13. Summer
Summer
S omewhere between my third soda water and lemon and the question about which state invented curling, my knee bumped into Van’s. He pulled away quickly, shifting to the other side.
When we were figuring out the tallest dog breed, I tried to lace my fingers with his while giving a high five. By the time the West Wing question gave our team the win, the message was clear.
For some reason, Van invited me to the bar to pretend to be his girlfriend but also acted like I was carrying some skin disease.
Even when I confronted him, his excuse of not wanting to be a “sleazeball”—a phrase I wouldn’t use but nonetheless liked—didn’t add up. He was hot and cold with the flirting and innuendos but would then back off. It made no sense.
Before he invited me out, I didn’t see him in the days that followed, but when I came home from work three nights later, I noticed wiper blades resting against my front door with a note to put them on immediately.
As infuriating as it was to have him boss me around, there was a minuscule, barely-there rush of excitement in being cared for like that.
But that emotion was best kept under wraps.
After the Cory debacle, I would never get ahead of myself again.
A kind gesture was not loyalty. Flowers were not love. Hour-long Skype calls were not commitment. Oil changes could’ve meant a lot of things, but I wouldn’t believe it was anything but a misplaced sense of chivalry.
Admittedly, my little sedan had been running better since his gesture, not that I’d admit that to Van.
The ebbing tide darkened the silt and barnacle rock shore of Freedom Bay. A whiff of seaweed and salt hung in the stagnant air.
I had nice eyes and a great ass. When I put in some effort, I could look pretty. We definitely had moments where I could tell he was, at least on a surface level, attracted to me. So, what was his damage tonight?
With only a few steps onto the boardwalk, I couldn’t hold in my curiosity.
So, I tested him. I couldn’t stop grinning as he stared at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, one of his coworkers sat on a bench at the park, a white ring of skunky, pungent weed smoke wisping around her head.
More than willing to use her being near us as an excuse to test him, I waved to her, and she waved back.
Looking annoyed with me, Van stepped closer to me, his T-shirt brushing my bare stomach. “What games are you playing with me?”
Raising my chin, I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who’s Cory? I saw the messages on your phone. Are you seeing someone else?”
Damn. I had been so distracted by the douchebag at the bar I hadn’t thought to check my catfish account for news from Cory. My left foot somehow collided with my right and stumbled at the question.
Van snagged my arm to hold me upright.
His touch seared my bare skin, and I fought the urge to step on my tiptoes and pull his face down for a kiss.
“Huh?”
His thumb traced up my arm, pushing the strap of my dress back up on my shoulder, identical to the night of the party, when I almost flashed the street in my drunken stupor.
Shame flooded my cheeks, and I shook off his clutch and put on my innocent face. “Who?”
“Cory. When you were putting the fear of God in that asshole at the bar, some guy was blowing up your phone. All the same accounts. Cory something.”
My shrug was a little overdramatic, but I couldn’t compensate for it.
“I’m not sure.”
“The same account was all over you for several minutes.”
I snorted, trying to take my phone, before he put a hand on my wrist.
“We had a deal. Nobody else. No fuck-boy summer. You’re supposed to be mine. You need to act like it.”
Crossing my arms, I glower at him.
Yeah, I had said that, but for him to act so mercurial in the bar to be jealous was laughable.
“But I’m not yours. This, us”—I motioned between our bodies—“is not real.”
Challenge flickered in his eyes.
“Not real, huh?”
He wrapped a tendril of hair around his finger, then pursed his lips as he rubbed the strands with his thumb. “Not real, not mine.”
“R-ight.” I shuddered as he stepped toward me and wedged a foot between my own.
As I took a step back, he followed me until my butt hit the edge of the railing.
The fading twilight of the light reflected on the low tide of Freedom Bay, and the boardwalk was empty.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, he brushed the shell down to the edge of my jaw. “Not real. I don’t know, your body is saying differently.”
When he pressed his chest to mine, his heat warmed my thin sundress. His lips brushed my cheek until they met my ear.
My hands tight on the railing behind me, I tipped my head back, my eyes fluttering at the contact.
“That little hitch of your breath, the way your skin flushes tells a different story.”
“It’s all fake,” I murmured, more to myself than him.
Not real, not real.
