Beautiful Oblivion Read online

  “The G-man’s love shack?” Her dark hair falls like a curtain as she leans in hard to get a better look. “I’m impressed.”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  We get out, and I let us in. It’s clean, mostly. The light scent of pine lies thick in the air, but it smells more antiseptic than it does anything derived from nature.

  Reese circles my waist from behind, and I spin into her.

  “Whoa, girl.” I give a satisfied groan as she melts her fingers across my chest. “Let’s get some lights on.” I flip the switch and am pleasantly surprised to find a double bed tucked in the corner, a red, white, and blue quilt of the American flag lying neat over the center. There’s a small braided rug, a table, and a couple of chairs—a mini-fridge in the corner.

  “Wow.” She steps in past me. “This place is so cute. I’ve always wondered what it was like inside. For some reason I pictured it loaded from floor to ceiling with little aluminum boats.” She eyes the box in my hand. “What’s that, Waterman?” She takes a bold step into me and bats her lashes as if trying to seduce me. And lucky for me because I’m pretty damn sure she is.

  I hold up the game for a second, and she gives a long blink. “What’d you think we we’re going to do?” A shit-eating grin waits to break out on my face, but I hold back.

  “I thought”—she flattens her hands over my chest and drips them down slow and even—“maybe we could do more of what we did last night.”

  A dry laugh pumps through me.

  “Let’s get to work.” I’m quick to set up the board. Reese calls “bank” and sorts the cash in front of her like a seasoned teller.

  “Just try to steal, and I’ll make sure you’re punished to the fullest extent of the law,” I say it dry like I mean it, and I do.

  “Will you do the punishing?” Her lips part as if she were wagering just how much she should take.

  “That depends. Would you want me to?” I shuffle the tiny cards in my hands for no good reason.

  “Yes, Ace. You have my full permission to severely punish me.” Her eyes press into mine like she’s serious just before she jolts back to game. “So, did you think about what we said last night?” She rolls the dice. Her eyes cut up to mine, and I’m about to flip the board over and take her right here on the floor—punish her with my tongue in all the right places.

  “Yup. I thought long and hard about how I should invest in hairspray because I’m confident you’re about to single handedly bring back big hair.”

  “Very funny.” She glides her fingers over the board, and I move my hand before she can catch it. “So you don’t want me,” she says it low just this side of a whisper and breaks my heart in the process.

  “Yes, I want you. In fact I need you because it’s downright impossible to play this game by myself.” My chest rumbles with a silent laugh, but she’s not coming along for the ride. Her features soften, any residue of a smile she might have been sporting dissipates faster than snow in June.

  She gives a hard sniff and locks her gaze over mine.

  “Warren wants you, too,” I say it plain and simple before rolling the dice. “You go first.” I scoot them over to her, but she doesn’t budge.

  “You sound like my dad.” She shakes her head. “I guess it really doesn’t matter what I want. Does it?” She leans back on her hands and stares off at the wall behind me.

  “Of course, it matters what you want. In the event you haven’t noticed, you’re the only person who should care who you’re with. If you’re not into Warren, I’m sure you’ll find some other nice kid at Yeats.” Not that I want her to. I reach over and pick up her hand, massaging her palm with my thumb. “Fall in love, Reese. Get so head over heels you can’t see straight. It’ll be magic. I promise, you’ll want to write me a thank you note because when you finally have that moment, it’s going to be incredible.”

  “Have you ever been in love?” It comes out raspy, sexy as hell. “So head over heels you can’t think straight?”

  Right fucking now, but I don’t say it.

  Reese gets up, never letting go of my hand, and slips her legs on either side of me until she’s sitting right in my lap, straddling me with her warm, soft body. Right about now I’m regretting the metric distance between my dick and that box of condoms sitting in my bedroom.

  “Last night you said you’d be my someone special this summer.” She pulls off my shirt and runs her hands across my chest. Her eyes latch onto mine, and I’m dying to pluck off her T-shirt and return the favor.

