by Tamara Lush
I chuckle. “Yeah. I always loved this old thing. He’s letting me use it while I’m home. Check out the inside.”
First, I open the driver door, and Kate oohs and ahhs over the meticulous restoration of the thin, aqua-colored steering wheel and aqua and white upholstery.
“Your dad’s like the coolest guy on the island, you know that? This is something else.”
“Don’t remind me. Do you know how hard it was growing up with a father who was a former punk rock singer and a successful businessman and someone who had cooler taste than anyone on the island?”
Kate laughs, a sound that lifts the ever-present weight.
“Check out the back.”
I point out the side doors, the perfectly restored floor mats, the gleaming chrome touches on the rims.
We make our way around to the hatch trunk, and I open the top window, then the bottom, showing her the pristine floor mat I’d helped Dad find online.
“We installed the mat yesterday. He was going to put in the original third row of seats, but we took out the second and third rows, figured this would be more practical, having all of this empty space for paddleboards and surfboards and such.”
She stands next to me, close enough that I can smell her perfume. It’s not what she used to wear in high school. It’s more sophisticated and sultry, like cinnamon and a campfire with a hint of jasmine.
The scent makes me want to run my nose over every inch of her body. Dammit, I would have thought I’d learned some control. Still, this is the happiest I’ve been in months. Years, even.
I launch into a detailed explanation of the things my dad did to the car over the years. “I helped when I could. Bought parts from all over the world, had them sent here. When I came home, I’d help him work on it.”
She’s staring and nodding slowly. A serious expression descends on her pretty face. Like she’s never heard anything more interesting than the intricate details of a vintage car restoration.
I’m talking for so long and trying to ignore my heart hammering against my chest—now beating erratically the more perfume I trap in my nose—that I don’t immediately notice that she’s looking up at me.
I glance down and give my beard a stroke.
“Oh, no. Am I boring you? Sorry.” I grin. “Let’s go take that walk on the beach.”
I set the jacket on the pristine gray floor mat.
“Not bored at all,” she says, and moves an inch closer. So close I can feel the heat of her skin. I swallow hard. The swell of her breasts is dangerously close to my body.
“I love listening to you talk, Damien. Something about your voice. It does things to me. Always did.”
Her compliment renders me speechless, like nearly everything else she does. I’m not sure how to respond, so I take her chin between my thumb and forefinger and tilt her face. She rises on her tiptoes and leans into me.
That’s when I succumb. Dammit, I can’t help it. I’d come here to apologize and say hello after ten years, not seduce her. And yet, here I am, every cell in my body desperate and screaming to eat her with kisses.
I dip my head. Right before my lips touch hers, a warning invades my mind.
This is a mistake. I’m leaving for Syria in three months. And I might not return.
The moment our mouths meet, I know this kiss is absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent, a huge fucking mistake.
Because I’m still in love with Kate Cooper, and I don’t deserve her incredible kisses.
I don’t deserve her at all.
Four
Kate
Damien Hastings tastes delicious. Like whiskey with a hint of orange blossom honey. Like high school fantasies and like a grown man who has learned how to kiss a woman properly.
He also smells faintly of soapy limes, and the smell-taste combination is doing some wild things in parts of my body that have been dormant for several months.
I pull back from his lips and swallow. “Um, whoa.”
Not the most alluring reaction I’ve ever had to a man’s kiss, but my brain isn’t firing on all cylinders right this second. Probably because of the intense, sudden heat that’s bloomed, no, exploded, in my belly and below.
His eyes snap open. “Oh. Oh God. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you without permission. I couldn’t help myself…I assumed…”
I wrap both of my arms around him and practically climb him like a tree. “You assumed correctly.”
He lets out a low chuckle, and I stand on my tiptoes to steal another kiss. Somehow that ends with me in the back of the wagon and us stretched out, Damien’s long legs hanging off the back.
