Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)

by Charlotte Stein

  “She ran out on me because I have a can of Pringles in my pants.”

  “Well, what the hell were you doing keeping them there?”

  “No, Letty. No, honey. Not literally Pringles.”

  There was a pregnant pause after that.

  And when it gave birth…

  Oh god, when she realized…

  “Did you seriously just tell me that your dick is enormous?”

  “That may possibly have been the gist of my point.”

  “Oh gross. Shut up,” she said, then did the only possible thing she could. Asking further questions about this was not an option. Thinking about it was an abomination.

  So she grabbed the pillow between them and whacked him with it.

  “You did not just hit me with a pillow. You did not, oh my god.”

  His tone told her to expect retaliation. It was so jam-packed with faux outrage and unstoppable good humor that it was bound to happen. She just wasn’t prepared for the way it happened. He didn’t whump her back with the cushion to the left of him. There was no wrestling for the pillow still clutched in her fists.

  Instead, he went ahead and tackled her.

  He got her around the middle and sent her sprawling back across the bed, hands in places she never expected them to be. One was pretty close to her right boob. Another grazed her butt, pretty distinctly. Yet the weird thing was, she couldn’t seem to conjure up any fear. Far from it, in fact: she was laughing as he did it, and even harder when she felt his fingers needling at her rib cage.

  He was tickling her.

  The bastard was tickling her.

  And it was fucking awesome. He had to be the best tickler the world had ever known. He got her to make the sorts of sounds she didn’t know she was capable of, high and ridiculous and completely abandoned to the moment. Then just when she couldn’t take any more, just when her stomach started cramping and tears were leaking out of her eyes, he backed off. He knelt over the tight little ball she’d made of her body, grinning so wildly she was afraid for his face.

  She’d never seen anyone look so purely happy.

  Or revel in something so much—because by God, he did. He waited until she had her breath back, all the time asking if she was good, if she was cool, if everything was fine. Then just as he seemed serious he dove back in. He dove, as though she were a big pool of Jell-O and he had the biggest, silliest hankering for it. He even made jazz hands before he did it, and made a noise that got her giggling all on its own. Rargh, she wanted to call it, but was too busy busting a gut to do anything of the sort.

  “Stop,” she gasped. “Stop stop stop.”

  And he did.

  But only long enough to check she didn’t mean it. Then it was right back to turning her spine to goo and her head to mush. Her face was wet from crying—but it was the right kind. The good kind. The kind that felt so amazing she wanted to thank him for it.

  Instead, she returned the favor.

  The next time he went in, she whipped in underneath his arms. Dug one knuckle into his ribs, until he made the most ridiculous sound in the world. It was a cross between a yelp of outrage and a giggle, breathless and too high. His voice shouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near that octave, but it did. And it kept going when she found his suddenly exposed armpit. As soon as she got her fingers in there he did something even more delightful: he wriggled.

  He squirmed.

  She had to pin him down, but the moment she did things got way weirder. He absolutely refused to fend her off with his hands—as though he knew how effective they would be. Maybe it even occurred to him that he might hurt her, so instead he buried them beneath his body. He tried to get away just by arching his back and burying his head in the rumpled comforter, and when he did his T-shirt rucked up.

  That was a strip of his side and belly that she’d exposed, oddly vulnerable looking and incredibly taut to the touch. She knew because she skimmed it with her palm. She felt his hot, smooth skin and got a hint of more of it—further down and far too close to his ass. His jeans were loose and everything was completely tangled and then suddenly his arm was around her waist. He was turning her over, in a way that reminded her of one thing and one thing only.

  When people change position midfuck.

  Hell, her legs were even around his waist. They didn’t mean to be, of course. It was just the result of crouching over him and then being flipped. But still, it was weird once she was under him.

  And he knew it, too.

  He had been laughing a second ago.

  He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  His face had gone all strange and still, and for some reason it was suddenly very close to hers. She could have stuck out her tongue and licked his lips. For a second she even thought he might do that to her—as a joke, of course. Only she wasn’t sure it would feel like a joke. The air between them was too thick; the silence was too intense. It seemed like a secondary presence in the room, getting bigger and bigger until finally she was sure she could feel it pressing against her.

  It wasn’t him bearing down on her chest.

  It was the incredible, awful, enormous quiet. Slowly but surely it was crushing all the air out of her body—which probably explained why she was hardly breathing at all. Maybe it even explained why he wasn’t breathing, either, though she couldn’t deny that it looked like something else. Anticipation, her mind threw up, and then for some reason her heart just started pounding and pounding. She could feel it shaking her body. It seemed to be in her ears and her teeth and oh god it got so much worse when his gaze dropped.

  She saw the fan of his long, dark eyelashes and the smooth gloss of his lids as he glanced down at her lips. And then he looked back up at her, and everything was terrifying. Far too terrifying to take, or understand, or even attempt to process.

  She just had to get out of this.

  Now. Now. Now.

  “You know I just remembered I have this thing.”

  The words came out like she’d just cleared a clog in her throat—fast and messy, one tumbling over another to form a single giant sound. Yanojusmemembedthising.

