sommer marsden learning to drown-CALIBRE Read online

  “No I’m not. It’s snow.” I turned my face to the wall, not helping him with my jeans and not fighting him. I was suddenly too tired to do either one.

  He stilled and sighed mightily. Wearily if you must know. “Ember, look.” He dipped his fingertip in the silent trickle of upset leaking out o my eyes and then chuckled. “I know you’re stubborn but snow is not leaking out of your eyes. Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.” The jeans were off and the towel was back on my skin. My skin felt hot and then instantly cold and he pulled a warm pair of sweats on. His. He seemed to know somewhere in his stubborn male self that his clothing would be more comforting to me than mine.

  “Tell me.”

  Instead I changed the subject. “That’s rather advanced, you know.”

  He dropped to the sofa next to me, brown eyes slightly golden in the early afternoon sun. “What are you talking about? Are you delirious, woman?”

  “The sweatpants,” I said. “They’re yours.”

  “They were closer.”

  “You’re lying,” I said, wrapping my own arms around myself. “You knew that your clothes would make me feel safer and more cared for than my own. Offer a girl your jacket if she’s cold is Women 101. Dress her in your clothes if she’s sick or injured or sad is definitely Women 102.”

  “I think your fever’s spiked,” he laughed.

  “Who taught you that?” I pressed.

  He was getting pissed. I could see it, but at least I’d stopped crying.

  Lucas grabbed my foot and I yelped but then he slipped my foot into one of the bulky wool socks he’d bought me. “No one taught me anything. I put you in my sweats because I did. There is your answer.”

  “Why?” I pulled my foot away. “Tell me.”

  He stared at me, mouth open, plump and kissable and yes, annoyed. I almost laughed.

  “Because I did.”

  “Tell me,” I said. I leaned in close and when he reached for me, I yanked myself back. I was blazing hot, I was freezing cold. His big hand clamped down on my wrist and trapped my racing pulse under his thumb. My nipples spiked and goose bumps raced across my skin.

  “You must be high,” he said. “You’re provoking me.” His jaw set with a mix of amusement and anger.

  “Are you scared to tell me?” I prompted.

  “There is no reason."

  “You’re afraid,” I said. He pushed my hair back off my forehead.

  “Ember,” he tried to be gentle.

  “It’s okay that you’re too scared to tell me,” I said. Dead silence. This tactic would work.

  “I am not scared.”

  “Tell me." I had learned my interrogation techniques from kindergartners it seemed. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

  His jaw clenched in anger and then “Because I wanted to!” he boomed. His voice bounding off the exposed beam ceiling like some blind winged thing. I reared back but he held me tight. My body raced with chills and then my nipples spiked again. I felt the fever everywhere. “ I wanted to put you in the goddamn sweat pants because…”

  His hand still wrapped around my wrist, he yanked and I yelped but then he pressed his lips to my pulse point silencing himself. “You what?”

  He shook his head, licked my skin. I hummed. The fever was in all of me. Heat under my arms, a molten lust between my legs. My head felt full of cotton and heat and my body craved him in the same way I craved water. “No,” he said.

  “What, please. Lucas. Please,” I said. As I said it, I pushed his hand to the sweats over the V of my thighs. Pressed his fingers to the heat. “I’m hot,” I said, simply. I trusted him to know what I meant. That it was my body that was haywire but my thoughts were clear. I wanted him, but at the moment, my body felt a need for him. It made no sense and yet, it made perfect sense.

  “I wanted to put you in my clothes because it felt like you’d be safer. Like I was taking better care of you,” he said.

  I nodded, understanding. He pushed his hand, not nearly as hot as my own body, into my pants and touched me. Just a fingertip. It was like a match being set to a pile of dry leaves. I shut my eyes, sighing out how good it was. “I don’t know why. I just need—” I started.

