Beach Read

by Emily Henry

  “Well,” he said. “One thing. It seemed too crass to invite you to my aunts’ house and then bring up your ass.”

  * * *

  —

  Usually when I went to a party, I used it as an excuse to buy a thematically appropriate outfit. Or at least new shoes. But even after selling a good amount of furniture, when I logged in to my bank account on Friday morning, the site practically frowned at me.

  I texted Gus. I don’t think I can come to the party as I have recently discovered I cannot afford to bring even a single serving of potato salad.

  I watched the “. . .” appear onscreen as he typed. He stopped. Started again. After a full minute, the symbol vanished and I went back to staring the basement door down.

  I’d held off sorting through the master bedroom and bath and taken down pretty much everything (including the things nailed to the wall) on the first floor, and that left the basement.

  Inhaling deeply, I opened the door and gazed down the dark staircase. Cement at the bottom. That was good—no reason to suspect it was finished, full of more furniture whose removal I’d have to coordinate. I flicked the switch, but the bulb was dead. It wasn’t pitch-black by any means—there were glass block windows I’d seen from outside that must’ve let in some natural light. I brandished my phone like a flashlight and descended. A few red and green plastic tubs were stacked along the wall beside a metal rack full of tools and a stand-alone freezer. I wandered toward the rack, touching a dust-coated box of light bulbs. My fingers furled around the lid, tugged it open.

  One of the light bulbs had already been taken.

  Maybe the one that had burned out on the basement stairs.

  Maybe Dad had come down here to do something else and realized, like I had, that the switch wasn’t working. He’d taken the bulb out and climbed halfway back up the stairs to where he could replace it without going onto tiptoes.

  This time the ache was like a harpoon. Wasn’t the pain supposed to get better over time? When would handling something my dad had touched stop making my chest hurt so badly I couldn’t get a good breath? When would the letter in the gin box stop filling me with dread?

  “January?”

  I spun toward the voice, truly expecting to find a ghost, a murderer, or a murderous ghost that had been hiding down here in the belly of the house all along.

  Instead I found Gus, backlit from the hall light spilling down the stairs as he leaned down to see me from under the partial wall that lined the top half of the steps.

  “Shit,” I gasped, still thrumming with adrenaline.

  “The door was unlocked,” he said, padding down the steps. “Kind of freaked me out seeing the basement door open.”

  “Freaked me out hearing someone’s voice in the basement when I thought I was alone.”

  “Sorry.” He looked around. “Not much down here.”

  “No sex dungeon,” I agreed.

  “Was that ever on the table?” he asked.

  “Shadi was hopeful.”

  “I see.” After a beat of silence, he said, “You know, you don’t have to go through all this. You don’t have to go through any of it, if you don’t want to.”

  “Kind of weird to sell a house with dusty tools and a single box of light bulbs in it,” I pointed out. “Falls in the gray zone between fully furnished and empty as shit. Besides, I need the money. Everything must go. It’s a fire sale, of sorts. In that this is my alternative to lighting the house on fire and trying to score the insurance money.”

  “That’s actually what I came to talk to you about,” he said.

  I gaped at him. “You were going to suggest we burn my house down as part of an arson insurance scam?”

  “Potato salad,” he said. “I should’ve mentioned that there is absolutely no need to bring anything to Pete and Maggie’s Fourth of July party. In fact, anything you bring will just end up sitting underneath a table that’s already too full of everything they’ve provided and then they’ll send it home with you at the end of the night. If you try to leave it as a gesture, you’ll find it in your purse, hot and moldy, three days from now.”

  “They’ll provide everything?” I said.

  “Everything.”

  “Even White Russians?”

  Gus nodded.

  “What about rocks? Will there be rocks, or should I bring my own? Just as casual conversation starters.”

  “I just realized something,” Gus said. “You’re no longer invited.”

  “Oh, I’m definitely invited,” I said. “They won’t turn someone with rocks away.”

