Unfiltered & Undressed (The Unfiltered Series) (7 page)

His stance relaxed. “You will, I promise. Two weeks is a long time.”

I blinked hard, trying not to let my frustration show. I didn’t want him, or anyone, to know how important this was to me.

I felt the water ripple around me, and then I heard him say, “Lauren.” And the way he said my name made me realize how terrible I was at hiding my feelings. His thumb brushed a tear from my cheek. I shivered at his touch. “It’s okay,” he assured, his low voice scraping my nerves. “You’ll be able to swim by then. Especially if you do the things I show you. You might not be ready for the Olympics or anything, but you’ll definitely be swimming on your own.”

He was so close I could feel his breath against my face, and his palm cupping my jaw made me feel cherished. My heart pounded painfully inside my chest as my eyes locked with his.

I told myself to look away at first, that Will was the wrong kind of guy to be playing games like this with, but then, before common sense could win out, his lips were on mine and I forgot everything that was at stake. I didn’t resist. I didn’t want to. My mouth parted willingly as I let his tongue inside, while a medley of unfamiliar sensations assaulted me at once, churning my insides and changing the world as I knew it.

It wasn’t the way I’d imagined our first kiss would be—and I
had
imagined it, several times since that night he’d done a body shot off me. I’d pictured him being gentle or playful, but nothing like this. Instead he was nearly devouring me, consuming me, in his effort to possess me.

He released my face as his hands moved impatiently around my waist so he could pull me closer to him. His hips dug into mine, and I could feel how hard he was beneath the flimsy fabric that separated us.

I should’ve been shocked—this was always the point when I’d made other guys stop. I was bold when I was in front of a webcam, sure. But in person, I was the girl no man had managed to conquer.

But here, now, with Will, none of that mattered. I was just as restless as he was, and I squirmed against him, testing the feel of his erection beneath the thin layers of our swimsuits. I squeezed my eyes against the sensations that exploded whenever I moved against him, gripping the rippling muscles of his shoulders as leverage to brace myself. All the while, I let his tongue explore mine…making my head reel.

One of his hands moved up to my swimsuit top and disappeared inside. Again, this was when I would have stopped anyone else. Instead, I inhaled and rocked my hip forward again, steeling myself for the wave of pleasure it released. His thumb flicked over the tip of my nipple, which hardened in response. I gasped as he drew his mouth from my tender lips so he could lower his head.

He peeled the Lycra triangle all the way back and, just like that first night at The Dunes when I’d been up on the bar, his tongue darted over my sensitive skin in a way no one had ever touched me before.

“Will…” I half-moaned, half-whimpered. My fingers moved from his shoulders and burrowed into his hair. I wasn’t sure if I was telling him to stop or begging him for more. My body had never been so conflicted.

But he seemed to know what I needed, and his mouth closed around the hardened bud, suckling and nipping it, his tongue finding just the right places to drive me out of my mind.

Suddenly there was no reason
not
to do this. I couldn’t imagine why I’d ever denied myself before, but I had no intention of stopping now. This—what Will was doing to me—was the most exquisite kind of frustration.

“Will,” I breathed again, and this time there was nothing conflicted about it. I reached down, wanting him to know my intentions as my hand searched for him. My hand plunged beneath the water as I fumbled for the waistband of his trunks.

My fingers tangled into his coarse hairs as they slipped inside, and when I found him, the smooth skin of his rock-hard cock, I gasped again.
I
had done this to him.
I
made him this way.

I closed my hand around him, power and need coursing through me like nothing I’d ever felt before. Will moved in my hand at the same time I stroked him, his hip pumping to meet my touch.

“Jesus…Lauren. You’re so fucking incredible.
Jesus
…” He released my nipple then, as his hands reached behind me and he hoisted me up. I wrapped my legs around him as he carried me through the water until my back was bumped up against the side of the pool.

He tugged at the front of my bottoms, his hand finding its way between my legs. He parted me expertly, and the second his finger was inside of me, I knew this was it. This was what I wanted. Now.
Here.

“Yes,” I whispered raggedly, my fingers clinging to his shoulders as I squeezed my eyes shut against the ecstasy building inside me.

