Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eleven years earlier . . .
“I’m a terrible dancer,” I said as we slow danced to Lady Antebellum’s “Just a Kiss.”
“We’re swaying. It’s barely dancing. You’re a fine swayer.” She lied because I was handsome, or so I suspected.
My hands lowered a few inches until they were palming her perfect ass as I buried my face in her neck.
“Can we go now?” My words carried an embarrassing desperation.
It was the best and most torturous week of my life.
The sex gods were punishing me for all the one-night stands.
All the times I didn’t call someone back despite promising to.
The “lost” phone numbers.
Forgetting someone’s name the morning after and having to call her “you.”
The tears.
The nasty texts.
I was a player with no regrets.
Until . . . Everleigh Reichart.
She was the girl I never knew I needed. Smart and sexy.
Fun and addictive. Everything she said mesmerized me.
Everything she did kept me coming back for more.
I lost sleep thinking about her. And when she grinned while biting her lower lip, cheeks turning red, I nearly fell to my knees.
I wasn’t a beggar, but I would have rolled onto my back like a dog, pleading for her to rub my belly or tell me I was such a “good boy.”
I was pussy-whipped minus the pussy, in other words, a miracle.
“Should we say goodbye?” she asked.
“Nah.” I kissed her bare shoulder. “They’re too drunk to remember.”
She laughed, and I wanted to see what other sounds I could pull from her that night. Taking her hand, I led her to the exit, and we grabbed a cab to her apartment.
Did I care the cabdriver was watching us in the rearview mirror as I kissed her with one of my hands behind her head and the other snaking up her dress? Hell no.
Did I care he could hear her gasp when my fingers slid into her panties? Nope.
Did he know she was seventeen? That question popped into my head more than once over the following weeks and months.
Fucking hindsight . . .
Everything we did was so very wrong.
When we arrived at our destination, I paid the driver and led her toward the building.
“My legs won’t work,” she said.
I laughed, taking that as a compliment as she handed me the card to open the door. A couple joined us on the elevator, so we behaved as she stood in front of me, leaning most of her weight against me.
“Will!” she squealed when I scooped her up as soon as we stepped off the elevator.
The second we closed her apartment door, I set her on her feet and kissed her while pulling at my tie and then unbuttoning my shirt.
No video games.
No food poisoning.
No parties.
This was happening.
She unfastened my pants just as I unzipped her dress.
Since we’d already established the quickest way out of our clothes, it didn’t take long.
My head swam from the beer and the insane amount of lust that had reached a boiling point.
But never did I think the young woman sliding her hand down the front of my briefs (the second-year med student) was seventeen.
I dismissed her nerves as nothing more than a long week of anticipation finally coming to fruition.
Everleigh didn’t slow things down or stop me when I lowered to my knees in the entry. Nope. She smacked one hand against the wall to steady herself as her other hand claimed a fistful of my hair.
I replayed every single moment of that night, of the entire week, and not once did I think, “Oh, yeah. That should have told me she was seventeen.”
However, I had the Oh shit, is she a virgin? moment after I put on a condom, then kissed her as I pushed inside of her.
“Go slow,” she whispered in a shaky voice.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you a—”
She reached for my lips and kissed me as her hips lifted off the bed, forcing me inside of her another inch.
That was it. A tiny moment of doubt. But then she moaned and clawed at my back, kissing me. There were lots of “Oh, gods” and “yeses.” She never told me to slow down or stop.
I dissected that night a million times, looking for something that I had missed.
I wasn’t a spend-the-night kind of guy, but with Everleigh, I no longer knew what kind of guy I was supposed to be.
“Don’t go,” she mumbled, face down on the pillow after I slid out of bed to dispose of the condom.
I grinned. “I won’t.”
When I returned and crawled back into bed, she climbed on top of me, limp like a weighted blanket. I had no objection to sleeping with her breasts pressed to my chest and her legs positioned just so. My dick was inches from finding its new favorite spot.
A few hours later, she stirred, and I reached for another condom on the nightstand.
“Tell me you’ll visit me,” she said, as we moved together.
“I’ll visit you,” I said, not recognizing my voice before I kissed her.
God . . . I loved kissing her. Everleigh seemed perfectly suited for me in every way.
And I wasn’t that guy because I was a player by nature, or so I thought.
I blamed the sex. She couldn’t ask me serious questions while I was inside of her, while my mouth reached for her breast, while her legs wrapped around my waist.
The next morning, I woke to an empty bed.
I should go. My thoughts didn’t provoke action because I heard the shower turn off.
The door was cracked, and I felt fairly certain she would wrap herself in a towel and return to bed.
I lifted my head to see if there was another condom on the nightstand.
That’s when her phone chimed from the bathroom.
“Morning, Mom,” she said.
“Hey, sweets. How was the wedding?” She had her mom on speaker. It wasn’t loud, but I could hear if I held still.
“Fun. No hiccups. Victoria looked stunning. Tyler was handsome. The flowers. The food. It was all great.”
“Did you dance with any handsome groomsmen?”
I grinned, rolling onto my side, head propped up on my hand.
“I may have,” Everleigh said.
“Well, I can’t wait to hear all about it. Now, let’s get to the important stuff. What are we going to do to celebrate your birthday next month?”
“I have classes. So probably not much.”
“No way. I’ve already booked my flight. I refuse to miss my baby’s eighteenth birthday.”
What. The. Fuck!
I didn’t even think before jumping out of bed at a five-alarm fire speed, gathering my clothes strewn from the entry to the bedroom, not caring if I had everything.
Pants, shirt, and shoes were sufficient.
The cops would gather the rest before they came to arrest me and throw me in jail for statutory rape.
“Will?” Everleigh poked her head around the corner as I shoved my feet into my shiny rental shoes, sans socks.
My white dress shirt barely covered both shoulders, and my pants were zipped but not buttoned.
“You’re seventeen? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’ll be eighteen next month,” she said as if that made a difference.
Your Honor, she was almost eighteen. What’s thirty days? Me? Oh, yes. I’m twenty-nine. Do I know math? Yes. I’m aware that’s twelve years older.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” My voice boomed, and she flinched. “How are you in medical school?”
“Well, I’m uh . . . smart.”
I grabbed the door handle and shot her a scowl. “Smart? You’re not smart, Everleigh. You’re a fucking idiot. A conniving little liar who’s trying to get me arrested.”
“Will . . .” Tears welled in her eyes.
“No.” I shook my head and flew out the door, slamming it closed behind me.