Come to Me Recklessly (17 page)

I glared around the yard at everyone staring back at me, all of them thinking I’d lost my goddamned mind, which apparently I had.

Everyone except for Samantha. No. She was watching me like she was fucking terrified of me standing here. Just as terrified as I was of her standing there.

I tore my arm free, shrugged him off, eyes still narrowed on Samantha. “Don’t worry about it. I’m already gone.”

Harsh, hot wind whipped through Aly’s yard, stirring leaves and howling through the trees. Overhead, the night felt heavy as dark clouds gathered thick, the city lights ominous against the descending summer storm. Lightning flashed, sending a ripple of energy streaking through the air. It skittered over my flesh like a warning, leaving me cold and agitated in the wake of Christopher.

In shocked silence, we all gaped at the vacant doorway where Christopher had just bolted from the party. I ran my hands up and over my arms in an attempt to chase away the chills.

What the hell was that?
 

Christopher gave me whiplash. One minute his tongue lashing, striking with severe, cutting words, the next that same mouth filled with soft concern for my brother, then shifting again, his entire body vibrating with hostility, his actions swift and violent and far too much for me to process.

My heart pitched and rolled¸ dislodged from its seat. It rose to my throat.

Shakily I stood, blinking. “I think I should go.”

Aly approached, appearing beaten and guilty. “I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“I know you didn’t. I’m fine. It’s fine,” I corrected, my smile weak.

“It’s not fine.”

No, it wasn’t, but like I’d been saying for weeks, what was done was done, and there was no chance Christopher and I could undo all that hurt, no chance what Aly had in her mind for us could ever work.

I hugged everyone around the table, hugged Aly the longest. “Thank you for trying.”

Resigned, she stepped back, and I knew she was letting go. Maybe not as my friend, but she was letting go of that crazy, insane notion she’d had that somehow Christopher and I could see past all the mistakes we’d made.

“Why don’t you have Jared drive you home?” she offered. They shared one of those moments again, when they spoke a thousand words to each other without even the slightest utterance, both remorseful and disappointed, sharing in my pain, wishing there was a single thing they could do to ease it.

But all of us knew that was impossible.

I shook my head. “No… thank you. Honestly, I would prefer to be alone.”

Aly nodded acceptance, walked me to her front door, and hugged me again. She squeezed me tight. “Good night,” she said quietly.

“Good night,” I murmured, forcing a reassuring smile over my shoulder as I stepped back out into the night, when really, I felt completely defeated.

Out front, it seemed darker, almost sinister, as the dense clouds encroached, building higher and higher, preparing to devour everything in their path.

I hugged myself, dropped my attention to my feet as I hit the sidewalk leading back home. My hair whipped around my face, and I succumbed and gave in to the tears that I’d fought all night, as I’d sat in that backyard and listened to his voice and acted as if it didn’t wrap around me every time he spoke, as if he were just some guy and I was just some girl.

A gust of wind blew in low, sending a scatter of debris tumbling along the road. Lightning flashed overhead, a sheet of the brightest white, ushering in a clap of thunder right behind it, the storm chasing me down. Ducking my head, I increased my pace, knowing I was five seconds from getting caught in the grip of a monsoon.

Another flash of bright light lit up the night, streaks illuminating the dusty haze. I cringed, waiting for the strike, for the crash above that would surely give way to a torrential downpour of rain.

Awareness crawled over me as I noticed headlights growing nearer, the deep rumble of an engine close behind. Fear lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck, and shivers rolled in a cold wave of dread down my spine. My head screamed at me to run, all these clanging, blaring bells warning of the danger that lurked. But it was a familiar awareness that curled and pulsed, freezing my feet to the concrete below.

Slowly, I turned, blinded by the headlights burning from behind, though there was no mistaking the huge black truck that came to a stop twenty feet away. The door cranked open, lighting the cab.