Will’s arms tightened then, his entire body going rigid as he stopped moving. His finger slipped out of me even though his hand stayed poised where it was. “Fuck.” His breath was hot against my cheek. “Jesus Christ, Lauren.”

There was an ache in his voice, and I frowned. “What…?” I started quietly, but he cut me off.

He was still holding me against the edge of the pool, he was still hard and I very nearly begged—
begged
—him to keep going. So when he said what he did, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to slap him or bite my lip to keep from crying. “We can’t do this. What were we thinking? What was
I
thinking?”

He let go of me and I dropped back into the pool. I was unsteady and it took me a second to find my balance. My lips were still swollen, and I could still feel his heart hammering against my ribs.

“We can’t do this,” he repeated, his voice hoarse.

Shame and humiliation replaced the myriad of confusing emotions he’d awakened in me. “Yeah, I’m kinda getting that.” Suddenly I wanted my towel back, but I lifted my chin defiantly. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

I shoved my way through the water toward the steps, not bothering to look back. I stayed in the locker room for as long as I could, standing under the lukewarm shower and trying to wash away the feel of his hands on my skin.

When I finally made my way to the parking lot, I found an envelope stuffed beneath my windshield wiper—the same envelope I’d given him just the night before. I looked inside and all the money was still there. Ten one hundred dollar bills.

I guess I’d just been fired as a student.

WILL

I didn’t go home just yet. I didn’t want Tess to see me like this, all keyed up. Sometimes she was too smart for her own good—she’d know within seconds something was up. She deserved better than to be stuck with a piece of shit like me, especially after everything we’d gone through. But I wasn’t ready to give her up. Not yet. So, for now at least, she was stuck with me.

I hovered over my drink, hating myself, and hating Lauren for making me feel like such a dick. I could still taste her, which made my brain buzz and my skin tingle. I could feel her too, all over me, soft and pliable and willing—so goddamned willing—and, even now, while I hated the both of us, the memory of touching her, of my teeth grazing her nipple, was making me hard all over again.

I stopped staring at my drink and threw it back in one shot. The whiskey burned going down, but I needed something to wash her away. I slammed the glass against the bar and gave the bartender—a skinny guy with snakebite piercings and long blonde dreads—a
One-more-round
nod.

Wordlessly, he refilled my glass because he understood: I was in a bad fucking place.

“Hey,” a raspy female voice interrupted from over my shoulder. “Aren’t you that one guy? Billy Galbadorn or something like that?”

Swiveling lopsidedly on my stool, I bit back the caustic remark that rose involuntarily to my lips. I would have told her to fuck-off, but I was drunk and she was hot…in a daddy-issues kind of way.

I propped an elbow against the bar and grinned at her. “Close enough. What’s your name, beautiful?”

Her smile was downright wicked, and suddenly it didn’t matter that I was still hard. “Does it make a difference?” she answered. She lifted a finger to one black leather strap of her skimpy top and let it trace a path all the way down to her full, and very real, cleavage.

I knew then that the whiskey had never been the answer at all. Maybe this girl, or one like her, was exactly what I needed to take the edge off before heading home.

I snaked my hand out to her waist and captured her, hauling her between my knees, until she was buried between my thighs. “Only if it makes a difference to you,” I growled. My mouth claimed her cherry red lips, which were almost as sweet, and almost as willing, and almost as supple as Lauren’s had been.

I reached down, not caring that there was no question we were making a scene now, and my hands stroked the length of her legs, squeezing just beneath her too short skirt where her lace panties made an appearance. I told myself I didn’t care that she wasn’t Lauren. In fact, I preferred her this way—the exact opposite of Lauren.

This girl
would make things better. Easier.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered roughly against her ear when I finally stopped kissing her long enough to pay my tab.

She didn’t argue, and she still didn’t tell me her name. Not even after I stumbled out of the motel room, leaving her half-dressed and hollering at me because I couldn’t go through with it.

‡

I slammed my car door, and stormed inside, feeling like the dick that I was. There was no point being quiet. If the sun was up, so was Tess.

