Remember When 3: The Finale (Remember Trilogy #3) (4 page)

   “I don’t kn
ow, man. Like shoes and balls or tape or whatever. Anyway, if the target got hit, he had to yell, ‘pa-
TING!
’, and then change direction. You know, like a carnival game.”

  
I asked,
“And the point of this was?”

   The guys all looked at each other and started laughing.
Rymer snorted out, “Who the fuck knows? It was fun!”

   “So… You just all stood around naked and threw stuff at each other?”

   That made them bust up even harder, Trip explaining, “No! What the hell, Lay?”

   “He
said it was in the shower!” I defended.

   Lisa backed me up. “I was thinking you were naked, too.”

   “You would,” shot Pick, before continuing with his story. “Anyway, this one day we had Rymer in there—and dude, it was totally you—and he’s strutting back and forth, pa-tinging away. And Aetine whips this bar of soap at him and
bam!
Right in the eye!”

   “
Ow!” Lisa and I squealed in unison.

   Pick was practically crying as he started reenacting the scene, holding a hand over his eye and yelling, “
I’m blind! I’m blind!
”

  
The guys started cracking up again as Lisa and I exchanged an eyeroll.

  
Boys were so weird.

   “Oh shit,”
Rymer said. “You’re right. It
was
me.”

  
That had us
all
laughing that time.

  
“When was this?” I asked.

  
Trip pulled himself together and said, “I don’t know. One day during gym.”

   “I never heard that story!”

  
“Why would we tell you? You’re a
girl
.”

   I shoved him for that.

Chapter 4

INTO THE BLUE

   A few guests made their leave, stopping in to shake Trip’s hand, offer their final condolences, and say goodbye. Eventually, Lisa, Pick, and Rymer cut out too, but the house was still crawling with Mrs. Wilmington’s people. I figured the party wouldn’t end until very, very late.

   I stifled a yawn, and Trip clamped hi
s palm over my knee, asking, “Want the nickel tour?”

   Before I could answer, he pulled me in the direction of the stairwell, leading me to the second floor.

   I chuckled when he turned the corner and smirked out, “This is the hallway,” as he backed me up against a wall and closed his smiling mouth over mine.

  
I was pretty sure this tour was going to be worth way more than my five cents.

  
Those lips against mine once again. It was hard to breathe, but who cared about something stupid like breathing when I had Trip in my arms? His hand slid around my neck, pulling my face closer to his, a slight groan escaping from his lips as they parted and consumed mine. My heart was beating in that familiar cadence, my racing pulse threatening a full-on faint. I ran my hands along the linen shirt at his back, up to his shoulder blades, involuntarily sliding to tangle in his hair, my mouth opening to take him in.

Last time he had me up against a wall, we both practically combusted, and this time looked as though it wasn’t going to be any different.

   Only, back then, I ruined everything by being an insecure
idiot.
But not this time, pal.

  
Trip’s palm was smoothing against my waist, grasping at the material of my dress, his hardened length pressing against my midsection. The familiar humming in his throat melted me down to my core, and I felt my hands slipping down to grasp his backside, pulling him tighter against me.

   Trip braced his palm
s against the wall on either side of my shoulders, dropped his face, and spat out, “
Christ
.”

  
He gave a shake to his head, trying to pull himself together. His smoldering cobalt eyes met mine in wonder as he asked, “Are you trying to kill me?”

  
I giggled as he backed me through a doorway, but I positively squealed in delight when I realized we were in his childhood room. “Your room! Oh my God. I waited fifteen years to see this!”

   Trip chuckl
ed. “Well, I’ve always wanted to bring a girl up here, so I guess the wait is over for both of us.”

   
He crammed his fists into his pockets, standing there smiling at me as I checked out all his stuff. I looked around at the Trip Museum: the navy plaid comforter on the bed, the tan walls covered in sports pennants from every city he’d ever lived in, the shelf of hockey trophies.

  
I pulled a “Trip” and made a big show of checking out every little knick-knack on every surface, from the Michael Jordan figurine to the signed Gordie Howe puck to the vintage Nintendo console, eventually grabbing the Magic 8-ball off his dresser, giving it a good shake.

  
“Will I hit the lottery?” I asked, checking the answer in the little plastic window. “See there?
All signs point to yes!
Whoohoo!”

   The warm
smirk he shot me made my knees go weak.

