eyond Desire Collection

by JS Scott, M Malone, Marie Hall, et al

  Up in the apartment he turns to face me. I know he’s going to pull me into his arms, and I duck away at the last minute, not sure I can handle his kindness right now.

  “What do you have to drink up here?” I ask, rubbing my arms. That tingling, itchy feeling I get when panicked hasn’t gone away yet, despite my distance from the house. Taylor rakes his hands over his face.

  “I still feel shitty from this afternoon,” he says before sighing. “And you were in much worse shape than me. Do you really want to drink again?”

  A wave of hot shame washes over me. Even though this is Taylor of all people, I feel embarrassed. Judged. Like there’s something wrong with me, like I’m pathetic. Weak.

  Then he takes my hands in his, bending slightly so that our faces are level. “Usually, when I just need to escape from it all for a while, it helps to just be with you,” he says. He grins before his face turns serious again. “You take the edge off, babe. That’s probably the cheesiest thing I’ve ever said in my life, but it’s true.”

  I stare into his face, stunned. Just like that the thread of guilt and worry that was tying me to the house seems to snap, freeing me. I’m here with Taylor, really here with him, and that’s all I care about.

  His continues to stare at me, his eyes intense and dark and oh so gorgeous. My heart is beating hard, and I have to remind myself to breathe. It’s unbelievable, really, that he would say something like that about me. Like I’m important to him, or something. How could that be true?

  He tugs on my hands, pulling me closer to him so our chests are nearly touching. “I usually escape in whiskey, Zoe, when things really suck. Which is pretty much all the time. I think you do that, too.”

  I nod, silent, and his eyes soften slightly. “Well, tonight I want to try something different. I want to escape in you.”

  I’m kissing him before he’s even done talking. As his lips part against mine, I know he’s right, so right. I want to escape in him, too. In his lips, in his touch. He’s exactly what I need, the only thing I need.

  He pulls me over to the couch, and we’re stumbling, falling, neither one of us willing to let go for even a second. He stretches out on the cushions, my body flush on top of his, holding me tight. His hands are everywhere, his mouth hot and hard against mine, his tongue coaxing open my mouth. My skin is already on fire. He barely has to touch me to make me come alive, and he sure as hell is touching me now.

  There’s too much clothing between us. I pull back so I can yank at the hem of his shirt, and he gets the point, sitting up so he can slip it off in one smooth, fluid movement. God, the sight of his body. His skin is so brown now, and I vaguely recall that he’d taken his shirt off during the game. I must have been in pretty shitty shape for that not to have made a bigger impression. I feel bad again, just for a second, but then I notice how his tattoos are vivid against his tan and, just like that, I’m back in the moment. He’s all muscle and tightness, smooth skin and color.

  I want him so bad.

  I push him back into the cushions so he’s lying down and, straddle him. His eyes widen slightly as I sit up, and, before I can get scared or change my mind, I grasp the hem of my own shirt to take it off. His hands still me.

  “Let me,” he says. His voice is low and sexy, and it makes me shiver. “Please.”

  I nod, and he sits up, pulling me lower on his lap. Slowly, he lifts the hem of my t-shirt, bringing it up over my head. I raise my arms, and he pulls my shirt free. I shiver again when the air hits my heated skin.

  “Zoe. God.”

  The look in Taylor’s eyes makes me blush, which is silly. It’s not like this is new territory for me. But it feels new. It feels like no one has ever seen me this way, like no one has ever looked at me with so much desire and…something more. Understanding? It’s like Taylor really looks at me, looks at all of me, like he sees more than anyone else does.

  Wanting nothing more than to see that look in his eyes forever, I reach behind me and unhook my bra, letting the straps fall around my shoulders. His sudden intake of breath brings a smile to my face, but then he’s kissing me again, and I can’t remember why I was amused. I can barely remember my own name. The feel of his skin against mine is almost more than I can bear. He stands suddenly, bringing me with him. I wrap my legs tightly around his middle as he walks, our lips never parting.

