Then Summer Came (15 page)

His hands went back under my drenched gown and rubbed across the silkiness of my skin, in an attempt to “wash Beck off me.”  He had no idea that it was doing the very opposite.  I could almost
feel
Beck all over me, and I reveled in it.  He consumed me in a way I couldn’t explain. 

I tore into his opened, soaking-wet slacks and pulled him out of them, gripping him tightly.  He gasped and squeezed my neck, and I pushed him into me.  He groaned and pulled out and slammed back into me.  I cried out, doing everything in my power to avoid Beck’s name.  He pulled out, and slammed into me again.  I screamed and yanked at his hips.  I wanted him in me as deep as he could get.  I wanted…
Beck
in me. 

Beck’s eyes flashed in my head, his lips, his smile and his groans. I could almost smell him, and Derek seemed so far away. 

The water had become hot, and I was so close to the edge.  He sped up, and I was tense all over. 

“Fuck!” he yelled, and I imagined Beck’s sexy, casual voice, when he growled the same word and dug his fingers into my lower back.  I imagined his teeth across the thin layer of skin over my collarbone.  I screamed with him, and we came together under the pleasant burn of the scalding water.  He growled against my neck, twitching slightly, and my senses came back slowly. 

Derek pressed his warm lips to my shoulder and neck and kissed me briefly.  He dropped my legs and pulled his clinging slacks and briefs the rest of the way off.  They splatted onto the shower floor and he regarded me, his chest heaving.  My eyes scanned over his side where the dark, thistly branches of Beck’s tattoo would be, then to his arm where the random lyrics of a dozen enigmatic songs swirled around his arm.  I sighed and met his gaze as he walked back over to me.  He knelt down, his arm wrapping around my waist, crushing me into him, and he kissed up my bare side, groaning as he took my breast into his mouth, again. 

“I have guests to entertain,” he whispered against my ear and kissed me once more.  Then, he stood, grabbed a towel, and padded out of the bathroom naked. 

I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing.  I listened as he delved through the closet and redressed his self, but I never moved from the corner seat in the shower.

A few minutes after he’d left the room, I climbed out of the shower and wiggled out of the soaking-wet bottom half of my gown.  It was more than ruined. 

I toweled off the water and pulled a casual, blue, eyelet dress from the closet and slipped it on.  It was the nicest thing I had at the Blinn house.  I combed my hair back into a tight bun, hoping to conceal the wet look of it.

After I’d decided I was mostly pleased with my fresh, after-sex attire, I resurfaced downstairs in the party room. 

I felt awkward knowing that everyone there would probably notice that Derek and I had both changed clothes after disappearing for over half an hour.  There were far too many women gawking at him for no one to notice he’d changed, and my casual dress was a drastic change from the gown I’d been wearing. 

I walked around, looking for Em.  Beck found me almost immediately.  He eyed me from my wet hair to my change of dress, and when his eyes came back to mine, they looked dead, just…dead. 

I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to apologize with my eyes, but I looked away before Derek could pop up and notice us, again.  I didn’t know why I felt the need to apologize, maybe because I just felt bad knowing that Derek may confront him, too.  Derek didn’t seem upset by it, but he definitely seemed to want to prove that Beck wasn’t going to be the man in my life.  He didn’t really seem to care at all; he’d seemed
extremely jealous
but not hurt.  “I don’t want you to get too caught up in Beck,” was all he’d even said.  It really didn’t surprise me though; Derek had always been certain of his allure and his sex appeal, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t snap on Beck the first chance he got.

I tried to avoid eye contact with Beck the rest of the evening, but I found myself locked onto him several times, and each time I found the same woman looped around his arm, laughing and caressing him, which I found to be beyond annoying. 

“Babe, there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”  Derek’s voice startled me, and I hoped he hadn’t noticed me looking at Beck.  He hooked my arm and trailed me through the crowd of well-dressed tycoons.  I was introduced to every snotty, rich bastard there before I saw Derek’s mom, Joy.  She smiled and made her way over to me.  She, as usual, began gushing about her son’s accomplishments as the new CEO of her husband’s ever-growing company. I smiled and tried to act as excited as she was.  However, I hated not seeing my fiancé, so it probably came off quite forged. 

