Second Chance Summer (Chance Series, #1) (21 page)

“I don’t care. What if I didn’t plan on leavin’ with Kia? Hmm? Now I have a freakin’ chaperone.”

Adam slams his hand on the table and leans into her, saying something into her ear. I narrow my eyes as Luce opens and closes her mouth like a fish.

And then she slaps him.

“Oh, shit.” Reese laughs.

“Pig!” Luce exclaims. “Adam, you are a fuckin’ pig!”

“What?” He grins, and Luce glares at me.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

I sigh and follow her down the stairs and through the crowds. We walk into the surprisingly empty, bright white public bathroom, and she folds her arms across her chest.

“What did he say?”

“He said…” She grits her teeth together. “…That I could still go home without you. As long as I was goin’ home with him.”

I stare at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. She looks at me, horrified, but the whole thing is so funny I can’t help it.

“What?” she demands. “What is so funny?”

I hold up a finger as I catch my breath again. “The fact he’s just offered you exactly what you’ve wanted for like, two years, and you turned around and slapped him.”

She shakes her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want
just
sex with Adam – or anyone here for that matter. I want a relationship, Kia. I don’t want to warm his bed just because he’s finally got tired of bangin’ Stacy every damn weekend.”

So that’s why I haven’t seen Stacy anywhere around lately.

“I would have to be really, really, drunk to have a one-night stand with Adam.”

“So.” I lean against the sinks and raise my eyebrows. “You’re telling me you didn’t sleep with anyone in Vegas?”

She straightens and examines her reflection in the mirror. “I’m not sayin’ that.”

“Right. So what makes Adam so different?” Even though I know what she’s gonna say.

“Because I care,” she answers quietly. “And that makes him different. If you care, there’s strings attached, and he doesn’t want strings. Are you comin’?”

Luce straightens again and walks to the door, a sadness lurking in her eyes when she looks back at me. My heart hurts for my best friend. I know there’s nothing she’d love more than to have Adam care the way she does.

I know he cares about her – but I just don’t know if it’s in the same way she does.

And I don’t trust him enough not to break her heart.

I let her lead me back into the club, but instead of heading to the table, she tugs me toward the mass of writhing bodies on the dance floor. Calvin Harris’ newest song blasts from the numerous speakers lining the wall, and it’s so alive in here it feels like the floor is vibrating.

In fact, I don’t think I’d be surprised if there were speakers under the floor making it vibrate.

Luce shakes her hair out, shaking her body at the same time and starting to dance. I let the music flow through me, following her movements. With the stress of the last week, I’ve forgotten how freeing it is to just let go and relax the way I am now. I forgot how freeing it was to just be me.

And it’s easy to let go in this crowd. With the pulsating beat of the music and rhythmic movements of the people around, getting lost happens almost without thinking. And this, I realize, is where I’m most comfortable. Surrounded by people that don’t know me or my story, where I’m just another girl.

I don’t know how long Luce and I dance for. Songs blend into one another seamlessly, and we travel slowly across the dance floor until she makes a drinking motion. I nod, knowing the music is too loud down to speak down here.

She grabs my hand and leads me back toward the table. The music is slightly quieter up here, and I sigh with relief as I drop onto the seat next to Reese. He watches me as I throw back half of my drink, the liquid cool from the melted ice cubes and soothing my thirst. I wriggle my toes in my shoes. My feet are slightly sore already, even though the night is still fairly young.

I’ve become a total lightweight since coming back to Alabama.

Luce motions again to the dance floor, but I shake my head. Hell no. I need to sit down for five minutes.

“Suit yaself,” she shouts across the table. “I’m goin’ to find me a hot ass guy.” She stands, her skirt flouncing as she sweeps down the stairs. Adam’s eyes narrow and he says something I can’t hear that looks an awful lot like, “Hell fucking no.”

I hide my smirk as he follows her, leaving us alone. Reese trails his fingers up the inside of my thigh, and I squirm in my seat, looking over at him from below my lashes. He’s wearing his cocky grin and gazing at me intently.

