Summer's Desire

by Olivia Lynde

I take a side-step and block her way. "You aren't leaving either." The menace in my voice surprises me, and makes her fall back a step.

  Then she comes rushing at me, and I slide smoothly to the side and trip her up. Aided by my helpful push, she crashes to the floor with a very satisfying thud. Seth's been teaching me some interesting moves in the past few weeks. Of course, I'd hardly call myself an expert, but she's only about my size, currently wrapped in a sheet that seriously restricts her mobility, and she hasn't got a clue of the rage brewing inside me and lending me strength. There's no way she can make it past me out of this room.

  Though she tries very hard.

  Half an hour later I think I hear someone stepping inside the apartment. Just a whisper of sound, and then I perceive nothing more even though the door to the living room is half-open. I only know of one person who can move so quietly.

  A minute later, I hear: "Andrea? Did you move my stuff from where I left it?"

  I raise an eyebrow at Andrea who's sitting on the floor beside the bed with her knees drawn to her chest, sporting a blackening eye, scratched hands, and seriously messed up hair.

  I'm feeling a few tender spots myself, but they're less obvious, hidden beneath my clothes. And there's no question who's hurt worse of the two of us.

  "Andrea?" I hear again, and I glare at her to answer.

  "In here," she chokes out.

  A moment later he pushes against the door and appears in the doorway. I'm shocked at the way he looks—very tired and pale and with a busted lip—but there's no doubt that he's even more shocked at finding me here.

  "Baby? What are y—" He stops mid-word as his eyes slide lightning-quick around the room. I know that he notices everything in just in that one quick second: my disheveled appearance, the even more disheveled look of Andrea and that she's obviously naked under her sheet, his clothes that are scattered all across the floor, the messy bed, the empty condom wrappers that are lying on the floor. His face—his entire body—turns to stone.

  "I tried to call you earlier," I tell him.

  In a slow movement utterly devoid of his customary energy and decisiveness, he turns his head to look at me. A slight tremor—so swift I wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't watching so carefully—quakes through him. His eyes are dark with something that I could almost swear was fear. But I have never known Seth to be afraid of anything.

  "My battery died while I was out. Baby, this isn't..." He raises his hands, palms-up, in subtle appeal. He takes two steps toward me, then stops and just looks at me.

  I say, "I got an friendly anonymous text message, so here I am." He jerks as if struck with a high-voltage electrical rod. "I forwarded it to you; you can read it after you recharge your phone battery."

  "I didn't cheat on you, baby," he rasps, his voice darker, deeper than I've ever heard it.

  He's looking at me, meeting my gaze head-on and holding it fast; and Andrea, this room, the whole entire word outside of us may as well not exist in this moment. There's only the two of us. And his eyes—blue, raging orbs of emotion, scalding in their intensity—are begging for my faith.

  "Baby, swear to God I didn—"

  "I know."

  He jerks again, even more powerfully this time.

  "You know?" he whispers and takes two more steps that bring me into his reach. And his arms extend toward me... but stop before they touch me. Still afraid of rejection?

  "Seth, I doubted you once, five years ago. Never again, my love." Then, half-certain, half-entreating: "I know you wouldn't hurt me like this."

  His gaze melts to liquid fire with relief. "No, baby, never." And finally—at last!—his hands curl around my arms, and everything is all right in the world once more.

  Then the light in him shuts off, and he turns to Andrea with murder in his eyes.

  Chapter 31

  "Are you okay, Seth?" I ask him half an hour later, in his car.

  He's driving too fast. I reach out slowly and put my hand on him, and his thigh is so corded with tension beneath my touch that it feels like steel, not living flesh.

  After Andrea's revelations, I'm so angry I can barely sit still. And he's even worse: his fury has really been pushed into the lethal zone this time. He's gone very quiet since we left the apartment, and it's as if he has to maintain this titanium-like control on himself or else erupt with destructive force. But some of what he's feeling comes through in the way he's pushing the car faster than I've ever seen him do it before—the greater speed a seeming reflection of the tempest inside him.

