Coming Up Roses
Page 10
Luke Bennet had been my friend. He’d been my first crush, the first boy’s name I doodled in my notebook, the boy I rushed to work after school to see. Funny, charming, beautiful Luke Bennet, who had convinced me to come to the greenhouse that night, who listened to me cry about my dead mother with that heartbreaking look on his face. Who kissed me in the moonlight and then forgot me completely.
He was unpredictable. What he said, he didn’t always mean. He was dangerous.
We were kids, I told myself. He’s grown up since then.
Teenage me made a face at the thought. Did people really change, or did they only shift, shimmy, slide? And even more troublesome—had he changed, or had I pegged him wrong all along?
His hands on my back nearly shocked me off the swing. With a quiet laugh, he gave me a little push.
“Look at that. It holds,” I said over the thumping of my heart in my ears.
“You doubted me?”
“Considering I didn’t know you knew how to make anything but trouble a couple days ago, I’d say a healthy amount of concern isn’t out of line.”
“Fair enough.”
He pushed me again, as firmly as he could in the space we had, and for a moment, neither of us spoke. The window stretched almost to the floor and all the way to the ceiling, the installment several feet inside of it. I glanced up at the cloud, which was built to look like it was suspended over the swing, the pampas grass swaying with the motion.
“You did good, Luke,” I admitted, not sure how to fill the silence between us.
“You did too. Difference is, I never doubted you.” It wasn’t an accusation. The words were touched with levity, like he was smiling.
“Well, I’ve never given you a reason to doubt me, have I?”
He considered for a beat. “No, I guess not. You’ve always been capable, reliable. Dependable, even when we were kids. But what have I done to convince you I’m not?”
There was something in his voice, the edge of a wound, a tendril of hurt.
“Well,” I started, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but compelled to be honest, “aside from you never holding down a job? Or being in a serious relationship?”
“I was married, Tess,” he said quietly. “How much more serious could I get?”
But I laughed it off, hoping to defuse the tension. “I mean, was Wendy really serious?”
He pulled the swing to a stop. “You think I’d get married if I wasn’t serious?”
I gripped the ropes, shifting so I could look back at him. The hurt on his face was unmistakable.
“I … that’s not what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean?” He waited for my response like he’d wait until hell froze over if he had to.
My lips gaped just a little, my mind scrambling with how to explain, and when the words came, they were honest and blunt, wielded with the unwavering certainty that nothing could faze him. Nothing could hurt him. “It’s just that you’ve always been a player. You fooled around with Ivy for years. Never had a girlfriend in high school, just a string of hookups. And then, out of nowhere, you disappeared with Wendy, who was a notorious flake and player equal to you. You were always so … I don’t know. Unattainable. No one could lock you down. You toyed with every girl’s emotions in a twenty-block radius, so when Wendy did, I assumed it was just a game. Temporary.”
His gaze hardened, his jaw stiff and square. “How do you always do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“Find ways to insult me, even when you’re being earnest?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself.
But he cut me off. “What did I ever do to you, Tess? We used to be friends, and somewhere along the way, you turned into this. You have berated me, insulted me. Treated me like I was second-class. You act like I was put on earth solely to annoy you, and I can’t understand why. So enlighten me, Tess—what did I do to deserve this?”
I hopped off the swing, my face drawn as I turned to him. The secret I’d kept from him, the truth of that night, all of it waited on my lips. But I couldn’t speak the words. I couldn’t admit it, not after all this time.
“Nothing. You did nothing, Luke. Like always.”
All of hell fueled my fire as I blew past, wanting nothing more than to get out of that shop and far, far away. But he hooked my arm, stopping me.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” His brows were knit so tight, they nearly touched. “What happened, Tess? What do you think I did?”
“I don’t think you did anything.” I jerked my arm from his grip, fists like hammers at my sides and jaw like a vise. “If you can’t remember kissing me, I have no interest in reminding you.”
His face clicked open like pins and hammers of a lock.
But I didn’t wait for a response. I didn’t want one. Not when I was sure he’d say exactly what I feared: you meant nothing to me.
There was only one thing to do, one thing I needed—a city block between Luke and me. And with furious tears in my eyes, I brushed past him to put it there.
10
YOU CAN TRY
LUKE
I blinked as she passed like a thunderbolt.
She hadn’t said what I thought she’d said. There was no way I’d heard her right. None in the history of the world.
Never in a trillion years would I have forgotten kissing Tess Monroe.
My hand shot out like a grappling hook, snagging the crook of her elbow. I turned her around, my fingers clamping her arms to hold her still.
“Tess,” I started, my voice calm, still, like she was a wild animal set to bolt, “I have never kissed you.”
She shook her head, her eyes shining. “You did. I’ll remember it until I die whether you do or not.”
I swallowed hard, my mind scrambling backward in time, searching for the memory. “I don’t know who kissed you, but it wasn’t me.”
Fury and hurt lit her eyes like a brazier. “The greenhouse. Laney bought you a bottle of Wild Turkey.”
I frowned. “That I remember. I drank a third of it waiting on you to sneak out. Your mom had just … I’d wanted to cheer you up. But I didn’t kiss you.”
