. Honestly, she was impressed he’d followed her. It spoke volumes about him. He wasn’t someone who let fear rule him and she admired that.
Overcoming fear, jumping into the unknown . . . it was something Jo herself needed to do more in her own life. Conquering a waterfall was nothing for her. She’d grown up doing it. But trusting someone else, opening her heart after having it broken so many times, that was foreign to her.
Growing up knowing her mother had abandoned her had caused countless problems in Jo’s life. Her heart had been broken before it ever had a chance to form. It left scars of distrust in its wake. But somehow, Max had found a way to repair all of it, until he abandoned her, too.
Jo knew it wasn’t his fault. But it still made it nearly impossible for her to trust her heart and open it again. She was crippled by the fear of what loving and losing would cost her if it happened again. It’s why she’d fought so hard against her feelings for Hayden. But the fact that Hayden had just put his trust in her and followed her off a cliff only endeared him to her more. He’d given her a piece of himself and she found she wanted to return it.
“You did it!” Jo exclaimed, swimming over to him.
Hayden pulled her close, locking his arms around her waist. “Yeah, I did. Now let’s never do that again.”
“Are you okay? You’re trembling.”
“That’s because the water’s freezing.”
Jo laughed and wound her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist as she pulled him into a tight hug. “Does this help?” she asked before placing a soft kiss on his lips.
“A little.”
“How ‘bout this?” She kissed a path from his jaw to his ear, nibbling on his lobe.
“A little better.”
She grinned against his skin and traced a path with her lips down his throat. She felt his Adam’s apple bob as she passed over it with her tongue, reaching the hollow at the base of his neck. She could feel his pulse throbbing wildly. She placed a single kiss against it and he stilled.
Jo pulled back to look at Hayden. His eyes were blue flames burning for her. Slowly, she moved her hands behind her neck, untying her bikini top. It fell from her chest, leaving her bare before him. His intake of breath was the only warning she got before Hayden’s lips crashed against hers. They claimed her flesh greedily, tracing the same path she had earlier. But when Hayden reached the base of her throat he didn’t stop. His lips moved lower, lower, lower.
Jo could barely contain herself. She needed more. More of him. More of everything. Jo reached for Hayden’s shirt. It was soaking wet and plastered to his muscled chest. She clawed at it, hating the way it kept her from getting what she wanted—more of Hayden.
Her fingers darted beneath the cool water finding the hem of his shirt, tugging it up to his chest. The movement made Hayden go rigid. He pulled back from her, the fire in his eyes going dark.
“What’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly.
Hayden’s hands found hers and untangled them from his shirt. “Don’t.”
There was a hard edge of warning in his voice and confusion swept over her. “Hayden?”
“Joy, I can’t.”
“You can’t what? Take your shirt off? I’m practically naked here,” she said trying to lighten the mood, because she didn’t like the darkness that was gathering behind Hayden’s eyes. It frightened her and she wanted to drive it away. She wanted the blue flames back—the ones that burned for her. “Hayden, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want to take my shirt off.”
Jo thought back, suddenly struck by the fact that she hadn’t seen him shirtless, which was strange being that he was a swimmer. Almost all the ACE athletes went shirtless. But Hayden always wore his rash guard. It’s what had put out the flames on them the other night when she tried to give him a massage.
He wasn’t wearing it today, but his t-shirt clung to him like a second skin doing just as effective a job at keeping him hidden. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why he was hiding from her. She’d felt his rock hard muscles beneath it. He was cut like a Greek god. He had nothing to be ashamed of.
The longer Jo treaded water, topless while Hayden was clothed, the more foolish she felt. Her ego winced painfully. She’d just begun to loosen the chains she kept around her heart and now this . . . She didn’t know what the hell had just happened to turn Hayden off so quickly, but she wasn’t about to let it go this time. She needed to know the cause of the sobering ice bath that kept ending the first real connection she’d felt in years. Because after three years of feeling only half alive, she was terrified to give up whatever it was that Hayden awoke in her. Even if she could only have him for another five weeks . . . she needed to know.
She searched his eyes but they refused to meet hers. Everything about Hayden’s tense posture screamed ‘back off’, but her heart wouldn’t let her. She could tell somewhere beneath his steely front there was a deep pain. She knew because she buried hers the same way. Like calls to like, and she couldn’t leave his wound untreated.
She spoke softly, running a hand up his arm. “Hayden, it’s just a shirt.”
He looked at her, pain scorching deep in his blue eyes.
She needed to tread carefully. Humor had always worked for them before. She would keep it light, get him to open up. “I know you don’t have moobs under that shirt. What, do you have a third nipple or something? Wait, is it a really bad tattoo? I won’t laugh, I swear.”
