Second Chance Summer (Chance Series, #1) (9 page)

Reese’s tongue dives into my mouth and we keep moving backward until my back hits a tree. He slides his hand down my back and under my sundress, his fingers rough as they cup my ass. The bark of the tree scratches at me through the light material of my dress. I’m burning everywhere we’re touching, the heat grouping into a red hot pool between my shaky legs.

We break apart, both of us breathing heavily.

“You have about five fucking seconds to get inside your house before I throw you over my shoulder and put you into that treehouse.” His low voice goes right through me, reverberating down my spine, sending tingles with the mixed threat and promise.

One. I look into his eyes. Two. I breathe in deeply. Three. His hand twitches against me. Four. I lick my bottom lip.

Five.

Wordlessly, he lifts me up and over his shoulder. I wrap my body around him, holding on tightly, and he scales the ladder to my treehouse where he places me gently on the pile of pillows I keep here. My hair fans out as I fall back, and he leans over me, looking into my eyes. Amongst the heat is a spark of playfulness, but as I close my hands around his biceps that spark melts into the molten hazel staring at me.

“I warned you.” He mutters, lowering his face to mine. His lips kiss along my jaw to my ear and down my neck, changing from a feathery brush to hot, open-mouthed kisses that make my blood hum.

I push my head into the pillows as he moves further down, following the line of my dress. He adjusts himself so his hands are free and runs them up my thighs to my dress. It bunches as he slides it up my body, breaking our contact to pull it over my head. It gets tossed to the side carelessly as he moves his hands across my body, cupping my breasts over my bra and easing down my sides.

He moves his mouth over the swell of my breasts, his fingers probing my sides. They unclasp my bra, and he lets it fall away, closing his mouth around me and tugging softly on my nipple. I feel the tug right down to my core and gasp, arching my back into him, and he turns his attention to my other breast. Each flick of his tongue and close of his lips around me adds to the burning knot in my stomach.

My fingers sink into his hair and I pull him toward me, not bothering with being gentle. Our tongues mingle, and our teeth clash slightly as I force him into letting go because I need to.

His hand creeps inside my panties, and he teases me, running his fingers through the growing wetness there. He dips his fingers inside me, stroking in long, slow movements, and mimics the movements with his tongue. His thumb rubs against my clit with each of his movements, and I groan into his mouth. The steady movements keep up until I can’t take it anymore. The feel of our bodies pushing together makes me want him more, and I move my hand down and undo his jeans. He takes them and his boxers off with the help of my feet, and I pause.

“I don’t have…”

“Baby,” he whispers huskily, staring straight at me. “I’m a guy. I keep one in my wallet.”

My cheeks flame and he laughs under his breath, nudging my nose with his and swiping his mouth across mine. His fingers hook in the band of my panties, removing them swiftly. The sound of foil tearing reaches my ears, and a minute later, I feel him pushing at me as his tongue nudges at the seam of my lips. I open my legs wider and hook them around his waist, arching my back and neck as he slowly pushes into me.

I breathe in deeply against the slow burn I haven’t felt for so long, and he wraps his arms around my body, holding us together. Heat swamps my body, and our lips meet again, solid together as we move, and I shudder against him. His teeth graze my bottom lip, and I tilt my hips upwards. He moves deeper into me, making me grip his back tighter with every thrust of his hips.

My head lolls back, breaking the connection of our lips, and Reese buries his face into my neck, kissing me there.

Shivers. Tingles. Heat. That’s all I feel, all I am, when our bodies are together this way. These feelings consume me until I’m nothing but a quivering mess of clenching muscle and pure ecstasy.

They consume me, completely and utterly, until the only thing I haven’t let go of is the one who makes them happen.

CHAPTER 6

We haven’t spoke for two days.

Or rather, I haven’t spoken to him for two days. In fact, I haven’t spoken to anyone. At all.

When Reese left, all I could think about was that I was ending up like Mom. I’m falling deeper and deeper into him, especially when he turns up telling me everything I both crave and want to ignore. The problem is I crave it almost too much to do anything about it.

Almost.

“Jay these prices are freaking crazy!” I cry into the phone. “I knew it was expensive, but
two thousand
dollars a month? For a dang apartment? And that’s the cheapest! I don’t even make half of that working part-time at the café. There is no way I can afford that.”