“Are you sure about that?” she shot.
“We talked and drank and…that’s it.” Wasn’t it? “We were friends, Tess.”
“I thought so too. And then you kissed me. You told me you wanted to date, kissed me all night, and forgot me by the morning.”
I found that night in my memory and flicked through it. But the end was a blank space. I didn’t remember anything until the next morning when I woken up, half-hanging from the bunk with a thumping headache and a stiff neck.
“I … I don’t remember.”
“I know you don’t. You didn’t remember when you came to work the next day either. When you patted me on the head and made out with Ivy in storage.”
I shook my head, half to argue, half to shake the cobwebs out. “No.” I pulled her closer, closer still, my eyes bouncing between hers. “I’d never forget you.”
“Except that you did. Because that’s what you do. I didn’t mean anything to you—nothing seemed to—so excuse me for assuming things hadn’t changed.”
“Tess,” I said, the word bouncing off her lips and into mine.
“What?”
“I owe you a real kiss.”
“No, you don’t.” The words trembled, her tone belying their meaning.
I let her arm go, my hand sliding up the line of her jaw, the shape fitting in my palm neatly. “Yes, I do. All I need is five minutes.”
“F-for what?” she breathed.
“To change your mind.”
A shift of permission—the simultaneous intake of breath, fluttering of lashes, tilting of her face, parting of lips. For a protracted heartbeat, I gazed into the face of submission, held it in my palm.
And then I took it for mine.
I was slammed back in time with a jolt.
The moonlight in the greenhouse, the sigh from her lips, the sweetness of her, the fire in me. Tess. Whiskey on her breath. Her mouth, her tongue had been timid, inexperienced. She’d had to go home—I didn’t want her to. I’d wanted her to stay. I’d wanted her to stay forever, and I’d asked her to, first with my kiss, then with my words.
My grip on her tightened, and I pulled her closer—this Tess, my Tess—as if the taste of her, the feel of her against me could prolong the memory. There was nothing timid about her roaming hands now, nothing inexperienced in the way she wound around me. We went up like a torch in a twist, a tangle of arms, our bodies locked and seeking the other. There was no space—the flame had devoured the distance, the air, her and me.
Consumed.
Her arms tightened around my neck, my hand hitching her thigh, my tongue sweeping the depth of her mouth and hers dancing against it.
I didn’t know who slowed, who came to their senses, who remembered the earth existed and tethered us. But the kiss broke. And I looked into the lust-drunk, blinking face of Tess.
“You had to go,” I said, my voice gravelly and raw. “I didn’t want you to go home that night, and I told you so.”
“You did,” she whispered.
“I remember,” I breathed. “I kissed you. I wanted you, thought I had you.”
“But then you forgot.”
“Then I forgot. And you hated me … I thought it was your mom, everything you were going through. I thought you needed space, so I never tried, not knowing I’d pushed you away myself.”
She swallowed, looking up at me with uncertainty.
“I owe you more than a kiss, Tess. Let me make it up to you,” I begged, her face in my palm, my fingertips in her hair.
A flicker of a smile. “You can try.”
And with a smile of my own, I kissed her again with the intention of doing just that.
TESS
Beyond all logic and with all the rightness in the world, Luke Bennet kissed me.
Slower, deeper was this kiss, without the frantic frenzy of the first. He breathed in my fire, stoking it until it raged. But his lips moved with intention, a savoring, sampling game of catch and release. He tasted me like it was the first time so many years ago, like he wanted to memorize the details he’d once forgotten.
Disarmed. He disarmed me, stole my grenades, took down the wall brick by brick, left me defenseless. I was helpless to fight, and my desire to was gone, replaced by another desire entirely.
This was a moment I’d thought about too many times over too many years, one that had found its way into my dreams, unbidden, unwanted. I’d written him off, but then he had come back and did everything right, said everything I wanted to hear without knowing I wanted to hear it.
It was a rewriting of history, that kiss. And I chose to lose myself in the moment.
I should have stopped. I should have refused. I should have stepped back and run out of that shop like it was on fire. Part of my brain screamed for me to, but I pushed her into the cellar and locked the door. This time, I wouldn’t stop. This time, he wouldn’t forget. Tonight, I would be selfish and make a new memory to replace the old one.
I couldn’t ask him for more than that.
Because in the end, I was still me, and he was still him. He would move on again, and I would stay here. I’d be brushed aside the minute Judy called in an order or Wendy blew back in town. He wouldn’t want me for more than this, so I should never let myself want him. Not for more than tonight. Right now.
Letting him in for more than that would be naive. A cavalier risk, not a calculated one. Because the data told me one thing: Luke Bennet would hurt me if I let him.
So I wouldn’t.
A shocked hiss left him when my hand slipped up his shirt, breaking the kiss.
“I’ve wanted to touch you for days,” I whispered my truth, my lips closing over the soft skin beneath his chin. “You’ve been so … shirtless.”
A quiet laugh, his hand still holding my face with tender care as I kissed his neck, his fingertips in my hair. The other hand cupped my ass, squeezing it as if to test the weight.
