Summer's Desire

by Olivia Lynde

  "The cage fighting," I elucidate coolly.

  If his face was colorless before, now it may as well have turned to white marble. His eyes flash with a dozen emotions in just one blink of a moment: guilt, shame, rage, guilt again.

  Then he shakes off his temporary paralysis, and as quick as thought—as quick as I saw him move in the cage when he was raining vicious wallops on his opponent—he pulls me into an unoccupied classroom nearby, closes the door, and presses my back against the wall, caging me between his arms.

  "You lied to me, Seth."

  "No!" he denies hoarsely. Then, with a note of shame: "I just didn't correct your assumptions."

  "You withheld the truth from me."

  He leans unbearably closer, his hands moving to frame my face with utter gentleness. "Sunny, baby... I would've done anything to protect you from this truth."

  "Because I'm weak?"

  "Because I don't want you touched by the darkness in my life!"

  "Then why did you do this?!" I burst out. "For God's sake, Seth, why? Why fight at all?!"

  His shoulders slump in defeat. "Because we need the money."

  "So it's my fault," I conclude, miserable.

  "No! Sunny, it wasn't my first time fighting in a cage." His voice turns softer, pleading: "But you gave me a better reason to fight—not for any meaningless, selfish reason, but for us. So that we can stay together, run away together if we have to, build a life together no matter what."

  "Oh God, Seth..." I try to turn my face from the intensity in his, but he doesn't let me. So I keep looking at him and ask him brokenly, "How can we build our life on blood money?"

  "It's not blood money! Or if it is, it's money that I have bled for! I've never fought anyone who didn't know exactly what they were doing, I've never killed for this money! I've always ended every fight as fast as I could. I've fucking earned this money, Sunny! And don't ask me to feel sorry for getting it the only way I know how when this money might make the difference for us between being able to stay together or not."

  I shake my head, overwhelmed and confused and so wretchedly in love with him that I think I'd shatter if he weren't holding me so carefully.

  "Sunny..."—his eyes bore into me with uncompromising possession—"I'd kill if I had to in order to keep you by my side. Weighed against that, a few bouts of cage fighting are nothing!"

  And the scariest thing is I totally get what he's saying. Because there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. There's nothing I wouldn't sacrifice for his well-being. And that's exactly what I was called upon to do: sacrifice everything.

  "How did Jessica know?" I ask him dejectedly.

  He flips from consuming intensity to cold rage in the blink of an eye. "Andrea, had to be. It's her brother Luke who first got me into cage fighting, years ago. He's the one who lets me know about the fights. And Andrea always has her nose stuck in his business, so she can find out everything he knows at any time, if she wants to."

  And obviously, she shared her knowledge with Jessica, who went to record the fight.

  Kind of ironic, actually—in a heart-breaking, soul-rending kind of way—that Seth took that cage fight for our future and, by doing so, handed Jessica the one weapon that could ensure that he and I don't get to have a future together at all.

  Seth slowly leans his forehead against my own. In a voice gone soft again with tenderness and pleading, he says, "I'm sorry, Sunny, that you had to find out this way."

  My lips twist into a bitter smile. "You're sorry I found out at all."

  "I'm sorry because you're upset, Sunny. I don't want you to ever be hurt—especially not because of me. I'm so sorry, baby, that I've disappointed you." His gentle, earnest voice batters at my defenses, grounding them to dust. I'm helpless before his pain and his love, and my pain and my love, and I'm bleeding inside and I want to howl like a dying animal because I have to give up Seth's love, and pain will be all I have left.

  I raise my hand to his chest and push him away from me. It's like pushing against granite, and I could never move him if he didn't want to be moved. But after a heartbeat, he obeys my wish to be free and steps back. Our bodies aren't touching anymore.

  "Sunny..." His voice alone is like acid over my bleeding wounds, and I avoid his eyes because I know that looking in them right now would really finish me off.

  "I need to head to work," I tell him, my voice once again inflectionless.

