SEVEN DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE the mail room incident. A whole week without Trent’s hands on my waist, spreading my legs, twisting my hair, claiming my body in ways I hadn’t known were even possible. After that Monday, I’d spent all Tuesday with Camila and Luna. Jordan seemed content with this arrangement, immediately reading between the lines and wanting in on the conspiracy. We girls went shopping for clothes for Luna, and even though Camila cringed at the girl’s tomboy tendencies, I was actually pretty impressed with Luna’s individualism and encouraged her to try on the silver Converse she eyed with a smile or those little black jeans that were ripped at the knees. Trent couldn’t meet us, not even for lunch, because he was in meetings all day out of the office. The thought of waltzing into his office after I came back from my time with Camila and Luna occurred to me, but I dropped the idea, knowing for a fact now that he had cameras around the place. And it wasn’t just that—it was also the guilt. The nagging, awful guilt that told me there should be a separation between when I hung out with his beautiful daughter and when I let him finger me until I reached ecstasy…to when I stole from him, handing my findings to my father.
The week had dragged. Trent hadn’t said a word to me—not even good morning when he passed me in the hallway. He ignored me completely, making it a point to act like I wasn’t there.
Mom hadn’t left her bed more than twice, including over the weekend. I had to cook and bring her meals to her upstairs. We hadn’t had a cook for years because Mom had once accused one of trying to poison her. And from there onward, we’d decided there was no point. Jordan ate out, Mom was usually in bed all day—and barely ate—and I wasn’t a picky eater. I tried to get her to see Dr. Knaus, but she rejected the idea again and again, until I had to call my father and beg him to reason with her. He barked at me that he didn’t have time for her dramatics and that he was on his way to LAX, catching another flight, this time to London.
My car was still in the shop. The mechanic said I needed to replace the cylinder, and when I asked him for the price, I almost fainted. I couldn’t pay it, not that month, so I just asked if he could keep the car until I got my paycheck. All the money Trent had given me had gone to where it was supposed to, after all. And I never took anything from my parents—not their money, not their cars, not their love, mostly because those things were never offered.
On the flip side, my father wasn’t around, so I could come to work at nine a.m. like a sane person, which gave me surfing time again.
I was lying flat with my back on my surfboard, still water around me, watching the sky growing brighter with every passing second. The orange and pink gave way to the white and blue. I was floating, staring, dreaming, the taste of the ocean on my lips. From the day I was born, I knew I had a salty soul. I knew I loved differently. More violently. Everything I’d ever loved. That’s what got me into so much trouble in the first place. The sheer obsession I had with everything I cared about.
“Are you coming out, Gidget? I’ve got beer,” Bane said beside me.
Close, but not close enough to break my spell with nature. I blinked once at the rising sun.
“I’m good,” I said.
The sound of water moving filled my ears before he appeared next to me on his black surfboard. He was straddling it, both feet slung in the water.
“So. You and Rexroth.” There was no particular tone to his voice. He didn’t sound mad or annoyed or even surprised. I refused to look at him, still enjoying the intimate moment with the rising sun.
“How do you know his name?” I murmured.
“How do I know Trent Rexroth’s name? Did you go to your own high school in the last four years before graduating? He was quarterback legend douchebag schmuck, blah blah fucking football captain blah. As soon as I saw his face that Saturday I knew who he was. Do you know what he is?”
I had a feeling Bane wasn’t waiting for my permission to spit it out.
“Old. Fucking ancient, more like. Are you guys bumping uglies?”
A little smile found my lips. “No.”
The half-truth came naturally to me. Like swimming. The thought of telling Bane the full-truth never even occurred to me. We were done, with me having little time for surfing and for him, and with him getting a boat and living the single life, no doubt. We had never been in love. We were barely even in like. We were just…bored. And sexually compatible, I think.
He sighed. “Look, it’s your life, and not only are you old enough to make your choices, you’re also one hell of a strong girl. So let me just leave it at this, and you’ll never hear me saying shit about it ever again—Trent Rexroth is trouble. He will chew you up and spit you out if he needs to. Make sure he doesn’t need to, because the whole town knows him and his friends and there’s a reason why they keep to themselves. No one else is willing to get close enough to burn.”
Bane left shortly after that. I stayed longer, smiling when my mother’s words echoed in my skull. Stop staying outside so much. Your freckles are coming out. Your skin will get old. What man would want to marry a twenty-five-year-old with a forty-five-year-old complexion?
I didn’t want to get married.
I didn’t want to stay away from the sun.
I simply wanted to…be.
