16. Summer
Summer
V an dropped me off at home, saying he needed to get his boat out of the water.
In truth, I appreciated the time to freshen up. As cute as my swimsuit was, I didn’t feel like wearing it all night.
I packed a small bag of clothes and toiletries, then hesitated.
Was this for a few hours or to spend the night? Was it presumptuous to pack an overnight bag for the first time? Would there be a second?
Oh Lord, we were going to have sex. It had been a long four months since having done that. If his skills on the boat were any indication, I was in trouble. In more ways than one.
Already, Van was creeping into my daily thoughts. While knitting, I wondered if he would like a blanket next.
On impulse, I snagged all the banana-flavored taffies out of the front desk candy dish and shoved them in my purse. While looking up new china, I came across teacup sets, just like the ones at his house. The West Wing used to be my own little escape, and I sat there, wondering what he thought were CJ’s best moments.
I was becoming too attached to this man. Every day, I tried to keep up with the demands of my scheme on Cory. But more and more of my thoughts were drifting toward Van.
It might have been desire. I could deal with that. I had to. It was that or creating distance with him and the idea of not seeing Van, of never texting him a random trivia question.
No, I was strong. I could do this. I could have both.
With my bag packed and set on my kitchen counter, I pulled out my phone to look through the messages Imogen had sent me.
The fuzzy pictures couldn’t do the event justice, and I wished I could have seen the chaos in real time.
It was all too easy to have the package of butterflies delivered to Cory and Kodi’s home for their engagement party. The event popped up on my feed, unbidden.
Who was I not to take that opportunity?
Purchased with a Visa gift card, I had it delivered an hour after the party kicked off. Following their initial visit to the hotel, I was happy to say they did not pick the Ridgewood Inn for their wedding but had hired Imogen as their day-of coordinator.
She shared with me that they had invited her to the engagement party to get a feel for “how the theme should look on the big day.”
No one would suspect me of malice. After all, who would be deathly afraid of butterflies to the point of running and crying into their house in front of all their friends and family?
When Imogen called me to tell me about it, I had to contain the urge to ask her a million little questions. Luckily, she was an open book, telling me all about what everyone was saying, including the bride’s older brother, who had called Cory a pussy.
I knew it was a dark, petty thing inside me that was happy Cory was embarrassed like that, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop.
He was still messaging Candy regularly, asking for nudes and sending several unsolicited pictures of his hard-on under gym shorts and a video of him jerking off.
Anytime I felt guilty, I would look at yet another obnoxious message, and all remorse would disappear.
He deserved it all and more for what he put me through.
A few days before, I went to the police station and spoke to a detective about him showing my naked photos to others, but the cop was no help, asking me, Why did you send them if you didn’t want people to see them? Who also told me I needed to talk to Cory and ask him to delete them. As if I was about to put myself through that again. The police force in Ridgewood needed sensitivity training, and I needed to handle it in my own way.
Much more effective.
As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed Van’s truck was moved to the gravel drive on the side of the house, giving me the single lane of cement. It wasn’t the slight difference in distance but allowing me the spot closest to the door tugged at something inside me.
Assessing my overnight bag on the passenger seat, I decided to grab it later if necessary, but I wouldn’t play my hand until I was sure of what Van wanted.
The sun was setting on the manicured street as I approached the white door, with its stained glass of lilies. I was on the second step when Van opened it and came out to greet me.
I couldn’t get a “Hi” out before I was in his arms.
This kiss was slow, sensual, deep. One hand was in my hair, the other around my waist. We walked backward into the foyer, where my purse fell. My back hit the wall as he pressed his body into mine, his muscles hard under my hands. Fire raced over my skin, and I wanted more, more, more.
When he pulled away, his eyes, his silver eyes, were glazed over. “Where’s your bag?”
“It’s in the car.”
He left me in the hallway and returned with my bag in one hand. When he came back in, he kicked the door shut behind him.
Taking my hand, he led me into the dining room, where a spread of food was on the table.
“What’s this?”
“Dinner. I figured you hadn’t eaten. Have you eaten?”
I shook my head. “But you don’t need to go through all this trouble.”
Red tinged his cheeks.
“It’s really no trouble. I grabbed a few things from the grocery store on my way home. Didn’t even cook.”
A chilled bottle of my favorite wine sat in the middle of the table. I recognized it as my favorite brand, named after a famous neo-noir crime film. Did he know it was my favorite? Or did he just guess? It’s hard to tell.