  "Sunny, we aren't finished talking—"

  "We've talked enough. I need to go now."

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see his hand reaching out toward me... then stopping, curling into a fist, and finally falling down.

  "I'll drive you," he tells me huskily.

  "No. You've got track, and it's late already."

  "Fuck late and fuck track. Sunny—"

  "I need to be alone right now." Through an immense act of will, I manage to lift my head and meet his gaze—and oh sweet God, his tortured eyes almost bring me to my knees with the terrible, terrible depth of our shared pain. "Seth, I'll be home tonight when you come home. We'll talk then."

  He still looks as if he wants to argue, as if he doesn't want to let me go... but finally he gives a sharp nod. And he lets me leave.

  But I don't go to work.

  I go back to our apartment, where I curl myself on top of our bed and cry for hours without stopping.

  Then I mop my tears and call Ms. Walker.

  And finally, I pack a small bag and hide it behind the closet.

  Chapter 32

  He gets home early; he must have also skipped work today.

  I'm waiting for him, seated on the sofa. I'm holding an open book—I don't even know which—and staring into space.

  When I hear the lock, my gaze sharpens and moves to the door. An instant later, he opens the door and I see he's breathing maybe just a bit harder than normal, as if he's come up the stairs running at full speed. His gaze snaps to me at once, almost as if I had pulled on my end of that flexible but indissoluble string that binds the two of us. Maybe I have.

  His face is taut with anxiety, but the moment his eyes find me, it's as if the worst of the tension seeps out of him. Then I smile at him, and his eyes widen. In a flash he's discarded his bag, slammed the door shut, and materialized beside me on the couch, his body pressing against mine. His hands rise to my face and cup it gently, and his eyes delve searchingly into my own.

  "I'm forgiven?" he asks me in a voice laced with caution and hope in equal degree.

  I nod, and I don't even get to finish the movement before his mouth unerringly finds my own. His tongue pushes demandingly against the seam of my lips, and I open up for him, and he deepens the kiss. Our mouths play off each other in a passionate battle, our lips and tongues the weapons of choice and wielded to bone-melting, reason-banishing effect.

  My hands rise and splay on his shoulder blades, and I try to pull him closer. One of his hands lowers from my face to curl around my nape, and keeps me pinned for his kiss—but I am a willing prisoner. His other hand starts on a downward journey of exploration, with my body its chosen landscape. I'm a quivering instrument in his masterful hands, and he knows exactly how to play me to achieve the highest of notes. He's heat and he's passion and he's the kindling to all my smoldering embers. And under his touch, I light up.

  With subtle pressure, his body urges me down, and I let myself fall back on the sofa. His weight comes down on top of me, and I rejoice and welcome it with a moan.

  I don't know how long we kiss and touch and strain together—time loses all meaning for me. But he does pull back eventually, before we lose all of our clothes. And I let him.

  For now.

  * * *

  Evening has fallen, and we're staying close but not touching. I'm on the couch, once again pretending to read, and he's sitting on the floor beside me, fiddling with yet another of his mechanical projects.

  He frowns suddenly and starts to look around, as if searching for something. He moves the tools
and the parts he has lying around, but doesn't seem to find whatever he's looking for. He rises fluidly to his feet, heads to the kitchen area, starts digging around in one of the lower cabinets there.

  "Seth, what are you searching? Can I help?"

  "No, I don't think so," he tells me distractedly. "Unless you know where I've left my transistor packages."

  "Umm, what are those?"

  "Semiconductors that control how much current flows through a circuit," he explains without pausing in his search.

  "Nope, never seen those."

  "That's all right, Sunny. I'll find the little buggers." He moves to the bedroom.

  I set the book aside, lie down, and close my eyes.

  Two minutes later, I get this sense all of a sudden that I'm being watched. The perfect quiet around me hasn't been disturbed by even the whisper of a sound, but beyond any doubt, I feel Seth's presence beside me.

