My Life as an Album (Books 1-4)

by LJ Evans

  “I…I really should go.” She knew she should. She should run away before this ended, as it was likely to end, with one or both of them bruised and battered.

  “No. I really don’t think you should.” He carefully removed the trays of food from in front of her. He pulled at her legs slightly so that she toppled into him while the hand at the back of her neck pulled her face toward his. He tasted like salt and barbecue sauce and memories in the making.

  His fingers traversed her body as if he was caressing something he cherished, and it made her breath catch. “How do you do that to me?” she managed to whisper.

  He smiled wickedly in response and then picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. She realized that it was so they were away from the open windows. The bedroom was the only room in the house that had any blinds for privacy.

  When they got there, they both shed their clothes. He eased over to her, pulling her up against him before picking her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist like it was something she’d been doing for years. For her whole life. Like this was the only thing she’d ever known.

  “You’re so fucking strong.”

  She smiled against his lips. “Ninja warrior at your service.”

  He growled and kissed her like he hadn’t kissed anyone in a century, as if he was starving for affection. They lost themselves again in the need and desire and the ache that seemed to grow from the depths of both of them until there was nothing but passion and hands and skin.

  After, they lay there breathless, entwined. She felt so relaxed, so comfortable that it was frightening. He tucked her up against him, and she ran a hand along the tattoo that was on his arm. It was a panther. It was perfectly him. The hunting he must do and the helplessness of his prey…of her. But on the shoulder of the same arm was another tattoo. A colorful, delicate bird inside a cage so bright that it looked like there was actual gold embedded into his skin.

  “This is a beautiful tattoo,” she said quietly. Not knowing how painful that tattoo would become for her later.

  “I used to think it was the closest I would ever come to feeling love,” he said softly, and she looked from the tattoo to his eyes, and what she saw there made her nervous. Like the potential to love her was already a glimmer in his future.

  She’d wanted to be loved in her past life, but not one of the boys she’d run through had ever loved her back. After, she’d put the idea of love on hold. There was the possibility of a “maybe someday” that resided somewhere in the recesses of her mind, but she hadn’t taken it out to examine it in ages. She hadn’t expected to find the possibility of that “maybe” in a junk artist from the Bronx.

  “She broke your heart?” PJ said, bringing her mind back from that quiet corner of her brain. His eyes flickered with some unnamed emotion that was quickly hidden in the cool depths.

  “Yes. But to be fair, she never promised me hers. I knew hers was already taken.”

  “Well, that’s just shitty.”

  He shrugged as if he hadn’t deserved more from this girl that had hurt him, and it ripped at PJ in a way she hadn’t expected. Everything about Seth and her emotions since first meeting him was over-the-top. Like she’d never had emotions before, and now they were pummeling her with the intensity of a winter storm.

  She reached up and kissed him. Because he seemed like he needed it. Like he needed to be reassured that he deserved to be touched and loved. Because that feeling, that need to be reassured, was echoed inside her. He returned her kiss with something that felt like reverence. It made her stomach turn because she knew she was far from the saint Justice tried to make her out to be. But for this one night, she didn’t care.

  He tucked her up against him, and they fell asleep meshed together like the water and the sand.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  When PJ awoke the next morning, the sun was filtering in through the plantation blinds. She felt warm and cozy. Like she used to feel when her parents were alive, and she got to sleep in after a really great day. She felt safe. She felt happy. Neither of these emotions were a common experience for her in recent years. It was like she was always trading one for the other. Either safe or happy, but not both.

  She rolled over to find Seth’s side of the bed empty. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been gone. She grabbed his t-shirt and her underwear on the way to the bathroom. She used the facilities and then stared at herself in the mirror. Little existed of the makeup from yesterday, and yet she still looked happy. She hadn’t seen that look in the mirror in forever. She twined her messy curls up into a bun and then shrugged at the mystery girl before making her way out into the living area.

  “Seth?” she called.

  She stopped at the windows. The beauty of the beach and the ocean waves halting her, making her wonder what it would be like to wake up to that view every day. To be able to go squish her toes in the warm sand and listen to the gulls cry out above her on a daily basis.

  Her phone pinged. She wasn’t leaving it anywhere after the debacle yesterday.

  NO CALLER ID: I miss you. Your eyes, Patterson, your eyes are burned in my head like a brand.

  It was a number she couldn’t block again. It was uncomfortable. It was almost like the intensity of her and Seth, but with a creepy side because she didn’t know who it was. She’d have to figure out how to block them permanently.

  She heard noises from Seth’s studio and made her way to the open door. Seth was bent over the chair he’d made and it appeared as if he was breaking it apart.

  She ran at him, grabbing his arm. “Stop. Don’t. It’s beautiful. Don’t wreck it.” Her mournful cry filled the small room.

  He froze, looking down at her hand on his arm and then up to her face with surprise in his eyes. “I’m not breaking it. Just working out the kinks.”

  “Oh!” She stepped back, flustered, dropping his arm.

  He put the chair leg down and turned toward her, his arms crossed over his chest as he took her in. She was suddenly embarrassed that she hadn’t put on more clothes. It was as if she was expecting to…well…do more. The flush of her cheeks swarmed her down into her neck. She hated it.

