Never Kiss a Stranger (17 page)

A rustling coming from the inside of the house drew my attention toward the open sliding door behind me. Shuffling footsteps and the sound of luggage being hauled were enough to tell me the guest of honor had arrived. I couldn’t think straight. I hadn’t planned to see him.

“Wilder, my boy!” Vince stood up and headed into the house. “I’m so glad you decided to come!”

Oh, so he wasn’t going to come?

I turned to face him and offered him a dismal smile. We were going to have to make the best of things that week. “Hi, Wilder. How are you?”

“Hey, sis!” His tone was sarcastic, though I was quite certain I was the only one who picked up on that. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tight and forcing me to breathe in the intoxicating scent of his aftershave. The one that had felt like home just weeks ago.

“You want a drink? Here, have a seat.” Vince offered Wilder his chair, which happened to be right across from me, as he headed inside. Emerging with a beer a minute later, he handed it to Wilder.

“Thanks, Dad,” Wilder said with a Wally Cleaver smile as he pulled the tab on the beer can and took a drink. His eyes held mine prisoner, refusing to let go.

I mouthed the word “what” and scrunched my nose at him. What was he trying to do here?

“Well, since everyone’s here, I better get supper started.” My mom sprung to action and headed inside, humming a quiet, happy tune.

“If you don’t mind, I feel like taking a walk on the beach before we eat,” Wilder said, still looking directly at me. He scooted out from the table and headed down the deck and toward the path that led straight to the sandy beach.

“What’s that about?” Coco turned to me, and I shrugged.

“No clue,” I said.

“We brought some card games,” Vince said. He hadn’t removed the cheesy T.V. dad grin from his face since we’d arrived. “Thought maybe after dinner the five of us could sit out here and have some good, old-fashioned family fun?”

“Aw, family time,” Coco whispered just loud enough that I could hear her. I jabbed my elbow into her side when Vince turned away.

My gaze was still on Wilder, watching as he slowly trudged through the sand in his bare feet, his shoes in one hand and his beer in the other. He wore a pair of faded red shorts and an untucked, wrinkled baby blue button down. I’d never seen him dressed down before. He was always in a suit and tie, or at the very least a polo or cashmere sweater. His hair was a product-free mess, and judging by his little episode a second earlier, he was definitely not himself.

It was safe to say that Wilder Van Cleef had come undone.

“Aw, reverse! Back to
Addi
,” Wilder exclaimed during a game of
Uno
later that night. A fresh, frosty beer rested in his hand as he slapped a yellow reverse card down in the center pile. He’d insisted on sitting next to me when the game started, and he continued to reverse the order so he could strategically pick on me. Every time he’d pick a color he knew I didn’t have, he’d nudge me with his elbow or lean into me for a brief moment. “I don’t know about you guys, but I think I kind of love being a big brother.”

Coco and I exchanged looks before I said, “You certainly seem to be wearing the title well.”

He reached his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into him. “My whole life, all I wanted was a little sister. And now I finally got one. Two, actually.”

“Lucky you,” I mumbled.

Mom flashed a rosy-cheeked, happy-in-love look Vince’s way as he placed his hand over hers.

If they only knew…

“So, Wilder,” Vince said. “You’re turning the big two-eight tomorrow. Tammy Lynn would love to bake you a cake.”

She never baked us birthday cakes growing up.

“Aw, that’s too sweet of you, Tammy Lynn. You don’t have to do that for me.” He drew a card and jabbed an elbow into my side to tell me it was my turn.

“Oh, please. I want to. It means so much to me that you came out here to join us,” she said. “When Vince said you might not come, I was worried that maybe you didn’t want to accept us as your family. I’m glad you changed your mind.”

“So, buddy, you thinking about settling down anytime soon?” Vince took a sip of his drink as he slapped a red number three down and then reorganized the remaining cards in his hand. “You’re not getting any younger! When I was your age, I had
you
already.”

“You know, the girls have so many friends and connections in the city,” Mom gushed. “I’m sure they could introduce you to a nice, young woman.”

“Thank you, no.” Wilder said, turning my way. “My heart already belongs to someone.”

“You didn’t tell me you were dating anyone!” Vince leaned across the table and pounded his fist into Wilder’s shoulder. “You old dog, you. Tell us about her.”

