Pretty Hate (New Adult Novel) (8 page)

“So am I. I can’t believe I just found you and now you have to leave.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he said and smiled. “I totally believe that.”

I looked at him and took a deep breath.

“I want to feel you inside me,” I said.

We knelt on the blanket and he unbuttoned my sweater and pushed it off my shoulders. He pressed his lips against my jugular vein and ran his tongue up the side of my neck to my ear.

“I wanted you since the second I saw you sitting on that railing,” he said into my ear.

He pulled his shirt over his head and unbuttoned the fly on his jeans. I stared at his tight, muscular stomach as I took my bra off.

“Jesus,” he said as he stared at me, “incredible.”

He grabbed my feet and took my shoes and socks off. He slid his hands up my feet to my ankles and tugged until my legs were extended.

“Lay back, Beth,” he said as he crawled toward me.

Nicolas rested his body on top of mine and pressed himself between my legs. As he grinded against me, I spread my legs wider and pressed my fingertips into his hard ass.

“Do you have a condom?” I said as I nibbled on his earlobe.

“Well, I was hoping,” he said and laughed. “I came prepared.”

“Thank God!”

“Let’s get you out of these jeans,” he said.

Nicolas knelt beside me and unbuttoned my jeans. He crawled down to my feet and pulled my jeans off my body.

“Your body is as perfect as you are,” he said.

I looked down my body at him.

“I’m not perfect. Not by a longshot.”

“You are to me,” he said and took his jeans off.

Nicolas slid his boxers down his legs and I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t gasp as I stared at his beautiful, hard penis and wondered if this was how those women who are married to perfect men feel every day.

He grabbed the waistband of my panties and yanked them off me. I spread my legs as he knelt between them and rubbed the head of his penis against my wet skin.

“Fuck,” he said and shivered, “you’re so wet.”

“I want you,” I said. “I want you so bad.”

He rolled the condom over his penis and got on top of my body and rested on his elbows. He kissed me and I felt an electrical charge as he pressed himself against me. I spread my legs wider and lifted my hips slightly as he entered me.

“Oh, God!” I said as he thrust his hips.

As he moved, I looked into his eyes and they mirrored the love I had for him. He nuzzled his face against my neck and I looked up through the branches of the beautiful trees and into the cool, blue sky.

As Nicolas pumped harder and faster, I raked my fingernails down his back. He lowered his face to my breast and swirled his tongue around my nipple.

“That feels so good!” I said as he sucked on my sensitive nipple.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and dug my heels into his ass. I wanted him deeper and deeper and the harder he thrust into me, the more I wanted.

Despite the coolness of the air, we were soaked in sweat. As he pumped his hips faster and faster, I was wetter and wetter. Every nerve in my body was exposed and it felt like the ground would swallow me.

I looked up at him and he smiled at me. His neck tensed and he closed his eyes. He was waiting for me. I never felt freer, never more alive than I did when I came and I screamed as I exploded. It felt like every cell and atom in my body was thrust into the universe.

As soon as I released, Nicolas gripped the blanket and came up on his arms. He slammed into me and bent his back as he looked up at the sky and screamed.

He fell forward on top of me and panted into my ear as I brought the sides of the blanket over us and I wrapped my arms around him. Then, we slept.

As we walked back to the car, we ran into two older women looking at the leaves. Nicolas put the cooler and blanket down and took my camera off my shoulder as he approached the ladies.

“Excuse me,” he said and handed them the camera, “would you mind taking a picture of my girlfriend and I?”

Nicolas stood next to me and put his arms around my waist. I tried to fix my hair before the lady snapped the picture and there was a leaf tangled among the strands.

“Leave it,” he said and smiled, “it looks beautiful.”

My anxiety amped up as Nicolas drove closer and closer to Ivory-Lou’s house. I knew he’d be gone in fifteen or sixteen hours and it was tearing me up.

“Hey, I know you’re leaving at, what, eleven tomorrow morning,” I said, “but I have my house to myself tonight. Do you want to stay over?”

I waited for him to say that he couldn’t...he had to pack or call his friends or was tired.

“I can think of nothing better than having a slumber party with you,” he said.

And I nearly vomited with joy.

“Wow,” Nicolas said as he walked through the foyer, “really cool house. This is your sister’s place?”

“Her boyfriend. Hungry?”

“No, I’m good. Let’s go to your room.”

I led him down the hall to my bedroom.

“Now, it’s kind of a mess,” I said as I stood at the door.

“I don’t care about that stuff, Beth,” Nicolas said and opened the door. “It’s clean as hell in here. Wait until you see my apartment if you think this is a mess.”

I looked at the floor and then my vanity and smiled. Everything was put away neatly. The evil step-hookers cleaned for me.

“Nice bed...big,” he said as I hung my jacket in my closet. “What’s all over it?”

“What?” I said as I turned around.

Nicolas stood at the foot of my bed with his head tilted to the side and I walked up behind him.

“Who’s that?” he said. “And why is there a gun on your pillow?”

I stepped to the side and stared at my bed. My white comforter was covered in rose petals. Leaning against one of the pillows was a framed, 8x10 glossy of Ivory-Lou in full pimp regalia taken at the Pimp and Ho Ball in Detroit. Next to that, on my pillow, was one of Ivory-Lou’s Glocks.

“Oh, geeze,” I said as I brushed the rose petals onto the floor. “it’s a joke. My sister is trying to be funny. I’ll just get rid of this. Hold on.”

I grabbed the picture and the fun off the bed and ran to Ivory-Lou’s office and put them on his desk.

