Forbidden Love

Forbidden Love

A New Adult
Romance

Copyright 2013 © Elizabeth Nelson

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2013 Elizabeth Nelson

No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author
and/or publisher. No part of this publication may be sold or hired,
without written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are a product of the writer’s
imagination and/or have been used fictitiously in such a fashion it
is not meant to serve the reader as actual fact and should not be
considered as actual fact. Any resemblance to actual events, or
persons, living or dead, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.

The music had followed them. It thumped on
the walls and pounded from below. It vibrated through the metal
frame of her bed, buzzing their bodies with electric current. The
muffled tangles of animated voices wove over and under the
regulated thrusts of the bass. White holiday lights draped along
the perimeter of the ceiling softened everything in a honeyed hue,
including the face of the boy beneath her whose hands were sliding
up the back of her shirt. He had blond hair, cut short in an
almost-crew style, and gray-green eyes. She didn’t normally go for
blonds, she found herself thinking as his form blurred before her.
She thought he was pretty hot–a broad chest and strong neck that
she wanted to feel, inch by inch, with her lips. She ran two
fingers from his chin to his collarbone and marveled at the
smoothness of his skin. At this, he took her head in his hand and
kissed her. As his tongue flicked against hers, the sensors between
her legs rose and shivered, and she pressed her hips into his,
hard. His free hand found the back of her bra and unhooked the
clasps. His palms were cool on her breasts.

Trisha’s mind, for the first time in weeks,
was soothingly dark, like someone had drawn a shade over it. She
was suspended in this moment. The boy’s smell—a blend of spices and
powder—intoxicated her. She could feel him hardening against her
pelvis, and knew that she could get him to stay if she showed him
how talented she was. Deftly, she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans
and conjured him from confinement. She was hungry to please him. At
the fluttering touch of her fingers, he groaned.

She’d had boys tell her that she was the best
at her craft. She figured it was partly because she was utterly
willing—not like most girls, who dreaded the job, acted disgusted
and made their men feel guilty. But it was also her approach. She
knew where and how to apply the pressure with her tongue, when to
use her hands, if at all, and at what point to go full throttle.
Her friend Millie thought it was degrading and refused to do it,
but Trisha found it empowering. Her head was foggy tonight from the
three cups of fruity elixir she had downed in an hour, but even so,
she could tell that he’d be an easy one to please. As she worked,
he lifted himself into her, tilting and writhing. It didn’t take
long for him to grab the hair on the top of her head and yank as he
found ultimate release. His wails erupted and then descended around
her like ribbons.

With his sounds, Trisha’s sight cleared. She
sat, straddling his legs, and watched as he slung one arm across
his face. He breathed in once, and breathed out. Did he not want to
look at her? The sensations of desire that had been building in her
were falling in waves. She always seemed to forget: once she had
given away what a guy wanted, there was nothing left in it for her.
She was always in such a rush. The music continued to resonate, but
instead of urging her on, it only assaulted her throbbing head. The
boy pulled up his boxers, gaze focused on the ceiling.

The boy. Trisha’s mind groped for his name as
he swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet clomped to the
floor. He had never taken off his shoes. Was this it, then?
Desperation tingled in her chest.

“Was that okay?” she asked.
She wanted to move toward him and put her hand on his shoulder, but
she hesitated. He still hadn’t looked directly at her. Again? This
was happening to her
again?
But he had been so interested a couple of hours
before, asking her about her acting and complimenting the pink
extensions in her hair, drilling her about the summer hot spots of
Boston, where he would come to visit her that June while he was
vacationing with his family in Kennebunkport. She had been so
charming! Steve, she thought suddenly; his name was Steve. She
wanted to think she wasn’t stupid, but more and more of these
escapades were pointing to the contrary.

The boy raised his eyebrows and scratched the
back of his neck. “Yeah,” he said. “There really aren’t too many
situations in which those are not okay.” Was that supposed to be an
insult? Trisha’s jaw tightened. He was looking around her room, a
much-coveted single because of a screw-up with student housing. She
almost wished she had a roommate who would walk in right now and
make everything straightforwardly, blatantly awkward so that she
could get out of this. As his eyes shifted, she felt her cheeks
grow warm in shame. Maybe it was time to get rid of those two Anne
Geddes posters and the ballet figurine bookends on the shelf over
her desk.

“You want to go back downstairs?” she asked,
though she knew the answer. She was beginning to wish she could
rewind time.

“I don’t think so,” he said, and stood up.
“But thanks for everything, er—Katie.” He backed away from her,
felt for the doorknob behind him. Now he was studying her face. “I
mean, Nicky? Wait, what’s your name again?”

Her mouth dropped open. Was he serious?

Now he was laughing. “Emily? Sorry. All I was
told was that I should see the girl with the pink hair.”

Trisha sprang to her feet. “Get the fuck
out,” she said, slamming her fist against his chest. He was such an
asshole! He fumbled to open the door, still laughing, and tripped
into the hallway.