My heart thudded hard in my chest, and the margarita from earlier sloshed around in my stomach as it threatened to rise up into my mouth. Had he moved on already? So soon?

“Let’s see…” Wilder leaned back in his seat as the corners of his lips curled upward. “She’s a little bit younger than me, but that’s okay because she acts way older.”

My eyes widened. I listened intently as I stared down at my hand of cards. My mind immediately pictured someone like Skylar: young, huge breasts, and beautiful. Wilder could easily get any girl he wanted just by snapping his fingers.

“I’ll spare you the details,” he said, his jaw hardening and his posture suddenly stiff. Wilder’s annoying big brother façade was fading fast. “She’s special. That’s all I’ll say. I knew it from the moment we met.”

Lightheadedness flooded me as my lungs gasped for air. I needed to go lie down. Imagining him with another woman, real or not, was too much to take.

“So, you think you met the one?” Vince asked, all smiles.

“Oh, I don’t think. I know.” Wilder slammed a card down in the stack and then nudged me. “Your turn,
sis
.”

“What are you waiting for, son? When do you think you’ll ask her?” Vince leaned forward, anxiously awaiting his answer. I supposed that to people of our parents’ generation, people who married young and sometimes repeatedly, the fact that Wilder was an unmarried twenty-eight year old was concerning.

“Never.” Wilder placed his hand of cards face down on the table and finished the last of his beer before turning to look directly at me. “She doesn’t love me.”

I practically choked on my spit. My hand flew to my mouth as I tried to control the coughing fit that followed. He’d been talking about me the entire time.

“What?” Vince scrunched his brows together. “Now that’s just ridiculous. How could anyone not love you back?”

“I don’t know, Dad,” Wilder said as he looked at me. “I wish I could ask her, but she’s a little closed off.”

Mom wiped her eye and offered a bittersweet smile. “I really hope you meet someone special someday, Wilder. Maybe you’ll forget all about this girl. She doesn’t deserve you anyway.”

I tossed back the rest of my margarita and blinked away my watering eyes. I adjusted my body toward Coco and away from Wilder. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

“I guess I’m just not what she wants. Nothing I can do about that.” Wilder stood up and went to the kitchen, presumably to grab another drink, only he came back with a bottle of water. Even in his drunken stupor, he realized he needed to cool it.

“Maybe someday she’ll come around,” Mom said when he returned.

“And when she does, I’ll be waiting,” he said, his words toneless. He uncapped his water and took a sip. “Because that’s what you do when you love somebody. You wait for them, no matter how hard it might be.”

“Well, don’t wait too long, son,” Vince laughed. “There are plenty of fish in the sea. Cast your net wide and you’ll find someone. Maybe you’ll find someone you’ll love even more. Sounds like she’s maybe not worth the trouble.”

“Can you all excuse me, please?” I slid out from the table and headed inside, grabbing my suitcase from the foyer and heading upstairs to an empty guest room. I couldn’t take any more. I couldn’t sit there and listen to him profess his love for me.

I loved the hell out of him. I just couldn’t be with him. It was never that he wasn’t what I wanted.

He was everything I wanted.

We played another round of
Uno
, though my mind wasn’t in the game. The empty seat next to me and the tepid ocean breeze that replaced it served to remind me that maybe I’d gone too far.

But she needed to hear what I had to say, and if that was the only way then so be it. I never expected her to run upstairs to get away from me, and I was almost certain I’d seen her crying.

“Uno!” Coco yelled, holding up her last remaining card. One more go-around and she laid down her final card, a blue seven. “Okay, I’m sitting this next one out.”

“Actually, I think I’ve had enough games for tonight,” I said. “I’m out, too.”

I stood up. I needed to go find her somewhere in that big, white house.

“I think Vince and I are going to go for a little late night stroll on the beach,” Tammy Lynn said, grabbing his hand. “It’s too perfect of a night not to.”

Coco stood to leave. “I need to get some work done on my laptop. I’ll be in the family room if anyone needs me, I guess.”

I waited for everyone to go their own way before heading inside and climbing the stairs. There were five bedrooms in that house, and I wasn’t sure where she was hiding, but I sure as hell was going to find her.

The first door I knocked on went unanswered, so I swung it open. Nothing but a small empty room with pastel peach walls and a blue bedspread covered in faded seashells.

