Casey
I’m dizzy but laughing when I tumble off Oliver’s shoulders. Water gets up my nose and I cough as my toes search for the soft, muddy bottom on the lake. For the first time all night, I experience a brief flicker of panic when the cold water surrounds me. But then I surface and hear the laughter and voices all around me, and I remember I’m safe.
Mila screams and splashes when Oliver lifts her over his head and throws her like a sack of potatoes into pure darkness. It briefly occurs to me I abandoned Jaz, but she looked quite cozy with Gray Robson before I sidestepped Fenn’s grasp and dove into Oliver’s arms.
Someone wades over with a bottle in hand, and the two dozen or so black silhouettes chest-high around me chant “Drink!” as some faceless person offers me a pour of tequila. I tilt my head back to accept. The sting is startling yet oddly refreshing. I’m not sure I taste it going down, but I feel it warm the pit of my stomach.
“Casey!”
My good mood fades at the sound of Fenn’s voice. I ignore him, swimming toward Mila, who greets me with an impressed smirk. “Ooh. Somebody’s in trouble.”
We both watch the shore, where Fenn removes his shoes and hoodie before trudging into the water in jeans and a thin tee. “Casey, damn it. Answer me.”
“She’s over here.” Mila rats me out and shoves me from behind.
I curse in protest when he reaches for me. “No. Go away, Fenn.”
“Can’t do that.” Without warning or permission, he finds my hand and drags me behind him back toward dry land. He stops only to snatch up his shoes and sweatshirt with his free hand.
“Hey, she doesn’t want to go with you.” A dripping wet Oliver appears and plants a hand to Fenn’s chest, blocking his path. But even I can tell Oliver’s a little too unsteady and lopsided on his feet to put up much of a protest.
“Yeah, okay. How ’bout I leave her here, then, and you can explain to Sloane and her dad why you’ve spent the night pumping a minor full of alcohol.”
Fenn pushes Oliver out of the way.
“Let go of me.” I try yanking my hand free, but his grip is secure. “You have no right to do this.”
“Maybe not. But you’ll thank me in the morning.”
Then he tosses me over his shoulder and my world is upside down and spinning sideways. That shot of tequila is less pleasant working its way back up my esophagus.
“Put me down, Fenn! I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“Now! Put me down. Jazmine! Help!”
My friend comes barreling toward us, but rather than rescue me, I see a blur of black and hear a smacking noise as she slaps something in Fenn’s palm.
“Hey! Blond caveman! If you’re going to kidnap my friend, at least let her have her phone.”
“I’m not kidnapping her,” he mutters. “I’m taking her home.”
“Put me down,” I order again, batting one fist between his shoulder blades.
But he doesn’t comply until he’s marched us back to a shiny BMW parked along the dirt road.
He opens the passenger door and nods at me impatiently.
“I’m not getting in there.”
“Let’s go, Casey. You’ve had enough tonight.”
“Where did you come up with this idea that you’re allowed to show up out of nowhere and tell me what to do?”
“When every time you disappear, your sister calls to blame me for this bullshit.”
“You’re becoming just like her.”
Fenn growls. “Get in.”
This looks like Duke’s car. Which is even more confusing, but I don’t have the luxury of pondering that when a slight breeze pricks my skin, and a cold shiver reminds me I’m soaking wet in my underwear.
“Can you at least go back and grab my clothes?” I grumble.
“No.”
Instead, he marches over with his hoodie and then roughly pulls it down over my head. It’s too big, the hem falling past my knees, but it’s soft and warm, and I can’t help putting my arms through the sleeves to snuggle into the thick fabric.
“Can we go now?” Fenn gestures with the door open.
I could run back to the lake, but I don’t have the energy to make him chase me. Besides, I have a feeling the tequila is going to make itself known sooner rather than later, so it’s probably best not to have an audience when it spews out of me.
I get in, even if I’m not happy about it.
“Seat belt,” he orders, then throws the door closed.
“Give me my phone.”