When I got out of the water, my surfboard tucked under my armpit, I walked straight to my backpack. Not bothering to change or dry off, my feet still bare and coated with sand, I walked up to the promenade where I was going to take Bane’s car back home for a quick shower and then work. Bane liked to park his 2008 Ford Ranger on a little dune uphill where no one could slap him with a parking ticket for not feeding the meter. I rummaged in my bag for the spare keys he’d given me when a heavy hand found my shoulder. I spun around, wet and frightened, to see who it was, but the person slammed my stomach into Bane’s car and glued their body to mine. Strong, tall, muscular, terrifying. Then his scent crawled into my nostrils, making my thighs quiver.
“I thought we’d agreed on no more Bane,” he hissed into my ear, his hand snaking down my waist and to my inner thigh. The dune was far away from civilization and the need to spread my legs for him was urgent and wild.
“Not that it’s your business, but we aren’t having sex. He is just lending me his ride until mine gets fixed.”
“Fuck no. You’ll be taking my spare car.” He squeezed my inner thigh, licking the salt from my neck.
“No, thank you, Mr. Sugar Daddy. I’ve seen that movie. I watch it every goddamn day. I’m not going to become my mother, and I’m not going to depend on you for rides and money.”
This made him laugh and withdraw his hand from my thigh, spinning me in place. Upon the first gaze at him, my breath got knocked out of my lungs. Not only was he breathtakingly gorgeous, shirtless, and wearing running shorts, but his eyes told me he was going to kill someone if his orders weren’t followed.
His six-pack was the kind of glorious that needed a Times Square billboard to celebrate it.
“Is that what you think this is?” One side of his mouth pulled into half a smirk as he tsked. “Oh, I’m not your boyfriend, sweetheart.”
“Then what are you?” I gulped.
He leaned closer to me, whispering to the crook of my neck, “Your undoing.”
Then, before I knew what was happening, the door to Bane’s back seat popped open and I was thrown onto it, on my back, with him climbing on top of me. He filled the space, leaving no room for anything else but lust and desire and sin. He ground himself against me and I felt his huge erection. I accommodated it by spreading my legs as far as I could in the small space, cupping his ass cheeks and bringing him to me.
I moaned, scraping at his bare, sweaty back as his cock speared my stomach, making me go crazy, slinking and sliding uncomfortably just to get more of his touch. He was dry-fucking me in my ex-boyfriend’s car, and it wasn’t by accident. This was how he operated. He claimed his toy, played with it, and after a while—destroyed it.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, feeling the friction between us heating my skin. My body was begging for the barriers between us to disappear. I needed him inside me.
“Why am I doing what?”
“Why are you making this stupid point in Bane’s car? You clearly followed me here. Have you done this every morning this week?”
“Yes,” he said honestly, rising up on his forearms to pull my bikini bottoms down. He stared at my slit again, like he’d missed it. At my black cross tattoo across my hipbone, rubbing his thumb on it absentmindedly. “But the time wasn’t right. We can’t get caught.”
“I know. We won’t,” I said. We both had too much to lose. Me more than him, but he didn’t have to know that. I loved how Trent made me feel, but I wouldn’t trust him with my hair straightener, let alone my secret. I didn’t want him to have any more leverage on me.
He lifted both my legs to rest against his shoulders and leaned forward, making my hamstrings stretch and my legs spread wide as he moved his tongue from my ass all the way up my folds. I trembled, my eyes widening in shock and pleasure. No one had ever touched that part of me. The backdoor part. And Trent…he hadn’t even asked for permission.
“So fucking sweet,” he growled into my soft skin, sucking on my clit. I whimpered, clutching his head in both my hands and raising my hips to his lips to get more of this heady feeling. “So fucking mine.”
“Sweet? Maybe. Yours? No,” I panted, rubbing myself against his face shamelessly as he took his sweet time sucking my clit leisurely, his fingers brushing against my slit but never really penetrating. He was just playing with my arousal at this point, rubbing it against my entrance like he was building for something more.
“Care to test that theory?” He bit at the flesh of my folds, and my fingers squeezed his temples as I rolled my head back, my eyes shut, feeling drool pooling in my mouth. What the hell was happening?
“Sure,” I managed. Barely.
His wet finger traveled along my pussy and toward my ass, and I instantly clenched there, but didn’t want to be the chicken to pull away before he tried anything. Plus, his mouth devouring me was the best thing to ever happen to my body since surfing.
“Ever tried anal?” he asked. His finger prodded at my hole, drawing lazy circles around it. It felt…funny, but not bad. It tickled and was oddly teasing. I swallowed, shaking my head, my eyes still shut.