  “I understand. It’s an altered state kind of thing,” he whispered to me. He pressed his rough cheek to mine, leaning into me and said in my ear. “Everything is heightened. Everything is more intense when your body's running on high alert.” He slipped a finger into me, testing my pussy which was as wet as my skin was dry. He slid a second finger into me and started to fuck me with his fingers in a slow even rhythm. His skin seemed so cool to me. Refreshing, like pressing your head to a cool marble countertop in August.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s it.”

  “Does that feel good, Ember?” he said, nipping my ear. The instant his teeth shut down on my lobe, my pussy clenched tight around his fingers and I made a soft sound like I was crying again.

  “I see it does.” He nipped me again. I came. That fast, that easy. My cunt growing taut and slick around his fingers. I came with a tiny whimper of gratitude and exhaustion.

  “More,” I said. Not so much bold as having nothing to lose. No shame in trying, I thought.

  He tugged the loose sweats off of me and moved me like his own little toy. Swung my leg over his lap and then sat me there while he worked his belt and his zipper, freed his cock and watched me watching him. How his hand slid along the shaft. How his thumb ran over the slightly weeping tip. How good he looked touching himself. I swayed a little and he moved me gently. “I’ll do all the work, honey. Don’t worry.” He laughed but something in me had started to glow when he called me honey. And in the kindness in his tone. And what sounded like true caring. And affection. And love. But that last part had to be the fever talking.

  He settled me over his cock and then pressed up just enough to give me a taste. To set off all those nerve endings. I gripped his shoulders, shaking with the heat in my body, shaking with the need of him. Lucas kissed my neck and his hand found my breast, he tweaked my nipple and I swallowed hard, my throat clicking. His hips arched up, driving his cock deep into me, giving me no time to dally. I was full of him, holding his shoulders, more tears. These coming from nowhere and having no reason behind them. My body just wanted to cry. So it did.

  “It’s okay. You can cry.” He fucked me like he might break me. No ties, no bonds, no guard dogs, no brothers. He simply moved up under me, thrusting deep and even so that each movement brought its own stroke of pleasure until the building pleasure was too much and the tipping point was reached.

  “Lucas, Lucas,’ I said almost panicky. “Lucas, Lucas, Lu–” until he kissed me quiet and I came. His fingers sank into the flesh at my hips and with two more upward surges he came, his teeth pressed to my shoulder as I shook and shivered in his arms.

  He pulled back and stared at me. Those mystical eyes studying me like I held some kind of secret. “Let’s get you dressed and wrapped up on the sofa. I’ll find you a movie. Feed you.”

  I was half asleep as he said it and maneuvered me off his lap and wrapped me up. I was almost fully out by the time he found an eighties teen flick on cable. The sounds of him in the kitchen so comforting, I let the fever pull me under. I let the heavy sleep that only comes with illness take me down.

  He pushed two pills into my mouth and I jerked awake. “Sorry. Thought you were already awake. You were looking at me.”

  I shook my head. Had I been looking at him? I’d thought I was dreaming. “What’s this?”

  “For the fever. Which is one hundred and one. Too high for my taste. Truth be told, I think it’s a little bug exacerbated by the stress of the last few days.”

  “Stress? What stress?” It was my attempt at a joke. I let him lift my head enough for me to sip off a straw. “Ginger Ale. Yum. I’m lying. I hate ginger ale. No cola?”

  “Caffeine,” he said and shook his head. “Not good. Dehydrates you.�
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  “Nurse Crow,” I snorted.

  “That’s Doctor to you, babe.” He sat, pulled my head onto his lap. Lucas put his feet up on the coffee table and crossed them, surfed through until he found a cooking show we’d discovered we both liked “What the hell are they going to make with that,” he grumbled when they revealed the ingredient list.

  “A mess,” I said, drifting again already. He offered me more soda and I took it. My body felt heavy and floaty simultaneously. I felt the pleasant sore ache from having sex. I felt the phantom touch of his fingers over my pulse from earlier. My body seemed to be stuck somewhere in the middle of past and present. I heard the announcer on the show. Heard Lucas crack a beer. Late afternoon, had to be. “Whassat?” I managed.

  “A beer. I’d offer you one but a) you are loopy and b) again with the dehydration.”