  I marvel at how strong he is. His shoulders are taut, his biceps straining under his ink as he kicks open the door of his bedroom and carries me to the bed. He rests his head against mine and his breath comes shaky and fast. “Are you okay?” he asks, and my heart softens at his consideration. God, I’m turning into such a girl. I just nod, but still he watches my face.

  “I want you, Zoe. I really want you. But if you’re not ready—”

  “I’m ready,” I say quickly. If he doesn’t get my pants off soon I’m going to implode.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Taylor,” I say firmly, “it’s nice of you to be a gentleman and everything, but my God, man, get a move on.”

  He throws his head back and laughs. His chest vibrates against mine, and I’m fascinated by the tendons standing out in his neck. I indulge my urge to taste them, running my tongue over his skin. He hisses and drops me to the bed. I bounce a little on the mattress, laughing, but then he joins me and the urge to laugh vanishes.

  I try to memorize every moment of it, the way his fingertips trace my collarbones before dipping down to my breasts, the pads of his thumbs brushing against my hardened nipples until I’m writhing and mindless on the bed. The way his lips feel on every inch of my skin, kissing and teasing and nipping at me. The groan that comes from deep in his throat when I slip my hand into his boxers.

  He gets my pants off remarkably fast after that, and my underwear soon follows. Hazily I try to remember which ones I was wearing, whether they were pretty and matched my bra, but I decide that neither of us probably cares. And then his fingers are trailing between my thighs, gently moving them apart, and I lose all ability to think.

  All I’m aware of is heat. Heat where his fingers brush against my core. Heat where his lips touch my breast. Heat against my fingers, too, as I take him in my hand, helping him with the condom. And all the while his eyes are on mine, dark and deliciously intense, watching me like he can’t bear to look away.

  When he finally moves in me, it’s all I can do to keep from laughing in delight. How had I ever thought what I had with those other guys was worth anything at all? I’d been a fool. They were nothing like this, nothing. Not even close to this, to Taylor. I feel like I’m melting and flying and breaking and dying all at the same time.

  “Taylor,” I whisper as I start to come apart. “Please.” Struck with the certainty that I’m about to fall, I wrap my arms and legs around him as tightly as I can.

  “Yes,” he says. He’s kissing my eyelids, my cheeks, my neck, my lips. “Yes, Zoe.” He says my name like it’s sacred, like it’s the only thing he has to hold onto. As if he can save himself, keep himself from falling just by repeating it. “Zoe.”

  I close my eyes and follow him over the edge.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Taylor

  I spend the next week in a Zoe-induced sex coma.

  I sure as hell am not complaining. Nothing in my life has ever felt so good, so completely right, as having her in my arms. Or in my bed. I do everything I can to make sure that happens as often as possible, using any excuse to get her into my apartment. I tempt her with movies she likes and promises of new paintings for her to check out. I even cook for her a few times, that’s how bad I have it. The look on her face when she sees me turning bacon makes it worthwhile, though—and the way she thanks me with her warm little lips is the icing on the cake.

  If I really think about it, I know I will freak out. It’s too much and way too fast, the way I feel about her. I’m not this guy—the type a girl like Zoe deserves and can count on. I’m not even capable of attempting to be this guy. I’m terrified
I’ll screw it up—and I’m sure I will eventually—and she’ll leave. Or, worse, she’ll realize how freaking crazy I am about her, and she’ll bolt. She told me from the start that she doesn’t believe in fairytales or happy endings. What would she do if she knew the things I was thinking about her, if she knew I was thinking about our future together?

  And then there’s that—our future. It’s not worth thinking about because I don’t have one. I’m stuck right here, trapped in this fucking apartment where I can keep an eye on the woman who hates me so much she can barely stand to look at me. My life is a mess, a hopeless mess, and dragging Zoe into it is probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. And the fact that I can’t make myself care just proves my mother right, doesn’t it?

