1 a.m., 23 Hours…
August
I wiggled my hips in my jeans, but my briefs were still on. They hadn’t magically disappeared. “Explain yourself, Possum.”
“Nothing. Forget I said it.” Gwen dashed at her drying tears.
“Forget you said that you stole my underwear? On what planet would that happen?”
“Uranus.”
I barked out a laugh. One minute ago, my lungs had ceased to function. I’d been a second from telling Gwen I had a letter from her mother, proof the woman had cared about her and wanted to see her happy, which would have led to her father’s name, and that I’d lied by omission, and had been letting her chase a ghost.
Now I was laughing. “As nice as I’m sure Uranus is, we’re on Earth. And on Earth women don’t get away with saying things like ‘I stole your underwear’ without—”
I stopped midsentence, a sudden flash of my lucky boxers, the black ones with the green four-leaf clovers, stripping my voice. The ones I’d worn to every soccer match. The ones that had mysteriously disappeared my senior year. “You stole my lucky underwear.”
“No I didn’t. You heard me wrong. I said I stole your honey bear.”
“My honey bear?”
“The one your mom kept in the kitchen. The jar thingy with the weird fake apron, where you put your keys and stuff.”
“My keys and stuff?”
“The honey bear!”
I flipped us, straddling her waist from above. The flashlight beamed across her panicked face. She was so not getting away with this. “You have five seconds before I tickle the shit out of you.”
“You want me to shit on you? I’m into experimenting, August, but defecation doesn’t do it for me.”
I full on snorted that time. It was still her funeral.
“Fivefourthreetwoone.” I dug in, tickling her ribs mercilessly while she screeched and flailed and tried to toss me off her. She didn’t deserve the full five-second countdown. Not if she’d stolen my treasured boxers. She was also unbelievably strong. Her toned arms and legs strained against me. My cock strained against my jeans.
Goddamn, did she have a killer body.
I was a second from losing my grip on her, when she cried, “Beetlejuice!”
Our safe word. Dammit.
Keeping her locked between my thighs, I released her ribs. We both panted. The panting made me horny(er). I circled her upper arms in a vise-like grip. “What did you do with them?”
She slackened, her limbs turning to noodles. “We hadn’t spoken in months, because I’d ghosted on you, and I kind of, maybe, one day snuck into your room and might have smelled your shirts and lay on your bed.”
That was one hell of a visual. Gwen Hamilton in my childhood bed, tangled in my sheets. “You’re worried about me being into kinky defecation sex, and you’re an admitted boxer sniffer? I might need to rethink things between us.”
“Your shirts, dummy. I said I smelled your shirts. The boxers were a spontaneous moment of criminal masterminding. I hid them in my underwear drawer.”
“So our undies could mingle?”
“Something like that.”
“Oh, baby,” I cooed, enjoying her torment. “That’s so sweet.”
She mumbled something under her breath and kicked her feet like a petulant child. “I am now sufficiently embarrassed. You can let me up.”
Except I had her right where I wanted her, under the night sky, tears no longer streaking her face. I hated seeing her cry, but being here for her, to hold her—it meant the world. Being with her while she uncovered her mother’s history was important.
When the time was right, I’d tell Gwen about her mother’s letter, after we’d followed more clues. Without a last name, she’d never actually find her father. There was no way for her to know I’d visited his house. Not now, at least. Down the road, when we had more time, once she’d discovered all she could about Mary Hamilton, I’d tell her the truth. Giving Gwen these hours with her mother’s memory meant more.
I also knew how to keep her happy.
A thin strip of light cut across the sleek plane of her stomach. Her bra did phenomenal things for her breasts, but they’d look so much better bare and in my mouth. “There’s punishment for being a pervy boxer stealer, Gwen.”
Gwen
August was on me in seconds, his lips working their magic. My embarrassment fled. My sanity fled. My clothes needed to flee.
