After Ever Happy (After #4) (8 page)

She can see right through my bullshit.
How does she always do that?

“No,” I lie. “I was simply thinking you would like to see the moors and Brontë Country. Sue me.” I roll my eyes to avoid that damn look in hers, not willing to admit that she’s right.

Her fingers play with the wrapper of a breakfast bar. “Well, I’d rather not go there, really. I just want to go home.”

I let out a deep breath and grab the bar from her hands, tearing open the wrapper. “You need to eat something. You look like you’ll pass out any moment.”

“I feel that way,” she says quietly, more to herself than me, it seems.

I’m considering shoving the damned thing into her mouth, when she takes it from me for a bite.

“You want to go home, then?” I finally ask her. Not wanting to ask where exactly home will be for her.

She grimaces. “Yes, your father was right. London isn’t as I imagined.”

“I ruined it for you, that’s why.”

She doesn’t deny it, but she doesn’t confirm it either. Her silence and the way she’s vacantly staring out at the trees pushes me to say what I need to say. It’s now or never.

“I think I should stay here for a while . . .” I say into the open air between us.

Tessa’s mouth stops its chewing, and she turns, narrowing her eyes at me. “Why?”

“It doesn’t make sense for me to go back there.”

“No, it doesn’t make sense for you to stay here. Why would you even consider that?”

Her feelings are hurt, just like I knew they would be—but what other choice do I have?

“Because my father isn’t my actual father, my mum is a lying”—I stop myself from calling her the name I want to—“and my biological father is going to jail because I caught her house on fire. It’s a ridiculous drama series on its own.” Then, to try to get a reaction out of her, I wryly add, “All we need is a cast of young girls with too much makeup and impractical clothes, and we would have a hit.”

Her sad eyes study mine. “I’m still not seeing why any of this would make you want to stay here. Here, as in away from me—that’s what you want, isn’t it? You want to be away from me.” She says the last part as if saying it aloud verifies it as truth.

“It’s not that . . .” I start, but stumble. I don’t know how to put my thoughts into words—that’s always been my biggest fucking problem. “I just think if we had some time apart, you could see what I’m doing to you. Just look at yourself.” She flinches, but I force myself to continue. “You are dealing with problems that you would’ve never be faced with if it wasn’t for me.”

“Don’t you
dare
act like you’re doing this for me,” she snaps, her voice as cold as ice. “You are as self-destructive as they come, and
that’s
your only motive behind this.”

I am. I know I am.
It’s what I do: I hurt other people, and then I hurt myself before anyone can hurt me back. I’m fucked-up; that’s just the way it is.

“You know what?” she says after getting tired of waiting for me to speak up. “Fine. I’ll let you hurt both of us in this self-depriving mission of your—”

My hands are on her hips and she’s back on my lap before she can finish. Tessa tries to climb off me, scratching at my arms when I won’t let her move an inch.

“If you don’t want to be with me, then get off of me,” she seethes. No tears, only anger. Her anger I can handle; it’s the tears that kill me. The anger dries them away.

“Stop fighting me.” I gather both of her wrists behind her back and hold them in only one of my hands. She glares, her eyes warning me.

“You don’t get to do this every time something makes you feel bad. You don’t get to decide that I’m too good for you!” she shouts in my face.

I ignore her and bring my mouth to the curve of her neck. Her body jolts again, this time out of pleasure, not anger.

“Stop it . . .” she says with absolutely no conviction. She’s trying to deny me because she thinks she should, but we both know that this is what we need. We need the physical connection that brings us to an emotional depth that neither of us can explain or deny.

“I love you, you know I do.” I suck at the tender skin at the base of her neck, reveling in the way it turns pink from the suction of my lips. I continue to suck and nibble at the skin, just enough to create a cluster of markings, but not hard enough to make them stay for longer than a few seconds.

“You sure aren’t acting like it.” Her voice is thick, and her eyes follow my free hand as it moves across her exposed thigh. Her dress is bunched up at her waist in the most maddening way possible.

