Carter sighs. All of a sudden, I feel his lips on my cheek as he kisses me goodnight.
I hope to God he can’t hear me sniffling as he lays back onto the bed.
I hold back tears with all my strength as I hear his breathing pattern ease into sleep. Warmth radiates through my body, and my heart drums.
Maybe there is hope for us after all.
* * *
Carter holds the wheel of the red convertible, glances over, and smiles broadly at me. We laugh as the summer air blows through our hair. I throw up my hands in ecstasy, but flinch when I look over the side of the car and see how close to the edge of the cliff we’re driving.
Looking out, I see a vast expanse of endless ocean. And I notice that if we veer off the cliff it’s a long, long, way down.
My breath hitches with fear and I grab onto Carter’s shoulder.
“Cartwheel. You’re driving so fast. Don’t you think we should slow down?”
But Carter just laughs, smiling at me. God, he’s so devilishly handsome. The weather is perfect, and I’m in a red bikini. Carter’s not wearing a shirt, either.
“Baby, why are you so worried? We’re going to be fine. I always drive this fast.”
“Do you? Well, I don’t know if I like it.”
Carter oozes confidence, but it doesn’t help the impending sense of doom I feel.
Suddenly, I look up ahead and, to my astonishment, see a giant, brick wall in the distance.
My heart drops to my feet. It’s right out of the Looney Tunes scene where the Road Runner sprints into a huge wall.
“C-Carter,” I stutter, grabbing onto him and pointing at the wall. How fast are you going? Slow down, for goodness sakes! There’s a wall coming up.”
“Laces,” he growls, letting go of the steering wheel, and turning to me in the passenger’s seat. “I said, don’t worry about it. I’ve got this handled. You trust me, don’t you?”
I avert my eyes, then look at him again. “I do.”
He locks his amber eyes on mine. “Well trust me when I say I’ve got this handled. Fuck, you look sexy right now.”
“I do?”
“Fuck yes. Come here.”
To my amazement, he takes his foot off the gas pedal, but the car keeps hurlting down the road perfectly. Not running off the edge of the cliff. I take my eyes off the giant brick and soak in Carter.
My heartbeat starts to soar as he kisses me, then runs his hands all over my skin. Heat pools between my legs.
I moan, and he bites his lip, grinning.
He slides a hand slowly down my stomach until his fingers land on my clit.
Smirking, he licks his bottom and then his upper lips.
“So wet for me, aren’t you?”
My eyes glaze over. “It’s not fair.”
He pinches his eyebrows together, confused. “Not fair?”
“It’s not fair how you can do this to me. I hate how wet you make me.”
Chuckling, he runs a hand through my hair, then takes my hand.
Holding eye contact with me, he places my hand on his cock over his jeans. My heart thumps as I feel the thickness.
“It’s too bad you feel that way. Because I love how hard you make me, Laces.”
Warmth radiates through me, most of it pooling between my legs.
I glance away from Carter and down the road. My eyes widen when I see how close we are to the brick wall.
I turn my head back to him, ready to beg him again to slow down, but I notice his attention is averted, his head jerked toward the back seat of the convertible.
He scowls, his eyes burning with that same shade of hate I saw the first day I arrived to Chicago. Growling, he doesn’t look at me.
I turn to see what he’s looking at, and my blood freezes when I see.
It’s an older man, in his forties or fifties, with no eyes, nose, or mouth. Just a blank face.
Carter points as he snarls. “My fucking father!”
I gasp for air.
* * *
I wake up in a hot sweat, and Carter’s got an arm wrapped around me as he cuddles me. I feel him flinching against me. His arm is heavy on top of me, and every time he flinches, he squeezes me tighter.
I swallow, blinking a few times while I think about what to do. Should I wake him up, or is it best that he sleeps through this? I remember the dream I just woke up from, and I wriggle as a shiver spreads over my skin at how appropriate the dream was for our situation.
Feeling the heat centering in my core, I slide my hand between my legs. I’m so damn wet and turned on.
The man even invades my dreams. It’s not fair.
I start to wiggle my hips a little, trying to get out of Carter’s grasp and maybe wake him up. His arm weighs a ton, which isn’t surprising considering he’s what—over two hundred forty pounds?
I wriggle a little and suddenly find myself in a strangely erotic position as I grind my ass behind me, Carter’s cock pressing against my ass. My panties are thin, and I can feel the warmth of his body pressed against me.
It is a hot night, after all.
And Carter likes to go light on the A/C.
He expels a throaty grunt again, and I turn my head toward him.
“Carter,” I whisper, running my hand along his side in an attempt to wake him up gently.
His eyes flutter awake, and I feel his muscles tense. He grips me hard, and I groan. “Ow, Carter, too tight,” I say, grabbing his forearm.
“Oh,” he says, blinking a few times. “It’s you. Fuck, I just had the craziest dream.”
“Me too,” I say.
He loosens his grip, but doesn’t let go, his lanky arm extending over all of my torso.
He moans as he grinds his hips against me, interlacing his fingers over mine. “Lacy,” he whispers. “Fuck.”
I wiggle my hips against him with desperate desire.
