“I think it’s cool for you to go back to class, but you’re going to need to stay here with Pax and me,” he tells her.
She crosses her arms, hostility radiating from her eyes. “I’ve had about all the babysitting I can take, Vaughn. You guys have stomped all over this whole thing, risked your lives, and pretty much ignored anything I said or wanted. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it since I was old enough to walk.”
“Just because you’ve had to—and gotten lucky, I might add—doesn’t mean you should be or that you’re safe.”
“Lucky? Lucky?” she snarls.
Oh man. I can feel the explosion coming from across the room.
“You have no idea…”
And so it begins. I’ve had enough fights with my sister to know where this is headed. Anyone who thinks cousins aren’t a whole lot like siblings has never seen Vaughn and Carly in action. Not wanting to be in the middle, I get up and snag my guitar and case from the stand by the back door. Then I go out to the patio, listen to the rhythmic whooshing of the ocean, and start to strum.
It’s an hour later, after the shouting has subsided and Vaughn has slammed out of the house, that I hear the glass door behind me slide open.
“Hi,” Carly says, taking a seat on the porch swing next to me.
“Hi,” I smile as I continue to play one of Lush’s old songs, Your Air.
My dad says that no one knows who the song is about—Uncle Joss wrote it alone—but I’ve heard rumors that it’s actually about my mom. Some sort of weird stuff that went down between my parents and Uncle Joss back before I was born. I don’t believe it though. My mom’s only ever loved my dad, and Uncle Joss would never do that to Dad. They’re like brothers.
“Sorry.” She grimaces. “About the fighting. It’s nice of you to let us stay here. I guess repaying you by having a screaming match in your living room is pretty trashy.”
“Nah. It’s just family. Sometimes, families fight. I have a younger sister. I know how it is.”
She smiles and it’s like the blazing, bright light outside on the white sand beach just got a thousand times brighter. The warmth I feel when I’m near Carly is so much deeper and all encompassing than the heat that comes from the sun. I look at her and it suffuses me all the way to my bones, turning them liquid and achy. I want to touch her so much that I have trouble keeping my fingers on the guitar. But as a breeze gusts and her long hair whips around her face, I give in and reach out, tucking a silken strand behind her ear. She watches me with her big eyes, not moving a muscle.
I reluctantly pull my hand back. “He’s just worried about you,” I tell her.
“I know, but I’ve been on my own a long time. Even more, I had to take care of my dad too…” Her voice fades, and her eyes shine with moisture. “At least I tried to take care of him.”
I set the guitar down in the case on the concrete beneath us and put my hand on her wrist, rubbing little circles on her soft skin. “It’s not your fault, Carly. What happened to your dad isn’t your fault.”
She bites her bottom lip to contain her emotions. Then she looks into my eyes with anguish. “I was late that day. We had the one car, and I needed it to get to the job I had. After my shift ended, he called me wanting a ride. I was at the bookstore, and it was the first time I’d had enough money to buy a new book in months. I was so excited, and then there he was, telling me I had to leave right away to pick him up at some convenience store. I was pissed.” She shakes her head, her eyes sad. “I took my sweet time and I was twenty minutes late picking him up. When I got there, he was gone. He never answered his phone again, and the police found him three days later.”
I see a single tear roll down her cheek as she looks at her hands, which are folded in her lap. I reach over and put my arm around her, pulling her head onto my shoulder. She melts into me, and my heart flutters inside my chest.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper. “He lived a dangerous life, and his luck ran out. If it hadn’t been that day, it would have been the next. Or the week after that. It was bound to happen, Carly.”
She sniffs. “He was the unluckiest guy I’ve ever seen,” she laments. “Kind of ironic for someone who spent his whole life doing things that were all about luck.”
I look down at her and we’re both caught, locked in that moment and in each other’s eyes. I put a finger under her chin and tip her lips up to mine. “I want to make it better,” I whisper before I kiss her.
