Summer's Desire

by Olivia Lynde

My body turns to stone in his arms. Then I force myself to relax and stroke his beautiful, muscular back as far as I can reach.

  "I promise, Seth."

  "Then I promise you too."

  "No more illegal fights?"

  "No more, Sunny."

  I sigh in relief. Seth has never broken any promise he made me. I can rest assured that he won't be breaking this one either, regardless of what else may happen.

  Silence closes around us once more.

  Later still, after he's fallen asleep at last, I try to disengage from his arms. He's embracing me so firmly it's hard to slip from his arms, but somehow I manage without waking him. Then I lie down on my side beside him, head propped on my hand, and just watch him.

  My eyes trace his heartbreakingly handsome features. He looks so much younger in sleep—but not innocent. For even now he retains that edge of ruthlessness that's so much a part of him at all times. Not innocent, my Seth—but still so infinitely beloved. I've loved him nearly my entire life and somewhere along the road, a long time ago, I've also fallen in love with him for life. Yet still it took tonight for me to understand how much deeper and sweeter love can cut.

  In this moment I love him more than I ever have, and I know that in all moments of the future I'll love him just as much as I do now—or more.

  Silently, I rise up from the bed. Moving on light feet, I gather my scattered clothes and go into the living room. Behind me, I shut the bedroom door noiselessly. As I quickly get dressed, my heart and mind hammer against their walls—feeling and reason battling each other.

  I won't let Jessica destroy Seth's future. I want him to have the good life for which he's worked so hard, the good life that he deserves—and there's nothing I wouldn't sacrifice to ensure that he gets it.

  My resolve hardened to steel, I walk to the door.

  Chapter 33

  The bedroom door slams open behind me and I whirl around, my heart somersaulting in fright.

  Seth's standing in the open doorway, naked and intimidating and so powerful that he looks like an olden warrior king of Sparta I once saw in a book. He's shaking—with fury, I realize as my eyes fall on the item he's holding in his hand. The bag I packed earlier.

  Oh dear God, please have mercy!

  "You forgot your bag," he tells me, and I feel a whole-body shudder pass through me at the frigid, cutting quality of his tone. Then he hurls the bag violently to the side, and I flinch anew.

  "When did you find it?" I ask him in a cowed whisper, grasping at straws, playing for time until I figure a way out of this horrible mess.

  "Earlier."

  "Before we made love," I say and it's not a question. I realize he must have found the bag wedged behind the closet when he rummaged around looking for his freaking transistors. And I realize that the moment he came back to me, after he'd found it, he was determined that this night would only end one way—with me no longer a virgin.

  "You deliberately set out to seduce me?" I ask him, awed by his sheer ruthlessness.

  "I thought that if we made love, you wouldn't be able to leave me," he tells me bitterly. "But obviously, tonight didn't mean for you what it did for me. Tell me, Sunny, what was this for you? A pity fuck before you stole away like a thief in the night?"

  I wince. "That's not how it was."

  All I perceive is a blurry streak of movement, then he's beside me, gripping my arms forcefully and towering above me like an angry god of war who's about to unleash destruction.

  "If you thought," he growls, "even for one fucking moment that I would let you leave me again in this lifetime—then you have no fucking clue who I am!"

  "Seth..."

  He brings his faces mere inches from mine and glowers at me with furious, wounded eyes. "You're fucking mine, Sunny, and I'm never letting you go!"

  "But I don't want you to let me go!" I cry in frustration. I lay my hands gently on his taut stomach; I need to touch him right now, both for him and for myself. "I'm sorry I packed that bag, but it happened in a moment of insanity. I'm not leaving you, Seth."

  He blinks, and confusion seems to add itself to the combustible mix of his current emotions. "Where were you going, then?"

  I sigh. I didn't want him to find out about this until I came back—if I made it back, God willing—but it's not as if I have a choice now. "I was planning to drop by the Andersons' for a short visit."

  "After fucking midnight?" Full-blown disbelief coming my way. Okay, let's give him something that will really make him think that he's hearing me wrong.

