Ditched_A Left at the Altar Romance

by Holly Hart

  “You all right?”

  “Just too close.” I’m practically panting; it’s ridiculous. She’s destroying me with her hand; every time I feel myself easing back, she glides her fingers along the underside of my shaft just so, and I’m ready to explode.

  Kate leans close to whisper in my ear, and even that’s too much; the subtle tickle echoes all the way down my side, making me jerk into her hand. I barely register what she’s saying—yeah, that’s good; let me see you—and, oh God, I’m right there. She slides down my body, licks my inner thigh, and I’m fucked. I lose it with a sound that absolutely is not a scream, bucking helplessly into her grasp as I paint myself with hot cum. I moan as she licks it off my belly, twitch and clutch at the sheets as she mouths my cock clean. I’m almost too sensitive; I grit my teeth through the strangest mixture of pleasure and pain, still half-hard and aching for her.

  “Come—come up here.” I reach for her again, tugging weakly on her arm.

  “Hm?”

  “Give me a kiss.”

  She does, and I close my eyes. Even the taste of salt and coffee on her lips gets me hot, and I thrust up against her. I’m not ready to go again, but I want to—damn it, I’m desperate.

  “You’re into it this morning.”

  “Always.” I run my fingers through her hair. It’s softer than usual: she must’ve changed conditioners. “You know, I never did that, before you—let someone have their way with me, do whatever they wanted.”

  “Oh? How’d you do it, before?”

  “Like, uh...like we almost did in the park.” I lick my lips. “All business.”

  Kate pulls back, and I don’t like the look of that smirk. “So what you’re saying is....” She pinches my right nipple hard. “...you were bad in bed?”

  “Whoa!” I ruck up her skirt and smack her across the ass. “You’re mean. I like that.” And then, to spare my ego—“Not that I’ve had any complaints.”

  “Yet....” She runs her thumb along my lower lip. “How do you plan on keeping me amused till your hard-on comes back?”

  “Oh, that’s nice: mock my technique and demand satisfaction in the same breath!” Not that I’m saying no. She wants a distraction; I’ll give her one. I surge up and toss her onto her back, startling a breathless yelp out of her. “My turn.”

  She arches her back eagerly, skirt pooling around her waist. I run my hands up her thighs, slow and firm, as I trail butterfly kisses over her stomach. Kate bites back the softest of moans. Her hand comes to rest on the back of my neck, guiding me down...down...I love that she’s not shy.

  I nuzzle at the thin fabric of her panties, stretched tight over her slit. I can taste her through the silk, wet for me already. She cries out when I breathe on her clit, shudders when I ease a fingertip between her lips. Her hold on my hair turns almost painful as she rubs up against me. It’s my turn to moan: I want this, too. Want her grinding on my face, getting off on my tongue—all that wild abandon, all for me.

  I pull her panties aside and bury my face between her legs, and my name on her lips has my cock swelling anew. I groan as it grazes against the sheets. I’ll never live it down if I come again like this.

  “That’s...yeah, like that....”

  I lift her by the hips, spreading her legs as I circle my tongue around her clit. Kate squirms lewdly, chasing every drop of pleasure I can give. Soon, she’s helpless in my arms, powerless to choke back her gasps and sighs. Sets me on fire when she says my name that way, all throaty and hoarse with lust.

  I know she’s close when her thighs clamp down on my face. Her nails dig into my shoulder and she braces herself against the pillows, thrusting up like there’s no tomorrow. I hum lightly against her clit, and, yeah. That breathless, keening cry—I did that. The way she trembles, throws her head back and calls for me, has me gripping the base of my cock to keep from following her over that cliff.

  I tease her through it till the last of the tremors subside, and kiss my way back up her body. “What do you say?—Do I get a passing grade?”

  Kate murmurs something unintelligible and reaches for my cock. She pulls me on top of her, rubbing my tip against her belly. “You don’t get a grade till you complete the assignment.”

