by Piper Rayne
Chapter Fifteen
My fist clenches the sheets and my hips buck.
“Fuck,” I mumble sleepily, my hand moving down to thread through the dark hair of a girl that’s already rocked my world the entire night.
She groans, cupping my balls and I really hope she wasn’t down there long before I woke up. It’d have been a shame to miss any of this.
I’ve never had an alarm clock blow job, but damn if it isn’t the best way to say good fucking morning.
She licks up and down my shaft, teasing my balls with her hand as she swallows me until my tip hits the back of her throat.
After sleeping together for the first time, we had sex in the kitchen, I ate her out on the tequila-covered bar, then bent her over the edge of a chair and still my orgasm rushes forward so fast that I can barely contain it.
As if her mouth wasn’t enough, she fists the base of my dick, pumping at the same speed as she’s sucking me. All the muscles in my body constrict.
“I’m coming,” I announce, my eyes focused on the ceiling.
She doesn’t relent her steady rhythm, and the ceiling goes black, my mouth dry, from my panting breaths. My entire body feels like a stretched rubber band, and I use every damn trick I have to keep my orgasm at bay, but Skylar just took her finger off the rubber band, and I explode in her mouth, flying high until I’m like Jell-O and lay limp on the mattress.
Moving the sheet from over her head, she lips pepper kisses along my torso, hovering above me so her weight isn’t on my arm, and presses her lips to mine. “Good morning.”
“That’s one hell of a wake-up.”
“Want that sponge bath now?” She rolls over, her fingers grazing along my waistline.
“Nah.”
I watch her ass when she stands from the bed. “I have to shower. Zoe’s coming in a little bit to help me clean up and I don’t want to smell like sex.”
“It smells good on you,” I call out after her.
A big boom from the pipes rattling in the wall when she turns on the water interrupts her giggling.
I sit up in my bed pulling the sheet to my waist on the off-chance Zoe brings Molly and Caiden with her. My phone dings next to the bed, but I ignore it, clicking on the television.
Skylar is in the bathroom, music blaring and the faint sound of her singing along. Last night’s events rise in bits and pieces until my sober brain solves the puzzle of what happened last night and the gravity of what that might mean for us.
My phone dings again and I pick it up, ready to send Dax a fuck off text message back. The man thinks it’s hilarious to razz me about being injured and whether Skylar’s been giving me blow jobs along with her nursing duties. If I try to deny it, he’ll know. No one has better hook-up radar than Dax.
But it’s not Dax with his smart-ass jokes, it’s an alert from Instagram. A shift of energy flickers through the air like a big, dark cloud hovering above the room.
Summer.
Hey, I made the first move. Why am I making the second?
* * *
A second message sits immediately under the first.
* * *
Saw you at the Classics, you look good, Myers.
* * *
The messages continue to beep with the phone in my hands.
* * *
You always did make me work hard for your attention.
* * *
Message me, if you’re back in Cali, let’s hook up.
I’m staring at my phone, and my heart beats faster with each message she sends. She always was impatient. Always demanding. Her and Skylar couldn’t be more different. But Summer and I share a history that would shake Skylar’s solid foundation of a loving family like an earthquake.
“Beck.” Skylar stands with a towel wrapped around her torso, another towel twisted in the hair on top of her head. The smile drops from her lips when she registers the expression on my face and my heart cracks.
“Don’t hate me,” I say past the lump in my throat.
“Nope. I’m not hearing it, Beckett. Don’t you dare say it.” She stomps off toward her closet and I rise from the bed and come to stand behind her. She doesn’t comment because she already knows I’ll follow. I’ll always follow her.
Well, not always, not down the aisle.
I lean my shoulder on the wall beside the closet. “I loved last night. Having you after so many years of wanting you.”
“Don’t even bother saying but,” she says loudly to her closet full of clothes.
“But we’re so much more than that.”
She stands in the middle of the room, drops her towel. “Am I not hot enough for you? You don’t want the girl next door type, but would rather some supermodel?”
I swallow deeply, my dick shooting up to full salute.
“That’s not it. You’re gorgeous and when you consider how many times I was inside you last night you know that’s the truth. Hell, look at me now.” We both stare at my dick tenting my boxers.
“Don’t give me some bullshit about me being your family because if we did cross that line, we’d actually be family.”
I shake my head. “Not if we don’t work out.”
She pulls on yoga pants, no panties and throws on a workout shirt and then a sweatshirt.
“And why wouldn’t we work out?” She starts packing a bag.
“Because I’m fucked in the head. Because I’m incapable of having a serious, lasting relationship. I’ve been by myself for so long…I’ll ruin you before you see how I’m not worthy of you. Believe me when I say I’m doing you a favor. I’m a better friend than a boyfriend.”
“And how do you know that? Ever since I met you, you never had a girlfriend.”
I sit down on her bed and pat the spot next to me. “Come here.”