I spotted Beck leaving the party with the same laughing, caressing woman on his arm that’d been there all night, and I wondered if they were going back to Derek’s apartment. 

“Lissa?”  Joy tried to get my attention.  I turned back to her and she was looking at the door, where Beck had just left, and then her eyes came back to me and narrowed as she scanned my face.  I smiled and looked away, feeling like she had noticed I’d been watching the wrong one of her sons. 

“I’m going to find Derek,” I said and excused myself, needing to escape the scrutiny of her stare. 

The rest of the party was dull, and I was so glad when we got to go home, but then I was just stuck with my thoughts.  Derek hadn’t even made a point to ask me not to be with Beck.  It almost seemed like he was saying he knew why I was messing around with Beck and he didn’t really give a damn, as long as I knew I was still
his
fiancé and still marrying
him
, but was that any reason for me to go on seeing him, cheating?  Was it really a good idea to just sleep with another man because my fiancé seemed okay with it?  I shouldn’t say he seemed okay.  I mean, he did stop to pull me aside, but telling me not to get “too caught up” was basically saying, “Go ahead, just don’t leave me for him.” 

Could I just drop Beck?  I knew that I didn’t want to; he made me feel desired, needed, sexy and…
wanted
.   But it wasn’t right. I needed to be faithful to Derek. 

We would start our marriage fresh, and forget everything before it. I didn’t need to add to what I’d already done to him. 

I couldn’t understand why he was okay with what I’d done.  I guess he just felt guilty about never being around.  That was no reason to cheat on him, and it didn’t justify it, but I was only trying to understand where he was coming from. 

“
I’m never around, and he always is.  I get it
.”  I remembered what he’d said.  Was I using Beck?  Yes.  But he was a man whore anyway, right?  He couldn’t care less if I ever saw him again or not.  At the risk of making myself sound sluttier, I was just an easy fuck for him. 

So, that was it then.  I’d tell him tomorrow.  I’d tell him that what we did—
twice
—wouldn’t happen again.  We both knew it wasn’t right.  I was engaged, and it was his
brother
.  It was wrong, and it needed to stop.

Chapter Fourteen

I waited all afternoon for him to get to the apartment.  I was beginning to think he wasn’t coming—maybe he’d found an easy floozy to stay the night with.  I scoffed. 
Probably the same one from Derek’s party
.

Finally he stumbled in sporting the same leather coat and black jeans from the party the night before.  I could smell him from the kitchen, and he smelled like a frat boy:  like beer, sweat, sex, and beef jerky. 

I was leaning against the bar, my half-empty cup of strawberry yogurt in hand. 

He tilted his chin up at me as he collapsed onto the sofa. 

I scraped the plastic cup clean and tossed it into the trashcan.  I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and walked into the living room.  “Here,” I said, looking down at him sloppily sprawled across the green cushions of Derek’s sofa, “I’m assuming you need this.” 

He refrained from snarky comments, but I knew it wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart—he was probably too sloshed to piece together sarcastic snips. 

“Thanks.”  He pulled the cap from the bottle, and I watched it collapse and shrivel as he chugged the cold water.  He crushed and recapped it and tossed it at the table.  “What’d you do all day?” he asked, slinging his arm over his head.  He actually sounded pretty sober. 

“Worked,” I lied.  I couldn’t bring myself to go to work.  My stomach was too tangled up about Derek knowing about us and about everything he’d said.  I was just as tangled up at how Beck had smothered my thoughts while I was with Derek.  I wasn’t able to think of anything but him, the whole time, and I couldn’t understand why.  It was all I could think about.  Well…
that
and the fact that I was about to end our little fling.  I just needed to tell him. “Derek knows about us.”  I pretty much just blurted it out. 

His eyes grew wide.  If he wasn’t sober before, he was now.  “Wha-what’d he say?” he asked, sitting up.

I sat down beside him on the sofa.  My knees were suddenly very weak.

There was a long pause; I didn’t know how to say that he didn’t say anything, so I just said it.  “He didn’t
say
anything, really.” 
Just that he wanted to wash you off of me
.  I chose to leave that part out.