He chuckles down the line. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

“Yeah, yeah. Trust fund baby or not, I’m not going to live off you. No way.”

“You won’t be. You can earn your keep by doing that woman stuff. You know, cooking and washing my boxers.”

My nose wrinkles. “There is no way in hell I’m touching your boxers – I have no idea where they’ve all been!”

He laughs again. “How about if I gave you a play by play of exactly where they’d been? Would you do it then?”

“Ew! No!” I shriek.

Just finished with sophomore year, Jay’s been around the block more than a few times. We met in a few shared classes and hit it off straight away. Of course, it was me and what’s inside my pants he tried to hit
on
initially, but he didn’t take a lot of convincing. We’ve been best friends ever since.

“Just move in with me, babe. Seriously. You know I can’t cook for shit, and this place is a mess. I’ll wash my own boxers.”

“I’m not moving in so I can be your bitch.”

I can almost hear him grinning. “You won’t be my bitch. Well, not my full bitch. My full bitch would be someone that could wash my boxers
and
satisfy in the bedroom. By the way that offer is still open.”

“In your dreams,” I respond. “I have most of my wages from the café saved. Let me pay you something each month.”

He sighs. “Fine, but I have terms.”

“You want me to make sure your laundry is done – minus your damn boxers – keep your place half-tidy, and not be around on Friday nights.”

“Fuck, Kia.” He sighs again. “You’re like my perfect girl. Are you sure I can’t talk you in to getting over that southern douche?”

“He’s not a douche,” I say softly. “I’m the asshole, Jay. You know how it went.”

“And you’re still being one. Yada, yada, yada. That’s the problem with you girls – you all complain when we’re dicks to you, but when we’re nice you crush us.”

“Gee, thanks. What would I do without your oh so helpful insight?”

“I was just sayin’.” He clicks his tongue. “Hey – you ever thought that if you just asked your mom what happened with your dad, you might be able to move on?”

“Yeah. A few times. But I don’t know if I want to know.”

“Goddamn, where’s the girl I know?”

“What’s that meant to mean?”

“The sassy, confident Kia I know. You go back to Alabama and you’re like a fucking hermit crab too afraid to poke her head out of her shell.”

“I…” Have nothing to say, because he’s totally right.

“Hey; you don’t have to spend the next three years in a dorm because I’m gonna clear out my spare room ready for you to come back whenever the fuck you want. Until then, you’re gonna hang up the phone and put some big girl thongs on ready to go talk to your mom about what happened. Then, you’re gonna process that and go speak to your cowboy. Have we got that?”

My lips twitch. “He’s no cowboy, but okay.”

“Okay?” He sounds a bit shocked.

“Okay. You’re right.” I shrug. “I’ve done nothing but be a whiny bitch since I got here. I’ve lead Reese on because I’m too much of a wimp to find out the truth. I need to sort my shit out, don’t I?”

“Some groveling might not go amiss if you fucked him then ignored him for two days.” He sighs. “Yet another reason you’re my kinda girl.”

“Jay.” I scowl even though he can’t see me.

He laughs. “Go on. Go sort your shit out, like you say, and if it all goes tits up, I’m here waiting for you to get back, all right?”

“You’re the best, Jay.”

“I know, babe, I know. I get that a lot.”

“You’re also kind of an asshole.”

“I know that, too.”

I smile, feeling a lightness in my heart. He’s the biggest asshole I’ve met, but at least he admits it, and it makes him kind of endearing. “I’ll speak to you, later.”

“You better. Love ya.”

“Love ya.” I hang up and make my way downstairs.

Mom is banging in the kitchen, presumably making a cup of coffee. Well, I think she is. It’s three in the afternoon so it could go either way.

“Momma?” I say softly.

“Oh, Kia.” She looks up from the counter. “I didn’t know you were in.”

You never do.
“Yeah, just sorting out some living arrangements for next year.”

“I thought you lived in the, er, dorm?”

“I do, but a friend said I can stay with him, so I’m gonna move in there.”

She nods. No questions about who “him” is, no questions about how I’m gonna afford it. Never any questions.