“Sorry, sorry!” He held up his hands
innocently. Now, in the fluorescent light of the corridor, she
noticed how narrow his eyes were, how pointed his ears, like a fox.
Not attractive—not at all. Her surroundings spun around her, and
she caught herself in the door frame. “Jenny. I mean, Chrissy!”

Trisha kicked the door shut. The tears were
spilling over before she reached the bed. She could hear him still
talking, and she cradled her head with her pillow to block him out.
Her phone, which had slipped out of her pocket and onto the floor
at some point, was lighting up with texts from Millie, but she
didn’t want to face them. She was horrified. Did she really have a
reputation? She’d had her share of encounters freshman year, but
who hadn’t? Wasn’t college about searching until you found
something worth committing to? She knew plenty of girls who spent
their weekends hooking up with guys and crying over them on Monday.
It was part of the weekly rotation, like reading quizzes in Anthro
101 and fighting for a spot on one of the common room couches
during Pats games. Wasn’t it?

What a shitty way to begin the semester,
though. She had left for Christmas break in mid-December smarting
from Devon’s rejection, the transparent excuse he had given her for
wanting to be free—he needed to end things with his ex-girlfriend
once and for all, because their relationship was still kind of
undefined, and she wouldn’t leave him alone. He needed time and
space to handle the break-up. What that really meant was that he
wasn’t done sleeping with her. “It’s been really great,” he had
said to Trisha about their three-month affair. “But I’ve just got
too much baggage.” She had never met a guy who let his baggage get
in the way of guaranteed sexual fireworks. But she let him go
without a fight. Over the long month that she was home in
Gloucester, her parents never once asked her about him, even though
she had been gushing about his genius graphic arts skills, his
sensitivity, his knack of knowing what was bothering her just by
sitting there in silence with her, since the school year had
started.

Trisha didn’t know what time the music
stopped. She fell asleep in her clothes, mouth dry and nose stuffed
from sobbing.

***

Her mother’s phone call cut right through her
dreams. Trisha squinted against the sun coursing into her room,
rolled over and scooped up the phone from the floor. When she
lunged over the side of the bed, it felt as though her brain
slugged forward in her cranium. The pressure in her forehead nearly
made her pass out again.

“I want to discuss something with you,
Trish,” she said without a greeting. “Daddy and I were going to say
something when you were home, but the time just never seemed right,
and we were trying to hold off on asking you to do this until we
were sure we had to.”

Trisha rubbed her eyes and her fingers came
away black with mascara. She was wandering into full consciousness.
“What is it, Mom?”

Her mother had a tendency to worry and to
make things that were not so tragic sound dire. She knew, though,
that it was going to have to do with money. Her parents ran a small
sit-down seafood restaurant on Bear Skin Neck in Rockport that
never quite made its yearly revenue goals. Trisha’s dad lived to
breathe the sea-salted air into his lungs and to crack lobster
shells—he had grown up on the Cape. Her mother was the host who
took care of people and lovingly refurbished old chairs and tables
and nautical paraphernalia until her décor looked just right. The
same patrons came in year after year, begging for the calamari and
warm hugs from the Barrons. Trisha loved her parents for loving
something that made them so tired. But she knew that it didn’t give
them the life they deserved. And she, herself, had no interest in
either seafood or the restaurant business, so she was really no
help to them.

As her mother began to talk, a flash of
memory from the night before made Trisha’s stomach cave: the image
of Steve with his arm over his face.

“—
because we can’t afford
to pay servers hired from without.”

Trisha’s mind backpedaled.

“Trish? Are you there?”

“Yes, Mom. Can you say that again? There was
a really loud noise in the hall.”

Her mother sighed. “I said,
Daddy and I are going to have to ask you and the boys to help us
at
Making Waves
this summer. We can’t afford to hire outside
servers.”

Trisha’s heart held a beat.
Ugh—
no!
An entire
three months pinned down to endless dinner services, the smell of
low tide and cocktail sauce, sweating through her tee-shirt as she
maneuvered around two of her thick-built brothers in and out of the
kitchen. She had been thinking of other plans, plans of living with
her high school friend Jessica in Cambridge and waitressing at a
bar and grill somewhere in town, or teaching kids acting in an
enrichment program. Her entire summer, sabotaged by that shack of
seaweed on stilts!

“But why?” Trisha protested. “You’ve always
hired extra servers to cover the summer season.”

“Because,” her mother said, “things are tight
this year, and the restaurant needs a new roof.” She paused.
“Please, Trish. We’re depending on you. We’ll alternate your
schedule with Jay’s and Eric’s so you have plenty of time off.”

Trisha closed her eyes and saw bursts of
electric light. “You’re ruining my summer for a new roof?”
Immediately, she regretted saying it. She had just walked herself
into a guilt trip.

Her mother’s voice wavered. “All right,
Trish. If you can’t make sacrifices after all your father and I
have done for you…” She went quiet.

Trisha wanted to scream. She wanted to erupt
into a good old fashioned temper tantrum like she used to in middle
school, ripping apart her entire room and then bawling as she
picked up torn poster pieces, warped books and shoes, thrown at
high velocity, whose heels had made divots in the walls. She wanted
one more thing to go terribly wrong. Just one. It might send her
over the edge. Why the hell not?