And I knew I should run. Flee. Because I’d never been in greater danger than I was at that moment. His gorgeous face shifted from one dark expression to the next, his hair untamed, wild, as wild as the green eyes cutting me through as he jumped from the truck.

“Are you crazy?” I demanded against the wind, pounding my fist at my side, this man a raging contradiction.

Bitter laughter seeped from him while he glared across at me. “Crazy?”

Five excruciating seconds passed as we stood there, the storm gaining strength, gaining speed, beating at our senses. Before Christopher broke.

He closed the space in four long strides. Demanding fingers dove into my hair, pulling me flush against his body.

All defenses evaporated the second his mouth found mine. This wasn’t a sweet kiss. It was rough and angry, his tongue commanding. His teeth bit and nipped. Those flames licked and jumped, fueling the fire that years ago he had lit, and my tongue sparred with his, fighting a war I knew I’d lose.

Frantic, his hands roamed, cupping my neck, sliding down my shoulders and arms, thumbs flicking across my breasts. My nipples hardened, and a moan raced up my throat. Christopher groaned and swallowed it down, then gripped me by the hips, lifting me from my feet.

He slammed my back up against hard, hot metal. Pinned to his truck, I gasped, his body towering, consuming, devouring me the exact way I knew he would. His erection strained against his tight, tight jeans, pressing between my thighs, pressing into my stomach. My body trembled with the idea of setting him free, the idea of what he’d feel like pulsing inside of me, taking me right here, in the dark against his truck.

He closed his mouth over my bottom lip, sucking it hard, a direct tether to my sex that clenched, begging for more.

“Fuck.” The word reverberated like a moan from deep within his chest, the urgency in his touch finally tugging at my common sense that had gone numb with the assault of his mouth.

And he felt familiar and right and totally, incredibly wrong, this man I didn’t even know, because I never really had.

He rocked against me, and all those little pleasured places inside of me cried out in tortured relief as my spine grated painfully against metal. My legs tightened their hold on his waist, my hands just as desperate to feel and remember as my heart. But another part of me screamed to stop. To
remember
.

He threaded his fingers in my hair, gripping it tight, forcing my head back, his mouth running up and down my neck. His voice was a rumbled threat. “All I want is to be inside you, Samantha. To fuck you until you never forget who you belong to.” He bit my jaw, then kissed it softly, rolled his hips again.

And my face felt wet, soured and soaked. I couldn’t tell if it was from the tears I didn’t know were still falling or the storm that had begun to pelt heavy droplets from the sky. Realization dawned, and my chest heaved with a moan as sorrow fell.

Christopher mistook it for want, just like the rest of my body did, because I couldn’t stop myself from pressing back when he rubbed against me, brazenly shameless in the middle of the darkened street.

A street Ben could come driving down at any moment, the street where I lived, where I was supposed to be making a home – before Christopher again tore into my life.

My hands traveled to his chest, and I pushed him back. With my resistance, Christopher struggled to bring us closer. Memories of that night flickered, the stark reminder of the crazed need there was no breaking through.

“Please, stop,” I whimpered, pushing at him harder.

Disoriented, he pulled back, like maybe he’d just realized what had gone down, what he’d done, what I’d allowed him to do.

Those whimpers grew, and a ragged sob tore up my throat. I pounded him on the chest. “No… no. You don’t get to do this.”

Releasing me, he stumbled away. My feet landed unsteadily on the ground. Lightning flashed bright, like a spotlight on what we’d done, and Christopher watched me with wide, wild eyes before thunder cracked right above. Energy sizzled through the air, and the heavens opened up and poured their fury from above.

“No,” I whispered through a choked sob, the word drowned in the rain. I swallowed down my remorse, swallowed down the desire that blazed as hot and fast as the skies roiled. “I’m not a toy. You don’t get to play games with me. Not ever again.”

I forced myself to move, my four-inch wedges sloshing clumsily through the little rivers of water that gathered, running at the edge of the neighborhood street. I felt cold, chilled by his gaze that penetrated me from behind. I gathered all my courage, paused to look back at the man who held so much control over me, knowing it was time I took it back.

