Chapter 14 Fourteen Bottles of Beer
fourteen bottles of beer
Preston Darling
There was a shadow over the rest of my sophomore year. No one exactly blamed us, but the Darling name was tainted, our parties now stained with danger and tragedy. We didn’t have another party at my house or Grampa Darling’s manor house. Too many memories.
I spent more time at my grandfather’s even though I wasn’t fucking his wife anymore.
I hadn’t fucked anyone since that night I’d cum on Becca at the sight of Dolly climbing out of the pool, her skin pebbled with goosebumps and dripping with water.
So that winter I sat alone at the huge windows overlooking the garden, watching the gardener move the garden toward its winter state, taking out the dead plants and tossing them like trash, like they had never mattered.
Life moved on. The garden had to stay beautiful.
Some of the plants disappeared into the ground and came back in spring, regrowing from the darkness of the earth like they’d risen from the grave. It seemed like a miracle, the biggest injustice, that they could come back and she couldn’t.
I saw Kamlai in the garden one day that spring, and I joined her.
She’d been working on her English, and she could talk to me without the app most of the time.
We watched the gardener, talked to him, learned about the flowers that hid away in the cold ground all winter and bloomed anew each spring.
Sometimes I helped, though I knew Dad would have had something to say about his son planting flowers.
That made it even more satisfying to dig down into the cold, damp earth and settle the bulbs into their dark graves.
There was something raw and primal about it, and when the sprouts slid out of the earth, erect and green, seeking warmth and sun, there was no denying the eroticism of all of it—of life.
We were all after the same things, the throb of life, the blossoming and beckoning, the urge to spread our seed and grow.
When my fingers met Kamlai’s in the dirt one day, it awakened the urges that had lain dormant all winter in me.
Our eyes met, and I grabbed her wrist and dragged her to her feet, pinning her against the nearest wall.
The next thing I knew, I was thrusting roughly inside her, my hand clamped over her mouth to keep anyone from hearing her cries.
I hadn’t fucked anyone that way since my first time, when I lost control with Dolly.
But when I felt Kamlai coming, I knew she understood even without words, that she needed this as badly as I did.
I hadn’t been with anyone in months, with her in almost a year.
She was three years older, but we had an odd sort of kinship, ships passing in a storm just in time to give the other exactly what they needed for that brief moment.
A year ago, she had been my teacher, my friend, the bearer of my most shameful secrets, and I had been her confidant and pupil.
This time, we needed something different.
Our relationship was desperate and passionate, and almost entirely physical, like we were both gasping for a breath of escape.
Ironically, we barely spoke now. After that day in the garden, we were careful not to be seen, and we never lingered on the roof together or in the guest house like we had before.
Every time we worked in the garden, we pretended we weren’t each waiting for the other to break first, to give a signal.
Then we’d find somewhere alone and tear each other’s clothes off, fucking hard and fast, with no words, no tenderness.
At school, the name Darling was still king, but there was a wariness in others about us.
We were still the golden boys, the darlings of the school and the town, but there was an invisible layer of darkness over us, like a spiderweb that clings to your face when you walk through.
The exuberance and joy of the start of the year was gone.
Devlin was quieter, more withdrawn, even with us.
I’d gotten back in the game with whatever girl wanted to jump on my dick, but I barely noticed who I fucked anymore.
Colt moved on by fucking his way through the girls in our group and then his grade, in an effort to forget Destiny.
We both had a reputation by then, though neither of us were enjoying it the way others thought we were.
And then, in the final quarter of the year, cracks began to show in the golden couple’s relationship.
It had started long before, with seven minutes in heaven, but for a while it seemed like the seed Carmen and I had planted wasn’t viable, that it would never grow.
Now, though, they bickered at school, fought about everything and nothing.
I had wanted it for so long, but I didn’t know how to navigate myself into the space growing between them. All I knew was that now was my chance.
“Maybe you just need a break,” I told Dolly as we sat on the outskirts of the year-end party when summer finally arrived. “A little time apart.”
