Beautiful Oblivion Read online

  His breathing picks up. A growing protrusion stiffens against my thigh, and I give a dull smile. Ace Waterman is mine, whether it’s tonight or tomorrow—I can’t wait to have him.

  Ace glides back up, landing his lips on mine. He crashes over me with a wave of fury that spells out right here, right now far more than it ever does slow and serious. I dance my tongue over his, and my toes curl as his hands glide up my shirt. Ace cups my breasts, giving a gentle squeeze. He rolls his thumbs over my nipples until they’re firm under his command. Ace has an unusual definition of slow, but I’m not complaining. Maybe he meant slow motion. I can live with that.

  I dive my hands toward his jeans, and he catches me.

  “Just kisses,” he says as he flexes my hands up high over my head.

  “And what happens tomorrow?” I wet my lips in anticipation.

  “Exploratory kisses.” He gives a crooked grin. “I get to kiss you everywhere.”

  “And what do I get to do?” I purr the words out like a dream.

  “You get to enjoy it.”

  I’m already enjoying the hell out of it, but I don’t say it.

  “So”—I nestle my head into the pillow and soak in this moment while the boy of my dreams lies over me—“I guess I’ll be losing my virginity to you.” Every part of me quivers as I say it.

  Ace gives a sad smile. “I guess you will.”

  After a marathon kissing session that spanned hours, and potentially dehydrated the both of us to deliriously dangerous levels, Ace drops me off at home. I let myself in, trying to ignore the familiar voices coming from the family room. I thread through the kitchen and peek from the hall, affirming the fact an entire roll call of Kennedy’s sorority sisters are present and accounted for. There are a smattering of guys here, although Warren and Gavin are the only two I recognize. The rest look like refugees from a local prep school with their matching khakis, their brand name Polos with the collars turned up to their ears. I make a face at the collar poppers. I bet they’ve got something in their chinos just waiting to pop once they divvy up the girls. My eyes run along the border of the coffee table and spy a stack of pizza boxes, enough red Solo cups to outfit the US military, and two six packs still untouched. Kennedy has systematically turned Beverly’s museum room into a bar and a brothel, and I clearly see all ten of my stepmother’s uptight commandments breaking simultaneously.

  “Reesie?” Kennedy calls me from the across the room, and I startle. She has a habit of calling me Reesie when she’s shit-faced, and, now, I regret ever telling her about my special summer plans with Ace. “Come here for a minute. We’re debating something very important, and you know I value your opinion.” She slurs that last bit out so bad, it sounded more like I vacuumed your opium.

  I huff a little laugh. Ace is the only form of opium I need. I’m still high as kite off our encounter.

  “Here we go,” I mutter under my breath as I make my way over.

  Warren pats a seat beside him, and I take it like an obedient child. His hair is slightly rumpled. His eyes are glazed over. The scent of whiskey permeates the air and it becomes clear that pretty much everyone here is wasted. Maybe Kennedy wants me to bitch slap them all and then take away their keys? I’d be up for a quick smack down before bedtime, with the exception of Gavin, of course. He’s sweet down deep where it counts like Ace. He’s just looking to get laid like the rest of the people here tonight, Warren included.

  “So”—Kennedy holds up a finger and leans in until she falls into the lap of Charlie, her favorite protégé—“we’re coming up with unconventional ways to torment new recruits. We can’t just let anyone into Alpha Kappa.”

  “Right,” I say. But judging by the bevy of skanks in the vicinity, they so do.

  Warren pushes his red Solo toward my lips, but I’m quick to bat him away. Warren smells like a bad combination of rubbing alcohol and nail polish remover. I won’t be revoking his keys since he lives within walking distance, or in his case, stumbling distance.

  “What’s the lowest level of shame you think someone would be willing to stoop just to fit in?” Kennedy suddenly comes to long enough to string together a coherent sentence.

  “Lowest level?” Like begging their best friend to unleash his body on theirs for the summer? Wait, that’s not low, that’s genius. I give a private smile.

  Warren slips his hand between my thighs, and I graciously pluck him the hell right off.

