Chapter 17
seventeen
WILL
Fuck.
Lydia’s on her hands and knees in front of me, and the sweeping curve of her ass is absolutely glorious in the flickering light of the fire. She’s looking back at me, and her eyes hold mine, almost like she’s afraid that if she doesn’t, I’ll suddenly throw on my clothes and leave. Or something.
Her not answering me, when I asked her about that other guy, the one from the text, is grating on me. Yeah, I asked out of smugness. And yeah, unless that dude at the Farmers Market is one hell of a grower, I’m pretty sure I could answer my own question. But the fact that she didn’t say anything…
Makes me doubt myself a little.
And I don’t like that.
As I nudge the tip of my cock into her opening, Lydia starts to move her hips. She’s getting impatient for me to plow into her again—which is a good sign.
“I’m going to ask you again,” I say. “Has anyone ever filled you up like this?”
“No,” she gasps this time.
A sheet of hair falls into her face as she turns again to look at me, and that’s what does it.
I can’t take the tension any longer. Placing my hands on either side of her ass, I grip her soft flesh so hard she flinches and plunge my entire shaft into her until I feel myself hit her inner wall.
Lydia moans. I pull out, all the way out, and catch a glimpse of my cock glistening with her wetness before I shove it back in.
Her pussy molds around my cock like a sheath to a blade. I can’t get enough.
Lydia reaches around to grab my hand and bring it to her chest. Her breasts are soft and full beneath my fingers, and I desperately need them both in my hands.
Still pumping in and out of her, I reach around so that my chest is flush with the curve of her back, so that I’m cradling her tits in my two hands.
I roll her nipples between my fingers, and she shudders.
“Will,” she starts, her voice choked. “You feel so fucking good.”
“Perfect,” I whisper in her ear.
And I’m about to make her feel better. Because I want to see Lydia Chandler come.
I want to see her come hard.
Still fondling her tit in my left hand, I move my right hand to her clit and begin the circles that drove her so nuts the other day in the library.
In, out.
In, out.
All the while, circling, circling.
Never breaking rhythm.
A low whine starts in Lydia’s throat. My balls are getting fucking tight now, and I don’t know how much longer I can hang on without blowing my load.
But I don’t want to do it inside her. Even with the condom, it feels too intimate.
Like something I can take back even less than whatever it is we’re doing now.
But then I feel Lydia shuddering in my arms as she loses control of her hips.
Her pussy spasms around my cock, and I slide out of her just in time to come while gripping the smooth skin of her ass.
For a moment, the only sound is our heavy breathing, muffled by the crash of the waves on the shore.
Then Lydia twists around and kisses me, and against my better judgment, I let her.
Because now, with our naked selves wrapped around each other, she feels closer than before. Like some kind of screen has gone down and she can actually see me—which is fucking scary. But for this moment, I’m choosing not to care.
As I slip the condom off and toss it into the fire, my heart rate’s finally starting to settle. By the time I pull up my boxers and jeans, Lydia’s already got her bra and panties back on, and she’s sitting hugging herself, her skin all prickled with goosebumps.
“Hey,” I say, sitting down and pulling her onto my lap.
She seems tense for a minute, like she’s considering something—leaving, probably.
I know I’m good at fucking, but I also know I’m shit at the rest of this stuff.
Especially with her. Because no matter how good the sex is, we’re still at odds.
I still have to do something she’ll never forgive me for—and I know something she doesn’t.
Ethan called me yesterday to say the board had voted to approve the finalized plans, that they’re opening things up for bids this week.
He has no clue that I’ve ever so much as spoken to Lydia Chandler outside of the library, but even so, he made sure to mention that the board is keeping things quiet so as not to “put undue stress on employees.” It doesn’t take a genius to know what that means.
So when Lydia stays, nestling herself on my lap next to the fire, I’m feeling a little unsettled. If she knew the secret I was keeping, she’d be out of here in two seconds—and probably slap me in the face to boot. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I’ll figure out what to do.
Lydia drops her head back against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her, blocking out the wind that sweeps in off the sea.
I clear my throat. There’s something else I want to say to her, something a little easier.
Something that, no matter how wound up it got me tonight thinking about it, I want her to know.
“I’m sorry.”
Lydia cocks her head to look at me, intrigued. “For?”
“For reading that text on your phone.”
She laughs softly. “That wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who dropped it.”
“Yeah, but I could’ve looked away. I saw a glimpse and I read the rest.”
“Mm.”
“Was it the guy from the Farmers Market?”
Lydia looks up at me. She blinks. “How’d you know?”
My arms tighten around her. “You were pretty upset to see him with somebody else—even if you tried to hide it.”
“Oh.” Lydia lets her head drop back on me again.
Her hair smells like vanilla, sweet and somehow familiar.
