Midsummer

17. Lex

Iled her out into the woods a few yards away from the party, following the trail that led us down to the creek. The sun was low in the sky, not quite set, but enough to give the world a dreamy peach-colored haze. It had to be close to midnight, but the music echoing through the trees hadn’t slowed down since we’d gotten here.

“What did she say to you?” I asked, concerned that this townie wouldn’t leave Ivy alone. Despite knowing what the world would know soon enough, she kept showing up in the most unexpected places, and if the shit didn’t stop, I’d have to intervene on Ivy’s behalf.

“When she gave me the flyer to come here, she put this ring in my pocket.” Ivy held out the emerald encrusted jewelry in the shape of ivy vines. It was kind of pretty. “When I tried to give it back to her, she told me to keep it. She said she had a gift for me, and she kissed me.”

“Well, aren’t you building up a little roster while you’re in Ireland?” I teased.

Ivy rolled her eyes and shoved my shoulders. “Be serious.”

Laughing, I took another drink of the incredible festival wine before asking, “Do you think she’s going to say anything?”

Ivy shrugged. “She said she wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean she won’t.”

“We should do it tonight,” I said. “Tell them. On our way back from the party.”

She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself against the emotions rising in her chest. “And ruin midsummer?”

“It’s never going to be the right time.” Even though I, too, lamented ruining the highlight of this trip, thus far. But still, the time had come. “Better to rip off the Band-Aid.”

“You were right.” She crossed her arms over her chest and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Carter knows something’s up. He’s been acting strange. Something happened on that camping trip. Did Miri say anything to you?”

You’re entitled to your secrets, love. Just don’t be cruel.

I didn’t know what that meant, and I hadn’t brought it up. Ivy slumped down on a fallen log and put her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees. I sat beside her and crossed my legs in front of me.

“They suspect,” I said, conceding her point. “More reason why it needs to happen soon.”

“How?” she said. “How do you drop that into conversation? I love you, Carter, but my shitty parents are forcing me to marry your best friend, my archnemesis, the one person I hate the most in the world.”

“Hey,” I said, a little offended. We didn’t hate each other anymore. Strongly dislike was more appropriate.

“I fucking knew it,” came a voice from the tree line to my left.

All the blood in my body rushed to my gut when Carter pinned me with an incredulous glare, his arms crossed over his chest. Miri stood next to him, her hands steepled over her mouth while she shifted her wide honey-brown eyes between Ivy and me.

Fuck.

“Marry?” Miri’s broken voice nearly made my knees collapse. “You’re getting married?”

“It’s not like that.” Ivy’s face flushed and the X on her neck flamed against her skin.

I scrambled for the right thing to say, the right way to bring everyone’s emotions back to reality, but nothing came. My heart kicked at the tears spilling down Miri’s cheeks and at the utter shock in Carter’s eyes.

“Then what’s it like, Ivy?” Carter snapped, focusing on his girlfriend, my fiancée.

“Our parents,” Ivy tried. “They’re making us, but I’m going to fight it. We’ll find a way to get out of it.”

“Why did you lie?” He took a few hesitant steps closer, his eyes burning red with unshed tears.

“I didn’t,” Ivy started, but her words failed her because anything she could have said after that would also be a lie. We’d been dishonest for almost two weeks now. “I didn’t mention it because once I convince my mother to let us out, it won’t mat?—”

“How long have you known?” I cut in. Ivy’s explanation meant nothing. We wouldn’t get out of this, no matter what we denied or what excuse we made.

“I saw you two sitting in your Audi after brunch.” Carter crossed his arms over his chest, his lips pulled into a thin line. “I was leaving for the gym, and I was going to say hi when Ivy started talking about your sham marriage. You’ve always known who I am. I know who you are.”

My face burned as Carter flung my words at us. That’s where I’d heard that before. He’d known the whole time—on the flight over here, at the pub, during the camping trip. He was fucking with us.

“Is this who you are, Lex?” Carter said. “The guy who abandons his girlfriend when a better opportunity comes along? The guy who’d marry someone he spent his life ridiculing?”