“So you’ve forgiven me for the grope?” he asked, his hand shifting to the seam of my jeans.
My body clenched when his finger stroked the line. “You made me a swing,” I muttered, lids heavy. “So, yes.”
“And you’ve forgiven me for forgetting?” The question was softer, less sure, more repentant.
“Depends,” I said, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
“On what?” He let me go to reach behind him, pulling it off and tossing it away.
My teeth pinned my bottom lip, my thirsty eyes on his chest, hungry hands on his abs. “On how well you plan on making it up to me.”
He bent to kiss me, grabbing me by the thighs to hoist me up and wrap me around him. His narrow waist in the circle of my legs. My fingers in the silky depth of his hair. My lips pressing his, demanding and submitting all in the same motion.
He walked us to one of the tables, setting my ass on the edge, spreading my thighs to nestle his hips between them. The length of him fitted against me—his basketball shorts masked nothing, and I praised their creator once more—and with the arch of my back, I stroked him, stroked myself.
A deep rumble in his chest, past his lips, across my tongue.
A flash of lightning in my heart.
It was fear, white-hot and electric. Because I’d never had a fling, never had a one-night stand. I’d never separated sex and feelings—I’d never had to. And with Luke, that separation was imperative.
Let her be wild. Tonight. Only tonight.
And so I let go.
Luke didn’t break the kiss, but his hands had their own agenda. The line of my jaw, the column of my neck. Collarbone, the tender flesh in the dip, the hard bone of the ridge. My T-shirt bunched in his hands, rising up my torso—this was what paused the kiss. Over my head, behind him somewhere into the void.
The room was warm, but a riot of goosebumps broke out across my skin, my nipples tight and straining against the thin fabric of my bra.
The second my lips were free of my shirt, they were his again.
A mewl into his mouth when his thumb brushed the aching peak of my nipple, my fingers twisting in his hair, my hips wild, angling for his.
I wished we were somewhere else. Somewhere soft where I could feel the weight of his body on mine. But this would have to do.
I flexed my legs, squeezing until his hips pressed into mine, hard enough that it was almost painful, if it didn’t feel so good.
Oh, this will do, I thought, my tongue brushing his, his hand on my neck, thumb tilting my chin, pinning it so he could delve deeper into my mouth. This will do just fine.
My arms circled his neck as I wrapped my legs around his waist, angling my body so he could do what he would with my breast. Fingers hooked my bra and pulled, freeing my breast. God, I wanted his mouth on me, wanted the heat of it, the slick satin of his tongue on my skin. But I settled for the lock of our lips and his hand on my breast. My ribs. My stomach.
His fingers found my button and opened it with a snap. The vibration of my zipper as he lowered it thrummed down the seam of my pants, against the delicate, aching flesh between my thighs.
Fingertips grazed the hem of my panties, the satiny front, cupped my sex. Tested the valley, circled the peak, his hips grinding into the back of his hand, the pressure spurring a grind of my own.
The kiss broke, leaving me stupefied and slack-jawed, my lids too heavy to keep open. His arm, hot and strong, wound around my waist, and he picked me up. The steaming skin of his solid chest against my exposed nipple sent a shock of pleasure down to the place that needed him so. My legs locked tight enough that he let go, slipping his hands into the
back of my jeans until his hands were full.
Before I realized what was happening, his hands shifted, working my shorts and panties half off in the same motion as he set me back on the table. A yelp of surprise into his mouth, and my jeans were moving down my thighs. One sneaker in his palm, then on the ground. The other followed. And in little more than a handful of breaths, I was naked but for my bra.
Too stunned to parse, too hot to care. His lips moved down my body, closing over my nipple just like I’d imagined. But imagination was nothing compared to the real thing—the slick heat of his mouth, his fingertip tracing the slick heat of my body.
Though not for long, not nearly long enough before he moved on, leaning me back, lips on the curves of my stomach, the swell of my hip. His hand on my thigh, a stroke, a pull to open it, to hitch it on his shoulder.
I willed my lids opened, the white of my fingers in the black of his hair. The bridge of his nose, the crescents of his lashes. His lips, swollen and dusky. The flash of his tongue, the feel against my thigh. My other thigh slung over his shoulder. The tan of his fingers against the pale of my skin. A tug of my hips, a flick of his eyes to catch mine and hold them. To make sure I was watching when he ran the flat of his tongue up my center and closed his lips over my hood, sucking gently.
I drew a ragged breath, my lids fluttering closed, head lolling and thighs trembling. His tongue shifted, soft and hard, flat and firm, slow and fast.
Seconds. Seconds of his mouth on me, and my awareness sharpened, zinging across my skin. My heart thumped, every nerve in my body zeroing in on the place he was latched to me.
A hiss through my teeth. Fist in his hair. Thighs locked, hips flexed, core tight, tighter, squeezing nothing.
Seconds, that was all it took.
I came with a gasp and a cry, my body flexing for a long, suspended moment, and when it let go, it was with a burst of pleasure, a fluttering pulse of my core, my heart, my breath.