The second door I knocked on also went unanswered, but when I barged in, I was met with half-open suitcases probably belonging to Dad and Tammy Lynn.

I knocked on the third door, the one at the end of the east hallway.

“Go away,” Addison sobbed.

Ding, ding, ding.

I ignored her plea and let myself in, closing the door behind me and heading to where she was curled up into a ball with her face buried in the ugliest, salmon-colored quilt I’d ever seen. Transparent curtains fluttered as the salty ocean breeze traveled in through the open windows.

We should’ve been laughing and talking and having a good time. We should’ve been trying to forge some kind of friendship. I should’ve been nicer to her, and maybe I shouldn’t have shown up in the first place.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, slowly crouching down to where she lay. She cried softly into the pillow. “I shouldn’t have said what I said down there. At least, not in the way I said it.”

She peered over her shoulder, her blue eyes wet with runny black mascara.

“I meant every word, though.” I climbed onto the bed, lying next to her and grabbing her thigh to hoist it over my hip. With my hand on the small of her back, I pulled her tight against me.

“You act,” she sniffled, “like I don’t want to be… with you… but you know that’s not… it’s not like that…”

I ran my hand over the back of her head, soothing her as she cried into my chest.

“W-why’d you come here?” she asked.

“Fuck, I don’t know. I thought maybe if you saw me again, you’d remember how much you loved me. I’m a desperate man, lovely. A fucked up, desperate man, and this was my final act of desperation.”

“Like I could possibly forget that I love you,” she whimpered. “I never stopped, Wilder. Not once.”

Without thinking, I leaned down and kissed away her salty tears. With my lips against her warm, soft cheeks, she pulled her face up. Staring into my soul with glassy eyes, she kissed me.

“One last time,” she whispered as she sat up and climbed on top of me. Our fingers interlaced. “I miss the way you used to look at me.”

I stared into the eyes of a girl whose world was spinning madly out of control, and she knew I was the only one who could fix it. My hands searched through the dark room until they found her face. Half her face glowed against the pale moonlight pouring in through the open windows. With her fingers tugging the hem of her top, she pulled it up and over her head before leaning down and kissing me again. The second her body was pressed against mine, I rolled her over, pinning her beneath me.

She used to love when I controlled her body. When I told her what to do. When she gave herself to me, she said she’d never felt more alive. My hand slipped down between us as I unbuttoned her jeans and tugged them off her hips.

I climbed off the bed. “Take everything off. Now.”

She stifled a relieved smile as she willingly obliged, unhooking her bra and slipping her black lace panties down her shapely legs and kicking them to the floor.

“Lay on your stomach,” I commanded. She rolled over, burying the side of her face in the pillow she’d previously cried into. My hands twitched as I undressed myself, one tedious button at a time. Pulling a condom from my wallet, I slid it over my hardened shaft and climbed back on the bed. I slid my hands underneath her hips until they reached her pussy. I slipped a finger inside with ease, aided by her overabundance of wetness. “God, you must really want this.”

She nodded, biting her lip. “I do. So bad.”

“Don’t talk.” I bent to the floor, grabbing my leather belt. I hooked it around the wrought iron headboard and wrapped it around her wrists. I’d have much preferred to make love to her in that bed and not fuck her, but I was simply following her orders. Next I grabbed her black panties and bunched them into a wad before gently placing them into her mouth. My right hand traveled back to her sweet pussy, pleasantly surprised to find it was even wetter than before.

I gathered her hair into a ponytail at her nape, tugging it back as I whispered in her ear. “We have to be quiet. Don’t make a sound.”

She nodded as soon as I released her hair. My hands lightly traced down her naked back, stopping at her round ass and grabbing a handful before pulling her hips up and forcing her into a kneeling position. I smoothed my hand across her ass before offering a quick slap that surely left an imprint.

“Mm,” she said as the sting of the slap left her soft skin.

“Quiet, Addison,” I growled. “You don’t want me to do that again, do you?”

I slipped a finger inside her arousal once again, finding her more relaxed than usual, as if she’d wanted me more than she’d ever wanted me before. With my hand gripping the base of my cock, I guided it inside her slowly, one tantalizing inch at a time.

