WITHOUT YOU (STRIPPED)

WITHOUT YOU

a novella to Amazon’s best-selling New Adult novel STRIPPED

by

Brooklyn Skye

* * * *

WITHOUT YOU

Copyright © 2013 by Brooklyn Skye

Cover design by Lisa Poff

Cover photo by Lisa Poff Photography

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

For each and every one of you who requested more Torrin,

this story would not exist
without you
…

April 20th

Only those who avoid love can avoid grief.

I don’t know, maybe Quinn was on to something by staying miles away from the one thing that can make her feel like she’s actually dying. Like her heart’s being ripped from her chest. Hollowing her out, emptying her veins until nothing but a fragile shell is left behind.

I rest my forehead against the locker, my hot breath mingling with cold metal. Water drips down my back, the ghost of a touch like one of Quinn’s fingertips. The whisper of her breath I may never feel again.

The heel of my palm slams numbly into the locker, echoing an angry blow throughout the small, stuffy room. No one’s around so I do it again. And again. I don’t know who to hate more; I don’t know who to blame for this ugliness inside me.

My hand balls into a fist, ready to strike again when, suddenly, Quinn’s tiny hands grab my wrists. I flinch at her touch, the way her soft fingers squeeze and restrain against the last bit of will that courses through my body. She looks up at me, eyes and lips flat and unsmiling.

“Torrin,” she whispers, stepping closer. Her bare leg brushes mine and if it were anyone else, I’d fight. Push away. Leave.

But not with her.

Never her.

“Please don’t say anything,” I say. More words linger under my breath, jagged and raw.

I love you.

You are my everything.

Don’t walk away.

I look into her eyes, try to memorize them without the glisten of tears and etch of lines crawling out from the corners…blurring through my own tears. She blinks, and a tiny teardrop slides onto her cheek.

“Torrin,” she says, louder and with more strength. Taking a deep breath she squares her shoulders, letting her arms fall to her sides and looks me dead-on. Cold and hard just like the first time I met her. “You can’t stay.”

April 7th

Two weeks earlier…

“Stop rowing like a bunch of girls, and get your asses in gear!”

A drop of sweat trickles down the side of my face and I push harder, digging the oars deep into the water. The boat propels farther into the bay and even though I can’t see Coach squatting in the dinghy beside us, I know by the sharp tone of his voice he’s pissed. At my lack of focus. Again.

I cringe at the blow, the unsaid
That means you, Kingsley
hanging in the salty air. Oars glide into the water, and the team in front of me groans. After a few clean strokes to recover from my poor catch, Andrew peeks over his shoulder, his sweaty face shimmering like he was just dipped in glitter.

“Someone didn’t get laid last night.” 

I glance at my watch. Already eight tenths slower than the last pass and we’re not even to the bridge, yet. With a shrug, I force a smile to hide the tight knot in my stomach. “And that’s different from every other night of your existence, how?”

“Pssht,” he whisper-hisses to keep Coach from hearing. “My virgin ass is going to thank me when I’m the only dude who emerges from this STD-infested college clean as a newborn baby.” His chin jerks toward the dinghy. “I meant Coach Cranky over there.”

I bite back a chuckle. “TMI, Glaze. No one here needs to know the virgin state of your
ass
.”

He jerks back his head, raising his voice just enough for the other guys to hear. “My ass has never been touched. Let’s just make that very clear.”

Beside us Coach’s boat sets off a low wake that laps against ours, the only sound in the vacant harbor aside from Brady’s hog-like snickers in front of Andrew.

“Oh it’s clear,” I whisper back. “So is the fact that you need to shut up and stop dragging.”

“
I’m
dragging?” His shoulders tense as he digs harder and deeper than the rest of us, no doubt throwing us off by another tenth. “Negative, Kingsley. You can’t blame this on me. I saw your bobble when you spotted her up there.” He faces front and continues to run his mouth. “Was it the cute purple dress? Ponytail? The way she
smiiiled
at you?”

“Stuff it.”

I steal another glimpse at Quinn. On the bench above the dock, sitting with her legs folded and a cotton dress draped over her knees, she’s picking at her nails instead of watching. Maybe she’s thinking about last night, too. Those nails scraping over my skin, her lips exploring every inch of my chest, the sound of my name as she begged me not to stop.

A burst of tingles spreads out from my stomach. I can die a happy man after last night—  

“Get ready to build,” Coach suddenly blurts into the bullhorn, and I snap back to attention. Water sloshes the side of the boat, a cold drop landing on my arm. In front of me, Andrew straightens like the rest of the team—chest up—and we wait for Coach to count down to the push of fast, hard strokes that will bring us to the finish.