I sit at the table in the middle of the kitchen and watch her. She really is a shadow of the person she used to be. The person who used to sing her way around the kitchen instead of moping, the person who used to dance with a mop just to make us laugh. For a second, I flash back to a memory where Momma was singing and dancing around the kitchen. Dad had grabbed her, laughing. He kissed her soundly, and I remember thinking how much they loved each other. How perfect they were together.

How badly I wanted a love like that.

How badly I wanted a love with the power to make me feel like a princess, complete with a fairytale ending.

“Why you starin’ at me like that?”

I blink and focus on her. “I was… thinking.”

“‘Bout what?”

My stomach rolls a little, and not in a good way. I look at the table, running my finger along the grain of the wood. “Why did Daddy leave?”

Her mug bangs on the side and is followed by a curse as a bit of coffee splashes everywhere. I flinch a little, not daring to look up.

“Why? He ain’t ever cared about you, Kia. Remember who left us. We didn’t leave him. He’s the one that ain’t bothered, so why are you so bothered?”

“I know he left, Momma, and I know he ain’t bothered. I just wanna know why he left. There’s gotta be a reason, right?”

“The reason is he’s a good for nothin’ excuse of a man!”

“I can’t imagine him leavin’ us for no reason. The person I knew wouldn’t have done that.”

“Then he fooled us all, girl. He fooled us good and proper.”

“I just… I don’t get it.”

“You ain’t gotta get it, Kia. I don’t get it.”

I hear a cap unscrew and I look up. Vodka. Of course. Whenever it gets hard, turn to the bottle. Numb the pain. Drink it away.

“I just wanted to know.”

“Well, now you do. He’s an asshole. Not everyone needs a reason to do somethin’, y’know. Sometimes they just do it.” She grabs a glass from the cupboard and takes the open bottle upstairs, leaving me in the kitchen alone.

I stare blankly at her still-steaming, untouched mug of coffee on the side, and wonder why she bothers making a drink of anything that won’t numb whatever feelings she has left.

~

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah? It’s a family thing.”

“Luckily for me I know how not to be one. Thanks to you three.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause there’s definitely some ass in you.”

“The only ass she has is the growing one attached to her back.”

“Are you telling me you don’t know why you’re single? Holy shit. You’re not just an ass, you’re a dumb one!”

“It’s because you know it’s true.”

“He’s right. You are gettin’ one hell of an ass on you.”

“Hey, lover boy is outside!”

“Both of ‘em.”

I bury my face in a pillow to fight the urge to scream and laugh at the same time. You honestly wouldn’t believe that Luce’s brothers, Leo, Lucas, and Liam are in their twenties. They all constantly bicker, and it’s usually three on one... And I don’t even know who’s saying what. Sometimes their bickering is amusing. This?

This isn’t amusing. Their ass comments will have Luce ranting and raving for the next two hours about them.

“Know what, Leo? Fuck off!” Luce snaps, storming into the living room. I look up. “Adam and Reese are outside. Let’s go before I take the nearest rope-like item and string my brothers from Mom’s balcony with Justin Bieber playing loudly.”

I hide my smile and grab my bag as I stand and follow her out. I’m unsure how successful today will be since I never made it to Reese’s house last night. Hell, I never even made it to his number in my cell. Nope, I totally ignored it after Mom stormed out.

But I didn’t have much of a choice about going to the beach. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Adam was organizing it all in a desperate attempt to get into Luce’s panties.

I don’t think she needs much convincing, if I’m honest.

Aside from that, the glint of Reese’s red truck from behind Adam’s restored, silver Mustang is all I need to know. Luce and I have been set up well and truly by Harlan Grove’s professional smooth-talking, heart-attack-inducing, panty-removing duo. I’m half tempted to lick my finger and draw an invisible point in the air for them.

Reese leans over the seats and unlatches the door, grinning boyishly. The grin he has when he’s up to something. I instantly go on the defense, wondering why he’s grinning like the Cheshire cat and not spitting fire at me with his eyes.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my eyes flitting around the cab of the truck.

He laughs. “Why do you think I’ve done something?”

“You have that look. You’ve done something. And you ain’t yellin’ at me.”