Up in Flames Page 10

  All that mattered was the way he held me and that his eyes told me how much he wanted me. I’m sure mine told the same story. Right now, it was less about wanting him to be mine. It was about me wanting to be his. The subtle nuance shouldn’t change the thought as much as it did.

  It wasn’t about wanting to possess, it was about wanting to be claimed. I wanted Cole Carson to have a claim to me and that couldn’t ever be while Logan held that distinction. I couldn’t have them both just as much as they couldn’t both have me. I had to choose, and right then, the choice was easy.

  “So?” Cole looked down at me, his face an entire gauntlet of emotions. Excitement, hunger, longing, but what was most evident was the smugness in his smile.

  “So?” I repeated, rolling my eyes. “Like you’re not absolutely gloating in what you did to me. You don’t need a description from me to know that you . . .” I fumbled for the right word. I really needed to get over my prude talk complex and just spit those dirty words out. Cole wasn’t the type who would mind. In fact, it would probably turn him on.

  “That I rocked your world,” he inserted, his smirk jacking up a couple of notches. “That I made you cry out so loudly I’m worried you might have woken half the town?”

  I made a face, like I was considering these suggestions. Then I pushed my prude off to the side and wrapped one leg around his and tugged on it until he was on top of me. I adjusted my position below him until I could feel him hard between my legs. His body rocked gently against mine and I cried out again. I was going to fall apart all over again if he kept that up.

  “I was thinking more along the lines that you made me come so hard I wished you could have been inside me to feel it.”

  I wasn’t sure whose face looked more shocked: Cole’s or mine. I guess when you removed the prude filter from Elle Montgomery, she had one dirty mind and mouth. Hitching my other leg around Cole, I rocked against him again. This time I slid my warmth down his entire length.

  His body shook before his shoulders went rigid. “Fuck,” he breathed, trying to break loose from my killer arm and leg holds.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I said, smiling up at him. His face was as tortured as I knew mine had been minutes ago. Knowing I could make Cole feel the kinds of things he made me feel made me feel powerful in a way I’d never known.

  “I need to jump in that water and calm my shit down again,” he said, squeezing his eyes together when I slid down him again. “Or else I’m going to tear those panties off and do you right here, right now.”

  I swallowed the heat coming up my throat from my stomach. “Why jump into that frigid water again when I’m right here?” I bucked my hips hard against his. His grimace deepened, like this was actually causing him physical pain. “Come on in,” I breathed. “The water’s great.”

  Who was this person and what had she done with sweet and innocent Elle Montgomery?

  “Fuck, Elle,” Cole hissed through his teeth. “Would you please stop humping me through our clothes before I tear off both our clothes and do the real thing to you? The way I am right now, there’s no way I could be gentle with you. I’d want to do you so hard you’d be sore for a week and I’d never forgive myself if that was the way we did it our first time. I need to be careful with you. I will be careful with you.” His eyes slowly opened. They looked less tortured, but just barely. “And I will not have sex with you when you belong to another man. That’s not negotiable.”

  I was touched, and I was kind of irritated, too. I’d heard enough sleepover talk to know losing your virginity wasn’t exactly a pleasurable experience, but right now, with the way my body was throbbing again for some kind of release, I didn’t really care if it hurt or if he wasn’t gentle with me. I wanted him to feel the same release he’d given me. I wanted to make him feel the things he’d made me feel.

  The very non-prudish me came up with an idea. If he was adamant about not having sex tonight, there were other ways to help a guy out. Right? I knew there was, although I’d never actively participated in any. Logan would have blown a gasket if I even tried to graze the erection he tried to hide when we made out.

  Sliding my hand around Cole’s stomach, I lowered it to the button of his shorts. I tugged it free before lowering his zipper. For only having one hand and being crushed beneath him, you would have thought I was an expert at what I was about to do.

  “Elle?”

  Maybe he was going to say something else, but he was abruptly cut off when my hand dove into his shorts and grasped him firmly.

