“Finally, it’s my turn.”

  26

  Even with heat spiking in her body in response to Sean’s lustful stare, Olivia said, “You do remember that it is actually my turn, don’t you?”

  “I recall something about that, but it seemed questionable to me. I still like the porn summer fling idea. Don’t you?”

  Olivia smiled at how playful Sean was, how intense and yet relaxed at the same time. She glanced down at her clothes. “I don’t think I’m dressed for the kind of porn you like.”

  His face reddened to match his hair. “We could fix that—I’m sure there’s quite a few costumes in that place.”

  Olivia giggled. “No doubt about that.”

  She leaned down and unlaced her boots, removing them and stepping onto the blanket with Sean. She sat beside him.

  “Isaak looked happy,” Sean said, growing abruptly serious. “Thanks for that. You know he doesn’t really belong here with us. He’s still got hope under all the hurt. That’s something the rest of us lost a long time ago.”

  “You know I’m going to ask, right?”

  “You want to know what made me like this?” he asked.

  “No. I mean, you can tell me if you want, but that’s not what I’m going to ask you.”

  His jaw stiffened, along with the rest of his body, clearly bracing for impact. “What then?”

  “What did you think this summer was going to be for you? Was it a way to pass the time or did you consider using this experience to heal or at least try?”

  Sean was clearly shocked by the question and squinted at Olivia as he studied her in a way that caused a ripple of concern to flow through her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said instantly, upon seeing her uneasiness. “I’m so hard now—not in the dirty way. I’m just always looking to see what angle everyone is working. I know you’re not like that. I know it. But that’s how I live now.”

  “I get that. I may not show the anger part quite like you do, but I don’t trust people.”

  “You trust Evan.”

  “I do—I really do. That totally took me by surprise.”

  Sean stared at her, that intensity right on the surface. “He’s a good guy.”

  “He’s not the only one of those here. You do know that, right?”

  “I’m not like him. No one is like him.”

  “Maybe not, but I do know something about you.”

  That anger and defensiveness flashed again. “What?”

  “Your anger is a mask. It’s not real. But it is scary for other people and that probably does keep them away. But it won’t keep me away. I know you won’t hurt me.”

  “I bruised you, Olivia. I hurt you.”

  “I know and that’s not okay, but Sean, I forgive you.”

  He looked shocked and affronted. “You shouldn’t.”

  “But I do. You are totally forgiven for grabbing me, for hurting me. But you better never grab any other woman that way for the rest of your life. Do you hear me? You’ve let whomever hurt you turn you into someone you’re not. And no one else deserves to be treated that way because of someone else’s actions.”

  “I hear you.” His voice was as distant as he suddenly was.

  “Sean.”

  “What?”

  “What’s for lunch?”

  Again, she’d shocked him and he looked suddenly bashful about it. He lifted and extended a basket toward her. “Sandwiches.”

  She felt mischief taking over and said, “You know, I’m actually a little hungry for something else.”

  “Really? What?”

  “Lie back and open your shirt.”

  Again, that flustered look—he really couldn’t keep up with her. He swallowed and studied her, thinking so hard that Olivia expected to see smoke or a little caption bubble filled with question marks.

  “I’m waiting, Sean.”

  “But…”

  “It’s my day. Are you really going to disobey me?”

  With so much intensity in his eyes, confusion, and maybe a little fear, Sean lay back on the blanket. Olivia watched as he unbuttoned his shirt and allowed it to fall open, revealing the dreamiest abs in the history of the world.

  Olivia crawled closer and looked down at him, seeing so many emotions staring back at her. “You are so beautiful, Sean. Or you would be if you could just let your anger go.”

  Without giving him time to answer, she leaned down and began to kiss his chest, alternating between nibbling and licking, and then more kissing, paying close attention to those delightful abs. He arched and strained and then groaned when his arousal grew painful. Then she lay over him, moving her kisses to his mouth, breathing into him.

  In one sudden movement, he grabbed her and thrust her onto her back, leaning over her as he seized control of their kiss, his tongue entering her mouth with the same passion that his cock had the night before. While he was still consumed with the kiss, Olivia’s hand sneaked under the brim of his jeans and gripped his fully erect cock.

  Sean groaned, his eyes distant.

  “Fuck my hand, Sean. Hard.”

  Olivia tightened her grip and then felt Sean begin to drive against her. She leaned up, kissing him again as he refocused on her mouth, while his hips continued to thrust toward her, her hand working him as he moved.

  “I’m there,” he stammered.

  Olivia’s tongue became more insistent and her hand worked faster, causing him to practically roar his release. He froze for a moment before he collapsed onto her. She released him and lay there, listening to him breathing deeply. When she met his stare, he still looked confused.

  “How about a sandwich now?” she asked.

  He laughed and rested his forehead on her shoulder. “You are a very interesting woman, you know that?”

  She grinned. “Nope, never ever heard that before.”