  “Mm....” I reach for the nightstand, fumbling blind for a condom. Kate snatches it from me and rolls it on, and just like that, she’s guiding me inside, wrapping her legs around me to pull me in. I sink in slow, wanting it to last. She’s hot and tight, still fluttering through the aftershocks of her orgasm. I rake my nails down my own hip to stay back from the brink.

  Kate matches my rhythm, moving with my leisurely pace. I unbutton her blouse and push it aside. She’s breathing hard, breasts glistening with a light sweat. I lean down to taste the salt of her skin, pushing her bra down to tease her nipple.

  “That’s... Yes.” She’s caressing me now, hands skating down my back, combing through my hair. The gentleness of it makes my heart ache, even as she swivels her hips to drive me wild. I steal a tender kiss, and another, slowing down till I’m barely rocking into her. Even the slight motion’s enough to send electricity crackling through my body. I don’t want this to end, maybe ever, but Kate’s whispering in my ear, and the things she’s saying—love you, want you, all mine—I can’t hold back the tide.

  I turn us over on our sides and pull out almost all the way, then back in hard, to wring a moan from her throat. I snap my hips twice more, and I feel her come again, dragging my own orgasm out of me in a white-hot flash that has me burning all over. Instead of pulling out, I hold on tight, still moving inside her.

  Kate doesn’t seem to want to let go, either. I keep going till I’m just rocking her in my arms, stroking her hair. She burrows her face into my shoulder, breathing deeply. It’s getting too warm to cling together like this, but a couple more minutes can’t hurt.

  “I’m tempted to give you an A minus,” she says at last. “So you’ll never stop making the effort.”

  I snort. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  I’m almost asleep by the time she rolls away, and that won’t do, not at all. I pull the condom off without opening my eyes and toss it in the general direction of the trash. Kate pats me clean with what feels like her shirt.

  I push my pajama pants the rest of the way off and kick them off the bed. “Time is it?”

  “I don’t know. Two?”

  “That late?”

  “Feels like it.” She starts to straighten out her skirt and gives up halfway through. “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

  “We should shower.” I stretch till my back cracks. We should do all sorts of things, but there’s a lazy kind of sex-gravity pushing me into the mattress. I yawn hugely. “Can’t believe it’s already the fourth. We’ve got so much—”

  “Wait, what date did you say it was?”

  “The fourth?”

  “Shit all over me.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, not literally. Obviously.” Kate sits up, shaking her head. “There’s just...something I forgot to do.”

  “Oh—you in trouble?”

  She rakes her hair back from her face. “Hope not.”

  I sit up too, still a little dizzy from our exertions. Doesn’t help that I skipped breakfast. “I’m starving. And sticky. Can’t decide whether to shower first, or shove my face in the trough.”

  “Classy.”

  “Says you, swearing like a sailor.” I nudge her. “Come on. I’ll wash your hair. Then we’ll go for lunch.”

  We peel ourselves off the bed and amble toward the shower, leaning on each other all the way.

  Chapter 47

  Kate

  * * *

  The fourth already—how is that possible? And how am I so late? I mean, there’s one obvious explanation, but we’ve been safe every time. Mostly. Sort of. The condom from that first night in the hotel looked like it might’ve been riding around in Max’s wallet a while. But surely we’d have noticed if it broke
?

  Not much I can do about it right now. Carson’ll be over soon, and I’m hardly about to take a test here. No telling how Max might react, if he thinks—

  “Kate?” He walks up behind me, toweling off his hair.

  “Mm?”

  “You looked thoughtful.” He takes my necklace from me and clasps it around my neck. “Dreaming of that chicken farm?”

  I elbow him. “Not funny.”

  “Too soon?”

  “Little bit, yeah.” I slip into one of his shirts and button it most of the way. “You didn’t see him last night. It was sad. Like a Rottweiler that mauls your best friend, then begs for love all the way to the vet’s—and you know that’s a bad dog, and you have to put him down, but you still feel like shit.”

  Max makes a pff sound. “Yeah, well, he’s always been a ninth-degree guilt master.” He pulls on his own shirt. “You know, he was driving me insane at the airport, on the way back from DC—all that whiny, poor-me crap. Couldn’t figure out why, at the time, but something about it wasn’t sitting right.”

