“I’m glad you’re sticking around.” I take a breath. I can tell by the way she’s been looking at me all day she’s feeling something. I should probably end this right now before things get too out of hand. Baya deserves someone as gentle as she is—someone who’ll tell her he loves her and mean it before ever thinking about taking her to the bedroom. A part of me would die to be that person, but deep down I know I can’t.
A barfly pops up at the counter—a plastic girl with a spray on tan, hair bleached of all its natural color, leaving a dry straw-like mess in its wake. That’s who I should be pining for tonight. For sure I shouldn’t be entertaining Baya with her wonderstruck lust for me. I’m not the person she thinks I am. I’m not even close.
I head over to the blonde who’s already trying to impress me and my dick by showing off the cherry stem she’s tied in a knot with her tongue.
“It takes a talent.” I lean in and smolder into her, letting her know with every nonverbal cue, she’s about to get lucky tonight. I glance back at Baya and catch the viral look of grief sweeping across her face.
Crap. I can’t do this.
“If you need something, just ask Jim.” I call the backup from the other end of the bar and head over to Baya. “Now where were we?” I press out a sad smile. “Oh, that’s right, we’re both really glad you came.”
The rest of the night Baya glows and shines as she swindles customers out of their hard-earned dough with nothing more than that million-dollar smile. I watch her tight little bottom in those barely-there shorts as if I were her personal security team. Each passing minute I try to picture what it would be like to hold her, to twirl my tongue in her ear just to hear her moan and giggle. I watch as her lips curve and imagine she were doing it for me while lying beneath me without any clothes on—how soft her perfect body might be.
The clock strikes three, and we do the world’s fastest close before I whisk her into the cool night air.
The lamp from the parking lot illuminates her like an angel. The lot has cleared out, leaving just my truck for as far as the eye can see. It’s just Baya and me. And no matter how hard I want to resist it, I like it like this, a whole hell of a lot.
“So what’s the haul?” I nod into her overstuffed shorts.
“I think it’s over a hundred, but I’m afraid half of it will blow away if I try to empty my pockets.” She rubs her bare arms, and her teeth clatter like castanets.
“Here.” I pull off my sweatshirt and glide it over her so fast, she can’t protest.
“It’s so warm.” She yanks it down past her knees, and it springs back up to her bottom.
Baya looks up and gives a shy smile, her sweet perfume pulls me in, and I can’t help but get caught up in the moment. It takes everything I’ve got not to bury my face in her hair, pull my lips over her neck. Earlier today she wanted a kiss. I’ve been to the rodeo enough to know what’s about to go down, and she outright begged for one while we were on that boulder. Every part of me wanted to give it, but I held strong. I’m not feeling too strong right about now. My mouth wants to cover hers. My body wants nothing more than to wrap itself around her like a blanket.
She hedges in and folds her arms around my waist.
“Baya,” I whisper with an unspoken agony I hope to never relive. It’s coming—all those feelings I had so long ago. I swore I’d never go there again. I need to stave them off—deny them. It’s the only way I know to keep my heart safe—hell, keep Baya’s heart safe.
“Is something wrong? Is it me?” Her eyes round out in horror as if maybe I’m repulsed by her.
“No.” My hands float up to her waist, and I brush over her hips with my fingers. Baya is soft, her hair smooth as silk. I lean in and inhale her scent while touching down over the top of her head with my cheek. God she smells nice—like vanilla and cinnamon and suddenly I’m very fucking hungry for vanilla and cinnamon. “You’re perfect, I promise.” A little too much.
“Is it Cole?” she whispers. She knows I’m stalling and demands to know why.
Cole is the easy out. I should take it and run with it all the way back to Whitney Briggs. A part of me wants to evict Jeanie from her dorm just to keep Baya a safe distance from me for the rest of the night—hell, the rest of the year. But I’m right there, I’m about to cave and when I do I’ll take everything she’s willing to give me.