  “Okay, in that case, I’m coming down with something. You’ll have to go alone.”

  “Relax.” I grabbed his arm. “I won’t engage in rock talk. Much.”

  He smirked and stepped in closer to me, shaking his head. “I’m not going. Too sick.”

  “You’ll survive.” My hand was still in the crook of his arm, his skin burning hot under my fingers. When my hand tensed on him, he edged closer, shaking his head again. My back met the cold edges of the tool rack, and his eyes swept down me and back up, leaving goose bumps in their wake. I pulled him closer, and our stomachs met, heavy want gathering behind my ribs and belly button and all the places we were touching.

  He lightly held my hips and eased them up to his, and heat raced down me like flames on a streak of gasoline. My breath hitched. My blood felt like it was slowing, thickening in my veins, but my heart was racing as I watched his expression change, his smile seeming to singe off at the corners of his mouth, his eyes darkening with focus.

  If he could see into me right then, I didn’t care. I even wanted him to.

  One time one time one time rushed through my brain on repeat, like tumbleweeds through a desert.

  And then Gus slowly bent, his nose grazing down mine until his breath hit my lips, somehow parting them without so much as a touch, and my fingers burrowed into his skin as his lips caught mine roughly, so fierce and hot and slow I felt like I would melt against him before that first kiss had ended.

  He tasted like coffee and the tail end of a cigarette and I couldn’t get enough. My hands knotted into his hair as his tongue slipped into my mouth. He flattened me into the tool rack as his hands rose to my jaw, angling my mouth up to his as he kissed me again, even deeper, like we were desperate to plumb the depths of each other.

  Every kiss, every touch was rough and warm, like him. His hands slid down my chest and then they were under my shirt, his fingers light as falling snow against my waist, against my bra, making my skin tingle as we rocked into each other. The rack whined as he slowly pushed me back against it, and Gus laughed into my mouth, which somehow made me feel even more desperate for him.

  I twisted my hands into his shirt and his mouth drifted down my throat, slow and hungry. One of his hands grasped at my waist while the other slipped beneath the lace of my balconette, turning heavy circles on me. He was gentle at first, every movement languid and purposeful, but as I arched under his touch, his grip tightened, making me gasp.

  He pulled back, breathing hard. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head, and Gus touched the side of my face again, gingerly turned it to kiss each of my temples. I caught the hem of his shirt and lifted it over him, chest fluttering at the sight of his lean, hard lines. As soon as I’d dropped his shirt on the ground he grabbed me, his calloused palms brushing up my sides, gathering fabric as they went. He tossed my shirt aside, then studied me intensely. “God,” he said, voice deep, raspy.

  I fought a smile. “Are you praying to me, Gus?”

  His inky gaze scraped up my body to my eyes. The muscles in his jaw leapt and I arched against him as his hands skimmed around my back to unhook my bra. “Something like that.”

  He moved one of my bra straps down my arm, his eyes tracing the slow path of his fingers as they skated down t
he side of my breast, following the curve of it. When they skated back up, his rough palm cupped me, sending chills out through me. Again his touch was infuriatingly light, but his gaze was so furiously dark it seemed to dig into me, and I rocked with his motion, responding to his touch.

  The corner of his mouth twitched as his eyes moved back to mine. He freed my other bra strap and the fabric fell away. The intensity of his dark eyes on my chest, drinking me in and taking his time doing it, made me shift and squirm as if I could grind against it. The muscle in his jaw pulsed and he tugged me hard against him.

  There would be consequences. This had to be a bad idea.

  He stepped in closer, pinning me to the shelf. I reached for his hips.

  21

  The Cookout

  Gus’s hands traced down the sides of my body, feeling every exposed line and curve.

  “You’re so beautiful, January,” he whispered, kissing me more tenderly. “You’re so fucking beautiful, you’re like the sun.”

