Breathless Awakening (The Breathless Series) (11 page)

“Please don’t go there. They haven’t called me that in years. I was hoping that they had forgotten about it.”

Amber took him by the hand to lead him to the house. “Oh, I don’t think it has been forgotten, and for some reason, I think it will be a long time before you get to live it down now. You might want to give us your version of the story though before they completely embarrass you.”

Zane

Celeste was laughing so hard that I thought I was going to have to pull over and give her CPR or something. “Girl, you have to breathe. I don’t think you want me giving you mouth to mouth.”

“I can’t help it. You mean to tell me that he got his first kiss blindfolded from his sister? You all are a bunch of mean asses.”

“What can I say? She always had this thing for me, but to be honest she was ugly at the time. If I had known how much difference a few years made then I may have bit the bullet, but she had more zits than there are nerds at Comic‐Con. Breck got her to hide in the closet by telling her that was my favorite place to hide if we played hide and seek. What teenage boys actually play that anyway? But all she cared about was kissing me.

“Ryan was the only one of us that hadn’t even kissed a girl. Hell, most of us had already at least messed around. He was willing to do whatever we told him to ‘improve his game.’ He had several chances, but he had blown them all, so we told him to let us blindfold him to keep him from getting too nervous. I told him that this girl we had waiting for him was really into him and couldn’t wait to kiss him. I almost told him if he played his cards right that he might be able to get a little frisky with her, but I figured that was crossing a line.”

Tears were streaming down Celeste’s cheeks at this point. “And having him make out with his sister wasn’t crossing a line?”

“Well, looking back on it now, maybe it was a little. Anyway, we got the blindfold on him, got him in the closet, and shut the door. I think it was about three minutes before we heard them take a breath, and that’s when we pulled the door open and saw them, lips locked, his hand up her shirt, and the blindfold on the floor. Needless to say as soon as the light was let into the closet and they saw each other… Well it was priceless for us, but not so much for them.”

“I am about to pee myself. You have to stop–I can’t take anymore right now.”

“You mean you don’t want to hear about Camper?”

“I can’t. Not right now. Turn here and it’s the house on the next corner.”

As I pulled up to the house, Celeste didn’t even wait for me to get parked before she hopped out of the truck and went for the front door. When I got out of the truck, Liz looked at Celeste then back at me. “What in the world did you do to her? I haven’t seen her run that fast since she tripped over a ground hornet’s nest running cross‐country. She went from the dead last to getting second place.”

“I bet that was a sight to see. I was just telling her about Ryan’s first kiss, and she was laughing so hard she was about to piss herself.”

Breck perked up at the mention of one of his favorite stories. “Man, you told the story of him kissing Kelly without me? What the fuck? You know I love to tell that story.”

“I didn’t get to tell her about Camper. I was afraid I would have to pay a cleaning fee for the truck if I got into that one.”

“Eh, it’s not as good of a story, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

If the girls hadn’t been there to confirm this was the right house, I would have thought we were in the wrong place. Walking into the Donnelly’s was like walking into a movie. No matter where you looked, everything was perfect. This place was so clean I don’t think you could have found a dust bunny at the neighbor’s house.

Liz grabbed a couple boxes that were leaning up against the wall before walking upstairs. “Make sure you take your shoes off before coming inside. Someone grab that tape gun and some boxes. We have work to do. I want to hear about this Camper story.”

Celeste turned the corner at the top of the stairs. “Yea, someone get up here and tell me about Camper.”

Walking into Cailyn’s room, I noticed that it was as spotless as the rest of the house. Jeremy looked around before shaking his head. “Cailyn sure is going to have her hands full if she expects Luke to keep the place this clean. I mean, how does Terry live in a place like this? A guy has to have a little mess.”

Breck grabbed a few boxes before heading up the stairs. “You see, what happened was this. There was a smokin’ hot English teacher our junior year, and she knew she was hot. There were rumors every year of her messing around with guys that had her class, but it never really happened. She would always wear skirts that were long enough to meet the requirements, but just short enough for us guys not to need much of our imagination.