“Only if you promise not to call 911 and tell them you’ve been kidnapped.”
“You’d deserve that.” I glower at him. “I just want to tell Jaz not to worry.”
He passes the phone over, albeit reluctantly. With cold, shaky fingers, I type a message to Jaz, who texts back almost instantly.
Jazmine: You OK??
Me: Fine. Just pissed. He has some nerve.
Jazmine: Will you be mad at me if I point out how hot he looked when he was carrying you off?
Me: Yes.
Jazmine: Okay, I won’t point it out then. Text when you’re home so I know you made it back.
Me: You too!
Fenn doesn’t look at me as we leave Ballard. He strangles the steering wheel and stares straight ahead, ignoring me until I start to fumble with the dash buttons.
“Stop it,” he says. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for the butt heaters.”
“Excuse me?”
“Duke’s car has heated seats and I’m freezing. This is Duke’s car, isn’t it? And would it kill you to put some music on?”
Without a word, Fenn cranks up the heat and turns on the radio as well.
“I bet you’re feeling pretty high on yourself now, right?” I finally locate the little knob with a picture of a seat and turn it all the way to the right. My seat warms almost instantly. “Swooping in to steal me away from a good time.”
“That’s what you call frolicking around naked in the woods?”
“Like you’ve never been skinny-dipping.”
“I’m not an example you should imitate,” he grumbles.
“That much we can agree on.”
“You realize your pictures are all over social media now? Every perv from Ballard and Sandover will be gawking at you in your underwear.”
“Which is practically the same thing as a bathing suit. So what?”
Am I thrilled at the idea? No, not really. And when the liquor’s worn off, I might have a couple of regrets over tonight. Either way, it’s a little late now.
And the last thing I’m going to do is give Fenn the satisfaction.
“Whatever you’re trying to prove,” he says gruffly, “trust me, it’s not going to fix what’s broken. It’ll only get you further away from the solution.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever that means.”
Fenn doesn’t respond, and we don’t find anything else to say to each other on the drive back to Sandover. It’s dark and long, and I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until Fenn opens my door and I wake up to realize we’re in the senior dorm parking lot.
“Are you kidding me? Why are we here?” I demand in outrage. “Take me home.”
He reaches over me to unlatch my seat belt. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I’m not dumping you at your front door, dripping wet in your underwear and wearing my soccer team sweatshirt. I’m not trying to die tonight.”
“Well, I’m not going in there,” I say, crossing my arms in the front seat.
“Then we’ll sit here till morning when everyone heads to breakfast and wonders why the headmaster’s daughter is half naked in Duke’s ride.”
God, he’s such an asshole.
A cocky smirk slants across his face. “Or I throw you over my shoulder again.”
“I swear, I will punch you in the balls.”
“Come on. It’s warm upstairs, and I can give you some dry clothes. Don’t be difficult.”
I get out of the car, but only because I don’t relish being cold and wet all night. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Despite my protests, Fenn lifts me off my feet to cradle me in his arms.
“Could you just not?” I growl.
“You don’t have any shoes,” he says dismissively. “I’m not letting you cut your feet up on broken glass so you can blame me for that too.”
Seriously. Such an asshole.
Thankfully, the halls are quiet when he brings me upstairs. Everyone’s either asleep or out partying. Small miracles, I guess. The last thing I need is people talking about me and Fenn hooking up again. Because that is so over.
If only he’d get the message.
In his room, he turns on the light and locks the door, while I glance around warily and realize this is the first time I’ve been here.
RJ’s side of the room is empty. He’s still over at my place, which is both a relief and an irritating notion. RJ gets to hang out at my house past midnight when all my visitors have to leave by ten? Just another one of those double standards my dad loves so much.
On the other hand, if RJ were here right now, he’d be the first one to tell Sloane that I wasn’t studying in Jaz’s dorm, and I’d rather not deal with another lecture from my dad and sister.
Fenn throws me a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, then turns his back while I change. The clothing isn’t exactly my size, but it’s dry and warm.