  I find myself nodding. “I’ve been seeing all his habits in the worst new light. Like, he’ll come out of the bathroom wiping his eyes like he’s been crying, or he’ll do these little sighs—but the second you try to ask him what’s wrong, he’ll be all, no—it’s nothing. Like, Ooh, I’m so brave.”

  “And that works for him?”

  “That’s the stupid part—it doesn’t. It’s annoying. I’d put up with it for the times when he’s, you know—normal Wes. Considerate Wes. But beyond that....” I hesitate as an unpleasant thought crosses my mind. “Unless... It depends what you mean by ‘works for him’. If all he wants is attention—if he’s somehow confusing pity with love—then, yeah. It does.”

  “Sounds like Munchausen’s syndrome. You know, where you make yourself sick so everyone has to take care of you.”

  “That’s exactly him.” I drop my skirt back on the bed. “I think he actually did that. Last year. I’m about to leave on vacation, and he calls me up, like, Ooooh, I can’t get out of bed—could you bring me some Gravol? And I get there, and he’s collapsed in the bathroom, and, what? I’m supposed to leave him like that?” I throw up my hands in disgust. “Nothing like cleaning puke off a grown man’s chin when you’re meant to be in the Bahamas.”

  “You did that?”

  “He was my best friend. I thought.” I sink down on the bed. “Worst part is, he’d do something like that, and I’d hate myself for resenting him. So I’d be even nicer to him—and he was probably faking it the whole time.”

  Max straightens out my shirt, smoothing the sleeves over my arms. “We all fell for his bullshit.” He rearranges my collar. “I mean, what he went through in high school—You get so used to seeing someone as a victim, it’s easy to miss when it turns into something else.”

  I pull Max down next to me and creep into his arms. “Why do I feel so bad?”

  “You shouldn’t. None of us saw this coming.”

  “Not like that.” I hide my face against his chest. “Every time I think about him, I get this awful, empty feeling, like I miss him.”

  “Of course you do.” Max settles a hand on my back. “You miss the friend you thought you had. The one you have a lifetime’s worth of good memories with. It’s like that guy died last night.”

  I close my eyes as the depth of my loss sinks in. “We did have good times. He was there for me—he was generous. And funny. And kind, even when he didn’t think anyone was looking.” And I’ll never be able to see him that way again, never be able to look back on any of those memories without feeling the sting of betrayal.

  Max loops his arms around my waist. “Nobody’s pure evil. You’re allowed to mourn your friend.”

  He’s right, of course. And I’ll need that—I’ll need time to grieve. But later. Once he’s caught. I take a deep, steadying breath and sit up. “Let’s put an end to this.”

  “We’ll get him.”

  Looking into Max’s eyes, I believe it.

  Chapter 48

  Max

  * * *

  For once, Carson isn’t irritating the bejesus out of me—mostly because he hasn’t said anything in a while. He’s been staring at the table since Kate got to the part about Dev.

  Kate lets out a shaky breath. “Anyway, I’d finally had enough of it. I brained him and ran. The end.”

  Carson lifts his head. He looks dazed. “So what’s the plan?”

  “There isn’t one yet.” She looks away, almost guiltily. “We were waiting for you.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Don’t suppose he’s still at the cabin, waiting to be picked off?”

  “Don’t suppose he is.”

  I take in the defeated slant of Kate’s shoulders, the hollowness of her eyes: she looks done. I flip open my laptop. “I was thinking we’d try—”

  “Wait.” And he’s back: loud, abrasive Carson. “Is that true, about Dev? Do we believe him?”

  I catch Kate’s eye. She looks as uncertain as I feel. “I’m not sure. Either way, it doesn’t change anything. I was—”

  “Doesn’t change anything? Are you shitting me?” He thumps his hands on the arms of his chair. “Dev jumps to his death, we have no idea why, and that doesn’t change anything?”

  “I meant, as far as how we’re going to catch Wes.”

  “Fuck Wes.”