“No, it’s not Cole.” I shake my head in defeat. The last thing I want to do is lie to her.
Tears well up in her eyes and she blinks them back. Crap. Now I’m humiliating her. That’s the last thing on the planet I want to do.
“Bryson”—her voice breaks—“do you think maybe we could share just one kiss?” The desperation, the outright pleading in her voice kills me on a primal level and my body starts to shake because I want that kiss just as bad as she does. Probably more.
My adrenaline picks up until my heart feels like a bomb is about to detonate in my chest. What the hell. It’s just a kiss. Although a part of me knows it will be anything but just a kiss with Baya.
I cradle her cheeks in the palms of my hands and draw to her to me, slow and measured. I give a gentle smile as her eyes close, her lips part waiting for mine to greet her. I want to freeze this moment. This is innocent and pure—untainted from my past in a way that I wish the rest of my life could be.
“Baya,” her name strains from my lips as threadbare as the wind as I bring my mouth to hers. I offer a barely-there pass, soft as down feathers before landing hard over her mouth like I want to, like I’ve wanted to ever since that afternoon she first arrived. I swipe my tongue over hers and a groan rips from my gut as if it’s waited all my life to come out. A burst of passion releases from me like I have never known. I’ve waited years for a kiss just like this one—an entire lifetime. I had never had a kiss that mattered so much—that I’ve craved so badly before and now I know why—Baya wasn’t there to give it.
Steph tries to surface but I hold down the past and refuse to let it cork to the top. This is my moment with Baya and once she learns the truth about me, we may never have another.
She runs her hands up my T-shirt and warms herself over my skin. I pull her in tight, and she jumps up on my waist, wrapping her legs around me as if I were a life raft—her lips never leaving mine. We indulge in the pull and push of ecstasy like I have never experienced before—the hard-on blooming in my jeans can attest to that. A series of soft groans emit from her and it takes everything in me not to ride my hands up her shirt—not to take her greedily in the back of my truck, if she wanted me to, and something tells me she more than wants to.
Baya reaches down and plays with the button on my jeans, and I catch her hand in flight.
“No,” I whisper, dotting her lips with a kiss.
“Yes,” she pants trailing her molten hot lips to my ear then pausing.
“No way,” I insist, soft as a whisper.
She gives a little sigh over my lips and it makes me dizzy. “You’re off the hook for now, but I want this.” She pulls her finger up my belly in a solid line, and I take a breath and seal it in my lungs.
“You hardly know me.” A dull laugh brews in my chest as I spin her gently with my hands tucked beneath her knees.
“Hardly know you?” She averts her eyes and I’d do just about anything to please her any way she likes but I know the damage I’m capable of. “Right—you have one-night stands all the time. And, I know exactly how many.” She taps my chest, resisting the urge to laugh. “Your wall whispered all of your secrets to me this morning while you were in the shower.” Baya tries to hide a smile, and I nibble on her lower lip before pulling away.
“I’m not having a one-night stand with you, Baya.” True as God. If I had Baya one night would never be enough. “We’re just kissing buddies nothing more.” There. Somehow I managed to set a boundary—not that my dick agrees.
“Buddies, huh?” She reaches down and strokes my hard-on over my jeans, and I lurch into her. I’ve never felt so damn tu
rned on, so ready to come with such little effort. “Your pants feel awful friendly.”
“They’re not, and neither am I,” I tease as a light rain starts to fall.
“Let’s get back to the kissing.” She pulls her lips across my cheek down to my mouth. “We can figure the rest out later.”
Baya lands her candy sweet mouth over mine, and everything in me feels as if it’s floating on air. It’s as if Baya’s kisses were the exact elixir I’ve been waiting for all these years, a salve in the form of another sweet girl reminiscent of the one I lost.
I’ve hung out in the dark for so long, I’ve forgotten what it really feels like to live, too soar with the promise of something wonderful on the horizon.