  “I like this look on you,” he said, his voice deep.

  She inhaled sharply as his look devoured her, and she returned it with her own look, taking him in. No shirt. His muscled torso and flat stomach tight above the flannel pajama bottoms that hung from his contoured hips. He was so gorgeous that it was like looking at his art when looking at him. She swallowed hard.

  “Why would I destroy what I built?” he asked, arms still crossed.

  “It just…” she left off with a shrug.

  “I’ve only destroyed one piece in my life. And I regretted it as soon as I did it. I was frustrated and angry and I took it out on the one thing I could safely take it out on. And in the process, I lost the person I cared about most.”

  It was probably the most he had said to her at one time ever.

  “The girl who broke your heart?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry,” PJ said.

  “I’m not. It means I’m here with you,” he said in a low, deep voice with those piercing blue eyes flashing at her.

  She put a hand self-consciously to her messy bun and realized her mistake when his t-shirt rode up, showing her panties and her own flat belly button.

  He had his hands on either side of her naked waist in one swift move. He kissed her ferociously, and she couldn’t help but match it before the realization that her smelly breath must be appalling settled in, and she pushed him away.

  “Stop. I’m all gross. I haven’t been able to shower or brush my teeth.”

  “You still smell like candy to me.” He tried to kiss her again, but she moved away.

  “Really. I just wanted to see where you wandered off to. I need to go back to the apartment. Shower. Change.”

  “I have a shower.”

  “But you don’t have my toothbrush.�
��

  “I have an extra toothbrush.”

  “I’m serious, Seth.”

  “So am I.”

  He grabbed her hand, kissing the palm, and then dragged her from the studio. He led her, fingers joined, past his bedroom to another bathroom. There, he dug under the sink, coming up with a brand-new toothbrush still in its wrapper.

  “Becca stocks the guest room,” he explained.

  “Because you have so many women staying the night?”

  “I don’t ever have company here.”

  “Then why does she stock it?”

  “She’s hopeful,” he said. He was holding the toothbrush away from her even as she reached for it.

  “Seth!”

  “I’ll give it to you on one condition.”

  “Am I going to like this condition?”

  The look he gave her made her stomach turn to jelly and her sore loins ache.

  “Seth!”

  His lips twitched as if he was still unaccustomed to smiling. “Just stay for breakfast.”

  “I can’t believe you aren’t shoving me out the door. Isn’t that what guys like you usually do? Kiss them, pat them on their bottom, and send them on their way?”

  She reached for the toothbrush, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her up close to him. She could feel his hard body through his flannel bottoms and her thin t-shirt.

  “I’m not that guy. You don’t know anything about me. Not yet.” It was a promise that was scary and thrilling at the same time.

  He kissed her on the forehead one more time and then pushed her gently toward his room.

  “Go shower. I’ll make breakfast.” He pushed open his bedroom door and pointed. “I brought your duffle in.”

  Then he left her. She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved. And somehow, the disappointment settled in more than the relief as she looked at his bed and the tangle of sheets they’d left behind.

  It wasn’t until she was in the shower, using his citrus-smelling shampoo and his designer soap that it hit her again. The remorse. The regret. The fact that, once again, she’d gone headfirst into sex at a time when she was feeling lost. Promises to herself swirled down the drain with the shampoo bubbles.

  Her stomach twisted as she finished quickly, dried off, and pulled on a clean pair of yoga pants and her off-the-shoulder t-shirt from yesterday.

  In the mirror, she combed out her tangle of curls and let them be. They’d dry in an unruly mess, but at this point, she didn’t care. She pulled it up into her standard messy bun while she stared at herself brushing her teeth.

  The happy face she’d seen in the mirror just a little while ago was gone. She knew what her therapist from high school would say. She would tell PJ that wanting and having sex with someone wasn’t a problem. That even having several partners over time wasn’t the problem. She would tell PJ that the problem was only with how PJ used the sex.

  Was she using it for pleasure? For herself and the guy? Or was she using it to fill the void? Was she using it as a punishment for herself or the guy or both?

  PJ definitely wasn’t punishing Seth. She had no reason to do so. And she’d definitely had greater pleasure with Seth than with any of the fumbling boys in her past. But she wasn’t a hundred percent sure that she wasn’t using it as a way to escape her reality. The rejection of Pratt. The unknown of graduating with nothing else planned.

  That knowledge, the uncertainty of why she’d let this go this far with Seth, it haunted her as she made her way out into the kitchen. It didn’t consume her. But it bothered her. Made her wonder if this was as much of a mistake as she’d thought it would be before she’d shown up.

  She sat on the same stool that she’d first sat at less than a day ago. Seth was busy, flipping pancakes and stirring eggs. He looked happy. He wasn’t glowering or growling. He seemed, for the first time since she’d met him, truly relaxed.

  “There’s coffee if you want it, but I don’t usually drink it myself. There’s orange juice though. Fresh squeezed.” He turned to look at her, dropped the pan back onto the stove, and was at her side in his normal, lithe blur of movement.