“Carter—” Ivy put her hands up, trying to calm him down.

“And you—” Carter’s voice cracked, simmering with his sadness and fury. “I know we said we wouldn’t hold each other back, but goddamn it, Ivy. You’re killing me.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, her hands shaking as she tried to wipe them away. “I don’t want this. I’m going to stop it from happening. I swear to you, Carter. I will.”

“We didn’t have a choice.” I clenched my hands into fists as the urge to defend her, to defend both of us, took over. “They’re going to cut us off. We’d have nothing.”

“Oh, cry me a fucking river,” Carter said. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? My family doesn’t have shit, and I’m in the same fucking place as you. Work harder.”

“You think this has been easy?” My blood catapulted through my veins, shoving the feral side of me to the surface in preparation for the fight. “This has been a goddamn nightmare.”

“Yeah, real fucking hard for you, I bet. Sleeping with a princess. Marrying another one. Blowing your best friend on the side.” Carter realized his misstep as soon as he said it. “Shit!” He shoved his hands in his hair, pacing away from us.

“What?” Miri pointed between Carter and Lex. “You two?”

“It was before you,” I explained, my heart suddenly weighing a freight ton. “Before us.”

“London,” Miri said, finally putting the pieces together. She looked at Ivy. “Did you know?”

“Lex told me a few days ago,” Ivy said.

Carter looked at me, hurt warring with rage in his eyes. “You told her?”

“Something was going on with you,” I said. “You haven’t been the best about hiding how pissed you are.”

“So you all knew about Lex and Carter, and no one told me?” Miri’s voice cracked with despair, distracting Carter from his response. “You all knew Lex and Ivy were getting married, and no one told me?”

Horror replaced the heartbreak on her face. She thought we were making fun of her or we’d purposely excluded her. That, like everyone else in her life, we found her replaceable.

“Fuck you.” She said it with a broken whimper and stormed away.

“Miri, wait,” I called after her.

“If you follow me, Alexei Fairfax,” she snarled, “I’ll have you murdered. I mean that.”

Ivy pushed past me, sneering as she took off after her friend, leaving me alone yet again with Carter Scott.

* * *

The woods hummed with the signs of wildlife settling in for what little night they’d get. Insects in the distance, birds chirping overheard, water rushing over the water next to me. It had been a long, hot day, and it was going to be a long, hot night.

My temper matched the scalding temperature, racing through my veins like venom. Four years of holding everything I felt for Carter inside had just reached a tipping point.

“How could you fucking do this to me, DC?” Carter’s eyes burned, his indigo irises nearly gone in his fury. “Me?”

We were best friends, brothers in arms, roommates. We shared everything, even each other once upon a time. This betrayal had cut him deep, understandably so.

“You know how I feel about her.” He choked out his words, his hand gripping at his shirt over his heart. “You know what she means to me.”

“What did you expect me to do?” I couldn’t believe this. I’d found out the day before we came here. I’d barely had any time to react, much less do something about it.

“Say no.” Carter said it like it was so fucking easy. “You’re an adult. You can do what you want.”

A dark, twisted laugh spilled out of my chest as I hung my interlaced fingers on the back of my head. “You obviously haven’t been paying attention.”

He stared at me, his jaw clenched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t get a choice about any of this, Carter.” We were dealing with the most powerful people in this bloated nationalistic hellscape of a country. Between Ivy’s parents and mine, they had the combined wealth, connections, and privilege of some small countries. “I don’t get a choice about Miri or Ivy. I don’t get a choice about you.”

He winced, and I pretended like it didn’t chafe to know I could hurt him, that I had hurt him. I didn’t mean to, but the week had taken its toll on me. I was in a horrible mood, sleep deprived and woozy from dehydration, and my tongue was on autopilot. Misery loved company, and I’d become one miserable fuck.

“Why do you care?” I continued, spewing horrible shit just for the sake of being horrible. “You got what you wanted. You got to fuck the rich girl through college and now you don’t have to deal with her when you leave to join the millions of other failed wannabes wasting away in LA.” I shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

My insult landed somewhere around his heart, and he hit me. Hard. Right in the cheek.