His hair was soaked, black locks clinging to his beautiful, furious face, his jaw clenched tight.

I found my voice. “You broke my heart once. You don’t get to do it again.” Then I turned my back and began to walk away.

His words hit me with the force of a two-ton truck. “You broke up with me, Samantha. Remember? I think it’s time you admitted who broke who.”

I looked back at him in disbelief, in my own indignation. Of course I remembered. I remembered every detail. I remembered what it felt like when he came to my room that last time. What it felt like to be terrified of the boy I thought loved me. Terrified that I didn’t recognize him. Terrified that he wouldn’t stop.

I remembered two days later at that party, standing there while Christopher stared at me with that vacant satisfaction on his face while he fucked another girl.

I remembered it all.

And now I realized clearly that I could never put myself in the position to feel that way again. Just this much of him was more than I could take.

“Stay away from me, Christopher.” I tore myself away, crossed my arms protectively over my chest, and propelled myself into the driving rain, refusing to look back.

Loud, raucous laughter lifted above the throb of music blaring from the party downstairs as it beat through the floor of the dimly lit upstairs room. It only accentuated the quiet within, the intensity of Christopher’s gaze as he cupped my face with his hands, searching it with worried eyes. He wove his long fingers into my soaking-wet hair.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked with all the gentleness he could muster, though I felt the ferocity vibrating in his muted tone. He stood between my knees, a towel wrapped around my shoulders and my skirt bunched up around my thighs, the flowy fabric just as wet as the rest of my body. When he’d carried me inside, he’d set me on the bathroom counter, which opened up to a huge master suite.

I nodded through my tears, a shudder rolling through me as I choked down the last sob fighting to break free.

Jasmine had pushed me into the pool. Shoved me headfirst into my greatest childhood fear. Left me a sobbing mess that Christopher had jumped in to save, coddling me and shushing me and promising me I was okay when I was sure I was going to drown.

She’d played it off as an accident, just like she’d done when she’d dumped a full cup of beer down the front of my shirt an hour earlier.

Christopher gripped my chin, forcing me to look up at him, examining me more closely. Green eyes flashed with something dark, something protective and powerful, and it thudded my already hammering heart. “I swear to God, that bitch is lucky she’s a girl, because I’ve never wanted to kick anyone’s ass as badly as I want to kick hers.”

With the corner of the towel, he dabbed at the droplets still dripping down my face. An inappropriate sound shot from me. It was half disbelieving laughter, half a cry filled with the remnants of fear that had taken me hostage when I’d been submerged in the dark, freezing waters, all of that twisted up with the mortification of being dragged from the pool by Christopher. I’d been panicked, choking and crying over the water I’d so stupidly drawn into my lungs. I’d never learned how to swim because I’d always been too fearful to even get in.

“Look at us,” I whispered apologetically.

Christopher was as soaked as me, his threadbare shirt clinging to his wide chest, his dark jeans slicked to his skin. His hair was pieced and chunked, the black locks a shiny mess around his head.

God, if it was possible, he looked even more beautiful than usual, while I probably looked like a drowned rat.

His mouth pulled up at one side, and he slid his hand down to palm my neck. “Don’t be embarrassed, Samantha. None of this is your fault. I shouldn’t have brought you here. I’m so sorry. I should have known better than to have gotten you anywhere near that whore.”

“I hate her,” I admitted, dropping my gaze with the dirty confession. “I’ve never hated anyone before… but I hate her.” Warily, I peeked back up at him. “I hate that you let her touch you. Hate that she’s had you in ways I haven’t.”

For more than four months I’d been with Christopher. Countless times he’d snuck me out into the dark of the night, to the playground he’d first taken me to or to the seclusion of the little fort behind his house. We’d kiss for hours, touching, hands roaming over clothes, a few times wandering under, but we’d never taken things much further than that.

I was still his
good girl
, as he liked to call me, and it was always playful and sweet and a stark reminder that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anymore.