“Come dance.” He leans forward, brushing his lips across my cheek toward my ear. I shake my head. “Come and dance,” he repeats, kissing my earlobe.

“You can’t dance.”

“You didn’t think I could sing either.” He curls his hand around my thigh. “You were wrong there.”

So, he has a point.

I groan when he grabs my hands and pulls me up. My body presses against his as I steady myself in my heels, and I look up at him. His face gives nothing away, but I know the eyes.

“You really wanna dance?” I unlink our fingers and slide my hands up his arms.

“Yep.”

“Then we’ll dance.” I hook my finger in the collar of his shirt, tugging him after me and down the steps to the floor.

Reese puts his hands on my waist from behind when we reach the bottom, and I let his shirt go. I sway my hips to the beat of the music and the crowd swallows us up, drowning us in bodies. It doesn’t take long for Reese’s hands to make their way down to my hips and for his chest to be flush against my back. I sweep my hair round to one side, exposing my neck, and lean into him. I rest my head back on his shoulder as we move together, hooking my arm up and around his neck. He turns his face, his lips ghosting along my collarbone tantalizingly and his hips pressing into me.

I falter when he presses between my ass cheeks, harder than I’ve ever felt him. My breath heaves as his fingers probe across my lower stomach. My muscles tighten with his movements, and it’s like he’s directing all my feelings downwards and crafting them into a tight ball of sexual want and need.

Or it could be because the combination of him against me and his breath blazing across my hot skin in public is turning me on more than I care to admit.

He flattens one hand against my stomach and the other wanders to the hem of my skirt. I hold my breath, somehow still dancing, somehow still thinking, somehow still standing. He flicks his fingertips beneath the material and they’re dangerously close to my throbbing core. My hips grind against him, and I dig my fingers into his neck and slip my hand round to his back, like I can pull him tighter against me. Like that simple act will calm the fire raging inside me.

Reese drags his hand from my skirt and up my body, cupping my breast as he does it, until it’s holding the side of my face. The other presses harder onto my stomach and his lips hover against my ear.

“We’re leavin’.”

That’s all he says before he lets me go and drags me through the crowd to the doors. A doorman opens them, nodding to us, but I barely spare him a glance.

I can barely breathe. All I can focus on is the way our bodies felt against each other on the dance floor. How everything else disappeared.

Fresh air smacks into us as we step outside and around the corner, and a harsh tug on my hand spins me. My back slams against the cold wall and lips press to mine. I whimper against his mouth, grabbing his shirt at the waist. One hand tangles in my hair and the other splays across my back. Our bodies are taut against each other, and I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.

His tongue is probing and harsh in its movements, and the only thing driving this kiss is passion. It’s pure. It’s raw. It’s real.

My whole body tightens, and I whimper again, pushing myself into him even more like there’s an ocean between us. He dives his tongue in and out of my mouth, teasing me, and he nips and grazes my swollen bottom lip with his teeth.

“You better get your ass in my fuckin’ truck before this wall sees more action than its damn well meant to.” He pulls away and gazes at me with heavy eyes. Eyes that promise more. Eyes that promise everything.

“Where is it?” I breathe out and move with him, not wanting to let him go. Not wanting to stop at all, because I don’t.

He leads me to it wordlessly and all but shoves me in the cab. I cross my legs on the seat as he gets in and pulls away. I can feel the tension between us, zinging back and forth, so heavy I can taste it with every panted breath I take.

“Where are we-”

“Don’t,” he rasps out. “Don’t talk to me, Kia, unless you want me to pull over and make love to you right here on the side of the road where anyone could see us.”

I swallow, staring out the dash. With the way I feel, it’s tempting.

Very tempting.

Instead, I stay silent until he turns off-road onto a dirt track. He drives through some woods, until the sounds of the road have gone. We stop and Reese turns the keys, killing the engine. His door slams as he gets out, walks around the truck, and yanks mine open. He hauls me from the truck and my body slides against his. His hands cup my ass and his lips find mine, softer than before. I sink my fingers into his hair, and he walks us backward.

He lifts me into the cab of the truck and begins to feel around. He grabs a bag I didn’t know was there and pulls out two blankets, laying them down, before putting me on them.

