Chapter Seventeen
Daylight edges the darkness. The sound of waves crashing against the shore is my only companion at 4 a.m. I lie on the couch in the living room. Tara and I have a fierce détente, one that included me saying I wanted to watch some TV downstairs, but ended up with me falling asleep on the couch and never going upstairs to bed.
The shhhh of the back slider opening. I look over the side of the couch. Rachel slipping in with her curls disheveled and her shoes in her hands. She turns toward the window and waves and then turns back toward the couch, which contains me.
“Oh, hey, you’re up,” she says. And stops. That fire engine red that decorates her face when she’s embarrassed arrives on scene. “I uh…”
“No explanation needed. You’re a grown woman and Lily was with her Uncle Jake. It’s all good.”
She smiles. “Why are you down here?” She puts her shoes on the floor next to the door. “Fight?”
“Argument. Plus I fell asleep down here and my sister woke me up sneaking into the house.”
“One thing led to another…”
“You like him?”
Rachel walks to the kitchen and pulls a glass from a cabinet. “He’s a nice guy and I’d go out with him again if he called but I don’t think he will.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not his type.”
“What do you mean, you’re not his type?”
“Well, I’m over twenty, have a graduate degree, a job, and a child. From what I can tell, his type includes being younger than twenty-five, jobless, vapid, and definitely child-free.” She sips her water. “I’m kind of his walk on the wild side.”
“Must be kind of cool to be exotic.”
“Ha, I didn’t think of it quite that way but I’m going with that instead of feeling like a worn out shoe. I’m holding onto the words, ‘collector’s item’.”
“His loss.”
“How’d Lily do?”
“Great. I checked on her a couple of hours ago.”
“And you?”
I wave my hand.
Rachel walks to the couch, lifts my feet, sits, and puts my feet on her lap. “Listen, this is only your second real relationship.”
Which is true. While I’ve slept with a load of women I’ve never been emotionally involved with anyone but Susie.
“I mean, I know that there must’ve been women, but you don’t talk about them and you’ve never brought one around, so I gather this is the first time you’ve felt deeply for a woman since then.”
Rachel takes a deep breath and looks at me. “Plus, and I’m only guessing here, and you do have a therapist who could probably help you with all this, but here’s the thing. After Susie’s betrayal, I can’t imagine that it’s easy for you to be vulnerable with a woman.”
Susie’s betrayal? The words hit me square in the chest. I stare at Rachel, letting her words sink into my brain.
“It’s hard enough to let yourself love someone, but then when the person you love is fucking like a hundred people all while you’re engaged?” Rachel shakes her head. “Plus, Tara has her own baggage, what with what Douchey-pants did to her.”
“Right.” My mind spins. I’m a guy, so I only see things from my angle until someone smarter, more insightful, and almost always female, points out to me the other side of the situation. Face it ladies. The penis-people, we aren’t inclined to see anything but our own side. You always help us see the other person’s point of view because we’re not wired to do it on our own.
“There are things,” I start. I look at Rachel sitting on the far end of the sofa. “Things that have happened that you don’t know about”
I’m edging close to this place that I’ve never gone with Rachel, not just because she’s a judge, but also because she’s my big sis, and as much as I play like her opinion of me and my life and my decisions don’t matter, they do. Her opinion matters a whole lot. “Things that I’ve done, people I’ve been with…”
My gaze remains on hers eyes. I’m trying to read her reaction, to see how much I can tell her without her flipping out.
“We’ve all got shit in our past that we wish had never happened, okay? As long as you haven’t killed anyone, we’re good.”
Then there is silence. Because while I didn’t push Susie off the balcony, her family thinks I killed her. Most people that were Susie’s and my friends think I must’ve done something really horrible for Susie to have jumped off the balcony, so while I didn’t push her, according to them, I’m the cause of her suicide. I’ve bought into it. I don’t tell them the truth, and Rachel doesn’t tell them the truth, and Jane, Susie’s sister, doesn’t tell anyone the truth about Susie’s life and her addiction out of respect for her, and her parents that hate me. So yeah, some people do think of me as a person who caused Susie’s death, which would only make it even worse if the truth about Wonderfuck got out.
I close my mouth. Unloading my alter identity onto Rachel would only be a selfish release for me and I know what selfish gets you. Selfish gets you a dead fiancée. If I told Rachel about Wonderfuck, she’d worry that she should help me or that she was doing something wrong by knowing. I’d put her in a horrible position. If I don’t tell her, then if my identity ever gets out, she can honestly say she had no idea. And I want that for her, more than I want to tell her my secret.
“She’s got her stuff to deal with from her douche-a-lot and then you’ve got your stuff to deal with from Susie, so this isn’t necessarily going to be an easy road for either one of you.”
Then throw in Wonderfuck, and the article and the book, and we’ve got a bumpy-ass ride. But I don’t say that part.
Rachel stands and drops my feet to the floor. “I’m rooting for you two, little brother. I like her. She’s smart and nice.” Rachel’s eyes dance around the living room. “Plus, this would be a kick ass place to have Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
I smile, because her thoughts are nearly identical to mine as far as the Malibu pad.
I stand and toss the blanket I’ve been snuggled beneath onto the couch. I’m being a dick or kind of a dick. I follow Rachel up the stairs and she turns right.
“Goodnight,” she whispers. “Or good morning. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
She enters the bedroom where Lily sleeps and closes the door. I turn left and open the bedroom door.
The giant bed faces the amazing view, and Tara is scrunched on her side with the plush white duvet covering her. I pull off my clothes and slip beneath the blankets. Her body is warm with sleep and I slide up behind her and spoon her.
I’m hard. One hundred percent hard. I put my arm around her and nudge my cock toward her ass.
“Babe,” I whisper in her ear. “Tara, babe.” She turns her head and her ass presses back toward my cock.
“Babe, I’m sorry.” My voice trembles. “I’m sorry, and I do want this to work, and I do believe you.”
My ego is bruised and battered, but Tara’s not the person who caused the wounds or built the walls around them. That came later. She’s the woman loving me in spite of all the pain that is part of who I am.
She rolls toward me and looks into my eyes. “I’m sorry too,” she says.
I press my lips to hers and that tiny little sigh with a moan escapes her lips.
Fuck, yes. I want her.
My hand cups her breast and twirls the taut flesh of her nipple. Her hips rock forward and back, her ass pressing against my cock. I slide my hand down over her belly and to her sex and slip my fingertip to her clit where I press.
“Yes, Jake, oh yes.” Her hips press back toward me and I circle her clit with my fingertip. The pressure of her ass against my cock intensifies.
My lips press to the back of Tara’s neck. Heat sizzles through my body. I press my leg between her thighs and lift her thigh. I scoot down and nudge the head of my cock to her sex. I press her legs open and slip forward into her. Fuck, I want her. I want her with an unqualified intensity. I press the head of my cock into her sex.
“All I want is you. All I’ll ever want is you.” I press upward and she gasps. The moan crosses her lips again.
She turns to me as we rock together, forward and back. I kiss the edge of her mouth and continue to circle her clit. I stroke in and out of her and her body tightens around me. Our desire is so hot it won’t be long. She whispers my name and I’m gone. The sun brightens the room and the light bathes us both as we fall over the edge into our orgasm together.