“You look cute,” he says, eyeing me with that adoring expression that used to make me nervous and excited in the best way and now only fills me with rage.
“No. You don’t get to do that. You effectively kidnapped me. You understand that, right?”
“For your own good.”
“So now what? I’m your prisoner?” I ask, pretending not to notice that he’d stripped out of his wet T-shirt. His abs ripple in the soft lightning of the room.
I wrench my gaze off his bare chest and kneel in front of the mini fridge, where I take an extra-long time to steal a bottle of water. By the time I stand up and uncap the bottle, Fenn has changed into dry clothes of his own.
“Why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on with you lately?” He sits on the arm of the sofa, all self-righteous and proud of himself.
“Nothing’s going on.” And I’m getting real sick of answering that question. “Except that I’m trying to live my life, and no one wants to let me. It’s like you’re all terrified of me becoming my own person.”
“That’s not true.” He rakes a hand through his hair, frustrated. “You’ve changed. All of a sudden you’re picking fights, getting into trouble. Running around in the woods naked and drunk with people who less than a year ago stood in the halls laughing at you. Normally I’d be cheering that you’ve finally stopped caring what people think, but after everything, it feels like a cry for help.”
I’m frustrated too now, speaking through clenched teeth. “I’m not drunk. I had two watered-down beers and the equivalent of one tequila shot. I feel fine. And I’m not asking for help. Least of all from you.”
His reaction is slight but immediate, a flood of hurt filling his eyes before he averts them. For a moment I feel awful. I forget why I hate him. But the sympathy passes just as quickly.
“I’ve been there, okay?” His voice is pleading, eyes imploring. Those sincere blue eyes that are so easy to believe. “Hell, I probably still am. Or would be, if not for you. We get angry and sad and don’t know where to aim it but at ourselves. We try to become someone else. Someone who isn’t carrying around that pain.”
I shake my head, a wave of exhaustion washing over me. I don’t feel buzzed anymore. Just tired and dead sober.
“I know exactly who I’m mad at, Fenn. He’s right in front of me.”
“I get that.”
“I don’t think you do. And tonight only hurt your case. You realize that? Your jealous caveman stunt wasn’t cool,” I say flatly. “You fucking embarrassed me by running into the lake and dragging me away from the party. I know you view me as this innocent princess who’s too pure to strip down to her underwear and go swimming, but I’m allowed to have fun and—”
“Christ! That’s not why I ran into the lake!” he interrupts in aggravation.
“No? So you weren’t jealous?” I challenge.
“No.” He falters. “I mean, yes. I was. Ugh.” He makes an agitated noise. “I was jealous when you started stripping, yes, but that’s not why I went in after you. When he threw you into the water, I…”
Fenn trails off, his expression collapsing.
“You what?” My throat gets tight. Pulse fluttering weakly.
He stands and approaches me. I back away until my shoulders are against the wall and I’m trapped. He stops short when there’s a foot of space between us.
“I panicked,” he admits, his voice cracking slightly. “It was like…like suddenly I was transported back to prom, to that moment when I found you in the lake, and my heart just stopped. I don’t even remember wading into the water tonight. All I remember is Oliver throwing you in, and you went under, and I…I was afraid.”
His breath shudders out on a low wheeze.
I, on the other hand, can’t seem to draw a deep enough breath. My lungs are burning, and my eyes start to sting.
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you,” Fenn says, hanging his head shamefully. “It was irrational, but my brain was telling me you were in danger, that you might drown, and my first instinct was to rescue you.”
“I don’t need to be rescued.” My words come out as a whisper.
He closes the distance, pushing a few damp strands of hair behind my ear. I don’t realize until he does that I’m gripping his shirt in both fists.
“I’ll be here to save you every time,” he says softly. “Just like I was there that night.”
I hate him for saying that. For thinking he’s the center of everything wrong with me. And for being fucking right, because it’s true—I can’t go a day without chasing his name from my thoughts. I want him and can’t stand him in equal measure, and my heart doesn’t know how to reconcile that.
