An old high school friend named Carrie made room for me on the edge of the truck bed, sympathy dripping from her eyes. “You okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, my voice sounding strained. “First time I’m seeing him, is all.”
Man, I was way off my game since I’d been back home. I didn’t discuss feelings with anybody. Not anymore. Normally I wouldn’t even dignify that kind of lame question with a response. Especially not to these people, who’d never figured out how to treat me and had backed away instead, making me feel even more alone. I mean, fuck, I was only a girl in town who’d had an accident that resulted in a brain injury.
“Rachel.” He was standing in front of me now, and Carrie had the decency to scoot off the truck bed to give us privacy.
My name fell from his lips, and my stomach clenched into a solid brick. I hadn’t heard him say my name in such a long time that the sensation bordered on painful.
“Miles.” It came out in a hoarse whisper.
“You look . . . amazing.” He looked down as if unsure of himself. “I . . . I heard you were back in town. Can . . . can we talk?”
I stood up on the bed of the truck so that I towered over him, giving me the leverage I needed. “Nope.”
And then I jumped down and headed toward the mishmash of cars parked haphazardly on the lawn. Anger blazed like a wildfire inside my chest. No fucking way did he earn the right to talk to me.
I heard the crunching of dry grass behind me and realized that Miles was gaining on me. Except he was about three years too late.
“I’m just about to head home,” I called over my shoulder. “So just go the fuck away.”
Without turning around, I knew that I’d shocked him into silence. Never had I spoken that way to him before. Kai said that led to our downfall. He hadn’t liked the way I’d acted with Miles and had told me so on a number of occasions.
As I moved toward the cars, Shane stepped into our path, with Kai beside him. “Miles, probably best for you to take off.”
Kai tried catching my eye, but I looked away and kept moving, pushing past Shane.
“Wait, Rachel, please,” Miles said, and I twisted my head just as Kai restrained him, keeping him from going after me. “There’s something I need to say and then I promise to leave you alone.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and then swung toward him. “Oh yeah? How about all those times I wanted to say something to you but you never answered your phone?”
Damn it to hell. I had blown it. I’d let him see how he was affecting me. For three long years I had said he was dead to me. So why was my whole body reacting right now? I balled my shaking fists.
I had imagined this same scenario playing out so many times in my head: Miles returning to tell me he’d messed up, that he’d been a wreck without me. That he was sorry. Then he’d help me through rehab. He’d hold my hand and tell me I was beautiful despite my shaved scalp. He’d adjust the straps on my recovery helmet and kiss my cheek tenderly.
Just like Mom had done . . . and just like Kai had done.
I gave Kai a stern warning look. One that said, Stay out of this. Kai tightened his jaw as if he wanted to clock Miles one, but he let him go and stayed put, respecting my wishes. These two boys were as different as night and day. And I was different with each of them. With Kai, I confronted him toe-to-toe. With Miles, I’d always softened to his wishes.
I shook the thought from my head and moved farther away from the crowd, Miles following behind.
I spun in fury toward him. “What the hell do you need to say to me?”
Miles was just as handsome as always. His cheekbones had sharpened, and the chocolate eyes I had loved so much now appeared to hold a deep well of pain. They made me waver.
“Rachel, I was an asshole. I’ve grown up a lot since then.” Had he felt bad about his decision all of these years? “You didn’t deserve someone like me, anyway.”
I clenched my jaw so tight I saw stars. “You’ve got that right.”
“Damn it. I’m so sorry. I was scared.” He began pacing in wide circles, running his fingers through his barely-there hair. He’d always kept it closely shaved during the basketball season. “We were supposed to go away to college together and I didn’t know how to handle what happened to you. But I haven’t been able to get over how I treated you.”
Even though I had wanted this type of apology for years, hearing it out loud only made me feel numb. Confused. Lightheaded.
“I get it. I do,” I said. My voice was now a whisper. All my anger had been placed on pause. “But I sure as hell didn’t know how to handle it, either. So I don’t feel sorry for you.”
He looked me over as if surveying the aftereffects of everything damn thing that had happened to me. “You came back strong.”
“I did,” I said. “Without your help.”
“Maybe that’s just it, Rachel,” he said. “Maybe you got strong because I walked away.”
“Don’t pretend you were doing the honorable thing!” I spit out. His face fell, but I knew he was right in so many ways. But there was no chance I was admitting to them now. I probably wouldn’t ever.
“Please, Rachel.” He stared into my eyes, and I looked away to break the spell. “Can you give me a chance to make it up to you? I want to get to know you again. To be friends.”
“No way.”
“Will you at least think about it?”
“Never.” I shook my head and turned away. “Fuck off.”
But I had lost the power of those words and my shoulders slumped forward instead. Like all the fight had gone out of me in that moment.
I stalked toward Kai and Dakota, leaving Miles in my wake. “Give me your keys, Kai, so I can drive myself home. Catch a ride back later with Shane.”
“Wait a minute,” Dakota protested, and then turned to Shane. “If you don’t kick Miles’s butt out, then I will.”