  "Andrea shares that apartment with her twin, Luke," he says, in that scary-precise voice he uses when he's fuming mad, "and he's a friend of mine. We played football together until he graduated last year. He's now enrolled at a college in Grand Rapids, and if I'm in the city overnight, I usually crash at his place. On the fucking couch—not in his sister's bed."

  That does clear up some things. "So last night you crashed at the siblings' apartment, and this morning when you went out, Andrea grabbed the stuff in your overnight bag and set you up." My brow is furrowed in reflection. "What I'd like to know is this: she admitted that Jessica was the mastermind behind the whole thing and that Elle helped out—and I know why those two would want to break us up—but what was Andrea's stake in all this?"

  There's a short hesitation, then he shrugs. "Those three were Rockford High's leading witch—or cheer—leaders before Andrea's graduation. Maybe they missed the good ol' days and got together to pull a last fucking nasty stunt." His eyes are very scrupulous in staying focused on the road without even one side-glance at me.

  "Or maybe," I say, "just like with Elle and Jessica, Andrea's personal stake in all this was you."

  A charged pause, then he shrugs again.

  "Did she come on to you while you were there?"

  His hands clench on the wheel. "I told her I wasn't interested."

  "But she's an old lover of yours?"

  "No!" In a raspy voice, he adds, "We just screwed a few times a year ago." He's still staring straight ahead, determined not to meet my gaze, it seems. His thigh beneath my hand feels even more rigid now, and my hand too feels very numb for a second.

  You know he has a past, Summer, my subconscious whispers. I know, but God, how I hate it! I inhale deeply. At least I know he's not splitting hairs with the whole non-lover thing: he's reminding me that I'm his first love. His only love. I'm a big girl. I can deal with his past—I don't like it, but it's worth doing it because I get to have his future.

  "Okay, Seth. We're okay."

  "Actually, Sunny," he grits out, his hands clenching harder on the steering wheel, "I'm not okay. You made me leave Andrea in once piece. All right; her brother's a buddy, and she's stupid and Jessica manipulated her. She's no threat, and I can let her stupidity slide—barely—because you didn't believe her. But Jessica—I'm going to put an end to her fucking games once and for all."

  "Seth, she can't tear us apart again. Not now." My hand starts to stroke his thigh very gently.

  "But she keeps trying, the fucking bitch! I let her off easy after the stunt she pulled with our letters—"

  "You struck her where she hurt the most."

  He scoffs. "That was fucking nothing, Sunny, compared to what she deserved. Or to what I wanted to do to her."

  "Seth..."

  "No, Sunny, I've had it. First the letters, then the fucking rumors about you she keeps trying to spread in school—you think I don't know about that?—and now this? She fucking tried to drive you away from me, Sunny!" His voice is a violent snarl and he's gripping the steering wheel so hard, I'm afraid he'll shatter it.

  "Pull over, Seth."

  "Let's just get home."

  "Pull over, please, just for five minutes."

  With a sigh, he does as I asked. As soon as he's stopped the car, I release my seat belt and climb onto his lap, straddling his thighs. His arms go around me and his palms splay on my lower back. I put my hands to either side of his neck and look him stra
ight in his beautiful, furious eyes. I wince at seeing the painful-looking cut on his lip from so up-close.

  "No one can drive me away from you, Seth. Especially not Jessica." Only maybe/probably social services.

  "I'm not letting this one slide, Sunny!" he growls.

  "Fine!" I snap back. "Just as long as you don't land yourself in prison."

  He takes a couple of deep breaths, seems to bring his fury back in check.

  "I won't," he tells me, softer now. He leans in for a kiss. "I wouldn't do anything that meant losing you," he whispers against my open mouth. Then he kisses me, long and sweet, with more tenderness than I would've thought he's capable of right now.

  By the time he releases me, my heart is thumping feverishly. "Doesn't your lip hurt when you kiss me?" I murmur.

  He smiles. "The reward is worth a little pain. Besides, it's just a shallow cut, nothing as bad as you seem to think. It'll heal completely by Monday."

