Summer Seduction

by Rachel Van Dyken

  I snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, sounds like an actor.”

  She turned and smiled at me.

  “And the third time?”

  Her face paled. She jerked her gaze back to the ceiling. “He was powerful…”

  “And?”

  “…and…” She let out a long painful sight that made me want to pull her into my arms and kiss her lips, whisper against her mouth that I’d protect her, that I’d been wrong, that I’d do anything to take back the hurt I felt from her whenever she was near.

  The music built toward a crescendo as the artists sang of dreams and the power exerted over a person.

  “He wasn’t a good man.”

  Man. She’d said man.

  I stored that away for later as the music shifted yet again into “Music of the Night.” I grinned. “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “You know, we could probably be better friends if you didn’t question everything I asked you to do.”

  “You know, Marlo, we could probably be better friends if you didn’t get me naked in order to satisfy a revenge plot you’ve had against me since high school.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Not since high school. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  An elbow came down on my stomach. Hard.

  “Fuck!” I heaved out a painful breath then grabbed the elbow and the person it belonged to and pulled her to my side, locking her next to me, pinning her arms at her sides. “It wasn’t revenge until I saw you. Until I saw…” I stared down at her mouth. “Ray, it’s never really been about revenge.”

  “Could have fooled me.” She wiggled in my arms and glared.

  “It’s been a lot of things.” I leaned in until my lips were inches from her neck. “It’s been war. It’s been chaos. But it started with want. Revenge doesn’t just happen. You have to lose something first, something so pivotal in your life that the only way you think you can ever truly exist is if you get it back in any way possible.”

  She stopped struggling and relaxed against me. I kissed her bare shoulder. “And what did you so desperately need back?”

  “Other than my pride?” I joked.

  She wiggled again.

  I pulled my hands away. “It’s not so hard to figure out.”

  She sucked in a breath, drew it between her lips as she zeroed in on my mouth. “Other than your pride?”

  “Come on.” I held out my hand and stood. “And remember, close your eyes.”

  “So, that’s it?”

  “Until you figure it out, absolutely. Now let me help you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like your kind of help.” She crossed her arms. At least her eyes were still closed as she stood there. Even her damn body swayed toward me as if it didn’t want to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

  With a sigh, I gripped her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Listen to the ‘Music of the Night…’”

  I GULPED AS he squeezed my hand harder. I tried to focus on the song, but all I felt was him, his massive presence, his cologne, the faint smell of outside on his body as if he’d been rolling around in pinecones, and it smelled so masculine I wanted to lean in.

  I cleared my throat.

  Once.

  Twice.

  “Focus!” he snapped.

  I let out a sigh as the music shifted. My heart wanted to soar with it, but it was like my soul, my emotions were trapped inside my body, fighting for release. But my soul needed a map.

  Directions.

  A bridge.

  Anything.

  “How do you feel about crickets?” Marlo asked.

  “Random much?” I opened my eyes.

  He pulled me to my feet, grabbed the iPad, and nodded to the door. “Fieldtrip time.”

  I hesitated.

  He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled as if I was the difficult one. “This is about you finding something inside and releasing it. This isn’t about our past, revenge shit, or anything. When was the last time anyone ever truly did something for you?”

  Tears filled my eyes.

  I wanted to snap at him.

  To say “All the time.”

  To snort and cross my arms because I had everything, right?

  Wrong.

  I had a nice car.

  I had a bedroom back home.

  A credit card with no limit.

  But I was empty.

  My soul was sad.

  And it was the most depressing thought, the fact that my soul — what made me… me — felt trapped behind plastic things and money.

  In order to survive, the soul needed to breathe.

  And I’d been suffocating all my life.

  Marlo pushed open the door, and it felt bigger than that. Bigger than just a door I had to walk through. Bigger than him helping me with my class.

  Maybe because I knew the minute I walked over that threshold out into nature, I was giving a piece of myself to him.

  And I didn’t exactly have a load of pieces to hand out.

  If I wasn’t careful, he would take them all.

  And I didn’t trust him.

  Not anymore.

  I wanted to.

  Maybe it wasn’t just him.

  Maybe it was just humans in general.

  “It’s just a door, Ray.” he said softly, his eyes sparkling a bit as if he was excited about what was coming next, when all I really wanted to do was lash out at him. I was officially defaulting to what I’d done in high school when he made me sad. When I’d thought about our friendship and how it had all gone sideways.

  But that was the thing about regret — it was so much easier to blame every single thing around you than to admit that maybe you’d had a part in the decision-making too. Maybe the other person wasn’t the problem.

  Maybe it was you.

  With a golf ball stuck in my throat and lead in my legs, I followed him out of the studio and down the stairs, each step harder than the next.

  I didn’t speak.

  I didn’t trust myself not to say something stupid, or worse, cry.

  We walked until we were at his cabin.

  I gulped as he took the steps two at a time, and then opened yet another door I would have to walk through.

  That made two doors.