“The best part of that class was the fact that she loved to sit on top of her desk with her legs crisscrossed. For the shows we got, it may as well have been Sex Ed instead of English. Ryan was one lucky son of a bitch, or maybe she knew he was too shy actually to say anything. Either way, he got to sit in the front row with the best view.

“One day, Jeremy looked over and literally laughed out loud in the middle of class. Obviously, everyone looked at him to see what was going on and all he could do was laugh and point at Ryan. Nobody saw what was so funny until Ms. G., asked him, ‘Ryan, do you plan on going camping, because that is one hell of a tent.’”

Celeste started coughing and gasping for air while Liz doubled over in laughter. Neither one of them could get a breath in. Liz was the first to get herself under control. “Damn! Did she really blurt that out in the middle of class? What the hell did he do?”

Breck reached into his pocket looking for his flask, but instead came up empty handed. “Damn, must have left it at the house. Camper was stuck and started to panic. He didn’t want to sit there and let everyone laugh at him so he got up and ran out of the class. Only problem he had then was that he had to run across the entire front of the class and let everyone get a good look at his tent.”

Tuck teased Breck, “Come on, Breck, tell them the rest.”

“Fuck you two. I’m going out to the car. I’ll let you all carry this crap down to me and I’ll load it in the car.” Before he walked out of the room, he grabbed a box that Liz had just taped up and carried it out with him.

As she started to fill another box she asked, “What’s his problem? His mood soured rather quickly.”

Tilting the mattress up to Jeremy on the other side of the bed, I watched him grab it and slide it out the door. “Eh, he just never has gotten over the fact that once the girls saw Ryan’s size they all wanted a piece of him, including Breck’s girlfriend Kristen. Breck had been working a couple months to get her in bed and she kept shooting him down. A week later Breck caught Ryan bragging about losing his virginity…with Kristen.”

“Oh snap! That doesn’t sound like it went well at all.” Celeste carried a few boxes down the stairs while Jeremy and Tuck carried the mattress and box spring down.

“No, it really wasn’t. I’d say it took about a year before they could be around each other again. Breck almost put him in the hospital over it.”

Liz looked me with a concerned look on her face. “Wow. Maybe we need to focus on the work and not bring that part of the story up again.”

Chapter Thirteen

Cailyn

How in the world did I make it this long without having sex? I listened to the girls talking about it all the time, I heard how good it made them feel, but I couldn’t believe that it was as good as they made it sound. I figured that they were embellishing it for me, trying to make me jealous, or flat out trying to tease me while rubbing it in my face. My fingers had never been near this satisfying.

Luke was sitting on the edge of the bed, slipping his legs into his jeans as I looked around the room, and I was stunned. This resort was paradise. Standing up from the bed, I walked over to the sheer curtains blowing in from the breeze off the ocean. I pushed through to walk out on the balcony and take in the view.

Before I knew what he was doing, Luke walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, his chin settling in the crook of my neck. Turning his head slightly he gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “It sure is beautiful out here, but don’t you think you should put your clothes on?”

“Do you not like me naked?”

“I think I’ve proven that I love every inch of your body naked, but that doesn’t mean I want to share it with the world. I’m selfish. I want to keep you all to myself.”

I turned around to look up into his hypnotic eyes. I didn’t know what it was, but from the first time we had sex, he seemed so much more alive. The looks he gave me before the wedding made me weak in the knees, but now, just looking into his eyes made me need to change my panties. I sure was glad that I wasn’t wearing any then.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Think we could go find something to eat? I want to make sure you have plenty of energy for later. I bet they have a restaurant overlooking the ocean, what do you think?”

“I think if you don’t get your clothes on soon I’m going to have to get naked again and take advantage of you.”

As tempting as that offer was, I realized that I needed to get dressed when my stomach growled so loudly that Luke backed away with his hands raised. “Whoa, don’t eat me. I know you are new to all this, but that’s supposed to go the other way around.”

