Текст книги "After We Fell"

Автор книги: Anna Todd

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 49 страниц)

chapter

twenty-four

HARDIN

I am thinking they will never leave, but as soon as they do, I pull her over to the couch with me.

“You didn’t want to go?” she asks.

“Fuck, no—why the hell would I want to go? I’d much rather stay here with you. Alone,” I say and brush the hair back from her neck. She squirms a little from the light shiver my touch spreads across her skin. “Did you want to go sit and listen to a roomful of boring-ass people talk about boring-ass shit?” I ask her, my lips barely grazing her jaw.

“No.” Her breathing has already changed.

“You’re sure?” I tease and run my nose along her neck, nudging her to tilt her head.

“I don’t know, it may have been more fun than this,” she says.

I chuckle into her neck, kissing her where the goose bumps on her skin appear from my breath. “Not fucking likely. We do have a hot tub in our room, remember?”

“Yeah, but it’s no good, because I don’t have a swimsuit . . .” she starts.

I suck lightly at her neck and imagine what she’d look like in a bathing suit.

Fuck.

“You don’t need one,” I whisper.

She moves her head back and looks at me like I’m crazy. “Yes, I do! I’m not getting in a hot tub with no clothes on.”

“Why not?” It sounds like a pretty fun time to me.

“Because your family is here.”

“I don’t know why you always use that as an excuse . . .” My hand travels down to her lap, and I press against the seam of her jeans. “Sometimes I think you may like that.”

“Like what?” she asks, practically fucking panting.

“The possibility of being caught.”

“Why would anyone like that?”

“A lot of people do—the thrill of being caught, you know?” I apply more pressure between her legs, and she tries to clamp them shut, struggling against what she wants and what she thinks she shouldn’t want.

“No, that’s . . . I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” she lies. I’m pretty damn sure she does.

“Mm-hmm . . .”

“I don’t!” she cries, defending herself, her cheeks flushed and eyes wide in embarrassment.

“Tess, it’s okay that you do. It’s pretty fucking hot, really,” I assure her.

“I don’t.”

Sure, Tessa. “Okay, you don’t.” I raise my hands in defeat, and she whimpers a little from the loss of contact. I knew there was no way in hell she’d admit it, but hey, it was worth a try.

“Are you going to come into the Jacuzzi with me?” I ask and remove my hand from her.

“I’ll come up there . . . but I’m not getting in.”

“Suit yourself.” I smile and stand up. I know she’ll end up in there; she’ll just need more persuading than most girls. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually been in a Jacuzzi with a female before, naked or not.

Wrapping her small hand around my wrist, she follows me upstairs to the room that is considered ours for the next few days. The balcony connected to it is what made me claim it in the first place. The moment I saw that Jacuzzi sitting there, I had to get her into it.

The bed isn’t bad either; it’s small, but we don’t need a big bed with the way we sleep any damn way.

“I really do love it here; it’s so peaceful,” she says and sits on the bed to take her shoes off.

I open the double doors to the balcony. “It’s okay.” If my father, his wife, and Landon weren’t here, it would sure as hell be better.

“I don’t have anything to wear tomorrow to that restaurant your father was talking about.”

I shrug and lean down to turn the faucet on the Jacuzzi. “We won’t go, then.”

“I want to go. I just didn’t know we were going out somewhere before I packed.”

“It’s poor planning on their fault, then,” I say and study the gauges to make sure they look like they’re working. “We’ll just wear jeans. Seems like a casual area.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if you don’t want to wear jeans, we can find a store in this dump to get you something else,” I offer, and she smiles.

“Why are you in such a good mood?” Tessa raises an eyebrow at me.

I dip a finger into the water. Almost there; this thing heats up quickly. “I don’t know . . . I just am.”

“Okay . . . should I be worried?” she asks, stepping out to join me on the balcony.

“No.” Yes. I gesture to the wicker chair next to the hot tub. “Will you at least sit out here with me while I enjoy the relaxation that is sitting in scalding-hot water?”

She laughs and nods, taking a seat. I watch her innocent eyes as she stares at me while I pull my shirt over my head and take my pants off. I leave my boxers on; I want her to take them off.

“You sure you don’t want to come in?” I ask her, and lift my leg over the edge and climb in. Fuck, it’s hot as hell. A few seconds later the burn disappears, and I lean back against the hard plastic.

“I’m sure,” she says and looks out at the woods surrounding us.

“No one can see us. You really think I’d ask you to come in here naked if someone could?” I ask. “I mean, me with my ‘jealousy’ issues and whatnot.”

“What if they come back?” she asks quietly, as if someone can hear her.

“They said an hour or two.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“I thought you were learning to live a little?” I tease my beautiful girl.

“I am.”

