The First Time Again: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 3 (21 page)

Her eagerness inflamed him. The way she had of wrapping herself around him, moving against him, beneath him, had his control slipping away. Her fingers dug into his buttocks. Her lower body arched against him, meeting each of his thrusts until he was spent.

Could you pass out from euphoria?
he wondered a few minutes later. He doubted it, but he seemed to have blanked out. When he came to, he found her crushed beneath him, her fingertips playing idly up and down his back like she didn’t have a care in the world.

He propped himself up on his forearms to look at her. She matched his direct gaze. No coyness or shyness there.

He kissed her. Her arms came around his neck and she kissed him back.

Finally he rolled off her, keeping one arm crooked around her. “You’re going to kill me, you know that?”

“Death by sex?”

He chuckled. “Something like that.”

“How’s the knee?”

“What knee?”

She giggled.

“I’ll let you know when the feeling returns.”

She propped herself up to look at him. He returned her gaze, sifting his fingers through her hair. She didn’t say anything but continued to study him.

Finally he said, “What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m going to go take a shower, okay? And since you’ve been such a good boy, I’ll make you breakfast.”

“Okay.”

Baylee stood under the warm water, letting it soak her hair and skin while she sorted through her jumbled thoughts.

Had she planned this, whatever this was with Trey? From the moment she’d set foot on his porch, perhaps she had subconsciously decided to seduce him. The very idea made her giggle. She had no idea how to seduce a man. She’d never had to, and her attempts at seducing Scott had left her with little faith in her own appeal.

No, she assured herself, all she had done was take matters into her own hands and decide for herself what her first sexual experience was going to be and who it would be with.

She’d chosen Trey for her first time again, and for better or worse, the experience was permanently implanted in her memory bank.

She made him breakfast, cleaned up the dishes and picked up her purse.

“Aren’t you staying the rest of the day?”

“Nope. I have a couple of commitments I made before I agreed to work for you full-time. I’ve got to feed the Shrivers’ cat, and then I’m taking Mrs. Willoughby to her doctor’s appointment and to run some errands.”

Trey slid his arms around her. She’d already pulled her hair up in a ponytail. He liked her hair down so he could run his fingers through it whenever he wanted. He kissed her. “You could come back tonight.”

“Can’t. I have plans.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here tomorrow.”

“How about tomorrow night? Are you busy? We could go to dinner.”

She eased away from him. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Don’t know what? Whether you can stay tomorrow? Whether you want to eat dinner with me? What?”

“All of the above.”

Was she saying she didn’t want to be around him?
Unless
they were in bed? Was she
using
him? For sex? The outrageousness of the thought almost knocked him over. If that was what she was doing, he was having none of it.

“Okay. I’ll see you around.”

He walked away from her before she could walk out the door. How was that for having the last word?

By suppertime Trey had to acknowledge the truth. He missed Baylee. He wanted to call her. Just to hear her voice. How pathetic was that? He wanted to ask her again if she wanted to come over, which, they both knew, translated into did she want to spend the night?

He held his cell phone in his hand and accessed her number. He stared at the display until the screen went black. One touch of a button and it would reappear. Touch one more button and the phone would automatically dial. And?

She’d turn him down again. He’d be in the position of begging. Trey Christopher did not beg.

She’d rejected him this morning. He hadn’t particularly cared for the experience and had no wish to repeat it less than twelve hours later. He set the phone down and did what he often did when he was frustrated and lonely and not ready to sleep. He worked out. He did the exercises the PT recommended for his knee. He meditated. He wrote in his journal until his hand cramped. He watched some television, idly flipping from sports to movies to news and back. He took some ibuprofen, brushed his teeth and got into bed.

The sheets were rumpled. He imagined he could still smell her scent on the pillow next to his. In his head he replayed all of last night, which did not, in any way, help him to relax. He tossed and turned and shoved the pillow she’d used onto the floor. If only he could as easily shove thoughts of Baylee out of his head. Apparently, once she’d taken up residence, she wasn’t easy to dislodge.

In her sunny yellow kitchen with its bank of windows looking out over the backyard, Jenny poured iced tea into two glasses. She handed one to Baylee. “I’m glad you came over. Ryan has that monthly bar association meeting. Seth’s finally in bed. I’m ready for some girl talk.”

Baylee followed Jenny outside to the back deck. Jenny and Ryan had bought their house shortly after they married, and they’d worked hard to make it their own. In fact, there was always some new project ready to be tackled, from major renovations to minor stuff like painting the woodwork. They’d installed the wood deck last spring. Baylee had to admit it complemented the house perfectly, giving them extra space to entertain and overlooking the big backyard where soon, according to Jenny, there would be a swing set for Seth.

“So what’s up with you?” Jenny asked, giving Baylee an assessing look as she took a sip of tea.

Baylee rocked in the white wicker rocker. Of course she’d tell Jenny everything. They’d been telling each other secrets since the fifth grade. But she wasn’t sure how Jenny would take the news that she’d finally, blissfully, slept with a man.

“There’s something going on. You’re different.”

Baylee couldn’t help the knowing little smile. “Am I?”

“Yeah. So spill.”

“I slept with him.”

Jenny spewed her sip of iced tea all over herself, the chair cushions and the deck below.

“What? Him who? Oh, no. Don’t tell me.” She stared at Baylee in disbelief. “Trey? Are you serious?”

Baylee nodded, unable to wipe the grin off her face.

“Oh, Baylee,” Jenny moaned. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I’ve had the hots for him since I was fifteen, he’s unattached and willing. Can’t you be happy for me? Can you for once not lecture me?” Baylee set her glass of tea down on a nearby table and picked up the pace of her rocker.