What starts out slow and sweet, like syrup pouring over a stack of pancakes, quickly turns hot and stinging. I nip at her full bottom lip and she moans, pressing her breasts against me. I can feel her hard nipples through our thin T-shirts, and my dick strains against my shorts.
“You’re so hot,” I gasp as I palm her breast over her shirt and then run my tongue along the edge of her ear.
“Touch me,” she breathes, and I swallow, trying to maintain control of myself. I move my hand down to the hem of her shirt, but before I lift it, I make a detour and press the heel of my hand against her core. I can feel the heat through her shorts and she rocks against me gently.
“Do you feel that,” I whisper into her mouth.
“God yes.”
“Do you want me to keep doing it?”
“Please. Don’t stop,” she pleads. “Keep doing it.”
I smile to myself as I undo the button on her waistband and slip my hand inside her clothes. Shit, She’s wearing the tiniest lace panties I’ve ever felt, and when I reach her core, she’s so slick and hot I just about come all over myself.
I freeze for a moment, just relishing the feel of her on my fingers.
She lets out a small whine of discontent.
“Just give me a second, babe.” I breathe deeply, then slide my finger along her before slipping it inside.
“Yes,” she pants. “Yes.”
I begin pumping in and out of her, making sure to keep pressure on her clit with the heel of my hand. She grinds against me, in perfect time with the rhythm I set. It’s like we’re writing a beautiful song together and we sync perfectly.
I slip another finger inside and I can feel her walls thicken around me. In moments she cries out softly and clenches around me hand, over and over again, her breaths harsh and stuttered, until finally she collapses against me, placing soft kisses along my neck and shoulder.
I remove my hand from her tangled clothing and tuck her under my arm again.
“Oh my God,” she says, her voice sated and sleepy. “You’re really good at that.”
I chuckle as I stroke her hair. I’m hard as a steel rod, but somehow it doesn’t matter. The sun is setting, and the breeze is cool. Carly’s head is warm on my shoulder, her hair soft beneath my fingers. I take a deep breath and close my eyes for just a moment, savoring the feel of it all. If there were such a thing as paradise on Earth, this might be it. Carly, the sea, and me.
**
The next morning, Vaughn drops Carly at class on his way out of town. I arrange to pick her up at noon, when she’s finished. She protests our transportation arrangements, but just like she accused us, we ignore what she wants.
“Hey there, hot stuff,” I tell her as she climbs in my truck in front of the dorms. “Want a ride?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “No, but my cousin and his overbearing friend said I have to go with you.”
I laugh, and she punches me in the arm, not playfully. The girl’s got some power.
“So, you going to buy me a corn dog for lunch?” she asks as I rub my aching biceps.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, we’re heading to the amusement park now, right? To pick up the envelope?”
“Uh, no. We aren’t headed anywhere. You’re headed back to my place to do your homework or lie on the beach or whatever. I’m headed to the amusement park.”
“Nope,” she replies, determination painting her face in steel. “You’re not bullying me out of this one. You got stuck doing this j
ob because of me. I’m going along to make sure nothing bad happens to you.”
“Carly—”
“No, Pax. Just no. You shouldn’t even be doing this, but if you’re going to, then I’ll be there too. I’m not some helpless kid. I’ve been dealing with guys like Lagazo my whole life. They were always around—in my house, on the phone, everywhere my dad took me. I know what to look for, how to talk to them. This is my world, not yours, and I won’t let you go into it alone.”
I sigh, looking at her out of the corner of my eye. I don’t think there’s anything dangerous about this gig today, but I hate the thought of her being anywhere near Lagazo and his slimy business. The set of her jaw tells me that she’s not going to back down on this one.
“I’ll just follow you,” she mutters as if she can see the wheels turning in my head.
“Fine,” I say. “We’ll go to the park, we’ll have lunch, maybe I’ll win you a teddy bear or something, and then you’ll wait outside while I go to pick up the envelope.”
“The envelope that you’re going to the accounting office to get?” she asks, her voice disbelieving.
