by L. A. Casey
He chuckled. “I surprised myself with that one too.”
“I’m not sure what to think. This is the weirdest conversation we’ve ever had.”
Darcy chortled. “It’s called being civil to one another.”
I pretended to be disgusted. “I don’t like it.”
He pulled a face at me and pinched my side, making me squeal and him laugh.
“Do you think being stuck here together will change us?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
It was a question that had been sitting in the back of my mind since Darcy had told me what he’d done for me when we were teenagers.
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I do. I mean, it has. Look how different we are with one another and it’s only been a few days. Sure, we’ve still had spats here and there, but we’re both alive, which speaks volumes . . . I mean, do you even remember why we acted the way we did for all those years?
Was that a serious question?
“Yes, I do. You picked Laura Stoke over me. I remember everything about that day, Darcy.”
He blinked down at me. “You remember that day?”
I nodded my head. “It was the first time someone had ever broken my heart; of course I remember it.”
Darcy widened his eyes as he stared at me, and I mirrored his expression, because I had not meant to say that out loud.
“I broke your heart?” he asked.
I shrugged, but didn’t respond.
His fingers touched my chin as he turned my face in his direction.
“I broke your heart?” he repeated.
I swallowed, and slowly nodded.
He blinked his big brown eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it.
After a few moments of silence I smiled weakly. “It’s okay.” I lied. “It was a long time ago.”
Darcy frowned at me. “It’s not okay. I shouldn’t have let my crush on Laura blind me from the truth that day.”
“Then why did you?” I asked.
He sighed. “I showed up just as you punched her. I got a fright because you were never in a fight before, and I liked Laura. I did a shitty thing: I chose a girl over my best friend.”
I stared at Darcy with wide eyes.
He caught my expression and gave me a sad smile. “I loved you, Neala Girl. You were my best friend. No one else’s. Mine. I didn’t like myself after I sided with Laura, and it’s why I became so angry. You said you hated me. You wouldn’t talk to me; you were just done with me and I felt thrown under the bus at that, but it doesn’t excuse what I did. If I’d sided with you in the first place, like I should have, then our stupid feud wouldn’t have happened. Is it too late for me to apologise?”
What. The. Hell?
What was happening right now?
Darcy was apologising to me?
This was too much to take in.
“You look like you’re about to freak out,” Darcy mused.
“I am,” I replied honestly.
Darcy chuckled and hugged me to his warm body. “It appears to be honesty hour. We may never get another chance like this, so I want everything between us to be out in the open. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Does my honesty scare you?” Darcy asked.
Scare me?
No.
Thrill me?
Yes.
“No, I’m just a little . . . shocked? I don’t really know. I never expected you to say anything like this to me, Darcy.”
He nodded. “Trust me, I never planned on it, but it just feels right. I don’t know why, but it does.”
I gnawed on my inner cheek, then said, “Maybe you have cabin fever and the isolation is starting to drive you mad.”
Darcy looked at me and burst out laughing.
The tension that had built up in the room fled within that moment, and I was very grateful for it.
“Be serious.” He chuckled and nudged me.
I cleared my throat. “Deadly serious?”
Darcy nodded.
“Okay, it does feel right. I think because it’s just us here together and we don’t have our families around us trying to force us to be nice. We’re being nice on our own terms, which is sort of a miracle in itself. I mean, did you ever imagine us ever being even remotely friendly to one another?”
He grinned. “No, but I hope today is the first day of many we’re friendly.”
I turned in Darcy’s arm and raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you suggesting an indefinite truce between us?”
“Would that be so terrible?” he asked.
I thought about it and could come up with only one answer.
I smiled. “No.”
“Then yes.” Darcy beamed. “That is what I’m suggesting.”
“Say it.” I chuckled.
He playfully sighed. “Neala Clarke, can we live out the remainder of our lives in peace?”
I pretended to think about it, and Darcy shoved me, making me laugh.
“Yeah.” I giggled. “We can be friends.”
“Friends.” He nodded.
Wow.
Talk about a strange turn of events. Father Christmas himself couldn’t have predicted this.
“So we’re friends . . . What do we do now?” I asked.
Darcy slumped down a little and said, “I’ve no idea.”
I looked at him at the same time he looked at me and we both laughed.
“I shouldn’t have been so pig-headed and childish. I should have let you explain yourself instead of acting out. I shouldn’t have said the things I did, knowing they would hurt you. I’m sorry, too,” I said and watched him smile at me.
I wanted to burst with excitement, but I somehow kept my cool.
“Our mas are going to be so happy,” I said, amused.
Darcy snorted. “I’d bet money they’ll cry.”
I nodded in agreement. “That’s an easy win; they’ll sob for weeks.”
He snickered. “Our brothers will be delighted; they won’t have to break up our fights anymore.”
I grinned. “They were getting too old for it anyway.”
Darcy shook his head. “And our das? I don’t even think they’ll notice.”
I gnawed on my lip. “They’ll at least high-five; it means they don’t have to listen to our mas go on about us anymore.”
