Summer's Desire (23 page)

He's finished frying the bacon and has turned
to settle it on the table—and sweet mercy!... If his naked
back
robbed
me of speech and made my legs turn to butter, then seeing his naked
front
,
I think my poor, overwhelmed heart is about to blow up.

Admittedly, when fully dressed and
surrounded by his jock friends, Seth looks tall and tough and muscled. Still,
he seems slender compared to some of his beefier friends, which creates the
illusion that he's made more for speed and endurance than for pure strength. Yet
seeing him revealed in all his bare upper-body glory, I see that truly is
nothing more than an illusion.

He's very powerfully built, his sinewy
muscles chiseled to absolute perfection. His shoulders are wide and wiry, his
pecs look carved out of stone, his six pack is flawless. I was right when, on
first seeing him in school last week, I fancifully compared him to some classical
warrior. He truly looks like a warlord of old: hard, forceful, invincible.

He takes my breath away.

The silence has gone on too long. He
looks up from his task setting food on the table and finds me staring at him. I
try to hide the lust that must have been flaring in my eyes a second ago, but I
don't know if I manage before he sees it. His expression doesn't change, but
his eyes seem to gain a new brilliance.

Taking a deep breath, I uproot myself
from my spot and move toward him. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Despite my best efforts, my words come out husky.

Seth raises an eyebrow, but thankfully doesn't
comment on my odd behavior. "Thanks. You can make the toast while I go to
the bathroom. I've already started the coffee."

He moves away, and I go and make the
toast.

* * *

We're sitting at the small kitchen table,
eating breakfast. Or at least Seth's eating, while I'm playing with my food and
trying, very
unsuccessfully, to ignore his naked chest. I'm positive my
cheeks must be tomato red. They certainly feel as if they're on fire!

"You're not hungry?" His voice
is warm, amused.

"Oh, of course I'm hungry."

"Then why aren't you eating? You
don't like the bacon?" he asks innocently.

"The bacon is fine." I force
myself to take a bite and nearly choke on it.

"But why aren't you looking at
me?"

Startled, I meet his gaze directly. His
eyes sparkle with glee.

"Because you're naked!" I
wail, at the end of my rope.

He raises an eyebrow. "I'm not
naked."

"Well, you're half-naked," I
amend, frustrated with his quibbling.

"And that is a problem,
why
?"
God, he's really enjoying himself, isn't he?

Fortunately, the ancient coffeemaker
pings, so I quickly jump to my feet and skip to it. "The coffee is
done." How did he take his coffee yesterday morning? "One sugar, no
milk for you, right?"

"Yes." Then, having obviously
not finished playing with me yet: "You don't like my body?"

I stop pouring his coffee and, back
turned to him, I close my eyes and lower my head in defeat. The problem is I
like it too darn much.
Oh Summer, Summer
,
just
stop
it
already! This is going nowhere. You know the right thing to do, you've made
your decision to keep things with Seth platonic—now stick to it, for God's sake!

I add the sugar, then turn to Seth and
place his coffee in front of him on the table. Calmer now, I meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I know I'm acting silly. It's just that I'm still not used to
all of this... to us being together again."

He nods, regarding me with tenderness.

I quickly change the subject. "So
what are our plans for today?"

I'm taking for granted that we will be
spending the day together. I couldn't bear to let him out of my sight right
now; I'm still feeling raw after yesterday's emotional turmoil. I also have the
sneaking suspicion that it may not have completely sunk in yet that I've gotten
Seth back, so I'm afraid that if I let him go now, next time I'll see him I'll
discover that this has all been just a dream.

For all of that, I can't bear the
thought of separating myself from him as of yet.

Luckily, he seems to feel the same way.

Leaning back in his chair, coffee cup in
hand, he tells me matter-of-factly, "You're staying with me. I have to go
in to work today, unfortunately, but you're coming with me to the Garage."
Then all of a sudden, a cloud of doubt crosses his face. "I mean, if
that's all right with you? You do want to spend the day with me, yes?"

My heart melts at the uncertainty in his
voice. Impulsively, I go to him and lean in, trying to hug him. It's sort of
awkward because he's sitting down, but as my arms curl clumsily around his neck,
he sets his coffee on the table and rises fluidly from the kitchen chair. Then,
in the blink of an eye, I'm aloft in his arms bridal style, and he's carrying
me to the couch in the living room.

He sits down with me still in his arms,
and I arrange myself on his lap: legs to one side, arms tight around his neck,
head on his chest. I'm engulfed by him, overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude
to God or fate—whoever's brought Seth back in my life.

We stay like this, in silence, soaking each
other in.

After a while he speaks, his chest
rumbling under my head: "We'll need to get going soon. I start work at ten
and it's already well past nine."

"Okay." I don't move an inch away
from him.

"What's the situation with your
foster parents? Will they blow a gasket because you spent the night outside
their house again?"

I frown in thought. "I hope they don't
know about that, actually. I waited until they went to bed before I snuck out
last night, and if Jessica didn't check on me when she returned from the party,
I should be fine. I'll just call Louise later this morning and tell her that I
left the house before breakfast to take care of something."

"The Andersons will give you any
trouble if you start spending more time outside their home? Or if I go see you
there?"

I ponder for a bit. "I think maybe
the first option could work. Jessica has poisoned her parents' minds against me—not
that it took a lot of effort in the case of her mother. So Louise won't care in
the least about my whereabouts, and Greg's pretty much checked out. It's not
that he actively doesn't care, just that he doesn't really notice what I do.

