Author: Cassia Leo

I roll over to face him and he whips his head out of the way so I don’t elbow him in the face.

“Hey, Smokey the Bear,” I say. God, he looks so sexy when he’s groggy. “You think you’re so hot, but I don’t even remember what happened last night so it can’t be that good.”

He laughs in my face and I can still smell a hint of smoke on his breath. “That’s because nothing happened last night.”

“Nothing happened?”

“You walked into my room, stripped down to your underwear, made some comment about this being the most comfortable bed in the universe, and knocked out.”

“Oh…. Somehow, I find that a little disappointing.”

“You’re bummed we didn’t have forgettable sex? Or you’re bummed we didn’t have sex?”

The truth is, I’m a little disappointed we haven’t gotten the whole first time thing out of the way. It’s too much pressure. I haven’t been with anyone other than Chris and, like Senia said last night, he spoiled me. He waited more than two years before we had sex on my eighteenth birthday. I’ve only known Adam two weeks, but this need to get the sex over with tells me that we should probably wait.

“I guess I’m disappointed we didn’t have sex,” I reply, because I know that’s what he wants to hear.

“You guess you’re disappointed?” He brushes a lock of hair away from my face and lifts my chin so he can look me in the eye. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”

“What? No!” I don’t know why I’m so adamant with my response. “I am not a virgin.” Though part of me wishes I were.

He smiles as he slips his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. I swallow hard as his erection jabs my thigh through his boxers.

Oh, God.

He leans in to kiss me and, as soon as his lips touch mine, my body relaxes into him. I slide my arms around his neck as he rolls me onto my back. He pushes my legs open with his knee as his fingers skates up my side. His tongue flirts with mine and my nipples perk up beneath the fabric of my bra. He grinds against me as his hand cups my breast and I know this is it. We’re going to have sex.

He slips his hand underneath me and pulls his head back when his fingers find the hook on my bra. “Is this okay?” he asks.

My heart is pounding, but the need throbbing between my legs is more intense.

“I want this,” I say with a nod. “I want you.”

He unhooks my bra and watches as I slide the straps down. I toss it over the edge of the bed and he gazes at me with a deep sense of wonderment and longing in his eyes. He lays a soft trail of kisses from my sternum to my breast and I let out a small gasp as he takes my nipple into his mouth.

His fingers move lightly over my belly to my hip. He grasps the waist of my panties and looks up at me, his eyes questioning if he can remove these, too. I nod and lift my hips so he can slip them off. He takes off his boxers and he supports his weight on his elbows as he kisses me slowly. His lips graze my jaw as he moves to my neck then down to my breast again. He keeps going until his head is between my legs.

He looks up at me, a smile in his eyes, then his mouth is on me. His tongue swirls around my swollen clit and, it’s been so long, it doesn’t take much. I come quick and probably too loudly. His body slides over mine as he slinks up and kisses my forehead. He smiles as he slips a condom out of his nightstand and rips it open with his teeth.

I can’t breathe.

The nurse wheels me out of the hospital room and, after what I’ve just been through, I’m surprised I have enough energy to be frightened by the sight of the person standing ten feet ahead of me next to the nurses’ station. Joanie Tipton hands the nurse behind the desk a piece of paper then turns toward me.

Senia steps in front of the wheelchair to block me from Joanie’s view, but it’s too late. Joanie has already seen me. And by the shit-eating grin on her face, she knows exactly why I’m here.

Of all the people in the world, Joanie is the last person I want to see here. She’s had it out for me since our senior year in high school when Chris and I were broken up for three weeks and he still rejected her invitation to the prom. She showed up at the Knights’ house the day before he left in July to wish him well. Chris and I were just getting ready to leave to celebrate my birthday a month early. Later that night, I used Joanie as an example of all the groupies Chris would have access to on tour. I told him we should break up so he could get all that stuff out of his system. I didn’t think I could handle finding out he’d faltered while we were still together.

Joanie doesn’t know I used her crush on Chris as an example of why we should break up, but as she stands there smiling at me I know she will move mountains to tell him she saw me here today.

I’m not in the right state of mind to deal with Joanie. My chest muscles ache from three days of uncontrollable sobbing and I’m woozy from the mild sedative I was given twenty minutes ago. As she approaches us on her way down the corridor, the panic builds inside me, but it manifests only in tears.

“What the fuck are you staring at?” Senia snarls at her, and Joanie’s smile vanishes just as she disappears somewhere behind the wheelchair.

The nurse continues to push my wheelchair forward, but everything moves in slow motion compared to my racing heartbeat. She’s going to tell Chris everything and this time I’ll lose him forever.

“Claire.”

Adam’s voice shakes the memory loose and I open my eyes to find him sitting next to me instead of lying on top of me. Cool tears stream down my temples and into my hair. I quickly wiped them away before I sit up and curl my legs into my chest.

“What happened?” I ask as I stare at the foot of the bed to avoid looking at him.

