Frigid (17 page)

She took a shaky breath. “You wanted me. I could
feel
that you did.”

I looked away, grinding my teeth together so hard I was surprised my molars didn’t break. “You don’t get it.”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she backed away from the recliner and started toward the door leading to the rest of the house. Oh hell to the no, where did she think she was going? We were
so
not done with this conversation.

“I do get it,” she continued, her eyes taking on a sheen that made my entire body lock up. “I’m not good enough—or whatever enough—for you. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been in love with you—” Blood drained from her face. “Oh, my God…”

The fucking world stopped. People say that shit happens when you hear something completely unexpected and shocking, and I thought it was just people being melodramatic, but hell if it wasn’t true. The fucking world really did stop for me right then.

Syd was
in
love with me? She’d
been
in love with me?

“Oh my God,” she whispered again.

I was in front of her so fast I didn’t remember moving. Clasping her cheeks, I tipped her head back so she had to look me in the eyes. “What did you just say?”

She looked like she was about to be sick. “Nothing—I said nothing.”

“Bullshit.” My eyes were wide. “You’re in love with me?”

“Of course I am.” She laughed, but it sounded like it was forced. “We’ve been best friends since forever and I would be in—”

“That’s not what you meant.” My voice dropped low and my heart thundered in my chest. That couldn’t be what she meant. “Come on, Syd. That’s not it.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t—”

“You. Don’t. Get. It.” I wanted to shake her. She wasn’t good enough? Was she insane? I was beginning to think so, because it was the other way around. “You’re better than a one-night stand, Sydney. I can’t do that to you. You’re nothing like those other girls. You deserve more than that.”

Her eyes flared wide again. As close as I was, I saw the tiny tears well up and spill down her cheek. Getting punched in the nuts would’ve felt better than seeing her cry and knowing I was the reason.

And it struck me then that this wasn’t the first time I’d made her cry. There were other times. Little dots on the map of us that didn’t seem like big deals then, but looking back now, they’d meant everything to her. Each memory felt like getting cut with a rusty butter knife.

I was a bigger asshole than I could’ve ever imagined.

In the ninth grade, when I’d ditched movie night with Syd for the junior varsity cheerleader who’d had an extremely talented mouth. Syd’s eyes had been red and swollen the next day in class and she’d told me it was allergies, except…Syd didn’t have allergies. Then during the summer of our sophomore year, I’d constantly broken plans with her to spend time with girls. Our senior year, I promised her a dance at the prom, but I’d left early. Had a hotel room with a girl whose last name I couldn’t even remember. She would always smile and say it was okay, but later…later she’d have something in her eyes—or have just read a sad book, or watched a depressing movie. The same thing in college, even when she was with someone. Even recently—I remembered the look on her face when she’d seen Mindy coming out of the bathroom the morning we’d left for Snowshoe. I’d been wrong and I’d been right. It wasn’t disgust, but it had been crushing disappointment. All those times I’d broken her heart, and she was still here.

She was
still
here.

A sound came from the back of my throat. “Don’t cry, baby. That’s not what I wanted.” I leaned in, catching the tear with my lips. “You have no idea how much you mean to me.”

Another tear snuck out and I caught that one with my thumb. “I didn’t sleep with her,” I blurted out like a total fucking idiot.

Syd blinked. “What?”

My cheeks heated. “I didn’t sleep with Mindy—the chick who was at my apartment. I didn’t sleep with her, Syd. I know that doesn’t change much of anything, but I didn’t.”

That only made her cry harder, and I didn’t really know what to do. I’d fucked up more than I’d realized and bigger than I’d feared. She tried to turn her head, but I held her face in a gentle yet firm grip. An ache formed in my chest.

The same ache I’d felt when she’d started dating Nate in high school.

So I did the only thing I could think of—the only thing I wanted.

I kissed her.

At first I didn’t know if he was kissing me to get me to stop crying or if there was another motive behind it. A really strange way to do it, but it worked. I stopped crying, because I just stopped thinking. He was kissing me. Years of wondering what this would be like and yearning for this moment had passed, and now his lips were on mine.

