— FRANKIE —
17. STAY WITH ME
Pauly left a message on my cell phone letting me know that everything had gone well with the yard sale and that he and Austin had cleaned up afterward, but I was still surprised to see the property looking so clean and clutter-free when I pulled into the driveway. I had a feeling that may have been more due to Austin’s work ethic than Pauly’s. Either way, I was glad that for once I didn’t have to clean up.
I grunted in frustration as I remembered that when I left, ping pong balls were still scattered all over my bedroom floor like a deadly obstacle course. I would have to clean that up before I went to bed.
My feet found the familiar path up the fronts steps to the house as I brainstormed the best method to clean up hundreds of ping pong balls. As I approached the door, I noticed that since replacing the decking on the porch, there was no more creaking and groaning with each step. Although I was happy not to be putting myself at risk just by entering the house, I missed those old familiar sounds—the sounds of home.
When I entered the house, my eyes focused on the boxes in the living room that contained the things that weren’t sold. I lifted the flaps of each and a quick scan informed me it was nothing but random items that would go to donation later this week.
All of the furniture and big items were gone, and I felt a pang of sadness at seeing the first floor look so vacant and empty. I knew the second floor, except for my room, would look much the same.
For the first time since coming home a few weeks ago, reality hit me hard enough to take my breath away. We were so close to selling this house….to giving it up forever…and even though I knew that had been my reason for coming home, it got harder to accept with each passing day.
Giving up the house, in a way, was a lot like watching a loved one slowly fade to the clutches of a terminal illness. At first, there is the sense of deep sadness, of knowing that your time with them is short. Deep down, everyone knows that nothing lasts forever, but then when the expiration date becomes a reality, a fixed date in your mind, there is a constant state of dread intermingled with the hope for a miracle.
I’d watched my mother suffer for months before she eventually succumbed to her illness and in many ways, selling the house gave me a similar sense of heartache. Every change I had made to the house, every item I removed…it was like watching the life drain out of something I loved.
Hot tears burned behind my eyes and I blinked them away because I had no reason to cry. Not tonight. The meeting had gone well, and I needed to tell someone about it. I was so used to dealing with everything on my own—hard decisions, frustration, disappointment. But this time it was good news, and I didn’t want to keep it to myself.
I walked over to the window and pulled aside the sheer curtain that still hung there, limp and forgotten. I searched out Austin’s window and was disappointed that he wasn’t in his room playing his cello. My good mood wavered and then my stomach flipped excitedly when my eyes roamed to the fence because I could see Austin was in his pool, relaxing. I was still surprised that he wasn’t playing music and, selfishly, I wondered if maybe he didn’t want to do it if I wasn’t around to hear it.
No. That couldn’t be it. Austin had played his cello almost every night for four years without me. Why should it be any different now?
Letting the curtain fall back in place, I made up my mind. I wanted to tell someone about my meeting, and Pauly had left hours ago to return to Baltimore. He was probably out with his friends at a bar somewhere. Even if he answered the phone, he likely wouldn’t hear a word I said to him.
The ping pong balls could wait. I needed to talk.
I crossed through the kitchen and slipped out the back of the house, catching the screen door before it could slam against the wood. I opened the gate to let myself into Austin’s yard, but even with the slight creak of the hinges, he didn’t acknowledge my presence. Music was playing over the speakers of his new sound system. It wasn’t loud enough to disturb neighbors, but it was loud enough to mask my approach. When I heard what was playing, I had to smile to myself.
“Californication” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Why was I not surprised?
Austin was stretched out on his raft, his swimsuit slung low across his hips, and his arm flung over his forehead where it covered his eyes. I stood there, transfixed by the sight of all his bare skin. The sudden urge to run my tongue along the grooves of his muscles was so intense, I thought I might have to slap myself to keep from indulging.
“Are you going to stand there gawking all night or are you going to get in?”
I bristled at the amusement in his voice but didn’t stop gawking.
“I’m not wearing a suit,” I admitted. Why hadn’t I thought about changing before coming over? Clearly, my visit wasn’t a well-thought out plan.
