CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

Before Cami left with Dalton she grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me into the bedroom we’d shared for most of our lives. 

“Explain,” she demanded, crossing her arms and blocking the door. 

“Huh?” 

My sister rolled her eyes.  “Don’t forget who you’re talking to.  We shared a womb.  I know everything about you.” 

I rolled my eyes right back and sat on my bed.  “Then by all means, proceed with the interrogation, Madame Reporter.” 

Cami sat beside me and searched my face.  “You never mentioned you were into him.” 

I was a bad liar. “Who?” 

She smirked.   “The Bad Boy from Emblem, Arizona.  Hell, I thought you might jump on him right there in the backyard.” 

“That’s crazy.  You’re crazy.” 

“No I’m not.” 

I couldn’t keep up the façade under Cami’s scrutiny.  “Nothing has happened,” I said.  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Does Curtis know that?  He’s good at playing it cool but I bet he jacks off while thinking about you every night.” 

“Camille!” I squeaked, glancing at the closed door.  “He sleeps on the couch every night.” 

“Oh yeah.”  She made a face.  “Remind me not to sit there again anytime soon.” 

“He’s not jacking off on our damn couch every night.  He wouldn’t do that.  This is a stupid conversation.” 

Cami studied me.  “You hardly know him, Cass.” 

“And you do?” 

“No.  From what Mom and Dad say, he’s a decent guy.  But he’s also got a past.” My sister sighed and hugged my pillow to her chest.  “Never mind, I’m just feeling protective.  It’s just that you deserve a prince, Cassidy.” 

I was touched in spite of my irritation.  “Princes are tough to come by,” I reminded her. 

She smiled.  “I found one.” 

“I know.” 

“You will too.” 

I wasn’t sure about that.  “Maybe someday.” 

She hugged me.  “Just don’t accept anything less.”

Our mother knocked on the door and asked Cami if she and Dalton would like to take home any of the leftover grilled hamburgers. 

“Ooh, hard pass,” Cami whispered.  Then she said out loud, “No thanks, Mom.  You guys keep them.  Enjoy.”  Then she grew serious as she rose from the bed.  “Remember, Cass.  Nothing less.” 

“See you soon, Cams,” I said, giving my sister’s hand one final squeeze before I followed her out of the room.  This bedroom had been the scene of ten thousand dreams and whispers between two little girls who were born being the best of friends.  Sometimes Cadence would hang out in here too but she’d always possessed a streak of independence a mile wide.  She never seemed to need us the way Cami and I needed each other. 

About two minutes after Cami and Dalton left my mother had the impulsive idea to go out for frozen yogurt. 

“Come with us,” she urged, pulling on my arm in the kitchen.  “It’ll be fun.”   

I didn’t want to go.  I wanted to stay home and brood over the things Cami had said about Curtis.  He wasn’t around, having gone to the store to get some groceries or something.  Even though my folks kept insisting he didn’t need to restock the cupboards he was stubborn about it. 

“I think I’m going to stay here,” I told my mother. 

“Do me a favor and let the dog out,” my dad said.  “He peed on the floor a little while ago.” 

“Poor Angus.  He’s getting old.” 

My dad touched the area near his temples where the hair was beginning to turn gray.  “He’s not the only one.” 

“Well, I hope you don’t start pissing on the floor.  I don’t think I can handle that.” 

“I think I’m at least a few years away from that possibility,” my father said.  “You want us to bring you back anything?” 

“No thanks.  It would just melt in this heat by the time you got home anyway.” 

“Okay.  See you in a little while.” 

Once everyone was gone Angus the Dog padded into the kitchen, panting the whole time, and stopped to look at his water bowl expectantly.  I refilled it and patted him on the head while he drank.  His tail moved slowly from side to side and I had a melancholy flashback to Angus as a puppy, this relentlessly wiggling, black shaggy creature with infinite energy. 

While petting Angus I noticed that there was a ketchup stain the size of a quarter on my shirt, courtesy of the burnt hamburger dinner.  I dashed to my room for a quick change of clothes while Angus was lapping up his water.  I planned to slip into my usual pajamas of loose shorts and a shapeless t-shirt but then I remembered a nightie that was hanging at the back of my closet.  It wasn’t all sex and laciness but instead made of comfortable cotton and fell to my knees.  Still, it hugged my body in all the right places and even though I wished it were a color other than a tame, virginal white, I knew I looked good in it. 

And who are you trying to look good for, Cassidy? 

I told myself it didn’t matter either way.  He wasn’t even here right now and I was already yawning enough to justify an early bedtime.  He probably wouldn’t be back by the time I shut my door for the night. 