“You are so, so beautiful,” he murmurs, his hand brushing my hair back. He’s half on top of me now, his big, hard body pressing into mine. “This is exactly what I wanted ten years ago.”
“Us smooching in the back of a perfect wagon in a parking lot?” I giggle.
“Yep. This.”
He’s kissing me like he’s hungry. Like I’m delicious. Like he’s suddenly faced with an all-you-can-eat buffet of a rare delicacies.
Okay, maybe that’s me. I’m kissing him back like I’m starving.
I also can’t get enough of his stubble. It’s soft and smells like spicy limes, and I hesitantly press my lips to the furry spot under his bottom lip. The sensation on my skin drives me so wild that I finally give up on discretion and nuzzle my nose and mouth into his jaw. A purr escapes my lips.
“You like the beard?” He tugs my hair gently, enough to make my scalp tingle.
“Love the beard. Love.”
He pulls my hair harder, and I rip my face out of his stubble. That’s when he presses a featherlight kiss on the sensitive spot of my neck, the one about an inch under my ear. Then another. And another.
I whimper. And shudder. He clearly knows what he’s doing to me because he keeps kissing and kissing, the stubble tickling and tickling. Pure pleasure.
Then he bites softly, and I gasp.
“Kate?”
I slide my hands around his scalp and scratch softly. He lifts his head.
“Kate? Controlling myself is getting really hard. I don’t know if I can handle it.”
Even in the wan orange glow of the parking lot lamp, I can still detect the intensity in his eyes. He repeats himself, slowly, while pressing his hips into mine. He whispers the word fuck, and I melt, all while agreeing that yes, that’s exactly what we should do at some point.
Like maybe right now, because my entire body aches for him.
I’m not at all surprised to see that I’ve wrapped my legs around his hips and we’re basically dry humping like teenagers. It doesn’t even matter that the newly installed mat in the wagon barely conceals the metal beneath. There’s a bump that’s jutting into the small of my back, but I don’t care.
My body appears to be doing its own thing—which would be getting as close to Damien’s hard muscles as possible.
I nod and shudder again. “Okay. Then don’t control yourself. Please?”
He shakes his head, almost like he’s guilty of something. “Not here. Not like this.” He thrusts into me, the roughness of his jeans causing a desperate friction between my legs. The man hasn’t even touched any part of me other than my neck and face, and I’m already wet and needy.
I run my hands over his chest, feeling the muscles under the T-shirt. It’s sort of crazy how touching his body makes me feel so wild and primal.
Still. As much as I want to have sex right now, it’s probably not the best idea to screw in the back of a wagon in the empty parking lot of Mom’s tiki bar. Island police do cruise through here, and stray tourists use this as a shortcut to Main Street.
Dammit.
“We can’t go to my place. I’m at Mom’s, and her house is small. You know that. Sorry.”
He dips to kiss me again, his tongue pushing into my mouth. After a solid few minutes of the sweetest, dirtiest kiss I’ve ever had, he pushes himself up and takes a deep breath.
“Don’t
apologize. I’m staying at my parents’ place, too. But my room is upstairs…”
A look of pure frustration crosses his face. He looks so damned cute when he scowls, and I grin.
“What?” He brushes a kiss over my lips, his frown turning to a smile.
“We’re twenty-eight, and we don’t even have a place to hook up. It’s funny.”
“I guess you could call my giant, raging hard-on funny.” He laughs and presses into me again. Oh my God, it feels like his erection is massive. I shiver.
“There’s nothing funny about that,” I whisper.
He moves off me and stretches out on his side. Well, sort of stretches, as much as he can. Damien’s so tall that we’ve migrated to a diagonal configuration in the back of the wagon, with his feet hanging out the back. I curl up next to him, and he kisses my forehead.
Pressing my ear to his chest, I can hear his heart pounding.
It’s beating like that because of me.