  It was about as convincing as her attempts at self-defense, though he seemed to accept it. He disentangled himself from her immediately and sat back on his heels. Expression completely neutral, body language neither offended nor defensive.

  Almost like nothing had happened.

  And when she thought about it, nothing had. Him glancing down meant zip. His body on hers meant even less than that. They had just been having some fun, and then she had panicked over a look in the direction of her lips and now the fun was over.

  “Sorry, I just…”

  “Don’t be sorry, it’s cool.”

  “Lydia will be waiting for me, so…”

  “Of course, yeah—get gone, everything is okay.”

  She stood then, but still couldn’t quite leave.

  “It just feels like I fucked up or—” she started to say.

  Only he cut her off. He shook his head and said the best possible thing.

  “Hey. Hey. Trust me. We are good, babe. No problems, ever.”

  And then followed it up with a completely normal gesture. It was just the back of his hand, brushing down the length of her forearm. Not insistently, not sensually, not anything but a kindly touch offered to a friend. He barely made contact, in truth, so she had no idea what her reaction was about. It just came on her in a great wave the second he did it, unstoppable and insurmountable.

  She had to leave fast to stop him seeing her reaction—caught somewhere between elation and a heartbroken sob. In the hallway she put a hand to her mouth to keep it in, but it didn’t really help her. She knew it had happened. She was still filled with all these new and insane feelings.

  And now she had to somehow go on, knowing all the while that they were there.

  Chapter 11

  She had decided not to mention anything about her last meeting with Tate. Not because there was anything weird about i
t—there wasn’t. But whenever she imagined explaining it the whole thing somehow wouldn’t come together. She didn’t know what had made her panic like that. She had no clue why everything had gotten so intense and strange and full of meaningful staring.

  How did you describe a brush of a hand against your arm that made that happen?

  She wasn’t even sure what that was. She wanted to call it goosebumps, only these particular ones had teeth and claws and bit through the skin on the way out. They were still with her now, as she sat with Lydia in the bustling cafeteria, over a bowl of teriyaki noodle salad. Every time she thought about it they gnawed at her, until finally she broke.

  She had to let something out.

  She just wondered why it had to be this.

  “He has a massive cock.”

  Lydia immediately whipped her head up, eyes like lasers.

  That burned a hole right through her body, to the place where shame lived.

  “Who has a massive cock?”

  “Tate. Tate has one.”

  “I’ll be honest: I was really hoping you were going to say Ryan Gosling.”

  “I hoped that, too, and I just said it, after finding it out.”

  “You found it out? Oh my god, what the hell happened? Were you digging for gold and accidentally stumbled on the Lost City of Tate Sullivan’s Dirty Dick?”

  Part of her loved Lydia for putting it that way. For saying dirty dick.

  But most of her just went red again and started flailing.

  “Jesus Christ, Lydia, no. No. Oh my lord in heaven no. Is that what it sounded like I meant? No no no a million times no, I would never— I could never— The very thought of having sexual contact with Tate fills me with unspeakable horror. Are you kidding?”

  “Then what the fuck happened?”

  “Nothing happened.” Apart from the tickle fight that felt like I was fucking him. “He just told me.”

  Lydia raised an eyebrow, fork halfway to her mouth.

  “He told you he has a massive cock? Oh, well, that’s very convincing. Better call the FBI department in charge of large penises and let them know we cracked the case.”

  “I want to laugh here, but his large penis is haunting my brain.”

  “He probably doesn’t have a large penis. He was just…bragging.”

  “He wasn’t though. That’s the problem. He completely organically brought it up in the middle of a conversation about having terrible sex.”

  “Why were you talking about terrible sex in the first place?”

  “We were watching Dirty Dancing for the project. Then a lot of things happened.”

  “Bad things? Things you hated and are now traumatized by?”

  She took a long time to answer. Filled the space with lots of fidgeting and eating and glancing away as though thinking extremely hard. Really though she was just fighting a battle with her words—more than anything she wanted to say yes, but yes was not cooperating.

  “No. No I wasn’t traumatized. No it wasn’t bad. But maybe that just makes everything worse somehow. I keep having all of this…fun with him. Like the most fun I’ve ever had with anyone. Then I realize we are having the fun and it feels insane.”

  “How insane exactly?”

  “Like I died two years ago and this is all just my heavenly reward for all the shitty things I had to endure through the whole of my dismal, mediocre little life.”

  “You just called him a heavenly reward.”

  “I know. I already hate myself for it.”

  She knew Lydia was looking at her in the silence that followed. But she couldn’t bring herself to check for sure. If the expression on her face was disapproving, or pitying, Letty wasn’t sure she could take it.

  And then a hand went over hers.

  “Don’t. Don’t hate yourself. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying someone being nice to you,” she said, and oh it was such a relief to hear. To see her friend’s face, all full of concern and acceptance.

  Only that wasn’t all.

  There was more, said half laughing but no less troubling for it.

  “I mean, it’s not like you’re going to fall in love with him. Right?” Lydia said.

  And all she could do was nod.

  Anything else was impossible, once those goosebumps bit down hard.

