by Bethany-Kris
Cross bent down and kissed Catherine without warning; his hands found her waist and squeezed tight. Sometimes his kiss was soft and sweet, but most times, like then, it was hard and fast. Like he couldn’t wait to get his mouth on hers and feel her kiss again. She loved that—loved how it made her stomach clench and her chest get tight, loved the strange heat that rushed through her blood when his tongue struck out at the seam of her lips, wanting more, but waiting for her to give it. She was not used to those feelings. She didn’t know how to handle the way it all crashed together, but she just let it crash.
Like making waves.
Yeah, she loved all of that.
“Catherine Marcello and Cross Donati, separate and get back inside the hall, right now!”
The supervising teacher’s yell didn’t bother Cross at all. He didn’t move an inch away from Catherine, and in fact, his one hand tightened on her waist to keep her from going anywhere.
No, he didn’t move, except his other arm.
Catherine saw him lift his arm, and his middle finger flipped up. The snowflakes continued to fall, and he kept kissing her.
Because that was Cross.
He did what he wanted.
Screw the rest.
“Do you want to check out that new boutique on Fifth Avenue?”
“She’s not even listening to you.”
“Catherine?”
Catherine sat in the backseat of her mother’s SUV and watched the buildings fly by. Since it had started snowing the weekend before, it seemed like it wasn’t going to stop. But that was okay, too, because the snow reminded her of Cross.
And his kiss.
She didn’t mind.
“Seriously,” Catrina said in the front seat, “it’s been like this all week. You talk, but she doesn’t hear. You pretty much have to get right in front of her face and make her look you in the eyes to get her to speak.”
“Oh?” Kim asked.
“Michel was never like this at that age. I don’t know.”
Catherine wasn’t really listening to her mother and aunt’s conversation. She was too distracted by better things in her mind to care.
“Gio said Dante mentioned something about a little boyfriend,” Kim said.
“I wouldn’t call him little, even if he is only fifteen. Give him a couple of years, the boy isn’t even done growing yet.”
“A Donati, huh?”
“Better than a Calabrese.”
Kim laughed. “That’s true.”
“He’s something else, though. I seriously think if you could just imagine our husbands at that age, but all their personalities mixed together, that would be Cross Donati.”
“She didn’t stand a chance,” Kim murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Catherine didn’t stand a chance if that’s what he’s like. But hey, first loves are like that anyway.”
“Like what?”
“That, Cat. Like that.”
“I never got to be a teenage girl, Kim, not a normal one. I didn’t have a first love until I was an adult woman that already experienced life, so cut me some slack here. I don’t even know how to deal with this, honestly.”
“You don’t deal with it,” Kim said quietly, “she does. That’s how it works.”
“But—”
“She’s only thirteen, Cat. This is what happens to thirteen-year-old girls.”
“Almost fourteen, now.”
“Whatever, the point is, she’s normal, and so is this.”
“Fine, but what am I to do when she’s not like this?” Catrina asked. “When she’s not happy, or off lost in her own head. I’ve never dealt with a broken heart, especially not as a teenage girl. I won’t know how to make her feel better.”
“Even if you did, you would know you couldn’t make it better to begin with. He either breaks her heart, or she breaks his. Either way, it hurts. First loves are never meant to last. They’re meant to teach you how to prepare for the next one. She didn’t stand a chance—no girl her age does. It feels good for a while, you learn a bit about love and physical affection. Then you get to learn how to pick the pieces of yourself up off the floor when it’s done.”
“Well that sounds awful.”
“Maybe, but that’s life. They’re already halfway through the school year. They’ll be lucky to make it to the end of summer, trust me. Just prepare for that, Cat.”
“Ma?” Catherine asked, still not paying much attention to their conversation.
“Yes, Catherine?”
“Can we go to that new boutique on Fifth Avenue?”
Catrina blew out a hard breath. “See, I told you. In a whole other universe.”
Kim only laughed again.
You ready?
Catherine’s responding text came almost at the same time Cross saw her come out of the front door of her home. Yep.
Cross usually loved summer because at any given time he could be anywhere. It was harder for him to go on trips with his father or Wolf during the school months unless it was on a weekend. In the summer, all he had to do was roll his ass out of bed in the morning and get in whatever car was waiting outside.
Usually, he liked this.
But once June had rolled around, the end of the school year came, and Cross quickly realized this summer wouldn’t be the same. Most of the time he spent with Catherine was at school, and it was almost impossible to see her outside of it unless he didn’t mind having one of her babysitters standing at his back the whole time.
For the most part, he didn’t mind.
He still didn’t get to see her enough.
Add in the week-long trip to Vegas, a few days stay in Ontario, Canada, and a quick run to Chicago, and it was already the end of July.
Cross had a handful of days in between when he had actually seen Catherine for more than a few minutes.
It fucking sucked.
Maybe that was why he had been so surprised when he texted her that morning to hang out, and Catherine said she was free to go wherever the hell he wanted. Without someone following behind.