  "Thanks to the veritable fountain of information that Andrea seems to have been, Jessica was in attendance at your match Friday night. And caught it all on video."

  His hands fall down from my arms. "That's impossible. Everyone who comes to see the fights is checked for recording devices at the entrance. If any are found, they're confiscated until after the fights."

  "Well clearly, Jessica found a way to smuggle her camera phone inside. Today she sent me a message to meet her and she showed me a recording of your fight. She threatened to make it public and get you expelled and get you to lose your scholarship. Oh, and get you arrested too."

  "Are you fucking kidding me?"

  "Unfortunately not."

  The disbelief melts into blinding fury. "Why did she show you the video? What did she want from you?"

  "For me to disappear from your life forever."

  His hands coil swiftly around my arms again, almost as if he thinks I'm about to vanish in a puff of smoke and he's hell-bent not to let that happen. "So that's what this is all about?" he asks me hoarsely. "The packed bag and..."

  "It was at first. Seth, I couldn't let her ruin your life."

  His body trembles as if under the strain of some inconceivably powerful emotion. "Sunny, the only way my life could be destroyed was if I lost you."

  An almost debilitating wave of love rushes over me at his poignant words. "I considered giving you up for the sake of your future..."

  "No way in hell th—"

  "But then I realized that Jessica wasn't just playing me dirty—she was being completely filthy. You see, Seth, she was dead-certain that you and I would break up over the thing with Andrea. So why then would she have also made that recording of you?"

  His brow furrows in thought. "Maybe as insurance?"

  "No, I truly believe she's too arrogant to consider that her plans could fail. Seth, I think she wanted to destroy our relationship with the Andrea-setup. And then she wanted to finish destroying you with the video."

  His jaw turns to granite.

  "I think she's determined that if she can't have you, then no one should—and that you should pay for not wanting her by losing everything that's important to you."

  "To hell with what she wants!" he explodes. "I won't lose anything more because of that bitch! I've started something today, and by tomorrow night, she's the one who'll be finished."

  I'm dying to know what he means, but there's no time to ask him right now.

  "Seth, the recording she has of you has to be destroyed before it's too late."

  "How?"

  "She has the original video of you on her phone and a backup on her laptop. I still have a house key and the alarm code of her house—God willing, Greg hasn't changed it. I'm going there tonight and stealing the videos of you."

  He leans closer and glowers into my face. "And you don't think you should've told me before what you were planning to do?"

  "If I'm caught, I don't want you to be with me."

  "Jesus Christ, Sunny, you should've just told me your plan! I've learned stealth as a matter of survival and if I go there, there's no way I'll be caught."

  Okay, that sounds logical. "All right, but I'm coming with you."

  "No, you're not! You're giving me the key and the code, and you're staying here."

  "Seth, we don't have time to argue about this all night. I'm not staying here twiddling my thumbs while you break and enter into someone's house!"


  "Then you can wait for me in the car," he growls in utter frustration.

  "That sounds fair to me." I smile, and he growls again and takes me over in a kiss that burns so hot it almost turns me to cinders.

  * * *

  He's been gone too long.

  He parked the car three houses down from the Anderson residence and left me to wait inside—and steam in worry—more than ten minutes ago. Which, in nighttime-sneaking-into-other-people's-houses-speech, may as well be an eternity as far as I'm concerned.

  Oh God, please don't let him get caught breaking and entering!

  Well, Summer, technically he isn't breaking in—he does have a key, after all.

  Because obviously, that would fly really well with the police: yes, Mr. Police Officer, I realize that I've been caught sneaking at night inside a house that is not my own, and yes, I did in fact have thievery on my mind—but it was all for a good cause, really. And I didn't actually force my way inside, I had a key; doesn't really matter that it wasn't my key and that my girlfriend (who gave me the key) shouldn't have had it anymore in the first place. Right?

  Oh God, he's doomed!

