Atlas
Fuck my luck. Worst possible timing for a screw-up.
Carter has never messed up before. The whole drama with the girl is occupying his mind way too much, but who am I to judge when I want to say to hell with everything and get back to Summer, not caring about the gallery or anything else for that matter.
Making a quick stop at the house, I take a shower and change my clothes before heading out in a hurry to fix the mess that awaits.
More than four hours later, everything for tomorrow night is accounted for, yet not a second passed without my mind drifting back to Summer.
I ask Connor to find me EpiPens, and an hour later, they’re in my hand. I think he has a man for everything.
I wish I could say that’s all for the day, go back to the campus, drag Summer to her room, and not let her leave until the gallery exhibition, but there’s too much left to do.
I make sure to double the security of Warehouse 4.
There’s nothing worth guarding there, but if Jacob is going to try something, I bet it’s going to be tomorrow night.
Back at the gallery, documents in hand, Dean stops me.
“We good?”
He meant well last night, so I didn’t even consider a scenario in which we’re not. I get it, he’s trying to watch my back.
“Yeah, of course.” I clasp his shoulder in reassurance.
As I head for the desk, his next question follows.
“Did you ask her?”
Turning to face him, it takes me a beat to figure out this is not just about his desire to protect me. Dean’s used to figuring out everything before any of us can, and not being able to figure Summer out bothers him.
“She told me more than enough. The rest, she’ll need time to be able to share. Don’t worry! I might not be as perceptive as you are, but I don’t need to be to know that no matter her past, her present is mine.”
“Sorry again about the mix-up. I have no idea what happened,” Carter interrupts.
“All’s good,” I assure him before heading for the desk.
The rest of the day goes by making sure everything’s in order for tomorrow evening. So far, we’re doing great, but we have to be smart, start running things through the New York gallery and add the ones in Boston and Chicago.
We have to pick up speed to get out from under Mason’s thumb, though he’ll strive to never allow that. I have full knowledge of his dealings, even the ones involving the government, so I’ll find a way to use that as leverage if need be.
When the night comes, there’s nothing I crave more than getting to Summer.
“Honey, I’m home,” I shout, letting her know it’s me breaking into her room again, in case she decides to surprise an intruder with a bat.
“In the bathroom. Give me a minute.”
Taking my jacket off, I throw it on the desk chair when the bathroom door opens.
An absolute fuckin’ vision greets me in a gorgeous short dark teal dress, with lace overlay and a silk sash around her waist, falling freely in two wide pieces to the ground.
“Like it?” she asks, twirling to show off the dress.
How the fuck could she afford this obviously expensive dress when she hasn’t used my card? Did she really steal it? Knowing her, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“You’re a goddess!”
“I have another option in case you don’t like this one.”
So she stole not one, but two?
“No. I love it! You’re stunning!” I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her into a kiss.
She sucks on my tongue, and my brain short-circuits, while my dick is fighting to tear through my jeans to get to her.
My hands are itching to get more, to have all of her, and I reach for the dress’s zipper, pulling it down slowly. I told her she’s a goddess, and I meant it. Now I plan on showing her how she deserves to be worshiped.
“What’s this?” Summer’s question pushes the brakes of the swarm of lust and desire occupying my mind when her hand finds my back pocket, where the EpiPens are currently residing. “Toys?” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.
“Do you think I walk around carrying dildos in my back pocket?”
She shrugs.
“Killdos, maybe?”
“What?”
“You know, a knife with a dildo handle.”
I don’t know whether it’s my eyelid or my brain that’s twitching harder. Shaking off the new information I’ve become privy to, I try to focus on the non-killdos in my back pocket.
“Where’s your bag?” I say while taking out one of the EpiPens, looking around until I spot her crossbody bag hanging next to the door.
“From now on . . .” I start as I let go of her and march for the bag, taking it and heading back to where Summer stays unmoving.
“I want you to always carry one of these with you. Always! Do you understand?” I open her bag to place the EpiPen inside.
Oh, look at that! Birth control pills. Good to know.
“Atlas—”
“I’ll carry the other one on me at all times,” I continue, cutting her off. “If you switch bags, I want you to move the pen to the one you’ll be using before you even move your wallet, taser, and—” I pause. “I almost forgot. I got you a knife to replace the one you gave Dean.”
I reach for my jacket and pull out a small pocketknife I grabbed from the car to give to her. Slipping it into her bag, I close it and freeze.
Tears brim in Summer’s eyes. Her lash line can’t hold them, and they spill down her cheeks.
She wipes them away fast, but I’m too shocked to react.
Summer crying isn’t something my brain files under possible.
I’m so used to her being strong, confident, like nothing can shake her, that seeing tears in her eyes feels surreal.
“Summer?” I utter her name when my brain starts working again. Dropping the bag to the floor, I stride to her, forcing her to look at me, while she’s fighting to hide her face.
“F-fucking allergies!”
“What allergies? You said you only had the peanut one.”
“I’m allergic to . . . you being that kind and caring.
” She sniffles as I cup her cheeks and tilt her head up, watching the damp streaks ruin the makeup under her eyes.
Those tears don’t stop, even as she struggles against me, trying to break free.
I pull her closer, letting her face bury in my chest, while her arms wrap around me, pawing at the back of my shirt and the skin beneath it.
Only then do her sobs subside. I kiss the top of her head, squeezing her close, my chest tightening so hard at the realization of what’s happening, it feels like it’s crushing my lungs.
Our games, our back-and-forth . . . She didn’t know she wasn’t alone anymore.
Now she does.