Austin pulled his arm away from his face and scanned me from head to toe, analyzing my fitted gray pants and white button-down blouse. I didn’t own much in the way of business attire, but I thought I’d pulled off the semi-professional look rather well. Although truth be told, I probably could have shown up in race gear and been completely fine. The only thing the marketing team of Under Armour seemed to care about was getting my signature on the contract they’d presented me with.
“That never stopped you before,” Austin said, with a lift of his eyebrow.
Damn him. He knew that I never backed down from a challenge and this most certainly was a challenge.
Fine. I was going to prove to both of us that I didn’t always run away.
I unzipped my pants and then peeled them down the length of my legs, careful to hang them over the seat of a lounge chair before unbuttoning my shirt and tossing it down as well. Austin’s gaze turned from challenging to greedy as he looked at my new attire.
I told myself that standing there in my bra and underwear was no different than wearing a swim suit. But it probably didn’t matter what I thought because it was obvious by the way Austin’s eyes caught on the lace and ribbons that he knew he was looking at my lingerie.
Ignoring the fact that Austin was the only man who’d ever seen me this undressed, I donned my confidence, feigned nonchalance, and picked up a float that was sitting on the edge of the pool. I carried it over to the steps, the weight of Austin’s gaze on my back making me ultra-aware of my every move. Once I was knee deep in the pool, I set the raft down on top of the water and then flung myself across it so that I was floating on my stomach. I paddled closer to Austin until we were almost side by side.
He didn’t even try to hide the way he was checking me out. His gaze was like a candle flame, slowly licking across my body, leaving me warm and tingly in its wake. When he finally managed to get his eyes back to my face, he asked, “How did the meeting go?”
My smile was immediate and almost painful as it stretched across my face. “I signed a contract.”
His mouth opened in surprise, and then his logical side took over and his eyes narrowed a bit, just as I expected. “That was quick,” he stated cautiously.
I was spontaneous, and he knew that. I didn’t agonize over decisions too long. Whenever I was faced with a difficult choice, I listened to reason or facts, I gave it a few minutes consideration, and then I went with my gut and made a decision.
My gut wasn’t foolproof. My long-standing situation with Austin was confirmation of that. But I was proud that I could make up my mind quickly, and whatever consequences arose from that decision, I made the best of it. I didn’t always make the perfect choice, but I made the best of every path I’d chosen. And I wasn’t too proud to double back and find another way.
“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” I told Austin in my best impression of the Godfather. “Besides,” my heart swelled with the joy of my news, “I might not have to sell Nana’s house now.”
Austin’s gaze, which had started another wanton trip across my body, snapped up to meet mine again.
“You won’t?” The hope I saw in his eyes made my heart swell even more.
I shook my head. “This endorsement is HUGE,” I said, making a big motion with both hands. “Not only will I be able to pay off all of the debt my brothers and I have accrued for Nana’s care, but there should be plenty left to pay for her therapy in the future.” I tapped the edge of the raft, my excitement almost too much to contain.
And then I realized that I never told Austin about the debt. I’d never admitted to him why we were selling the house. I wasn’t sure why I’d kept that secret. Maybe because I was keeping so many secrets letting even one out just paved the way for the others to sneak past as well. Or maybe it was guilt…guilt that I wasn’t enough to take care of Nana. After all she’d done for us, I was ashamed that we were letting her down. And I hadn’t wanted Austin to know.
He must have seen the realization on my face because he said, “Pauly told me what you did for Nana. How you helped her with the house.”
Dread was quick and fierce as it fell heavy in my stomach, but I knew that even if Pauly had told Austin about Nana and the house, he wouldn’t have told him everything. Pauly had a big mouth, but he was as loyal as the day was long. He never would have told Austin where the money came from, what I’d done to get it, or what I’d done after leaving Vegas.
“That was brave of you,” Austin said, reaching out to thread his fingers between mine. “To help Nana out like that. I can’t imagine how hard you worked to save up the money to buy the house.”