“You’re sitting there pouting in a chair while I’m enjoying the view,” I point out.

“I’m not pouting,” she says, and pouts more.

I smirk at her, knowing it will irritate her further. “Okay,” I say, closing my eyes as she purses her lips. “I sure am lonely in here. I may have to take care of myself.”

“I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Déjà vu,” I remark, thinking about our experience at the stream for the second time today.

“I—”

“Just get in the damn water,” I say, without opening my eyes or changing my tone. I speak to her like it’s inevitable, because we both know it is.

“Fine, I am!” she says, trying to convince herself she’s exasperated and doesn’t really want this as much as she does.

That wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. When I open my eyes, I nearly choke. She’s lifting her shirt over her head, and of course she’s wearing that damn red bra.

“Take the bra off,” I say.

She looks around again, and I shake my head. The only thing she can see from this balcony is the water and trees.

“Take it off, baby,” I coax, and she nods, sliding the straps down her arms.

I’ll never get enough of her. No matter how many times I touch her, fuck her, kiss her, hold her . . . it will never be enough, I’ll always want more. It’s not even about the sex, which we have often; it’s that I’m the only one who’s ever been with her, and she trusts me enough to get naked on a fucking balcony.

So why then am I such a fuckup? I don’t want to fuck this up with this girl.

Her jeans join her T-shirt and bra on the chair—folded perfectly, of course.

“Panties, too,” I remind her.

“No, yours are on,” she fires back and steps into the water. “Ouch!” she squeaks, pulling her foot back before easing in. Once she’s all the way in, she sighs, her body having gotten used to the water.

“Come here.” I reach for her and pull her onto my lap.

I suppose the uncomfortable plastic seats can be useful after all. The way her body feels against me, in combination with the pulsing jets, makes me want to rip those panties right off.

“It could be like this in Seattle, all the time,” she says, and her arms wrap around my neck.

“Like what?” The last thing I want to do is talk about fucking Seattle. If I could find a way to wipe that damn city off the map, I would.

“Like this.” She gestures between us. “Just us, no problems with your friends, like Molly, no bad history. Just you and me in a new city. We could start all over, Hardin, together.”

“It’s not that simple,” I tell her.

“Yes, it is; no more Zed.”

“I thought you were going to come in here and fuck me, not talk about Zed,” I tease, and she tenses.

“Sorry, I . . .”

“Calm down, I’m joking. Well, about the Zed thing.” I shift her body on mine so she’s straddling my lap, her bare chest flush against mine. “You’re everything to me; you know that, don’t you?” I repeat the question I’ve had to ask her so many times.

She doesn’t answer this time. Instead she rests her elbows on my shoulders, threads her fingers through my hair, and kisses me.

She’s hungry. Just like I knew she’d be.

chapter

twenty-five

HARDIN

I attempt to pull her nearly naked body even closer to me as she deepens the kiss. Her hands grip my arms, and I guide my hand down between her thighs.

No point in wasting any time here.

“Should have taken these off,” I tell her, tugging at the side of her thin, soaked panties.

She lets out a breathless laugh before sucking in a sharp breath when my fingers enter her. Her moans are cut off by my mouth against hers. She pulls my bottom lip between hers, and I nearly lose it. She’s so fucking sexy and seductive, and she doesn’t even fucking try.

When she begins to rock her hips, pushing herself onto my hand, I grip her waist, move her from my lap, and place her next to me, her legs spread wide, my fingers still pleasing her.

These fucking panties are getting on my nerves.

She startles, then pouts when I remove my fingers from her and hook them around her panties, tugging them down as quickly as possible and leaving her to kick them off the end of one foot into the water beside her. I watch for a second as the jets carry them to the other side of the tub; there’s something mesmerizing about seeing that final barrier float away so smoothly.

But quickly, Tessa grabs my wrist to force me to touch her again.

“What do you want?” I urge, wanting to hear the words from her.

“You.” She smiles sweetly, then spreads her legs further, showing how dirty she really is.

“Turn around, then,” I tell her.

Without giving her a chance to respond, I turn her body around, and she lets out a yelp. I panic for a moment, but then realize that her little pussy is directly lined up with the jets. Of course, she’s moaning. She’ll be fucking screaming in a minute.

I kneel behind her—I love taking her this way. I can feel so much more of her, I can touch the creamy skin on her back and pay attention to every muscle moving under her skin—and I watch every breath she fights for as I rock into her.

I move her long hair to the side and move closer, slowly pushing farther into her. Her back arches into me, and I take her breasts in my hands as I begin to move in and out of her slowly.

Fuck, it feels so damn good, better than ever. It has to be the hot water pushing around us as I inch in and out of her. She moans, and I reach down to make sure she’s still being hit with the rushing water. Her eyes are screwed shut, and her mouth is wide open. Her knuckles are nearly white from gripping the edge of the tub.