  “I guess the lowest low is being with someone you don’t really want to be with.” I shoot Warren a look, but he’s too busy checking out Charlie’s boobs to notice. Her left nipple has escaped captivity and is quivering at us like a frightened Chihuahua. Not that I’m surprised. A red Solo explosion like this one practically merits a clothing malfunction or two. It’s nights like this that unwanted pregnancies are made of. Hey, I wonder if the good people over at Solo headquarters have ever considered that as a company slogan?

  “Like in a sexual sense?” Charlie’s mouth drops open at the salacious implications. And, for a minute, I have to rewind my Solo commentary just to remember the topic at hand. Oh, that’s right, the lowest of lows—being with someone you don’t want to be with.

  “Yes, in a sexual sense.” I glance over at Warren as his hand migrates to the back of my shorts. “Nobody wants anyone’s sticky fingers on them unless they’re one hundred percent into them.” I slap his hand off my ass. Case in point.

  “Rush is going to be brilliant.” Kennedy nods as if a life-changing event were on the horizon. “We’ll have each girl that makes it to the final phase pick a boy from Kappa Pi, and she’ll have to make out with him.”

  “That’s disgusting.” Crap. Why do I get the feeling I’ve just contributed to her future sexual harassment lawsuit? Kennedy has been steadily propagating all kinds of quasi-inappropriate behavior with her cult-like group. Last year, there were talks of blowjobs being instated as a punishment. But I was quick to talk Kennedy out of it by inundating her with the plagues of prison life that would soon be upon her if she kept up the oral offensive.

  I can see she’s busy clawing her way back to prison. “Do not, I repeat, do not require your pledges to do anything that remotely involves a bodily fluid. Maybe just have them do something you would find ultra humiliating like show up to class without red lipstick and pearls.” You can spot a girl from Alpha Kappa a mile away with those identifying accouterments.

  Kennedy and her sorority sisters ashen at the thought of being seen without their signature look. Clearly my work here is done. I evict myself from the couch and head upstairs. It’s only when I reach the top do I notice that Warren has followed me, stealth as a ninja.

  “There’s a bathroom downstairs.” I’m half tempted to push him down one flight to help him get to it a little quicker. Obviously he trotted up here in hopes to continue that thigh-warming action he was initiating in the living room.

  His lips curl as he gurgles in my direction. Warren looks as if he could be a Ralph Lauren model. He’s gorgeous, and has his future mapped out like a constellation, but for whatever reason I’ve never really connected with him on a romantic level. God knows I’ve tried for my father’s sake.

  “I’m just walking you to your room,” the words stream from his mouth like toxins. “Making sure you get to bed safe.” He walks me down the hall and opens the door to my room. “After you.”

  “Well, aren’t you the perfect gentleman?” Not really. I can taste the liquor on his breath from a three-foot clearance. “Thank you and goodnight.” I slip in and start to close the door, but he sticks his foot into the room before I can shut it.

  “Let me tuck you in.” Warren hedges into my dark room and wraps his arms around my waist. I hear the door shut as he inches me toward the bed.

  “Let go. This isn’t funny.” He lands me backward onto the mattress, and the wind gets knocked out of me for a second.

  Warren dives down a sloppy kiss over my cheek, and I squirm trying to break free from his powerhouse embrace.

  “You know you want this,” he moans as he flops down over me, taking the breath from my lungs in the process.

  “I don’t want this. Warren get off.” I struggle as he jams his tongue down my throat, polluting the sweetness Ace left there earlier. I twist my face into the bed until it feels like my neck is about to snap off.

  “Come on, baby.” His breath reeks as he presses in with his full weight.

  “Warren, I can’t breathe.”

  He shoves his hand down the front of my shorts, and his fingers brush against the most private part of me.

  “Damn, you’re wet,” he pants hard in my ear.

  That’s it. Every cell in my body is officially pissed.

  I reach down and give his balls a hard squeeze, and he screams like hell right into my ear. It takes all of my strength to push him off, landing him on the floor with a thud.