  I open one eye and find him standing right next to me, a small plastic case in his hand. He's staring down at me, his expression unreadable, his eyes too dark a blue. I open my other eye as well and gaze back at him, pouring over his masculine features. He's so heartbreakingly beautiful.

  I smile at him. "Did you find your transistors?"

  He nods and crouches down. He sets the case down on the floor and leans closer to me until our faces are less than three inches apart. He watches me in silence. Suddenly, the darkness in his eyes splinters, and devouring, uncompromising possession flares up. Then the inches separating us dissolve in a flash of movement, and his lips land on mine—devouring and uncompromising in their demand. His powerful arms slide beneath me, and he rises easily to his feet, with me in his arms.

  It all happens so quickly that for a few moments I can't react at all, too caught by surprise. His hold on me is too tight and the press of his mouth is too rough, and I feel an unfamiliar urgency in him, riding him hard. Should I be scared? I half-wonder. But then all thought disperses as his unleashed passion keeps surging against me—and I'm overcome. My mouth opens under his, and my arms rise up to curl around his neck.

  And then he's already setting me down, on the bed in our room, and he is settling above me. When his weight covers me, heavy and comforting, my body shivers in a shock of delight. When his mouth slants over mine, I sip at his lips. When his tongue pushes between my lips, I tug at it with relish. His taste is more addictive than my favorite chocolate, more intoxicating to me than the most powerful drug. I savor him endlessly, and whatever his mouth demands—I give. I let him kiss me deep and deeper, wet and sweet, and I moan at the exquisite sensations he incites in me.

  When his arms draw me closer, my hands tunnel in his inky hair and pull him down to me. When his knee presses between my thighs, they immediately open up for him so he can settle in-between. I feel the physical proof of how much he wants me, and I shudder again and I moan. Every cell in my body quivers in need. In a very deliberate movement, I rub against his hardness, and he growls in my mouth and pulls back from the kiss.

  My hands fall to either side of my head, and I watch him through a haze of yearning. He smoothly lifts himself off me and sits up, trapping my lower legs between his knees. Both of us are breathing as hard as if we had run the Olympics marathon, and my heart is a sledgehammer inside my chest. In a swift movement, he removes his T-shirt, baring the beautiful musculature of his torso. Just like the first time I ever saw his naked chest, all I want is to lick him all over. And now I can.

  I reach out toward his belly and the first contact jolts me like touching lightning—and him as well. I curl my hands around his waist and try to sit up, and when he sees my intent, he helps me raise my body up to him. Now I'm mere inches from his muscular chest, and I marvel again at the perfection of his build. With a moan of excitement, I start to lick his smooth, salty skin. When my tongue reaches a flat male nipple, I bathe it with slow, wet licks and pulls. And then I let him feel just the slightest edge of teeth.

  He growls again, and his hands move to my camisole and start to tug it up. At first I don't help him because I don't want to take my mouth off his delicious skin for even one second. But then he touches my breast through my clothes and I jerk like a live wire. I lift my hands at last, obeying his unspoken demand. He takes my camisole off and I'm left in just my bra.

  His eyes are an inferno of passion, a true outside reflection of the inferno that roils low in my belly. He pushes me lightly onto my back, and I flow with the movement. Our gazes stay locked to each other the entire time. Even when I feel his hands going to my waist. When he unfastens my jeans. When he tugs at my jeans, and I raise my hips so that he can take them off me. Even when he unzips his own jeans and takes them off, we still don't look away from each other's eyes.

  With each quiet second, with each discarded garment, my heartbeat accelerates until it goes so fast and I feel so hot that I start to whimper in need. When I bite my lip to stop the sound, his glowing eyes break away from mine at last. They stray to my mouth, and in a deep, hoarse voice, he says, "Don't do that, Sunny. It pushes me beyond all restraint."

  And then he's lowering himself on top of me. His hands bury themselves in my hair and his mouth finds my own. Each wild, out-of-control kiss drives my need higher, until I'm desperate for release. I open my legs wider and rub against his arousal. I arch up into him and he thrusts down, and even through the two layers of undergarments that are still separating us, the steely touch and feel of him is more than I can bear.