“Goddamn assholes,” I said as I ran back to my bedroom.

“These are your sisters,” Nicolas said as he held up a picture of Rebel Love and Mazie Goodnight as I walked into the room. Where are the pictures of you?”

“Yep, those are my sisters.”

“They’re as beautiful as you are. Your mother and father gave you girls some good genes.”

“Yeah.”

We got into bed at seven that night and didn’t leave the bed until seven the next morning.

Nicolas told me about all the places he and I would go together when he returned from Bali. He invited me to Brooklyn and to Connecticut to meet his parents and he, unfortunately, wanted to meet mine.

We set up phone and text and email schedules. We decided when he returned we’d go on a tour of the world. We planned European and Asian adventures and he pulled out my atlas and showed me different routes we could go. I had six weeks to transform myself into the perfect girl for Nicolas Miles and as he spoke about our travels, I planned the transformation schedule in my head. I was his girl.

We had sex six times and each time was better than the one before. I never felt so desired and loved. I came harder than I ever did. He did that to me.

When he left the next morning, I did not cry as we kissed goodbye in the driveway. I no longer had to doubt. I was beautiful and he wanted me. I told myself the time would fly by as I watched him drive down the street and I had plenty to keep me busy. My reinvention began.

I laughed as I thought of white trash Billy Rider and his joke of a girlfriend cursed with his child. They were never going to get out of this shithole and I was well on my way.

CHAPTER SIX

I opened the email three days after he left and was greeted with a beautiful photo of a lagoon with the bluest water I ever saw. Underneath, he typed three words that meant everything to me:
I miss you
.

I printed the picture out and studied it until I saw every pebble, every grain of sand, beneath the clear water every time I closed my eyes. I read
The Stranger
four times and quoted a line from the book and posted it on Facebook. He commented with a smiley face and I was over the moon.

I Googled Brooklyn and Connecticut and Bali. I charted different routes throughout Europe and read all about the SOA while I watched
SOA
and thought of him.

When I didn’t hear from him for another four days, I tried to push aside the old insecurities and need for validation. I was different, after all. I studied Tony Robbins videos and read Wayne Dyer books. And when I could sit on my hands no longer, I sent him a text to which he responded, nearly immediately, with:
I miss you too
and I was sated.

Three days later, he sent me a text a four in the morning and asked me to come to Bali. I was too embarrassed to tell him I had no money. I finally felt the effects a nearly negative bank account has on the psyche when you have people in your life who dare to step outside their zip codes and you cannot. Everyone I knew previously was content. Their idea of crisis was not having enough money to go to the local bar, certainly not Bali. Certainly not with Nicolas Miles. I was frustrated and mopey. Ivory-Lou told me to get a job and I told him that I needed big money for my big dreams. His answer for me was to dream smaller.

I responded to Nicolas’ text and said I wished more than anything that I could meet him, that I missed him so much I could think of nothing else, that I’d be on the first plane to Bali if I could get out of work. He did not respond.

Stephanie was sick of hearing about him and even Rebel Love and the hookers had enough of Nicolas. Ivory-Lou still got on my ass, but it didn’t matter. I’d be gone from there soon, I told myself. I told Mazie Goodnight how much he reminded me of her and she said she couldn’t wait to meet him.

And then, when I ran out of people to bore with stories of every cute thing Nicolas Miles did or my tantrums about how much I needed to go to Bali because I didn’t want him to forget about me, I went over to my mother’s and told her.

“I thought you were gonna take a break from the boys?” she said as I sat at the dining room table sipping coffee with her and Merry-Bell.

“When did I say that? I never said that.”

“What about college, Beth? What about a job?” my mother said.

I watched Merry-Bell as she tore loose-leaf paper into tiny scraps and piled them on the table.

“I never said I wasn’t going to go to college or get a job. I’m just working on myself now...on my confidence. Nicolas will be back in no time. I really want this to work. He’s very different and I think-”

“Merry-Bell, do not eat that paper!” my mother said.

“I’m not,” she said as she chewed on a scrap, “I’m just wetting it.”

She took a piece of paper out of her mouth and rolled it into a tiny ball. She placed it on the corner of the table with other paper balls she made.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Ornaments for the beetle tree,” she said.

“Why don’t you just make them out of clay?” I said.

“Pumpkin pie, Beth, the beetles are allergic to clay!” Merry-Bell said and scoffed. “I’m gonna color them next. Wanna help?”

“No, I’m okay. Anyway, Mother, Nicolas will be back soon and I really think I’m going to be going with him.”

“With him, where?” she said.

“Wherever he wants.”

“Uh, no,” my mother said and rolled her eyes.

“What do you mean,
no
?”

“You don’t even know this person. All of a sudden you think you’re in love? Here comes the head in the clouds bullshit you’re famous for, Beth. And we’re left to pick up the pieces from your misguided notions.”

I stared at her as she took a long sip of her cocktail and shook her head.

“You’re left to pick up the pieces?” I said and turned toward her.

“That’s just what I said. You go from one loser to another and they all fuck you over, they all break your heart and we’re left to bear the brunt. It’s not fair.”

“First of all, Nicolas is not a loser. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, he’s not even from here. His family is--”

“Rich? That don’t mean he’s not a loser. This guy ain’t gonna save you, Beth. None of them will,” my mother said.

“My boyfriend is rich,” Merry-Bell said as she stacked her spitballs in a pyramid. “He’ll be here any day. Said so in his letter.”

“Merry-Bell, James Barber wrote you that letter in 1978,” my mother said and folded her arms on the table. “It’s been thirty-five years.”