  For the rest of lunch, they chatted about life and hobbies and silly stuff, just enjoying the perfect weather, nice company, and yummy food.

  When Olivia yawned, Sean laughed. “Well, lunch is over.”

  “Really, why?”

  “I was instructed that when you show signs of exhaustion, my time is over.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” He pointed toward the house. “Just walk that way and your guide will take you to your next location.”

  “My guide, huh?” Olivia turned and saw Evan standing near the steps to the mansion. “He’s a handsome guide.”

  “Olivia…”

  She turned back toward Sean.

  “He’s the best man I’ve ever met. On his worst day, he’s better than I’ll ever be.”

  “I don’t believe that, but I will say that I hope all of you find ways to have more best days and leave your worst days in the past. I wish that for all of us.”

  “Thanks for lunch, Olivia. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  “Thanks, Sean.”

  Olivia stood and walked toward Evan, wrapping her arms around him as soon as she reached him. He hugged her back and she suddenly couldn’t imagine not having him near her, forever. She pulled back, biting her lip.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Is it bath time?”

  “Not yet… I’m adding a naptime to your schedule.”

  “Really? Would that be a naptime with you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “Lead the way. I’m exhausted from all this hard work.”

  “I know you’re joking, but I also know that you are in fact tired. Come, let’s spoon for a bit before bath time.”

  “And then later… you do remember what you promised?”

  Evan leaned down, his mouth near her ear. “I believe I promised to fuck you ten different ways.”

  Everything in her body flashed with heat.

  “Yup,” he said, “that’s what I promised. But I won’t let you lure me to the dark side during naptime. I want you well rested for tonight.”

  “Sounds fair to me.”

  * * *

  After a very enjoyable nap with Evan, Olivia followed him to a room somewhere in the mansion. They went up some stairs, through a ballroom—a freaking ballroom—and then down another hallway, to the last door.

  “He’s in there,” Evan said, nodding toward the door.

  “Are you coming?”

  “No, but don’t worry, I’ll know what’s happening.”

  Olivia scoffed. “The Judge has surveillance in all the rooms, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t know about all, but definitely this one. See you after.”

  Olivia nodded and caught the look of hope in Evan’s eyes. He turned and walked down the hallway, but Olivia knew he wouldn’t go far.

  She stepped forward and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Brody called.

  Olivia stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Then she turned and studied Brody, where he leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, his entire vibe tense. Olivia bit her lip, but then focused on something she could handle. The room. It was light and pretty, without being over-the-top girly. It just felt open and friendly. The light was soft, but not dim. The wood was white and the furniture had clean lines.

  “Did we pick the right room for tonight? This isn’t too stodgy, right?” Brody said without moving.

  “This is exactly the right room.”

  “I know this, today, is your choice, but I want to know something.”

  “Okay,” she said, still not moving from the doorway.

  “Why a bath?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Remember what?” he asked.

  “When we took a bath together at the lake house and pretended we were in Pretty Woman.”

  Brody looked confused and then a little hostile. “Why would that be something you want to reenact?”

  Hiding the sting of his words and his intensity, she said, “I wanted to see if we could remember a time before everything went wrong, before I had to leave, before you got hurt. Just something simple and fun, a happy moment that wasn’t fraught.”

  “Fine—it’s your day.”

  “If you don’t want to… No, actually, you’re right. It is my day. Is my bath ready?”

  Brody jerked his chin toward the bathroom.

  Olivia took that as a yes and began stripping off all her clothes. “I’ll see you when you’re ready.” Then she walked across the room and into the bathroom.

  It was a pretty bathroom and the tub was awesome—perfect for two people. She stepped in and sat, reclining, her head leaning against the high back. She closed her eyes and didn’t look when she heard Brody enter the room.

  “Where do you want me?” he asked in a low voice.

  Without opening her eyes, she pointed to the other end of the tub. She felt the water rise when he stepped in and then the wave created when he sat down across from her, his legs suddenly touching the outsides of hers. His legs extended all the way to the back of the tub that she leaned against.

  “This isn’t how we were in the tub back then,” Brody muttered.

  Olivia opened her eyes, seeing how he studied her. “No, it isn’t, but I want to see your face.”

  “Why?”

  “Brody, I… where are your parents?”

  “What?” Brody said, clearly shocked by the question. “Why?”

  “Because I’m asking.”

  “But why?”

  She frowned. “Because I don’t understand how you felt so alone, how you ended up so filled with anger and hatred, when you have a family who loves you.”

  He scoffed, hostile to his core. “That’s what you think about my family?”

  “They worshipped you. The whole town worshipped you. Everyone loved you.”

  “Oh, yeah, they all loved me while I was handsome, like the little prince of the town. And then I was a god when I was the winning quarterback, dating the most beautiful girl in town. But you see, that all fades away when you become the object of pity. No one loves you then… they just avoid you.”

  “Your parents—where are they?”