In my ear, he tsked. “You can’t fake this.” His hand settled on my hip, squeezing it. “Is the way you press against me fake? How about how perfectly you fit against me? You’re telling me if I lifted your skirt right now, I wouldn’t you find you drenched for me?”
“No.”
My answer was shaky, the weakest response.
A small smile ticked up as his hands slid from my hip to the hem of my dress. There was time enough for me to bat his hand away, to sidestep, to stop the slow tease of his fingers as they traced up my inner thigh to reach my center, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“Look at me. This relationship might not be real, but we’re not liars to each other, are we?”
I shook my head.
“Who made you this way?”
I let out a shaky exhale, my eyes darting away from his.
I wouldn’t lie to him, but I wouldn’t admit it either.
He lifted my face with a finger, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. “Answer me.”
Those steely eyes on me, the thud , thud , thud of my heart in my ears drowning out the bird calls and waves lapping against the rocky shore.
With my lower lip pulled between my teeth, I bit back the answer. “No.”
His other finger traced the seam of my underwear, edging under them. “I’m about to prove you wrong, aren’t I?”
My silence is enough of an answer as his fingers found me. The hiss he let out as he parted my folds sparked inside me.
“You’re fucking drenching my hand, Sunshine. I’ve barely touched you, and this cunt is begging for me, isn’t it?” His eyes on mine, he brought his fingers up to his mouth and sucked them clean. “One taste isn’t enough for me.”
I couldn’t give in and say the words—why would I when his hand was there, proving his point?
His tongue flickered around his finger, and I knew exactly what it would feel like against my clit.
“Fucking kiss me,” I demanded.
His lips found mine, teeth clashing. With his hands on my waist, my feet were off the ground and my ass on the railing.
After hiking my dress up around my waist, he shoved his fingers inside me again.
This kiss was sun and melted chocolate. His lips score with my own, he traced his tongue along mine. Pulling me up to wrap my legs around his waist. With my grip tight on his shoulders, he didn’t break the kiss. His arms were steel bands behind my back, both clinging me to him and holding me steady on the railing.
He slipped two fingers inside me, thrusting in and out, his thumb flicking over my clit with each motion. I gasped into his mouth, and he rewarded me by going harder.
End this now. It feels too good. End it . . .
I kissed him hard, my legs falling open wider. Between his kiss and his hands on me, I edged closer to climax.
It came on fast, a roaring in my ears as the coil inside me got tighter and tighter until it snapped, and I cried out. I raised a hand to stifle my cry. Sighing into my palm as the wave took me under. His mouth was on my throat, sucking and biting as I shattered. Sagging against him, I felt the railing vibrate under my ass.
No, that’s not the railing. It’s me. I’m shaking.
In a matter of minutes and with only his hand, Van gave me the best orgasm I had in years. Maybe ever.
“Let me take you home,” he whispered against my neck.
Home. My life. My plans. I couldn’t do this.
He didn’t want serious. Van was clear on his expectations. While I had no issues with occasional flings, this utter lack of common sense the moment his lips touched mine was bad news. There was no room for sex when I was in the middle of my revenge. I could’ve gotten feelings mixed up and do something stupid, like fall for Van. I refused to be foolish over a man again.
Pulling back, I pushed his chest, sliding to my feet.
He let me go, his hand still on my waist.
A pulse thud , thud , thudded at my core, and all I wanted to do was pull him down on top of me and have him fill me up here on this splintered boardwalk.
I can’t. I won’t.
Stepping farther away, I moved the strap of my purse in front of me as a shield. “I need to finish this walk home alone.” He opened his mouth, and I shook my head. “Please, Van.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “No can do.” When I tried to argue, he put up his hands in surrender. “You want to walk five paces in front of me so I can check out your ass, or you can walk beside me? I won’t touch you. I won’t talk to you if you don’t want me to. But I’m seeing you home safe. What’ll it be?”
Rolling my eyes, I turned from him. My skin still flush from my orgasm, I stalked away.
His footsteps pattered behind me.
As we got off the boardwalk and onto the concrete pathway through the trees, I slowed my pace until he was beside me.
Thousands of competing thoughts clouded my head as we walked. I was no stranger to fooling around. But there was an edge to Van’s embrace that made me want more than either of us could give. While I was never the kind of girl who only did long-term monogamy, I also couldn’t be content with no strings if that’s how he’d be touching me.