  "But how did you even acquire a busted lip? And grazed knuckles?"

  It's as if he stops breathing. Then he shrugs. "I've been sparring."

  "Ah. I just thought..." I break off, confused. "I didn't know what to think, actually. I've never seen you like this after a sparring session with Klaus. He... I thought you couldn't be hurt like this."

  He sighs. "I can't be, usually. My training is very good. But I was distracted, so a few punches slipped past my guard this time."

  "You were distracted?" Oh no. "Because of me?"

  He lifts his right hand to my cheek, stroking me tenderly with the back of his fingers. "It's all right, Sunny." He gives me a crooked grin. "I still won."

  I grin back. "I'm glad to hear that."

  He stares at me, his eyes beginning to glow, and I'm starting to feel very warm in my position perched upon his lap. Then suddenly, all that terrible tension and anger infusing his frame flip into a different kind of passion—one that's scorching hot. His eyes erupt into vivid flame, his hands on me become more demanding, and I barely manage a deep breath before his mouth is on me, submerging me in a deluge of desire.

  * * *

  Late that night, in our bed, in the darkness, spooned by his body from head to toe, I hear him ask huskily:

  "Why didn't you doubt me today?"

  I clasp his right hand that's splayed on my torso just beneath my breasts and bring it to my mouth, and I kiss his open palm with something awfully close to reverence. I have it so, so bad for him.

  "It came to this question, Seth: whom do I believe? You, whom I've loved all my life and who said that you've always loved me too—you, who've never broken a promise to me. Or her, a stranger who lured me to her apartment so that I would see what she wanted to show me, and whose entire attitude was dripping venom right from the start. There was no dilemma for me." His frame curls impossibly tighter around me. "Seth, I'll always believe you."

  "Thank you, Sunny." His voice is raspy with some unimaginably powerful emotion. "You're everything that matters in my life. I can't lose you again, Sunny."

  I turn my head toward him and our eyes connect in the weak moonlight, and it's as if the whole of reality shifts and settles, becoming clearer and brighter. His gaze devours me with its boundless passion and possessiveness.

  "You won't lose me," I vow. "You have my heart forever."

  His full lips curl into that beautiful, open smile that never fails to dazzle me. "Yes," he tells me affectionately, "I have your heart—in all shapes and forms. Thanks again for the key fob, Sunny. I'll take good care of your heart."

  I smile back. "See that you do, lover."

  * * *

  Next Monday, over the general din of the cafeteria—Seth and I are sitting at the popular table today; Elle, however, is conspicuously absent—Chelsea leans in to whisper something to me.

  "Summer..."

  I look at her; she's staring at me oddly, seeming conflicted.

  "What is it, Chelsea?" She's one of Jessica's old friends, but beyond the cutting glances she used to send my way the first couple of days after I got together with Seth, she's never given me trouble. She's not a friend, but neither has she acted like my enemy until now.

  She sighs heavily. "Look, Summer, I'll just tell you and you decide for yourself what you wanna do about it. Jessica came up to me as I was heading here and said to tell you that she'll be waiting for you where you met last time. She has something to show you, and if you care about Seth, you'll go meet her. That's all."

  She gives me another conflicted look, then shrugs and turns back toward Amelia, with whom she had been chatting before.

  I'm frozen for long moments, thinking, vacillating, trying to decide...

  "Baby?" Seth has taken notice of my stillness and has turned to me. "Everything's all right?"

  I suppress a betraying shudder and look up. "Yes, Seth. I just need to make a quick run to the bathroom."

  His eyebrows draw together in suspicion; of course, he's heard something amiss in my voice. I have to hurry if I want to make it out of here.

  I jump to my feet, lean in to place a swift smooch on his cheek. "Be right back, lover."

  And before he can say another word, I stride away.

  * * *

  She's waiting for me, her eyes narrowing to snake-like slits as soon as I enter the bathroom. There's only the two of us inside.

  "What do you want?" I ask her coldly.

  She smiles cruelly. "Oh, nothing much. Just for you to get the hell out of Rockford and out of Seth's life and never see him again."