  “Do you touch yourself?” I repeated his question back to him, bit my lip for him to watch, and slid my hand down the length of him.

  He groaned so loudly outside my ear, it rang my eardrums.

  “Do you?” I asked, finding a rhythm that he seemed to like best. More slow than fast, more firm than loose. This was the first time I’d ever felt a guy’s . . . manhood and it turned me on like I never thought touching one would. It was soft at the same time it was hard. Silky at the same time rough.

  “Every damn day, Elle,” he panted, flexing his hips into my hand, guiding me as I figured this whole hand-job thing out. It was much easier than I thought. “But from now on, it will be your face I imagine when I come.”

  His words and the speed his hips rocked into my hand had me sliding my other hand under my panties. Cole must have felt or seen what I was doing to myself because he cursed under his breath again before pumping against me even harder.

  I had another question to ask him, his second that he’d asked me, but I never got a chance to ask it.

  We both came around each other, our cries lost to the quiet night.

  Sometime after we’d both managed to catch our breaths, Cole folded me tight into his arms, whispered a few more sweet things—and a few more dirty ones, too—before he fell into quite possibly the deepest sleep known to a freshly satiated man.

  I tried to keep the guilt at bay, to keep remorse from sabotaging me, but they were powerful opponents. Not even five minutes after Cole’s chest was falling up and down evenly in sleep did I feel the guilt, or the remorse, or both, break through my defenses. When they did, they nearly crippled me.

  All I could think about was how I’d betrayed Logan, my dad, the whole darn town if you really thought about it. The golden boy’s girlfriend had cheated on him.

  Yes, if we were getting technical, Cole and I hadn’t done the exact deed most constituted cheating as being, but what we’d just done wasn’t exactly an innocent peck on the cheek either. I had cheated by some definition of the word and, as Cole’s face nuzzled deeper into my neck, making me sigh with contentment despite the guilt, I knew I was still cheating on Logan. Cheating wasn’t just physical. In fact, I’d say the most dangerous kind was emotional.

  I might have just had Cole come around my hand, but that wasn’t the only way I wanted him. I didn’t just want him to be the boy I snuck off with to exchange naughty little deeds; I wanted him to be the boy who’d one day want to put that promise ring on my finger. I wanted Cole to be the one I got to walk around town with my hand in his. I wanted Cole to be the one my dad looked at like he could do no wrong. I wanted so much.

  So much I could never have.

  I had to think, to sort out ten million things that didn’t want to be sorted. But I had to try. Just because I was with Logan today didn’t mean I had to be with him tomorrow. If I decided Cole was indeed the one I wanted to gamble on, then I had to place my bet and not cringe when the dice rolled to a stop.

  Logan. Cole. Elle.

  No equation worked when all of us were a part of it. I had to let one go. I knew who I wanted to let go, but I wasn’t sure if that was impulse and abandon talking or if it was, without a doubt, my heart ordering me to choose the boy curled around me I’d known for a handful of days.

  So I had a lot to think about and just as many decisions to make.

  First things first though, I had to get home. It had to be getting close to, if it
wasn’t already, after midnight. Dad would be unleashing the bloodhounds soon, along with calling every resident in the phone book, if I didn’t get home.

  Only because I knew Cole wouldn’t have noticed if I stuck my tongue in his ear, I pressed a light kiss into his forehead after I’d worked my way out of his arms. I retrieved my bra and tank from the ground and slid into them while I continued the search for my sandals. I finally found them close to the water, resting beside his sneakers.

  I studied Cole’s peaceful face for a few seconds before I made myself start heading for the Jeep. He was happy, even in sleep, and it made me smile to realize I’d been part of putting that happiness on his face.

  The farther I got from Cole, the more my chest throbbed. I knew something was likely playing tricks on me, but by the time I’d made it inside the Jeep, I couldn’t decide if my heart was closer to breaking or stopping. Either would have almost been preferred to the pain.