Not even a hint of a smile touched his face. Fear uncoiled in Jo’s stomach like ice as Hayden let go of her and she watched him swim away.
Hayden
Hayden closed his eyes as he turned away from Joy. But it didn’t matter that they were closed. Even when they were wide open he couldn’t see straight anyway. He was too busy drowning in his own failure. He was a coward. He’d thought he’d wanted someone to truly see him, but now faced with the chance, his confidence failed him and he’d turned away.
How could he let her see what he was? She’d run away screaming. He was a monster. His chest a map of scars, each one spelling out the ways he’d been pieced back together. Each one a reminder that he shouldn’t even be here.
But you are here, Hayden.
Torment sliced through him as he swam toward the waterfall. He moved to the outer edge where the water sprayed down off th
e rocks with the force equal to a showerhead. Hayden could reach the rocky bottom there. He stood, the water only waist deep as he ducked beneath the spray, letting the rush of water quiet the storm raging inside him.
He wanted to let Joy in. He was desperate to get back to the place he’d been moments before his fear had frozen him solid. But the idea of letting her see his flaws was terrifying. It was like a weight fastened around his chest, dragging him underwater. The only way to cut it free was to stop being afraid—to give Joy what she thought she wanted.
Either it would matter or it wouldn’t. It was simple, really. Except it wasn’t. Hayden had made a lot of stupid promises in his life, but saying he wouldn’t get attached to Joy was by far the worst one. His reaction to her wanting to see him proved that he was already in too deep.
Hayden had been with women before. And that’s not even what this was about. This felt more intimate. Not one of those women had cared to get to know him. Not one of them had even known about his scars. He’d kept his shirt on and the lights off. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he’d shown them. He probably could have walked them through every gory surgical detail and they wouldn’t have even batted an eyelash. They all would have pretended to care. He knew they had only wanted a piece of his fortune. They didn’t care about the boy beneath it—the one with the weak heart and the patchwork of scars.
Hayden sucked in a steadying breath, reminding himself that all of that was in the past. He hadn’t been with anyone since his last surgery—the one that saved his life. That surgery had given him a second chance, and he wanted to do things right this time. It had taught him how fragile the heart could be and how lucky he was to have one beating in his chest. It taught him to be careful who he handed it to.
But as Hayden opened his eyes again and turned to face Joy, he knew his mind was already made up. It had been made up the first time he laid eyes on her. His heart was hers. He didn’t care that in five weeks she would keep it and he would leave. Somehow, his heart had made the decision for him and his head was just now catching up. Hayden’s heart belonged to Joy. He was just a vessel—a cowardly vessel, keeping his heart from its true desire.
Hayden met Joy’s eyes across the water. With trembling hands, he found the hem of his shirt and slowly pulled it up his torso. When he reached his chest he took a slow, deep breath, blowing it out as he removed the shirt completely. He was aware of Joy’s eyes on him the whole time and when he looked up to meet them again, he was spellbound.
Joy was smiling, so bright and so wide that Hayden wanted to cry. She didn’t look scared or repulsed. She wasn’t looking at him with pity or disgust. She was looking at him with pride and love. He moved toward her at the exact moment she did. They met in the middle of the pool, their bodies drawn together by a force so powerful it left Hayden breathless.
His hands found hers, pulling them together. They fit like a mold. His hands were made to hold hers, just like her body was meant to fit his. His chest met hers and demand coursed through Hayden. He wanted every part of him to touch every part of her. But even as they kissed, pulling each other closer, fitting together like shattered dreams, he still couldn’t get enough.
Joy was everywhere, filling him up from the inside out. It was a pain more exquisite than he knew could exist. Because for every piece of her he took, she stole one right back. It was a dangerous game. One that would end in five weeks, with both of them broken—pieces missing, like they’d never belonged to them at all.
Breathless, Joy came up for air first. Her fingers lightly skimmed the large red scar that ran the length of Hayden’s chest. The sensation of someone touching him there sent tremors through his spine. Hayden sucked in a breath and pulled her toward the shallows. He needed his feet under him for this.
“Does it hurt when I touch you?” Joy asked, looking up at him through wet, spangled lashes.
There was so much concern and tenderness in her green eyes that Hayden could barely keep himself from pulling her mouth back to his. But he didn’t. He wanted to give her this time. He wanted to let her see him.
He slowly shook his head. “No. I’m just not used to anyone touching me there.”
She nodded her understanding before continuing her exploration. Her nimble fingers traced each scar, gently. Then she lowered her head and placed a tender kiss on the scar over his heart.
Hayden’s eyes slid closed as he fought to hold onto the moment. Never, in his life had anyone ever pressed their lips to the tattered skin above his heart. He squeezed his eyes tighter as he swallowed the emotion gathering in his throat.