Satisfaction bloomed in me at hearing his compliment even though I knew I didn’t deserve it. No matter how hard I’d worked to buy the house from Nana, the only reason that she even had a house to sell me was because of the blood money Chantel Stone had given me—it had gotten Nana’s house out of foreclosure in the first place.
Whatever pride I had, it would always be stained with shame because I took that money. It didn’t matter that I did something selfless with it, it was given to me as payment to stay away from Austin, and even though the decision to disappear was wholly my own, I’d also done exactly what I’d been paid to do.
I only nodded in response, too embarrassed to accept the compliment.
As if sensing the conversation was heading into heavy territory I didn’t want to discuss, Austin changed the subject. “So what do you have to do to earn all this life-changing money? What does the endorsement entail?”
My mouth curved into a genuine smile. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for free. Wear gear with the Under Armour logo on it, have my bike repainted to reflect their brand, and do some photo shoots for ads. And win.” I shrugged as if it was all in a day’s work. “Oh!” I added excitedly. “They’re also giving me an entire wardrobe of Under Armor clothes to wear when I’m not racing. Not a bad deal.”
“They must know how pathetic your current wardrobe is,” Austin taunted.
My mouth dropped open in shock. It had been so long since he’d teased me so lightheartedly. For a brief moment, it felt like we were the Frankie and Austin that existed before Rising Stars.
I slapped my hand across the surface of the pool, sending a torrent of water all over Austin, drenching him in the process. He shot up to a sitting position and almost tipped his raft over as I motioned like I was going to do it again.
“It wasn’t very nice to joke about my wardrobe, Beethoven.”
His face and chest were covered in droplets of water and the look of shock that he wore quickly morphed into something a little dangerous and a lot naughty. “You want to see not nice?” he asked, leaning toward me.
I thought he was going to splash me, so I stuck my tongue out at him. Before I knew what was happening, he pushed down on the edge of my raft, and I slid off and into the pool before I even had a chance to try to save myself. I went completely underwater in a matter of seconds. With a swift kick of my feet and stroke of my hands, my head broke the surface and I took a big gulp of air, only to find Austin staring down at me laughing.
My heart was pounding from the chill of the water and he looked entirely too happy about my situation. With another strong kick of my feet, I launched my body across his. His laughter broke off in a gasp as my chilly, wet arms wrapped around him and I pulled him into the water like the Kraken dragging a ship under the surface of the sea.
As he slipped off his raft, his arms reached out for me, banding around me like a straitjacket. I didn’t know if he intended to dunk me under again, but I slipped through his grip like an eel, my skin slick and my arms flailing. I turned, and with the desperation of someone thoroughly expecting retaliation, I frantically swam toward the side of the pool.
I could feel the tips of Austin’s fingers nipping at my ankles as he grabbed for me, and I laughed when he failed to get a good hold. I kicked hard and heard him sputtering as my feet splashed water in his face.
It felt like being twelve years old again, dunking and splashing each other like two idiots.
My hand reached out, and I gripped the pool coping, spinning around and slamming my back against it for safety just in time to see Austin’s head break the water barely a foot away. His hands found the edge too, and he was so close, he was nearly pressed against me.
“Are you sure this is a game you want to play?” he asked. Rivulets of water snaked down his face, the droplets tracing the strong planes of his cheekbones before curling over his jaw and slipping down the rest of his body.
If the game was sucking every last drop off water off his body, then yes. I was ready to play.
But I didn’t say that.
“If you think I’m going to let you dunk me under the water again, you’re sorely mistaken. You only got me wet the first time because you don’t play fair,” I accused him.
Austin drew closer, his arms creating a cage that I had no desire to break free from. Leaning his head toward mine, he brought his mouth close to my ear. “I know I can get you wet. I don’t need a wrestling match in the pool to prove it.”
His words were warm against the side of my neck, and even though I knew it was a bad idea, I turned my head so that our breaths were tangled and knotted together, our crumbling will power the only thing between us, and a kiss I knew I desperately wanted.
