Giving In (The Sandy Cove Series Book 1) (17 page)

I had called Dr. Goldberg’s answering service,
and they told me he would call me back. I know it’s well past
midnight, but when you’re desperate, you’ll go to any length.

“It’s fine, Harlow. Really, it is. What can I do
for you.”

I touch my lips again, feeling the strength of
Cruz’s lips still on them, and every time I close my eyes, that
moment plays again in my head like a movie. A good one with some
sort of climatic moment and then thoughts of Chad pop in and the
panic sets in. Immediately, I lose all forms of serenity. The way
he made his way over to my table when I spotted him and those eyes.
They know how to hypnotize me and reel me in like bait on a hook. I
don’t want him because he never wanted me. I used to do whatever I
could to please him, but no matter what, I’d always come up
short.

“I was out tonight and I saw Chad.”

Dr. Goldberg sighs, not that he is annoyed, but
in a way that says he wishes I didn’t.

“I see. Did you exchange words with him?”

“Yes, it was brief. Actually my brother said
more to him than I did.”

Dr. Goldberg laughs. “Oh, my. Good old Craw. I
like the boy. I like how he always has your back, Harlow. So then
what?”

“Well, I think I handled it well. He asked me to
come and see him, but I didn’t answer. I kept the conversation
short.”

“Good, good. That’s exactly what I told you to
do, knowing you are both from the same town and your fathers are
friendly, you are bound to run into him.”

I know I have to tell him the reason why I
handled it so well, and I’m still not sure it was the best approach
seeing the way Cruz left. I think confused is a good word to
describe it. I, myself, am bewildered by it all.

“I kind of did something else that I’m not sure
was the best thing to do.”

I shut my eyes tight, feeling guilty for what I
have done. I’m always feeling guilty for something. I wonder if
that feeling will ever subside.

“And what was that, Harlow?”

“I kissed Cruz in front of Chad to… I don’t
know, make him jealous? But I don’t think that’s it. I think maybe
to distract myself from his presence? See, this is why I’m calling,
Dr. Goldberg. I don’t know what made me do what I did.”

I sound whiny, like my sister Greta.

A moment goes by before he speaks again.

“Harlow, what transpired between you and Chad is
something I feel you will never fully recover from. What went on
will remain in your thoughts no matter what you do, no matter what
you say. You told me before he has a powerful grip on you, always
has, but I don’t think you did what you did to make him jealous. A
distraction, quite possibly, but for some unknown rationalization I
think from the things you tell me about your friend Cruz, you
wanted to kiss him.”

Now I think Dr. Goldberg is the one who needs to
be on crazy pills.

“Oh, no way! I didn’t mean for the kiss to end
up like the way it did, and I didn’t set out for it to happen,
either.”

Or did I? Was it premeditated?

Still feeling the after effects of the kiss, I
question myself.

“Harlow, I’m not saying you set out to kiss him,
but maybe in your subconscious mind it was… the logical thing to
do. I hear you speak so highly of the man. Although I am a licensed
doctor and therapist, I am also a man who has been happily married
to the same woman for thirty five years, and I know how women
think.”

Here’s Dr. Goldberg giving me his take on the
female psyche. Typical male.

“I understand that, Dr. Goldberg, and Cruz is
becoming a near and dear friend, and we have a past, but I’m not
sure in the back of my mind I wanted it to happen.”

This time.

I hear him clear his throat.

“You once shared some sort of intimacy with the
man and clearly you have not forgotten it. Can you open your mind
to the fact that there may be more here between you both? Is it out
of the realm of possibilities?”

It has to be, doesn’t it?

My lips still burn. Is that normal?

We are friends who were one-time lovers. A case
of at the right place at the right time, I suppose. Besides, even
entertaining the thought is out of the question, not even sure I
would. No. No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. We are developing a
friendship, a mutual understanding that it is possible for a woman
and a man who have slept together, but no longer have the desire to
be with one another in that way again can, in fact be friends.

I’m too damaged anyway.

Nobody wants me.