“You will by the time I’m done with you. Got your pussy slapped?” His finger pushed into my puckered hole, just an inch, but he plunged into my pussy with his tongue at the same time, making me roar in desire and lust and causing my legs to quiver.
“No,” I admitted.
“Yeah, that’s gonna happen, too. How about ice cubes?”
“Y-yes!” I breathed out, as he thrusted his tongue in and out of me, penetrating me in a way that felt rougher than actual sex. I was drenched, and not from the ocean. I shoved his head deeper between my thighs, not caring about the consequences, and he, in return, pushed his entire finger inside me and curled it upward, his smile against my hot, warm skin making me burn like bonfire. My climax gripped every bone of my body, shaking me in slow, intense waves and making my teeth chatter. Oh my God. Oh, my God. I didn’t know this could feel so powerful. So crazy. I was…full.
“Of course, you tried ice,” he murmured into my pussy, laughing evilly. “I bet that’s why Bane said you weren’t vanilla. You’re not only vanilla, you’re vanilla and gluten-free. Repeat after me: safe, sane, and consensual, Edie.”
The orgasm was slamming into me like whiplash. Again and again. It took me a few moments to realize I was experiencing multiple orgasms for the first time in my life. They were all equally intense, and I was beginning to wonder what it was about Trent that made me feel like I was burning from the inside out. Bane was good in bed. He was great, actually.
But he didn’t set me ablaze only to turn his back on me once the tongues of fire consumed me.
He didn’t ignite in me the need to do and say crazy things.
“Say it,” Trent raised his head, staring at me intently with his livid eyes, his mouth glistening with my juices. My eyes traveled down from his face to his veiny, muscular forearm, his arm disappearing between my legs as his finger was still shoved inside my ass.
“Safe, sane, and consensual, Edie,” I repeated cheekily.
“This,” he said, hovering over me, his lips almost touching mine. All of a sudden, he was close, too close. Close to my face. Close to my body. Close to my heart. His finger slid out of me slowly and teasingly, and a final tremor washed over my relaxed limbs. “This is why I know that you’re mine, Edie. Your body is already mine. Your pussy belongs to me, your ass is halfway there, and the rest…” He smirked, the lust churning in his irises making him look devilishly sinister. “The rest I don’t fucking care about.”
His eyes dropped to my lips, which were sealed, and closed, and not open for business. He may have been great in bed, but he was right. Kissing wasn’t a part of the package. Not because of some Hollywood movie bullshit, but because there was nothing intimate in what we were. In fact, when it came to our hearts and minds, we kept as much distance as we could from one another.
Trent’s mouth parted, and for a minute I thought he was going to say something more. Worse, I thought he was going to kiss me. His plush lips almost touched mine before he got up and slid out of the vehicle, turning his back to me and giving me time to slide my bikini bottoms back on.
Outside, he grabbed the surfboard leaning against the vehicle.
“I’ll take you home.”
“What?” I snort-laughed, catching up with his step. “You can’t be seen with me.”
“I have tinted windows. Plus, your father is out of town. If you don’t strap your board on the roof, we’re good. We need to talk.”
We walked over to his building. He carried my surfboard all the way there, then tucked it into his car, and I had to remind myself that he wasn’t a gentleman. In the car, he had one hand on my bare thigh, squeezing it while his eyes were on the road. I loved being there with him. Everything smelled like him. Clean, expensive with a bite of forbidden. Of something dirty and sexy. Luna’s booster behind us was the only reminder that he was a dad. Everything else about him felt like a reckless single man. A single man who wanted to destroy me.
“So what’s with Luna’s mom?” I probed. It wasn’t even about him. I knew he was very much on the market. I just tried to wrap my head around leaving your kid and never looking back.
“That’s not what I want to talk about.” His voice was steel.
“Tough luck, Rexroth, because you don’t control every aspect of this relationship,” I said, pretending to look out my window at the beach town we lived in when really, all I wanted was to catch him in my peripherals.
“Luna’s mom bailed on our asses when my daughter was a year old. I’ve been looking for her since.” His tone was direct and businesslike. I enjoyed this side of him. The side that gave me something without feeling wounded or annoyed for his ego.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you looking for her? She obviously doesn’t want to be found.”
He shook his head, one hand on the steering wheel, the other still kneading my thigh. It was difficult to concentrate with him touching me. I was barely able to decipher his words while he was simply there, all man, and muscle and cocky attitude, never mind when he was touching me. But I was too turned on to make him stop.
“It’s complicated.”
“Why?” I persisted.
“Because everyone needs a mom.”
“Depends on the mom,” I said vacantly.
“Not really,” he said.
“Trust me on that one.” I chuckled, looking away, this time for real.