I blink back the moisture coating my lashes. “Why’d it have to be you?”
His answer is a kiss.
Fenn’s warm hands grasp my face as he presses his lips to mine. Gently, but insistent. Every time we kiss, it’s like a letter from a pen pal. One of those long conversations at the coffee shop when you close the place down. Staying up all night on the phone. Catching up on lost time. Picking up exactly where we left off no matter how much time and space has come between us.
I wrap my arms around his neck even as I know I’ll hate myself for it later. Hate that all my anger, his betrayal, becomes superfluous when he touches me. How easily I’m won. Not because it’s some trick or spell, but because he feels like home to me.
I let him kiss me because there’s never a time I’ve stopped wanting him to, no matter how much I wish I could purge that desire from my heart. I kiss him back because kissing him is the closest thing I know to happiness.
Neither of us speak when he grasps my hips. Like we’re both afraid to breathe too loudly and let this brief illusion evaporate and realize we’re both still us and nothing’s changed. I comb my fingers through his hair that’s gotten a little longer since the last time I did this. It’s still soft as I remember.
His hands find bare skin under my shirt. His shirt. Which feels like a blanket, and I’ll probably take it home, where I’ll throw it over a chair tomorrow and tell myself I’ll wash and return it. But it’ll just lie there for weeks while I close my eyes and remember the way he tastes on my tongue or how smooth his fingertips are when they skim my spine.
I swallow hard and bite my lip when he slides his hand under that shirt to grasp my breast. My knee falls to the side. The wall holds me up as he steps between my legs. I arch into his palm, and my tongue against his begs him to make me feel everything I’m too scared to admit I want.
Because he is everything I should run from.
“You’re beautiful.” Finally, he speaks. A reverent whisper.
Fenn pushes the shirt up my chest. He kisses the slight valley between my breasts before traveling a path to one nipple. He licks softly while I resist the shudder weakening through my limbs.
When he reaches between my thighs and his mouth meets mine again, I can only think of the times he was afraid to touch me. Afraid of moving too quickly. But we aren’t those people anymore, kissing on a picnic blanket in the forest. He’s a beautiful stranger and I’m the girl he left behind. A dream so fleeting, it practically never happened at all.
“I want to make you feel good,” he says, breathing hard against my lips. “Will you let me?”
I should say no.
“Yes.”
With a visible gulp, Fenn tentatively slips his hand inside my sweatpants. Applying pressure to the spot that banishes every small whisper warning me that when this fantasy wears off, we’ll both go back to being ourselves and nothing fundamentally broken will have been repaired.
I grip his shoulders to hold myself upright, burying my face in his neck. Every short, shallow breath fills me with his scent while he massages me toward pure sensation. No thoughts but his skin. His heartbeat against my chest. His fingers teasing my clit.
Then his fingers are gone, and I’m ashamed of the desperate moan that’s ripped from my throat.
“Don’t worry. Not stopping,” he says roughly, then walks me toward his bed. “Lie down.”
I’m shaking like a leaf in the wind as I lower myself onto the mattress. Fenn peels my sweatpants off and tosses them away. A groan escapes his lips when his gaze focuses on my bare pussy.
“Fuck,” he whispers and reaches out to rub his knuckles along my slit.
Pleasure shoots through me. I can’t take my gaze off his face. The way his teeth are digging into his bottom lip. The way he sucks in a breath when he feels how wet I am.
“Has anyone ever made you come before?” The question is hoarse. Strangled.
“No,” I say honestly.
I feel his fingers tremble against my heated flesh.
“Anyone ever gone down on you?”
“No.”
So fucking pure.
I suddenly hear Lawson’s mocking voice in my head, and for some reason it evokes a twinge of resentment. I’m not pure. Or at least, I don’t want to be. I’m tired of being the fragile piece of china everyone is so afraid to break that they resist from touching altogether. Fenn resisted doing this for months, and the reminder emboldens me.