“Everything I do is because I love you. Even the stupid shit.” I reach the lace of her panties, and she gasps when I run a single finger across the moisture already collected between her thighs. “Always so wet for me, even now.”

I slide her panties over and push two fingers into her wet flesh. She whimpers and arches her back against the steering wheel, and I feel her body relaxing. I move the seat back farther to give us more room inside the small car.

“You can’t distract me with—”

I remove my fingers from her and plunge them back in, stopping the words before they can fall from her lips.

“Yes, baby, I can.” I bring my lips to her ear. “Will you stop fighting me if I let your hands go?”

She nods. The second I let them go, they move to my hair. Her fingers bury into the thick mess of my hair, and I tug the front of her dress down with one hand.

Her white lace bra is sinful despite its holy coloring. Tessa, whose blond hair and white ensemble contrast in the most extreme manner with my dark hair and dark clothes. Something about the contrast is so fucking erotic: the ink on my wrist as my fingers disappear inside her again, the clean, unmarked skin of her thighs, the way her soft moans and whimpers fill the air as my eyes drag shamelessly up her tight stomach and back to her chest.

I tear my eyes away from her perfect tits long enough to scan the parking lot. The windows are tinted, but I want to be sure we are still alone on this side of the street. I unfasten her bra using one hand and slow the movement of my other. She whines in protest, but I don’t bother to hide the smile on my face.

“Please,” she begs for me to continue.

“Please what? Tell me what you want,” I coax her, the way I have since in the beginning of our relationship. It has always felt like unless she spoke the words aloud, they couldn’t be true. She couldn’t possibly want me the way I want her.

She reaches down and pushes my hand back between her thighs. “Touch me.”

She’s swollen and waiting and fucking soaking, wanting me, needing me, and I fucking love her more than she could ever comprehend. I need this, I need her to distract me, to help me escape all of this bullshit, even if only for a little while.

I give her what she wants, and she moans my name in approval, taking her lip between her teeth. Her hand moves under mine to grip me through my jeans. I’m so hard that it hurts, and Tessa’s touches and squeezes aren’t helping.

“I want to fuck you. Now. I have to.” I glide my tongue over one of her breasts. She nods, her eyes rolling back in her head, and I suck at the sensitive tip while kneading its twin with the hand that isn’t between her legs.

“Hard-in . . .”
she groans. Her hands are eager to free me from my jeans and boxers. I lift my hips enough for her to tug my jeans down my thighs. My fingers are still buried in her, moving at a tender pace, just enough to drive her fucking crazy. I remove my fingers from her and bring them to her swollen lips, pressing them into her mouth. She sucks at them, her tongue running slowly up and down my fingers, and I groan, quickly withdrawing them before I come from that alone. I lift her by her hips and lower her back onto me.

We share the same relieved moan, both desperate for one another.

“We shouldn’t be apart,” she says, pulling me by my hair until my mouth is level with hers. Can she taste the cowardly goodbye on my breath?

“We have to be,” I say as she begins to swivel her hips.
Fuck.

Tessa lifts herself slowly. “I won’t force you to want me. Not anymore.” I begin to panic, but all my thoughts are lost as she slowly lowers herself back down onto me, only to pull back and then repeat the same torturous movement. She leans forward to kiss me, her tongue lapping around mine as she takes control.

“I want you,” I breathe into her mouth. “I always fucking want you, you know that.” A low sound rips through me as her hips quicken their movements. Holy fuck, she’s going to kill me.

“You are leaving me.” She glides her tongue across my bottom lip, and I reach down to where our bodies are joined and bring her swollen clit between my fingers.

“I love you,” I say, unable to find any other words, and she’s silenced by my pinching and rubbing her sensitive bud of nerves.

“Oh God.” Her head falls to my shoulder, and she wraps her arms around my neck. “I
love
you,” she practically sobs as she comes, squeezing all around me.

I follow directly after, filling her with every drop of me, literally and metaphorically.

MINUTES OF SILENCE PASS,
and I keep my eyes closed and my arms wrapped around her back. We are both covered in sweat; the heat is still pouring from the vents, but I don’t want to let her go long enough to turn it off.

“What are you thinking?” I finally ask.