  “Get out!” I turn on my desk lamp and the room explodes with far too much light. I kick him in the ribs until he rolls over to the door, and I open it for him. “I will take a baseball bat to your nuts if you don’t crawl your ass out of here in the next two seconds.”

  “I’m out,” he barks, holding up his hands. He scoots over the threshold and shakes his head up at me. “Fuck, Reese. Grow up and stop being such a bitch. You know you want it.”

  I slam the door in his face to make it clear just how much I want him.

  Ace

  In the heat of the next afternoon, I wax my paddleboard before taking it out on the lake. There’s nothing like standing over the surface of the water to make me feel like I don’t have a worry in the world. That I don’t miss my mom or think my dad is going to go on another bender because Neva is fucking her boyfriend at the top of her lungs in the next room. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever have a decent family of my own one day or if I’ll just drag the curse that’s plagued us for so long right into the next one and screw up everyone else’s lives, too.

  My mind wanders back to Reese and those hotter-than-hell kisses. After I dropped her off last night, I hit the shower and released a little pent up frustration, hell, a lot of pent up frustration. I’m not sure why I didn’t take her right then and there. Who the hell opened my brain and dropped morals in while I wasn’t looking? The last thing I want to do is take anything slow with Reese. Never once in my wildest fantasies did I ever take things slow with her. But this isn’t a fantasy, this is real, and if I play my cards right all of my wildest dreams are about to come true. This isn’t some barfly I picked up at Kooks, not some girl from one of my classes that’s ready and willing for a quickie in some deserted supply closet. This is Reese, and I want to make it extra special for her. In two weeks it’s the Fourth of July. That sounds like a good target date to actually doing the deed, but I’m not entirely sure how I’ll keep sane until then.

  “Douchebag.” A voice booms from behind.

  I turn to find Gavin strutting in my direction.

  “Takes one to know one.” I get back to the fine art of waxing down my board, so I don’t slip off like the last time and almost knock myself unconscious. “What’s up? Who was the unlucky girl last night?”

  “Some chick named Charlie. Never did get her last name. And, believe me, she considered herself very, very lucky.” He takes a step in and kicks the wax from my hand. “How about you? You get lucky last night?”

  “Hell, yes. Every moment I spend with Reese feels pretty damn lucky.”

  “Whoa, keep it down, Romeo. Voices carry.” He nods over toward the McCarthy house. “Before I left last night, I saw Warren head up to her room.”

  My chest pinches. I cut a quick glance over to the Westfield estate before smoothing my hand over the board.

  “And? So what. We’re just having a platonic thing, nothing serious. If she wants to be with McCarthy on the side then who am I to stop her?” But according to Reese she doesn’t want to, and I know for a fact she wouldn’t lie to me.

  “Don’t get all bent out of shape.” He cracks open a soda and hands it to me. “He wasn’t up there long. He stumbled downstairs nursing his balls. I had to help him out to the driveway.”

  A spike of adrenaline shoots through me, and a smile breaks loose on my face.

  “She kneed him?” I’m suddenly proud as hell.

  “Something like that.” Gavin glances over my shoulder and nods. I turn in time to catch a glimpse of a pair of long, luscious legs, both attached to the girl I’m losing my sanity over.

  “Morning.” I straighten.

  “Afternoon,” she counters. Reese is wearing a pair of cutoffs and a skimpy red bikini top that ties in the back, and, holy shit, if my hard-on doesn’t want to pop out to greet her.

  “I need to split.” Gavin slaps me on the back. “Catch you later, Reese.”

  “See you.” She never takes her eyes off me. “Whatcha doing?” She leans in seductively, inspecting my paddleboard like it had the potential to play out in one of her fantasies.

  “Have you ever been on one of these?” I try not to dip my gaze to her cleavage like I want to. Why do I feel like the wolf luring an unsuspecting girl into the woods?

  “Never have. You think I can come along for the ride?” Her silver eyes widen. Her hair swoops forward and frames her face. Reese Westfield is a work of art. I’ve never taken pencil to paper, but looking at her perfect curves, her face that could launch an entire fleet of paddleboards—it makes me want to try just about anything.

  “Get on, girl.” I push the board out onto the lake until the water is up to my hips.