In his embrace, I was wanton and messy and dirty for wanting more. But, also, I had never felt as powerful. He had met each dip of my kiss, going harder, giving me more when I needed it.
But this could never be real. And I couldn’t get distracted by a beautiful man, even if he knew how to pull my hair just right.
I was determined to see Cory’s demise through. Once I set my mind to something, I had to finish it.
Keeping some space with Van was the right call.
I took the wooden staircase up to the street level, Van a step behind me. True to his words, he didn’t say a thing, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.
I kept my hand tight on the strap of my bag as if it would protect me from the heat and wonderful musk of the man to my right.
Even without words, without his touch, he made me want things I couldn’t have. Things that would only lead to humiliation. If he wasn’t so good-looking or was stupid or didn’t love the same show as me, maybe I could get over it. But this perfectly packaged man appears in my life, and I’m not supposed to want him?
“You never said who that Cory guy was.”
Stopping beside the monument for fallen warriors of the Korean War, I glared up at him. “You probably don’t know this, but women get unsolicited messages all the time. It’s a fact of life. I can’t be held responsible for every random man who asks me to be his sugar baby.”
“That doesn’t happen to all women.”
His eyes were a grim steel.
“And you would know?” Annoyed, I glared at him and crossed my arms. “Every single friend of mine has gotten them. If you are a woman on social media, it’s happened to you. The other day, my cousin Autumn posted a picture of her in dirty overalls and rain boots on the beach on a clean-up day and some guy commented, ‘Nice tits.’”
“That’s—”
“Besides, even if I had some guy I was talking to, you can’t get jealous. You’re not really my boyfriend, are you?” I raised a brow and dared him to contradict me.
A tiny spark of something flashed inside me, but I ignored it.
When his eyes slid away from mine, I nodded, and the spark died.
“If someone is bothering you, tell me, and I’ll take care of it.” He flexed his jaw as if he was preparing himself for some showdown between him and a shadowed army.
I frowned. “I can take care of myself. You don’t need to swoop in with some misguided sense of justice, thinking you’re saving me. I’m not some dainty princess. Why don’t you worry a little more about yourself and less about the messages some basement dweller is sending me?”
The last thing I needed was for Van to get wind of my schemes. He could never understand what I was going through.
I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the concern, though.”
Before he could say much else, I trotted ahead of him.
“I’m sorry. My question came out wrong. All I ask is, tell me if there is someone else.”
When he caught up with me, it was with a conciliatory tone.
“There’s no one else, Van. Honestly, right now, you are too much.”
His face broke into a wide grin.
“Sunshine, I bet I’d fit just right for you.”
Ignoring the come-on, I picked up the pace.
He walked me up the stairs to my apartment, remembering which one was mine from that disaster of a first fake date.
As I unlocked the door, he leaned against the bumpy, spackled blue-gray wall.
“Are you going to invite me in?” He quirked a dark brow.
How I wanted to. The way he would hold my head by the nape, the sweet sting as his lips would find mine. The soft rustle of our clothes falling onto my hallway floor as we would make our way to the bedroom. His heavy weight as he would press me into the mattress, the suck of his mouth and the scrape of his teeth as they would travel down my body.
Wetness pooled between my thighs. It would be so easy—effortless, really.
“Ask me to come inside, Summer.” His thumb traced the line of my jaw.
My eyes must have shown my thoughts because he leaned in closer, his sweet breath caressing my face.
“We can finish what we started.” He curled his fingers tighter on the nape of my neck, his words a rough vow.
I wrapped my hand around his, squeezed it once, then pulled it off. “I can’t. We can call that kiss an overzealous had-too-many-drinks thing.”
“That was more than a kiss, and you only had one drink.”
“I can’t.” I hoped my tone was firm enough. “As simple as that. I’m not some random girl you picked up for a good time. You have your reasons for needing me, and I have mine for saying no.”
He took the rejection in stride. Most of the men I had experience with would have been pleading, trying to guilt trip me, or—worst of all—gotten angry.
“Next week, the weather is supposed to be good. I was going to take my buddy and his family out on the boat. Why don’t you come with us?”
I narrowed my eyes. “A boat? What about your foot?”
He shrugged. “It’s a few stitches. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Is this some girlfriend thing? What do you want me to wait on you? Wear a little outfit?”