I deserved it.

I wanted it.

Pain skidded down the left side of my body as my brain caught up. For half a heartbeat, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Then, instinct took over and I launched myself at him, shoulder to his gut, taking him to the ground. We were the same height, but he’d buffed up, and he now outweighed me by at least forty pounds of muscle.

Heart pounding in my ears, I scrambled to hold him down, hitting him in the stomach and using my legs to pin his hips in place. A fist to my ribs buckled me to the side, and I groaned, losing enough momentum for him to flip us. He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and pinned them above my head, but I used the weight of my legs to buck him off and rolled so I was on top of him again.

He landed on his back and I reversed our positions, me holding his arms outstretched, my torso on top of his. Our stomachs rose and fell against each other, his thighs on either side of my hips.

He squirmed. I held him tighter. Until…something pulsed between us—an energy, a vibrant, luminous thing that trembled as hard as my hands. It shimmered, there one second and gone the next. But I saw it.

He froze, his wide eyes meeting mine, seeming to ask if I’d seen it, too.

I did.

I became achingly aware of every part of my body touching every part of his. His cock twitched against my lower stomach, mine echoing with a jerk of its own, and I tilted my pelvis so they brushed against each other. He shut his eyes, and I touched my forehead to his, hot breath coasting across my lips as the smell of his sweat and his scent intoxicated me.

Fuck.

I wanted him so fucking much that it hurt. I nearly trembled.

“Maybe it’s not about Ivy,” I murmured. “Maybe you’re pissed you still want me, and no matter what happens, you can’t have me.”

This time, he laughed, surprising the sick, monstrous part of my heart and jolting it awake.

“DC,” he said. “I could have you anytime I want.”

I rocked my hips against him, pleased when he groaned and laid his head back on the undergrowth. His overheated skin made the humid evening air seem even more suffocating.

“You sound sure,” I said.

He kissed me, hard and demanding, and a moan tripped out of my throat before I could stop it. I sagged into him, the feel of his lips radiating over every nerve in my body, and he chuckled again. A sharp sting of embarrassment coated my insides when he broke the kiss with that arrogant smirk on his lips. “Pretty sure.”

“You’ve been holding back all these years.” I tilted my weight so I could hold on to his wrists with one hand, spit into the other, and shove it under the waistband of his gym shorts, easily finding his velvet cock. He shook when I stroked him and when I hit a spot with my thumb that made him groan, I smiled and sank my teeth into his earlobe. “Why not take what you want?”

“Ivy wouldn’t like it.” His immediate answer reminded me of where we were and what had just happened between the four of us.

“And now?” I stroked him faster, my grip tighter. He hissed in a breath and rocked his hips against the action, urging me on.

“I don’t give a fuck what Ivy wants.” His growl turned me on even more, made me fuck him harder. “You get her no matter what. And if I have to share her with you, then she has to share you with me.” He moaned out that last part.

It was so deliciously perverted. I loved it.

I crashed my mouth to his, nibbling and biting, wrestling my tongue in between his lips. Heart racing, I jerked him off, sliding my hand up and down his cock while I watched him grit his teeth and fall apart. I narrowed my gaze in on the perfect O of his mouth and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed back his euphoria. Just when he was about to come, I yanked down his shorts and replaced my hand with my mouth, sucking him deep into the back of my throat.

He lurched forward, fisting his hands in my hair the way he did the first time, and he thrashed under me. I held him down with my forearm while his legs shook.

“Jesus Christ, Lex. Fuck…Fuck!” He arched against me, and even in my darkest moments, I’d admit that it made me feel like a goddamn king.

I swallowed every last bit, taking what I’d deprived myself of for so long, and then I crawled up his body, hovering over him and bringing my lips to his ear.

“I’m going to fuck you, Carter,” I told him. “If you have any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

He met my gaze, but I only saw a flash of anticipation.

He wanted me.

I sat back on my haunches while he flipped over, and I reached for my pocket where I’d stuffed the handful of freebies someone had shoved at me earlier in the night. I ripped open a packet of lube and took a moment to admire the view: Carter Scott, bare-assed and on his elbows for me, beautiful and sinful in his elegance.