“Yeeaah…”
“You think there’s some sort of danger lurking in the accounting office of an amusement park? I think the real danger is what’s inside the envelope, not where you’re picking it up,” she laughs.
“It’s Lagazo, Carly. Who knows what the hell is lurking or where?”
She shakes her head, still chuckling. “Fine. I’ll wait in the hallway outside. You can be the big hero and go into the lion’s den of accounting.”
I raise an eyebrow at her, and she smiles like a beautiful demon. I hope I’m not leading her straight back to Hell.
The amusement park is one of those places with a little bit of everything—water rides, soaring towers of doom with people strapped to them in little metal boxes, carnival games that cost you a month’s rent to win a five-dollar stuffed animal made in China. The sun is out, and the air is hotter here, away from the coast. I’m in an old Coldplay T-shirt that Chris Martin gave me when I was sixteen and he played a benefit concert with my dad, along with a pair of jeans that are so worn they might just disintegrate at any moment. Carly is in a thin, denim miniskirt that flares out at the hem and a bright-yellow top that clings to her chest and leaves nothing to the imagination. And my imagination can be pretty vivid where Carly’s concerned.
We start off at the corn dog trailer, where Carly wolfs down two of the fried, salty cylinders in about three minutes flat.
“I take it you’re a big corn dog fan?” I ask, watching her lick her fingers as she finishes off the second one.
“When I was growing up, we ate two things—pizza, when Dad had cash, and corn dogs when he didn’t. He’d buy these huge boxes of frozen corn dogs at the warehouse store, and that way, we’d always have something to tide us over when he ran out of money.”
“Did that happen a lot? Where he’d run out of money?” I ask.
She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Pretty regularly. What wasn’t regular was for it to last more than a couple of days. He could almost always get someone to stake him in a game within a day or two and then he’d win some back.”
“So, you love corn dogs because they remind you of your dad.”
“No, I hate corn dogs.”
I look at her, perplexed. “But you just downed two of them in record time. You even asked for them.”
“Yeah. I don’t chew them because I hate the taste so much. But I eat them to remind myself of why I’ll never live like that again. To remember what it’s like to be so desperate that you’ll feed your kid corn dogs for days on end. Now, I have choices, I have freedom, and I don’t ever want to take that freedom for granted, so I’ll eat corn dogs to remind me.”
I swallow, overwhelmed with respect for this woman—so young, so vulnerable, but so tough at the same time. The things she’s endured and conquered—she makes me feel like I’m nowhere near worthy of her.
I take her hand in mine. “All right, then. Now tell me, with your newfound choices, what do you want to eat?”
She thinks for a minute, worrying her lower lip as she does. I resist the urge to touch it, see just what it feels like against my fingertips. Finally, her eyes light up and a smile spreads across her face, turning her from beautiful to stunning in an instant.
“I want to eat a giant pretzel,” she announces, “with the horrible orange cheese sauce.”
I laugh and clasp her hand tighter. “Then that’s what you’ll have,” I say as we start to walk down the aisles of the vending trailers.
“And after that, a soft-serve vanilla cone,” she adds, taking a little skip next to me.
“You got it,” I answer, dreaming of sweet, creamy vanilla flavoring various parts of her.
We eat pretzels and ice cream, I win her a stuffed animal at the skee ball booth—yeah, all that skee ball practice at seven stayed with me—and we go on the Ferris wheel. Even though it’s not technically a date, I feel like I’ve fallen into an old movie, complete with “boy meets girl and they go to the fair on a first date.”
So I’m kind of disappointed when the Ferris wheel doesn’t stop with us at the top so we can look out over the surrounding landscape and I can steal a kiss. But as we dismount from the wobbling metal car, I catch an unstable Carly in my arms and know it’s my chance. I pull her to me, smiling down at her as she gazes back at me.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods, and her tongue darts out to lick her top lip. I hear my own quiet groan as I lower my head and press my lips against hers. And God, they’re every bit as incredible as I’ve imagined. Soft, plump, smooth as silk. It’s like every nerve ending in my body has zeroed in on my mouth.