“No.” She sits in her desk chair with a corkboard of pictures from her loving childhood behind her. As if it was placed there to make sure to remind me that she’s perfect, she grew up with the perfect family and she needs a future with a man who has the same. I know my place in her life and it isn’t with matching wedding bands. Even if I wish it could be.
“When I was seventeen, I met a girl named, Summer. We were foster kids in the same home during my senior year. It was the first time I really gave any thought to my future. I had one more year left in the system and I’d already made arrangements to move to Park City and spend every winter riding with the hopes of getting noticed somehow.”
She remains silent, so I carry on.
“We were super close. She was having nightmares when she first showed up, so when she’d wake up, we’d sneak out the window and take walks until she calmed down. Eventually we shared stories about what we’d been through. Her story was much worse than mine.” I cringe and push my hand through my hair remembering some of what she told me. “We made plans for her to come with me, even though she had one more year of school left after me. I mean, kids leave the system and run away all the time and we figured we’d hide out. Not like anyone would really go looking for her.”
She stands up and joins me on the bed.
“Obviously, since hormones control teenager’s actions more than their brains, I don’t have to tell you what happened. We slept together, and I thought maybe it could work, but it was like a light switch was flipped. She turned into a person I didn’t recognize as soon as it was over.” I turn to Sky, cupping her cheek in my hand. She doesn’t pull away. I’ve shared a few things about growing up in foster in the past but nothing to this extent. “You have this great family. Your parents, Zoe, Mikey, Chelsea, they’d all protect you from anything. I have you, Dax, and Grady. That’s it. Dax and Grady are about a minute from getting married and if I lose you.” I push back the tears threatening to fall.
“Beckett,” she sighs.
“I can’t lose you, Sky. I just can’t. You deserve so much in this life and I want to be next to you to experience it, but taking a chance at a relationship, I just...you’re asking me to jump out of
a plane with no parachute and only a net to catch me below. Who knows if it will support us? It could very well break.”
“But it doesn’t—”
“Sky, I’d rather have you as a friend than not have you in my life at all.” I blink my burning eyes again, praying the tears there don’t fall.
She nods slowly, licking her lips. “Okay, we’ll forget last night.”
“No.” I rest my forehead to hers. “I’ll never forget last night...ever.”
She draws back, covering my one hand with both of hers. “If friendship is all you want Beckett, then you’ll need to forget it. I can’t say I didn’t wish this morning went differently. I love you, and not just as a friend, so I’m asking you to please give me the space I need the next few days. I can only make one promise and that’s that I’ll try to move past this. I agree I’d rather have you as a friend than nothing at all. But, you’re breaking my heart right now.”
She stands, picks up the duffle bag she was packing and walks out of the room.
In time, she’ll understand I’m doing this for both of us.
I reach for my phone, pull up Instagram and type out a message to Summer.
Don’t contact me again. I already have someone in my life who means the world to me.
It’s true. There’s no room in my heart for anyone but Skylar. Even if I can’t be with her.
Chapter Sixteen
Skylar didn’t return until after I had gone to bed that night. Zoe never showed up or any other member of her family. I cleaned up the tequila, the snacks and the rest of the mess with my one good arm and regretted what I’d said to Skylar the whole time. But convinced myself it was the right thing to do. And it was. For her. Regardless of how shitty I might be feeling about it.
Neither one of us might think that after what we experienced last night with each other, but in five years when she’s happily married with kids, I’ll be the only one left hurting. She’ll be happy and loving her life. And at least I’ll still have her as a friend.
The following morning, I make us breakfast, and yes, I now realize how much I could’ve been doing on my own instead of relying on Skylar.
She sits down at the table with a meek good morning while I place her egg white omelet filled with spinach and Parmesan cheese and a side of fruit on the plate in front of her. She’s sitting here in her pajamas, her nipples poking out of her tight tank top. I already noticed her short boxers that display the bottom of her ass.
“Thanks.” She moves her fork around the plate without picking a piece of food up. “I thought about it and if you want me to move on, I will.”
I blow out the breath I’d been holding since I heard her moving around upstairs.
She props one foot up on the edge of the chair, swinging her hair over to one side, leaving one side of her neck exposed. I slide into the chair to hide the chub in my pants.
“So, I think it’s fair to tell you that I should be hearing about grad school in the next few weeks. Also, I have a date this afternoon after your doctor’s appointment. I haven’t decided anything yet about grad school or skiing, so please don’t ask. I hope you’re right, Beckett.” She drops her fork and stares me in the eyes. “I hope you’re right. I hope us having sex didn’t already ruin our friendship otherwise, what’s the point of not exploring us as a couple? I guess only time will tell.”
I grab her hand from across the table. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t grip my hand back, it just lays limp in my hands. “Thanks, Sky, I promise I’m leading us down the right path.”
She nods, slides her hand out from between mine and leaves the room. “I need to get ready.”
* * *
Two hours later, a silent Skylar and myself leave the doctor’s office with my cut off cast in a bag.
“My arm feels so small.”
“It looks smaller. The doctor said you’d have to gain your strength back.” She uses the key fob to unlock the doors to the minivan.