  Before I ran back to him and nestled against his side, I started the Jeep and headed for home.

  I could see the lights streaming out of every window before I was half a block away. Dad was awake. Waiting for me. Guaranteed to be angry beyond repair at me for coming in so late, shutting off my phone, and having no good explanation.

  There was no way, if I wanted to live to see the dawn, I would admit to my dad who I’d been with and what I’d been doing with him. Even a chill dad wouldn’t have been okay with that, and my dad couldn’t have been any less “chill.”

  I paused outside the front door to put my hair back up into my standard ponytail and made sure my tank and skirt didn’t look like they’d just been torn off, rumpled, or dirty. Other than a smear of dirt at the neckline of my tank, I was as put together as I could be.

  My key hadn’t clicked over in the lock before I heard Dad’s booming footsteps coming towards the door. “No, she’s home.” Dad’s voice was just as booming. I didn’t hear any other voices, so he must have been on the phone. “Thanks, Logan.”

  Wonderful. He’d been on the phone with my boyfriend, no doubt wondering if Logan knew where I was. So much for having a little time to decide who I’d tell what. Logan might not come charging over tonight, but he’d be around first thing in the morning.

  “Where have you been, Elle Marie Montgomery?” Dad was still clutching his phone when he swung the door open. His brow was set and his whole body was tense with anger, but his eyes were tired. Mom had died fourteen years ago, but dad had aged fifty years in that timeframe. He’d aged another ten tonight. “I expected you home almost two hours ago.”

  I hung my head a little as I stepped inside. Through all his overbearing faults, I loved my dad and I hadn’t meant to send him over the worry cliff tonight.

  “Sorry, Dad,” I said. “I kind of lost track of time.” Because I was busy touching a man and having him touch me in a way that made me lose all sense of everything, time most of all.

  “Where is your phone?” he demanded.

  “In my purse,” I whispered.

  “So why didn’t you answer it when me, Logan, your Grandma M, and everyone else I called to see if they knew where you were called?” He wasn’t shouting, but the telltale quiver in his voice gave away that he wanted to.

  “I turned it off,” I answered, still not able to look him in the eyes.

  “Why in the world would you turn off your cell phone late at night when your family and friends thought you’d gone missing?”

  Because I didn’t want to be reminded of friends or family tonight. Because I wanted to live in a dream for two hours of my life. Because the reality I was living wasn’t the one I wanted. Because . . . I was an eighteen year old woman who could do what she wanted without being treated and scolded like a child.

  That last “because” was the one that got my blood close to boiling and the one that snapped back. “I turned off my cell phone because I wanted to. I wanted to have a couple hours to myself where I wouldn’t get a darn phone call every two seconds if I wasn’t doing what everyone expected me to do.” I wasn’t shouting either, but I had the same quiver in my voice. Like father, like daughter. “And where I was, I wasn’t missing.” I marched up the stairs, as ashamed as I was proud for standing up to my dad. Pausing at the top of the stairs, I looked back down at him. He was looking at me like he wasn’t sure where his daughter was. “I wasn’t missing out on anything.”

  After locking myself away inside my bedroom, I kept waiting for my dad to come bursting through the door to announce I was grounded until the day I turned gray. He never did, though.

  In fact, I’d crawled into bed and fallen asleep before I heard him climb the stairs to head to bed himself. I fell asleep that night picking up right where Cole and I had left off in my dreams.

  I WOKE UP late that next morning, thanks to the fact my phone was still off so my alarm wasn’t there to help me rise and shine for my breakfast shift at the diner. I rarely worked breakfasts, especially Sunday breakfasts because I was expected to sit in the front row with Logan and his mom while his dad gave the sermon, but I filled in when needed.

  Usually I dreaded going from closing to opening the next morning, but after Cole’s and my “roll in the dirt” last night, I was quite certain I’d burst into flames if I even tried to enter through those church doors today. By some miracle, if the flames hadn’t gotten me then, they would have when I sat next to Logan and he draped his arm over my shoulders after telling me how nice I looked.