  
I noticed some high school textbooks still sitting on a corner of his desk, saw his St. Norman’s letterman jacket hanging from a hook on the back of his door. It was as though his room had been sealed off with caution tape, frozen in time since the day he’d left the house.

  
“Holy crap. It’s like a shrine in here!”

   I turned to see Trip
staring at me, that lazy, lopsided grin still plastered on his gorgeous face. “What?” I asked, trying not to melt from the sweet, familiar smile he was aiming into my eyes.

   “Nothing’s changed at all.”

   I smiled back, knowing his comment applied to more than just the room we were standing in.

  
I put the 8-ball back down on the dresser and stepped closer to him, laid my hand over his heart. God. It was so amazing to be able to touch him whenever and however I wanted. Finally. “No. I guess it hasn’t.”

   At that, his hands slipped out of his pockets a
nd wrapped around me, pulling my head against his chest, a palm smoothing my hair. I hugged him back, allowed myself a deep breath, taking in that beautifully sweet, clean scent that was his and his alone. One of these days, I was going to find out what kind of soap he used so I could put it through a cheese grater and snort it like it was coke. Someday, my body would be found in a dirty alley somewhere, OD’d on the stuff.

  
I’d woken up that morning feeling sad and anxious, but only a few hours later, my life had begun. Trip and I had torn each other apart, and there were still so many unspoken questions between us. All those years of hurt and anguish don’t just disappear in a day. But right then, I was just grateful that we were standing there wrapped up in each other’s arms. Feeling him against me, his heartbeat drumming under my ear, the only thought in my brain at that moment was getting his lips back on mine again.

   He kissed the top of my head and said, “
We probably need to have that talk at some point.”

   He was right. We had a lot of baggage to sort through.
Hell, we had an entire
airport
of baggage. But right then, I wasn’t really thinking about
talking
, if you catch my drift.

  
“Trip? Do we really have to do that
now
?”

   His shoulders shook as he laughed, and I knew victory was within my grasp.

   He tipped my chin toward his face and dipped his head for a sweet, soft kiss against my welcoming lips. “Okay, fine. You’re right. But I just want to say one thing.” He put his hands on my shoulders, bracing me for his words. “I know you didn’t marry that guy, but you need to understand that I wouldn’t care even if you did. You need to know that it wouldn’t stop me from taking you, right here, right now. I wouldn’t even feel badly about it. If that makes me an asshole, so be it. But you’re
mine
, Lay. You always have been.” His hands moved to cup my face, fixing my eyes to his. “The thing is, though, is that I’m yours. You own me. You always did. This is happening. And we’re making it work this time.”

  
I thought I was going to melt into the carpet from his words before he’d be able to take me to his bed. But take me he did.

  
I will not go into detail here. I’m sorry, and I know it might seem strange after everything else I’ve shared about our sex lives. But we didn’t have sex that day. We made love. As corny and as sappy as that might sound, it’s the truth. I will share the gritty details about our sexual encounters, because that is fun and sometimes funny and most of the time, it’s just hot. But when the man I love is so deep inside me it’s as though we share a soul, when I don’t know where I end and he begins, when he is looking into my eyes and whispering the sweetest things this side of Shakespeare… that is simply between
us
and no one else.

Chapter 5

FUNNY HA
HA

  
Oh my God, I’m totally messing with you.
Of course
I’m going to tell you every detail! Can you freaking imagine if I didn’t?

Chapter 6

NEVER BEEN THAWED

   After Trip’s little speech, I couldn’t breathe.
You’re mine. I’m yours
. What could I possibly say that could even compare to that?

   I bypassed
any attempt at speaking, and just grabbed his head, pulling it to mine in a shattering kiss.

  
He
was
mine. Mine for the taking.
And I planned on taking all I could get from that man.

   I slid my tongue against the seam of his lips until they opened for me, our breath mingling with one another’s, the rapid gasps exchanged in frantic bur
sts of pure, unapologetic need.

   My body thrummed in his grasp, his hands smoothing over my back, across my hips, pulling me tightly to him, afraid to let go. His low moans reverberated throughout my insides, turning me to mush. He wanted me. He
needed
me.

 
And there it was. That inevitable, electric pull we’d always shared. That all-consuming, obsessive attraction we’d never been able to deny, try as we might. It was always there. Even when
he
wasn’t.

He stepped slightly out of my grasp, a wicked expression on his face, holding my gaze prisoner as he rolled down his sleeves, starting to get himself undressed right before my very eyes. But I stopped him when his hands went to his throat.

