“What?” I asked, giving him a lazy smile, my voice honeyed with lust.
“I think the whole neighborhood just heard you declare yourself the goddess of orgasms.”
I lifted an eyebrow, not in the least bit embarrassed. “Well then,” I said, reaching down to wrap my fingers around the hard length of him. “I suppose you need to offer up a sacrifice to the goddess.”
“Didn’t I just do that?” He lowered his hips so that the tip of him brushed across the flushed skin of my stomach.
I shivered. “A goddess can never have enough.”
“Good,” he said in a low voice, “because I don’t think I can ever get enough.” Austin leaned over to get a condom out of the nightstand, and I dropped my gaze to watch as he slipped it on. I wanted those talented fingers playing across my skin again.
He shifted, and I opened my legs wider. I tried to hold his gaze as he slowly entered me, but it felt so good, so right, that I closed my eyes, knowing I’d have to remember this moment during those three months that we’d be apart.
When he was all the way inside, he stayed still, tense above me.
“Frankie?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not a goddess,” he said, thrusting slow and deep.
“I’m not?” I couldn’t even bring myself to be offended. He felt that good inside of me.
He lifted up on one elbow and held my waist with his other as his hips moved faster, pushing as deep as possible with every thrust.
“No. You’re my future,” he groaned. “My muse.”
Well then. Muse was an upgrade from friend. I could deal with that.
Austin leaned forward to skim his lips across mine, teasing me with half kisses, his movements becoming frantic. My hands traced the hard planes of his body until I was digging my fingers into his hips, pulling him harder into me.
And as the pressure built inside both of us, sweat slicking our skin, words and kisses becoming sloppy and wild, he murmured, “My muse.”
***
Popcorn was like the venereal disease of snack food. And that shit was everywhere. Every time I thought I’d found the last bit of it, another patch would appear, and I’d get irritated all over again. I couldn’t get rid of it. I kept finding kernels in unexpected places, and the smell had seeped into every corner of the house.
After Austin left, I was so frustrated and hurt that I had considered just getting back in bed and sleeping the day away. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, but the truth could still cut as deeply as a lie. Sometimes even worse because there was no denial to soften the blow.
But then I saw the popcorn scattered all over my floor and knew that if I left it there and ended up infesting the house with bugs or rodents, Austin’s words wouldn’t be the only harsh ones I’d be hearing. My brothers would rip me a new one for being careless and lazy.
And so, even though I wanted to give in to self-pity, I straightened my shoulders, fetched the dust pan from downstairs, and began the painstaking task of cleaning up what turned out to be three trash bags worth of Austin’s prank. Every time I dumped a pan full of mess into a bag, I turned around to find another pile of it. I could have sworn the popcorn was breeding under my furniture because it was literally in every nook and cranny of my room and seemed to be multiplying whenever I turned my back.
By the time I tied off the final bag, it was almost nine in the morning. And even though I’d promised myself a nap if I cleaned up the mess, I also knew that Drew would be showing up soon. We were finally going to work on the front porch, and he’d promised to let me help. The new planks and railing had been delivered already, and he said it shouldn’t take too long to repair the porch and give it a makeover. I was usually more than a hindrance than help when it came to construction, his words not mine, but I needed to get the repairs done, and he was willing to let me try my hand at being his assistant.
I took the trash bags outside and dumped them into the cans. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Austin coming around the bend in the road as he finished his morning run. He’d been gone for a long while. Not that I was a stalker or anything…Okay, I totally was. But after leaving my house, he’d been home only long enough to put on running shoes. He’d been gone for hours.
I’d planned to try to go with him this morning, that’s why I’d set my alarm, but it was probably a good thing it hadn’t worked out. I might be able to race a dirt bike with no problem, but it had been a while since I went running and I wasn’t entirely sure my sneakers or my body would survive one of Austin’s workouts. Especially the marathon run he’d been on this morning. And there was also the possibility that he wouldn’t have wanted my company.
So why did I want to go if I knew it would be a disaster? I’d finally decided that I was going to tell him the truth. It wouldn’t be long until I had to return home and time was running out for me to make my confession. When I first saw him again, he was so angry at me that I was afraid to tell him, afraid to trust him with something so fragile.
But with the way he’d followed me on my trail rides lately and after our evenings sharing music, I’d started to believe that he was the same boy I’d fallen in love with. I thought he would care about the truth and that he’d want to know.
And I thought that if we were running, I wouldn’t have to look at him as I confessed everything. That way, if he ended up furious, which was likely, at least there would be running to help burn off the anger. It had seemed like a brilliant idea as I’d dozed off last night.
But then he showed up outside my door this morning after his prank, looking bedraggled and exhausted, staring at me like I was his last meal. And I couldn’t control myself. I’d launched myself at him and begged him to fuck me. With my brother’s old leftover condoms.
Yeah. Not one of my finer moments.
God. I was such a fucking disaster. I should be thankful he came to his senses and left before either of us added any more mistakes to this shit storm that was our past.