I spread my legs wider.
His choked expletive echoes in the room.
“Do something,” I say.
An impish gleam lights his eyes, invoking memories of the Fenn I fell for. The guy who was always armed with a quip and a smile. The sight makes me soften, breathe easier, and I know he notices because his features soften too.
Then he licks his lips and brings them between my legs.
I jolt when he makes contact, gasping with pleasure. Oh my God. This is…
This is…
My brain short-circuits. I’m incapable of forming thoughts. I lose myself in the heat of his mouth against my aching core. My eyelids flutter closed and breathing becomes labored. I start rocking my hips, and Fenn moans, the sound vibrating like a cascade of notes across my body.
There’s nothing tentative about his movements. My nails bite into his shoulders as he explores me with his mouth. Licking. Tasting. When he sucks gently on my clit, another shudder overtakes me. This time I give in to it, shaking on the bed while Fenn brings me closer and closer to the edge.
“That’s it, Case,” he whispers before slicking his tongue over my clit. Teasing. “Let yourself go.”
So I do, welcoming the sweet oblivion of orgasm. The electricity firing across every nerve ending as pure bliss consumes my entire body.
But the peace is temporary. It begins to be subside even before he’s placed a last delicate kiss to my sated flesh. Reality creeps in, forever determined to remind me there’s no silence too permanent to make me forget what Fenn did.
When my eyes open, I push him away and scramble to sit up.
His brow furrows. “Are you okay?”
I swallow a few times. “That shouldn’t have happened. I have to go.”
Without looking at him, I find my underwear and his sweatpants, slipping them both on.
“You can’t leave,” he insists, but his voice is thick with unhappiness because he knows I’m already gone.
“I’ll be fine.” Eventually.
“At least let me drive you.”
“I’ll walk. It’s not far,” I remind him when he tries to object.
“You don’t have shoes.”
Shit. He’s right. And there’s no way I can fit into any of his and trudge ten minutes through the woods.
He gets to his feet, raking both hands through his hair. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”
Since I don’t have much of a choice, I allow him to drop me off, sliding out of the car five minutes later with a muttered, “Thanks.” My guard is back up, and not even the memory of how good he just made me feel can penetrate the shield around my heart.
“Good night,” he says gruffly.
I close the door and hurry up the front path. Then stop in a comical skid when I realize I have no way to explain my appearance to Dad. I left the house in yoga pants and an oversized sweater. Spent the evening in a tight top and jeans. And returned home in a guy’s shirt and sweatpants.
Fuck.
I start to panic, until I remember I told Dad I was spending the night at Jazmine’s. That means he’s already in bed. Probably took a sleeping pill too, which he’s been prone to do lately. As long as the dogs don’t go berserk, I should be able to creep in and upstairs without notice.
Luck is on my side. It’s nearly two a.m. and both dogs are passed out cold. Bo cranks one eye open when I tiptoe past him. After he confirms it’s me, he goes back to sleep. From her dog bed in the living room, Penny is snoring obliviously.
At the top of the stairs, I almost slam into RJ, both of us hissing in surprise.
We’re like two burglars trying to rob the same house, only he got here first and is already escaping with the loot. I take in his rumpled hair and inside-out shirt, then lower my gaze to his fly, which is unzipped. Classy. I hope Sloane wasn’t too busy banging her boyfriend that she forgot to feed my rabbit. When I texted her from the party earlier, pretending to be at Jaz’s dorm, she promised she’d take care of Silver.
Rolling my eyes, I point to RJ’s crotch.
He looks down, then shrugs. Completely unruffled as he zips up. Then he gives me a wry smile, white teeth shining in the darkness, as he gestures at my outfit, instantly recognizing Fenn’s clothes.
I offer a shrug of my own.
Sighing, RJ shakes his head and descends the first step. He pauses to glance over his shoulder. “Night,” he mouths.
“Night,” I mouth back, then slide into my bedroom and close the door behind me.