“This isn’t about being my girlfriend. This is just fun. You wear whatever you want. Though”—he tilted his head as his gaze traveled down my body—“I can’t say I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a bikini.”
As much as I wanted to falter under his piercing stare, I couldn’t show a moment of wavering.
I smiled widely, winking. “I don’t know if you could handle it.”
He placed a hand over his heart and pretended to stumble back. “Oh, stop. You can’t do that to an injured man.”
“You’ll be fine, Hot Rod.” Shoving the keys back in my purse, I held onto the doorframe. “I don’t think being alone is a good idea.”
“We won’t be alone. It’s going to be me, Xander, Ana—you met her already—and their baby, Max. No funny business. Just water and sunshine.”
Wrapping an arm around my chest, I considered him.
On one hand, it was a terrible idea to be alone with Van. On the other, I loved being on the water. Wren had gotten terrible seasickness, so as a group, we rarely made trips that involved water.
He bent down, and I thought he was going to try to kiss me again. But his mouth found my ear. His words hot and low. “I’m getting better at reading when your body language says yes.”
He tugged my lobe with his teeth, scraping gently.
My knees felt weak, and my breath came out shaky. I had to will myself not to steady my hands on his wide shoulders.
When he pulled away, he wore a satisfied smirk I wanted to smack off his face but also kiss senseless.
To his back, I called out, “I didn’t say yes.”
He waved, already a flight down the stairwell. “Sure you did, Sunshine.”
An hour later, I was resolute that my desire for Van was nothing more than a distraction.
I had a plan, which was solidified when my phone chimed again.
Sure enough, it was Cory.
As I changed into an all-black outfit, I responded.
Cory: Hey baeutiful
Candy: Heyyyy!1!
Cory: I love that picture of the mountains. Do you ski?
The picture in question had Candy on a mountain with a lake beneath. I had hesitated posting it, since the AI had screwed up the lettering on the jacket, but hoped it was too small for Cory to tell that it looked like a mixture between Russian, Greek, and hieroglyphics.
Candy: I board, but I’m not very good. I end up on my butt or knees half the time. But I still like to stay active.
I was smearing the double entendre a bit thick. Hopefully, he would think with his dick and not get suspicious.
His response was quick, and it was easy to get him interested—after all, I knew his likes and dislikes to a T. As the conversation got more flirty, I screenshot every exchange, every wink, every you’re so hot comment, and when he mentioned he was single and lied about where he worked.
He made it all too easy. His hubris would bring him down.
That made the next part of my plan all the easier to implement. Cory still was as big of a jerk as always. I wasn’t special to him, and neither was his Kodi.
No, he deserved every bit of of his comeuppance.
The drive from my apartment to his neighborhood was mostly silent, punctuated by the occasional message from Cory.
He was falling for it so easily it was laughable. For a self-proclaimed smart man, you’d think he’d be suspicious when one of the bikini pictures of Candy featured four fingers on one hand and two thumbs on the other. I had thought it was only people my dad’s age who fell for AI art, but apparently, twenty-nine-year-old cheaters did, too.
In Cory’s neighborhood, staple gun in hand, I took great pleasure in the thwack of metal into the wooden pole.
Stepping back, I admired the craftsmanship Devin put into the flyer. Emblazoned across the top read:
Person of interest in the disappearance of Ranger!!!
Last seen at our home on Frigga Lane with this man!!
I placed a stock photo of a beagle beside a terrible Facebook picture of Cory. In smaller print below was a brief description.
Ranger is a five-year-old beagle. He was seen in our fenced yard on the afternoon of 6/2. This man was seen approaching our yard, and our dog has been missing ever since.
If you have any information about this disappearance or know the location of our beloved family pet, please call this number.
I included the Google number I had set up for the occasion.
Printed on bright yellow paper, the flyers would stand out on every telephone pole.
I started on the street I recalled had multiple new residents, five streets away from Cory’s house. Far enough that most would see the flyer immediately before it was removed and close enough that they would see him in passing.
On my way home from the neighborhood, I stopped at the mail drop, sliding in the bright pink postcard addressed to Cory, confirming his follow-up treatment for chlamydia was on June seventeenth.
Content with my work well done, I made my way home to my knitting and vampire romance audiobook.
I was feeling bloodthirsty indeed.