His mouth curved in a grin. “I think the entire village will rejoice. Birds will sing, mothers will weep, cripples will walk—”
I cut him off with my laughter.
He hugged me tightly to him. “Does touching my penis creep you out so much now?”
Really?
Did he have to bring that back up?
“Darcy!” I whined, and covered my face with both of my hands.
He cackled. “I’m only teasing.”
“Well, don’t. I’ve never been so mortified in me entire life as I was this morning.”
He had both his eyebrows raised when I looked at him.
“Really?” he asked. “Touching me hard-on was worse than walking home naked from the Elite Swimming Pool after we graduated from school?”
I felt heat rush up my neck to my cheeks.
“Oh, my God. That day was all kinds of horrible, and you . . . you caused that!”
Darcy winced. “That prank did go a little too far. When I realised how insensitive it was, considering what almost happened to you the year before, I tried to stop Emmet, but I was too late.”
I growled at Darcy.
The horrible incident he was referring to was the day I graduated from secondary school. It was the year after the situation with Trevor. I wasn’t into drinking or acting a fool, so I’d tagged along with a few lads and girls from my graduating class.
We all decided to go to the local swimming pool – one of the lads in class got keys to it because his father was a lifeguard there. We had the pool all to ourselves, and it was a brilliant night – that was until Darcy, my brother, Justin, and some of Darcy’s stupid friends showed up.
Once I saw Darcy at the pool in his trunks I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t make him leave, because he’d just graduated too, so he had as much right to be there as me. I wanted to leave because he would probably try to drown me, but if I was honest with myself, the main reason I wanted to leave was because it was the first time I had seen Darcy in a new light, and it freaked me out.
Usually the sight of him turned my stomach, but I’d never forget the moment I realized that looking at Darcy made me feel something other than ill. He made me feel . . . hot. I put this down to being shocked at seeing his body in his swimming trunks. We both would be turning eighteen in the summer of that year and it was around that time Darcy stopped being skinny; he’d started to fill out and I noticed.
Every girl noticed.
I tried to discreetly leave the pool, but it was never that easy with Darcy. The dickhead gave one of his friends ten Euros to follow me into the girls’ changing rooms, and whilst I was showering, he’d stolen my clothes and swimsuit. The stupid lad tossed them into the pool, and laughed his head off when I went out to the pool wrapped in a towel with a furious look about me.
I remember Darcy being in Emmet’s face, and that he said he was very sorry, but I was too wrapped up in my thoughts to process it.
“You and Sean flanked me the entire walk home and threatened death upon anyone who looked at me twice,” I mused.
Darcy leaned his head back and laughed. “That was a bad day. I felt like crap when I saw your clothes in the pool; then I saw your endless legs in that tiny towel. God. I wanted to kill everyone who looked at you – even your brother, which is saying something, because he socked me one when he found out what I did.”
I smiled to myself as I asked, “Why did you want to hit people for looking at me?”
He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “You know why.”
I really didn’t.
“Nope, you’ll have to enlighten me.”
He groaned. “You enjoy torturing me, don’t you?”
I smirked sadistically.
“Devil woman,” Darcy growled.
My insides jumped at the delicious sound of his voice.
“Fine,” he muttered. “I fancied you. There, I said it. I don’t think I realised it at the time, though.”
Darcy had fancied me?
Me?
What the ever-loving hell?
This was huge news to me. Darcy had fancied me! But . . . ‘fancied.’ Past tense. So was all the attraction I’d been fighting for the past few days just one-sided, just me, or was he feeling it too? Again? Whatever? Fuck!
My heard started to spin again.
“Past tense? You don’t fancy me anymore?” I asked, and then flinched when heat stained my cheeks.
Oh, hello, boldness.
Darcy glanced at me, and he looked as shocked as I felt.
The poor lad.
“I do,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Do you . . . do you fancy me? Or like me in that way?”
If he had asked me that question last week I would have said no, even though I had always thought he was attractive.
I had never put a lot of thought into anything further than that, because we always fought, but now, if the butterflies and rush of heat when I saw him were anything to go by, then I would go with a definite yes.
“Yeah . . . I do fancy you, and like you in that way,” I admitted.
I couldn’t believe I’d said it.
I couldn’t believe it was the truth.
“Are you serious, Neala?” Darcy asked, his tone rough. “Because if you’re playing with me it’s not funny.”
He seemed irritated.
I put my hand on his arm. “I’m not joking. I’m serious.”
Darcy looked at me, and then tilted his head back so he could look up at the ceiling.
I settled back against his chest and I felt a shudder run through my body at the familiarity.
“Do you know what else this reminds me of?” Darcy murmured.
I closed my eyes and smiled.
“What?”
“Your fourteenth birthday. You were out with Daryl Maine. I knew he fancied you, so I told him that you were a closet lesbian, and he wouldn’t kiss you because of it. You drank your da’s whiskey out of anger at me and got shitfaced. I had to mind you for a few hours until you sobered up so I could bring you home and you could go to sleep.”
I burst out laughing, surprising myself again. “I actually remember a bit of that.”
