“Oh, this is all my fault, huh?”
“Yes. It is,” she says flatly.
“Well, why did you put all these blankets on us and wrap us up all burrito-style?” I ask.
“So we wouldn’t die,” she snaps.
She squiggles up more, higher on my body.
“Jesus, okay, stop moving. Seriously, don’t move,” I say, trying to hold in a laugh.
She pulls her head back and squints her eyes down at me. “Why?” she barks.
“Why? Are you serious? If you keep climbing up my body, in about three more seconds your tits are going to be smashed across my face and I will not be held responsible for what happens to them when they get there.”
“You’re disgusting,” she says. I’d agree with her too, but the corner of her lips lift up in a small smile, and my thoughts sort of get lost in the expression. Instinctively, I slide my hands up her sides, stopping one on the curve of her waist and the other gently up to the side of her neck.
A small gasp escapes her lips.
Beneath my thumb, the pulse in her throat races and a darker blush than before floods her face. Her lips part slightly, and the sudden urge to kiss her overwhelms me. For a brief moment the heat of her skin everywhere it touches mine burns through me. It feels almost electric, like hot fiery sparks pulsing between both our bodies.
I have no desire to break free of these blankets. Ever again, in fact. Though I can’t see either of us setting aside our differences to deal honestly with what’s happening at this very moment, I still don’t want to move. For just a few breaths I want to savor this…undeniable sensation, this electrifying awareness of one another’s bodies. It’s the single most stunningly erotic thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
Focus on reality, you perverted jackass.
Claire and I hooking up right now would be nothing more than a mistake.
“So, you look like life’s been treating you well the last decade,” I say.
For a moment her eyes get lost in the back of her head.
“Oh, wow. You lost your baby blues there for a second. Such animosity for someone who seems to be doing really well for themselves. This is a nice little set-up you and your mother have here,” I say.
I feel every muscle in her entire body stiffen and turn rigid against mine. “How hard did you hit your head? Are your brains leaking out somewhere I can’t see?” she quips.
My chest flushes with fire at her denial.
“I need to get out of this bed. Away from you,” she seethes as she starts fighting with the blankets again.
“Ohhhh,” I laugh, “it’s you that needs to get away from me, is it?”
“Of course it is, you’re a Montgomery asshole,” she grunts, flinging her arm away and accidently yanking one of the blankets over both our heads.
“You’re a Radcliffe asshole,” I retort, “and you’re full of shit.”
“Oh, that’s so mature of you, really,” she growls, slapping the blanket away from her face.
“You started it by calling me a Montgomery asshole,” I laugh.
“No, you started it by thinking that I lived here with those two—" her words cut off and her body stills. Bright blue eyes look up at me through delicate lashes. I should be telling her to go fuck herself and climb out of this bed, let her go tell her lies to someone else.
I try to move, but my body feels tied to the mattress by invisible binds.
“Oh my God, you really think I lived here with them?” she whispers. There’s a heartache in her voice, a deep, awful sadness I’ve never encountered before.
“Tell me you didn’t.” It’s the strangest sensation, one that radiates in the small space between us. It’s like something inside her is slowly seeping its way into me, wanting me to listen to her. I want to close my eyes against it, push it away. Instead I watch her closely, our gazes locking together. Two hungry statues.
Tears fill her eyes. “I hadn’t seen my mother in at least five years, Vaughn. I don’t live here with them. I didn’t even know…”
She didn’t live here with them.
Again, I become intensely aware of her body draped over mine. Her pelvic bone seems heavier, warmer, pushing me into the mattress. I can imagine myself inside her, forgetting all this parent shit for a just minute, and giving to each other what we both seem to need.
“Vaughn?”
A wave of lust rolls through me as she says my name, and suddenly we’re back in my room, fifteen again, discovering each other’s bodies for the first time. Jesus, I loved her. I loved her with every ounce of my being. I want to live in that memory forever.
“I have to get up. I…I don’t want to be this close to you,” she exhales. “You hate me.”
Have I really ever hated her? I thought of that first moment I saw her though the window of the cabin, and my confusion between heartache and anger. What her mother did—and my father—I can’t only place blame on Libby, what they both chose to do behind everyone’s back—I always hated Claire for it. For years I was furious with her for what my family turned into, what both my sister and I had to endure. But was it really hate? Right now—with her golden spun hair tangled and wild around her pale face, her big blue eyes brimming with tears, her full lips slightly parted—she takes my breath away. I feel a thousand different emotions, but hate—hate surprisingly isn’t one of them.
“I can’t be anywhere near you,” she sniffles.
“Why?” I ask, rolling us onto our sides.
“Because I’m so tired of all of this,” she whispers through tears. “I’m tired of people letting me down, always lying to me. I’m tired of everyone hating me. Not believing me. Not even willing to listen to my side of the story. I’m tired of men. Men like your father who trick women with promises and lies, just to keep you their secret. Men that make you give up everything, even your children,” she rants.
“I am not my father,” I growl, stunned she could possibly think I am.
“It doesn’t matter and I don’t care. I need to get out of here before I say something I can never take back or either of us do something we’re going to regret.”
“Oh yeah? And what would that be, Ms. Radcliffe?”
Chapter 13
Claire
My body is fire.
Ten years of pent-up sexual frustration.
A decade of anger and lust and twisted vengeance and guilt. People end up who they are for so many reasons, but our lives—mine and Vaughn’s—the people we became grew directly from our parents’ affair. We never had a choice. We never had a chance. We were cut short, aborted, our obsession with each other slashed dead in a single instant. One significant moment that bitterly transformed the rest of our lives.
I never considered that seeing him again I would be hit so hard by memories, the intense emotions, and this overwhelming sense of need. It makes me feel as if someone has taken all my bones from my body, and I’m nothing more than liquid flesh and blood melting into this bed. Melting into him. Vaughn Montgomery was my cancer, lying dormant in my heart and bones for years, just waiting to arouse and poison me the first chance he could.