  Two instances when I had to blindly trust the same guy who knew what I looked like naked and what moans I made when I orgasmed.

  All this before finding out I was nothing more than… nothing.

  I shook my head.

  Nothing.

  I am nothing.

  Legs even heavier, I walked up the stairs and quickly sat on the bed where I’d slept the night before. It felt scarier in the light.

  The darkness had a way of covering things you didn’t want seen.

  But the light? It demanded you see it all.

  “Watch,” it said.

  Marlo placed the iPad on the bed; he didn’t speak, just moved around the room as if he was looking for something. He rummaged through a bag like a squirrel hellbent on finding the last nut before winter, and then he thrust something black into the air.

  “A tie?” I asked in confusion.

  “A tie.” He winked.

  My stomach dipped.

  My heart thudded.

  This guy.

  This guy was not safe.

  I needed safe.

  Someone who wasn’t so good-looking it stole my breath away.

  Someone who wasn’t so talented I just wanted to bask in his shadow.

  “Stand.” He snapped his fingers.

  I crossed my arms.

  He just rolled his eyes and brushed more of that perfect hair away from his chiseled face. “I have to go meet up with Brax about auditions in a half hour, so we have a half hour to practice.”

  “To practice…” I nodded to the tie. “…how to properly tie your tie without hanging yourself?”

  He crooked his finger.

  I sighed and moved toward
him only to have him grab my elbow, turn me around, and start tying the stupid thing around my head, completely covering my eyes.

  “Hey—!” I grabbed the tie in an effort to pull it down.

  “Nope.” He swatted my hand and tied it so tight I lunged backward. “This is going to help. I promise.”

  “It’s the same thing as closing my eyes, genius!”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Wait, did he move? I rotated in a small circle and put my hand out, effectively colliding with at least one eighth of the pack banded around his midsection. My heart sped up as I swallowed against a very dry throat.

  “This is sensory deprivation. It awakens the senses. When you take one away, the others have to step in, right?”

  I swallowed. “Right.”

  “And when you choose to close your eyes, you can choose to cheat and open them.”

  “You calling me a cheater, Marlo?”

  “If the shoe fits, SP.” He’d moved behind me.

  I grinned despite the fact that I wanted to clobber him with the closest shoe I could find.

  “Now…” He was distant again, the music started up. “…Phantom of the Opera is all about the senses. He covers his face so that she can’t see him, but she never falls in love with his face…” He moved behind me. “What did Christine fall in love with?”

  I gulped. “His voice.”

  “His voice,” he agreed. “His magnetism, the way he moved, the way he sang, the way he wrote. She fell for his soul.”

  I sucked in a breath and waited as the music played on, the rise and fall of the lyrics, the captivating sway of the rhythm taking on its own life, gripping me in its spell, creating a subtle longing to let my guard down.

  “He’s obsessed with her,” Marlo murmured. “He wants her, but he wants every part of her, not just her beauty, but her soul. He wants her to follow him to the depths of Hell and never look back. No regrets. Complete submission.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. I mean, I do understand. I just… I don’t understand how a person can do that to someone else without losing everything.”

  “You lose in order to gain,” Marlo said in a soft voice. “Trust me, I’ve never had it all. I never had anything to lose but my pride, and it’s in those moments where I’ve been emotionally and physically bankrupt that I’ve found myself. Your problem, Ray…”

  The way my name fell from his lips brought tears to my eyes. He hadn’t said it like a curse. No, it was worse. He’d said it like a prayer.

  “…is that you’ve never lost everything.”

  “You don’t know me!” I lashed out, ready to punch him in the face. “I’ve lost more than you could possibly—”

  He cupped a hand over my mouth. “Good. You’ve lost. Now use that loss as a way to live. A loss imprisons you, or it sets you free. Your choice.”

  He moved his hand.

  The music was halfway finished.

  I knew the scene. The moment when they were walking around the Phantom’s underground cave, the candles lit, the Phantom dying to touch her as his addicting song fell from his lips. As she yearned to live in his voice forever.

  Marlo placed his hands on my waist and started to sing the Phantom’s part. “‘Softly, deftly…’”

  I leaned back against him.

  I don’t know how long I stayed there.

  Long enough that the song started again.

  “‘Nighttime…’” he began, singing about sharpening sensation and darkness stirring in the mind and waking up every single part of the soul.

  And Marlo sang.

  He sang better than the guy on the soundtrack.

  The orchestra was beautiful.

  Marlo was more so.

  And then his voice was at my ear. He lifted my right arm and wrapped it back around his neck as he sang against my skin.

  Stillness settled my nerves, and I drank in every word as if it was meant for me.

  I wished for once it was.

  That it wasn’t just sexual attraction,

  Revenge sex.

  That it was more.

  Us in this moment.

  I bit down on my lip as he talked about surrender and my dark dreams.

  And when he asked me to purge my thoughts of my life.

  I did it.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  And I gave myself away.