Baya just might be the light at the end of this long, hellish tunnel. But does she really have the power to pull me from the wreckage? I doubt it. I’m too far gone, too much of a fucking mess to ever hope to recover.
The rain starts in, heavy and hard, matching the rhythm of my heart over hers.
I hope to God, Baya is the cure to this disease I’ve been wasting away from because it feels like I’m about to die, or at least it did just before I met her.
Her tongue knifes over mine in strokes of lust-driven madness, and I’m right there with her. Not another person on the planet exists right now, not Cole, not a thousand faceless girls from Whitney Briggs—and not the one I left behind in the past.
Right now, it’s just Baya and me, drowning in a sea of kisses that taste and feel like the sweetest release. They feel like hope. And, for the first time in a good long while, I have it.
I push Baya up against the truck, and we indulge in the hot of one another’s mouths until the sun illuminates a new day with its feather soft beams.
Baya Brighton is in my life, and, now, nothing will ever be the same.
3
Eyes Wide Open
Baya
On Wednesday, after U.S. History and just before American Lit, Laney snags me off the lawn, and we head over to Hallowed Grounds for a cup of something hot to warm our frozen bones. It’s hardly the end of September, and already the air is crystalizing into an artic chill. The leaves have yellowed, and it’s a startling effect against the backdrop of the pale blue granite of the mountains, the supple verdant pines.
“So dish,” Laney says as we wait for our coffee. Her milky blue eyes are a stark contrast to her long, dark hair, her pale as paper skin. She’s pretty in a haunting way.
I fill her in on where I’ve been spending my nights.
“So, basically, staying with those two is like minoring in Sexology.” I twist a lock of hair around my finger while picturing a very naked, very sweaty Bryson panting over me. “Did I just make up a new major?”
“Sexology, huh? I bet you’d like to minor in Bryson Edwards.” She purrs into the idea. “I’m sort of majoring in vibrators at the moment. Did I just say that out loud? God I hate my ex.” She shakes the thought away. “Anyway, I’d help you out, but I’ve got two roommates too many at the moment. So”—she leans in and bites down over her Russian red lips—“on a scale of one to bed, how interested are you in Bryson?”
“Well—he took me to the Sky Lab last weekend.” I artfully evade the question with a fact. “That place was all stainless steel and glass. I was completely dizzy by the end of the night.” I leave out the fact it was Bryson’s kisses, the physical act of him twirling me while his tongue probed the landscape of my mouth that actually caused my head to spin.
“And?” Her pale eyes peer under her bangs, and she looks serious as shit while awaiting an answer.
“And, I assure you, no vibrators were harmed during the course of our evening.” The only thing vibrating against me was Bryson, and God knows he sent my insides quivering right down to my penis pocket—not that I’ve ever put anything in it that even remotely resembled a penis. “Maybe we shared a kiss.” The sweet memory of that hot exchange wafts through my mind, and my girl parts spasm just thinking about his hands roaming over me. I loved the way his embrace was gentle at times—hard and forceful at others. Who needs the battery response squad when you’ve got Bryson and his biceps to keep your vagina entertained? Not that he entertained the lower half, but still. Swear to God, if he were here my panties might spontaneously combust. Just thinking about him has me sitting in a puddle. “Okay, it may have been one, long, smoking hot kiss.”
“He kissed you?” She gives an open mouthed moan as if it were the sweetest thing. And it is because, for one, he doesn’t require double A batteries.
Once our lattes are ready, we head over to the pot-bellied stove, glowing with a crackling fire. The scent of fresh cut wood bites through the air, penetrating the thick scent of coffee, and the combination makes me heady.
A girl with long auburn hair waves a hand, and Laney speeds us in her direction.
“Baya, this is Roxy.” She nods over at the gorgeous Goth-like girl. “She hates people. Roxy—Baya.” Laney pulls out a seat, and we join her at the tiny table. Roxy has long, dark hair, more of a chestnut color with magenta highlights, and her eyes illuminate her face a lemony hazel. She’s beyond gorgeous, and a part of me wonders if she’s a tally mark on Bryson’s wall. And for that speculative reason alone, I secretly dislike her. A lot.