“Wow, you thought of everything, didn’t you?”
He smirked. “I just want you to feel comfortable.”
This should’ve just been sex. But he was making it so difficult to separate that from the growing warmth for him. From my wanton pulse.
I grabbed a cube of cheese off the tray and popped it into my mouth, glancing around.
The room looked the same as the first day. Same pink wallpaper, same teacups. But it felt different. Like a place I could settle into.
I held up the cake in the bakery box. “Is that okay?”
He moaned. “Of course it’s okay. I could eat that every day.” He took the box from me and set up the cake on the table beside our spread.
He motioned to the chair, where I took a seat, then bustled around me, handing me a plate and encouraging me to get food. “I don’t know if I’m that hungry.”
He smirked at me. “You’ll need your strength for what I’m about to do to you.”
I stuffed a big green grape in my mouth.
Afterward, he asked me about my work, my friends, my cousin, and my dad. We talked and talked until the cheddar cubes sweated to a glossy sheen. Conversation flowed between us as I snacked. I couldn’t remember a time when I had opened up so readily.
What we discussed wasn’t deep or meaningful. But he would lean forward as I told a story, cringed at my second-hand embarrassment of watching Wren barf on her asshole ex, and laughed at the right moments, like when I told him Autumn had tried to take a squirrel home when she was five. I mentioned my fear of enclosed spaces after going on a tour of caverns in Montana, and he mentioned watching his mom give herself injections.
He fed me more than I should’ve eaten, but a rising nervousness rolled in my stomach.
As I pushed my plate away, he rose, holding out his hand. “Come on, let’s finish the wine in the backyard.”
He led me through the French doors with one hand while holding the half empty bottle of wine in the other.
I sat in a yellow Adirondack chair as he took my empty wine glass and refilled it without me asking.
As he plopped down opposite me, I sipped the wine.
The backyard was small but fully fenced, with a lush azalea bush blooming ruby red against evergreen.
“This is my favorite wine,” I commented, setting the glass on the wide arm.
“I know.” He took his own sip, looking at me over the rim of the glass. “You posted a picture of the bottle on your Instagram a year ago. Favorite wine with my favorite gals and tagged your friends in it.”
Blinking, I processed this information.
It wasn’t a secret, but who goes back a year on someone else’s social media? Not that I didn’t try with him, but he had practically nothing to go off.
“That’s stalker behavior if I’ve ever heard it.” I took another drink, a smirk playing on my lips.
Not taking the bait, he shrugged. “It’s working, right?”
“Is this how you got all your girlfriends?”
He shook his head. “I don’t do girlfriends, Summer. I told you that.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Really. So, I’m just supposed to believe that I’m that special?”
“Am I to believe you don’t know you are?”
That was a compliment I wrapped in irritation.
He used know , not think . Unlike the men who would sneer, You think you’re so hot, don’t you , it was an objective fact. Once again, he had a belief in me that no one ever had. He thought I was worthy and, more than that, knew that I knew. It isn’t the false modesty that most men expected, a humility that we stuff our achievements under. It was him wanting me to shine.
I couldn’t respond. What could I have said?
He shook his head. “You can believe whatever you want. I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t had a girlfriend in over a decade.”
My hand stilled on the glass halfway between the arm of the chair and my mouth before I set it on the table with a clink . “What do you mean you haven’t had a girlfriend in a decade?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Exactly what I said. I told you I don’t have girlfriends or serious relationships.”
I frowned. “So, then, what is this?”
He furrowed a brow and looked at me. “This is new to me.”
“Well, I do boyfriends, and I have to tell you, it’s been a long time since someone wined me and dined me like this. Most guys don’t even try anymore. Of course, I seemed to be in the habit of falling for douchebags, so there we go.” I snorted, shaking my head. “You know, maybe I need to find some nice guy and settle for him.”
“You don’t want a nice guy,” Van scoffed. “The damage you would do to a nice guy.”
“Okay, asshole.” Leaning back in my chair, I glared at him. “Way to make me feel shitty.”
“Nothing I’m saying is news, Summer. You aren’t nice. Nice is telling people what they want to hear. It’s apologizing when it’s not your fault. What you are is kind. I hear the way you talk about your friends. You’re loyal. You defend them. You deserve someone who knows the difference.” He ran a hand over his hair, making the front poof up. “I won’t be a nice guy for you. But I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll call you out when you need and expect you to do the same. And I will always put you first. You deserve someone who will do right by you.”