  "Then you've gone completely insane." I turn on my heels and reach for the door.

  "If you don't do it, I'll destroy his life." There's something in her words, a note of satisfaction, that makes me hesitate. Makes me doubt that she's just making empty threats.

  "Bye, bye scholarship," she adds chirpily. "Bye, bye college; bye, bye football and a future career in the NFL—'cause that's what he wants, right? And hello a lifetime of being just a grubby, under-paid mechanic at Joe's—once he gets out of prison, that is. But at least he'll have you, right?"

  I turn back to her. "What do you have?" I ask quietly, my heart beating so fast it's speed-racing.

  Her gray eyes turn radiant with—swear to goodness—a diabolical light. That's how it looks to me in that moment as she pulls out her Smartphone, taps a couple of times on the screen, and turns it to me so that I can see. And dear merciful God, it's a video of Seth—marked with last Saturday's date, hour 4 A.M.

  An insidious, devastating trembling suffuses my muscles, my very bones, and I grope blindly for the support of the sink to my right in order to be able to stay upright.

  The video shows him in a cage of some sort, bare to the waist, his lip dripping with blood, and the expression on his face is one of perfect savagery. He's pummeling on some other guy who's inside that cage with him, and he's terrible in his strength and speed and sheer ferocity. There's a huge crowd pushing from all sides toward the cage, chanting encouragement, and—

  Jessica stops the video.

  "That—in case you didn't know, moron—is underground cage fighting," she purrs, full of malice. "Totally brutal. Illegal as hell-out. The moment Principal Adams gets a glimpse of this, Seth's expelled, less than two weeks before graduation. The moment Coach Bohlen sees it, and then all those college coaches who wanted Seth to play football for them find out—his scholarships are gone so fast it'll make his head spin. The moment the police sees it..." She chuckles. "Let's just say that being banned from football will be the least of your lover boy's troubles."

  As if in a haze, I take two steps toward her, not even knowing what I want to do—just that I absolutely cannot let her keep that video.

  Guessing my intent, she lifts the hand with her Smartphone high above her head and shakes her head mockingly. "Moron, believe me, you don't want to try anything. This video is already backed up on my Mac at home, so if you act up, all it'll gain you is you'll make me madder." She bares her teeth in a menacing smirk. "You don't want th
at, right?"

  "No," I whisper, standing perfectly still. "I don't."

  "I couldn't believe my ears when Andrea told me about the stunt you pulled Saturday. You're a persistent little whore, aren't you—couldn't be pried off Seth with a crowbar! Well, maybe this video will do the job then."

  I just stare at her, feeling blank and empty.

  "So what you'll do, whore," she spits out, "is you'll be gone in two days. I don't care how you do it, I don't care what you tell Seth—but you'll break up with him permanently. If you're still here when your time is up, Seth's done for. If I find out you get together with Seth later—and I will find out; I have friends at U-M and they'll tell me if you're ever seen even looking at him from a distance—he's done for. Clear enough for you, moron?"

  My tongue is glued stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  "I asked if you got it, moron!"

  "I understand."

  "Good. Two days." She walks away, her shoulder bumping me hard as she passes me.

  The door slams behind her, leaving me surrounded by perfect silence—in the boundless sea of dead hopelessness that is my soul.

  * * *

  It's after school hours, and I'm walking with Seth from my locker where I left my books. The hallways are empty.

  "Sunny, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing's wrong," I tell him with perfect calm matching the perfect blankness inside me.

  "Sunny, you've been off since lunch. Disconnected. Please tell me what happened, baby."

  I stop right there and look at him. His face is cast in lines of anxious confusion.

  "Nothing much happened, Seth."

  "Sunny—"

  "Just that I had a little chat with Jessica and found out about your activities of last Friday night."

  He turns ashen; the only remaining spot of color in his face are his electric blue eyes. "My activities?" he rasps.

  His grip on my hand has become unbearably tight, a part of my mind recognizes distantly. But it's as if I'm disengaged from my body, disengaged even from Seth for the first time in my life, so I don't bother to protest his painful grip.