Even without a cast, I look like a schmuck sitting in the passenger seat—the mom missile is just salt in the wound.
“I have to stop at Walgreens. You can stay in the car.”
“No, I’ll go in with you.”
She says nothing and the volume of the music in the car rises and I see she’s increasing it on the steering wheel.
I reach forward, turning the knob down. “I think I’m going to catch a flight back to Utah.”
We need some time apart to forget all this, so we can go back to being us. In the meantime, I can’t sit here and pretend we’re good together. I should’ve never listened to my dick. All I had to do was endure a few more weeks.
“Oh. Okay.” She pulls into the Walgreens parking lot, the car about to tip on two wheels, and slams on the brakes seconds before we smash into the building. “I’ll be back.” She throws the van in park and gets out.
Fuck this.
I follow her into the store, her eyes fixated on the signs of each aisle, obviously, on a mission.
She turns down an aisle and I’m a step behind. She grabs a box of condoms and I reach for her arm.
“Don’t do this,” I snap.
She yanks her arm away from me, her eyes laced with anger. “You’re delusional.” Her voice is quiet even though there’s no one around us.
“I said I was sorry, damn it.”
The two of us stand in the middle of the aisle, our eyes laser focused on one another. “You think those cute dimples as a sorry is going to fix this?” she pokes me in the chest. “That’s why you’re delusional.”
She tries to walk away, but I whip her back around. “Don’t walk away from me.”
Again, she removes herself from my hold, her arm swinging to her side. “You want to do this here?” She waits for a second and when I don’t say anything she continues. “You broke me. Fucking broke me, Beckett.” Tears well up in her eyes. “And now a minute after you get your cast off, you’re going to hop on a plane back to Park City because you don’t need me anymore? Well, I don’t have to be okay with it. You aren’t the only one who gets to make decisions about us. You don’t want me? Fine. Someone else will. Someone else will be the one to fuck me every night. Someone else will have the pleasure of my lips wrapped around their dick. Someone else will give me the pleasure of bearing his child. Someone else will slip a ring on my finger.”
“Just fucking stop!” My fists ball up at my sides.
“What’s the problem, Myers? Too much detail for you?” She juts out her hip, her face red and flustered.
I hate what we’ve become, and truth is, if I stay it will only get worse. The only chance to salvage what we have is distance.
“I don’t need to hear it, I feel it.” I step closer. “I’m broken, too, Sky, but this is best. You have to trust me on this.”
“Right now, the sight of you literally nauseates me.”
I step back, her words cutting me.
“And for future reference, I don’t care how this affects you. Because you caused it. We could be happy, Beckett, but you’re choosing to run.” A tear slips down her cheek and my body instinctively moves toward her. Her hand lands on my chest, effectively leaving me in the cold. “Book the flight then.”
She circles around to exit the aisle the opposite way.
I notice a few lingering stares, but this is Chicago, surely, they’re used to this sort of thing?
“Sky? Are you okay?”
You have got to be fucking kidding me. This dipshit again? Does he not work for a living?
“Not you. Not now.” She holds her hand up to Ben and walks straight to the cash register.
“What did you do to her?” Ben asks me from the end of the aisle.
I lift my middle finger, turn and follow her like I always do.
“You hurt her,” he accuses me as I walk around him.
“So did you.”
“But?”
I whip around and surprise Ben. He steps back. “Back off, man. She’s moved on. You broke
her heart years ago, so go home to Beth and remember you made that decision. Skylar’s my problem, not yours.”
He mocks offense and I roll my eyes then turn to face Skylar who’s standing there with her wallet open staring at us.
“I’m your problem? Fuck you.”
She pays the cashier, forcefully grabs the bag and flees the store.
“Why are you so twisted about that guy? It was years ago.” I’m hot on her heels as we walk toward the van.
She whips around in the middle of the parking lot. “Because it was mortifying! I thought I knew how he felt and then he goes and screws around with my best friend. Can you even process what that would be like? And here I am again…thinking I know how a guy feels about me, but I’m wrong again.”
She spins back around and sprints the short distance to where the van is park. Although I’m right behind her, she manages to get into the driver’s side, start the engine and lock me out.
* * *
I knock. “Sky, you aren’t going to leave me.”
She puts the van in reverse and I chase it down, pounding on the hood, but she just keeps on reversing until I have to decide if I want to break something else or stop chasing her. I figure she might as well cool off, so I stop, standing in the parking lot, watching her fishtail and drive away from me.
I always knew she’d leave me behind, this just wasn’t how I imagined it.
Chapter Seventeen
The taxi stops outside Skylar’s house and I have to say I’m kind of scared to go in. I don’t see the minivan in the driveway, so I take my chances. After paying the driver, I notice the mailman is one house away, so I wait. He hands off the envelopes to me with no you’re welcome after I say thank you. Did someone erect a billboard advertising what I did to Skylar? Using the key to go through the front door, the noise inside tells me something isn’t right.