Beck just stared at me, one brow raised.  “He’s okay with the fact that we
slept together
?  He knows we
slept together
, right?”

I shrugged.  “He seemed to.  I’m pretty sure he did.”

Beck didn’t say anything.  He just sat there staring at me blankly, and then stared down at the floor between his feet.

I sighed and twisted my hair over my shoulder.  “You shouldn’t have done that…at the pool,” I finally said.  He needed to know that we were through.  “We’d owned up to our mistake at the party.  We’d almost made it right!  It wasn’t awkward and we were managing a really good friendship!  You shouldn’t have fucked it up, Beck!”  I was so upset; I couldn’t help but yell at him.

He jerked around and his eyes jabbed straight at me.  “Are you fuckin’ serious, Lissa?” 

I flinched at his sudden burst of anger. 

“You’re the one sending mixed signals!  Pushing me away and avoiding me, then sleeping with me, and then back to pushing me away. 
Then you fuckin’ kiss me on the couch the other night
!  Do you know how hard it was to just walk away from you that night?  It was all I could do to fight off the urge to come to your room and jerk you up out of your bed!
I fought it off all night
!  So, yeah, I saw you at the pool, and I wanted to fuck you,
so I did
!  And you know what? 
You didn’t push me away, Lissa
.  I asked you to tell me to stop and
you didn’t
!  As a matter of fact, you might as well have begged for it!  So yeah, I started it, but you gladly finished it.  So, don’t blame this shit all on me!”

I looked away and down at the floor.  He was right.  He was
exactly
right.  Shame whipped at me like the winds of a chaotic storm.

“Oh, now you don’t have
anything
to say?” he asked in my silence. 

“You’re right,” I admitted, not able to look at him.  “I’m sorry.”

He slammed his fist down onto the coffee table.  He bore his eyes into the surface and sighed heavily.  He looked to me and shook his head—an unspoken thought had obviously run through his mind—and then he just got up and walked out. 



He didn’t talk to me much for the next two days.  He spent most of his time with Mik. 

I was tired of feeling awkward around him.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I just wanted to have a conversation with him, or watch a movie like we used to do.

I went up to his room and knocked on the door. 

“Yeah?” he spat dryly. 

I pushed the door open.  He was just sitting on his bed, in the dark, and it was quiet. 

“Hey, I…got us a movie.”  I tossed the DVD at him, and he swiped it up and eyed it. 

“Really?” he looked up at me, through his lashes.  “You’re serious?  I thought you hated this movie?”

“Well, I do, but you like it, so I thought we could watch it together and…maybe you could change my mind.” 

His stare was hard and he seemed to be mulling it over, but then he grinned.  “Oh, you just wait,” he stood and slid the movie into his DVD player.  “I’m about to change the shit outta your mind.”

He fell back and patted the bed for me to sit with him and I did, careful not to sit too close or touch him. 

By the end of the movie, I still hated it.  There was no changing my mind, and Beck was truly peeved by that. 

“You know what?  Just get out of my room before you taint it!  Just go!  Go hate great movies in your own apartment.”  He shook his hand at me, hastily motioning me to leave.

I chuckled.  “Be sure and return that ridiculous excuse for a movie.”  I left for my apartment promising to bring a better movie next time.  I was so glad to talk to him again.  I hated how awkward things had felt lately. 

We seemed to really be on talking terms from that point on.  Things were easier.

A few nights later, after work, I opened the door and slipped into Derek’s apartment.  Clayton’s back was to me and he spun around when I closed the door back. 

“Hey, Lis!” he hugged me, lifting me off the ground. 

I hugged him back and wiggled out of his arms.  I smiled over at Beck who was bent over tying his shoes.  He looked up at me and gave me an acknowledging grin. 

“Lissa, you look… Well, like a woman,” Cam flattered me in her dude-voice and clapped me on the shoulder.

             "You should come to the club with us," Clayton offered.  "You'd put every woman there to shame." 

I laughed, but shook my head.  He was always so full of compliments for me.  “Nah, I just came to talk to Beck…”