“Oh.”
The word settled on my lips, a prickle expanding across my skin at his words.
They weren’t soft reverence, far from the flowery language of my favorite novels nor the swelling music over the third act in a movie. A harshness had crept into them, a razor edge I recognized in myself.
With Cory, with all my previous lovers, it was words and little else. This was recognition, a mirror of who I am and what I should’ve expected of others.
What was I supposed to do with that?
Autumn used to tell me, To be seen is to be loved . But I’d never been seen like this before. Maybe most women would’ve been happy, but that kind of recognition? I wasn’t sure I liked it. If he saw me, truly saw me, he wouldn’t stick around. He wouldn’t want me.
Van leaned forward in his chair, fingers on his chin. “Do you wanna talk about your ex?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t wanna talk about them. I don’t wanna think about them.”
He didn’t react to the harsh words.
“Okay, then.” He nodded and smiled. Reaching forward, he grabbed my hand, pulling me toward him. “Come over here.”
I resisted, my mind still whirling from his confession that stung my ego and formed a fissure in my chest, which seeped emotions manifested from a bad idea. Emotions like wanting him to care for me, wanting to trust in him.
He pulled my hand harder, and I slid over to him. When I was close enough, he wrapped his arms around my waist and scooted me onto his lap. One arm on my back, the other cupping my chin to face him. “You are fiercely beautiful.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Truly.”
Truly . Such a simple word. Not a declaration but a fidelity just the same.
“This is getting tricky. I’m not supposed to want more from you,” I admitted. “It was never meant to be real for either of us.”
“Why are you complicating this, Summer?”
I huffed out a laugh.
Why was I? I wanted to sleep with him. Judging by the immense ridge digging into my left butt cheek, he wanted the same. That nagging voice in the back of my mind faded as he drew a circle on my exposed knee with his fingers. Then a heart, then a star, then a spiral, then the long stem of a flower, moving under my dress.
“Can we just be? For tonight, no labels.”
“But—” Why was I doing this to myself? “This was fake.”
“How I want you haven’t been fake since the day I picked you up from your hotel lobby for the parade. Nothing about how I feel is fake. Nothing about the compulsion to kiss you senseless is fake. So, don’t use that as an excuse to push me away.”
“But—you don’t want—”
I’m silenced by his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair holding me as his fingers traced from my knee up to the apex of my thighs.
The kiss was demanding, filling my senses with heat and a beat of want. Every dip, every caress drew me into him. I was free-falling into us.
“I need you. Truly, I do.” Peppering kisses down my neck, he trailed his fingers between my thighs, easing my lace thong to the side. “Tell me you want this.”
“I do.”
He stood, with me still in his arms.
Twisting my legs around his waist, I heard the wine bottle clink as it landed on the ground, and he stumbled up the stairs, carrying me.
His touch scorched my bare skin, with his lips on my neck, my jaw, my mouth. After he tossed me onto a soft bed, I barely had time to take a breath before he was on top of me, his muscular thighs between my open legs. As he kissed me, his hands pulled my dress above my breasts and threw it on the floor beside his shirt.
“Since that first day, I’ve imagined you here. On my bed. I’ve pictured a thousand different ways I could have you.”
“And now?” My words were shallow as he cupped one breast, flicking his thumb over my pebbled nipple. “But even after all those daydreams, I could never get you right in my mind.”
“Am I better?” I writhed beneath him as he pinched my nipple, rolling it, sparking the sensation straight to my clit.
“You always are.” His mouth captured one breast, sucking and biting me.
“I can’t afford to want you. You’re taking over all of me.” Tracing along my waist with his tongue, he offered a whisper of a touch, sending flames down to my center. “I should have known touching you would be like a sickness I could never recover from. You’re infecting everything in my life. I can’t sleep, can’t eat without thoughts of you. You’re invading the very fiber of me.”
My underwear was tossed to the other side of the bed, and I was bared to him. He cupped my mound, slipping a finger past my clit and parting my folds. “I can’t be alone in these thoughts. Tell me you need me, too.”
The fissure was widening. This wasn’t a plea for sex but for its absolution. I couldn’t say the words. If I would have started, I could’ve said more, losing everything holding me together.
I whimpered and gasped as he teased me. Before long, I was crying out, my pussy clenching around his scout’s honor fingers.