I arched my back. When my pelvis rubbed against him, one of Austin’s hands left the wall to dip under the water, hook around the back of my knee and pull my leg around his. It only took one firm grind of his body against mine for my arms to leave the safety of the poolside and drape over his shoulders so that I could dig my fingers into his hair and pull him into a kiss.
His lips answered mine without even a hint of hesitation. The groan that came from low in the back of his throat made me feel as if he’d been waiting for this exact moment—the moment our lips met—all day. I could taste alcohol on his tongue, but the kiss was laced with warmth and sunshine and desire. Lazy, summertime lust.
Austin nipped at my lip and then eased the sting with a swipe of his tongue. My heart thundered in my chest like a race horse barreling for the finish line. I turned my head just slightly to break the kiss, but still kept my lips against his.
“You’re not drunk, are you?” I asked.
Austin didn’t seem tipsy at all, but I still remembered that night he’d come into my kitchen, drunk and frustrated, and then kissed me in a way that was full of as much regret as it was lust.
Instead of answering, one of his hands reached for the back of my other knee and pulled until I had my legs wrapped around him and could feel the hard length of him nudging against the thin layer of my panties. He kissed me again as he waded through the water, heading for the steps that led out of the pool.
“Are you drunk?” I asked again.
He bit my bottom lip and then made a hum of satisfaction that rumbled in his chest. “Maybe. But not in the way you mean,” he said evasively. He walked up the steps of the pool, his hands cupped under my ass, pulling me against him. I kept kissing him, moaning into his mouth from the delicious way the hardness of his body rubbed against the softness of mine as he walked. Every step he took jostled me against him and sent a shuddering echo of pleasure through me.
Austin sat down on a lounge chair and my knees fell to the sides of his thighs. He reached up to brush a tangled lump of wet hair over my shoulder.
“I can’t stay away from you,” he confessed, his eyes searching the planes of my face. In his gaze, I could see pain and hope and desire swirling together in a heartbreaking look of vulnerability. “I know you might hurt me, that you could wreck me. Even if you don’t mean to, you have the power to break me.” His eyes darted back and forth between mine, and he ran the backs of his fingers along my jaw.
I hated that I was the one who had hurt him. He was the last person I would ever want to hurt.
“I can’t help but give myself to you and beg you to take me as I am, splintered and already broken.” He wrapped a finger around a chunk of my hair and used it to pull me down until my mouth met his. “Let me be yours,” he murmured against my lips. “Because I want you to be mine. From the moment I saw you next door with your mud-spattered bike and skinned knees, snapping your gum, you belonged to me.”
If only I could have trapped that confession to listen to whenever I wanted. Every word he said was every word I’d ever wanted to hear.
And then he was kissing me, words no longer necessary because I could feel them repeated over and over again with the gentle touch of his fingers and the burning demand of his lips. He thrust up into me, and I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my hips in answer.
“Will you take me as I am?” he begged, barely getting the words out between kisses.
My heart ached. I was the one who should have made that request. I was the one who needed a disclaimer. The truth was, Austin wasn’t the only one willing to break. I knew that I would allow myself to get smashed against the rocks for just one more chance to live in the storm of his love again.
His fingers were tangled in my hair, and he tugged. Gently. Pleadingly.
“Please.” That one word was so full of need and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure which one of us said it, only that it was what we were both feeling.
Austin’s mouth was on mine—taking, demanding, robbing me of logic or reason. Our hands were clutching, fingers digging, bodies writhing, water making our skin glisten under the light of the moon.
“Tell me yes, Frankie,” Austin said, his hands flattening over the swell of my ass to pull me close while his fingers dipped between my legs and stroked me with a needy sense of ownership.
I answered by reaching between us, pulling the tie of his swimsuit shorts loose so that I could push them down, freeing the hard length of him. I looked at his face, my hips hovering over his, and said, “Yes. It’s always been yes for you.”