  Come on, Summer, he's not going to get caught! So far everything seems perfect: the alarm hasn't been triggered—your code must've still been good—there's been no one shrieking "intruder" from inside, and no lights have gone on.

  Yet. But surely he should have been back already, and while he's still there, it's still possible that he might get caught. Like, what if he stumbles and crashes into something and wakes everyone up?

  Yeah, Summer, because Seth is so clumsy!

  Okay, so he's the most graceful and agile person I've ever known, but everyone makes mistakes when they're under stress.

  Sure, Summer, because that look on his face of perfect calm and focus when he went on his mission was a dead-on clue about his anxious state of mind!

  But still, he could take a wrong turn and end up—

  Right, that's surely totally feasible: that Seth, who lived for many years in that house and has as good as photographic memory, could suddenly lose his way inside.

  But if all went so well, then why for crying out loud isn't he back yet?

  The driver's door opens, and a cold gust of air comes in. It's instantly followed by a stealthy shadow who slides nimbly into the seat beside me, settles a small black backpack on top of my knees, and grabs me for an open-mouthed kiss. I nearly burst with relief. I bury my hands in his thick hair and kiss him back in a way that turns the kiss from hot to searing.

  Then Seth draws back and his smile flashes white in the darkness. "Mission accomplished."

  I smile back. "I guessed that already. Did you have any trouble?"

  He starts the car and puts it in motion. "No. You'd already told me what room was hers, so once I was in the house, I headed straight there. I found her phone on her bedside table and the Mac buried under a pile of dirty clothes on the floor."

  "She didn't hear anything while you were in her room?"

  He snorts. "Get real, Sunny. I'm good at this. She slept like a log throughout. Wouldn't have felt it even if I'd strangled her in her sleep—not until it was too late." That tiny muscle above his jaw pulses angrily.

  "Stop joking," I whisper.

  His full lips twist into a bitter smile. "Am I?"

  "Seth..."

  "It's all right, Sunny. I don't need to lay one finger on that bitch to finish her off. I warned her to back off, she didn't listen, now she's going to pay the damn piper."

  "What did you do?"

  He smiles in a way that makes the tiny hairs at my nape rise in warning. "You'll see tomorrow."

  On the other side of town, he stops the car beside a dumpster.

  "Sunny, hand me the hammer I gave you earlier."

  I reach for the hammer at my feet and hand it to him, along with the black backpack. Then he heads outside, smashes Jessica's gadgets into tiny little pieces, puts them inside a garbage bag, and throws them in the dumpster—never to be heard of again.

  Then he drives us home.

  * * *

  Later, we're in bed, lying on our sides. He's pressed all along my back, enclosing me in the furnace of his rock-hard body. His right arm is wrapped around my waist, his palm splayed just underneath my breasts. Every once in a while his hand slides upward and caresses me gently, and each time that happens my heart skips inside my chest. I'm breathing too hard, and the soreness I feel between my thighs is joined by a muted thrill: excitement with an edge of pain.

  He scatters kisses—across my cheek, my closed eyelids, my forehead—and nuzzles the back of my head.

  Then I hear his voice, muffled and tentative.

  "Sunny?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Why did you let me make love to you tonight?"

  My throat suddenly tight with uncertainty, I ask, "You... didn't enjoy it?"

  He curls even tighter around me. "Sunny, if I'd enjoyed it any more than that, my heart would've exploded." I shiver at his incredibly sexy, raspy voice. "But you never wanted to before, so why...?" He trails off into a silence that is thick with undertones of meaning. "Sunny, you didn't do it as a way of saying goodbye—because you thought you'd leave me. Did you?"

  His chin settles in the crook of my neck, and his breath falls sweet and tender on my face. I turn my head slightly and press a loving kiss on his cheek.

  Then I draw back just enough to be able to murmur, "After Jessica threatened your future, I didn't know what to do. Seth... if it had been the only way to save you, I would have left. And that's when I saw it clearly: I would do anything for you, you own my very being. And if I've already given you all the rest of myself—why withhold my body?"