  I watched him read the cap. Study it like a secret clue. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. They put little messages in their caps is all. Was just reading it.”

  “Like a fortune cookie,” I said.

  “More fun than a fortune cookie." He ran his fingers through my unruly bangs. “There’s beer.”

  I smiled. “Way more fun that a cookie. What’s it say?” My tongue heavy, my head empty. I wanted nothing more than more sleep. More sleep with my head in his lap and his fingers in my hair.

  “It says What exactly are you waiting for?”

  I waited but Lucas didn’t comment. “That’s nice,” I mumbled.

  He laughed softly, brushing my bangs back and then pulling them forward. The rhythm of his touch was lulling me to sleep. “Yeah. You think?”

  “What are you waiting for?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  * * * *

  Just what the fuck was he waiting for, he wondered. He pushed his hand into the silken mess of her honey brown hair. Curling one long piece around his finger he watched September breathe. She had tried so very hard to be stoic. She had tried to show him that she cared and that his gruffness and his past and his plain old stupidity wasn’t important to her. He’d kept her at arms’ distance and she took it. Took it better than he ever could have had the roles been reversed.

  “So who’s the strong one, smart ass,” he said. She tossed in her sleep and he stopped talking.

  She was different. It was pretty much time he stopped being afraid and angry and examined that fact. Every other woman to come along since their father had died had been disposable. There were some he’d liked and some he’d truly cared for but the thought of anything long term had been ridiculous. The last thing he needed in this world was another person to take care of. He had his hands full with himself and his little brother. He didn’t need a woman.

  Lucas let himself feel everything at that moment. Stroking the smooth skin on Ember’s brow he realized why he had actually put her in his own sweat pants instead of any of the clothes that he’d bought her. Firstly, it felt more protective. Secondly, he wanted to care for her–got angry when she wouldn’t let him, in fact. The simple fact that she had already told him that she loved him and still let him struggle and flounder and fuck up, and yet stuck around spoke volumes.

  “I made you sleep in another room.” He watched her. “That must have broken your heart.”

  She said nothing. Simply hitched a sigh, frowned, turned a little. The fever would break and they would talk. That would be his chance. He’d come clean. Tell her how he felt and that is scared the shit out of him. And if there were two things he’d never planned on doing it was being scared again and being in love. He’d spent enough time scared as a kid. Scared of his father, scared of failing Matthew, scared of fucking it all up. And love had shown him that it was just another word for hurt. But he wasn’t so sure that was the case with her. In fact, he knew it wasn’t.

  So the only fear he was truly dealing with was the fear he had of putting himself out there. Showing how he felt and actually taking a chance on someone who seemed to have the magical ability of making him feel happy.

  Lucas bent his head and kissed her softly. She mumbled something, snorted and he couldn’t help but laugh. When he was calm about it, there really was no way he could not love her. He couldn’t change how he’d been the last few days, but he could tell her the truth when she woke up.

  “Bed for you,” he said and picked her up gently.

  His cell phone bleated and her eyes flickered open. Blue eyes the color of an autumn sky. Crisp and staggering and gorgeous. “Phone,” she said.

  “It’s my brother. He can wait. We have to get you to bed.”

  “Oh, what are we going to do to me in bed?” Already her eyes drifted shut and he chuckled.

  “Tuck you in and let you sleep.”

  “But you won’t be there." She frowned.

  “I’ll come in in a bit. I have to chop some wood for the fireplace and you need to sleep uninterrupted. When I’m around you keep rousing yourself.”

  “Because you’re sexy." She smiled and a small snore following the words.

  “You too, babe. Ditto on the sexy. Your cell phone’s in your pocket if you should need me.”

  His phone rang again when he was putting his boots back on to go out into the yard. He’d call Matthew back after he chopped some wood. He needed to get his blood moving, burn off some energy and worry. Then he could deal with what was probably going to be a million little issues from Matthew. Matty needed to grow up a bit and Lucas needed to let go some. Maybe then he’d realize that he’d had room for September in his life all along.