Smacking him as I passed, I walked in to get dressed. Realizing that we didn’t have our luggage yet, I was stuck wearing what I had on the plane. I really wanted to get cleaned up since Luke was such an ass earlier this morning and let me fall back asleep, but I would have to worry about that later. The hunger was more intense at that moment.

“Hey, babe, why don’t you call to ask them to bring our things down now? I’m going to go try to get this hair under control at least then we can go find a quick bite. Perhaps we can look for a nice place to go for dinner tonight. You did bring some nice clothes and not just jeans, right?”

“Uh, yea, I think so. I’m not really sure.”

“What do you mean you aren’t sure? You did pack some clothes, right?”

“Funny story. I kind of thought we would be staying in bed most of the week. When Zane found out my train of thought, he pushed me out of the bedroom to catch up with the guys while he packed for me. I’m not really sure what all I have.”

“For once I hope your brother has more brains than you do.”

I took a luxurious amount of time to get ready before we went to find a snack and orient ourselves with the surroundings. All of twenty minutes. I still didn’t get my shower or anything, but compared to the ten minutes that I got this morning with my half‐dead hangover, I felt like I had all the time in the world to wash the day old makeup off my face and such.

Walking out the door with my stomach grumbling, the monkeys quickly greeted us. I was going to have to remember to ask about them. They were so curious and cute, but I wasn’t sure if it was safe to try to interact with them. The sun was blinding as we transitioned from our own personal jungle to the beach. I couldn’t wait to get out there in the sun and feel the rays warming every inch of my skin. Well, most of it anyway, I wondered if we would be able to find a private spot so I didn’t have to worry about any tan lines.

It took a few minutes to get back to the busy part of the resort. I knew that I would appreciate that most of the time, but as hungry as I was, I didn’t want to walk ten minutes to get something to eat.

“Come on, Luke, I’m hungry. Stop staring at all the women out there on the beach.”

“Huh, what? Oh, sorry, I thought I saw our flight attendants out there from this morning. I do not want to run into them again.”

“Aww, don’t you worry about a thing, sweetie, I’ll keep you safe from them. I’m sure they are nice ladies that just had to do their job. You can’t fault them for that.”

Luke had a physical shudder run down his spine. “No, I can’t fault them doing their job, but they could have been nicer about it, and by nicer I mean confronting you instead of me.”

“Hey now! Maybe I won’t protect you. I’ll just throw you to the lionesses. I can’t help it that they liked me better than you.”

“You just hit the nail right on the head. I think you are more up their alley, so they wanted to torture me.”

I pulled his arm and started walking faster when I saw a bar set up and people eating at it. “Look, food! And I’m sure they were just flirting with you.”

Luke smiled as he wrapped his fingers around mine. “Food, I’m more worried about the drinks. Guess I do need to get something on my stomach first though.”

We sat down at a high top near the bar and I had to pull the menu card out of Luke’s hands. He knew I was starving, but he didn’t have the manners to let me figure out what I wanted. At least I was nice enough to lean over so we could both look at it together. When we placed our order, the bartender asked us about drinks and looked shocked when we both asked for water. We had to explain to him that we hadn’t eaten since the night before because of the rush this morning, but Luke was quick to point out we would have our share of drinks later.

Sitting in paradise with my husband was amazing. I still felt like I was a complete mess, but at least I knew my bags would be at the room when we got back. We passed them on the way out thankfully so that I could grab my sunglasses. Reaching my hands out across the table, Luke took them in his and we spent the next few minutes staring into each other’s eyes. You could hear the waves gently rolling their way onto the shore until we were broken out of our trance by the bartender bringing us our plates. Luke was being a typical guy and had ordered a hamburger, but I ordered a tuna sandwich thinking it would be similar to tuna salad. Not at all. This was a beautiful tuna steak on an artisan bread, and it was to die for.

As we sat there and ate I tried to talk about the resort and what all I wanted to see. Luke acted like the only thing he wanted to see was me, nude. He had made some snarky comment that made me blush horribly when our flight attendants walked up.