After a stretched beat, he began to talk again. “Tell me why you need so much money, Edie. Tell me why your dad makes sure you’re broke. Why you hate money like it wronged you.”
How could I tell him without somehow trying to justify my still living with my parents? I should’ve moved long ago. I didn’t want to live on the streets, and I didn’t know anyone who was crazy enough to piss off Jordan Van Der Zee and allow me to live with them. Well, other than Trent Rexroth. The truth meant admitting that I was completely bent and owned by my father.
“That’s not what I want to talk about,” I echoed his rejection from earlier.
“Tough luck, Van Der Zee, because you don’t control every aspect of our relationship.” A bitter smile found my lips. His hand traveled up between my thighs, now covered by short shorts, and he started rubbing my sensitive spot, making me clench and groan.
“Okay.” I sucked in a shaky breath, still delirious from my previous orgasms this morning. “In short, Jordan has something on me. Something that gives him a lot of power over my life.”
“Is it something you’ve done?” he asked.
I thought about it objectively. “No.”
“Can it be changed?”
“In theory, yes. But in practice, he has too much power to ever lose that kind of legal battle. And besides, I have some stuff going on at home. My mom…” I didn’t know why I was confiding in Trent, but maybe it was because I had no one else to talk to. “She’s suffering from mental health issues. Cutting ties with Jordan would mean cutting ties with her by association. She is too weak. And she needs me.”
“So you’re raising one parent and trying not to get destroyed by another,” he clarified, his tone dry and emotionless. I inwardly winced at the way he put it, but luckily, his hand between my thighs made it a lot less depressing than it really was.
“Accurate.”
He pulled into a gas station and yanked his wallet from the center console.
“I’m getting coffee. Want some?”
I shook my head. “Coconut water would be great, though.”
He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Fucking rich hippie.”
The moment he was gone, his hand no longer on my clit, my mind kicked into overdrive. What was I doing, talking to him about personal things? And what was I doing, getting closer to him when I should be using him?
Dazed and confused, I jerked open the glove compartment that looked almost bionic in the Tesla, knowing I had to bring my father something for next week, anything. The flash drive required more time, but I could still show him I’d done my due diligence.
I yanked an old cell phone—the kind of Nokia people used to play Snake on—and a stack of business cards I didn’t even bother reading. Some of them ought to be useful for Jordan. I shoved the treasures into my backpack, feeling the back of my neck get sweaty as shame overflowed in my gut. I was going to hell for doing this. But I would take a million hells to spend this lifetime with Theo.
Trent came back with one coffee and one bottle of coconut water, handing me my drink. He buckled his seat belt and backed out of his parking space, looking casual and untroubled. I couldn’t look at him the rest of the way, and he must have sensed the shift in the mood because he didn’t touch me anymore.
When he parked in front of my house, he turned to face me. Staring into his eyes felt like playing Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber.
“From this day on, you spend time with Luna and Camila on Tuesdays and your Sundays are mine.”
“What about Luna?”
“She’s a package deal. We’ll spend the day with her, and when it’s her bedtime, it will be ours, too.”
I caught my lower lip between my upper teeth, dragging it slowly as I watched him. I was getting entangled in him. I knew I should stop.
“Okay.” Stupid Edie. Stupid mouth. Stupid lust.
“Today, in the office, I am going to install the Uber app on your phone through my credit card. This will be your mode of transportation until your car gets fixed. No more fucking Bane and no more fucking Bane.”
“No, I…” I started again, but he grabbed my jaw in his hand, tilting my head so our noses almost brushed we were so close.
“Was there a question mark in my sentence? I don’t think so. Save me the bullshit about your mom and dad, Edie. You’re not them. And you’re not driving some unreliable piece of junk. You’ll be taking an Uber. End of story.”
I smiled, knowing he wasn’t going to get his way. Not that day, and not ever. I was no pushover. Not when it wasn’t about Theo. I opened the passenger door, stepping out and leaning against his window, like I had in the reservoir. His Wayfarers were already on.
“Hey, Trent?”
“What?” he nearly growled.
“About Sundays. I get to decide what we do with Luna.”
“Absolutely not. We can’t be seen together, Edie.”
“I’ll make sure we’re discreet.”
“No.”
“Was there a question mark at the end of my sentence?” I played our game again, where we threw each other’s words at one another like boomerangs. “I get to decide what we do.”
He sighed, kicking the car into drive. “Such a fucking headache,” he said.
“Drive safe, sane, and consensual.” I tapped on his car’s roof and walked away. I thought I heard him laughing behind me, but I didn’t turn around to check.
Instead, I closed my eyes and imagined that his voice was a wave.
I rode it all the way to a smile.