Her hips bucked back against mine in response to the deep insertion. Gripping her hips, I thrust in and out of her, slowly and then building in intensity. My hands crawled the length of her body, tracing every curve and angle, feeling what was mine. Claiming every inch of her.

The way she moved told me she wanted more, and she knew she wasn’t allowed to speak. I had to listen to what she wasn’t saying. I fucked her harder, harder than I’d ever fucked her before, she fucked me back, circling her hips and arching her spine when my fingers played against her swollen clit.

Her round breasts bounced with each thrust, and faint, uncontrollable sighs leaving her muffled mouth told me she was getting close. I slowed down. I wanted to enjoy it, and I sure as fuck wanted her to enjoy it, too.

I pulled myself out of her, knowing it was a tortuous act but one that would soon pay off. With her ass in the air and her face buried in the pillow on top of her restrained wrists, I positioned myself for reentry.

“Mm!” she moaned as her body accepted mine once more. I slapped her ass with each thrust before giving her respite. The way she fucked me back told me she was holding on to the earthquake rumbling in her core and never letting go. Hunched over her and gripping her hips, I jackhammered her swollen, pink pussy until she came all over my cock and I unleashed a stream of pent up frustration inside her.

I collapsed on top of her, our bodies sweaty from the humid Florida air seeping in the open window. We stuck together like Velcro as I tugged the panties from her pretty much and unwrapped the leather belt from her wrists.

I slinked off her and laid flat on the opposite side of the bed, attempting to catch my breath. And when I very least expected it, she curled up into my arm. The way she used to.

“What’s this?” I whispered.

She nuzzled against my chest, placing an open palm on my stomach.

“I’m going to leave tomorrow,” I said, keeping my voice low. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but I knew it was late. For all I knew the walls of the beach house were paper thin and there were three unsuspecting souls who would ruin this moment for us if they only knew what we’d just done.

“Why?”

“I can’t be around you like this and not want to keep touching you. And I can’t pretend. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“You don’t have to go…” Her voice trailed as she tugged me tight. “Shit. You’re right. They’re going to know something’s up if you keep sneaking into my room like this.”

“Sounds like someone didn’t fall out of love with me like she planned,” I teased, dragging the tips of my fingers against her arm.

“Not at all,” she giggled. “Did you mean it when you said you’d wait for me?”

“I did.” I drew in a sharp breath. “I don’t think I have a choice. The heart wants what it wants. I’m never going to meet another girl who makes me feel half the things you make me feel.”

I rolled to my side, pressing her onto her back. Even with dried streaks of mascara around her pretty blue eyes, she was still beautiful.

“You forget I’m an investor,” I whispered, lowering my lips to the crevice between her breasts. “I’m a very patient man, Addison. I can wait a long time if it means getting what I want.”

She smiled as I gathered her arms and placed them above her head. I crawled over top of her, pinning her once more. I just wanted to feel the warmth of our naked bodies as the night air clung to our skin.

I kissed her left breast, just above her pert, pink nipple. “That’s an investment.” My lips traveled to her collarbone. “That’s another investment.” I kissed the tender underside of her neck. “And another investment…”

She laughed, melting away the day’s tension. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“One day these investments are going to mature,” I explained. “And I’ll cash out.”

“Cash out?”

“Yeah, cash out. Marry you.”

Her hand flew to my face, cupping my jaw as she stared at me exactly the way she did when we first realized we had absolutely no control over what was happening between us.

“Funny way of putting it, but I think I get it,” she said with a laugh.

“It’s good seeing you again,” I said. “The real you. Not the crazy you.”

“Same here. I was worried about you for a little bit. You get kind of scary when…”

“When the things I love have been ripped away from me? Yeah. It goes way back. I’m sorry.” I pulled her close, kissing her soft lips again and reveling in their sweet taste.

“What are we going to do until our parents’ divorce?” she asked, her face suddenly falling.

“Let’s not worry about that.” I stroked the side of her cheek. “Let’s just enjoy this. Right here. Right now.”

She lay in my arms all night, and we talked until two or three in the morning, keeping our voices low. At some point I must have fallen asleep in her bed, because the next thing I knew someone was knocking at her door.

“Addison?”

I popped up. “Shit, Addison. Your mom’s out there.”

“Fuck,” she said, springing to action. We both glanced down at the floor where our clothes were strewn. “Get in the closet.”