  “What is it?” he asked, eyes worried.

  That he could tell that she wasn’t the same happy person that he’d shoved into the bathroom was disconcerting. True, she was lousy at covering her emotions in general, but Seth seemed able to sense her mood changes almost before she did.

  “Seth…” She looked away from him, trying to find the words. He took her chin in his hand, pulling her face so that she was forced to look at him.

  “What?”

  “I… this was a mistake.”

  She just said it. There was no other way of putting it. But she regretted it as soon as the tension returned to his body. She regretted it because her heart and body were warring with her brain and her conscious.

  “No, it wasn’t,” he said as if the force of his words could make her feel that way too.

  He pulled her off the chair and wrapped her in his arms. Her face was pressed against his chest, and his words, when he spoke them, vibrated against her cheek and down into her body as if he was trying to embed them there.

  “The only mistake we could make right now is if you walked out my door and never came back. That would be the only fucking mistake. Making love. Giving in to whatever this is between us, none of that was a mistake.”

  She pulled away, still uncertain of herself more than of him. He let her pull away but watched her closely. Waiting for her to react. As she returned his stare, she knew that even if she walked out the door that minute and never came back, there would still be a mark on her soul that he’d already left.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said honestly because she didn’t.

  He took her in for a moment longer before turning back toward the stove. “Don’t say anything. Go sit on the deck. I’ll bring breakfast out.”

  He switched gears and hid his emotions so easily. It made her wonder about what his life had been like that he could do that: close the door on emotion and return to a mundane daily job like cooking in just a beat.

  As she watched him dishing up plates, she still felt the regret and self-doubt. But her heart also lifted a little because he wanted her to stay. And regardless of her emotional state, she knew, deep down, that she didn’t want to leave. There was something about Seth that called to her.

  So, she put aside her doubts and did exactly what he said.

  Out on the deck, the cool ocean breeze blew over her hot cheeks and the smell and sounds of the ocean surrounded her. Relaxing her. “It’ll be okay,” she thought to herself. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  On the beach, a group of teenagers pranced around in their itty-bitty bikinis. At the sound of the French door shutting, they all looked up with huge smiles that disappeared upon seeing PJ.

  PJ could imagine that teenage disappointment well. They had been expecting gorgeous Seth, not a tiny woman in yoga pants. She imagined that the best part of their day was seeing Seth, in all his glory, on the deck in the warm sunshine. What would she have done had she been on the beach as a teen and seen Seth? It was both a stomach-dropping and twisting contemplation.

  Behind her, the door opened again, and she grabbed it so that Seth could make his way out with a tray full of food and drinks. He put it on the stone table.

  PJ watched as the teenage girls turned their smiles back on to full wattage. “Hi Seth!” one particularly stunning teenager called out.

  He looked up, surprised almost. He frowned when he saw the group and just waved a hand before sitting down and completely disregarding their drool.

  PJ couldn’t help but smile. Poor teenage girls. Poor Seth, if he was accosted by this every time he walked out his door.

  “Do they come here often?” she asked, trying not to smile.

  His scowl deepened as he poured syrup over his pancakes.

  “The tall one lives two houses dow
n. You’d think, after a year of me ignoring them, they’d get the hint.”

  “Teenage girls never take a hint. Especially tall, beautiful ones who are used to getting their way,” PJ said with a laugh.

  Seth looked up at her, still scowling. “Well, she should damn well take one.”

  PJ just smiled. Her tension easing a notch more. She dug into the food, and was surprised, again, by the quality. It was just pancakes and eggs. But the pancakes were fluffy and light, and the eggs were creamy with just a hint of some tantalizing spice.

  “You’re a really good cook,” she said.

  He shrugged as if it was nothing, like he had yesterday with the ajiaco. “I like food. Just don’t like all the shit most people put into it, so I make my own.”

  “Did you get that from your grandmother?” she asked.

  “Yes. But also from my AA group.” He said it slowly. Deliberately. Like he’d been thinking about how to tell her that he was an alcoholic. But she’d already known. It was in the research she’d done before she’d written about him on her blog. She winced, thinking about the scathing things she’d said before she’d really gotten to know him. Not that she really knew him after just a few hours together. But then, at the same time, she felt like she did.

  “Does that worry you?” he asked carefully, and she realized that her wince had been mistaken. She reached out and grabbed his hand with her own.

  “No. It wasn’t that. I was just thinking that I’ve been such a judgmental witch. It’s something I hate when other people do it, and yet, it’s exactly what I’ve done with you.”

  “Don’t discount it. You need to know I’ll always be an alcoholic.”

  His raw truthfulness tugged at her heart. He was just that. Raw. Honest. Abrupt. He didn’t intend to be intimidating, but his directness, his inability to bullshit, his energy, his intensity was exactly that to most people. It made him come off as arrogant and cold, when really it was just pain left out in the open.

  She knew this was the moment to come clean about her own failings, while he was sharing his, but suddenly she didn’t want to. She didn’t want him to see something different when he looked at her, and he would once he knew the truth. So instead, she rose from her chair and climbed into his lap.