“I don’t hate people.” Her lips curl at the thought. “I hate people with penises.”
“Nice.” I muse. And I sort of like her better after that misanthropic comment. It takes the edge off any jealous feelings I was ready and willing to nurture.
“Roxy is the resident baker at Whitney Briggs.” Lauren holds a hand out to her as if making a formal introduction. “She specializes in all things delicious, including penis cupcakes so I suggest you buddy up. This girl has the potential to keep us in cake pops for life.”
Roxy wags a finger. “I prefer the term balls on a stick. The blue ones are my favorite.” She cuts a hard look at the poor boys sitting across from us.
Okay, I like her a whole lot, now that I know she’s more into skewering Bryson’s assets than licking them. I give her a wide brimming smile.
Laney peers over the mound of books on the table. “You have anything tall, dark, and chocolate lurking on your plate?”
“Not today.” Roxy clears the area to make room for our drinks. “Besides, I have a feeling any baking I do will be few and far between this year. They remodeled the commons area over the summer and took the kitchen out in favor of a pool table. Now I’ll have to beg the caf to let me use the facility.”
“Sounds like it’s back to the Easy Bake for you.” Laney gives a brief frown.
“So, what’s new?” Roxy takes a sip of her coffee and nods into Laney.
“The drama department is putting on Les Mis, and I’m thinking about auditioning for the part of Fantine.”
“Oh!” Roxy’s face puckers dramatically. “Death and dying in the land of the miserable. Can we get free tickets?”
“Don’t you always?”
“That sounds like fun,” I say. Laney is so gorgeous it’s hard to believe she wouldn’t get the part. I glance back at the redhead across from me as if Roxy were coming into focus. She looks more than a little familiar. “Hey, I think you’re in my building—Prescott Hall?” I tilt into her. “You’re the one with a poster of a cat that tells me to F off on the way to my room.” Or at least it did while I was still residing at the palace of perversion, but I leave that part out.
“Correction, old room.” Laney pulls her chin back. “She’s shacking up with Bryson Edwards.”
Roxy looks impressed as hell as if I’ve pulled off the roommate coup of the century. “Does his harem know about this?”
“Technically, I’m crashing with my brother Cole.” I glance to Laney. “And, to be honest, I don’t really care what Bryson’s harem might think.” True story. “Bryson and I are just buddies. And I’m quoting.”
“Ooh!” Laney perks to life at my battle cry. “Sounds like we went from a hot kiss to cold shoulder in a sin
gle bound.” Her dark brows swoop in like bats in flight. “You know he’s a notorious playboy, right? I wouldn’t bother pining for him. A leopard like Bryson can’t change his spots for anyone.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I’m not sure which is worse.
“Both.” Laney nods as if she knows him well enough to attest to his stance on commitment.
“That’s too bad.” I twirl the warm cup in my hand. “I mean, that kiss we shared was amazing.” It was like one long strung out orgasm that’s left my entire body throbbing for the past few days.
“Kiss as in singular?” Laney looks suspicious. “I’ve seen that boy in action. I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Oh, it is,” I’m quick to assure her of Bryson’s tongue twisting superpowers. “After the bar closed, we indulged in one, long, never-ending kiss that greeted the sun when it finally showed up. We sat right there in that parking lot for hours. It was magic.”
“Oh, hon”—Laney grimaces into the thought—“there’s a lot of false magic in the parking lot of a bar at three in the morning.” She says it with a heavy heart as if she knew firsthand. “He was probably feeling you out to see if he was about to get lucky.”
“And I would have happily let him.” I take a careful sip of my coffee as an image of me sitting naked on the hood of his truck blips through my mind. The list of things we could have done in that parking lot is endless. “But, the truth is, that kiss was sort of hard won. I practically had to beg. I guess he’s just not that into me.”
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