  I turned in his arms and clung to him, keeping him there, scared to ask for more. It was like his voice was caressing me, making love to me. His hands were barely touching me, and I felt so alive from the words that I was almost panting.

  The music ended too soon.

  The blindfold was pulled off and tossed onto the bed. “I have to go check in with Brax,” he said, taking a step back. “You can keep practicing.”

  “Without you?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

  His lips twitched. “I figured that it would be best for you to do this alone, since the last time you trusted me, I had my mouth between your thighs.”

  My entire body seized while my heart slammed against my chest. Heat filled my body until I felt like I was going to sway onto the bed in a sweaty puddle of need. “Right.”

  “Right.” He nodded slowly, his eyes hooded as he raked his gaze over my body as if he had a right to, and then he was gone.

  My heart raced inside my ribs.

  “Ugh, stupid.” I threw a pillow against the wall, grabbed the offending tie, and turned up the music.

  I’D HAD TO leave.

  If I hadn’t left, well…I was having very vivid fantasies of tying her hands up and then wrapping that same tie around the bedposts.

  Her body had responded well; her mind kept her trapped.

  But those few moments when she’d let herself go, she was so fucking beautiful I wanted to keep them forever, so I could watch them over and over again on repeat.

  My head and my heart were at war.

  My head said she was going to screw me over again.

  My heart said that nobody had ever once been on her side.

  I wiped my hands down my face and made my way back over to Brax.

  He was alone in the studio with a shit-ton of papers strewn before him and an irritated look on his face.

  “Problem?” I pulled out a chair.

  “Not really.” He yawned. “Script is already done. Obviously.”

  “So?”

  “So, the creative-writing scripts for the audition are shit.”

  “How bad?”

  He let out a snort and shoved a paper toward me. I read about halfway down. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good either.

  “So…” I cleared my throat. “…we have them act out a scene from the musical.”

  “The point…” Brax leaned forward. “…is to make them uncomfortable with something original so we can see what we’re working with. We need them to write their own monologue. It’s tradition. And it makes them vulnerable. We need to see the raw vulnerability, or we’re going to be like every single Dirty Dancing musical out there with Baby and her little tank tops and Johnny with his angst.”

  I barked out a laugh. “You sound thrilled with this year’s choice.”

  He shrugged. “They’ll get there. We just need a few more days, and auditions are Saturday.”

  I checked my watch and stood. “Well, I’ll help you edit.”

  “No shit?” He looked ready to kiss me. “I was going to be in here all night!”

  “Yeah, looks like it.” I started collecting papers. “Let’s at least get them all started off on the right foot, offer positive criticism.” Should only take another six hours.

  Well, one thing was for certain.

  I was officially missing a staff bonfire for the first time.

  My mind flashed to Ray.

  It was probably a good thing.

  Because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could be next to her and not touch.

  And the last time I’d acted on instinct…

  I’d bro
ken her.

  I COULDN’T SLEEP.

  I hadn’t seen Marlo the rest of the day.

  And I was worried.

  About bears mainly.

  Bears mauling me in his cabin.

  Someone finding out that I’d snuck back into said cabin.

  Cougars.

  The bears again.

  Where the hell is he?

  I checked the alarm clock. Two a.m. He was director. The job had a lot of responsibility. It was not as if he was still at the staff bonfire, right? Plus, Jackson had made it sound like Marlo was arms-deep in camp work.

  So why help me today?

  I chewed my lower lip.

  Part of me felt guilty that he was even spending time helping me while the other, more rational part felt like he owed me after everything.

  Except, he’d been trying.

  He’d been… nice.

  More than nice.

  He’d smiled.

  I pulled the pillow over my face and screamed then tossed it behind my head and let out a huff.

  It had to have been ten minutes.

  But the red digits on the clock stated the obvious — less than one minute had passed, and I was still obsessing. And to make matters worse, the entire cabin smelled like him.

  The thought of going back to my cabin made my skin itch and my chest feel hollow. No. Even if he hated me and told me he was going to put peanut butter on my face and leave the cabin door open, I was staying.

  Because I was afraid.

  And the more he tried to help me unlock everything that was safely tucked inside my head…

  The more fearful I became of everything around me.

  As if I wasn’t aware until now of how dangerous the world was, how scary. And how much the world wanted to devour every last vulnerable inch of me.

  I snuck another glance at the clock.

  Two minutes. Really? How was that possible!

  I glanced over at his bed.

  He had a really nice down comforter.

  It was white.

  What guy had a white down comforter? Dirty boys and white comforters did not mix.

  Not that he was dirty.

  I gulped.

  Well, kind of dirty. I mean, his mouth…

  “Stop it,” I hissed at myself.

  His sheets looked nice too.

  In fact, his entire bed looked inviting.

  I am officially hallucinating, aren’t I?

  With a shrug, I tossed off the covers and padded over to his side, looked left and right as if I was about to commit a crime, then tucked myself right into his bed.