On Coach’s call, we sink our oars and grunt through each stroke until we pass the bridge and the voice in the bullhorn spouts, “Kingsley, bring’em in.” Coach speeds off in his dinghy and we all sit, silently stealing a moment to catch our breath.

A sailboat rounds the jetty, entering the harbor, and after a few minutes, I say, “You heard the man. Let’s go in.” On my command, the boat angles toward the dock. The ride back is quiet, every member of the team knowing exactly what will go down once our feet hit land. Lectures. Weights. An extra practice in the morning because we didn’t improve our time…

Andrew is forgiving. The other guys? Not so much.

We pull the boat from the water, lifting it high above our heads to carry back to the storage shed when Coach catches my eye. Andrew sees it, too.

“Feel like sacrificing your best friend for the lecture, Cap?” he says under his breath. “Or you gonna go all Stefan Salvatore on us and suffer alone?”

I squint at him. “Who?”

He shakes his head. “Just some show my sister made me watch. Never mind.”

“Take in the team,” I tell him, “and remind them of this week’s schedule, would you? Gym Wednesday, back here Thursday, then dinner at Coach’s house for his birthday. I’ll let you know if there are any other changes.”

The guys bear the weight of the stern as I duck out and head toward Coach, feeling Andrew’s eyes bore into my back. He’s sorry for me, even though he knows better.

From the bench, Quinn is now watching too. I hold up one finger, signaling I’ll be a minute and look away before she can read the creases on my face. It’s not unusual for me to talk to the coach after practice; Quinn knows this. However, the scowl he’s got twisting his sun-worn features isn’t something she’s used to seeing.

“Sir?” I say as I approach. He tucks a clipboard under his arm and adjusts his cap.

“You wanna tell me what’s got my best crew member stuck in la-la land?”

Yes, but talking about it makes it true. And I don’t know if I’m ready to admit the truth, yet.
I strip off my shirt, swipe it across my forehead. “Not a good day, I know—”

“Try week, Torrin. You’ve been rowing like a goddamn freshman all week.”

Over Coach’s shoulder, I see Quinn tilt her head, attempting to listen to Coach’s words. If I tell him the real reason—about the letter that showed up in Monday’s mail delivery—she might hear.

And I can’t handle that yet, either.

I clear my throat. “I’ll step it up. I promise.”

Coach notices where I’m looking and gestures up the hill. “I suggest you figure out your priorities. Girls and gold medals don’t mix. Understand?”

I nod.

“If you’re not going to give two hundred percent focus like you did in the beginning, maybe you need to reconsider where it is you want to be.”

He doesn’t know how right on the nose he is.

“I don’t have the time or patience to babysit my top crew,” he continues, his stare hardening. I can’t tell if he’s messing with me or not. He’s the one who begged me to stay last month when I was considering returning to Brown, back when I was positive Quinn would hate me after learning the truth about what I did to her family. It doesn’t make sense to kick me off the team for suffering a shitty week.

A gull cackles from above, breaking the silence.

“Yes, sir,” I say, meeting his eyes so he knows I get it.

He pats me on the back. “No extra practice for the team, but I want you to hit the gym first thing in the morning. And bring your goddamn concentration on Thursday or I
will
make the guys hurt. Not sure they’d be too thrilled ’bout that.”

“Sure thing, Coach,” I say then make my way up the hill. Quinn stands, straightening her dress, and suddenly my body lets loose the tumor of tension it’s been holding all day. Her presence does that, quiets the hurricane inside me. It always has.

She narrows her eyes. “You’re in trouble because of me?”

Ignoring her question I lean in for a kiss, but she stops me with a hand on my shoulder, hard-faced. And waiting for an answer.

I need to tell her soon, but not today.

“Coach is itching for a medal this season and seems to think those of us with girlfriends are ruining it for the rest.” I inch my lips closer to hers and watch as my nearness draws up her chin the tiniest sliver—a reaction that’d earn me a punch to the chest if I ever pointed it out. I hook my finger under the string tied around her ribcage and tug her toward me. “I think he saw you sitting up here in this damn sexy dress and started wishing he was twenty again.”

She makes an “eww” face and I laugh, sneaking a kiss to the underside of her jaw. The scent of her floods me. Not flowery like most girls, but something sweet and uniquely her. Like bubble gum.

I could never leave her.

Palm flat on my chest and nose still scrunched, she pushes me back then not so subtly wipes her hand on her dress. “You need a shower.”

Laughing, I turn in the direction of the dock room that doubles as our locker room. “I wasn’t expecting you until tonight. I still have a light painting project to work on for class.” My hand snatches hers, and I bring her knuckles to my mouth. “Unless you want to come? I’m sure we could find some other uses for the flashlights when we’re done.”