Dragging a finger through his cheeks, I dripped lube on his ass and worked it over his hole, dipping one and then two fingers inside him to get ready for just how hard I planned to fuck him. I’d been dreaming about it…obsessing over it…for four fucking years.

Now that he was here, like this, just for little ole me…Fuck, my hands trembled and my pulse wouldn’t stop pounding. I could barely catch my breath. I rolled a condom over my dick, giving it a few strokes as Carter shook under me, every single muscle tensing with mind-numbing brilliance. He sucked in a breath, and I leaned over him, planting my fist by his ribs so I could press my forehead to the back of his hair, inhaling him deep.

“You have been fucked before, right, Chicago?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Fuck, yes.”

“Good.”

That was the only warning I gave him before I pushed the head of my dick inside him. God, he was so warm and tight and fucking perfect. I almost collapsed, and he pushed back on me, urging me farther, deeper.

I inched out and nudged back in again. Fucking hell, he felt so goddamned good. I pulled back to ease in slower, so much slower than I anticipated.

Pace yourself. If I went too fast, this would be over much sooner than either of us wanted, and I’d be an embarrassed fucking mess.

“Jesus, Lex,” he snarled, clearly losing his patience, “just fuck me.”

I froze, long enough for the shock of his filthy mouth to hit me square in the cock, and then I shoved myself to the hilt. I could have sworn my heart stopped, my breath died in my chest. I was balls deep inside Carter Scott, and he gasped and arched under me, completely at my disposal. So fucking good. I was about to blow my load after only two seconds.

I pretended like my pause had to do with letting him get used to me, but we both knew I was a nervous wreck. I had ached for this, yearned for this, and now that I had it, I was ashamed to admit I couldn’t fucking stand it.

“Fuck,” I said, and it sounded more like a plea.

“C’mon, DC.” Carter pushed his body against me, rotating my dick inside him. Jesus Christ, that felt amazing. “You’ve wanted this for four years. Don’t disappoint me now.”

Goddamn it.

He wanted to be fucked? I’d fucking fuck him.

Grabbing his shoulder with one hand and his hip with the other, I plowed into him with single-minded purpose, chasing my release like nothing else in the world mattered. Carter and I had been made for each other. Him, the ambitious golden child, and me, the famous bad boy, two sides of the same coin, and what a fucking coin it was.

I could spend entire lifetimes fucking Carter Scott. I could wake up every morning just like this.

Pausing to dribble more lube on our connection, I contemplated what I’d have to do to get that. But then I slid inside him again, and my whole damn world skidded to a halt. I fisted my hand in Carter’s hair and dug my teeth into the place where his neck met his shoulder, growling like a beast. He tensed and moaned, and fuck, I was coming. It hit me behind the eyes as I fucking saw stars. I froze inside of him as it seized my muscles, my chest drenched with sweat, and my lips salty with his.

Good. Fucking. God.

I couldn’t catch my breath. Stars swam behind my eyes and my blood sang for this man.

“You should have done that years ago,” Carter said, panting down his own climax.

“Fucking hell.” I rolled off him, lying on my back so I could dig through my pockets to find my cigarettes and lighter. I put two between my lips, lit them, and handed one to Carter, grateful when the nicotine buzz soothed my shaking nerves. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

“No.” Carter took a long drag and let it out on a puff. “Do you forgive me?”

“No. I think I’m in love with you. As fucked-up as that sounds.”

He sighed. “Trust me, my feelings about you are just as fucked-up.”

“Are you still pissed?”

He looked at me. “Are you still going to marry her?”

“Probably.” I didn’t see how I had another choice.

“Then I’m still pissed.” He took a deep breath of his cigarette and blew it out in a desperate exhale.

“What would you do if I didn’t?” I asked. “Would you face down her mother and ask her for her permission? Stand up in front of all the world and proclaim yourself her Prince Charming?”

“No. I’m not worthy of her,” Carter said. “But neither are you.”

I sighed but had no response because he was fucking right. Neither one of us was worthy of Miri nor Ivy.