  At least the only heat I’d feel at the diner would come from the kitchen.

  Thanks to waking up late, I had to shower in record time and slide into the first piece of clothing I laid my hands on in my closet. A sweetheart neckline summer dress. Maybe not ideal waitress wear, but it was light and comfortable . . . and fast.

  I was dressed and down the stairs in under a minute. Dad wasn’t anywhere around when I got downstairs and I wasn’t going to stop to look for him. I was late, but I was more not eager to see him after last night’s not-so-constructive conversation.

  By the time I pulled up to the diner, I had fifteen minutes to get the place ready. It was a good thing I had my comfy Keds on because I’d never moved so fast in my life. The breakfast cook, Sid, kept whistling at my impressive speed.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d bet my paycheck someone got lucky last night,” Sid called out as I went to unlock the front door. Thank goodness my back was to him so he couldn’t see the red draining into my face. “Because you have got a spring in your step I’ve never seen before, Elle.”

  “It’s called waking up without a hangover, Sid,” I called back at him. “Unlike the way some people wake up every Saturday and Sunday morning.”

  “Oooh, sassy too,” Sid replied. “You definitely got lucky.”

  After unlocking the door, I was just heading into the break room to grab my phone and finally turn it on so I could text Cole. I’d fallen asleep so quickly last night I hadn’t had more than a few minutes to sort things out, but I still knew I cared for him. I liked him in a way that was shifting more from like to the other “l” word. I wanted him to know I was thinking about him this morning and my fleeing the scene last night wasn’t because I never wanted to see or hear from him again.

  “You better get your lucky butt out here, Elle!” Sid yelled back at me. “The tables are filling up. And filling up fast.”

  Of course they were. Sighing, I tightened my apron and headed back into the dining room. The first break I got, I’d call Cole. Texting was kind of weak anyways after what happened last night, and I was pretty much dying to hear his voice.

  Sunday breakfast went out of the gates with a bang. We really should have had two servers on today, but with a little energy surge from me and some extra patience from the customers, everyone got their apple and vanilla bean crepes or Andouille sausage and caramelized onion crepes in a timely manner without me dropping a single order.

  That almost changed when the door whooshed open and the next set of customer
s came lumbering in.

  “Careful,” the first of the three young men in the front said with a smile my way. That was enough to snap me out of my stupor and right the tray of crepes before they toppled to the floor.

  “Yeah,” the guy at the end with a familiar face, but an unfamiliar tone said. “You wouldn’t want to make an even bigger mess of things.” Cole waited for me to look him in the eyes, and when I did, I wished I hadn’t. Those green-blue eyes of his were dark and only darkened more as they stayed narrowed.

  My stomach dropped. Cole was staring at me like he despised me, like what we’d shared last night meant nothing. It made me thankful I hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet.

  He didn’t say anything else; he just moved by me and slid into the booth where the other two guys sat.

  As I set the crepes down in front of a table of regulars, I racked my brain for what I could have done or said to make Cole so upset. Yeah, I’d snuck away from him last night, but that didn’t seem like that huge of a deal. Especially not warranting that look he’d just given me. It wasn’t like I snuck away because I never wanted to see him again. I needed to get home before life as I knew it came to an end.

  There was Logan, of course. I knew Cole wasn’t thrilled with that whole concept, but it hadn’t seemed to stop him last night.

  So what was it?

  I mulled that over as I refilled coffee at the rest of my tables. I was stalling because I wasn’t looking forward to walking up to Cole and his friends’ table and acting like nothing had happened, pretending he hadn’t had his hands on places no other guy had before him, and imagining that look didn’t mean he would hate me until his dying breath.

  Inhaling a dose of courage, I headed over to his table.

  Cole wouldn’t look at me. I wouldn’t have thought he was even aware of me except his whole body went stiff when I spoke.