  “Last night was an illusion.” I replace her hands into her lap. “You’re just hopped up on hormones. It’s the heat.” I could list a thousand different things it could be, but I’m hoping not one of them is true.

  “It’s the heat—my hormones,” she mocks. “You’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you, Waterman?” She leans in and takes a soft bite of my bottom lip before stretching it out, painfully slow, agonizingly perfect.

  “Reese,” I whisper her name with my eyes sealed tight. One more glance at that lust-driven look she’s giving, and I might lose it. “Fuck.”

  “Now we’re on the same page.” She sinks her hands down to my hips, and I catch her before she strikes a jackpot. “Ace,” she blows my name out in a sigh. “Be honest with me.” Reese pulls back, and we square off, eye to eye. “Am I like a little sister to you?” Her eyes swell with tears. Her lips turn a bright shade of crimson.

  Here it is, my official out. I can say yes. I can tell her that I think of her like I do Neva and blow this entire bad idea out of the water before it ever takes flight, but I don’t.

  “Reese.” I pump a quick smile. Who the hell am I to turn down Reese Westfield?

  I crash my lips over hers and run my hands up and down her back like I’m putting out a fire.

  Screw Warren McCarthy. Screw the man who Reese is destined to marry one day. I’m already head over heels. I can’t see straight—all I think about, see, hear or feel from eyelids open in the morning is Reese Westfield.

  This is our summer.

  I’m all in.

  3

  All The Dirty Details

  Reese

  Ace runs his tongue over mine, achingly slow, and I pull him in by the back of the neck, forcing him into me, deeper, harder. Ace Waterman has melted me for the better half of the last decade, and seeing that I’m just shy of my twenty-first birthday, that’s a pretty impressive streak.

  Ace pulls back slightly and takes me in. “Okay.” He flexes those dimples that drive me wild, and my insides reduce to cinder. “Let’s set some ground rules.”

  “The last time I checked, a fling didn’t have any rules. Besides, I don’t like the word fling, it sounds ridiculous.” True story. I find it weird, right up there with affair and rendezvous. I prefer the more colloquial terms of my people, fuck buddies, friends with benefits, booty call. And believe you me I can’t wait to dial into Ace’s rock hard booty. Well, mostly I want to dial into his heart. I’m hoping he wants that, too.

  “All right.” He dots my lips with a kiss and pulls away with a smoldering look in his eye. “Let’s start with what we’re going to call it.” He shakes his head just barely. “Say something nice.”

  “I take it fuck buddies is off the short-list?”

  He pushes out a quiet laugh. “Never want to hear you say it.” He pulls a kiss off my neck, and a groan escapes my throat. “This is going to be special,” he whispers.

  “Okay, let’s go with that. You’re my someone special.” I press my lips together tight because I mean every damn word. “I want you to take me places that only you know how. I trust you, Ace. I trust you with every part of me.” And certain parts of me are dying to show him just how much they trust him more than others. I clench my legs for a moment because, honest to God, I half expect a mutiny. My lower half is aching to pole vault onto something long and hard, and it damn well knows Ace is housing the hardware in his Levis. I’m not sure why I’m so worked up. I’m usually a lot m
ore reserved, but I’ve waited all year, and now the prospect of being with Ace is dangling in front of me like a carrot. I’m not going to lie, I want it. I want him in the worst way.

  “What’s your goal?” His eyes bear down over mine and my soul liquefies as it boils from the heat.

  “My goal?” To be his someday, but I leave that off the table for now. I glide my hand over his bare chest and hold my breath, far longer than meaning to.

  “What do you want from me, Reese?” He looks resigned to the fact he’s going to give in no matter what my demands might be. He simply wants an outline of things to come—a syllabus, a checklist so he’ll know when he’s through.

  My mood sinks like lead at the thought that’s all this might be to him, just someone helping out a friend.