  He was actually whistling while he walked out to the shed. He tried to remember the last time he’d whistled sober and couldn’t.

  That girl. She did strange things to him.

  Chapter 28

  “Sweet September.” I heard the sing-song in my ear and tried to open my eyes, but I’d been down and out for so long and so deep that it was a struggle just to focus on the words. Something made my stomach sing with anxiety but I lost my grasp on it as hands scooted under me, moving me.

  “Now where?” I sighed.

  “Home,” he said.

  Home? His home? My home? Back to the city? Had something happened with Matthew or was he simply done thinking now? Had he made his decision and if he had what was it? Should I stay or should I go now?

  I opened my mouth to ask him but he said, “Shh, need to stay quiet now.” Something in his tone, in the words, in the feel of him was off but the fever had my head confused and my body exhausted. I put my head against his chest, feeling the bump and shuffle of his steps across the floor. And then he took me out the side door to the small patio outside the master suite. Why?

  Gray daylight hit my face and I squinted, smelling the wet wool smell of him. The cinnamon and suede scent that triggered something. Finally, my brain connected, my eyes flew open and I was looking right at Damien. I opened my mouth to yell for Lucas and Damien said, “Oh, even sick you like your game? Okay, I’ll play.” And he clamped his hand over my mouth to stifle my cry. “I didn’t think you’d be up for it, but who am I to question you.” I shook my head but his big hand stayed clamped over my mouth. He either truly thought we were playing, or he chose to believe it.

  Damien dragged me to the car, my feet touching the snow off and on. He’d parked far enough from the cabin that we hadn’t heard his motor. How had he found me? How had he possibly found me? Then I felt the cell phone bump my thigh through the oversized sweatpants pocket. Probably from the phone, that I had only because Lucas had wanted me to know that I was free to leave whenever I wanted. That I was there by choice. With him by choice. And now I was being removed without a choice.

  Something I used to crave, now I feared.

  Damien pushed me into the car and snapped the seatbelt buckle over me. Then he hit the remote lock and scurried to his side of the car. He hit unlock once more and got in. “I figured it out. You had big, dark and gruesome come steal you and now I’m stealing you back. I cam
e to get you, Ember. And I know how to do it right now.”

  “Damien." I struggled for air I was so panicky.

  “Shut up.”

  “Damien, it’s not a game. I want you to take me back.”

  “Shut up, Ember.”

  “Damien–”

  He reached out and smacked me. He probably didn’t think it was too hard, but with the fever it was staggering. Light exploded in my vision and I cried out. “Shut up or I’ll put you in the trunk. When we get home I’ll get you out of that bastard’s clothes. We’ll put this whole mess behind us.”

  “I didn’t hire him to steal me,” I attempted. He still believed that. Maybe he had to.

  “Of course you did,” he said, and turned down the winding access road to the main road. “Fate doesn’t just hand you that kind of coincidence.

  It did if it was being kind, but for now I was just trying to figure out how to get back to Lucas. I pushed my hand into my pocket, hoping to just hit a button and call Lucas. But Damien spotted me and pushed his hand past mine, bullied my fingers into releasing the phone “I'll take that. Good little phone. This is how I found you.”

  So I was right.

  Damien was whisking back to the city toward his house and he said “We'll get you home and then I'll take care of you, little girl.” He waggled his eyebrows at me but there was real menace under it all. I could tell my his facial expression and his tone. His ego was bruised and he was pissed. I’d run off with the man who had taken his prized vehicle. I’d left him and gone on with my life. I’d tossed him aside the same way he did broken down stuff he found around the house his father had left him.

  “I don’t want to be a taken care of." My voice was faint, my body trembling from the cold air and now fear. “Not by you.”

  “Of course you do. It’s your fantasy.” He put his hand on my thigh and squeezed. His fingers so hot and somehow angry I waited for them to puncture my skin right through Lucas’s sweatpants. I would’ve given a million dollars and my very soul to see Lucas at that moment. I would’ve given anything at all, I think.