His words were hot on my ear as he wrung out the last of my climax.
With his clothes gone, he was between my thighs, his hard cock against my inner thigh.
“As much as I like your moans, I’m going to love hearing you scream for me.”
I gave him a wicked grin. “Truly.”
With that word, he sank into me, filling me up in a single swift motion.
I screamed at the intrusion, my nails digging into his back.
I was being taken. There was no other word for it. The harder he thrust into me, the more I was giving away.
“You’re so fucking tight for me, baby. Do you feel that?”
I nodded, the words falling into gasps.
“See how good you’re taking me? See how I fit you?”
All I could do was hold on tight as he drove into me. My second orgasm was fast approaching as he hammered me, his fingers digging into my hips. At one point, my legs were brought up, my feet on his shoulders as he thrust deeper, hitting parts I didn’t know I had.
My moans turned into cries, which then became his name.
“That’s right. Who’s fucking you? Who’s making you come? Let all my neighbors know who’s making you feel this way.”
Over and over, I screamed for him, needing more and getting it, his stinging grip and slapping balls against my ass.
As the wave crested, it was with the scream Van promised he’d get from me. Van’s cry mimicked mine as he came after me, every muscle in his body taut.
When he collapsed on me, I laced my fingers in his damp hair, pulling him closer until our bodies were flush.
“I’m too heavy,” he murmured into the side of my neck.
“I can handle it.”
He lifted his head and slid off me, his hand splayed over my bare stomach. “I know you can. That’s what I like about you.”
I raked his scalp with my nails, and his eyes drifted closed. His breathing evened out the calm wheeze and soft whoosh of sleep.
In the waxing moonlight, he seemed younger.
With a single finger, I traced the length of his nose, his scruffy jawline, the line of his straight brow. It was a strong face. An honest one.
Of course, I thought the same about Cory, and how wrong was I?
This was all too real. Van had never been anything more than straight with me about what he wanted. Once again, it was my own impulsivity that led me here in his bedroom.
But I didn’t need to stay. To fall asleep beside him would only blur the lines he had so carefully set between us.
As quietly as possible, I climbed out of the king-size bed and grabbed my dress off the floor. Glancing around, I couldn’t find my underwear, but I wasn’t going to turn on a light to track that down.
My eyes caught on a pile of clean boxer briefs on top of his dresser. Those would do.
I pulled them on, and with one last glance at his sleeping form, I slipped out the door.
The next morning, I sat in a coffee shop. My conversations with Van had been scant, and I could tell he was getting frustrated with me not responding as much.
But I had to protect myself. If he knew how all I wanted was to call him or the way I had stopped at the bakery and stared at the cake we shared, wanting desperately to go back to that moment, he would be there beside me, expecting me to trust him with my heart, and that wasn’t worth the risk.
My preoccupation with him was taking over, and I couldn’t have that. It wasn’t fair to Van, who had given me nothing more than kindness and amazing orgasms. My heart couldn’t take another disappointment.
I had thirty minutes before I was expected at the hotel, but I left my apartment early to use the public Wi-Fi for the last of my plans.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t legal to get into Cory’s emails the way I had, but it was also extremely hard to prove in a court of law. I wasn’t altering anything besides a few forwards of incriminating info here and there. But every time I’d log in, I was pushing it.
Vowing that it would be my last time, I sipped my iced caramel Americano.
A few days before, I had compiled a zip drive of all the messages Cory sent Candy. Finding Kodi’s email was surprisingly easy.
She posted regularly on her website, where she sold custom tumblers with kitschy phrases on them like She’s a little sass and a bunch of badass and Might be coffee, might be vodka .
I sent a quick email, enquiring about her creating something for me, and she responded within twenty minutes.
Sending the zip drive through my fake email was far too easy. I hoped she wasn’t too devastated, but knowing the truth before the wedding was better because, according to Imogen, she hadn’t put down money for deposits yet.
Promising myself I’d only check his email one last time, I logged on to find a whole long conversation between him and another person describing how they had been fudging the numbers for a job, adding on a fake employee to pay themselves twice.
I forwarded the emails to my fake account and then deleted them from the sent folder, set on providing this info to the labor and industries, the IRS anonymous tip line, and the state patrol.
If what I saw was embezzling, he was sure to receive more than his share of punishment.
Maybe then I could move on. Maybe.