  “When I go back in the fall, I don’t want to feel like an outcast.” That’s not entirely true. The truth is, I’ve thought of Ace every damn day we were apart, and I couldn’t bear not being near him. We’re not close enough to talk every day. Once in a while I’d send him a text, but I can count on one hand how many times that happened, and most of those were holidays. There was that one time I visited Kennedy’s sorority and got ripped. I was all hot and bothered and tried to take a braless selfie and send it to him, but thankfully I dropped my phone into the toilet while I was trying to dislodge myself from my bra. Thank God for small porcelain mercies. Anyway, I have no clue how to tell him that I want more of him in my life. That I want him saturating my days and nights in ways that other people could never do. That I’ve seriously considered dropping out of Yeats just to sit on this mountain with him, not that I would really drop out, but still, if he wanted me to I’d drive home every weekend just to have him hold me.

  “Reese Westfield an outcast?” His chest bumps with a quiet laugh. “Not likely.”

  “Okay, then I want to have an amazing time all summer long and who better to join me in the endeavor than my best friend? Who better to share my body with?” I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to deflect the tears that threaten to spring to my eyes. I said the words I’ve wanted to say all night and now they’re out there, swimming around us, dangerous, like a bunch of hormonal piranhas.

  His head ticks back a notch. “Am I your best friend?”

  “When it comes to guys.” I give a circular nod as I nestle in his lap. “And, you happen to be my most gorgeous male friend, who also happens to be the nicest guy on the planet.” I run my finger just under his jaw, and his chest expands with a breath. “You’re amazing.” I glance down a moment. “I missed you. Did you miss me?” I hate how desperate I sound. How broken and fragile I’m coming across. I wish I were like Brylee. She would have shoved him over the mattress the first three seconds of their arrival, and, here I am, helping to set up a board game.

  “Yes, I missed you.” He glides his finger down my cheek, and I tremble at his touch. “And, you happen to be the sweetest girl I know. You’re my best friend, Reese. You know you’ve always been that.”

  “So we’re best friends.” I latch onto his eyes and hold his warm gaze. My girl parts sigh, and my panties start to slide down on their own volition. It’s becoming obvious that I will never survive this summer.

  “And I want to keep it that way,” he says it firm. His eyes never waver from mine. “God, if you hate me at the end of all this, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  A string of laughter ripples from my throat as I take in his sweet cologne. “There’s nothing you could ever do to make me hate you, Ace. I swear on all that is holy, at the end of this summer, we will still be friends.” And, if I’m lucky, we’ll be something more, forever.

  “Best friends.” He gives a curt nod. The light shines down over his thick, dark hair, and I twist my fingers through it like I’ve wanted to do so many times before, like I’ve dreamed of all those lonely nights in my dorm.

  “Best friends,” I parrot back to him while feathering my fingers down his chest in a giant letter S.

  “So let’s get this mapped out, plain and simple. I’m a guy”—his left dimple plays peek-a-boo—“I need a roadmap.” His hands float down to my waist, and my body is ready to start a riot and take over. “You want to have sex.”

  I give a quick nod, a little too overeager, and he rumbles with a soft laugh. I wonder what Ace would think if he knew I’ve already had him a dozen ways in my mind just tonight alone.

  “You want to stay friends.” He ticks into me with his forehead.

  “Yes,” it comes from me emphatic. “Friends forever.” Maybe something more, but my heart breaks at the thought that he might not agree, so I don’t bother going there. Why argue with the price of the future when I already have the prize right here in the present.

  “So this is strictly platonic.” He seems almost amused.

  “Platonic—but not vanilla. I don’t want to bore you.” An image of him wielding a whip comes to mind, and I quickly usher it away. We’re far from the exploratory kink phase of our relationship. Besides, that’s not what this is about. This is going to be sweet, beautiful. If I come across as a freak, he’ll gladly give me the boot long before the end of the summer. “But, I don’t know jack, so that’s where you come in.” I lean in and press my lips directly into his ear. “Make this exciting for me—for the both of us.” And I go right back to kink. There’s that.

  His abs twitch, and I run my hands over them in the shape of a rainbow.

  “Trust me”—he swallows hard with his eyes closed, his neck slowly arching back—“this just might be the most exciting summer of your entire life.”