  His mouth moved down my body, tasting all the places he’d touched. It wasn’t enough. My fingernails dug into his back and he jerked me away from the rack and guided me onto the freezer beside it, fumbling with the button on my shorts. I lifted myself so he could slide them down my thighs, and as he straightened, his hands crawled back up my legs, slipped under the sides of my underwear to burrow into my skin. I arched against him and he pulled my thighs up against his hips, his mouth moving hard against mine. “God, January,” he said.

  My want throttled my voice into a breathy gasp when I tried to reply. I ground myself against him and his touch sharpened.

  We stopped being gentle with each other. I couldn’t slow myself down enough to be careful with him, and I didn’t want him to be careful with me. I undid his pants and jerked them down. One of his hands slid between my legs and he groaned. The other dug into my hip as his mouth trailed down my stomach. His hands squeezed my thighs, and I gripped the sides of the freezer as he lowered himself between my legs and tasted me. My breaths came faster as the pressure mounted in me. His fingers sank into the creases of my hips and his name slipped between my lips. He cupped my hips, my ass, harder. It wasn’t enough. I wanted him. I only realized I said it aloud when he said it back to me—“I want you, January.”

  He straightened and yanked me to the edge of the freezer, lifting my hips against him as I tightened my thighs against the sides of his body.

  “Gus,” I gasped and his gaze rolled up me, heat pulsing under my skin. “Do you have a condom?”

  It took him a minute to answer, like his brain was translating from a second language. His eyes were still dark and hungry, his hands wrapped tight around my thighs. “Here?” he said. “In your father’s spare house’s basement?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of in your pocket,” I said, still out of breath.

  He laughed, a throaty rattle. “How would you feel if I’d brought condoms with me to tell you about the potato salad?”

  “Thankful,” I said.

  “I didn’t know this was going to happen.” Gus ran a hand through his hair in distress as the other maintained its nearly painful grip on me. “Next door. I have some.”

  We stared at each other for a moment, then started grabbing our clothes off the floor and pulling them on. As we ran up the stairs, Gus grabbed my ass. “God,” he said again. “Thank you for this day, Lord. Also Jack Reacher.”

  We didn’t bother with shoes, just ran out the door and across the yard. I reached his front door first and turned back just as Gus was coming up the steps. He let out a gruff laugh at the sight of me and shook his head as he seized me by the hips and kissed me again, flattening me against the door.

  I threaded my fingers through his hair, forgetting where we were, forgetting everything but his hands sliding over me, dipping into my clothes, his tongue coaxing my lips apart as I touched as much of him as I could get to. A small, dissatisfied noise slipped out of me, and he reached around my hip to twist the doorknob, leading me backward into the house.

  We barely made it three feet before he pulled my shirt off and peeled off his again. In a flash, I was on his console table, his hands undoing my shorts, sifting down over my hips and thighs as he pulled them down me and let them fall to the floor. He walked in between my knees.

  I lifted myself against him as he dragged his hands down my breasts, catching my nipples, massaging me until everything in me pinched tight. He scooped me off the table as I wrapped my legs around him and spun to pin me against the bookcase. His hands twisted into my thighs, and I arched against the bookcase to work my hips against his.

  Not enough, not even close.

  He undid his pants and pulled them down from right under me. My hand scraped down his front to push ineffectually at his briefs. He adjusted me against the shelf and pushed them down.

  It was almost too much feeling him against me. A gasp escaped me as I rolled my hips on him. He clutched me with one broad hand and groaned into my skin, “Fuck, January.”

  The rumble of his voice sent goose bumps racing over me. His free hand reached along the shelf at my shoulder level until it met a blue jar in my peripheral vision.

  He fished a condom out of it, and I laughed, despite myself. “Oh my God,” I murmured against his ear. “Do you always have sex against your bookshelves? Are your books behind me right now? Is this an ego thing?”