I pressed my fingers into the knobs of his spine. His muscles shifted, strong and coiled with each purposeful movement. He nudged my knees as we kissed, anchoring himself between my thighs. Right there. He rolled his hips and I rocked into him, my whole body clenching. We were at it again, dry-fucking like kids, this time at a stereotypical lookout.
He wrenched his lips away. “I had no idea you were so kinky.”
“There’s lots you don’t know about me.”
“I plan to learn it all.”
The comment skimmed close to future talk, but a twig or something scratched at my back, the line of his cock pressing exactly where I ached. I couldn’t do anything but feel. “Can we do this learning while fucking?”
“That can be arranged.” Another thrust of his hips, and desire snapped through me.
I dragged my hands over the grooves of his back, circled his biceps, traced his collarbones, slipped my fingers into the dip at the base of his neck. “We should stop. Anyone could come up here.”
He lowered his chest to mine, slowly, inch by inch. Warm skin. Firm muscle. He cradled my head in his hand, protecting me from the hard ground below. “You said yourself it was dark and empty. And I thought you craved adrenaline?”
“Is that what this is?”
“Oh, Possum. This is way more than adrenaline.”
He was sneaky, hinting at the truth behind my bravado. He wasn’t wrong. This was August and me, half-naked on a dark hilltop, enough history between us to fill an encyclopedia.
Instead of fighting the depths of my emotions or making a joke, I stared at him through the cover of night, wondering if he could see the extent of my feelings. They burned so bright I was surprised a blast of light didn’t blind us.
“Now. I want you now.” I didn’t recognize the desperation in my voice.
A masculine sound pushed from the back of his throat, and his lips bruised mine—a hard, hot kiss that gripped the tips of my curled toes. His tongue delved into my mouth, seeking mine, sliding roughly. Our bodies writhed, hands and lips and teeth everywhere.
Need became hunger; hunger became a frenzy. I didn’t care where we were or worry about who could stumble upon us. The darkness gave me a sense of security as he stripped off my jeans. It allowed me to pretend we were in another time and place where airplanes didn’t separate lovers. Where clocks could be silenced.
For tonight, we were limitless.
Removing his jeans took too long and only reached his knees again. I’d never had sex like this, the pushing, pulling, grunting kind where the need to join was such sweet agony. We were insane for each other. He rotated me on top of him, anchored my hips as he pushed into me from below. Again, there was no time for foreplay. No time to explore the landscape of his body, every valley, plain, and ridge I’d been denied. Too many years had been stolen from us.
Urgency colored his gravelly voice. “I’m gonna come in you, Gwen. So fucking hard. You’re mine. You’re so fucking mine.”
The permanence of him in my body was undeniable, a deep imprint every time our hips slapped. The sense of belonging was overwhelming, like every hardship could be overcome as long as I had August with me, telling me I was his.
How would that work when he was oceans away?
I banished that uncertainty to the darkness around us, focused on our limitless cocoon. I rode my man, my bra still on, the night air caressing my skin, wringing every drop of pleasure I could. Soaring. Falling. Flying. Divine thickness, hard inside me.
There was no adrenaline rush better than making love to August Cruz.
I planted my palms on his chest. “I’ll need new kneecaps by the time we’re done.”
“I’ll kiss them better,” he grunted.
I ground against him, delicious circles that rubbed me just right. “Your cock is fucking fantastic.”
“Being inside you is a fucking dream.”
“We say fuck a lot when we fuck.”
“Because it’s so fucking good.”
Good was an understatement. We were transcendental. I wanted to learn his body, each lick and bite that earned me a growl. Each shift of my hips that made him swear. Yet he was leaving me. Stop, I ordered my mind. Stop freaking out. I worked my body harder, held on tighter, my nails tasting his flesh as the edges of my orgasm bloomed.
“I’m close, Gwen. So damn close. I want you to come all over my dick.”
His dirty words enflamed my desire as he filled me, his length dragging against me in exquisite torture. I’d normally touch myself to go the last mile, to chase, chase, chase the burning ball at the end of this ride. But there was no pursuing this release.