“No, Dr. Goldberg, I like being on my own. I
like the person I am becoming. I like myself again.”

I lie a little because I no longer can listen to
his psychobabble.

It’s too hard to pretend to not care how damaged
I actually am, but with Cruz, I forget that. Maybe he’s bringing me
out of that way of thinking. I need to explain it all to him, and I
know he will listen, but only when the time is right.

***

No matter what my dick is doing right now,
which is a lot, I still can’t get the image of what happened at the
bar out of my head. It was like Harlow was a different person. She
was like that person last year in the bathroom, taking charge,
dominating the situation, stepping outside of that God damn shell
of hers.

I never said I liked it, though.

My mind is still reeling from the time her eyes
changed their shape, the color blue turning a bleak gray when she
saw him walk through that door. I don’t think I’ve seen anything
like it. I’ve never seen eyes do what hers did. There was nothing
there when she spotted him. They were lifeless, like when her focus
was on him, he sucked the light out of them. It scared me and as
fucked up as that sounds coming from me, it did.

And I don’t get scared.

I’ve got this girl, Leilani, who I met at the
bar the other night, riding Morty so hard right now, I may need to
soak him in a tub of ice tomorrow. For some strange reason, I can’t
get Harlow’s kiss off my mind. The way she grabbed the back of my
neck and forced her lips on mine, the sensation I felt going
through my body just from that is enough for me not to give two
shits that I have this animalistic, exotic looking piece of ass
going bunking bronco on me.

And that scares me even more than the look in
Harlow’s eyes.

I don’t get scared. I don’t feel things. I was
born and raised on the streets by a crack-head. My father left when
I was two. I never knew him. I only knew the Johns that walked in
and out of my mother’s life. She used to make me call them uncle.
Uncle, my ass. The final straw was when I was ten and one of them
told me that my mother wouldn’t suck his dick, so I had to step
into her place. I threatened him with a butcher knife and hung his
bag of crack over the toilet, threatening to flush it and slit his
throat if he even tried to touch me. Never saw that fucker
again.

My crack-head mother blamed me for ruining her
life once he left, of course. All she ever cared about was the
drugs. She didn’t love me or my brother. She didn’t show compassion
or care about us. We were basically on our own. Bella’s, my sister
in law’s, parents would make sure we were fed on holidays and would
check on us frequently. They were our neighbors and looked out for
us. I wish we could have lived with them. Not like we saw a lot of
our mother. During the day, she slept off her high and at night,
she was out selling herself or trying her damnedest to score.

We lived in filth, felt like filth, we were just
that.

Filth.

Feelings weren’t expressed in my house. I feel
what I want to feel, physically, not mentally. Like I can feel this
girl’s pussy going up and down on my cock, and it feels good, don’t
get me wrong, but that’s it. I don’t feel like kissing her,
touching her skin, feeling her lips on me. I just want to get off
and show her the door.

I don’t show emotions, but for some reason, I
showed some tonight. It was a mixture of them. The look on her
face, the way her body tensed, the way she looked at me, the way
she… Kissed me. I wasn’t prepared for that.

I’m not prepared for anything that has to do
with Harlow, but the one thing… the one fucking thing that still
has me spinning is she let him call her baby, and she didn’t bat an
eyelash when he did. There was no, ‘don’t call me baby’, she just
let him say that word. The word she hates, no let me rephrase that…
she fucking despises. I say it to her almost every day without even
thinking first and every day she corrects me in her teacher voice,
like scolding a child. Except with that douche bag, it was like it
was just another word. When I say it, the woman shoots fire from
her eyes. I mean it. It’s like the word is poison. I don’t get it.
I don’t get her.

Am I even supposed to?

I can’t come. The faster she rides me, the more
I think about tonight. I should just fake it, but how am I going to
fake it with a condom on? It’s dark in here so maybe I should at
least try.

“Oh, Cruz, you are so fucking big. That’s it
baby. Give me what I want.” Breathlessly she tells me to fuck her
harder.

