Why hadn’t she ever written to me? Called me? Hell, there had been a ton of ways to communicate, even sixteen years ago. She’d never found me on social media or reached out through the dozens of ways she would’ve known how to use. Considering she was a reporter, I wasn’t sure what excuse would even be plausible.
Why hadn’t she or Brianne told me they were moving? I’d found out three days after they’d left when I’d made an off-hand comment to a buddy of mine that I hadn’t seen either of the Gardener girls around the past couple days. He’d lived across the street and had broken the news that they’d packed their things up the same night Brianne had come to get Tess from my house. No one knew where they’d gone, and Mrs. Gardener’s boyfriend had been pissed.
When Darius had come to school to talk to me – no way would he have gotten past the security my dad had installed at home – I’d told him honestly that I didn’t know where the trio had gone. I’d tried to get information out of him as well, but he’d simply walked away, muttering curses under his breath.
All this shit in our past should have made me avoid Tess in the first place, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have kept finding ways to keep us together all day, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself. It had been a compulsion, or worse, a need that only she could fulfill.
That was how I’d gotten myself in so deep with Rona, almost forcing myself to feel what I thought I should, or what I thought I wanted, to feel.
And here I was, leaving the restaurant and suggesting that we take a walk around. I said it would be good to familiarize ourselves with the area, so we wouldn’t end up lost, but the reality of the situation was that I wasn’t ready for us to go our separate ways.
I’d done some general research on Costa Rica in the short time I’d known of my impending trip, but it’d been typical internet search stuff. I hadn’t been able to request anything the FBI or any other government agency had on the country, and I hadn’t had the time to use other means to get the less well-known stuff that I would’ve liked to have on hand. Taking a walk wouldn’t give me the same level of pertinent information that I could’ve gotten with more time, but it would give me something.
As Tess and I ambled down the sidewalk, I told myself that having her with me was a great cover. That if flags had been raised when a known FBI agent had come into the country, seeing me having an after-meal walk with a beautiful woman should help sell my vacation story.
That reasoning didn’t, however, explain my nearly unbearable need to kiss her. It didn’t justify why I was currently turning us toward a small park I’d spotted, a place that had shadowed alcoves and a more romantic atmosphere than the concrete and steel of a city.
“Do you remember that day we skipped school and spent the entire time walking around the cherry trees?” I asked, stopping in the shadow of a pair of large trees.
Tess’s face lit up, and my gut clenched with such a visceral response that it took my breath away. Seemingly unaware of my body’s reaction, she answered my question.
“We were afraid we’d miss seeing them bloom. Whenever I smell cherry blossoms, I think of that day.”
“Me too.” I stepped closer to her, daring to reach down and put a hand on her waist. I kept my eyes locked with hers as I guided her forward until she was only inches from me.
“You never told me why you asked me to go with you.”
Shit. I couldn’t tell her that. I’d sound like an idiot. I’d thought it’d be so romantic to ask her to be my girlfriend while we stood under the cherry trees. It’d been a little more than a year before the last night we’d seen each other, before the night we’d kissed, but I’d liked her even then. I’d lost my nerve though, wondering what my friends would’ve thought if I’d started dating a fourteen-year-old. I considered it one of the biggest mistakes of my life. If I’d been her boyfriend that night, she never would have left without a goodbye.
I settled for a partial truth again.
“It was something I wanted to do with my best friend.”
“Oh.”
The sound was so quiet that I wasn’t even sure she was aware she’d made it, but it softened her face, giving me a glimpse into the past at the girl she’d been.
I hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her head until our eyes were able to meet again. I wanted this, but only if it was what she wanted too. Time stood still as I bent my head, moving at an impossible pace to allow her the time to decide if this was what she wanted.
The moment my lips brushed across hers, she stiffened, and I waited for her to pull away. Before I could even finish my thought, the tension was gone from her body, and she leaned into me, pressing her mouth more firmly against mine.
I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck, my thumb finding the soft place under her jaw where her pulse rapidly fluttered. I hoped her increased heart rate was because of me and not from our walk, and that she wanted me the way I wanted her.
I hadn’t spent every day for the past sixteen years thinking about her, but the longer we were together, the more all those feelings came back. The most surprising thing, however, was that they were stronger rather than weaker, as if something inside me had been waiting all this time for us to come back together.
Her lips parted on a sigh, and I ran the tip of my tongue along her bottom lip before slipping it into the wet heat of her mouth. I wrapped my arm around her waist, every inch of me suddenly conscious of how delicate she was. What would it be like, having her beneath me, being inside of her?
My fingers flexed against the small of her back, and I deepened the kiss, exploring, probing, twisting my tongue around hers. I lost myself in the sweet taste of her, the gentle mint scent. Her shirt slid up a fraction of an inch and electricity shot up my arm as my fingertips grazed bare skin.
Before I could fully appreciate, what it was like to feel her skin against mine, she pulled back, and the contact was broken. Her cheeks were flushed, her breath coming in quick, sharp breaths. Even in the dimming light, I could see that her pupils were blown wide, leaving only a hint of near-purple irises.