I know those are tears of happiness, but one thing is concrete now—I’d burn the fuckin’ world if she ever spills such from pain or sadness.
Pressing another soft kiss atop her head makes her loosen the tight hold on me, and her body relaxes, breathing turning steady.
“Let’s get you out of this dress and go to bed.”
I start unzipping it again when she pulls away, batting wet lashes at me. Even like this, she’s seductive as hell.
“I’m not fucking you tonight.” She’s so cute, the way she sniffles through that sentence.
“I’m not into zoophilia.”
“W-what?”
“You look like a panda with all that smeared makeup.”
The speed with which her face turns from sad to mad is frightening. She lets go, slaps me across my ribs, and hurries into the bathroom.
“Fuck. I do look like a panda.”
I follow after her, leaning against the doorframe, hands crossed before my chest, observing her removing the makeup. With or without, she’s always stunning.
“Quit staring at me that way.”
“What way?”
“You know . . . like you just saw me crying. I wasn’t.”
I’m staring at her like she’s all I’d ever want to see, and she thinks I pity her?
She watches me from the reflection as I inch closer to her until I’m at her back.
“You—crying? Not possible.” Moving her hair to one side, I grab onto the zipper, dragging it down slowly, my fingers grazing bare skin. “That sounds equally unrealistic as Santa being real, or you having fears.”
“Everyone has fears. I’m sure you do too.” She offers that statement in the form of a question. One I think neither of us is ready to answer yet.
And I see the exact moment she realizes her question is going to be left unattended. It’s like a mask dropping down her face. It’s scary how fast she can feel untouchable again.
Sliding the short sleeves past her shoulders, the dress pools at her feet, yet I don’t allow my eyes to land on her body—a desperate attempt at self-control.
Summer reaches for a T-shirt on the counter, but I rip it away from her fingers and throw it to the floor.
“The always-naked-in-bed rule.” I slap her ass to seal the reminder.
Oh, shit!
My dick.
She’s scurrying out of the bathroom, glancing over her shoulder, while I’m bent over, holding onto my hard dick she just slapped.
Granted, it was more of a tap.
Not fully recovered, I dart after Summer, finding her already under the covers with a devilish smirk on her lips. Propped on one elbow, she taps the space next to her as an official invitation for me to join in.
“You’re gonna pay for that.”
She deserves a good spanking for what she did, but I fear she might enjoy it.
“You trying to scare the wolf with a sausage?” She taps again.
Disposing of my clothes like they are on fire, I take my rightful place next to her, trying to pull some of the blanket she’s hogging.
She doesn’t let go, unceremoniously ogling me.
I find the edge of the cover, pulling hard enough to both get some of it and pull her closer to me, but she still finds a way to tuck it between our bodies.
“You’re not the only one to have stolen a car, you know,” she says out of the blue.
I bet that’s another attempt to help with the boner, which despite her slap, is still proudly there.
Pulling her closer, I wrap an arm around her.
“I wish I could say I’m surprised. Why did you do it?”
“Revenge.”
“On?”
“On a piece of shit who deserved it.” She runs circles with her index finger on my chest. “My best friend’s boyfriend at the time. Her first. He cheated on her, so I stole his expensive car and my brother drove it into a lake.”
“But of course you did. I’d expect nothing less of you. I’m surprised the guy wasn’t inside the car when it was sinking.”
Summer stays quiet, her face—the epitome of oops, you got me there!
“He was in the car?”
“In the trunk. But only so we would scare him. Once the car was sinking, Milo put on a mask so he wouldn’t be recognized and took him out.
We weren’t going to kill him,” she says this like, duh, isn’t it obvious, but with her, nothing is.
“We wanted to scare him enough that he’d never cheat on anyone again. ”
“I bet you drowned the cheater in him.”
I let a moment of silence pass before another thought spills out for her to hear.
“You’d do anything for the people you love.”
“Anything and everything!”
“Would you steal a car for me?”
“With or without someone in the trunk?”
“Where do you draw the line?”
“Not at that, it seems.” Her lips touch my chest for a second before she continues, “I would in a heartbeat. Your cousin is a great candidate to be thrown in the trunk. Why does he hate you so much, anyway?”
I let myself rejoice for a moment at the fact she would do this much for me, before I brace myself for a topic I’m not so keen on.
“My uncle died three years ago in a car explosion, mere days after the deaths of my mother and brother. Jacob thinks my father was behind that. My cousin used to be one of us before that happened. I think when his sister was killed less than a year later, he abandoned any hope of coming back to the gang and talking things over. I don’t doubt my father could’ve killed my uncle.
Sometimes I wonder if he was behind my mother’s death, too, and my brother was at the wrong place and time.
She chose to take him while running away. Him . . . not me.”
Summer pushes herself up, and I stop talking, aware I fucked up by oversharing. The way she looks at me . . .
“Let’s get some sleep. Forget what I said.”
Fat chance of that happening.
“Our pasts have a way of constantly haunting us while the monsters responsible are still in our present.”
Summer gives me a quick kiss before snuggling in my arms and drifting off, like she didn’t just hear me spill my most humiliating truth. But shame won’t let me drift off for hours.
When my eyes peel open in the morning, my woman is embracing me, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
But what haunts me is the thought of our conversation from last night and the need for me to erase it from my mind, especially the part where I basically admitted I have abandonment issues.
Like a coward, I slip out from under her arm, careful not to wake her.
I don’t want distance from her, but from what I revealed.
I’ll justify my dick move with the fact that I have a lot to take care of today, and she’ll forgive me eventually for sneaking out like this. The question is if I’ll forgive myself.