So yeah, usually Cross loved summer, except he wasn’t enjoying it very much that year. But seeing Catherine’s sly smile, the flower crown decorating the French braids in her hair, and the flowy summer dress that stopped at her mid-thigh, it was about to get a whole lot better.
Cross pushed open the back door of Zeke’s Camaro, and Catherine slid inside without a look over her shoulder. She kicked her flats off to the car’s floor, dropped her bag, and then climbed onto Cross’s lap for her kind of hello.
He really loved her hellos.
All he could taste was summer heat and cherry-flavored lip balm when she kissed him sweetly on the mouth. Her green eyes locked onto his as she pressed another kiss to his lips, and her thighs straddled his waist.
“All right, that’s enough,” Zeke said from the front, “or it’ll be all damn day before we get where we’re going.”
Amanda laughed in the middle front seat, saying, “Yeah, I want to bake in the sun.”
A girl—a friend of Amanda’s but not someone Cross knew personally—fiddled with the radio from the front passenger seat.
Catherine rolled her eyes, but slid off Cross’s waist to settle in beside him.
Zeke waved a finger in the air. “Buckle up, buttercup.”
“That’s an awful nickname,” Catherine said.
“It’s not for you. It’s for Cross.”
Catherine laughed, while Cross just scowled at his best friend in the rearview mirror.
“What?” Zeke asked. “You’ve been a miserable prick all week. Smile, Cross.”
Oh, Cross would smile.
The bastard …
Catherine must have seen the promise of quick violence in Cross’s eye because she grabbed his jaw turned his head toward her, and kissed him one more time. She always seemed to do that—see his annoyance flare and quickly tamper it down when even he couldn’t. Her kiss was far more than enough to soothe his irritat
ion for the moment.
Until Zeke spoke again.
It wasn’t even bad this time.
“Are we ready or what?”
Cross weaved his fingers into Catherine’s loosely French braided hair, and tugged her close enough to smell the cherry blossom perfume she liked so much. At the same time, he reached into the front driver’s seat and smacked Zeke in the back of the head.
“Drive,” he muttered.
“You’re such an ass,” Zeke said, rubbing at his head and putting the car in gear.
Amanda threw a magazine back at Cross with a half-hearted glare. “Be nice, you.”
“He earned it.”
“Where are we going?” Catherine asked.
“Queens,” Zeke answered.
“That tells me nothing.”
“Jacob Riis Park,” Cross told her.
“The beach?” Catherine’s smile brightened even more, and she tossed her hands up in the air. “Yes.”
Cross laughed at her excitement.
She was fourteen, all sun-kissed bronze, smooth skin, and painted toes.
Fucking right she loved the beach.
“I should have brought a bathing suit,” Catherine mused.
“That water is cold.”
“So? You would warm me up.”
Cross shrugged. “Of course.”
Did she expect anything different?
Catherine squinted out at the water where Zeke was currently throwing Amanda into the waves. Amanda’s friend wasn’t very far behind, nor the other guy that Zeke had stopped to pick up on their way to Queens. Their laughter melted into the sounds of the other people at the beach and the splashing. The beach wasn’t filled with people, but there was enough.
Leaning back on the blanket and using his elbows to keep himself propped up, Cross stared up at the bright sky from behind his aviator sunglasses. Catherine laid back, too, rolled to her side, and rested her head in her hands on top of his stomach. He fiddled with the few stray waves of her hair that had escaped from the loose braids.
“Your parents don’t mind that you constantly run around with older kids doing whatever you want?” Catherine asked quietly, still watching his friends.
“I mean … no.”
It wasn’t the first time she asked that.
He didn’t know if she was expecting a different answer, or what.
“You’re out with us,” Cross said, shooting her a look, “so yours must not mind, either.”
Catherine’s nose scrunched up. “Yeah, I guess.”
“They didn’t mind, right?”
“No, Cross, they didn’t mind.”
He was pretty sure she had said that just to make him shut up about it, but he decided not to press it. Besides, if he did, and he got an answer he didn’t like or one that might get him into ten shades of shit, he would have to take her back home.
Cross liked her right where she was.
Without warning, Cross grabbed Catherine around her waist, and pulled her on top of him. His fingertips grazed along the outsides of her smooth thighs up under the flower pattern of her summer dress. His exploration was only stopped by the twinkle of green eyes and the fast kiss she dropped to his lips.
Honestly, he didn’t need to be going beyond that, anyway. No need to flash his girl’s ass to the rest of the people on the beach. It was difficult enough to ignore the way his jeans got tighter and more uncomfortable because Catherine was on top of him and moving in that way of hers.
Not that it mattered.
Just because it was hard to ignore, didn’t mean he acted on what he felt.
Cross let Catherine decide on all of that—from when and if she wanted him to touch her, to when and if she wanted to touch him.
It was always going to be on her.