She was as turned on as I was, and that was why I was shocked by the first words out of her mouth.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She wiped the back of her hand across her lips, as if she could still feel my mouth and it disgusted her. “You haven’t changed at all! You’re still the same asshole that you were sixteen years ago!”
My jaw dropped, and I stared at her, my brain unable to change gears before she hurried away.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
We’d kissed, but I’d given her plenty of time to stop it. Even when I’d been holding onto her, I would’ve stopped if I’d thought for a minute she hadn’t been enjoying herself. I had my faults, but I wasn’t that kind of bastard.
And what had she meant by me being the ‘same asshole?’ Sure, the two of us had fought from time to time growing up, but it’d been over stupid, little things, nothing that was worthy of that sort of reaction.
As I thought harder, I became more confused rather than less. We hadn’t been fighting that last night. In fact, it’d been a few months since we’d last disagreed over anything bigger than what movie to watch.
I was still trying to figure it all out when I arrived back at the hotel. A part of me wanted to knock on her door and demand answers, but another part was afraid of what she might say. I didn’t want to find out that I’d somehow been her boogeyman.
Since I wasn’t ready to confront her accusations, I went into my room and went to bed. My decision didn’t, however, stop me from replaying things in my head. First, it was an unorganized mess, images and sounds and smells all tangled up together. The past and present a hopeless knot. The longer I stared at the ceiling, instead of becoming more tangled as I expected, things sorted out until my focus narrowed down to a specific set of memories. One memory, actually.
I could still taste my Caramel Ripple ice cream. That seemed like such a stupid thing to be thinking at this moment w
hen I was sitting next to Tess, asking her whose ass I needed to kick for putting those tears in her eyes. I supposed it was my mind’s way of making a memory, absorbing as much from my senses as possible, as if anything could solidify things more than the tension spinning between Tess and me.
She was my best friend, and we’d touched hundreds – thousands – of times in the years we’d known each other, but when I put my hand on her cheek, it was different. I saw it in her eyes then, the same longing that I’d been feeling for years. I ran my thumb along her bottom lip, hardly daring to believe that I was being allowed to touch her like this. My fingers were restless against her waist, itching to know if I’d be allowed further liberties.
Not that I planned on trying to take them right here and now. We hadn’t even gone on a real date. And I would never try anything she didn’t want, and I wouldn’t rush her into anything either. I’d lost my virginity two summers ago to Angela Rhodes, a cheerleader who was a year older than me. It made me popular when she’d bragged to her friends about how good I was, but I’d regretted it. Not because it hadn’t been fun, but because I’d felt like I’d only done it because it had been expected of me.
No one went into a bedroom with Angela Rhodes at a party and didn’t fuck her unless they wanted to become a social pariah.
I wouldn’t let Tess make the same mistake and regret her first time. I didn’t doubt for a moment that she was still a virgin. From the way she stared up at me, wide-eyed, as I bent my head, I wondered if I’d be her first kiss.
A thrill went through me at the idea that the only lips to have ever touched hers were mine. The bitter tang of salt from her tears blended with the sweet of my ice cream, and I knew I’d never eat Caramel Ripple again without thinking of this moment.
My mouth moved over hers, slow and gentle. Then my tongue brushed against the corner of her mouth, and she made the best sound. Her hands grabbed at my shirt, and a jolt of lust went through me, so sharp and so powerful that it took a shit-load of self-control to break the kiss and simply sit with my forehead resting against hers.
We needed to talk, but when she said my name, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to admit everything that was knotting up in my chest. Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide if I was courageous enough to do it or not because Brianne butted in. Tess must’ve left the gate and door unlocked.
I was so caught up in what had happened between me and Tess that I didn’t realize something was wrong until she and Brianne were leaving. I went outside, but they were both gone, and that concerned me more than anything else. I mentally cursed myself as I hurried back inside and grabbed my phone.
I shot off a text, asking her if she was okay, but no answer came. I stared at my phone for an hour, and still, she didn’t respond. I sent a dozen more texts, but none of them were even read.
There’d been rumors after people realized the Gardeners had disappeared, but nothing had ever been proven. Even now, I didn’t know why she’d left or why she’d never reached out to me. I’d always assumed the kiss hadn’t meant as much to her as it had to me, that I’d completely misread her back then, but now I was completely confused.
As I’d said before…what the actual fuck?
Ten
Tess
If someone would’ve told me a week ago that I’d be spending the first week of the new year in Costa Rica, I would’ve laughed. But I also would’ve laughed at anyone who told me I would kiss Clay Kurth again.
I’d kissed him.
Dammit.
Why the hell had I kissed him?!
I didn’t really need to ask myself the question. I knew the answer. I’d kissed him because, in sixteen years, I’d never found anyone else I wanted to kiss like that. It didn’t matter what he’d done or how things had ended between us. The moment his lips had touched mine, I’d been lost.
The worst part of all of it was that I hated myself for stopping things between us almost as much as I hated the fact that I’d kissed him.