  “I have no idea! They left after I got hurt. They couldn’t handle seeing me like that. They couldn’t handle the town’s pity. They couldn’t handle me not being the shining star anymore. So they left. And they’ve never come back. Last I heard, my father was working in Germany and my mother was drinking heavily in a resort in Prague. But, really, fuck if I know.”

  Olivia allowed the weight of Brody’s reality to truly settle on her. He was wrong about her and her life, but she was also wrong about his life. “I’m sorry, Brody.”

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. It matters. Everything matters.”

  “Bullshit. Nothing and no one matters.”

  She flinched, but still said, “If that’s true, why are you in this tub? Why are you giving me the day, when this whole summer was supposed to be a defile-athon to get over me or over hating me or… I really don’t know how that was supposed to work.”

  Brody didn’t say anything for a long time, as he stared at her. Finally, he said, “Honestly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have no fucking idea why I’m in this tub, wandering down the shittiest parts of memory lane with the girl who broke me.” He considered for a moment and then added, “No, that’s not true. I’m here because my friends—the people I trust most—think you aren’t the monster I made you out to be, and I want to know whether they are right or wrong.”

  Olivia didn’t know what to say. She felt more lost the more time she spent with him, and being alone with him was much worse than she’d thought it would be. Evan gave her the confidence to keep trying with Brody, to face down his rage. Alone, naked in the tub, she had no buffer, nothing to give her strength against something that felt too dark to fight.

  The silence between them grew until Brody finally said, “Will you answer something, even though it is your day?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you look the way you did when you went down on me? There was something going on with you… what was it?”

  She flushed and looked down at the bubbles playing around her breasts, but then she looked up at him, fighting to find her courage to face the sneer that was coming in three, two… “I’ve never done that with anyone else. Just you. And it reminded me of when we were first discovering our bodies… together. Not when we were toddlers playing around—but later, when we dated. You were my first everything. Your cock is still the cock by which all other cocks are measured.”

  She let out a nervous laugh. “I never thought I would be close enough to you to be with you again. And I get that you don’t want me that way anymore, but when given the chance to touch you again, I wasn’t going to miss that. It was nice to remember when I first learned to touch you, to taste you, when I believed that everything would just work out. Back then, I really thought you were the only man I was going to be with—the only man I was going to touch like that. Stupid, right?”

  It was only then that Olivia noticed the effects of her words, Brody struggling to accept them and fighting disbelief and whatever other dark thoughts were swirling around his head.

  “But you slept around, right? I mean, you really never went down on anyone else?”

  “No. I had sex with a couple other guys while I was gone, but I didn’t do that. And I didn’t like having sex with men who weren’t you. I never climaxed with them. I didn’t trust them. I didn’t know them, and their bodies were strangers. It turns out that I don’t get far with men I don’t love, and I already found the one I loved. Clearly, I wasn’t ready to let that go.”

  Brody gaped at her, looking lost. “But you climaxed like a pro as soon as the guys started touching you, even on the kitchen island.”

  Olivia felt like she suddenly caught Brody’s rage, like it was a virus. “Yeah, I did, because you wanted me to. You wanted me to climax, so I did. You wanted me to get fucked, so I got fucked, and I loved it. I actually didn’t realize how lonely I was for the touch of another person until I was in that lake house with no other choice than to be touched. But I only enjoyed it because you wanted it, and you were with me and this is what you needed.”

  “You’re saying that if you met Sean and Isaak in a bar, you wouldn’t…?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “And Evan?”

  “Evan is something special, but I never would have had the courage to be with him. They would all have been strangers to me. You being there made them not strangers, made it so I could be your summer porn sex toy. It was about you, and if you think about it, you’ll know that I’m not bullshitting you. Think about the times I asked you specifically if this was what you wanted.”

  Brody’s eyes showed his confusion, his grasping for something that made sense. “Why didn’t you want me to fuck you last night?”

  Tears pressed at her eyes. “Because the idea of having things be so impersonal between us… I don’t think I could have handled that.”

  “But you loved it, what Sean and Isaak did.”

  “Yes, I did. But they aren’t you, and if I ever feel you inside me again, I don’t want it to be during a sex-capade. I don’t want to be just your sex toy. I want to be yours. I want to see your face. I want to see your eyes not filled with hate. I want to see my Brody looking back at me. I want to see that you feel what I feel.”

  “What you feel? Exactly what do you feel?”

  Olivia didn’t look away, not for a second. “I love you, Brody. I’ve never stopped—not for one single second—loving you, all this time. I didn’t want to leave you. I had to leave you. You don’t want to know about all that and that’s fine, but it’s the truth. And I’ve missed you, and I’m sorry you had such a rough time. I wasn’t exactly living the dream myself.”

  Brody said nothing, just stared at her like all his pieces were on the verge of breaking. She decided to risk it and set her hands on his legs below the water, trying to give him something that would anchor him.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “I can’t deal with this.”

  “I know that too.”

  “But will you come here… will you just rest against me and let me hold you?”

 

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