  He drew back, smiling wryly as he tore the wrapper with his teeth. “It’s for on my way out the door, smart-ass.” His grip loosened and he drew back a few inches. “This is a first for me, but if it’s not doing it for you, we can always wait until we stumble across a good beach cave on a rainy day.”

  I greedily grabbed for him, catching his bottom lip with my teeth, before he could pull away any further. He closed the gap between us, kissing me hungrily as he worked the condom on. His hands came back to my waist, tender and light this time, and he coaxed me into a slow, sensual kiss as I trembled with anticipation.

  His first thrust was mind-meltingly slow, and everything in my body pulled taut around him as he sank deep into me. My breath caught, stars popping behind my eyes from the surprise of his size and the wave of pleasure racing through me.

  “Oh, God,” I gasped as he rocked into me.

  “Are you praying to me?” he teased against my ear, sending a tingle down my spine. I couldn’t take going this slow. I pushed against him, fast, eager, and he matched my intensity.

  He pulled me away from the bookshelves and spun around to sit on the couch, drawing me on top of him as he lay back. I gasped his name as he pushed into me again, his hands spanning my ribs. I leaned over him, my hands splayed against his chest as I tried to keep from coming undone. His mouth roved over my breast, and an intoxicating pulse of heat and want went through me.

  “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he hissed, hands tightening on my ass.

  A thrill rippled through my chest at the rasp of his voice. “I have too,” I admitted in a hush. “Since that night at the drive-in.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “Before that.”

  My chest fluttered like there was a box fan blowing glitter around in it, and everything in me mounted—tightrope-taut and quivering—as Gus went on whispering into my skin: “Before you answered the door in that black dress with those thigh-high boots, and before I saw your hair all wet and frizzy at that book club.”

  Gus looped an arm around my waist and flipped us over, and I wrapped my leg around his hip, my other foot sliding down the back of his calf as he murmured against my cheek, his husky voice shimmering through me like electric current.

  He brushed a kiss across my jaw. “And before that goddamn frat party.”

  My stomach somersaulted, and I tried to say it back, but one of Gus’s hands had wound around the back of my neck and the other was trailing down my center, lancing through my thoughts like
a warm knife through butter. We undulated against each other, lost ourselves in each other, everything else blurry and unnecessary around us.

  “Oh,” I bit out as he thrust harder, deeper, and all at once, I came undone, rush after rush of pleasure rippling out through me as I clutched tight around him. He braced himself over me, burying his mouth into my neck as we unraveled together, breath hitching, muscles shivering.

  He collapsed beside me, breathing hard, but kept one arm draped over me, fingers curled against my ribs, and a faint, gruff laugh rose out of him as he threw his other arm over his eyes and shook his head.

  “What?” I asked, still catching my breath. I turned onto my side and Gus did the same, his hand falling from in front of his face to race up the side of my thigh and hip. He leaned forward and kissed my sweat-sheened shoulder, nuzzling his face into that side of my neck now.

  “I just remembered what you said about the bookshelf,” he said in a gravelly voice. “You can’t even stop roasting me when I’m losing my mind over your body.”

  Warmth flooded through me—embarrassment and giddiness and something softer and harder to name. Before that, I heard him whisper in my mind. I lay back, dropping my head onto a throw pillow. Gus’s hand trailed from my hip bone to my stomach, spreading wide as he leaned over and pressed a slow kiss to it.

  My limbs felt exhausted and limp but my heart was still racing. Even if I’d known something had to give between Gus and me, I never would have imagined him like this, keeping his hands on me at all times, his eyes on my mouth and body and eyes, kissing my stomach and laughing into my skin as we lay naked, wrapped together like we’d done this a hundred times.

  What does it mean? I thought, followed by, Stop trying to make everything mean something! But my chest was pulling tight as the full force of everything that had just happened settled on me. I had loved touching Gus, being touched by him, like I’d known I would, but this . . . this was unexpected, and it was possible I loved it even more.