Her head is resting on my chest, her breathing slow and steady. She doesn’t open her eyes when she responds, “That I wish you could stay with me forever.”

Forever. Have I ever wanted anything less with her?

“Me, too,” I say, wishing I could give her the promise of the future that she deserves.

After a few more minutes of silence, Tessa’s phone buzzes on the floorboard, and on instinct I reach across and grab it, shifting her body with mine.

“It’s Kimberly,” I say and hand Tessa the phone.

Two hours later we are knocking on the door of Kimberly’s hotel room. I’m almost convinced that we are at the wrong room when I take in Kimberly’s appearance. Her eyes are swollen and she doesn’t have an ounce of makeup on. I like her better that way, but she just looks so wrecked right now, like she’s been crying all her tears plus somebody’s else’s.

“Come in. It’s been a long morning,” she says, her normal sass completely absent.

Tessa immediately hugs her, wrapping her arms around her friend’s waist, and Kimberly begins to sob. I feel incredibly uncomfortable just standing in the doorway, given that Kim irritates the shit out of me and that she isn’t the type that wants an audience while she’s vulnerable. I leave them in the sitting room of the grand suite and wander into the kitchen area. I pour a cup of coffee and stare at the wall until the sobs turn into muffled voices in the other room. I’ll keep my distance for now.

“Is my dad coming back?” a smooth voice says from somewhere, causing me to jerk in surprise.

Looking down, I see the green-eyed Smith has taken a seat in a plastic chair next to me. I didn’t even hear him approaching.

I shrug and take a seat next to him, staring intensely at the wall. “Yeah. I think so.” I should tell him just what a fucking great man his father . . .
our
father really is . . .

Holy shit.

This strange little specimen of a kid is my fucking brother. I absolutely can’t wrap my head around it. I look over at Smith, which he takes as a cue to continue his line of questioning.

“Kimberly said that he’s in trouble, but he can pay his way out of it. What does that mean?”

I can’t stop the scoff that comes from my mouth at his intrusive eavesdropping and thorough questioning. “I’m sure that’s the case,” I mumble. “She just means that he will be out of trouble soon. Why don’t you go sit with Kimberly and Tessa?” My chest burns at the sound of her name as it comes from my mouth.

He looks over in the direction of their voices, then assess me sagely. “They’re mad at you. Especially Kimberly, but she’s more mad at my dad, so you should be okay.”

“You’ll learn that women are always mad.”

He nods. “Unless they die. Like my mom did.”

My mouth falls open and I look at his face. “You shouldn’t say shit like that. People will find it . . . odd.”

He shrugs his shoulders as if to say that people already find him odd. Which is true, I suppose.

“My dad is nice. He’s not bad.”

“Okay?” I stare down at table to avoid looking into those green eyes.

“He takes me a lot of places and says nice things to me.” Smith places a piece of a toy train on the table. What is with this boy and trains?

“And . . .” I say, swallowing the feelings that come with his words.
Why is he rambling about this now?

“He will take you places, too, and tell you nice things.”

I look over at him. “And why would I want that?” I ask, but his green eyes tell me that he knows much more than I assumed.

Smith tilts his head and swallows a little swallow, watching me. It’s both the most scientifically detached and the most vulnerably childlike I have ever seen the little oddball. “You don’t want me to be your brother, do you?”

Damn it.
I desperately search for Tessa, hoping that she will come save me. She would know exactly what to say.

I look at him, trying to appear calm, but certain I’m failing. “I never said that.”

“You don’t like my dad.”

Right then, Tessa and Kimberly enter, saving me from having to answer him, thank God.

“Are you okay, honey?” Kimberly asks him, ruffling his hair slightly.

Smith doesn’t speak. He merely nods once, adjusts his hair, and takes his train car with him into the other room.

J
ust use the shower here—you look like hell, girl,” Kimberly says in a kind voice despite the unflattering words.

Hardin is still sitting at the table, a cup of coffee between his large hands. He has barely looked at me since I walked into the kitchen to find him talking to Smith. The idea of the two of them spending time together as brothers warms my heart.