  Chapter 12

  She almost turned back around at the door to the gym. Of course she knew rationally that this was not the scene of so many high school crimes. It was larger, and airier, and the seating that surrounded the floor space was more impressive. It looked like an arena in there—yet still she hesitated. She thought of Tate, in one of those ridiculously revealing singlets, practicing his moves sweatily on some equally burly guy, and she hesitated. And when she finally did go in, she tried to keep her gaze casual and mostly focused on things above eye level: the clock on the wall, the scoreboard, the glass windows of Coach Parker’s office.

  Not that she needed to.

  He wasn’t in there. A sweaty and kind of strained-looking Chad informed her that Tate had broken early—whatever that meant. He’s in the pool, Chad said, and was so nice and friendly about it she didn’t think twice about following his pointing finger. She just went through the double doors that led out onto the grassy bank that separated the two buildings, and carried on to the pool.

  Though once inside she realized what she had thought: that he would be in there with a bunch of other people.

  Instead of just him swimming lazy laps on his own, in an eerily hushed and far too dimly lit sort of space. It made her want to check if the lights had been replaced by candles. She stopped before she got to the edge of the pool because her shoes seemed to make such a noise against the tile—though it didn’t matter that she did. He still heard her. He turned before she got anywhere close to the edge of the pool, something like hey, Chad on his lips.

  Then he saw it was her.

  He saw, and oh god the look on his face. It was like watching the light break through clouds made of atomic ash. Suddenly, she understood exactly why she had come. She knew why she’d ignored Lydia’s warnings after not hearing from him in three days. Everything was as clear as that gloriously happy look on his face.

  And it only got clearer when he spoke again.

  “Hey, you came to find me,” he said, as though that was the most exciting thing he could possibly imagine. It even made him start to swim over to her, cutting through the water so smoothly and cleanly it made that hot feeling happen again. Then he got to her and did something that made it worse. He stopped at the edge of the pool, one hand reaching eagerly out of the water.

  And he just touched one of her shoes with a single finger.

  No, no, that was wrong. He rubbed over the tip of her shoe with one finger, in a way that should have meant almost nothing. It wasn’t a sexy gesture. It was the sort of thing people who had been friends forever did, all tender and cute and intimate.

  Though it seemed that this was enough.

  She had to fold her arms to stop the shivers.

  “That was pretty cool of you.”

  “Well, I just thought we should get back to work.”

  “Oh right, yeah. Work. Totally.”

  “I mean it’s been three days.”

  “Longer than three days,” he said.

  While she tried not to hear the longing in his voice.

  “Exactly. So are you going to get out?”

  He gave her a look that was even worse than the glorious happiness.

  This one had an eyebrow raise in it, and a head tilt, and oh good Christ, a lip bite.

  No, god no, she couldn’t deal with the lip bite.

  “Actually, I was kind of thinking you might want to get in.”

  “Oh…oh no. No I don’t even have my bathing suit with me.”

  “That’s cool. Just jump in as you are.”

  He waved a hand at her like, “Hey come on in, the water’s fine.”

  But the water was not fine. It had him in it, ma
king adorable faces.

  “Are you kidding? Come on. I’m not doing that.”

  “Okay. Want to give me a hand then?”

  “I’m pretty sure you can get out on your own.”

  “No, honestly, I just need like a little help.”

  She hesitated, considering. On the one hand, this was a classic way to drag someone into the water. But on the other…surely he would never do that now? He looked like he would never do that now. He was being so cute and cool it seemed almost churlish to refuse.

  So she took his offered hand.

  And immediately regretted it.

  He didn’t yank hard. But then again he didn’t need to. One fairly firm pull was all it took to send her plummeting headfirst into the water, and once there things started to go really wrong. She was not a strong swimmer under normal circumstances, but these were not normal at all. These were terrifying and unexpected circumstances. She wasn’t prepared for a face full of water, or to dive to the bottom while fully dressed. Now she was choking and blind, with two tons of wool and denim weighing her down.

  She kicked, and got absolutely nowhere.

  She struck out with her right arm, and got tangled in her sleeve.

  At which point she really began to panic.

  Maybe this had been his plan all along—earn her trust and then murder her in a swimming pool. “Her clothes dragged her down, Officer, there was nothing I could do,” she thought, and almost lost it completely. That tight feeling was starting to happen, in her chest. Her arms just weren’t cutting through the water. It was entirely possible that she might die like this.

  And then she felt his hands on her, strong, strong, strong. So strong he hauled her clean out of the water, then almost right over his head. She had to grab on to him just to stop herself going, when all she really wanted to do was murder him right back. She wanted to scream at him for doing that, but instead wound up with an arm tight around his shoulders and the other around his waist.

  She was glad though, in the end.

  If she had screamed and punched him, she wouldn’t have gotten the full extent of his apology. She might have heard him saying sorry twenty times in that frightened tone, but she would have missed the hand spread over her back. She would never have known what it was like to feel him stroking the back of her head in these little frantic motions—as though he knew he had to fix things super fast. He had to prove the whole thing was just a joke, before she escaped him forever.