Lucas had seemed pretty adamant about not giving me details about my father. What could Wes possibly say that would change his mind? At this point, Lucas would either tell me or he wouldn’t. Fighting with him about it wasn’t going to change anything.
“He might’ve. You blindsided him by bringing it up like that. Especially after the shit with Kathy.” Wes let out a sigh, cutting himself off. Whatever the fight had been about, he really didn’t want me to know.
Another secret in the Cabot family—how shocking.
“Well, maybe you should’ve asked him then like you said you would.”
“Christ, Bella, it’s been like three days! You couldn’t give me more time than that?” Wes ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry for not asking him right away, all right? I was just trying to wait until it was a good time. He’s got a lot of shit going on, and I didn’t want to add any more stress to it, okay?”
Sighing, I nodded. I wasn’t being fair to him, getting mad about him not having talked to Lucas already. I was just in a shitty mood with everything else going on, and Wes made it easy to take out my aggression on him.
“I’m just... I’m tired of all the lies, okay? Ever since my Mom died, it’s been lie after lie from everyone around me. I just... I want to go back to when things were simple; when it wasn’t a game of cat and mouse between everyone. I just feel so damned alone here without her. She was the one person I could always count on to be there for me.”
“You can count on me,” Wes said, his voice soft. He reached out, offering me his hand. I just stared at it, though, and then glared up at him.
“And I’m supposed to believe that? Christ, Wes, you’re one of the biggest liars in this house. You sit there, pretending like you give a rats ass about me when the only reason you even come near me is because your father seems to think I need you to look after me.”
Wes stared at me, his mouth hanging open. For a long while, the only sounds we heard came from the motor running in the hot tub a few feet away. Wes’s hand fell to his side as his expression fell at the same time. “You heard the argument we had a couple of days ago, didn’t you?”
I snorted. “I’m surprised the people back in Compton couldn’t hear it, the way the two of you were shouting at each other.”
“Look, Bella, I’m sorry you had to hear that. Yes, my father wants me to look out for you. He wants all of us to keep an eye on you, but it’s just because he cares about you. He doesn’t want anything to happen to you. And after that creep at the party, he’s been even more worried than usual.”
“I can take care of myself, you know. Even if you and your friends hadn’t been there, I’d have figured something out. It’s not like there weren’t a hundred other people around. Sebastian was right there, too.” Wes smirked at the mention of his younger brother, giving me a look I couldn’t quite argue with. “Okay, so maybe Sebastian is about as helpful as a twig when it comes to a fight, but the point is he was there to help. I don’t need you on my ass, pretending you care about me just to appease your father.”
“Just because I told my father I would keep an eye on you doesn’t mean I’m pretending to care about you. I do care about you, Bella. Really. I admit I wasn’t thrilled about you coming to stay with us, but now that I’ve gotten to know you, I really do like you.”
I looked up into his eyes, trying to see through his lie. But, the more I looked at him, the more I became sure he wasn’t lying to me. It really did look like he was telling the truth, that he actually did care about me.
This time, when he offered me his hand, I took it. With far too little effort, he hoisted me right up out of the water and into his lap. I giggled and squirmed, water soaking into Wes’s clothes. He didn’t seem to care, though. He kept his arms around me, holding me tight against him.
“I love you, Isabella,” he whispered, his mouth only centimeters from my ear. His hot breath washed over me, making me shiver. “No matter what my father says. I really do love you.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered back, unable to stop the words from coming out. As much as I hated to admit it, I did love Wes. That was part of the reason it’d hurt so much, thinking he had been lying to me the entire time. If I hadn’t loved him, it would’ve been so much easier to have just walked away from him.
When Wes brought his lips to mine, and I kissed him right back. All the anger I’d had floated away as we made out, all of my doubts going away right along with it. I didn’t even fight it when Wes’s hands start roaming over my body.
His touch sent goosebumps through me. I continued to squirm on his lap. After a few more minutes, a hard lump pressed into my bottom, and I groaned into his mouth. I wasn’t the only one getting turned on by all of this. Feeling Wes’s erection pressed into me made me squirm even more as pressure built up inside me.
Wes held me tight, not letting me wiggle away. When he slid a hand between my legs, though, I thought I was going to explode. Normally, I would have slapped someone for touching me there without asking first. With Wes, though, I wanted him to touch me there. I wanted him to do that and so, so, much more.
He lit a fire inside me, one that spread the longer he kissed and touched me. I wanted this moment to go on forever. I didn’t want to ever have to go back to reality. I just wanted it to be Wes and me for the rest of my life, without all the other worries that always got in the way. When I was in his arms, nothing else really mattered. Nothing could hurt me.
It was heaven.
But it couldn’t last forever, no matter how much I wished it was. Wes hadn’t put his hand inside my bikini, but he didn’t need to. Just rubbing me through the thin material was enough to stoke that fire to its breaking point. I moaned into his mouth as wave after wave of heat washed over me.
The world around us spun, and I squeezed my eyes closed as it turned to a blinding white light. It’d never felt anything so intense before. Certainly not from any of the other guys I’d been with before. Not even all the times I’d been alone in the shower or in bed, dreaming about someone like Wes.
When I came crashing back down to earth, all I could do was gasp for air. Wes and I had broken the kiss at some point, both of us breathless and struggling to breathe. When I looked into his eyes, he grinned at me, this dopey, silly, smile.
“I love you,” he said again, and I repeated the words without even having to think about them.
The lump in Wes’s lap slowly went down, and my eyes widened. “Did... did you?” I asked, unable to even say what was going through my mind.
Wes’s cheeks flushed red, but he nodded. Then, he leaned and gave me another quick kiss. “Because of you.”
I shuddered. I’d never gotten a guy off just from just grinding against his lap before. I giggled as I grinned at him, batting my eyelashes and doing my best to look innocent. “Just imagine what I could do if I was actually trying,” I whispered into his ear.
Wes sucked in a breath and held it. Then, without warning, he dumped me back into the pool. I squealed before slipping beneath the water. When I came up, sputtering, Wes was laughing and grinning. “That’s what you get for being a tease!”