But before he could respond, I said, “No, please. I want . . . I need to be alone.”
Kai gave Dakota a look. They knew I meant business when I wanted my solitude. It was the one thing that hadn’t changed over the years. I’d been an only child who’d absolutely thrived on it when my family had gotten to be too much for me. Kai reluctantly dangled his keys in front of me, and I snatched them from his grasp before he had the opportunity to change his mind.
I sprinted to his car, swung open the door, and slid inside. I had shut out that little corner of the world and all I could hear were my own heavy breaths. I closed my eyes, rested my head against the seatback and breathed a sigh of relief.
After another moment, I fired up the engine and put the car in drive. But before I could peel off like some badass, the passenger door swung open.
And in slipped Kai.
Chapter Four
Kai
“Not even going to talk to you,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I’m not letting you leave alone. You haven’t had more than one drink, right?”
She nodded.
“So just start driving, goddamn it.”
“Shit,” Rachel grunted, and then she pushed down on the gas pedal, causing her to fishtail through the grass. I kept my mouth shut like I’d promised and gripped the door handle instead. She turned the wheel and straightened out the car as she came toward the road.
Being with Rachel like this again made it all rush back. Not one great middle-school memory didn’t include her. Rachel had always been so damn cute with that dark hair and those sea-green eyes. And now this body of hers that had blossomed since her illness—she’d developed shapely legs, narrow hips, and tits that I couldn’t stop noticing in that thin tank top of hers. Fuck me.
When she started dating that douche bag Miles, she’d changed. She became meek and humble, lost her smartass retorts and sarcasm. She hadn’t been my Rachel anymore. She’d been his.
But now. Now she was her old self to the extreme. They say your personality can change after a head injury. But this was something altogether dif
ferent. This was Rachel shutting down, closing herself off completely. And I got it. I so got it.
I had looked for someone like Rachel in Amsterdam. I’d actually dated girl after girl trying to get that feeling back that I had when I was around her. In her space. But it had never returned. Until now.
Rachel grumbled and huffed and smacked the wheel. I just shook my head and looked out the window, allowing her to work it through in her own head. I wanted to know what that motherfucker had said to her, but a promise was a promise.
Did Miles want her back? Would she actually consider it after all this time? He was like her kryptonite. I clenched my jaw until it ached. I wanted to push his teeth through his skull.
As we drove past Lucy’s bar, her foot let off the gas in a moment’s hesitation. Maybe if I hadn’t been with her, she would have pulled in and drunk herself stupid. Gone home with some random guy. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what my cousin Nate was getting at when he’d given me reports about Rachel.
She’d become someone different in college. It sounded like she was using guys who reminded her of Miles to get lost in for a night. Just like I’d used girls who weren’t Rachel in Amsterdam.
I figured at the very least I was saving her from making a dumb-ass decision tonight. Not that there was anything wrong with having an active sex life, but she seemed to be exercising it for the wrong reasons. I pushed away the thought of just how many guys she might have been with at college. The idea of any number of dudes pawing at her body made me want to slam my fist through the windshield.
But then a heavier thought flitted through my brain. At least she was at the university. At least she was living a life that had once threatened to be taken from her.
I noticed the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes and knew she was on the verge of losing it. So I turned up the radio and let her be alone with her thoughts. If I tried to speak she’d ream me a new one anyway.
Yep, she was definitely alive and letting everyone know it.
She pulled into the underground garage and thrust the car into park. I wanted to yell at her for bashing on my brakes, but I held my tongue. She slammed the car door and charged up the stairs to the bank of elevators in the lobby. I caught up to her just as the metal doors ground open. I allowed her to pass in first, and she jammed the button to our floor before sagging against the far wall.
I could hear her heavy breaths as she attempted to keep her emotions at bay. I tried to keep my gaze off the vein throbbing in her neck as her gaze skated over my body as if she was memorizing me or discovering me all over again. I didn’t know which. Maybe she just wanted to use me as a punching bag. I pushed away the thought of what angry sex with Rachel would feel like. Her on top, riding me with wild abandon in her eyes. Fuck.
I bolted out of the elevator as soon as the doors parted, and then turned the key in the lock. She pushed open the door and stormed past me, heading straight for the bar. She rummaged around before finally pulling out a shot glass and a bottle of Patrón.
She sat down hard on a barstool and poured herself a generous shot. Swirling the tequila in her cup she looked lost in deep thought. I made my way behind the bar and pulled out a glass of my own. I began prepping the lime slices and salt but she didn’t wait for me. She threw back her head and gulped the strong drink, wincing as it went down.
Then she started pouring herself another one.
Her eyes slid up to meet mine in quiet determination. She looked woozy yet still defiant.
“Well, damn,” I said, finally breaking the silence that had been building up between us.
A bark of amusement shot out of her mouth before she covered it with her hand. It was like being back in middle school all over again. My lips twitched as I tried to hold back my own grin. I downed my shot and heard her break into the same kind of hysterical fit that, when we were kids, would become contagious.