She presses closer, and I wrap my arms around her waist and crush her to me. I slide my tongue along her lips and slip inside her warm, wet mouth, reminded instantly of being in other warm wet places of hers. Our tongues tangle, our lips caressing and massaging. Her hand against my chest clutches at my T-shirt, and I can’t help but allow one hand to wander down her back, and lower, where I lightly palm her perfect roundness.
“Sir? Sir!” the carnie yells at me. “You’re going to have to move so we can load the next passengers.”
I pull back, reluctant to stop, and stroke her cheek as I gaze at her in awe.
“You’re incredible,” I whisper.
She smiles, shy and sweet. “I think we’re in the way,” she whispers back.
“Okay, but we’re doing more of that very soon,” I warn.
“Only if you buy me more ice cream,” she teases.
“Baby, I’ll buy you the whole dairy case,” I answer as we walk away from the best damn Ferris wheel I’ve ever ridden.
**
Carly waits in the hallway for me as I go into the accounting office to collect the envelope. I walk to the desk of the receptionist.
“Can I help you?” she says dully, not even looking up from her computer monitor.
“Yeah. I’m supposed to pick up an envelope for Mr. Lagazo? My name is Pax.”
She stops screwing with the computer and pulls her bottom desk drawer open. “Pax? Yep. Here it is,” she says, handing me a small manila envelope that is sealed and has Lagazo’s name on the front with mine smaller, just below it—Pax.
“Thanks,” I tell her, taking it. As I walk back out to get Carly I can feel that the contents are nothing more than a USB drive.
“What’s in it?” she whisper-shouts at me as I hold her hand and lead her out of the building, toward the parking lot.
“A flash drive,” I answer. “And no, they didn’t tell me what’s on it.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Nooo. Really?”
I laugh. “Just in case that was your next question.”
After we get back on the highway to Bittersweet, Carly gets fidgety, sighing and shifting in her seat.
“What’s going on?” I ask, giving her hand a squeeze.
She clears h
er throat, awkward and nervous. “About earlier—yesterday and at the Ferris wheel?”
“Yeah?”
“It was great—”
“Yeah, it was.” I waggle my eyebrows, and she smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I know it’s seemed like I’m all for it, but on second-thought, I don’t think we should do it again.” She rushes ahead without taking a breath. “And maybe you weren’t planning on doing it again—”
“Actually,” I mutter, “I was planning on doing it again.”
Her brow furrows. “We can’t,” she blurts out.
“Why?” I’m pissed, so it comes out sharp.
“Because you don’t want to do this”—she does that hand-flapping thing that cracks me up so much—“with me. You’re just stuck with me while you’re helping out with Lagazo, and you feel sorry for me.” Then she looks out the window, pressing her lips together.
Concern washes over me. “Carly? Look at me,” I instruct.
She turns, her eyes big and sad.
“You think I feel sorry for you? No way. Never. I think you’re strong and tough and smart. Plus, you have great legs,” I grin, and she gives me a small smile back. “I kissed you and touched you because I like you—a lot. I wanted to from the first moment I saw you on that beach, but since you’d just been throwing down with Nicky, I figured the timing was off right then.”
She giggles, and a tightness in my chest loosens.
I reach over and run the backs of my fingers along her cheek. “I’d like to touch you again—a bunch of times—and maybe take you out to dinner too. You up for that?”
“What do you think Vaughn’s going to say?” she asks with a grimace.
“I’m guessing he won’t be very happy, but I’m ready to talk to him about it. How about you?”
She sighs. “It’s not his business.”
“Yeah, but you know he’ll have something to say. Vaughn always has something to say.”
“You guys were good friends back in Portland?”
“Yeah. Our whole lives. Our parents are friends.”
“How did your parents know each other?”
Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax Page 7