But I was scared.

Scared of giving myself to him that way.

Of him taking that part of me I could never get back, not sure if that missing piece would fracture me or if Christopher would hold on to it tight enough to hold me together, forever cherishing it the way I’d been taught it was supposed to be.

The way I wanted it to be.

Christopher gathered my hand and held it over his heart. “She means nothing to me, Samantha. Nothing.
She’s
nothing, and she knows it. She pulls this shit because she’s jealous. She sees how beautiful and sweet you are, and she knows she could never in a million years come close to being as amazing as you are.”

“She’s jealous of me because I’m with you.”

Simple as that.

It was easy to see her hatred had very little to do with me, but rather with what I had.

And somehow, this boy was mine.

“Maybe. But it all comes back to who you are. I want to be with
you
because you are all those things. You are everything, Samantha. Everything. You know that, don’t you?”

Awe filled my smile, this feeling that pulsed in my spirit and pressed at my ribs. “You make me feel that way.”

He ran the back of his hand along my jaw. “That’s because you are.”

I burrowed my nose up under his chin. He shivered.

“You’re freezing,” I whispered against his cold skin.

I felt the force of his grin from my hiding place.

“That’s because I just jumped into a pool in the middle of fucking winter with all my clothes on.”

His hands roamed up my sides, and his voice grew deep as he moved to murmur near my ear. “You see… there’s this girl who’s on my mind every second of every day, and she drives me kind of crazy because I don’t really understand the hold she has on me. But she has me in a way no one else ever has and more than anyone else ever will. And this girl… she needed me, and I didn’t think twice about that jump, because getting in deep with her is the only place I ever want to be.”

Emotion locked up my throat, and the chill coating my body warmed from the inside. “Thank you.” I managed to pull him closer, let my words float out on a surrendered breath from my mouth. “Thank you for being crazy about me.”

Wrapping my legs around his waist, he tugged me from the counter and carried me out of the bathroom and into the middle of the darkened bedroom. Slowly, he knelt and laid me down on the floor. It vibrated with the disorder below, heavy strains of music thrumming an intoxicating energy into the room.

He held himself up with one hand, hovering inches above me, the pads of his fingers gentle as he ran them down the angle of my jaw, then brushed them across my lips.

I exhaled against them, my mouth parting at his touch.

Light shined in from the bathroom, silhouetting this beautiful man in bold shadows, his profile sharp and strong.

Green eyes latched onto mine.

“Completely, crazy in love with you.”

Time stopped. And I just stared. Enraptured by his words.

He looked at me intensely. Sincerely.

It was the first time he’d told me. But I’d been feeling it for a long time, falling deeper and deeper, losing more and more of myself to him.

My fingers whispered across his face. “Christopher.” I murmured his name as if it were sanctified. “I love you with every part of me.”

And I knew then that every piece belonged to him. I wanted him to hold them. Have them. Because I knew without a doubt he would cherish them.

With trembling hands, I fumbled through the top three buttons of my blouse. An invitation. A plea.

Christopher groaned as he watched me expose myself down to white lacy bra that had become transparent with the dampness that still coated my skin. My breasts felt heavy under his gaze, and they tightened painfully when he dipped down and nudged the material of my shirt wider, running his nose in a slow circle around the rosy bud of my breast, the only barrier that separated us a thin piece of lace.

My hands dove into his hair when he closed his mouth around it. “Make love to me,” I breathed, the words emanating from somewhere in my spirit.

His moan was low, guttural, and he moved to adorn my skin with lush kisses, beginning between my breasts and trailing a path up my chest and neck and chin, until my mouth was being consumed by his. His tongue pushed through my lips and met mine in a tangle of need. A fuse lit, burning up my insides and pulsing between my legs. As if he felt the heat, he hardened, and I felt light-headed with the way his body reacted. I gasped when he pressed that hardness more earnestly against where I needed him most.

Clutching his shoulders, I arched up. “Please.”