She stopped laughing long enough to knock back one more shot, and then choked and coughed after it went down. She rested her head on the edge of the bar, her shoulders shaking with laughter, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I laughed long and hard right along with her.
After a couple of minutes her chuckling slowed into sputtering gasps. She lifted her head and heaved out a gloomy sigh. Her eyes welled with tears that had nothing to do with the laughter from moments before as she tried keeping her trembling lips in a neat straight line. But she failed miserably after two seconds more as the floodgates opened and she began bawling.
Fat trails of tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tried swiping at them unsuccessfully.
Her emotions were all over the map tonight.
“Hey,” I said, my own voice rough with compassion. “Come here.”
I pulled her into my arms, and she cried even harder against my shoulder. My cotton T-shirt was soon soaked from her tears, but I didn’t give two shits. This was the kind of weeping she’d done in the hospital over that same piece of garbage, and I fucking hated hearing it again.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, rubbing circles on her back. I wasn’t sure what to say at this point that wouldn’t hurt her worse.
Her arms, which had been hanging limply at her sides, came up to grasp my shoulders, as if I were her anchor. She was breathing heavily into my neck, and I felt her tears slide onto the skin at the base of my throat.
My fingers trailed down her back to grasp her waist, and I could feel how lean she was. Not as lean as she’d been in the hospital. This was shapely, sexy, all-woman lean. My fingers rested on the sliver of bare skin that had become exposed when she’d raised her arms to embrace me, and I relished the softness there.
Her head moved to the crook of my neck, and I felt her shudder, so I drew her even closer, my fingers sliding up her bare back in an attempt to comfort her. The next moment I felt a tentative brush of her lips against my skin. Right above the neckline of my shirt. I became perfectly still, wondering if I’d only imagined it.
But then she trailed her soft lips across my neck to my throat as I swallowed roughly. It felt so damn good that I couldn’t help the groan that escaped my lips shortly thereafter.
I grabbed hold of her shoulders and pushed back to look into her eyes. There was alarm there at what she’d done, certainly. Like her body had been on auto-pilot and she couldn’t stop herself. Yet there was something underneath as well. Need. Passion. Desperation.
At that realization my brain lost all logical function. I gathered her face in my hands and whispered, “What are you doing, Rach?”
She shook her head, maybe trying to clear the doubt, the shock. “I . . . I don’t know.”
My thumbs slid over her cheeks and I asked the more direct question. The one that maybe she’d been waiting for, given how she’d dealt with her emotions the past three years. “What do you need?”
In response, she closed her eyes and let out a whimper. Her hips thrust forward against mine and my dick immediately responded.
Then I felt her fingernail trail up the back of my neck, and she fisted my hair tightly in her grasp, which only lit a fire inside my chest. I realized just how fucking much I wanted her in that moment.
Except, she didn’t want me in the same way. She just wanted the idea of me. She wanted the escape I could give her. And given my history with the female population, she probably thought I knew damn well how to deliver it to her.
Sure, after downing those two shots she probably wasn’t thinking too clearly. But neither was I, because she was touching me and her hands were warm and her sounds were sexy and her eyes told me she needed me. Just for tonight.
And I’d give her whatever the hell she wanted, even if I had to forget it ever happened tomorrow. I’d do that for her. And suffer the consequences.
Before I could reason any further, she brought her other hand up and stroked the pad of her thumb across the flesh of my bottom lip. I let out a soft growl and flattened my body against hers.
Her back angled above the lip of the bar, and I positi
oned my groin against her smooth center as she spread her knees to adjust. And, shit, being this close to her was amazing. Fucking unbelievable. To smell her soft scent and hear the heightened arousal in her harsh breaths.
A moan tumbled from her lips and her nipples pebbled through the thin material of her shirt. I flicked my tongue along her jaw to her ear and mumbled, “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yes.” She panted out a breath, and then opened her eyes to look at me. Her pupils were clear. So damn clear in that moment. “Please.”
No question about it. I was so fucked.
Chapter Five
Rachel
My entire body was thrumming with carnal lust and the need to escape into someone else, the way I usually did these days. This was so damn wrong, but something about it felt so fucking right. More right than any of my past conquests had ever felt.
Maybe because this was Kai and he was familiar to me—and so different from all of the other guys. He smelled unbelievable—like a mix of pine and spice—and even the hint of weed was working for me, surprising enough. Maybe I was getting a contact buzz. God knows I’d lost my brain cells somewhere back at that party.
His biceps were bulging beneath his T-shirt, strands of his hair were coming loose from his elastic tie, and he looked beyond sexy.
I figured he knew how to be with all kinds of girls. Hell, I’d seen him with tons of girls over the years. So maybe he would know how to be with me. Just this once.
In the back of my foggy brain I knew this might change us. Would change us. Unless we both took it for what it was. We were both good at this sort of meaningless hookup, weren’t we?
As my back scraped against the bar and I felt his body mold to mine, I lost all lucid thought. My thighs were spread wide to accommodate him and I was desperate for release. To feel his rough hands on me. To taste his tongue in my mouth.
Whisper to Me Page 3