They’d just gotten in an argument, and she was sulking in the shade under the treehouse, across the lawn from the pool. I knew what I was doing was shitty, but I no longer cared. I had to make her see that they were wrong together. I’d waited long enough.
“We’re supposed to get married,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean you have to be together until then,” I told her. “I’m not dating the girl I’m going to marry.”
She snorted. “You’re lucky she doesn’t go to this school. She’d be devastated.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she said, picking a fleck of grass off her wrap skirt. “She’d have to see you with all those girls.”
“All those girls,” I said, shaking my head. “You act like there were hundreds.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re the biggest player at Willow Heights,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “No girl wants to know that about her future husband.”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “You’re probably right. But once I make her cum so hard she can’t walk, she’ll forget why she cared.”
“Preston,” she scolded.
I cocked a brow at her. “You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you,” she said, flushing red. “I hear the rumors.”
I grinned and sat back on the lawn chair, kicking my feet out in the grass. “Then you know how good I am,” I said. “Or you’d like to know, anyway.”
“I’m dating your cousin,” she reminded me.
“For now,” I said with a shrug. “If you decide to take a break, I could show you that the rumors are true.”
“I’m not breaking up with Devlin just to hook up with you.”
“Too bad,” I said. “If you never fuck anyone else, you’ll never know what you’re missing.”
“I’m not missing anything,” she said, crossing her arms and glaring.
I couldn’t help but ogle her tits, so fucking fuckable and all squeezed together when she sat like that. “Guess you’ll never know for sure.”
She sighed and dropped her head back on the chair. “I’m just afraid he feels like he’s missing something,” she said. “What if we get married, and he resents me for not letting him play the field first, see what’s out there?”
“Like you’re giving me shit about doing?”
“I’m not giving you shit,” she said. “I’m just telling you, as a friend, that girls don’t find that attractive in a man.”
I smirked at her tits, two perfect white globes pushed together by her arms. “Sure hasn’t stopped the flow of willing pussy so far.”
“Ugh, are you even listening?” she asked. “Or just staring at my chest?”
“I’m listening,” I said. “And imagining how good your tits would look with my cum dripping over them.”
“You are a vulgar man, Preston Darling,” she huffed, turning her face away.
I hopped up from my chair and flipped onto hers, sliding my body between her thick thighs. “You have no idea how vulgar I can be, Dolly Beckett,” I answered with a grin.
“Get off me,” she squealed as I ground my hips between her thighs like I had the night I made her cum for the first time. It seemed a lifetime ago when I’d been a timid little virgin.
“The things I would do to you go beyond vulgar,” I murmured against her neck, slipping my hand over her breast and tugging down the cup of her swimsuit top. “They’re downright depraved.”
“What the hell, Preston,” she snapped, struggling against me as I thumbed her gloriously large nipple until it puckered for my touch. I leaned down and sucked a mouthful of her tit into my mouth before biting down.
She yelped and boxed me in the ear. I hopped up and walked away laughing, but I was so hard I had to go into the house and take care of it.
My eardrum was ringing where she punched me, but it was worth it when I came with the taste her soft, warm skin on my tongue and the image of her hard, wet nipple in my mind.
That incident reminded me of my goal, rekindled my singular desire for her.
I’d let myself be sidelined by the ego injury she’d inflicted after our first time, but I was ready to get back in the game.
I’d gone to training camp this past year, and now, I was ready.
I knew how to please a woman. I’d grown physically over the past year, too.
I’d filled out and grown taller than her.
I was ready to take on the final challenge, ready to play for keeps.
And Dolly Beckett had always been endgame for me, even when I let Devlin bench me and play the starring role.
The next day as we lounged by the pool, nursing our hangovers, Devlin started complaining about her. I would never say a word against Dolly, but I listened, collecting it into my memory.
“I might get out of town for the summer,” Devlin said. “Dad said I could get the lodge in Winter Park, do some whitewater rafting and biking, climb a few mountains, shit like that. Y’all in?”
“Can I leave my head here?” Colt asked, groaning and rubbing his temples.
“Are you taking Dolly?” I asked.
“Nah, I need some time away from her,” Devlin said. “She’s been so clingy since…”