Her eyes widen and cheeks flush as she retrieves her hand and whacks my chest, grinning. Always a good day when I can turn the color of her cheeks. “Yes, I want to come, but so help me, John Torrin Kingsley, if you try to get kinky with a flashlight I will be putting it where the sun don’t shine.”

I bite back a smile. “That would be interesting to watch.”

She smacks my chest again. “On you!”

Hands up in surrender, another laugh bubbles off my lips. “Okay, okay. No kinky flashlight business.”  

~*~

A three minute shower and change of clothes later, I lead Quinn down the empty beach and find a spot just above the wet sand under the pier.

“What’s light painting anyway?” she says as I hand her my tripod in order to spread out the blanket.

“Just a technique used to make scenes look more dramatized than they would in normal conditions.” Blanket laid out and straightened, I take the tripod from her and stand it upright, digging its legs deep into the sand. “Basically adding light to a scene. But there’s something cool I want to show you.”

She sits on the blanket as I work to set up the camera for a long exposure: switch to AF, zoom out to find the light source, press shutter halfway down, zoom out—

“Do you think you’ll actually do something with your degree once you have it?”

My finger hovers over the manual focus setting, momentarily frozen by her question. It’s like she’s grabbed a hold of the knife sitting in my gut and twisted. But by the somber tone of her voice, this question isn’t about me. “Are you reconsidering business?”

“More like I don’t know what I’m going to do with the stupid degree once I’m done.” She looks down the long stretch of sand. We’ve talked about this before; business was her sister’s major. When Zoe died, Quinn—lost as she was—felt like she had to do the same. Finish her sister’s degree, start a business like her sister wanted. “Business is pretty universal,” she goes on. “It’s the reason I haven’t changed it yet. Plus, I don’t know what I would change it to. I don’t have anything that drives me like you.” She points to the camera in my hand, a slight flush of pink on her cheeks. “And I feel like I should know what I want to do with my life by now.”

“Lots of people don’t.”

“Do you?” Big, round eyes stare up at me. The wind blows, lifting her hair in front of her face. She doesn’t push it back. “Like…are you going to do something with your Fine Arts degree? Become a professional photographer?”

Professional photographer. Those words have plagued my thoughts for the past few days. Is it really what I want to do? Leave Quinn for a full five months to intern with Joel Harrington?

“Or would you rather focus on crew? Row professionally?”

I press
manual
and glance through the lens at my shot: the pier’s barnacle-covered pillars in the foreground, the dip and sway of the ocean in the back. “Didn’t you hear Coach today? Clearly, he thinks I’m not cut out to go pro.”

She lets out a huff, fanning her arms out to her sides. “If that were true, my dad wouldn’t have begged you to row for his school.” Her tone doesn’t hold the contempt it should, seeing the move I made from Brown to Pacific Rim is how her dad lost his job in the first place. “Besides…” Suddenly, she’s behind me, arms wrapped around my waist, fingers splayed over my stomach. “…who says you have to listen to him?”

I almost roll my eyes, but that’d be such a Quinn thing to do. Instead, I pull her out from behind me and point to the camera. “Normal conditions.”

She leans in, squinting. With her movement, the ruffled hem of her dress lifts farther up her thigh and, I don’t know why, but I look away. Not because I don’t want her; I do. Always. But because it reminds me of the decision I have to make. And soon.

“So what are we doing with flashlights?” she says, interrupting my thought. She’s looking at me now, a tilt to her adorable chin.

“First we have to light the scene with color.” From my bag I pull two flashlights and the red fast food wrapper I swiped from Andrew’s hand before practice. She raises her brow at the flattened square of trash, but waits for me to explain.

I unfold the paper and smooth it over the end of the flashlight, securing it with the rubber band from around my wrist. Flicking on the light, I shine it on my hand, but what was supposed to be a flood of bright red-tinted light is a barely-there wash of crimson. 

I frown. “I don’t think this is going to work. The paper’s too thick.” I glance down at Quinn who’s got the edge of her gauzy dress over the other flashlight mimicking what I’ve done with the paper. She pushes the switch, and purple-filtered light spills onto the sand.

“Problem solved?” she says, smiling. “Or does it have to be red?”

I laugh, tossing my light to the blanket. “You know, you may have just saved my grade. Or the two hours it would’ve taken me to find something else.” Stepping close, my legs straddling hers, I slide my fingers through her hair and cup the back of her head. Lips close to hers, I say in the low, husky voice that always manages to make her dip a little, “I promise to spend those two hours here.” My hands skim down her sides then in front to her stomach. “And here.” Fingertips, dipping to her legs, skim the inside of her thighs. “And especially here.” I close the space between our mouths and kiss her with agonizing slowness. My tongue slips into her mouth just once, and then I pull away.