Austin went into his house without looking at me. The coward that I was, I decided I wasn’t ready to tell him the truth after all.
I might never be ready.
Dropping the lid to the trash can, I went back inside the house and started a pot of coffee. I opened up the fridge door looking for something to eat. While I was standing in front of the open door, scanning the nearly empty shelves for some sort of magical food I didn’t have to prepare, my phone started to ring. I tugged it out of my back pocket and noticed Drew’s number before I answered.
“Hey,” I said by way of greeting. “What’s up?”
Drew coughed, and when he spoke, it sounded like he’d been gargling with razor blades. “I’m not going to be there today, Frankie. I feel like shit.”
Damn it. That porch was a death trap, and I was looking forward to having it fixed. Especially since it seemed every time I walked on it, it tried to kill me. Perhaps it was retribution for making Austin carve my name in it all those years ago.
I sighed. “I hate to tell you this, but you sound like shit too.” Drew tried to laugh, but it sounded like a seal barking. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Take whatever time you need. I can handle things here.”
There was a moment of silence, and I imagined Drew frowning at me. I could almost hear his glare over the phone. “Promise me you won’t mess with any tools while I’m gone.”
And here I thought I’d been doing a good job of helping out.
“What? I’m the best apprentice you’ve ever had,” I boasted, pulling a carton of old leftovers out of the fridge and eyeing it dubiously.
He sighed. “You almost cut through the shitter pipe in the basement with the reciprocating saw.”
I turned and tossed the container into the trash and then shut the fridge door to lean against the counter. “Almost…but I didn’t,” I reminded him.
“Just… take the day off, all right? Go for a ride on the trail or something.”
“I can’t jus
t take the day off!” I said, throwing my free hand into the air. “I have a yard sale next week, and then this house has to go on the market. There are no days off!”
“Look,” Drew said in a calm voice even though it was so jagged and raw I could barely hear him. “One day isn’t going to kill you. Take it easy today, and we’ll work a day this weekend to make it up.”
I wanted to argue that I’d been working on the weekends anyway, but I didn’t want him to feel bad. It wasn’t his fault that I had to sell the house. He didn’t know the real reason I was anxious to get back to Texas so quickly, and I certainly wasn’t about to tell him. Some secrets needed to stay that way.
“Fine,” I agreed. “I won’t handle any of the power tools without you around.”
He made a sound of relief.
“But,” I said. “Just so we’re clear, I’m going to work that screwdriver so hard it’s going to need a day of rest.”
He chuckled and then it turned into a coughing fit. Once he’d gotten himself under control, he said, “You can screw whatever you want, Frankie. Just don’t touch anything with a sharp blade.”
“Oh really? I can screw anything I want?”
He made a choking sound that almost sounded like laughter. “Jesus, Frankie. It’s too early for this…”
I cut him off to save him from replying. “Don’t worry, Weatherby. I’m only messing with you. Get better okay?”
“Yeah. And you stay out of trouble.”
“Not making any promises,” I responded airily. “Later, Weatherby.”
I hung up and then stared at the screen of my phone, wondering what I should do with my day. Everything I had planned was getting thrown right out the window. There had been no secrets confessed at dawn, and it seemed there would also be no repairs done to my old porch in the afternoon.
I attempted to convince myself to call Austin and have the heart to heart conversation that I’d been planning this morning, only as I began to work up the courage to do so, I came up with a million reasons not to. The main one being that it wasn’t only my life that could be destroyed by the truth. After the way Austin acted this morning, could I trust him to be rational?
Maybe one emotional confrontation per day was enough.
Swiping back a clump of hair, I decided I would spend the day tackling Nana’s room instead. I’d been avoiding it for way too long.
Grabbing my coffee and a granola bar out of the cabinet, I headed up the stairs and took a deep breath.
I could do this.
***
The loud rumble of an engine yanked me out of my nap and tossed me into wakefulness. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and then blinked a few times as I picked my phone up off the nightstand and looked at the time. Almost 5:30 in the evening. I’d been asleep for about two hours.
As I sat up, the sharp edge of the box that was next to me dug into my side, and when I turned to look at it, there was a sinking feeling in my gut that was just as sickening as the first time I’d lifted the lid and laid eyes on the contents inside.
While cleaning out Nana’s closet, I’d found the box on the top shelf, tucked away under a pile of hats. I’d expected to find some old pictures or random items she had nowhere else to put. Instead, I was shocked to find letters, dozens of them, all addressed to me in Austin’s handwriting.
In a daze, I carried them to my room, sat down on my bed, and stared at them for about half an hour, trying to work up the courage to open one. I was overwhelmed by the number of envelopes tucked inside which had been organized by delivery dates.
When I made my decision to leave Vegas four years ago without giving Austin an explanation, I vowed to completely cut myself off from him, to break any connection that might tempt me to change my mind and possibly ruin his future. My brothers and Nana had all argued that I wasn’t making the right decision, that it was wrong not to at least give Austin the chance to choose for himself, but in the end, they had stayed faithful and kept my secret.