I want to move faster, to pound into her, but I force myself to stay at this slow, torturing pace.

“Har-dinnn,” she moans.

“Fuck, it’s like I can finally feel every inch of you.” The moment I say the words, I panic and pull away from her.

A condom.

I didn’t even think to use a fucking condom. What has she done to me?

“What’s wrong?” she pants, a thin layer of moisture covering her face.

“I don’t have a condom on!” I run my hands over my wet hair.

“Oh,” she says calmly.

“Oh? What do you mean, Oh?”

“So put a condom on?” she suggests with a doe-eyed look.

“That’s not the point!” I stand up in the tub. She doesn’t say anything. “If I hadn’t thought about it, you could have gotten pregnant.”

She nods understandingly. “Okay, yeah, but you did remember.”

Why is she so calm about this? She has this grand plan to move to Seattle—a baby would definitely fuck that up. Wait . . .

“Is that your plan or something? If I get you pregnant, you think I’ll go with you?” I sound like a fucking conspiracy theorist, but it does make sense.

She turns around, laughing. “You aren’t serious!” And when she tries to wrap her arms around me, I move out of the way.

“I am.”

“Come on, that’s insane. Come here, babe.” She tries to grab me again, but I dodge her, moving to the opposite side of the Jacuzzi.

Hurt flashes as clear as a goddamn neon sign across her face, and she covers her boobs with her hands. “You’re the one who forgot about a condom, and now you’re saying that I’m trying to trap you by getting pregnant?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Just listen to yourself.”

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time some crazy chick did that. I slide over to get a little closer now, but she quickly rises onto her knees on the bench. I give her an impassive look, saying nothing.

Watching me, her eyes brim with tears as she stands up in the water and climbs out of the tub. “I’m going to take a shower.” She disappears into the bedroom, slamming first the door to the deck and then the bathroom as she goes.

“Fuck!” I yell, smacking a palm at the bubbling water, wishing it could hit me back. I do need to listen to what I’m saying—this isn’t some random crazy bitch. This is Tessa. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m so fucking paranoid. My guilt over this Seattle shit is causing me to lose my fucking mind. What’s left of it, anyway.

I have to fix this, or at least try to. I owe it to her, especially after I just accused her of the dumbest shit possible.

Ironically, in a twisted way, I almost wish I hadn’t remembered the condom myself . . .

No. No, I don’t. I just don’t want her to leave me, and I don’t know what else to do to get her to stay. A baby isn’t the answer, that’s for damn sure. I’ve done everything I possibly can except lock her in the apartment. Sure, it’s an idea that’s actually crossed my mind a few times, but I don’t think she would like it too much. Plus she’d probably get a vitamin-D deficiency. And stop going to yoga . . . and so stop wearing those pants.

I need to go inside and apologize for embarrassing her and being a dick to her before the entire gang returns. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and they’ll get lost in the woods for a few hours.

But first, I have something else I need to do. I climb out of the hot tub and walk into the room; it’s cold as hell now that I’m only wearing soaked boxers. I glance back and forth between my phone and the bathroom door connected to our room. The shower’s still running, so I grab my phone and a blanket from the back of the chair before stepping back out onto the balcony.

I scroll through my contacts and find the name Samuel; real fucking clever decoy, there. I don’t know why I saved this woman’s number anyway; I guess I knew somehow I’d get tangled in a fucking web and have to call the bitch back. I changed the name in case Tessa went snooping through my shit, which I knew she would do. I thought she’d caught me when she asked about my deleted history and heard me yelling at Molly on the phone.

In some ways, I’m sure she’d rather see Molly on my call log than this person.

chapter

twenty-six

TESSA

I can’t believe Hardin had the nerve to accuse me of trying to get myself pregnant, or even thinking that there’s even a small chance that I would do something like that to him . . . or to myself. The whole thing’s just absurd and stupid all around.

Everything was going so great—incredible, really—until he mentioned the condom. He should have just gotten out of the water and grabbed one; I know he has a pile of them in the top of his suitcase. I watched him shove them in there after I neatly packed our bags.

He’s probably just frustrated over this whole Seattle mess, so he overreacted, and maybe I did, too. As a result of my annoyance with Hardin’s rude comments and his ruining our . . . moment in the hot tub, I need a hot shower. Seconds later the water begins to work against my strained muscles, relaxing my nerves and clearing my head. We both overreacted, him more than me, and the argument was so unnecessary. I reach for the shampoo. And then realize I was so rattled while getting away from him that I forgot to grab my toiletry bag. Great.