This time he moaned in frustration and ripped himself away. Leaning back on his elbows, he bracketed me, caging me in. His voice was rough, but somehow the words were soft. “God… do you have any idea how badly I’m dying to?” He rocked into me as if he needed to show proof. Sparks rocketed through my body. “How many times I’ve been alone with you and all I could think about was what it was gonna feel like when I finally got to be inside you?”

The shake of his head was filled with restraint. “But not here… not like this. Not when that bitch is downstairs. It’s something we’re both going to remember forever, and I don’t want it to be here on this floor.”

His eyes darkened with a hazy lust. “But I am going to make you feel good.”

He dove in, his mouth hot and wet where he kissed under my jaw, then up behind my ear, brushed his lips to mine. “This mouth,” he groaned, deepening the kiss. “You make me insane, Samantha.”

Shivers flashed across my flesh, and I clung to him, lifting my hips, begging for a way to relieve the yearning ache.

He shifted to the side, and he suddenly slipped his hand under my skirt and cupped my mound over my underwear.

My shocked gasp echoed around the room, and I arched higher as he pressed harder.

He’d touched me there before, but only over my clothes. It’d always felt like a promise. A vow that one day he’d take me on a journey I’d yet to travel, that he’d elevate me to a place I was desperate to go. I wanted it to be him. For him to be the one to show me. To teach me.

He grazed his fingers over the fabric. “Is this okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Hooking his fingers around the edges of my panties, he sat back on his knees.

Slowly he dragged them down and spread me by the knees. All coherent thought escaped me when his mouth descended, and he kissed me in a way I’d only read about, in a way that I’d been taught was dirty and vulgar when really it had to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced.

His tongue laved against my sensitive flesh. He singled out a spot that had me gasping, stifling these tiny cries of pleasure that kept working their way out. And it felt like too much, like too little, like I couldn’t handle what was happening to my body.

Like I’d die if he stopped.

It built higher and tighter, and he kissed me more. Then he touched me deep and it sent something speeding through me. It broke in white-hot waves that rolled and pulsed and seeped and spun.

This time I was certain I was drowning.

But it was in complete and total ecstasy.

“Christopher,” I whimpered, my body stretched taut as tremors rolled. Slowly he eased away, and he kissed me gently on the inside of my thigh. His breaths came out in short, heavy pants, like what he’d just done had affected him as profoundly as it had me. But I knew it couldn’t be, because I could feel him pressed to my leg, harder than before.

And maybe I was just a naive little girl. Maybe I was a fool. But I didn’t care because I knew what I felt for him was real. I shifted out from under him. Jolts of pleasured energy still zinged through me, and I wanted to beg him to do it again, but instead I pushed his back to the ground.

I tugged at the buttons of his still damp jeans, and those pants from his mouth came hard with anticipation.

“My birthday’s in six weeks,” I said, glancing up at him under veiled eyes, knowing he’d know what I meant, know what I wanted.

The memory I wanted reserved for my sixteenth birthday.

“Six weeks,” he answered. He shot up and gripped my face between his hands. His eyes were wild and pleading and promising me all the things I wanted from him. “Six weeks and it’s just you and me and forever.”

Nerves raced through me, a shivered thrill and a flutter of anxiety, because I had no clue what I was doing.

All I knew was I wanted to do it.

Pushing him back down, I freed him from his underwear.

In awe, I touched him, watching his expression, the pleasured lines that dented his forehead, the parting of his lips.

When I took him in my mouth, it didn’t feel weird or awkward like I’d expected, and Christopher uttered my name like a song of praise. He followed it with a sharp curse. His hands twisted in my hair, and I let go of every insecurity I had.

Everything that had transpired earlier suddenly felt like fate – Jasmine flinging her drink at me, her cruelty when she knocked me into the pool when she knew I couldn’t swim.

Like destiny welcomed.

Because it led to this.

Because instead of tearing us apart, she’d pushed us closer together.

Exactly where we belonged.