Angus was already waiting at the backdoor and whimpering to be let out.  The second I slid the sliding glass doors open he galloped into the darkness.  The back patio lights were off and I decided not to turn them back on.  Instead I stepped outside into the stillness of a desert summer night punctuated by the music of crickets and alight with stars.  The stars weren’t as bright here in the middle of a major metropolitan area.  They would be brighter and far more numerous away from the city lights, down in Emblem.  At least I thought they would.  I’d never been to Emblem at night.  My father would be able to tell me whether the stars were brighter there.  So would Curtis. 

“Where did everyone go?”  Curtis’s voice startled me.  I hadn’t heard the sliding glass doors open but suddenly there he was beside me in the backyard. Angus trotted over to him, licked his outstretched hand and then returned to the darkest corner of the yard. 

I cleared my throat, ignoring the way my pulse began to race.  There was something intimate and a little dangerous about being out here alone with Curtis in the darkness. 

“Cami and Dalton left.  My parents took Brecken out for some frozen yogurt.”  A piece of hair fell in my face. Earlier I’d tied it all back in a knot because I was hot but now I pulled it free and let it cascade past my shoulders.  There wasn’t much light since I hadn’t turned on the patio lights.  I could hardly see Curtis.  I assumed he could hardly see me.  But I sensed the way his eyes raked me over so he must have seen enough.  He was close now, close enough for me to smell the musky scent of his aftershave and hear the way his breathing quickened. A primitive feeling of sexual power brought a smile to my lips.  Let him stand there and stare and lust.  I was still a little irritated with him for implying earlier that I had everything so easy. 

“A girl like you…”

 That was what he’d called me.  As if I couldn’t possibly have known a moment of hurt in all my pretty, privileged life.  I knew hurt.  I was far more intimate with the feeling than I’d like to be. 

“I made you mad today,” he said.  “Didn’t I?” 

I wasn’t in the mood to flirt and deny it.  “Yes. You did.” 

He sighed and raked a hand through his hair.  “I didn’t mean to.  I have a bad habit of saying all the wrong things to you, Cassidy.” 

I pivoted to face him.  “You’ve never called me that before.”

“What?”

“Cassidy.” 

He shrugged.  “That’s your full name, isn’t it?”

“Yes.  Usually no one but my family ever uses it though.”  I scanned the sky above.  “There’s no moon tonight.  My Uncle Chase can point out every constellation and every star.  I never learned.” 

He was now looking up too.  “Neither did I.” 

“Curtis?” 

“Yeah?”

I took a deep breath.  Something would happen here and now.  I wanted it to happen.  “I like that you called me by my full name,” I said softly.       

His voice was gruff, almost pained.  “You’re too fucking beautiful.” 

It started because I touched his hand.  Just gently, tentatively, in the darkness.

Curtis sucked in a sharp breath and took a bolder step, circling both hands around my waist and turning me around so that my back was against his chest.  He was all muscles and primitive male power.  My body responded instantly, my breasts tingling, my breathing accelerating.  But nothing could match the excruciating ache between my legs as his hands gripped my hips and then moved across my belly. 

I moaned a little and pressed into him, wanting more, ready to beg for it.  I hadn’t let anyone get this close to me in so long.  Now I wondered how I’d managed to make do with only battery operated relief all this time.  I wanted everything and I wanted it right now. 

He knew.  His hands traveled up to my breasts and I heard him groan a fevered curse when he realized I wasn’t wearing a bra.  I pressed against him as he kneaded my breasts.  He pushed himself against my back it and I felt him, what he needed.  He could have it.  The clothes we wore were such a nuisance.  They were in our way and I wanted them gone.  I wanted him to carry me to my room and do everything I’d been fantasizing about. 

I gasped when he abruptly reached low, cupping between my legs. I didn’t have time to think about the fact that we were in the backyard or that my parents would be home soon.  There was only the rough bristle of his jaw against my cheek and the fact that the straps of my nightie had already fallen when I reached my arms up and hooked them around his neck so I could arch my body against him more completely.  His hands were working overtime to conduct a magnificent kind of torture between my legs and I was throbbing, aching, on fire as I strained against him. 

“Yeah,” I breathed, moving in time to the stroke of his hand. “Yeah.”

All my inhibitions had fallen away with one touch.  And Curtis obliged by getting his fingers inside my panties and then with an insanely delicious shock I realized they were inside of me.  It was too much, too soon.  I’d been thinking about him far too often and I’d gone without this feeling for far too long. 

I broke, climaxing with his fingers deep inside of me, stifling my own cries of ecstasy while biting my lip as wave after agonizingly beautiful wave of pleasure rocked me.  I nearly cried when Curtis finally pulled his hand away, hating the feel of him leaving me. I was ready for so much more. I was ready right now. 

I spun around and was feverishly reaching for his pants when he stopped me, fending my hands off by taking two steps back.   

“Wait a minute, Cassie,” he said gruffly.   