The eighteen-year-old me is floored. The twenty eight-year-old me is aroused to the point of near-begging. I’d fantasized about what Damien would be like in bed so many times, and it seems like I’m finally going to fulfill every one of my dirty dreams.
“I also don’t want you to think…how do I say this?”
I prop myself up on my elbow so I can stare at his face in the light of the streetlamp. My stomach flutters. “Think what?”
He strokes my hair softly. “I don’t want you to think that I think you’re easy. Or a slut. Given everything that happened to you in high school.”
I frown, and the tightness in my stomach turns to a block of concrete. “Damien. We’re not in high school.”
“I know.”
“What happened to me was the fault of bullies and a culture that blames and shames girls. I’ve grown up and moved on from that kind of thinking. I’m over the slut shaming. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to have sex. You’re single, right?”
“Totally single. Never been more single. Single and ready to mingle. But only with you.” He traces my cheekbone.
“So this is perfect timing. I happen to be single, too. No problems here.”
“Thank God. I don’t think I could handle it if you had a boyfriend.”
A grin spreads across his face, and I reward him with a soft kiss. He wraps his arms around me and rolls me on top. I feel like I’m a third of his size, and I giggle at his sheer physical perfection. I feel like I’m making out with some sort of superhero who could protect me against a nuclear war.
“You’re so much bigger now.”
“You like?”
“Very much, Damien. But, listen.” I slide off him and rest my hand on his chest. “I hope you don’t think you owe me anything after high school. I don’t want to be a pity fuck or anything along those lines.”
“Excuse me?” His voice has taken on a cool tone. “What?”
I shrug. “A pity fuck. Because we had all that awkwardness our senior year. Because you feel bad about everything I went through after we kissed.”
“Okay, let’s get a few things straight.” His voice is cool and clear now. No sexy, growly Damien. “However much time we spend together now, it’s not going to be a reprise of our last conversation ten years ago.”
I freeze. “What do you mean?”
“You said something similar when I asked you to prom.”
“That you were doing it out of pity.”
“Yep. And I wasn’t. And still you said no. I respected that and left you alone.”
I don’t say anything. He’s right.
“If I say the word fuck in relation to you now, to us it’s out of lust and emotion. In my more rational moments, I don’t want to fuck you.”
My stomach plummets. “Oh. Okay. I’m sorry.”
He puts his big hand over mine. “What? Why are you apologizing? I want to make love to you. With you. Ravish you. Devour you. Consume you. When I said the word while we were dry humping a few minutes ago, it was shorthand for, I want you so bad that I can only utter this one word because all the blood’s rushed from my brain and into my dick. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Two.”
“This is a multi-point discussion?” I smile in the semidarkness.
“It is.”
“Okay, then.”
“Two. I’ve had a massive crush on you since freshman year when you transferred into the school. I was such a dork back then that I didn’t get my shit together to talk to you until senior year. When you said you’d go to that party with me, it was the best day of my life.”
I pull my hand out from his and trace his jawline. “Whose party was that, anyway? I can’t remember. It was on the other side of the island, in one of those big mansions.”
“Me either. It was one of the guys from the football team, but I can’t recall which one. They were all rich, and they all lived in those mansions.”
“Mmm. I remember how nervous I was going into that bedroom with you.”
“And when we kissed in that bedroom? Jesus, Kate. You have no idea. I was so pissed when the guys interrupted us.”
“You were my first kiss. Did I ever tell you that? It was such a perfect one.” I squirm half on top of him again, mindful of the small space. My lips find his, and we smooch slowly for a couple of minutes, until he shifts his big body. “Still perfect. You’re a damn fine kisser, Damien.”
“Three.”
I let out a little growl of dissatisfaction. All I want is to make out some more. “There’s a third point? How many points in all?”
“Not sure yet.”
I press my lips to his. “Okay. Make as many points as you want. I’m listening.”