  
“No. I want to do it.”

  
That made him smile a shit-eating grin, and his eyebrows raised as my hands worked the buttons down his chest.

   “Trip? Could you do me a fav
or and try not to look so damn pleased with yourself?”

   That made him chuckle. “I can’t help it. I’m about to nail my old girlfriend in my old room. You know how many times I jerked off right there just thinking about it? And now you’re here. And I totally get to rape your ass.”

   “Yeah, um, you go anywhere near my ass and you’ll be whacking off alone again.”

  
“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, sweetheart.”

  
He cracked up as he pulled me toward him, reaching around my back to lower the zipper of my dress, whispering against my ear, “Don’t worry, Lay. I’m gonna fuck you
just right.”

  
Yep. I hear ya. That line did it for me, too.

  
I shivered at his words, the feel of his breath on my skin. He grabbed at the neckline of my dress and pulled one side down my shoulder, kissing the bared skin there before sliding the fabric
down my body.

  
As it pooled into a heap on the floor at my feet, I stood there feeling a bit insecure in just my bra and panties. I mean, the last time Trip had seen me naked, I was in the body of a seventeen-year-old, toned to the bejeezus. To be honest, at the age of thirty-one, things had kind of shifted, filled out, and well,
dropped
since then. To add insult to injury, I rarely worked out over the winter months, and being that it was the middle of February, I was also ass-pale as well.

  
But Trip didn’t seem to notice as he cupped my breast over my bra, testing its new weight, running his other hand over my curved hip, pulling me toward him for a kiss. Tongues entwined, I slid my palms over his bare chest to his shoulders, dropping his shirt to the floor as I kicked my dress away from my feet.

   He suddenly turned me in his arms, pulling my back against his front as he shoved my hair away and attacked my neck. I leaned into him, raising my arms to his hair, pulling his face in tighter against my skin as his hands went to my front, groping
at my breasts and pressing himself against the small of my back. I did what any sane woman would do in that situation, which was to rise up on tiptoes so I could press my backside against the steel rod poking me from behind. He let out a groan and playfully shoved me over the footboard of his bed, my hands splaying out on the mattress to stop my fall as he pulled down my undies and gave me a slap on my ass.

   We both laughed when he smacked me, and I s
tood up, shooting him a look. “Be nice, Chester.”

   He pulled me to him, unhooking my bra and replying, “I
will
be nice. But only for so long.”

   The wicked smile he aimed at me shot an electric charge down my entire length—my entire
naked
length—as I stood there, trying to not fidget while he looked me up and down.

   He was entirely way too clothed for my liking. It wasn’t fair.

   I went to unbutton his slacks when I noticed his abs, and stopped short. I mean, I had just stripped off his shirt, but I hadn’t yet really
looked
at him, you know?

  
I took a step back and appraised the sight of the naked torso in front of me. He’d always had an amazing body, but Christ. Trip had gotten freaking ripped.

   I put my hands to my hips and asked, “Are you kidding me? What the hell is this?”

   My anger probably missed its mark, considering I was standing there totally nude. It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re not wearing any clothes.

   He knew exactly what I
was talking about and was trying to contain a smile as he asked, “What?”

   I rolled my eyes. “When did this happen? Jesus. Look at you! Give a girl a heads up about such a thing, huh?”

   That made the smile crack his features. “What? So I’ve been hitting it a little harder lately. I just came off a gladiator film and I’m starting a hockey flick in a few weeks. Occupational hazard, I guess.”

   “Yeah. A hazard to
me
, maybe! Here I am with my saggy ass and you’re standing there looking like Michelangelo’s
David
, you jagweed!”

   He
stepped closer, grabbing my butt and pulling me into direct contact with what was assuredly going to be revealed as his perfect dick. He probably lifted weights with that thing, too. His cock probably possessed its own set of washboard abs.

   “Your ass,” he stated firmly, “along with the rest of you, is
perfect
.”

   I
gave him a “
yeah right
” look.

   “It’s true,” he said. “If I was lying, then why
haven’t I been able to take my eyes off you since you dropped the dress? I don’t think I ever want to see you wearing clothes again. I’ve been standing here plotting how to keep you naked twenty-four hours a day.”

   “Might be
kinda hard to go back down to the party. Or the supermarket. Or church.”-to

   That made him chuckle. “Oh, it’ll be hard alright. In fact…” he pulled me against his hips again, “I’d say it already is.”

   “Wow, that was bad.”