And it was such a soft, tender kiss that reached deep inside of me and stole my breath, and then my heart. But Kyler had always had my heart.

His lips brushed mine once, and then twice. I sucked in a sharp breath and my hands fell to his waist. A deep sound emanated from him, and it rumbled through every part of me, eliciting a series of shivers that skated over my skin. The pressure against my lips increased and his hands slid off my cheeks, delving deep into my hair. He slanted his mouth as he tipped my head back, his teeth tugging on my lower lip, coaxing my mouth to open.

My heart sped up so fast I thought it would come out of my chest. My fingers tightened around the soft material of his hoodie, and a small moan escaped me as his tongue flicked over mine. The kiss deepened, and I’d never been kissed like this before—like he was thirsting for the very taste of me. It left me spinning. An ache blossomed deep within me, starting in my heart and spreading like the sweetest fire possible.

Kyler pulled back as his hands slid down to the sides of my face again, cradling my cheeks. His lips brushed mine as he spoke. “Do you get it now?”

I could barely breathe as my eyes fluttered open. “Get what?”

He slanted his head, lining up our mouths once more. “You.”

“Me?” I shuddered as our lips brushed again.

“This is what you deserve.” He pressed a kiss against my lower lip, and I knew at that point I must’ve cracked my head on something and was dreaming, because this couldn’t be real. “And this,” he added, his hands drifting to my shoulders. He pulled me against him, until I was pressed so tightly I could feel every inch of him. “You don’t deserve what you wanted in that sunroom, baby.”

His tongue swept past my parted lips, and I kissed him back like I had dreamed of doing for years. He groaned as his hands snuck to my hips. When he lifted his head again, I was panting. “What else do I deserve?”

One side of his lips tipped up. “Everything, baby, you deserve everything.”

My heart swelled so much that I thought I’d float right up to the ceiling, but confusion trickled in, threatening the happy bubble building in me. “Kyler, I…I don’t understand.”

A dimple appeared in his right cheek as his smile spread, and my heart flopped over heavily. “Then you really don’t get it yet. I think I’m going to have to educate you.”

A thrill coursed through me. The old saying “never look a gift horse in the mouth” was screaming at me right now.
Go with it
, I told myself. Just go with it. Don’t freeze up. Don’t mess this up, whatever this was. I didn’t want to look back and regret that my mouth and endless questions got in the way. “Educate me?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, angling his body so our hips pressed together. “By the time I’m done, you will completely understand what I mean. And I think we’ll start with this sweater.”

“The sweater?”

Kyler nipped at my lower lip, and I gasped. “I like the sweater. The color is good on you. Perfect.” He picked up a strand of my hair that had fallen across my chest and draped it over my shoulder. “But you know what I like best about this sweater?”

“What?”

His lashes lifted and his stare pierced me. Tension stirred and coiled tightly within me. The heat in his intense gaze told me I was so, so out of my league with him. The dimple disappeared into a knowing smirk as he slid his fingers under the hem of my sweater. “Figure it out yet?”

I shook my head.

“Hmm…” That low grumble of his had me wanting to knock him flat on his back. His fingers spread across the bare skin of my stomach and my breath caught as they pressed into my ribs. His head cocked to the side and his brows lowered. “Syd, are you not wearing a bra?”

Before I could answer, his hands drifted up further, until the fingertips brushed the swells of my breasts. “You’re not. Very naughty, Syd.”

My lips twitched. “Not like I need—”

“Don’t say it.” His lips captured mine in a long, searing kiss. “Back to the sweater.”

“The sweater?” I repeated dumbly.

He nodded, and for a moment the only sounds in the room were my pounding heart and the crackling of the fire. “The best part about this sweater, other than the fact you look fucking hot as hell in it, is that it comes off.”

Oh, hot damn.

Kyler tugged the sweater off and dropped it on the floor. There was something much more intimate about this than earlier. Even in the shadowy room, I felt more exposed. His gaze traveled from my face and down my throat to my breasts. The tips hardened under his gaze.

He scooped up my hair, framing my chest with its long strands. “Now that we’re past the sweater, let’s talk about these.” His voice was gruff and thick. “These are absolutely perfect.”