“You okay?” I purr, but he doesn’t say anything.
Drawing his hand up to my neck, he kisses the back of it, sending goosebumps over my entire body. His hand finds my panties and he draws them down to my knees, where I finish the job, kicking them off with my feet.
Bringing his hand back up, he cups my jaw, twisting my face toward him so we can lock eyes.
I turn to butter as he slides a hand down my abdomen and lands it between my legs, not saying a word as he keeps his pupils locked on me.
My tongue darts out and lands on his lips. I press the flesh of my ass into his hips, feeling his hard cock slip between my thighs.
Arching my neck back, I reach a hand down and guide him between my legs and inside me.
I’m so wet already, there’s no need for foreplay.
No need for the games we’ve had fun playing.
He grabs my hips as he presses all the way inside me, and I wince a little at his size like I always do as he takes me.
My pleasure crescendos as he thrusts, wrapping what seems like his whole arm around me.
Maybe there is hope for us.
But it damn well feels like we’re speeding toward that wall with no plan of how to slow down or go around it.
32
Lacy
When I get back to the penthouse after our dress rehearsal on Saturday evening, I hear some added voices inside. Female voices and laughter.
My hair stands on end for a moment until I register whose voices I’m listening to.
My eyes widen when I approach the couch in the living room to find Carter’s mom and my own mother sitting on the couch.
“Lacy!” my mom screams, jumping off the couch to hug me.
“Hi, Mom! What a surprise!”
My heart hammers hard, in shock. As I’m hugging her, I glance over at Carter for any insight into how we’re going to handle this situation. Do we tell our moms we have kind of become hook-up buddies in the past month? That we could be more than that?
Carter’s eyes evade mine as he sits by his own mother, talking in a low voice.
Then agai
n, what’s the point in telling them anything about Carter and my it’s-complicated relationship status? And it’s even more complicated after the surprisingly passionate, sweaty sex we had last night.
My mom takes hold of my shoulders and smiles. “You didn’t think we’d miss your big performance tomorrow did you? We wanted to surprise you.”
“Well that, you did,” I say with a smile plastered on my face.
Just then I hear the bathroom door open, and my little sister Eliza comes out. My body warms at her presence, and she skips toward me for a hug.
“Lacy! I’m so proud of you!” she says, gripping me tight. Mrs. Flynn gets up and hugs me, too.
Carter cuts in. “I was just telling them about how you’re on the short list for the Blue Illusion.”
“That’s amazing. At your age, too!” my mom adds.
Her words twist into me a little, but in a way she’s right. Twenty-six is old in dancer years.
“Just remember, honey,” my mom continues. “If you don’t make it to New York, you’ll have a place to stay in Blackwell.”
“I was looking at rent in New York,” my sister blurts out. “As I try to convince Mom to let me skip senior year and move there to do ballet.”
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t do that, honey. It’s important to finish high school.”
“Right,” she nods.
There’s an awkward silence for a moment as we all sort of size each other up. I swallow. I have no idea where to start with everything that’s happened in the past month.
Does Carter want to bring up the fact that he’s found his father?
I glance over at him. He’s in his typical outfit—black gym shorts, blue shoes, and and a grey v-neck T-shirt that emphasizes his rippling muscles. On the other hand, they’re basically impossible for him to hide.
“I’m going to grill some chicken on the balcony tonight. That work for everyone?”
“Of course!” My little sister blurts out.
A little disconcertingly, I notice my little sister checking Carter out as he heads to the fridge and loads up a plate of raw chicken, then seasons it, totally oblivious.
“Can we help you with anything?” she says, perking up.
Carter shakes his head. “You ladies just had a long drive from Blackwell. I’ll cook. Lacy, I’m going to have your mom and my mom sleep in my bed in the master. You and your sister can sleep in your room. I’ll take the couch. Would you mind helping everyone to their rooms?”
“Of course,” I say, my voice a little shaky as I picture the scene in Carter’s room right now, which probably includes my underwear tossed to the side of the bed.
“Carter,” I say, my voice laced with a secret intonation. “Are you sure you want to show your mom the room right now? Don’t you have to clean it up?”
Carter turns to face me, his eyes locking with mine. “I cleaned it up this afternoon. It’s totally and completely clean,” he says, emphasizing the word ‘clean.’ “I even changed the sheets.”
I breathe a sigh of relief that our secret code works in this instance, and I wave our moms to the room, grabbing their bags.
“How was the drive here?” I say, making smalltalk.
“Fine—until we got to Chicago! There’s so much traffic here! I don’t know how you stand it!” Mrs. Flynn says.
I open the door to Carter’s master room and toss their bags on the floor.
“So it seems like you two have been getting along okay,” my mom says. “At least from what Carter was telling us before you got here.”
I smile, maybe a little too broadly. “Of course! I mean, Mom, you know that we’ve been best friends since always.”
Mrs. Flynn and my mom make eye contact and roll their eyes.
“Yeah, okay,” my mom says. Mrs. Flynn sniggers.
I pinch my face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We know the game you two always play when we’d get together in high school. And we always knew you two didn’t actually like each other.”