Catherine grabbed the edge of the extra-large blanket they were laying on, and pulled the fabric up over her back until they were both covered and shaded from the sun. Cross brushed away the bit of sand that had fallen into her hair. Catherine pulled off his sunglasses.
She caught his hands with her own. Her palms pressed to his while her fingertips tapped against his softly, and then he weaved their fingers tightly together.
She smelled like cherries, summer, and innocence.
“Hey,” she whispered.
Cross grinned. “Hey.”
“Best day of the summer yet, Cross.”
“You think?”
“Yep”
Her teasing, sweet fingertips drew pathways over his arms, up his throat, along his jaw, and then over his lips. He stayed still and enjoyed her touches.
“Cross?”
“Hmm?”
Catherine’s cheeks reddened.
“What, Catherine?”
“Have you ever … like, had sex? I just wondered, because, I don’t know,” she said, still pink-cheeked and avoiding his gaze, “you don’t ask, but you’re … well …” She shifted on him again, making him painfully aware of what she was trying to say without saying it.
“Hard,” he said frankly.
“Yeah. Have you?”
Cross shrugged. “Sure.”
Catherine looked away. “Huh.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It kind of does because you—”
“Don’t care about that,” Cross interjected, unbothered.
Catherine shifted on him again. “I think you do.”
“Not unless you do.”
Her embarrassment seemed to bleed away. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
Catherine nodded. “Okay, Cross.”
Cross groaned when Catherine’s phone started ringing in her bag. He liked her right where she was, but she rolled off him with a laugh to find the damn phone, and tossed the blanket back at the same time. She picked up the call without even looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Where in the hell are you?”
The guy on the other end of the call was so loud, Cross had heard his question loud and clear. Catherine stiffened. “Johnathan?”
Cross sat up straight.
“I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you and your brother this week, and the first time I take a day to do my shit, you fuck off somewhere. You know the rules, Catherine.”
“I just went with some friends to the beach,” Catherine said quickly, “I’m sorry, John.”
“Where are you?”
“Jacob Riis Park.”
“Don’t fucking move,” the guy barked. “I will be there in thirty.”
Catherine hung up the phone and stared out at the water again.
Cross rested back on the blanket. “Who is John?”
“My cousin. He’s kind of like … my babysitter. I skipped out on him earlier when he left to do some things.”
“You should have told me.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, I didn’t.”
“Still the best day of summer?”
Because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be let of the house for the rest of it.
Catherine didn’t even think about it. “Yep.”
Chords flew out of the black Stratocaster under Cross’s handling. He hated the scales to warm up the guitar and his fingers, so he’d made a musical game of the same chords without the boring sound they usually provided. Cross just finished the warmup when the noise started from his step-father’s office across the hall.
“Why? Why, why, why, Cross? Cristo.”
Cross didn’t even bother to move.
Calisto would come to him.
It didn’t take his step-father long. Calisto darkened the library’s doorway, put his hands to both sides of the doorjamb, and hung his head low.
“Cross, please tell me why the sweet fuck I just got a call from Dante Marcello while he’s in Italy with his wife on a business trip? Tell me why, son, please.”
Ah, shit.
“Oh, yeah. Something happened yesterday,” Cross said, sticking his favorite pick into the strings on the nec
k of the guitar.
“Something happened.”
Cross lifted a single shoulder. “Basically.”
“You exasperate me, Cross.” Calisto, never raising his head, sighed heavily. “You do know that, right? You’re exasperating.”
He didn’t respond.
He figured his step-father wasn’t looking for a response, really.
“I have one job where being your father is concerned,” Calisto said. “Do you know what that is?”
Cross looked up from the Stratocaster. “I don’t know, love me or something?”
Calisto made a noise under his breath. “Yeah, shit, okay. Two jobs, then. The other one is keeping your ass alive long enough to see adulthood. After that, it’s all on you. I don’t think you even realize how hard you make that job for me sometimes.”
“The keeping me alive bit, or the loving me?”
“Right now, you’re making both of them hard, son.”
Cross nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”
“What the hell were you thinking yesterday picking Catherine Marcello up with Zeke and going to the goddamn beach?”
“That I wanted to go to the beach, and she might like to go, too.”
And she did.
“I can’t believe you seriously snuck that girl out, Cross.”
Cross hadn’t done that at all, but he didn’t correct his step-father. He didn’t know what story Catherine had told her parents for what she did the day before. He did know that she had lied to him—by omission at the very least—because he had assumed her parents were fine with her going out, and she hadn’t told him any different.
“She is not like you, son,” Calisto continued, seemingly unbothered by Cross’s silence. “She does not have the freedom you do, or the lack of rules because you know what, she actually follows the ones she has. Or she used to, before you … do whatever the hell it is you keep doing with her.”
Cross didn’t think that was true, either.
Catherine wasn’t all good.
She was just sly.
There was a difference.
“Don’t you have anything to say at all?” Calisto demanded.