With him staring at me like that, I’d never been more proud or happy about my breasts in my life. True story.

He bent his head and the edges of his hair tickled my chest. His lips were so close that I thought I’d die from the anticipation. He kissed one of the small cuts and another, then his lips closed over the tip. Pounding need took root. His hands splayed across the small of my back as he moved to the other breast and suckled deep.

“Perfect,” he said again, and his tongue flicked over the tightened nubs, teasing until I grasped his shoulders, my back arching. He straightened, staring down at me. “You know what’s next?”

My imagination had many answers for that, but I hooked my fingers under the hem of his hoodie. His wide smile, the kind that showed off the dimples in both cheeks, was my reward. He lifted his arms, and off went the hoodie and the shirt underneath.

His chest seemed more flawless now than I remembered. The hard planes of his chest and the dips of his stomach and all that golden skin beckoned me. I leaned into him, biting down on my lip as our skin touched. The cuts were a little sensitive, but it was nothing compared to the other sensations. A shudder rolled through me, and his head dipped to my shoulder. He placed a kiss there, and emotion clogged my throat.

“You’re learning fast. I’m not surprised.” He trailed kisses up my throat, stopping just below my ear. His hands moved between us, thumbs smoothing over the tips of my breasts. “You’ve always been so damn good at everything you do.”

“Not everything,” I admitted with a blush. “This…I’m not good at this.”

Kyler pulled back, one brow arched. “You are
amazing
at this.”

“No, I’m not.” I laughed, feeling sort of dumb. Sometimes I really just needed to keep my mouth shut. “I’ve only…well, you know, and it was…”

“It was that way because that punk-ass didn’t know what he was doing.” He dropped a kiss against my temple. “And trust me, I know
exactly
what I’m doing.”

I had no doubts about that.

He took a step forward, forcing me back until I hit the edge of the makeshift bed and the warmth of the fire traveled along my back. “Now about these jeans…”

“What about them?”

He winked, and damn if he didn’t look good doing it. “They’ve got to go.”

I took a breath, but it got stuck. Holding my gaze, his fingers found the drawstring on my sweats and undid it with amazing quickness. Again, this was nothing like before in the sunroom. There wasn’t an ounce of anger in his gaze or actions. There was just arousal and affection and something I was too afraid to acknowledge. And it wasn’t like with Nate, where there had been a lot of awkward fumbling and pushing and then it had been over.

This was slow and sweet and perfect.

God,
he
was perfect.

Kyler slipped the sweats down my hips. He steadied me as I stepped out of them and I was just in my panties—cute ones too, thank God. He brushed his lips across my forehead as his thumbs caught the strings along my hips. “So, do you get it now?”

“You want me?” My voice sounded strange.

He laughed. “Oh, you were so close, baby.”

I started to frown, but in one unbelievably smooth move, my undies joined the rest of my clothes on the floor. “Good God, if taking off panties was an Olympic sport, you’d have a gold medal.”

His next laugh was deep and rich. “The sport only counts when it’s something you really want to win.” Then he stepped back, his gaze moving over me in a way that made me want to hide myself and let him look his fill at the same time. “You are beautiful, Sydney. You know that? You’re so beautiful, and you don’t even know.”

My throat closed up. Before I started bawling and completely killed the moment, I reached for the button on his jeans, but he caught my wrist. I raised my brows.

He shook his head. “I’m still educating you, Syd.”

“Oh?” I said. The teasing quality to his voice was relaxing, except I was still buck-ass naked, and my skin was on fire for a multitude of reasons. I’d never been this naked with a guy, not even with Nate. When we’d had sex just that one time, I’d been topless and my skirt had been pushed up. That was all.

But now there was no way for me to hide. I’d have thought I’d be more uncomfortable, but as his gaze traveled over me, lingering on some areas more than others, I felt like a goddess standing before him.

Taking my hand, he tugged me down onto the pile of blankets with him. The moment my back hit them, every muscle froze up as I stared up at him. My throat seemed to seize and although I should’ve felt warm, I went ice cold on the inside. Where did my sexy goddess go? She’d run for the damn hills.