“I took a lucky guess you’d be leaving with me tonight,” he whispers, crawling over me and looking down. “And I took a lucky guess we might not make it home.”

I rake my fingers back through his hair as he lowers his body against mine.

“Very lucky guess,” I whisper back, hooking my leg around his.

He takes my mouth with his, swallowing whatever words I had left to say, and covers my body with his.

~

“I miss the stars.”

“You’re lookin’ at ‘em right now, baby.” Reese’s fingers comb through my hair.

I sigh, snuggling into him closer. “I know. When I’m in New York, I mean. I miss them then. It’s so bright with the city lights you can’t see them.”

“Yeah, but the lights ain’t all that bad.”

“No,” I agree. “The city lights are amazing in themselves, especially at New Year, but there’s somethin’ about the stars. They’re… I don’t know. I think it’s the country girl in me.”

“You can take the girl out of the country…”

“…But not the country out of the girl,” I finish, tilting my head back and smiling up at him. “You’re right. Even when I didn’t want to, all I could think about was coming back for the summer and bein’ in the country again. No constant sirens, no crazy taxi drivers beeping their horns and no constant hum of life. I don’t know how people go to the city and never leave.”

“I bet city people think the same about us, though. How we can live in the country, in the quiet, and never feel the need to leave.” Reese shifts slightly. “If you could, would you change it?”

“Change what?”

“Your choice. Where you go to school. Would you go to New York, or stay here in Alabama?”

“I…” How do I answer that? “I don’t know. I decided on New York way before anything happened.”

“If you knew then what you know now?”

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing, Reese. But that doesn’t mean I’d change my decision. Is it worth leavin’ my home for a better future? Yeah, it is. New York isn’t forever. It’s just a stepping stone. I would have always come back here at some point.”

“At some point…”

I tilt my head back again and rest my hand on his cheek. “At some point, yeah. I didn’t mean to come back this summer. I didn’t really want to, but I knew I had to. I didn’t know why I had to, but I do now. I had to come back to make everything right. I had to come back for the truth.”

And that’s it. I didn’t have to come back this summer, not really. Jay would have let me stay with him in a heartbeat if I’d asked – just like he’s letting me move in without batting an eyelid. Staying in New York was always an option, but I still came back. If I didn’t, I’d still be thinking what ifs about every aspect of my life – about my parents, about Reese, about my whole damn life.

I’d still be wondering. I’d still be running.

“Truth is, Kia, I think I still would have been here waiting for you no matter how long it took you to come back.” Reese kisses the tip of my nose.

“Really?” I scrunch my face up. “Even if I didn’t come back until after college finished? In three years?”

He nods. “You drive me crazy in every way possible, girl. You’re it. And you know it. You’re all there is for me. You are my forever.”

“Even though…” I swallow. “…Even though I broke your heart by running away, you would have given me a second chance?”

“Of course I would have. I have already, haven’t I? Call me stupid or whatever, but everyone deserves their second chance. We can’t always get things right the first time round, so we gotta try again, and this is us trying again. This summer is our second chance, baby, and there’s no way we’re getting it wrong this time.”

CHAPTER 15

Sometimes I really wish I was more organized.

My newly empty suitcase glares at me almost accusingly from the corner of my room. Newly empty because, after weeks of being home, I’ve only just completely sorted it out. Ready to start repacking in a week or so.

I won’t lie to myself – the urge to pack it now and go back to New York is almost overwhelming. Knowing that I can drive away from this place yet again almost teases me… Except this time, I wouldn’t be running away from anything. Not really.

This time I’d be running from one problem into another, because in New York is my father, and I’m reminded of that fact every time I look at the piece of paper pinned to my corkboard above my desk.

I want to call him. Everything inside of me is begging me to pick up the phone and dial, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to. It’s strange how we can want something for so long, yet when we’re faced with the chance to have it, we’re suddenly unsure if we really do want it. Of course, it would be much easier if it were straightforward. If there were no divorce, no wedding, and no… baby… I would call in a heartbeat. I’d be on the phone faster than he could answer it.