   “I’ll show you bad.”

   “Stop talking, you retard! Just take off your damned pants already.”

   “I’ll show you retard.”

   “Oh my God.”

   His hands went to the belt
at his waist, and then he slid his zipper down. Slowly. The move would have been sexy as hell if he hadn’t thrown out this line along with it:

  
“Want me to dance for you?”

  
“Oh my God! Just shut up!” I chastised as we both laughed. I gave his shoulder a shove before diving into his bed and sliding under the sheets. I laid on my side, propping a hand up under my head to watch him strip.

   Trip didn’t disappoint.

   His thumbs hooked into the waistband of his boxer-briefs and he gave a little eyebrow wiggle before dropping his drawers. I will swear to my dying day that the sound that accompanied this action was:
Boioioioioing!

  
Hello, my old friend.

  
I was lying there, taking in his perfect body, watching as he climbed onto the bed and crawled over me slowly, feeling stunned and excited that he was mine for the taking.

  
Mine.
Holy shit. After all these years, Trip was finally
mine
.

   I shivered as he
kissed his way up my body, felt his soft, hot lips grazing over the thin sheet that separated him from my bare skin. He pulled it away to plant a quick suction-kiss on my breast
which better not leave a hickey
before reaching into his nightstand drawer. He pulled out like a freaking magician’s scarf of condoms, tearing one off and tossing the rest back into the drawer.

  “Hey. I thought you said you’ve never brought a girl up here. What’s with the Trojan army?”

   “A boy can dream, can’t he?”

   “Whoa. Wait. How old are those things?”

  
Trip’s brows furrowed, focused on the packet in his hand. “I don’t know. Why? Do they go bad?”

  
Jane, you ignorant slut.

  
My eyes practically rolled out of my head. “I’m guessing that’s never been a problem for you, as I’m quite sure you’ve managed to tear through a gross of these puppies at a clip, but yeah. They have expiration dates.”

   He ignored my jab and checked the stamp on the packaging. Before I could get confirmation that the date was from the Clinton administration, I said, “Just forg
et it. I’m on the pill anyway. Unless, you know… I mean… you’re…
okay
, right?”

  
He pursed his lips in a scowl before answering. “Babe. Yes. I know you won’t believe me, but it’s been… a while. I’ve been tested since then.”

  
Ugh
. I hated the clinical conversation we were having. But after all those years apart, there was no way we were waiting another minute to sleep together. We’d waited long enough. But the fact was, Trip was a bit of a…
popular guy
during his twenties. And even though he’d recently professed himself to be a one-woman-man… well, sometimes what happens in Vegas doesn’t always
stay
in Vegas, you know what I’m saying?

   But thank God
for small favors, because it seemed the extracurricular activities of his past weren’t about to affect our present. 

  
I gave him the wide eyes and tossed out, “Looks like we’re going bareback, baby.”

  
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

  
I laughed at that, until his expression turned serious. He brushed a sweet, soft kiss against my lips, then said, “Hey Lay?”

  
“Yeah?”

   “A lot of women… they, uh… they expect me to be some sort of sexual dynamo between the sheets.”

   “Kinda tacky bringing up other women right now, don’t you think?”

   “Sorry.”

   “Besides. I’m not a lot of women.”

   “Oh, I know that. I’m just trying to give you a heads up
about what to expect here. Because I totally am.”

   The kiss he planted on me was enough to stop our laughter, as I felt his hot, sweet lips slanting fiercely across my own.
His tongue invaded my mouth, the taste of him sweeter than ever. His scent assaulted my inhales, the same crisp, clean smell that had always been a part of him.

 
I ran my hands up his sides, making him flinch and causing me to shudder. There were new planes of his body to explore, this foreign land of bulges and bumps along his arms, his chest, his stomach. I was taken aback by the feel of him, the firmness at my fingertips, the smooth skin covering the solid knots of muscle under my palms.

   Trip was doing some exploring of his own.

   His hands roved over my breasts, between my legs, his breathing coming out in ragged moans against my neck as he pressed his hardened length into my thigh. I grabbed his hair in my fists, directing his mouth to mine once again, writhing underneath his touch, groaning with stinging need, reveling in the staccato beats of my quickening heart.

  
He positioned his body between my legs and pushed himself against me, just the tip of him teasing at my entrance, his face buried in my neck, his voice rasping, “Oh God, Lay. I’ve only got so much restraint, here. I need to be inside you.”