"The second option, though..."
I shake my head. "That's a no-go for sure. Jessica is rabid when it comes
to you, and her mother supports her. They've both made it clear that I should
stay away from you because you were Jessica's. Louise even said that, since
she's given me a home, the least I could do in return was not to throw myself
at her daughter's boyfriend. So I really doubt that they'd take it on the chin
if you came to
their
house to be with
me
."

He's staring at me in disbelief. "They
warned you away from because I'm Jessica's
boyfriend
? Are those bitches
crazy? Like I'd have anything to do with that viper!"

"Well, you did have something to do
with Jessica, at one time," I point out, growing angry myself.
"Sophomore year, was it not?" I try to get down from his lap, but his
arms tighten around me and I'm no match for his strength. I settle for glaring
at him instead.

He closes his eyes in frustration for a
moment. Then, seeming to brace himself, he meets my gaze head-on, his intense
blue eyes filled with regret. "She had been throwing herself at me for
years. I honestly never liked her because I saw how vicious she is with people
she considers beneath her. But she's not hard to look at, and one night when I
was bored and restless, I took her up on her offer. We only hooked up a few times,
and it never meant anything." His voice rings with sincerity.

Still... "You mean, it didn't mean
anything to
you
," I correct, miffed at his man-whorish ways. Obviously,
it meant something to Jessica if she's carried a torch for him all this time.

"It never meant anything to
me," he agrees solemnly. "Sunny, please forgive me my past. I was
lost without you and I did lots of stupid things. Don't hate me for it, please."
His beautiful blue eyes entreat me, candid and pained.

I soften all over, powerless to refuse
him anything when he's looking at me like that. "Oh Seth, there's nothing
to forgive. Your past is your past, and I have no right to judge you for what
you did when we were living separate lives. And surely you must know that I
could never hate you, no matter what you did. You're my best friend and I love
you." I smile at him shyly, my heart laid bare, and his eyes flare with
some unknown but powerful emotion. I think, for a moment, he even trembles
slightly.

I ask him, "Can you please hold me
now, just for a little while?"

For an answer, he pulls me closer to him,
and I burrow in the heat of his body, my head laid on his chest above his
beating heart.

I'll only have this—I'll only have
him—for a little while, I know that, so I'm soaking it all up... while I still can.

Chapter 17

I'm in Seth's car, and we're heading toward
his workplace. We're running slightly late.

After our beautiful moment on the couch
we barely found the will to untangle ourselves from each other, and when we
eventually looked at the clock, it was already twenty minutes to ten. We
hurried to get dressed and left the apartment five minutes later.

In those five minutes, Seth managed to put
together a look for himself that would do the cover of an Abercrombie &
Fitch men's catalog proud: black macho boots, washed down blue jeans ripped in
a deliciously naughty pattern, form-fitting gray henley shirt, and a gorgeous midnight-blue
jacket. His hair, which I'm positive hasn't met with a comb this morning, falls
over his brow in a sexily-mused, just-got-out-of-bed way. He's utterly
scrumptious.

I, on the other hand, look like the dowdy
Beast to his effortlessly stylish Beauty.

I'm wearing my pants from yesterday,
which have luckily dried overnight—or maybe not so luckily, considering their
atrocious green color and how they hang on me creating big, ugly folds. My
striped tank and cream T-shirt from last night have dried as well, so I'm
wearing them, but the gigantic black hoodie that Seth loaned me yesterday was a
lost cause, being still wet this morning. So Seth cheerfully loaned me another
of his all-engulfing (for me) hoodies (this one blue, with a pattern of darker
blues and greens, and the imprint "Surpass your limits"). In a burst
of rebellion after I saw my sorry state in the mirror, I put up my hair in a
ponytail (which looks nice) instead of the customary bun (which looked
atrocious). Still, it didn't do much to improve my overall appearance.

When I came out of the bathroom looking,
in my considered opinion, like a color-blind and fashion-disabled clothes
hanger, I could swear I saw Seth's lips twitch. He strode to me instantly and
engulfed me in an affectionate hug, murmuring under his breath something like,
"Well, can't say I mind the look. It's best if I don't have to break too
many jaws of assholes who're lusting after my girl."

Yeah, joke all you want, smartass!

Honestly though, since Seth came back into
my life I've started to hate my long-time "uniform" with a passion.
He always looks so gorgeous whereas I...
don't
. And him seeing me look like
a frump... well, it makes me feel bad. It makes me want to look pretty for him.
Which, in turn, makes me terribly conflicted because I don't want anyone else's
attention. Especially after what happened with Josh, I'm scared at the thought
that other guys might find me attractive and try to get in my space with their
flirting rituals.

"What are you thinking of?"
Seth's voice brings me out of my musings, returning me to the here and now.
He's just stopped the car at a sign, checks if the way is clear, and smoothly gets
the car moving again.

"I'm thinking that I don't like my
uniform anymore," I admit distractedly.

He throws me a puzzled glance.
"Your 'uniform'?"

"Yes, my uniform. You know—baggy
pants, tops and hoodies that are at least three sizes too big for me, no makeup,
and that ugly bun. My uniform. You can't possibly have missed it." I smile
wryly.

He gives me another look, this one
filled with curiosity. "Ah. So what exactly is the purpose of the, err..."—he
coughs slightly—"the 'uniform'"?

"To make myself unattractive, of
course. Not that I'm such a great beauty in the first place—I mean, I know I'm
not." Obviously.

He aims a disbelieving sideways glance
at me. "You don't think you're beautiful?"

I laugh. "Hardly. I mean, I can manage
pretty if I try, but beautiful... that's like a whole other league: way, way
above mere prettiness. You're beautiful, for example. I'm just pretty." Again
he looks at me sidelong, this time as if I was crazy or speaking in an exotic
language.