I blinked.  “We can go to my room,” I said, still a little breathless from the aftershocks of the orgasm. 

Curtis looked away like he was embarrassed for me.  “But we’re not going to.” 

I pulled my straps up, suddenly in a hurry to cover my bare breasts.  “I don’t understand.” 

“Yes you do,” he said quietly.  He still faced away.  He still didn’t want to look at me at all. 

“Curtis, this isn’t wrong.” 

“It isn’t right either. Your folks have been really good to me and to my brother.” 

I was starting to feel slightly humiliated.  “What does that have to do with this, with us?”  

“Everything.” 

“Curtis,” I said in a choked voice and then lost my train of thought because I was mortified by the reality that a minute ago I’d climaxed on his hand and now he was flatly rejecting me.  “I know what you think of me.  But I’m not some privileged princess who gets anything she wants.”

“Then don’t act like it.” 

He said the words casually, as if they shouldn’t hit me like a slap.  But they did.  I had nothing to say to this man, this sullen jerk who threw out mixed signals like confetti. 

I didn’t need him. 

I just needed to go back to my room, scream into my pillow and forget I’d ever practically begged Curtis Mulligan to screw me. 

He called my name when I stormed past him but I didn’t pay any attention.  I slammed the door to my room and collapsed on my bed, prepared to cry for a while until I was tired. 

Barely five seconds passed before the door was flung open.  Curtis walked in and closed it behind him. 

I shot right to my feet.  “Get out.” 

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

I braced my palms on his broad chest, hating myself for marveling over the hard feel of his muscles.  I pushed him toward the door. There were things I could say to him, cruel things, but I just wanted him to leave. 

“Just get out of my room, Curtis!”

“Let me say something first.” 

“No! You don’t get to call all the shots all the time.  And I don’t want to talk about it.” A hoarse and bitter laugh came out of my mouth. “Are you worried I’m going to tattle to my parents?  Don’t be because I really don’t ever want to think about or speak of what just happened ever again.” 

“Fine.”  Curtis circled each of my wrists in his hands and removed them from his chest.  He wasn’t hurting me at all, but he kept my hands pinned to my sides.  “But you listen to me first.” 

I glared at him and didn’t say a word.   

“Cassidy,” he began and then sighed.

I looked away, my eyes landing on an inspirational quote poster that Cami had put up in high school, about how to the whole world you may just be one person but to one person you may be the whole world. 

“You don’t need to look at me,” he said in a low agonized voice, close enough for me to feel his hot breath.  “Just listen. Of course I want to fuck you! I think about it all the time. Here, at work, no matter where I am you’re on my mind. You have no idea how bad I want to rip off that stupid dress you’re wearing, send you to your knees and push my cock in your mouth. I want to bend you over this bed and pound you from behind without a shred of fucking mercy.  I want my mouth all over your pussy.  I want to come right on those pouty lips of yours and watch you lick it off.  I want to use you until you can’t fucking stand up.” 

I finally looked at him.  He meant it, every word. 

Curtis pressed his forehead to mine and let out the saddest of sighs.  “You don’t know who I am, the things I’ve done.” 

“I don’t care,” I whispered. 

He raised his head and looked at me, clear eyed and serious. “You should. Once I held a gun to a man’s head once because he owed a dealer sixty bucks. I lied.  I stole.  I beat the shit out of other men because someone told me to.  I left my family, abandoning my brothers, and chose the life of a gutter rat hoodlum. I can’t even guess how many girls I’ve fucked and I don’t remember if I cared about a single one of them.  Probably not.”

A tear rolled down my cheek.  “Why are you telling me this?” 

Curtis took a step back.  “So you’ll know why I’m not going to touch you again.  You would need…”  His voice trailed off and he hissed out an exasperated breath. 

“What?” I demanded.  “What is it you’ve decided I need, Curtis?” 

“You would need love,” he said. 

I glared at him. “I’m not asking for love.” 

“But it’s what you deserve.” 

And what about him?  Was Curtis Mulligan telling me he would never ever fall in love? 

Yes.

That’s exactly what he was telling me with his face grim and the outline of his boner still on display through his pants.  Curtis didn’t want me because he didn’t want to deal with emotions and attachments.  He had enough on his plate and he didn’t want to fall in love, not with me.  And I wasn’t invited to fall in love with him. 

He put his hand on the doorknob.  “You’re perfect,” he said.  “And I’m sure nothing bad has ever touched your life, Cassidy Gentry.  So let’s keep it that way.” 

He walked through the door and closed it softly behind him. 

That was it.  I had no say in the matter.  Curtis Mulligan had passed judgment and would have the last word. 

“I’m sure nothing bad has ever touched your life, Cassidy Gentry.” 

“You’re wrong,” I whispered to the closed door. “You are so wrong.”