  "But you wanted to make love and then leave me afterward?" he asks huskily.

  "I thought a lot of crazy things this afternoon. But now that we've made love fully, I really doubt that I could've left you afterward if that had still been my plan. What actually happened, though, is you came home, and the moment I saw you, everything became clear to me. I had the epiphany about Jessica's intentions, and I could've jumped for joy because I finally had an unselfish reason for staying with you, besides the thousands of selfish reasons. I had to protect you, so I couldn't leave."

  "No, Sunny, you can never leave. And you have to let me protect you."

  "And the other way around too," I insist, smiling in the darkness.

  "Just so long as you're clear that you can't leave," he grumbles.

  "Seth..." I start to tell him and shiver in fear.

  He hugs me closer, his hand rising from beneath my chest to settle below my neck, and his arm lying strong and heavy across my torso. "What is it, Sunny?"

  "You know how I told you that I had a lot of crazy thoughts this afternoon?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I did some crazy things too."

  His frame tenses around me. "Like what?"

  "Like calling Ms. Walker."

  "Your social worker?"

  "Yes." My voice trembles slightly. "I wanted her to come pick me up. And Seth... she's driving down here tomorrow."

  * * *

  The next morning, as Seth is walking me to Honors English, there's an almost electric quality to the atmosphere at Rockford High. I see the students huddled together in groups, bent over their tablets and Smartphones and whispering furiously among themselves. Also, for the first time since Seth and I became a couple, most kids don't even bother to look up from whatever they're doing, to watch us as we're passing by. Which I'm really grateful for, of course—I still hate any and all attention—but it is a sign that something major is going on.

  I tug on Seth's hand and raise myself on my toes; he lowers his head so that I can whisper to him: "Do you happen to know what this is all about?"

  He gives me a crooked grin. "What do you mean?"

  "Come on! What's the breaking news that has got everyone congregating, all wide-eyed and excited, and muttering among themselves?"

  "Ah, that."
He shrugs in a perfect imitation of nonchalance. "A video's been uploaded to Youtube and various file-sharing sites and social media. There's also some screencaps of the video's highlights circulating all over the Internet."

  I stop breathing for a moment. "The video—does it, by any chance, star Jessica?"

  His smile turns ferocious, and a shiver runs down my spine. "Yes."

  I want to ask more questions but I'm reluctant; I have a feeling that the answers I'd be seeking aren't ones that I really want to know. So I keep silent until we reach my classroom, and he leaves me with a quick but still exhilarating kiss. I've barely passed through the door, however, when someone grabs my arm and pulls me to the side.

  "What took you so long to get here?" wails Marcie. "Oh crapety, Mrs. Roberts will be here any second and now there's no time to talk!"

  "Calm down, I'm here now. What happened?"

  "Dana was here for you but she just left because she had to get to class. But Summer, she said to warn you about Jessica. Seems she's hunting for you, looking all unhinged and stuff, and said she'd off you when she finds you."

  "What?" I whisper. Does she know that it's me behind the disappearance of her gadgets? Sure, she does, stupid; you're the only possible suspect! Doesn't matter though, since there's no earthly way she can prove her suspicions.

  "Really, Summer, Dana said that Jessica's totally gone bonkers this time. I mean, we're not talking just usual crazy here, we're talking berserk, completely deranged, bats in the belfry crazy. She's—"

  "Marcie, just stop right there! I don't care what Jessica said, and I don't care if she's even more crazy than usual. She can't hurt me now."

  "Uh, Summer... If I were you, I'd still stick really close to Seth for a couple of days." Well, yeah. That goes without saying. "But really, what's up with her flipping out on you this time? I mean, she can't possibly blame you for her naked pictures. Or maybe—"

  "Marcie, stop! Backtrack a moment. What naked pictures?"

  She gives me a what-planet-are-you-living-on sort of look. "You don't know? The whole school's abuzz with it. Someone put on the Internet all this really icky stuff about Jessica. Wait, lemme show you."