He didn’t break the gaze between us, didn’t try to kiss me. He merely used his thumb to push away the fabric of my panties so that the head of him slid across my bare skin. I opened my mouth, gasping for breath as his touch sent tremors rolling through me. I rocked my hips back and forth, teasing myself as the tip of him barely slid inside and then out again. And then the firm grip of Austin’s hand was pressing on the side of my hip, and I was lowering.
He entered me with agonizing slowness, just like he’d entered my heart all those years ago. He’d been my friend from day one, but it took me years to realize that he had infiltrated my soul and that my feelings for him weren’t just the safe, platonic affections of a friend, but the unflinchingly all-consuming infatuation of love.
That’s how he took me now. Slow. Deliberate. Completely.
When the backs of my thighs finally met the tops of his, and he was so deep inside me that I felt like we were one…whole…he finally spoke again.
“Don’t leave,” he begged. “Stay with me.”
I reached up to hold his face in my hands, and I said, “I want to stay.”
Then I grabbed the back of the chair, and started moving, my hips pumping up and down over his, the fabric of my panties dragging across my clit with every move I made. Austin’s fingers were between my legs, stroking and pressing. His other arm was tight around my back, holding me like I might fly away if he didn’t keep me close.
I was so happy I thought I just might.
“You feel so good.”
His voice was gravelly. Needy.
“I waited. So long.”
When he wasn’t kissing me, I was dragging my teeth down the column of his throat, loving the way it made him thrust harder. Deeper. Wanting him to beg me to love him again.
“I want…you.”
Our movements were frantic like we were unsure what the future might take from us.
Without warning, Austin flipped me backward so that my head was nearly hanging off the end of the chair. He leaned his elbow on the cushion and reached around to cradle my head in his hand—gently and reverently—as he stared down at me. His eyes locked with mine, his mouth hovering over my lips, but not touching. I was panting and making desperate sounds in the back of my throat, urging him to keep going by arching up into him and grasping at his back, pulling him into me.
He pushed slow and deep, plunging in and out of me with deliberate thrusts of his hips. His free hand tangled in the thin strap of my panties, tugging and twisting like he was trying to hold himself back. That barely constrained control made me clutch him harder and pull him deeper. Urging him to move faster.
I tried to capture his mouth in a kiss, but he answered by slamming his hips into mine with such intensity that it knocked the air out of me and I gasped.
“Stay with me.” It was a command. The way he held on to me felt like he was pleading with me. I wasn’t sure if he meant tonight or forever, but I nodded because I wanted to have both. Everything.
And then his hips started a brutal pace, every thrust making my toes curl in need and my fingers clutch at him. My panties cut into me as Austin tugged harder. He still cradled my head gently, still held my gaze like he was promising to never let go.
When the first jolt of my orgasm shot through me, I took in a deep breath and held it, my legs tightening around Austin’s waist. This seemed to unleash something inside him, and I heard the rip of my panties as his thrusts became the best kind of punishment, one that threatened to dismantle the chair we were on. I knew the moment his orgasm hit him because he pushed deep inside me, and his mouth finally came down on mine, our pleasure colliding in a kiss of half-formed words and mingled moans.
Austin broke the kiss and dropped his head to my shoulder as he went still, but our heartbeats raged on, battling against our chests as if trying to reach one another.
My mind was a flurry of questions and uncertainty, and when I said, “Austin,” in a voice laced with warning, he merely put his fingers over my lips to keep me from talking.
He shifted us on the lounger, turning me until we were on our sides, my back curled into his front. He pulled a towel over us and then his arm wrapped around me in a protective embrace.
“Austin?” I tried again.
“Shhh. I know you have secrets. I know you think they’ll break me, but I’ve been broken already. There will be time to talk about this in the morning. Let tonight be perfect.” He pressed a kiss at the base of my neck, between my shoulder blades. “We’re celebrating your new contract.”
Selfishly, I did as he asked. Maybe we could have this one perfect night.
As I snuggled in against him and started to drift off to sleep, I heard him mumble, “You’re staying,” against my skin.