Joy continued her saintly act, slowly kissing all of his scars. By the time she was finished, Hayden wasn’t sure if he was still conscious. The sensation her petal-soft lips evoked against his battered skin was mind-blowing.
He opened his eyes and gazed down at her. Joy smiled up at him, radiant. Hayden slid his trembling hands into her hair, pulling the wet lengths of it away from her face so he could see every exquisite detail of her beauty.
“Hayden?”
“Hmmm?” He didn’t trust his voice just yet.
“You’re a masterpiece, too.”
His heart cracked wide open and relief poured out. He smiled through tears. “More like a mess,” he said, quoting her.
She grinned. “One’s mess is another’s masterpiece.”
Hayden pulled her into his arms, claiming her gorgeous mouth with his as he committed her words to memory. Having Joy see him and still find him worthy of her attention was indescribable. It felt like she was unzipping his chest and slipping her hands inside to touch his heart. She could’ve. He would have let her.
It’s already yours, Joy.
Just take it.
32
Joy
Jo’s hand hadn’t left Hayden’s since they stepped out of the deep pool of water beneath the falls. They’d kissed until the clouds rolled in and they began to shiver.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, but Jo wasn’t worried. She, Hayden and Piper were safe and warm in Jezebel, driving back toward ACE. Hayden still had his shirt off and Jo was grateful for it. He was stunning and it was a shame to keep his beauty hidden from the world. She could see the toll it had taken on him to show her his scars. Fear and apprehension were etched in his features before she had kissed them all away.
The fact that he still hadn’t felt the need to cover himself up made her heart soar. She truly thought Hayden’s scars only added to his beauty. And though he was absolutely one of the most gorgeous humans she’d ever laid eyes on, today it had been his inner beauty that had surprised her.
She had so many questions she wanted to ask him but her damn no questions rule taunted her. Despite her better judgment she asked anyway.
“What are the scars from?”
Hayden squeezed her hand and grinned at her. “Are you breaking a rule?”
“Maybe?” she replied, coyly.
“If I answer you, do I get another question?”
Jo pondered Hayden’s offer for a moment, but ultimately her curiosity won out. “Fine. You can have a question for every one of mine you answer.”
“Deal,” Hayden said, shaking her hand he was already holding. “The scars are from surgery.”
Jo cocked her head dubiously at him. “That’s not a real answer.”
Hayden smirked. “I answered your question.”
“That’s not what I was asking and you know it.”
“Well you’ll have to be more specific with your questioning,” he teased.
She huffed a laugh. “Fine. What caused you to need surgery?”
“Bad luck.”
“Hayden!”
His laughter filled the car. It was like sunlight breaking through the clouds, reminding Jo just how long she’d been living in a storm. It was impossible to be mad at his evasive answers when he laughed like that.
Jo groaned, unable to hold onto her aggravation. “You’re impossible.”
“You mean impo
ssibly brilliant.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You owe me two more. I’m up to four questions now.”
“Well, are you gonna hoard them forever?”
“I’m making sure I use them wisely.”
Jo could feel Hayden staring at her from the passenger seat. She glanced over to see his tranquil blue eyes studying her. “What?”
“I’ve got one.”
“Okay,” she said, trying to hide her nerves.
“Tell me about your family.”
“That’s not a question,” Jo replied.
Hayden rephrased it. “Can you tell me about your family?”
“Yes.”
Hayden waited for a moment, but when Jo didn’t offer more he crossed his arms over his chest. “Really? That’s how you’re gonna play it?”
“Yes, that’s how I’m gonna play it, Mr. I-needed-surgery-cause-of-bad-luck.”
Hayden grunted and looked conspiratorially at Piper. “Maybe I’d have better luck asking you, huh?”
Jo’s heart squeezed. Hearing Hayden speak to Piper reminded her so much of Max that her eyes grew misty. She quickly swiped at them to ebb any tears that would betray her.
Hayden didn’t miss the move. “Hey, Joy, we’re just having fun. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” His hand tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and settled on her shoulder. “But I promise you, nothing you could say would change this.” He laughed softly. “Whatever the hell this is.”
Jo laughed, too. Because he was right, she had nothing to fear by telling Hayden about her family. Not when he was leaving in five weeks. They both knew what this was—a fun distraction. A rainbow in the middle of a cloudy day. It shouldn’t be wasted.
If Jo couldn’t tell Hayden about her messed up family, she’d never be able to tell anyone. Maybe it would feel better to get some of the guilt and resentment off her chest. All the other things she’d been terrified to do—open her heart, allow herself to feel, to consider more—they had lifted a weight off the darkest parts of her soul. Maybe talking about her family would, too.
The Summer Boyfriend Page 15