“Thanks. Three. You’re not a pity fuck. You’ll never be a pity fuck. You’re not a pity anything. So get that out of your head right now. I adored you back then. After that party I wanted you to be my girlfriend.”
“But you understood why I pulled away, why I refused to go to prom,” I whisper fiercely.
“I do now. But back then, I was angry. Angry that everyone labeled you a slut, angry I’d gotten into a fight and was suspended, angry that you wanted nothing to do with me. I was a little prick.”
“I thought I was doing it for your own good. Because if you kept fighting on my behalf, you’d either be arrested or not graduate or both. I didn’t want to be the one to screw up your future.”
“I wanted to spend the summer with you. Wanted a future with you. As much of a future as two eighteen-year-olds could have.”
I prop myself up. “Oh, no. Now I really feel bad. We never talked about it back then. Not like this. But I guess teenagers aren’t the best at expressing their thoughts and feelings.”
I’m not sure I’m any better at expressing my feelings now, but I don’t tell him that. Because this conversation is making me tremble inside. He’s being so intense. I had no idea the depths of his feelings until now.
“No. I definitely wasn’t good at expressing myself back then. I’m way better at it now, probably because I know how fucking short life is. So I’m going to be honest here. I still adore you. You haven’t changed, you know? You’re still the amazing girl I knew ten years ago.”
I am? The silence in the wagon hangs heavy. He does? “I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
“No, babe. I went into the Marines, and you went to Chicago. But I never forgot about you.”
“I never forgot about you, either.” There. That’s as far as I can go tonight. Ever, probably. I don’t want to let myself fall head-over-heels for a guy who’ll probably be gone in a month or two. As shitty as my life’s been lately, I don’t think I can handle heartbreak on top of everything else.
But a sweet-hot hookup? I can totally handle that. I think.
I let out a satisfied sigh and press my face into his stubble again. So many emotions are swirling around, laced with lust and need and memories. Screw it. The best way to push past all that is to keep kissing this beautiful man.<
br />
It feels too incredible to stop.
Since I want to steer the conversation away from all serious topics, I launch myself into kissing him with everything I’ve got. He responds in kind, with hard, punishing kisses that leave me trembling with need.
“I can’t fucking resist you,” he murmurs.
We spend the next half hour making out in the wagon. Teasing each other with bites to the lips, furtive caresses over clothing, barely satisfied sighs. My shorts ride up my butt, and I squirm while on top of him.
“You okay there?” he asks.
“I’m a little uncomfortable. My shorts have crept up in the back…”
“A wedgie?”
I hum a yes. His hands go to my butt and squeeze.
“Here.” He tugs them down at the hem. “That better?”
“Yep. Thanks for fixing my wedgie.”
“I will gladly help you with your butt anytime you want. All you need to do is ask.”
I dissolve into laughter as sheer joy washes over me. I’m making out with Damien Hastings in the back of a vintage wagon at late on a Thursday night in an empty parking lot. No angst, no worries about high school assholes, no regrets. Only pure lust and happiness.
The certainty of feeling wanted.
The rush of kissing a (sort of) new person.
Who cares where this is headed?
Our sugar-coated sexy-times come to an abrupt end when I realize Mom’s probably waiting up for me. As much as I want to stay here all night, entwined with him in this car, I feel a strong pull to check in on her. I share my problem with him, resting my forehead against his and sighing.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s okay. No apologies. From now on, no apologies,” he says, smoothing back my hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Five
Kate
The next night, Damien shows up with his twin brother Remy and their older brother Tate. A twinge of disappointment pings inside my stomach, because I’d hoped to be alone with him.
The bar’s packed because it’s a Friday, and the place practically comes to a standstill when the three of them walk in. Probably because they all look so much alike. Tall, bronze skin, dark hair, flashing dark eyes. They each have varying days of scruff on their faces, with Damien sporting the thickest. Tate’s a little shorter, Remy’s slightly more bronze because he spends his days on the water as a fishing charter captain.