I don’t want to see the expression on his face. I don’t want to see just how crazy he thinks I am.

“Nothing. You squeezed your eyes shut and started crying. Nothing happened. I swear.”

I feel exposed, emotionally and physically. I want to gather my clothes and get out of here, but I’m too afraid to move.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

I shake my head as I straighten my legs out in front of me and pull the sheet up to my chest to cover myself. “You think you want to know what happened—what made me drop out—but you don’t understand that if I tell you you’ll want nothing more to do with me.”

“You don’t know that.”

He brushes my messy hair out of my eyes and the look in his eyes breaks my heart. I will never tell him.

“Come here,” he whispers as he pulls me into his arms.

As soon as I press the side of my face to his shoulder, the tears come again. What the hell was I thinking? Enough time hasn’t passed since that day in the hospital. I should have known it was too soon.

Chapter Twelve

Relentless Waves

AFTER SATURDAY’S BREAKDOWN, I’M SHOCKED that he still wants me to go to the beach with him on Wednesday night, my only day off from the café this week. I spend all day Wednesday at the apartment. I immediately get caught up in an endless loop of watching recorded episodes of Vampire Diaries, doing laundry, and meditating. By the time Senia gets home early from work, I’ve washed all our clothes and linens and meditated four times. I haven’t felt this relaxed in weeks.

She hangs her purse up on the peg inside the coat closet and plops down next to me on the sofa. “I can’t work with him anymore!”

I know she’s referring to her dad. He spoils her financially, but he’s also extremely controlling. Growing up, her father dictated what Senia and her two sisters wore, ate, and who they befriended up until they graduated from high school. She wasn’t allowed to date until her senior year and only then because her date was a friend of the family. When she got to UNC two years ago, she was a completely different person than she is now. She was scared and shy, but it didn’t take long for the real Senia to emerge. In the beginning of our freshman year, it was the alcohol that brought her out. Eventually she stopped getting drunk every weekend.

The first time she talked back to her father was when he refused to put the pink slip for her car in her name. She knew he only wanted the car in his name so he could use the car as a means to control her. From the moment she told him to fuck off their relationship changed. He now only speaks to her when he needs to for work purposes. Their relationship is almost enough to make me grateful I never knew my father.

“What did he do today?” I ask as I reach for the remote.

“Why do you ask like that, like you’re tired of hearing me complain about my job?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give off that vibe. I guess it was just a bad word choice. I should have left off ‘today’.”

Senia sighs as she puts her feet up on the coffee table. “It’s okay. I’m just really annoyed right now. He wants me to move back in this weekend. I told him there’s still four more weeks before the semester starts, but he said he would take my car away if I don’t go back to working at the main office, where he can keep an eye on me. He’s tired of me leaving work early.”

“And your response was to leave work early?”

She turns to me and I can see by the apologetic look in her eyes that she agreed to her father’s demands. “I’m so sorry, Claire, but I need my car.”

I nod and manage a weak smile. “It’s no big deal. I can find another roommate. And, hey, Linda might actually give me more hours if I ask Adam to go on a date with her.”

“God, I feel like such a dirt-bag leaving you hanging like this. I really wanted to spend the rest of the summer here.”

“Don’t feel bad,” I say, grabbing her hand. “I’ll be fine. And you and Eddie are welcome to hang out or sleepover whenever you want.”

She stares at me for a moment and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “You should move in with—”

“Don’t say it!”

“Whatever. Are you two still going surfing today?”

“Yeah, unless you want to do something. I feel like I should be spending the rest of this week with you.”

“Oh, please. You act like I’m dying in four days.”

“Well, not all of you.”

“Yeah, just the part that loves watching you meditate.”

At exactly six in the evening, a knock comes at the door. I’m ready with my yellow bikini underneath my faded-blue Roxy T-shirt and a pair of white board shorts that I usually only wear around the house because they barely cover my ass, but Senia insisted I wear them. I’m excited. I’ve seen guys—hot guys—surfing at the beach dozens of times since I moved to Wrightsville Beach, but something about getting to see Adam out there gives me butterflies. I’m finally going to get to share his passion for the water with him. And enough time, and meditation, has passed between Saturday and today that I’m feeling a lot less guilty about leaving him hanging.

I open the door and Adam is leaning against the doorframe with one hand in the pocket of his board shorts. He’s shirtless so even when he looks up at me with those striking green eyes, all I can look at is his perfectly muscular chest.

“Are you ready to get tossed?”

“Is that a promise?” I say as I step outside.

He laughs as he throws his arms around my waist, lifts me off the ground, and kisses me. His lips are warm and soft as I take his bottom lip between my teeth.

He moans softly and I feel him stiffening against me. “You’d better stop that or I’m going to take you upstairs right now.”

I give him a soft peck on the lips then tighten my arms around his neck as I lay my head on his shoulder. He squeezes me tightly and I sigh. This is the best hug I’ve gotten in months. He finally sets me down and cradles my face as he kisses both my eyelids.