The pitch of my voice rises. “You did? But I thought—”
Mrs. Flynn sighs. “Lacy, we know you two had a lot of issues when you were younger—and I shoulder the blame for a lot of that. But now that you’re older, it’s nice to see you’re at least being cordial. After all, you are both from the same small town. And you’re trying to make it in the big city at the same time.”
I pinch my eyebrows together. “So if you knew we didn’t like each other, why did you recommend that I move in here!?”
They both glance at each other. “We just knew you were in a desperate place,” my mom says.
I cringe, not wanting to even consider what they are referring to.
“Well, now that you’re settled…”
My mom sees an object on Carter’s dresser, and is drawn to it.
“What’s this?” she asks, picking it up.
My eyes bulge out of my head as she picks up the vibrator from Carter’s dresser. Cleaned the room well, my ass, I say to myself, my heart pounding.
“That’s, uh . . .nothing."
“Oh my,” she says, setting it down and placing a hand over her heart.
Mrs. Flynn, my mom, and I stand in a triangle of awkwardness, all alternating making eye contact with each other.
I shrug. “I guess . . . Carter has a healthy sex life!” I mutter. “Let’s head back into the living room, shall we?”
My skin is red hot as we make our way back into the living quarters. I glance at the deck, where Carter is grilling up a storm. He’s taken his shirt off and has an apron on.
Thankfully he’s otherwise clothed, but that doesn’t stop my sister from sitting at the table next to the deck and shooting him google eyes as she leans onto her palm.
Dear God, I need to have a conversation with her about how to play it cool.
“That’s like, amazing,” she’s saying. “I just can’t believe you made it from Blackwell to be famous. There’s basically like, no one who gets out of there. I want to get out of there, though.”
I let my mom and Mrs. Flynn head to the balcony, then follow behind them.
“Hey B—Lacy, could you get some plates and stuff?” Carter asks, turning to me with a grin.
Did he almost just call me baby in front of our families?
“Of course,” I sigh defeatedly, realizing it’s back to a pretending act between the two of us. Except this time we’re pretending that we haven’t been having regular hot sex over the past month.
We make small talk for a bit, and I tell everyone about how the program has been. For some reason I feel like I’m giving a sports interview that lacks real substance as I tell them everything, but keep my responses vague.
“It’s been good, I’ve made some friends, and the last month I’ve really put my head down and concentrated. It’s now or never, you know?”
“I think you’re going to get the spot in New York,” my sister says confidently.
“Thanks,” I nod.
Finally Carter finishes cooking and we sit down to eat, having a salad and some sweet potatoes to go with our meal.
Carter says he’s got to go to the bathroom before we start eating, and gets up from the table.
“I’m going to get a drink of water,” I add, getting up as well. “Anyone else need anything?”
They shake their heads, and I scurry off, stopping Carter before he gets to the bathroom in a whisper of a voice.
“Carter!”
He turns around. “What?”
“Are we going to—you know. Tell them?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Tell them what?”
“Uh, you know. About us.” I shrug my shoulders and cock my head to the side.
“What’s there to tell?”
I blink a few times and part my lips, but nothing comes out.
“Lacy, I know it’s weird having them here, but it’s just for one night. We’ll be fine. No sense in getting into a whole thing about us with them here.”
<
br /> “It just feels weird keeping a secret from them.”
His nostrils flare, and he averts his eyes from mine for a moment before bringing them back to mine. “So you think it’s ‘lying’ if we don’t tell them we’re in a...What are we in, exactly?”
“I like to call it an ‘it’s-complicated.’”
“You’re proving my point. We don’t even know what to call what we have.”
“Yeah, but still.” I run a hand through my hair, feeling overwhelmed. I can’t find the right words to express what I’m feeling.
Carter smirks. “Is this because your sister was checking me out?”
My mouth falls open and I stare at him, agape. “You did not just say that.”
“Oh please. You were staring at her with devil eyes. The jealousy is written all over your face.”
“My God, Carter. You’re still—”
“An asshole. Is that what you’re going to call me?”
I don’t give him the benefit of agreeing with him, even though he’s right.
He takes a step closer to me and speaks slowly. “I like to call it, ‘someone who dwells in reality.’ I’m going to let you know that your sister is checking me out, even though I can see this is making you uncomfortable.”
I can feel my face heating up and tingling with anger.
Because he’s right.
He glances outside, then pulls me by the waist into the hallway, out of view of everyone on the balcony.
Pressing his hips against me, he pins me against the wall and runs his hand along my hip. “You’re the one who’s suggesting a long-term relationship. And you can’t even handle someone checking me out.”
“Stop it, Carter,” I say, seething, three inches from his face.
His body presses into mine, and I fight the feeling of arousal building in my core. I hate the fact that Carter has a direct line to my desire, just with a simple touch.
“The reason for telling our parents is not at all what I was referring to,” I say, baring my teeth. “I just don’t like lying to them. That’s all.”
His grin turns positively evil. Leaning his cheek against my ear, he whispers. “Don’t look at it as a lie. Just look at it like an omission of truth. I know you’ve been good at that in the past. So why don’t we just consider this summer our little secret until we figure out what the fuck we’re going to do in the future?”
The Lying Game Page 20