  “And what about you?” My cheeks burn with heat as the question sails from my lips. “I mean, I’d love to return the favor.” And I very well plan to once I figure out how.

  “Oh, sweetie”—he gives a dark laugh—“you already have.”

  He presses out a smile as my insides cinch.

  Maybe Ace has feelings for me after all. Maybe molding them into something meaningful will chase the shadow of all other girls right out of his head.

  “Great.” I lean back and take him in. “Let’s start right now.” My legs tighten around his waist. God knows I’ve already saturated my panties just hoping tonight was the night. When I dreamed up the idea of a summer fling, I never thought in a million years, he’d be so easy to sway. I thought vats of hard liquor would be involved, a pistol at point blank range, and here I am, on his lap without a drop of alcohol or a 45 in the vicinity.

  “We will start tonight.” He brushes the hair from my face as his gaze wanders over me openly. I feel exposed like this with Ace—as if I’m being seen for the very first time, and I glow under his watchful supervision. Ever since we were teenagers, I’ve felt a blistering heat whenever Ace laid eyes on me. And, tonight, his open gaze feels like a blowtorch over my skin. “We’ll start with kissing.” His Adam’s apple rises and falls. A patina of wanting washes over his features, and it empowers me.

  “I think we’ve got that down.” I feather my fingers over his stomach, and it cinches. “Let’s move the lesson along.” Slow just might kill me. I tuck my hand into the waistband of his boxers, and he plucks me right back out again.

  “I want to kiss you”—he brings my hand to his lips—“on the bed.”

  “Yes, master,” it comes from me guttural and throaty as I glide my leg across him nice and slow, my fingers dripping down to his. I pull Ace over to the mattress with me and lie down for him.

  Ace lies over me and leans up on his elbows—his hungry mouth just inches from mine.

  “Sex is just an act, Reese.” He dusts my features with his lips. “If there’s no meaning behind it, it’s just some mechanical event, a timed session, a chore.”

  “It’ll never be like that with us.” I try to hold back the laugh begging to bubble out of me. I have a bad habit of giggling at inappropriate times, and while proclaiming my true feelings for the only boy I’ve ever cared about would definitely be one of them. God—what if I laugh my ass off the fir
st time I see the pride and joy he keeps tucked in his boxers? I cringe a little because a small part of me knows this is a very real possibility. I’m guessing laughing at man parts is cause for disqualification of said summer fling and will warrant a serious reevaluation of our newly minted best friend status. Crap. Is it too early for me to strut around with a muzzle? I think we’re back to the kink.

  “Maybe it won’t be a chore, but if it is—if I overstay my welcome”—his dimples dig in a moment—“I want you to tell me. Summer can be an eternity if you’re not happy, and I’d rather die than make you feel that way.”

  “Ace.” I give into the joy percolating in my chest. “You will never overstay your welcome.” I touch my hand to the back of his neck. “I promise you this. I swear on a thousand Bibles. I’ll want you near me every single day.” There is no greater truth.

  “Good.” He gives a slight grin, but it melts away just as fast as it came. “We’re going to take things slow, Reese. It’s one thing to think you want it and another to really want it. We need to build momentum.” He rakes his lips over my neck and pants into my mouth. “That’s what we’re doing tonight—building momentum.”

  “Momentum,” it chokes from me. “But, for the record”—I trace out his lips with my finger, and he gives a playful bite—“I’m not into slow. In fact, it just gained four-letter word status because it just so happens to be one.”

  Ace offers the hint of a smile before landing his scorching mouth over the hollow of my neck and moving down just shy of my cleavage.

  “It’s not happening tonight.” He strings a trail of kisses down lower into the soft skin of my breast and buries his face in one for a moment.

  I let out a groan far louder than expected. God, if this simple act elicits my vocal cords to strangle out a cry, I’ll be screaming my lungs off when things get viral. But I hope not. The last thing I’m in the market for is turning him off while doing my best impersonation of a werewolf.