Chastened, Jenny backed off. “I’m sorry. I worry about you. You’ve been through so much. With Scott and everything—”

“Exactly. And you know what happened in New York? I went out for a drink with a guy. I don’t know what was in them, but after two drinks I was so out of it I couldn’t have stopped whatever he had in mind. I wouldn’t even have remembered it probably. But Trey stopped him.”

“That doesn’t mean you owe him—”

“God, Jenny, it isn’t about me owing him. It’s about me, making my own decisions, making my own choices. I
chose
to sleep with Trey. And you want to know something? It was
fantastic.”

“Okay. Well, that’s good, but—”

Baylee let out an exaggerated sigh. “Why does there always have to be a ‘but’? Why can’t anything good ever happen to me without you looking at the worst-case scenario?”

Jenny seemed to consider the question. “I don’t know. Because I worry about you, I guess. I don’t want you to be hurt. You almost slept with Trey Christopher years ago, and then—”

“I know my own history, Jen. You don’t have to remind me. After I
didn’t
sleep with Trey during our teenage drunken encounter, I scared myself into never sleeping with a guy outside of marriage. Except I went one better and married a guy who wouldn’t sleep with me in a million years.

“It’s my life and my choices. My mistakes, too. If I get hurt, I get hurt. I’m not a child, Jen.”

“I know.”

“So stop treating me like one, okay?”

“Okay. But a guy like Trey Christopher might not take you seriously after you jump into bed with him.”

Baylee laughed and retrieved her glass of tea. “I don’t expect him to take me seriously. I don’t want him to. I was tied to a man for too long because I took everything too seriously, because I thought that’s what I had to do. I’m free now, and this is what I want. It’s all I want right now. My freedom. To do what I please, when I please, with whomever I please. I’m tired of being the serious girl, the good girl. I’m going to try being me for a while and see how it works.”

“You’re happy,” Jenny stated.

“I am,” Baylee agreed.

“You don’t care if this, uh, situation with Trey turns into anything more than what it is?”

“I haven’t given it a lot of thought, to be honest with you. I’m tired of trying to plan a future that doesn’t work out the way I thought it would. Right now, what I want to do is—I don’t know—live for the moment, I guess. Take whatever bit of joy and happiness that comes my way and go with it, you know? I want to be free.”

“Along with freedom comes responsibility,” Jenny quipped in an ominous tone, both quoting and imitating her mother.

“Jen.”

Jenny stood. “Okay, Miss I-Can-Do-Anything-I-Want-To-Do-When-I-Want-To-Do-It. What do you think about ordering a pizza, getting whatever toppings we want on it and enjoying many moments of pigging out?”

Baylee followed her into the house. They decided on the pizza and phoned the order in. Jenny opened a bottle of the inexpensive red wine they both liked and poured them each a glass. For all of Jenny’s mothering behavior, Baylee loved her like a sister. Luckily, when Jenny overdid her tsking and lecturing, Baylee could tell her to back off and she did.

They took their glasses of wine out to the front porch to wait for the pizza.

“So?” Jenny asked after a few minutes of companionable silence. “You said sleeping with Trey was fantastic, I believe?”

Baylee nodded, knowing Jen was fishing for more details. Up until that moment, Baylee had thought she’d be unable to keep any of her encounter with Trey to herself. She’d planned to tell Jenny every last detail. But now she realized she didn’t want to share that kind of intimacy with anyone, not even her more knowledgeable and experienced best friend. She wanted to keep it all for herself, to take out every nuance, every touch, every memory and examine it or relive it whenever she wanted to. She didn’t want any of it watered down or judged by someone else.

But she knew she had to give Jenny something. “It was so easy, Jen. So—I don’t know. Natural, maybe? He was there, I was there. I wanted him, and—” She stuttered to a halt.

“He wanted you?” Jenny finished for her gently.

A lump of emotion clogged her throat and brought tears to her eyes as she remembered her conversation with Trey about a man wanting her.

She could only nod, afraid if she said anything the tears would spill over.

Jenny reached over and covered Baylee’s hand with hers. “If he makes you happy, I’m happy for you.”

Is this what happiness feels like?
Baylee asked herself on the drive home. This buoyant sense of well-being? Of near giddiness? Is this all it took? Sleeping with Trey? Having sex?
Finally.

No. There had to be more to it than that. Sex did not equal happiness. Surely there were plenty of happy people out there in the world who weren’t having sex for one reason or another.

Maybe it was the sense of connectedness that went beyond just physical? Baylee considered this as she parked in front of her house.

Maybe it’s finally getting something you want.

That thought slapped her upside the head as she unlocked the door. She closed and locked it behind her and leaned against it for a minute. Could it be that simple? Hadn’t she ever gone after what she wanted before? Hadn’t she ever felt this bone-deep sense of satisfaction? Ever?

If the answer to that question was no, it was almost too depressing to think about. She went into her makeshift bedroom to get ready for bed.

She tried to remember when she’d felt this way. The only moment that came to mind was Jimmy Macklehorn’s party. When they’d gathered around the bonfire and Trey dropped his arm over her shoulders. She’d loved the delicious feeling of being close to him, of him singling her out, zeroing in on her. Showing interest in
her.
Wanting
her.

If he hadn’t had so much to drink, what would have happened? She brushed her teeth, staring at herself in the mirror. Would he have remembered her the next day? Would she have been his final high school conquest before he moved on to college girls?

Why, she wondered, had she been ready to give herself to him then? Was it the influence of the alcohol? Or something more?