  My hips keep pressing up against him and his keeps pushing down, and each time he hits the exact spot I need him to, and each time I moan. My hands clench in the warm flesh at his waist, and his right hand disengages from my hair and starts on a downward journey.

  His wicked fingertips stroke a burning path across my body. I tremble beneath him and push harder into our already ferocious kiss. Then his hand reaches the upper slope of my left breast, and I whimper in anticipation. His hand glides lower and curls around the plush weight, and my lacy bra may as well not exist for how much protection it offers.

  He molds my breast, starts kneading it gently... and oh merciful heaven, I don't know how I'll live through the terrifying, beautiful, excruciating sensations that he makes me feel! I sense the heat of his body and it burns me. I yield to his sinful mouth and sweet delirium scalds me. I arch into his flexing hips—and I detonate.

  My body goes liquid and stiff at once, caught in an endless storm of shudders. He kisses my closed eyelids softly and moors me throughout the shockwaves that keep breaking over me. On the other side, I come out—as ever—changed that slightly bit more. I lift my eyelids for him and know that my eyes are, as ever, soft with wonder. Whereas his eyes are, as ever, still fierce with need.

  This is as far as we've ever come—though usually with everything that just happened repeated once or twice or, on one very memorable night, thrice more. This is, then, where he always stops.

  This is when his hands go to the clasp of my bra and break the pattern.

  His eyes are fixed on mine, incandescent with desire and obsession. And defiance too, I think. He undoes the front clasp and removes my bra, and I let him. He tugs my panties off, and I don't tell him no. He takes off his boxer shorts, and I don't even think to stop him.

  This time when he covers me, we're intimately skin to skin. His magnificent, terrifying erection nestles against my upper thighs, scorching my skin. His hands find my own in the soft bedding and our fingers entwine. His eyes hold mine captive in a prison made out of his fierce determination and my helpless—and willing—surrender.

  Then he shifts to the side and half-above me, braced on his forearm, and his eyes free me so they can glide in a slow, thorough exploration of my naked body. It's hard not to tug my hands from his and try to cover up... but I resist the impulse. I've revealed to him all of my soul—both the light and the darkness—and he owns it forever. So I won't hide my body from him either, and if he wants it, he can have it too. I want him to touch and own every part of my body
just like he already has with my soul.

  Still, I can't help the blush covering me in a rosy blanket of bashfulness. And I can't help but tremble at the burning intensity in his eyes as they travel down then back up my body and in so doing touch me like a physical caress. The fire in my core, so recently sated, stirs again.

  At last his gaze returns to my own, and if I thought before that his eyes were incandescent with passion, now they've turned super-nova with it. In a voice made almost unrecognizable with desire, he tells me, "You're so beautiful, Sunny."

  I smile shyly; I'm happy he thinks that, but really—"You're the beautiful one, Seth."

  "I love you."

  "I know, and I love you. Seth... I'm yours."

  Afterward, he whispers in the darkness, "You really forgave me for Friday night?"

  "Yes." I take a deep breath. "But Seth, I need you to make me a promise."

  He keeps very still, probably anticipating my next words and not liking them one bit.

  "I need you to promise me that you'll never do it again."

  "Sunny... Baby, we still need money. Now that school is winding down, I was planning on doing as many fights as possible until we leave for Ann Arbor."

  "Seth, this is very important to me."

  "Sunny..."

  "I know you want to earn us more money to secure our future. But the money you have now and your scholarship will have to be enough."

  "It won't be enough," he cautions gruffly.

  "Then we'll make do. I'll take a part-time job and we'll apply for student loans. Seth, we'll figure it out."

  "But why make our life so much harder when there's no need?"

  "I need to know that you aren't participating in any illegal fights so that I can feel safe. I need this, Seth. Please."

  I wait in silence, and finally I hear him give a deep sigh—soul-deep, it seems. "If I promise you this, you'll promise to never leave me? Never, no matter what happens?"