  “Look, I get what you’re saying—I do. It’s been eating me as well. But time’s running out, and I—”

  “Fuck that too.” He hunches his shoulders. Plants his face in his hands. “If Wes didn’t do it, that means.... That means I moved out three weeks before he jumped. He’d have been planning it right under my nose, how he’d take his own life—and I missed it. So did you.”

  Kate scrubs at her eyes. “A lot of those pills he was on—that can be a side effect. Increased risk of suicide.”

  “Oh, that’s bullshit.” He pounds the table hard enough to scare away my screensaver. “Pills don’t make you dive into concrete.”

  Kate flinches. I do too, recalling the moment of impact, that awful thud on the video.

  “Max is right.” Kate’s lips tighten. “No—you’re both right. Wes or no Wes, Dev wouldn’t have killed himself if he hadn’t already been miserable. Nobody gives up their life on command, unless something’s seriously wrong. We did miss that, all of us, either way.” She sighs. “And we are running out of time.”

  “That’s just—” Carson rubs the side of his hand where he struck the table. “Never mind. Go ahead.”

  “I’m thinking we reach out to him. No: I reach out to him. Use myself as bait. I’ll offer to meet him somewhere, and—”

  “No.” Worst idea ever.

  “Why not? It’s not like he’s physically dangerous. We were alone for hours, and all he did was—”

  “No.” My head’s starting to hurt. “Think about it. You hit him. Abandoned him—in his mind, at least. What’s to say he’s not oiling up Daddy’s old hunting rifle right now? No using ourselves as bait.”

  “I’d never be alone with him. We could lure him into an enclosed space, lock the door behind him, and boom. The cops pick him up, and we’re home free.”

  Carson grunts. “Not sure that’s the best idea.” He gets up and starts to pace. “We need to think about that, too—what we’re going to do with him, once we’ve caught him.”

  “Do with him?”

  “Yeah. Do with him.” He shows us his back. “You’re going to make me say it?”

  Not sure I want to hear this, but.... “Think you’d better.”

  “Fine. Up to this point, we’ve been assuming Matt was an accident. That if push came to shove, and everything came out—hey. We were kids who made a mistake. Now, we’re accessories to murder.”

  “No—I looked it up.” I swivel my laptop around. “It’s right here. You have to know there’s a crime to be an accessory to it.”

  “So? He’ll just say we were in on it, and can you prove we weren�
�t?” He leans on the mantel, breathing hard. “Let’s face it: I kicked Matt’s ass twice. Rachel spat on him. We all hated his guts, and everyone knew it.”

  I can’t argue with that.

  “And Wes was, what, fourteen? No one’s going to believe he came up with the whole idea on his own.”

  “Fifteen.” Kate’s fidgeting with her phone. “He was fifteen.”

  “Same difference.”

  She taps her phone again. “It says accessory charges match the main crime, when it comes to statutes of limitation. So, murder—there’s no limit on that.”

  This is getting out of hand. “Okay—he’s not going to admit he killed Matt Danbury.”

  “You sure about that?” Carson spins on his heel, sweeping us with a haunted gaze. “’Cause I’m not. I think he’d do anything to stick it to us, now he knows he can’t have Kate.”

  Kate drops her phone. She’s gone still, perfectly still, and so pale. “What are you saying?”

  “I think we need to kill him.”

  I grip the table as vertigo whips the floor out from under me. I’ve thought about it—of course I have—but not like that. Not as a viable option.

  “Kill him. And how do you propose we do that?” Her, too? Jesus Christ.

  “Antifreeze. It’ll look like suicide.”

  Kate’s face crumples, but instead of tears, she’s smothering laughter, holding in giggles with both hands.

  “That’s funny?”

  “It’s fucking hilarious.” She wipes at her eyes. “What?—we’re going to hand him a bottle of Prestone, like, here. Drink up. And he’s just going to do it?”

  “We’d put it in Gatorade. He might not drink it right away, but if we locked him up somewhere he couldn’t get out—”

  “You’re serious.” Kate laughs again, a sharp bark this time. “You’re honestly contemplating—Oh, my God! We’re not going to kill him. Sit down.”