It yanked me under, a sharp tug that splintered through me. I clenched and called his name. More fucks fell from my lips. The stars fell around me.
August dug his thumbs into my hips, holding me slightly higher, thrusting up into me in hard, fast strokes. His mouth was open, his eyes black in the darkness. “Fuck, Gwen. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, fuck.”
He jerked and shuddered, one last drive impaling me to the point of pain, but the best kind. The thoroughly used kind. The kind that eased into bliss as I sank on top of him.
“That was five fucks. For a man who writes songs, your verbiage seems limited.”
He held me to him, his length still nestled deep. Breathing hard, he pressed my face into his neck and kissed the top of my head. “Making love to you could rebuild worlds. It could part oceans. Drop the stars from the sky. Making love to you is my reason why.”
This man was a triple threat. “That was cheesy”—I kissed his neck, his jaw, his lips—“and I loved it.” I love you, I wanted to say. There was no denying it. It had always been August for me. It also didn’t change what tomorrow would bring.
I tried to reel my emotions back in, but it was like rewinding a ball of yarn, the shape never quite right again, always threatening to unravel. I also couldn’t ignore what I’d just experienced. “I want to stay like this all night,” I said, taming my freakout.
He clamped his hands on my ass, keeping himself seated inside me. “Might be weird when people show up in the morning.”
“It could be great for your career. No such thing as bad publicity, right?”
“Considering the rumors that likely got started today, I’m hoping the answer to that is yes. But”—he rocked me against his pelvis—“I’m still dying to get you on a proper bed and take my time with you. I haven’t tasted you yet. I need that like I need to breathe.”
Whoa, boy. I wouldn’t take much convincing, but I didn’t want to leave yet. We’d had sex where my mother and father had made love. Where I might have been conceived. I wasn’t ready to walk away from my bone-deep connection here. The first place I’d grieved for my mother. “Can we look at the stars for a while first? I’d like to read a bit more of the journal, too.”
He ran his nose through my hair, stealing a scent with each pass. “Anything, Possum.”
We got dressed, the two of us ridiculous in our condiment-streaked clothing. We lay on the ground, diary and flashlight in hand, reading my mother’s heart.
She’d loved her man. She’d hated her parents. It sounded all too familiar. She mentioned a vacation with her guy, a sneaky trip camouflaged to her parents as a church excursion. Hozier’s “Take Me to Church” came to mind, and a whole lot of “taking.” It could have been where her luggage had gone missing, but it wasn’t the final entry and didn’t explain the eleven-year gap between being packed and riding a Greyhound.
A few lines about trust also gave me pause. I didn’t think I would trust anyone after Marcus. I didn’t think I would ever date again. But Ted is a man, not a boy. He is different. He wouldn’t hurt me like that. He better not hurt me.
Wariness bled through her words. Distrust. After August read the passage, I relayed Uncle Rex’s comment to him, how some girl had come looking for Ted or Tom. “If my mother had been betrayed by this Marcus guy before, she’d be wary of it again. It would hurt worse a second time.”
“It likely would.”
“Right, but…if this new guy got her pregnant, and she later found out he was seeing someone, don’t you think she’d flip?”
August paused, but didn’t offer much insight. “That kind of betrayal would cut deep, for sure.”
His lack of rebuttal annoyed me. As teens, we’d pick apart clues, him more than me, always analyzing, figuring, solving. I wanted to do the same now. He seemed distracted. With all we had on our plate, I couldn’t hold it against him. But my mind whirred, questions and possibilities spinning.
I wasn’t sure a cheating boyfriend was enough to embitter my mother, unplanned pregnancy or not. Flat out refusing to share my father’s identity seemed too extreme, but she’d been a kid with no parental assistance. It was possible.
Without August’s analytical mind to bounce ideas with, I read on. Her tone resumed its previous swooniness, especially when mentioning a bench they’d visited at Fisherman’s Wharf. “We should go tomorrow,” I told August. “After I meet the girls at the gym.”