Maybe deep down they knew I’d been right; that even though Austin deserved the right to choose, he probably would have chosen wrong and everyone would have suffered. I was willing to be the bad guy in this scenario, to take the burden of being hated.
Over the years, I had agonized over what Austin might have thought or felt, but I’d stayed strong. I’d stayed away. And I had been right. He and Dallas had gotten the success they deserved. Even though I wondered what he thought and how he felt, I stayed true to my vow.
And now, I had an entire box that would answer all those questions. If Austin had taken the time to write me, he would have told me exactly how he was feeling. He always told the truth. I was the one who lied.
As desperate as I was to know what was in those letters, I was also terrified. How much of it was worry for me and how much was hate? And could I deal with his hate and disappointment when I knew that both were deserved?
In the end, I didn’t have the courage to read them. I laid down beside the box, pulled it against my chest, and closed my eyes. The words would still be there in an hour. Days. Even months. And so I slept, the unknown lulling me to sleep.
But now, it was the familiar sound of an engine that was demanding my attention. I pushed up from the bed and went to the window, pulling back the curtain to peer down in my yard. To my surprise, Austin was sitting on Pauly’s old bike, a battered helmet under his arm and an impatient expression on his face as he looked up at me.
My heart lurched with hopefulness. If he was on the bike, then that meant he planned to ride with me today.
I pushed up the window and leaned on the sill.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He cupped his hand around his ear and revved the engine of the bike a few times until I rolled my eyes. Finally, he shut it off, and the stillness of our shared yard sounded almost silent in the absence of the growling engine.
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
“You invited me on a ride, remember?”
There was a snarky response barking in the back of my throat, demanding that I tell him he refused the morning ride I’d offered him. But even I knew that bringing up the almost-sex we had was a horrible idea, so I went with a safer response instead.
“Give me a minute to change.”
He nodded, and I watched as he dismounted the bike and pushed it toward the front of the house.
Confused by his willingness to hang out with me, I quickly got rid of my shorts and replaced them with jeans and my riding boots. I ran a brush through the nap-induced tangles of my hair and then deftly braided it.
When I came downstairs, Austin had already loaded Pauly’s bike, and he was leading mine to the ramp that would guide it into the bed of my truck. When I tried to take the handlebars from him, he shook his head.
“I got this. Grab the bags.” He gestured toward my porch where two bags were sitting on the stairs next to the broken railing. I raised my eyebrow at his back but did as he said. I was usually the one being bossy.
We got everything secured and then climbed into the sweltering heat of the cab, rolling down the windows to let in some fresh air. Austin was quiet as I pulled out of my driveway and I bit the inside of my lip to keep from speaking, to give him a chance to say whatever it was I could tell he wanted to say.
“Frankie…”
Nerves fluttered in my chest and down into my belly as I wondered just how harsh he was going to be with me. If he demanded to know why I left and what I’d been doing the last four years, would I be brave enough to finally tell him the truth?
What he said caught me off guard.
“I want to visit Nana Ruth.”
I turned to look at him, and had a hard time getting my mouth to pick the right words out of my brain. “Oh…uh…yeah. Of course.”
He turned to face me, and I looked away, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze.
“When I came back and found out from Ms. Rose that she had a stroke, I wanted to go visit,” he
said. “But she didn’t know where you all had taken her once she was released from the hospital.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the tension in his jaw as he turned forward. “After you left Vegas, Nana Ruth was the only person in the family I was still in touch with.”
I swallowed down the guilt. Of course. Jimmy was in Texas, Tommy was in New York, and Pauly lived in Baltimore. Nana had been Austin’s only link to me. I could only imagine the helplessness and bitterness he must have felt to come home after Dallas’s death and find her gone with no way to reach her. To have that final link severed.
“We…Jimmy and I…moved her to a nursing home near us. In Wortham,” I admitted.
“Wortham,” Austin repeated in a resigned voice. Like it was the answer to a question he’d gotten wrong on every exam he’d ever taken.
“It’s about an hour south of Dallas,” I explained, dragging my bottom lip between my teeth in nervousness.
“That’s where you’ve been. All this time?”
I nodded and took a deep breath, remembering when Beth had picked me up from the airport and taken me to live with her, Jimmy, and their son, JD. She had helped me find purpose and had given me a chance to discover a new path for my life. It hadn’t been the easiest path to travel, it wasn’t the one I had dreamed of, but it was a good one.
“Jimmy lives there with his wife. After…Vegas…that’s where I went,” I told him.
Austin turned his head to stare out the side window, and even though I looked over at him, I couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t guess his expression.
“And that’s where you’re going. After you sell the house. You’re going back to Wortham.” He phrased it as fact, not a question.
I squeezed the steering wheel. He wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know already, but his saying it out loud didn’t make it any easier to bear. “That’s my home.”
Hated (Hearts of Stone #3) Page 17