  I turn back in time to catch her slipping out of her shorts, and my dick wags like a tail. And to think I almost missed the show.

  Reese gives a satisfied smile as if she were hoping to seduce me all along.

  I might have to bump up the timeline of our conjugal union. That red bathing suit is calling my name in so many fantastic ways.

  “So I just get on?” She wades out and tries to hop on the board but glides right off.

  “Here.” I pick her up by the waist and set her dead center over it. “Lay down toward the nose on your belly, and I’ll paddle us out.”

  Reese lays out flat and maneuvers her way to the front.

  “That’s perfect.” As in perfect view. I stand over her, careful not to get any water on her as I paddle us past the buoys. Normally I would make a giant clockwise circle until I grew bored as shit before heading back, but considering that might put us beneath Warren’s front window in less than three minutes, I take a hard left and head into a forest of reeds. It’s no place for a paddleboard but who cares? As soon as we clear the first round of hedges, I know for a fact no one will be able to see us unless they’re lurking in the marsh, and as far as I can tell, it’s just Reese and me—the way I like it. The way I hope she likes it, too.

  I get down and dangle my legs on either side of the board.

  Crap.

  Reese’s perfect ass is in my face, and it takes everything in me to keep a hard situation from cropping up between my legs. I try to think of all the time we’ve spent on the lake. The times we raced out to Boulder Island, and I let her win—the times she genuinely beat me. It’s hard to believe the way things, are shifting for us this summer. Taking it a step further is going to change things, and I know damn well things will never be the same once we cross that line. It breaks my heart to think this might be it for us—going out in one spectacular fit of glory. I doubt she’ll want much to do with me after the summer. I can’t stand the thought of it, so I push it out of my head for now. If Reese is on board with our special summer, so am I.

  She turns briefly before spinning around.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” She gives one of her signature grins, and my gut pinches. “I thought you were supposed to be paddling us around? You’re my paddle boy for the afternoon, remember?” She thumps her foot over my leg.

  “Your paddle boy is slacking off. I’m too busy enjoying the view.”

  “Funny—that’s exactly what I’m about to do.” She scoots in close, placing her thighs over mine until she’s just about sitting on my lap. A groan works its way up in my throat, but I won’t give it.

  “So what happened last night?” I brush my thumb over her soft cheek, her pillowy lips. “I heard Warren took a hit to the boys. Rumor has it the blow might have been delivered by someone I know.” I had to go there. I’m dying to hear if she broke things off with him for good. I’ve sort of declared the boathouse a Warren-free zone, so I didn’t bother bringing it up last night. Not that I want to discuss their relationship, but a part of me demands to know.

  “Gavin told you.” She shrugs as if she doesn’t really care. “And, yes, the not-so fatal blow was delivered by yours truly.” A twinge of pride glimmers in her eye, but there’s a sadness layered just beneath. “Warren followed me up to my room and tried to ‘tuck me in.’” She looks down and runs her finger through the water.

  “And you kicked him in the nads?” I tweak her ribs, playfully. “Remind me to never attempt to ‘tuck you in.’”

  “No, actually”—her expression dims as she gazes out at the forest just beyond the boulders—“he grew into this monster. Before I knew it, his tongue was down my throat, and his hand flew into my pants. It was a disaster sponsored by malt liquor. Anyway, I kicked his ass all the way out of my room.” She shudders reliving the memory. Her dark hair falls like a sheet, hiding her face from me.

  Fuck. My blood boils faster than I can catch my next breath, and I fight the urge to swim back and kick his ass all the way back to Yeats.

  I pull her in and tighten my arms around her cool waist. “I’m going to kill him.” It comes from me controlled, almost tongue-in-cheek, but it’s the furthest thing from it.

  “Relax.” Reese presses her chest to mine, and the sweet scent of sugar expels from her. “He’s not worth the felony. Besides, I can take care of myself.” She takes up my hand, gliding it over her stomach, all the way to her perfect round tit and keeps it there. Her eyes meet with mine, and the smile slides off her face. “The only person on the planet I want touching me is you.”

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