“Yeah. He’s my ex. He started texting me again—the kind of stuff you saw.
Trying to hook up, saying he wants me back.
It’s all bullshit, though. He’s got pictures of himself with that woman on Instagram, plastered all over each other. ”
“Wow. Sounds like a gem.”
Lydia snorts. “Yeah, he had me fooled.”
I swallow hard. I can’t help but think how I’m sitting here fooling her, too. The fast tracking of the library project, the family history of hurt that haunts me…
There’s another reason seeing that text from Lydia’s ex stuck with me.
One I try not to think about, but that comes with me wherever I go, like a fucking rain cloud.
I just can’t shake it. It’s why I’ve convinced myself that I’m the one who has to make sure my siblings stay on track.
That they all have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, a shoulder to lean on.
I’ve never told anyone about it—not since Mom. Not since the damage was done.
But suddenly, as I’m sitting here with Lydia in my lap and her hair in my face, I want to tell her, get it off my chest. She told me about her parents, about losing her mom to cancer and her dad to drink. I think I could tell her about mine. I think she might actually understand.
Maybe.
“It’s not the first time I saw a message I wasn’t supposed to see,” I say suddenly.
Lydia doesn’t turn to look at me, but she strokes my arm and I know she’s listening. The fire crackles beside us.
“Actually,” I continue, “it was an email the first time. I don’t even know if people texted back then—like, twenty-some years ago.
Anyway, it was an email from my dad. To someone else.
Some chick at his office. He left his email up on his work computer, and I needed to print something for school.
I was only thirteen, so I don’t think I really understood what I was reading.
But I’d seen porn, and I wasn’t an idiot, and this shit was explicit.
I don’t really think I believed at the time that my dad…
that he could… well, do that. To my mom. ”
Lydia traces her fingers up and down my arm. “What did you do?”
“I told my mom. I forwarded the whole fucking email thread to her.”
“And what did she do?”
“Well, she confronted my dad about it. It went about how you’d expect. Yelling. Door slamming. I don’t think I ever saw my mom cry so much. And then my dad packed up—and that was it.”
“Wait—what, like the next day?”
“The next day. He left his wife and four kids—and my youngest brother was three fucking months old. He just peaced on out.”
Lydia’s quiet for a moment, processing. “Well, fuck him.”
I can’t help but chuckle at the disgust in her voice. It’s how I’ve felt every time I’ve thought of my dad over the past almost twenty-three years.
“Yeah,” I say. “Fuck him. But also fuck me. Little old, goody-two-shoes thirteen-year-old Will, who can’t keep a fucking secret and wrecked his own family.”
Lydia’s fingers stop their tracing. She looks up at me, and her dark eyes are absolutely gorgeous in the firelight. “Hold up. You don’t actually think that, do you?”
I shrug. “I mean… yeah. If I’d just left that shit alone, my dad would’ve stuck around. My mom wouldn’t have had to work three jobs, my brother, Zeke, would’ve grown up with a dad, and I wouldn’t be so fucking angry all the time.”
“Will,” Lydia says. “Your dad was having an affair. He might’ve chosen to leave regardless—you can’t put that on yourself. And anyway, leaving aside that your mom would’ve wanted to know, you would have known. You would have been carrying around the same burden either way.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t be carrying around the guilt.”
Lydia shakes her head, and I catch a whiff of vanilla. I want to bury my face in her hair.
“Thanks for telling me that,” she says. Her voice is quiet.
“Sure,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else.
I’ve never told anyone about that email—not even my siblings—but I have to admit it feels good.
Nothing has changed, of course. The guilt and responsibility are still there.
But there’s a little ray of light streaming in through my darkness that wasn’t there before.
We’re quiet a moment, listening to the waves lapping on the shore.
The fire is dying, the fading embers smoldering in the darkness.
As we fold up the blanket, dust the sand off ourselves, and start our walk back into town, we keep our chatter to a minimum.
I guess we’re each lost in our own thoughts.
Trying to figure out what the hell just happened, probably—and where the fuck we go from here.
Lydia heads home, and I hop into the cab of my truck.
Her scent is still on me, mingled with mine, and although I need to shower when I get home and wash off the sweat, I almost don’t want to.
I want Lydia on my skin, in my arms, in my head.
I want her wherever, whenever, and however I can get her.
And that thought scares the absolute shit out of me.
Because, no matter how much I try to fight it, I’m still my father’s son.
I’ve got his height, his build, his blue eyes and dirty blond hair.
I’ve got his last name, and—the worst part—I got stuck with those fucking ghosts always nagging at the edges of my mind.
Shit, I’m even keeping secrets like he did now.
The Holloway blood runs through my veins, whether I like it or not. And someone like Lydia deserves a hell of a lot better than someone like me.