“I already told you.”
He comes to a stop only a few feet in front of me. “No, you didn’t. You called me a creep.”
Oh.
I lift my chin and try to resist the pull of his body. “I was getting in touch with nature.”
“On a plastic chair next to a swimming pool?” He laughs. “This is not nature, Bells.”
“What do you want me to do? Go on a hike at dawn and get eaten by a bear?”
“Maybe.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Which is it? Hiking or getting eaten?”
“I don’t know.” His grin turns into a deep, unsettling smirk. “Do you like getting eaten?”
My entire body clenches at the way the words fall off his kissable lips. His eyes hold mine, and I can’t pull them away even when I try.
Damn him.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he says. “I already know.”
His arrogance is just the break I need to gather myself again. I ignore the fact that he’s right—he does know. And he knows so, so well.
He looks at me with amusement laced with desire. It’s like he knows he has my brain turned to mush.
But that’s not true. And two can play this game.
Especially if one of us—that one being me—remembers to keep her chakras closed.
I face him and fire a dirty little grin right back his way.
“Oh, I know you know,” I tell him. “I remember that night on the boat very, very well.”
His eyes betray him. A glimmer of excitement shines through.
“Do you now?” he asks with his typical cocky sway to his voice.
“Uh-huh. How could I forget?”
Even though I’m bringing all of this up in some twisted power play, it just might backfire. Because while my brain remembers, so does my body. Acutely well. Normally, I replay this in the privacy of my bed. Alone. Not in front of Coy when he’s wearing male lingerie and a smirk.
He takes a step toward me, encouraged by my cooperation in whatever little game he’s playing.
“What was your favorite part?” he asks, his voice husky.
“There were two.”
He raises a brow in a silent prod for me to elaborate.
I try to hide my grin as I whip together a response.
“Well, first,” I say, licking my lips and watching his eyes shoot to my tongue, “I loved seeing your head between my legs.”
I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth. I don’t think he can either. His pupils go wide as his eyes darken.
My insides squirm as he takes me in—both of us brought back to the night on the boat.
I should stop there. I don’t, though, because I’m a glutton for punishment. I’m also determined not to let Coy walk away from this, thinking he has a hold on me.
I bite my lip and then let it pop free. Coy’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as our breaths cause a frenzy of fog around us.
“I’ve never gotten off so hard in a man’s mouth,” I tell him, my voice just above a whisper. “And to watch your eyes while you spread me apart with your fingers and licked my body …” I let him see me shiver.
“Damn, Bells,” he growls.
“But that was only one of my favorite things.”
The lines of his face seem deeper, sexier in the early morning light. His jaw appears more angled, his neck thicker. My fingers want to dig into his back while my fingernails claw their way down his skin, leaving marks for him to remember me by.
It takes everything in my power to restrain myself.
“What’s the other?” he asks, clearly fighting the same internal battle as me.
I take a deep breath of the cold air and will it to extinguish the flame burning in my core. I face Coy head-on and let him watch as logic overpowers my lust.
I smile. “It was when I woke up, and you were gone.”
All the oxygen in his lungs evacuates in one rushed, strangled breath.
“Have a good day, Coy,” I say, turning toward the house.
“What the fuck was that?”
“What was what?” I ask, still walking away.
“Bellamy, dammit. Stop it.”
I do. I pause next to the sidewalk that leads to my house and look at him. “What do you want?”
He runs a hand down his face. “That’s a loaded question right now after that little speech you just pulled off.”
I snort. “Oh, please. It was a loaded question for you to ask me to start with.”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, Coy.” I narrow my eyes, relieved at the frustration coursing through me. It’s a feeling I know what to do with. It feels safe. “You’re just pissed you didn’t get the rise out of me that you wanted.”
“I was just fucking around with you.”
I look him right in the eye. “Me too. It doesn’t hit the same when you’re the one getting walked away from, does it?”
“Bellamy …”
“Don’t Bellamy me. It’s fine for you to mess with me and then scamper away like it’s some sick joke. I figure it’s fine for me to do the same thing.” I flash him a disingenuous smile. “Have a good day.”
“Will you stop it?”
My answer is the sound of my door closing behind me.
Seven
Coy
Pressing the piano keys, I send a somber array of sounds fluttering through the air. Something about it catches my ear, and I turn toward the instrument.
I play it again, this time quickening the tempo and changing the chords every couple of beats. It’s brighter. Snappier. Catchy. I tap it out again. It feels good.
“Hum, hum, hum … I didn’t believe when you whispered my name …”
My fingers stop. I reconsider and start again.
“Hum, hum, hum … Lipstick stains on my T-shirt, a fear in my heart that this can’t work … Ooh, yeah, things aren’t the same …”
I drop my hands to my side.
“Where the hell did that come from?” I ask an empty room.
I pivot on the bench and rest my elbows on my knees.
A myriad of feelings has battled inside me all morning. Not only do I have a weird energy and a surge in creativity but I also have an annoying prickle in the back of my mind.
I know why. It’s not lost on me.
“It doesn’t hit the same when you’re the one getting walked away from, does it?”
I know the night she’s talking about. The night on the boat. The Fourth of July three years ago just before I hit it big in music. My parents throw a massive party every year on their houseboat, and, naturally, Bells was there. We drank a lot and flirted even more. As the night wore on, we danced on the deck before finding ourselves in a bedroom.
That night creeps up on me often.
The sweetness of her body against my tongue. The heaviness of her hands against my skin.
The warmth of her smile, the heat of her tongue—the searing pain in my chest as I held her against me as the sun started to rise over the horizon.
I never thought I’d have Bellamy. Not again. We might’ve fumbled around when we were teenagers, but this was different. This was fucking real. This was touching and kissing and looking at each other while our bodies moved together—not just an awkward exchange of bodily fluids.