  So I don’t think about all of that. Instead, I just enjoy her as much as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can.

  We’re spending almost every night together now. Even when she says she needs to go home to help her mom she inevitably comes back to my place sometime after dark. I hate that she’s walking here on her own, and I beg her to just call me to come get her. But still she shows up. I promise myself to do something about transportation for her as soon as I possibly can.

  Sometimes, when she shows up in the middle of the night, I can tell she’s been crying. Other times she’s breathing heavy, as if she ran the whole way. She never tells me what’s going on at home, what causes her to take off in the middle of the night. That her step-dad might be involved fills me with a rage so intense I actually scare myself.

  She notices one night. She’d let herself in around midnight—I’d told her about the secret key after the first time she’d showed up so late—and her eyes were red with tears. She won’t tell me what happened, will only say that she’s fine, and it makes my hands shake with rage. So she holds them and kisses my palms until I feel better—then she kisses the rest of me, her lips and her eager little fingers making me forget why I was upset in the first place. It isn’t until an hour later, when we’re curled up, naked under my sheets, that she brings it up.

  “Your hands shake,” she says, her voice free of question or judgment, like she’s commenting on the color of my curtains or something. “When you get upset.”

  I exhale, my hands clenching a little against her bare stomach. I try to relax. “Yeah. That’s usually one of the signs I’m going to lose it.”

  She turns in my arms so that she’s facing me. I’m momentarily distracted by her breasts. The way she’s lying pushes them together, her cleavage peeking out at me from under the thin sheet. I have to swallow heavily to get myself under control. It doesn’t matter that we made love less than fifteen minutes ago—it’s never enough.

  “Does it happen a lot?”

  I’m relieved that she doesn’t look scared. But then, she doesn’t know the whole story yet. “You remember that game we played? At Fred’s house?”

  “I’m about to find out about the arrest, aren’t I?” Her eyes are sparkling, like she thinks this is amusing.

  “I beat the hell out of a guy in a bar.” My voice is soft, and I can’t meet her eyes. I don’t want to see fear or disgust there. “He…he was saying shit about my brother. Stupid shit, not even a big deal. He just wanted to get to me. Well, he did. By the time they got me off of him I’d broken his nose and three ribs and fractured his skull.”

  I hear her intake of breath, but still I don’t look up. Cracking a guy’s skull is not the kind of thing normal people—even the kind of rough crowd she’s used to—have done.

  “Was he okay?”

  I search for disgust in her voice, but it’s not there. I let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, thank God. I dream about it all the time, what would have happened if he didn’t recover. How that would feel…” I trail off, the nightmare taking over my imagination again. It takes a minute for me to realize she’s rubbing my knuckles again. “The prosecutors agreed with my lawyer that I was a messed up kid and hadn’t meant to hurt him so bad. They let me plead out. I’ve been on probation for the past two years.”

  “That must have been scary, not knowing what was gonna happen.”

  I blow out a harsh breath. She doesn’t need to know that, at the time, I almost hoped they’d charge me, that they’d send me away. It would have been something of a relief to prove everyone right about me, to know my parents could just write me off once and for all. And, even worse, there was a part of me that wanted to be punished for something. I’d gotten away with ruining my brother’s chance at recovery, the least I deserved was to spend some time in jail.

  “Yeah, well, my dad wasn’t about to let me ruin his reputation like that. In came the fancy lawyers, and, before I knew it, the whole thing was over.”

  She’s quiet for a minute. “You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you mention your dad.”

  I roll over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. “He’s not around much.”

  “Are they…did they split up?” I can tell she’s treading lightly, not wanting to push too far.

  “No. I mean, for all intents and purposes they aren’t really together. He took a transfer out of state. It’s supposed to be temporary but…I don’t know. He used to come home every weekend. Then every other. Now we don’t see him more than once every other month or so.”

  “That kind of sucks,” she says, her tone heated. “That he just left you here with…her.”