But I had to put all of that aside because I wasn’t here to deal with my shit about Clay. I was here to find my sister…who, unfortunately, was linked to my shit with Clay. But, she was family.
Which was why I was currently standing in a parking lot, squinting up into the sun, my shirt sticking to my back, as I interviewed the first Red Care worker who hadn’t walked past me when I’d asked for a moment of their time. Granted, there was a good chance that I should’ve asked in Spanish rather than English, but that hadn’t occurred to me until the first three people had blown by me.
Once I confirmed that she spoke English, I started in on the real questions.
“Red Care sent out a group shortly after Christmas, and they haven’t spoken to their families since.”
Dammit. I needed more tact than that. Sure, some reporters got stories by bulldogging their way through people, and I completely understood determination, but I was looking to – as the cliché went – catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
“I’m sorry.” I rubbed my eyes. “I just flew in yesterday, and I’m exhausted. That came out harsher than I meant it.”
“You are asking about a missing group of workers?” The woman didn’t look annoyed or mollified as she asked the question. With her arms crossed and her gaze wandering all over the place, she looked bored.
A slow inhale followed by an equally slow exhale helped clear my mind and ground me. I could do this.
“Let me start again,” I said. “I’ve heard a couple people say they haven’t been able to get ahold of family members who were part of a group who arrived around Thanksgiving. I’m looking into it for them.”
I wasn’t quite ready to let out that one of those missing people was my sister. I’d hold that back until I needed it.
“What people are saying that?”
Her tone continued to be flat, but I caught a glimpse of something flash across her eyes.
“Is there a group that hasn’t been heard from since Christmas?” I ignored her question and gave her two of my own. “And why haven’t their family members been informed?”
“We do not provide information on the movements of our people,” she said slowly, as if she was remembering a party line she’d been told to give. “Doing so puts our people at greater risk in the field.”
“You wouldn’t even give family the information?” I pressed. “If someone called you and said they hadn’t heard from their daughter or wife or husband or brother, you wouldn’t tell them what was going on?”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Who said something was going on? Perhaps their daughter or wife or husband or brother simply does not wish to speak with them.”
“Is that the message I should take back to their loved ones?” I said, my voice cracking on the last word. I’d thought I could do this, that I could be calm when I was talking to people about anything. Who knew the sister I’d barely spoken to over the last few years would be my soft spot. “That the people they’re missing probably just don’t want to talk to them?”
Before the woman could answer – if she even intended to answer at all – a familiar voice cut into the conversation.
“Excuse me, ladies, could I have a quick…” The rest of the question faded as I half-turned toward him. “Tess, what are you doing here?”
“I told you I was working on a story,” I said, glaring at him as my potential source walked off. I hadn’t been getting much of anywhere with her, but she was still my source, and I didn’t like Clay screwing things up for me. “Or I was until you interrupted me.”
“What sort of story was it again?” he asked, his eyes boring into mine. “Because I don’t remember you mentioning Red Care.”
My defenses immediately rose, but I pushed them back down. Just because he still knew how to push my buttons didn’t mean I needed to let him do it. My eyes narrowed as I scrutinized his face. He was more mature-looking now, but all the features that had made him a gorgeous teenager now made him an equally gorgeous adult. That wasn’t why
I was studying him. Something was up with him, and I needed to know what it was.
“This seems like an odd place to go when you’re on vacation,” I finally countered. I crossed my arms over my chest and hoped I looked like a stubborn adult rather than a petulant child.
He looked down, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the cracked blacktop, reverting to the teen he once was. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
I barely managed to keep the bite out of my voice. “I don’t have to answer your question any more than you have to answer mine. We’re old friends, Clay, that’s all. We don’t owe each other anything.”
The flash of pain that crossed his face hit me harder than I liked. Maybe I was being too harsh on him. Okay, he’d done something awful, but he’d only been seventeen then. Not a child, granted, but still not an adult. Did I want to be held accountable for all the decisions I’d made as a teenager? People changed a lot between seventeen and thirty-three. Not all of them, but enough that I should have given him the benefit of the doubt.
“You’re right,” he said, his voice almost too quiet for me to hear. “We don’t owe each other anything. If I want you to trust me with what you’re really doing here, I need to trust you, even if it could get me in serious trouble.”
I went from annoyed to intrigued. That sounded more like work than a vacation, but I knew enough about government agencies to know that the FBI wasn’t supposed to be operating outside of the US. I assumed that’s why he’d said that he could get in trouble.
“You can’t repeat anything I’m going to tell you,” he said. “I mean it, Tess. No articles, no gossip.”
His expression didn’t hold even the faintest hint of humor or sarcasm. He was one hundred percent serious, and no matter how pissed I was at him, I would respond in kind.
“Not a word,” I promised.
“I’m not here on anything official,” he began, “but my partner back in Denver asked me to look into something for him. Apparently, there’s a group of Red Care workers who’ve gone missing.”
Finding Brianne: New Pleasures Book 4 Page 5