It was one of my best memories, even if it was foggy in parts.
Darcy gave me a little squeeze. “I brought you down to the river and we sat there for hours just throwing stones into the water, seeing who could out-skip who. We didn’t fight or curse at one another – we forgot we hated each other and just had fun hanging out together. Just like we did when we were little.”
My heart swelled and my eyes watered.
“I miss those times,” I admitted.
Darcy was silent for a moment before he said, “Me too.”
I turned and looked up at him. He was already staring down at me.
“Tell me no,” he murmured as he lowered his head to mine.
My heart began to pound against my chest.
“What?” I whispered.
Darcy licked his trembling lips. “Tell me no. I’ll kiss you if you don’t.”
His warning fell on deaf ears.
“Darcy, before I answer you, will you tell me something?”
He blinked. “Yeah?”
The conversation we had the other day was sitting on my mind, and I just had to ask the question that had been bugging me.
“What did you mean when you said I should take you calling me the opposite of Laura Stoke as a compliment and not an insult?”
Darcy stared into my eyes, the corners of his own eyes crinkling slightly as a smile curved his lips. “Laura in her own right is sexy, but you . . . you, my Neala Girl, are beautiful. Anyone can be sexy, but not everyone can be beautiful.”
Oh, my.
My stomach exploded into butterflies, and tingles shot up and down my spine.
“Yes,” I breathed.
Darcy swallowed. “Yes what?”
“Yes, I want you to kiss me.”
I felt Darcy’s body shake as he lowered his mouth to mine.
“Don’t be scared,” I whispered seconds before his lips touched mine.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I opened up all my senses to Darcy.
I could feel him, taste him, hear him, smell him, and see him.
I wanted him.
All of him.
I lifted my arms and slid them around Darcy’s shoulders until I clasped my hands together behind his neck. I pulled his head closer to mine until our faces were pressed against one another. I opened my mouth and welcomed Darcy’s warm, wet tongue. I mimicked his actions with my own. After a long moment I switched things up by nibbling on his lower lip with my teeth, and I could tell he liked it because he growled.
Darcy has growled at me enough over the years for me to decipher whether it was a good or bad growl, and this growl was good.
Very good.
I groaned when his arms came around my back and he hoisted me up onto his lap. I moved my left leg and turned my body until I was straddling him. Straddling Darcy turned out to not be the best option, because the longer and harder I kissed him, the more my core ached and begged to be touched. I moved my hands away from Darcy to the back of the couch, where I gripped it.
“Neala,” Darcy breathed against my mouth.
He pulled away and kissed along my jaw and down to my neck. He nuzzled there for a moment, then kissed the spot just under my ear, and it caused me to buck against him. I groaned out loud, and Darcy latched onto my neck and sucked.
“Darcy!” I cried, and ground my pelvis against his.
What the hell was going on me with me?
I was acting like a wild animal.
Get some self-control, wo
man!
It was extremely difficult, though, because it felt like I couldn’t control myself, and that I had to have Darcy in every way possible.
“Neala Girl,” Darcy murmured into my neck.
I moaned in response and pushed toward his mouth, making him chuckle.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
I pulled back and growled at him. “If you stop touching me, we’ll have a problem.”
Darcy blinked at me. “I’ve never seen this side to you before . . . It’s sexy as fuck.”
I grinned. “Not beautiful?”
Darcy reached up and brushed his thumb over my cheek. “You’re always beautiful, but baby, you’re proving you can be sexy, too.”
Baby.
I liked that.
I looked at Darcy and swallowed.
I felt like I was floating only to smack down hard on the concrete. This was Darcy, my Darcy. I had loved him a long time ago, and I hated him for years, but I’d also had an odd attraction that had solidified into a crush over the past few days. I’d never realised it, but Darcy was someone who was constantly on my mind, and seeing him made my day – even if it was just going to be filled with the pair of us arguing.
I think I had a serious thing for Darcy.
Shite.
I ground my pelvis against his once more, and this time I felt him.
“Neala Girl, don’t do that. I don’t want to upset you, but grinding on me will only make me hard. I know you’re excited and—”
“I want to have sex with you,” I cut Darcy off.
He reared back and stared at me with wide, shocked eyes.
“Neala—”
“Don’t, Darcy. Don’t you dare ruin this and reject me.”
He looked pained. “I don’t want to ruin this, trust me. I would love nothing more than to explore every inch of you, but I want to respect you, baby. I want your trust.”
He was killing me.
“Darcy, please, I’m not a little girl. I’m twenty-five years of age, and I just realised that I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember. I’ve waited long enough to have you; don’t make me wait a minute longer.”
He was torn between doing what his body wanted and what his mind was telling him, so I decided to make it even harder for him. Literally.
I stood up and reached down to the hem of my borrowed t-shirt and pulled it up my body and over my head, and threw it behind me on the floor. I pushed the trousers down and shimmied my hips from left to right until they gathered in a pool of fabric around my ankles. I stepped out of them and looked up. Darcy’s eyes were almost popping out of his head as they roamed over my bare chest.
