Chapter Seventeen
Cash
I was naked in the pool with my back to Katie, but I was no saint. I wanted to turn around so bad I was shaking. I wanted to touch her skin. I wanted to feel her wrapped around me. More than anything though, I wanted her to feel safe. So I kept facing the pasture, looking at the moon.
“I’m not going to lie to you, the water feels even better when you’re not wearing any clothes.”
I swallowed past the giant lump in my throat and clenched my fists. “It’s official, you can mark this off your list.” Part of me wanted to rush her out of the pool, get her dressed and take her home. I knew I’d be able to walk her to the door and kiss her goodnight. And in that moment, I really fucking wanted to kiss her.
“Well, really, this is more than one first for me.” Her voice sounded like she was moving closer to me. In equal parts, I wanted her to, and didn’t. “I’ve never been naked with a guy before either.” Yeah, she needed to stay on her side of the pool. My dick was rock hard.
“Katie, I, uh—”
“It’s okay.” She was right behind me now. I could almost feel the heat from her body. “The water is really dark. You can turn around.”
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to gather some composure. She was floating in the water, only her head and neck visible. I sank down further, covering more of my body as well. “I wanted to make sure you were comfortable, that you felt safe.”
She moved toward me. “I do.” She reached her hand out and gripped my neck. “Thank you.” She kissed the corner of my mouth, like I’d done with her. Then she whispered, “Touch me.”
And my brain exploded and I floated lifeless in the pool.
Just kidding. I did what she told me told me to do; I touched her. I ran my fingers across her collarbone, down her arms, and over her hips. I gripped her ass under the cool water and picked her up, kissing her as I moved us through the pool. I sat down on a step, keeping her in my lap. “Tell me what you want, baby.” I’d give her anything she asked for.
“Don’t stop.” She wrapped herself around me tighter, craving the friction she’d learned she loved in the dugout earlier today.
I pushed her hair back out of her face, my teeth grazing her jaw. “I won’t, not until you tell me to.”
I kissed her neck, her breasts, and when I took a nipple in my mouth, she let her head fall back. Her little moans and whimpers were making me impossibly hard. But tonight wasn’t about me. None of this had been about me. I wanted to take care of Katie. I wanted to give her exactly what she needed—if she’d let me. One of my hands trailed down between us, while I kept the other one on her jaw. I covered her pussy with my palm, adding pressure to her clit with the heel of my hand.
She rested her forehead against mine, her arm tightening around my neck. “Keep going.”
When Katie was unsure, she made her statements sound like questions. But tonight, every statement came out like a demand, and I fucking loved it. I slid a finger inside her tight center, keeping the heel of my hand where it was. “Move for me, do what feels good.” I could probably make her come in about three minutes, but I wanted every experience we had to be different. Because Katie was different, she was special, and I wanted to treat her that way.
Her head dropped to my shoulder, her breath coming out in little pants against my chest. I moved us up a step a little further out of the water, so she didn’t have to fight the waves so much. “Cash…I…”
I knew she was getting close—her movements were no longer hesitant and slow. “Just let it all go.” I kissed the swell of her breast, letting my teeth graze her flesh. “Be wild for me, baby.” I took her nipple in my mouth and her head dropped back as she bucked against my hand. Calling my name as she came.
***
“Was that on the list?”
I lifted Katie into the window of her bedroom then crawled in after.
“It was on this list.” I tapped the side of my head, smirking. It was after midnight, and the parents should be home soon. Katie and I had walked back from the pool house, holding hands and talking about nothing.
“Do you, um, want to stay and hang out or something?” She was standing in the middle of Halen’s room, her arms at her side and a nervous smile on her pretty face.
I stepped up to her, cupping her still flushed cheeks. “I would love nothing more than to stay here with you until the sun came up.” Which is what I would do if it was any other night. “But, even our parents check up on us when they get home at one a.m.” I kissed her sweetly. “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow though.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I kissed her again, this time not so sweet. I backed her up until her knees hit the bed and she fell onto the mattress. Then I hovered over her, grinning. “Goodnight, Katie Baby.”
“Good night.”
I really didn’t want to leave. Like, not at all. I sighed with displeasure, and then climbed back out the window…and immediately landed on my twin.
“Ow, Cash, what the fuck?”
I got to my feet, brushing the dirt off my still damp swim trucks. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, looking from me to the window I’d exited, a smirk on his face. “Have you two been here the whole time? Or are you just now bringing her home?”
I started in the direction of our house. “We stayed and cleaned up the mess at the pool house, since most of you assholes left.” I threw a scowl over my shoulder, but when I faced forward again I couldn’t help but smile. The memory of tonight in the pool with Katie would stay with me till I was old and grey.
“For three hours?” He was beside me now.
So I reached out and punched his arm. “Stop fishing. I ain’t biting.”
He held his hands up. “All right, all right. I’ll quit.” He bumped his shoulder into mine. “I like Katie, man, I think you two are good together.” When I glanced at him out of the side of my eye, he shrugged. “I like seeing you happy, okay? I know I basically ruined the last year and a half of your life. And even though I joke about it, I feel really fucking guilty. I hate what I asked you to do for Avory and me. If I could go back in time…” He sighed. “I don’t know, looking back now, maybe I should have come clean with the ‘rents from the beginning.”
“It’s not too late, you know? To tell the parents.” I kicked a rock on the ground. “You’re headed to UT in the fall, and Avory is almost eighteen. We’d all cover for you, say that it just started.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He sounded hesitant, and I guess in a way that was understandable. He and Avory had been living a lie for so long, the truth probably terrified them at this point.
I wanted to say more, but in the distance I saw headlights. “Shit.” I’d been sure we had another hour or so, but it looked like we were out of time. “Our house is first, and they always check on us when they get home late.” I started walking faster. “What’s our story? We were with the girls, making sure they were okay? We were afraid we left the oven on at the pool house?” We were both power walking like old people at the mall by that point.
“Nah. Let’s just beat them home.” He shoved me to the side, then took off in a full sprint. I followed suit, although after I caught up to him we were laughing too hard to really do our best. He jumped the fence into the backyard and raced up the back steps. I threw opened the door and then Crue slammed it shut. We rounded the corner, and I leapt over the loveseat in the living room. We ran down the hall and into our separate rooms.
I heard the front door open as I kicked off my shoes, wincing when one hit one of my trophies. I jumped into bed, damp trunks and all. I turned on my side, facing the window so when they opened my door to check they wouldn’t notice how hard I was breathing. Or that I was seconds away from laughing out loud.
It’d been a really long time since Crue and I had been like that, since we’d acted our age, I guess. We ran through those fields like we did when we were kids, and it’d felt good.
About thirty seconds later, my door opened, my room flooding with soft light from the hallway. My dad whispered, “Good night, son, I love you.”
And I was no longer smiling.
Emotion clogged in my throat, and I suddenly felt like I could cry. We all gave him such a hard time, kept him in the dark and lied to his face.
When we were little, he was our hero. Now, mostly, we treated him like nothing more than a fixture in our house. A secondary character.
Beau was right, as much as it pained me to say it. “Us against the world” should never have come to this.
My parents loved me; they trusted me.
I closed my eyes and made a vow to start being a kid worthy of them.