It does nothing to change my thoughts. All that
dirty talk coming from her mouth actually takes away from my
hard-on, plus I’m not even doing anything. She’s the one fucking me
for Christ’s sake.

“Are you close, Cruz? I’m gonna come baby. Here
I go. Oh God, yes! Yes! Yes!”

Now I’ve heard that somewhere before. A lot, but
I’m going to put on my acting skills.

Ready.

Here goes.

“Oh yea, baby. Here I go, yea. Oh God, yea!”

I buck up and down, once, twice, and that’s all
she wrote folks.

Faked it.

Never in a million years would I have thought
I’d have to fake it with someone who looks like her. Perfect tits
and ass. I deserve a round of applause for that performance. An
Academy Award even. She needs to get off me, not nuzzle her face in
my neck. I need to pull out and run to the bathroom and flush this
empty rubber down the toilet.

I somehow manage to wiggle my body from
underneath her, practically rolling off the bed onto the floor. I
almost feel the need to run to the bathroom.

“Where you going, baby?” She says to me in a
sultry voice.

She called me baby. It makes me sick.

Irony.

“Bathroom. I’m not feeling so good, so… Um… this
was fun. You know where the door is, right?” I don’t even give her
a chance to say anything, and I don’t take a glance back at her
after I basically tell her to get lost. My head is not where it
should be. Where it should be is in between that chick’s legs, but
I’m not feeling it.

I lean against the bathroom door for support,
flick on the light, and rip the rubber off my dick so fast, like a
Band-Aid. I can’t catch my breath from the smart of it.

Sorry, Morty.

I wait until I hear the door close and exhaling
never felt so good. The water I splash on my face both shocks me
and suffocates me, and I know I need air. I have no idea what time
it is, or if anyone is home. Didn’t notice any sounds coming from
the living room or any doors slamming. I didn’t hear any bodies
slamming, for that matter, either. Not that what was going on in my
room a little bit ago stopped me from paying attention. That little
tryst didn’t even hold my interest long enough even to realize what
was, if at all, anything was going on in my house. The thoughts of
Harlow took the place of it. There could be a hundred people in
that living room right now for all I know. Not that I even care. I
bust open the bathroom door, and go to my room and put on a pair of
gym shorts. I’m too hot right now to stick anything else on.

The house is dark and quiet. I really don’t
think anyone is here. If they are, they’re all passed out. I step
out onto the deck, the salt air hitting my nostrils. I close my
eyes and take a deep breath, running my hands through this unruly
hair of mine. I lean on the railing of the deck, scratch at my
chin, feeling the stubble, and wondering why Harlow reacted that
way to that guy.

Chad Knox.

The name Harlow whispered in her sleep a few
nights ago.

Why did she say she was sorry that night to him
while she was sleeping?

“So I saw that your company left you.” Startled,
I jump when I hear her voice. I turn to see Harlow sitting in a
chair next to the door leading to her house. Her face is shadowed
by the overhang of the tiny awning that covers the sliding door.
She’s wrapped up in a blanket, mimicking a cocoon, and all I can
see are her toes peeking out from underneath it.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”

I clench my chest with my hand, right over my
heart. The beat of it is fast, and it takes me a moment to catch my
breath.

“What the hell are you doing out here this late?
Where is everybody?” I ignore her previous question. Maybe she’ll
forget she asked me, and I can pretend like it never happened.

I slowly make my way over to where she is, but I
stop, turn and lean my back against the railing.

“Bed,” she plainly replies.

An awkward moment of silence comes between us,
and I really don’t know what to say. Wait, scratch that… I have
plenty to say. A million questions fill my head, but I am deciding
not to ask them now. I’m trying to avoid looking in her direction,
although I’m curious to know what time it is, and why while
everyone else is sleeping, she’s awake and out here.

“So why are you out here?” I ask.

She sighs and rises from her chair. The light of
the moon and one streetlight brings her face into view. Her hair is
twisted upwards on top of her head, tendrils touching the sides of
her face. She’s wearing her glasses, her hot-for-teacher
glasses.