Tess glanced up at me from her place at the table. “You look like shit,” she stated flatly. If it wasn’t for the slight flex of her jaw, I probably wouldn’t even know she was pissed at all. Sometimes I wished she’d just come out and yell at me, at least then I’d know what was going on inside that head of hers.

“You shouldn’t swear,” I told her, trying to make it sound like I cared what she said.

This time the jaw flex was more than slight. “I’m sixteen, and you’re not my dad.” It looked like she was planning to say more, but then she stopped herself and sighed. “Whatever. Breakfast is on the stove.”

Guilt stabbed at me, and my head hurt like a motherfucker, so I turned away so she couldn’t see me wince. “Thanks,” I mumbled, grabbing a paper plate—the only kind we used—and filling it with scrambled eggs and pancakes—pretty much the only thing Tess ever made. I doused both the pancakes
and
the eggs in syrup.

I hated this. I hated that I was still thinking about Lauren, even while I was here with Tess.

I should never have agreed to the private swim lessons, cash or not. I had made the right decision to walk away. Lauren was a distraction, and I had way too much shit on my plate right now.

It was strange being back here after so much time had passed. I’d felt like a stranger that first day, when I’d walked through the door and realized I barely knew my little sister.

And I doubted I was the only one of us who felt that way.

Five years was a long time to be away. A lifetime to an eleven-year-old you never saw and almost never spoke to.

Tess had changed so much in that time. Sixteen now, and nearly grown, and too damn pretty for her own good—nothing at all like the gawky preteen I’d barely paid attention to. I couldn’t remember even saying goodbye to her when I’d left.

She was right. I wasn’t her dad and she didn’t need me acting like one.

By the time I’d finally gotten word our mom had died—
nearly two weeks after the fact
because I’d been holed up in some shithole motel feeling sorry for myself over a washed-up career, and trying to drink myself into oblivion—guardianship had already been granted to our uncle.

It had taken me another two days to sober up all the way, and another two on the Greyhound bus to make it back here. But when I did, and realized our uncle was the same piece of shit he’d always been, trying to figure out a way to sell our mom’s jewelry on eBay, I booted him out. I swore right there and then—to myself and to Tess—I’d figure out a way to make things right.

Tess wrinkled her nose at my food. “That’s disgusting. I don’t know how you eat it like that.”

I glanced at her syrup-free eggs and grinned, forgetting all about Brown Eyes and the way she’d gotten under my skin. “I don’t know how you can eat
yours
like
that
.” I slid into the chair across from her.

“Seriously, I’m sorry I was out all night. It won’t happen again,” I said.

She lifted her eyebrows critically. “Except it probably will.”

I grinned. “Yeah. It probably will. I swear, sometimes I feel like you’re the grown-up here.”

Her eyebrows rose a little higher. “One of us has to be.”

“Ouch,” I said, pretending to be insulted as I stabbed a mouthful of eggs with my fork.

Tess’s mood turned serious as she pushed her food around her plate.

“What?” I asked, knowing she was beating around the bush in her own way.

“Camden stopped by again yesterday. While you were…
out
.”

I sighed. “Tess, I’m sorry.” I reached over and squeezed her hand, wondering if I’d ever get this shit right. “I’ll take care of him. It won’t happen again.”

“He said he’s coming back tomorrow night, and that you better be here.”

I couldn’t stand the worry in her face. “I will be,” I told her, even though inwardly I steeled myself because I knew what I had to do. It wasn’t fair to Tess, but neither was putting her through the constant stress of facing that asshole.

“So we’re gonna be okay?” She looked at me, trusting me, begging me to tell her the truth.

I did, then, when I nodded. “It will be. I got it all under control.”

LAUREN

“Drop the spoon and back away from the Haagen-Dazs.” I froze where I was, licking the chocolate-chocolate chunk from the spoon. “I’m serious, Lo. Ice cream for breakfast can only mean one thing.” Emerson raised a pointed eyebrow at me while I waited to see what she was going to say.

I already knew what it meant. It was exactly what Em had been warning me about for years:
guys were dogs
. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t believed her, but I guess I’d always held out hope, too—that somewhere out there was the exception to the rule. You know, that one perfect guy who would prove her wrong—
prove
me
wrong
—by sweeping me off my feet and showing everyone he was different. Special.