The bench in question had supposedly been inscribed with my mother’s name, a rebellious scratching into wood she’d done instead of doodling in a notebook margin. The kind where you wrote your boyfriend’s last name as your own.
Possibly my father’s last name.
If she had, it was the key to finding him. With that clue, I could narrow the possibilities and visit each man. I didn’t mention the last-name detail to August. He didn’t seem keen to obsess over this as much as me, and it felt too fragile: a wish only possible if kept private. I also needed to talk with Ainsley and Rachel about this insane night. Specifically how I wanted to handcuff myself to August and never let him out of my sight.
“I’ll take the guys up on their run offer,” August said. “We’ll hook up after.”
I snuggled in closer. “That means we’ll be apart for a bit.”
One arm latched around me, he dragged his boot heel over the loose dirt. “I’ll miss you.”
Raw, simple honesty.
He deserved the same in return. “I’ll miss you, too.” And it would only be a few hours. Not days or weeks or months.
A shiver ran through me.
He rubbed his hand down my arm. “You cold?”
I wished it were the cold. I rested the journal on my belly, needing to talk and drown the shouty voices in my head. “What’s your favorite part about touring?”
He played with my hair. “Singing. Unleashing everything into song.”
“And the worst?”
“It’s lonely.”
I ached at his desolate tone. I’d always imagined him surrounded by people, busy and smiling. I’d assumed his life was fuller and happier than mine, like when we’d been kids. The greener grass that was more AstroTurf than natural growth. “Aren’t you close with your band?”
“They’re good guys, but we don’t stick together. I’ve used studio musicians for different stretches of the tour. People come and go, and outside the music scene, no one really knows me. It’s not all bad. The solitude is great for writing. The venues I play are usually full, packed with music fans there to listen. I get paid doing what I love.”
It was one thing watching him play that hate-love song tonight. The possibility of watching him in concert, entertaining a smoky European club, had me itching to hop on a flight with him. To be his person who filled his lonely moments. Such a tempting idea. “Do you always play ‘Girl with the Black Heart’?”
A light laugh moved through his chest. “People go nuts over that song, but I’ll play the newer version now.”
“People are sick and twisted,” I grumbled.
“Maybe I’ll write a new song. Something cheesy. Just for you.”
“You know I like my music loud and screamy.”
He pinched my shoulder. “You also like to take the long route when we could have driven here faster, if you’d listened to me.”
I pinched him back. Because he was wrong. We kept joking, sharing. He talked about the roads in Europe and how wild the driving there was. We’d for sure murder each other navigating that madness. He confessed he missed his parents, who’d moved to Chicago for his father’s consulting work. His sister, Melody, was a high school music teacher there, all three Cruz kids drawn to the music industry in one way or another.
I explained the intricacies of my job, then he peppered me with questions about surfing and mountain biking and jumping from planes. I barely got one answer out before he shot out another. The night drew on, my eyes grew heavy. He hummed a soft tune.
I hadn’t planned to fall asleep here, but my languid limbs wouldn’t move. He hummed some more, I pressed closer. All I’d learned about my mother and her boyfriend—my father, my gut told me—looped through my mind, puzzle pieces jumbling together. He’d watched her dance, had taken her to clubs and for fast-food dinners. He’d lain with her below the stars and had treated her with respect when taking her virginity. He’d loved her. I was sure of it.
Would he really have cheated on her? Unless it had been the reverse. She could have been the other woman, an escape for him, true love he didn’t have in another relationship. The possibility wouldn’t excuse the deceit. Or maybe the girl who’d searched him out at the Blue-Eyed Raven had been a friend or coworker, a close relative.
The only clarity was August’s steadiness below me, and that this journal could lead me to my father and the answers I craved. In the light of day. Before my birthday was over. Exactly as I’d wished. No other outcome was acceptable. Not when August was leaving and the only thing that could save me from that impending heartache was finding my dad.