  There’s pure venom in her voice, and I figure she’s remembering that first night, what she’d heard my mom say. I clear my throat. “Yeah, well, I can’t really blame him. She’s usually too drunk to even know he’s back in town. I wouldn’t want to come home to that either.”

  “I’d want to come home to you,” she says, and reaches out to place her hands on the sides of my face, turning me back toward her. I can’t look at her, not right now, so I just grab her, needing to feel her arms around me. She obliges, holding my face close to her chest, just under her chin. I breathe in the scent of her, the softness of her skin, and try to calm myself. I hate thinking about my dad, hate talking about him even more. I idolized him as a kid. He was so big and strong, powerful in his designer suits, going into the city to run his empire. But on weekends that would all disappear. He’d dress in jeans and flannels and grill out back, throwing a baseball around with me and Jim until dark.

  I moan a little, the memory hitting me so hard, and she squeezes me tighter.

  “He must agree with her, you know? Or else he wouldn’t go. He blames me, too.”

  “Has he told you that?”

  “He doesn’t have to.”

  She makes a quiet sound of disapproval in the back of her throat and brushes hair off my forehead. It’s the kind of thing my mother would have done, once, and the tenderness of it hits me right in the gut. “Stay here tonight, okay, Zoe? I’ll drive you home early enough to check on your mom before class in the morning.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she says. “I’m right here.”

  She holds me like that for a long time, running her fingers through my hair, placing soft kisses on my forehead. It’s the closest I’ve come to someone loving me in five years.

  “You should tell me,” she eventually whispers. “When you get angry like that. Maybe I can help.”

  I smile. “Yeah? How would you help?”

  She thinks for a moment. “We could try different things. Like, I don’t know, taking a break. You could let me know when you need a time-out, and I can make sure you have a quiet, safe place to be.”

  I pull back so I can see her better. “Wow. That’s actually a really good idea.” I’d been expecting her to make a joke, maybe something sexual to make me laugh. I’m kind of blown away at her thoughtfulness.

  “I meant it when I said I wanted to help.”

  “You do help, Zoe,” I whisper, returning my head to her chest, hoping she can feel how much I mean it. “You help more than you could ever know.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Z
oe

  I feel like I’m living in a bubble. Like somehow I’m insulated from the normal bullshit that gets me down. My mom is doing amazingly well, better than I’ve seen her in months. I can almost convince myself she might actually be okay, that somehow the meds have started working or the chemicals in her brain have evened themselves out. I come home from school and she’s up. I make her an early dinner and she actually eats it. It’s wonderful.

  And then there’s Taylor. Part of me is terrified by what’s happening between us, but I do my best to talk that voice down. Because, really, I do not care. I don’t care how dangerous it is to get attached to him, how much potential there is to get hurt. I don’t care because he’s so amazing, and he makes me feel amazing. I can’t bring myself to question that or even worry about it. I just want to be with him.

  As is quickly becoming the norm, he meets me on campus Friday for lunch. We share a plate of fries in the noisy food court, and I can’t help but notice the way pretty much every woman in the room is staring at him. That might piss me off, but, to be honest, I can’t blame them. Dressed in faded jeans and a blue button-up work shirt he looks every bit as good as he does in his street clothes. The grease on his forearms only adds to the effect. His hair, as ever, is a tousled mess, and there’s plenty of sexy stubble on his chin.

  I almost feel bad for the staring girls. As good as I’m sure the view is from their vantage point, they have no idea what they’re missing. His eyes are where the real magic happens, the way they gleam with amusement and wicked humor, the way they deepen and intensify when he watches me eat. Sexy doesn’t even come close to describing this man.

  And he’s all mine.

  “Okay, what is that smile about?” Taylor asks. He leans forward so his face is inches from mine. “Please tell me what put that look on your face because it was hot.”

  “Yeah?”

  He leans even closer. “Oh, yeah. So hot I’m starting to think we’re misusing these lunch breaks by eating.”