“Hardin?” I call. I doubt he can hear me over the shower and hot tub, but I pull the floral shower curtain back and watch for him just in case. When he doesn’t appear in the doorway after a few seconds, I grab my towel and wrap it around my body. Trailing water into the bedroom, I reach the suitcases lying on the bed, when I hear Hardin’s voice.

I can’t quite hear what he’s saying, but I catch his tone of false niceness, which tells me he’s trying to be polite and not show his frustration. Which tells me that this conversation is something he deems important enough to not act like himself.

I pad quietly across the wooden floor, and since he’s on speaker, I hear someone say, “Because I’m a Realtor, and my job is to fill empty apartments.”

Hardin sighs. “Well, do you have any more empty apartments to fill?” he asks.

Wait, Hardin’s trying to get me an apartment? I’m as shocked as I am excited at the thought. He’s finally coming around to the idea of Seattle, and he’s actually trying to help me instead of push against me. For once.

The woman on the other end, who, I realize, has a very familiar voice, replies, “You gave me the impression that your friend Tessa was not someone I should be wasting my time giving an apartment to.”

What? Wait . . . is that . . . ?

He wouldn’t.

“Here’s the thing . . . she isn’t as bad as I made her out to be. She hasn’t actually trashed any apartments or left without paying,” he says, and my stomach turns.

He did.

I burst through the doors to the deck. “You sick, selfish bastard!” I scream, the first words that come to mind.

Hardin spins to me, face paling, mouth opening wide. His phone tumbles to the floor, and he just stares at me like I’m some terrible creature who’s come to destroy him.

“Hello?” Sandra’s voice says through the speaker, and he reaches down to grab his phone to silence her.

Anger courses through me. “How could you? How could you do that?”

“I—” he begins.

“No! Don’t even waste my time with an excuse! What the hell were you thinking?” I yell with one arm sweeping in his direction violently.

I storm back into the bedroom, and he follows me, pleading, “Tessa, listen to me.”

I turn around, feeling wounded, and strong, and hurt, and enraged. “No! You listen to me, Hardin,” I say through my teeth, trying to lower my voice. But I can’t. “I’m so sick of this, I’m sick of you trying to sabotage everything in my life that doesn’t revolve around you!” I scream, balling my fists tightly at my sides.

“That’s not what I—”

“Shut up! Shut the hell up! You are the most selfish, arrogant—you’re just . . . ugh!” I can’t think straight; angry words fly from my mouth, my hands moving through the air in front of me.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I was trying to clear it up just now.”

I shouldn’t be so surprised, really. I should have known that Hardin was behind Sandra’s sudden disappearance. He doesn’t know when to stop meddling in my life, my career, and I’m sick of it.

“Exactly; this is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re always doing something. You’re always hiding something. You’re always finding new ways to try to control every single thing I do, and I can’t take it anymore! This is too much.” I can’t help but pace back and forth across the room, and Hardin watches me with cautious eyes. “I can handle you being a little overprotective, and I can handle you getting in a fight now and then. Hell, I can even handle you being a complete asshole half the time, because deep down I always knew you were doing what you thought was best for me. But not this. You’re trying to ruin my future—and I won’t fucking have it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. And I know that he means it, but—

“You’re always fucking sorry! It’s always the same shit: you do something, hide something, say something, I cry, you say you’re sorry, and bam! All is forgiven.” I point a harsh finger at him. “But not this time.”

I have the urge to slap Hardin right across his face, but I look around for something to take my anger out on instead. I grab a frilly pillow from the bed and throw it onto the floor. Then I throw a second one. It doesn’t do much for the anger flaming inside me, but I’d feel even worse if I destroyed anything of Karen’s.

This is so exhausting. I don’t know how much more I can take before I break.

Fuck that, I won’t break. I’m sick of breaking—that’s all I ever do. I need to pick up my own pieces, put them back together neatly, and hide them away from Hardin to keep them from ending up in a pile at his feet again.

“I’m sick of the endless cycle. I’ve told you before, and you don’t listen. You find new ways to continue the cycle, and I’m done, I’m so fucking done!”

I don’t know if I’ve ever been this angry at him. Yes, he’s done worse things, but I’ve always moved on from that. We were never in a place like this before, a place where I thought he was done hiding things from me, and I thought he understood that he can’t mess with my career. This chance means everything to me. I’ve spent my life watching what happens to a woman who has nothing of her own. My mother never had anything that she herself earned, anything that was hers, and I need that. I need to do this. I need this chance to prove that even though I’m young, I can make a life for myself that my mother never could make for herself. I can’t let anyone take this from me, the way my mother let it slip from her.

“Done . . . with me?” His voice is shaky, and it cracks. “You said you’re done . . .”

I don’t know what I’m done with. It should be him, but I know myself better than to answer that right now. Normally I would be crying by this point and forgiving him with a kiss . . . but not tonight.

“I’m so fucking exhausted, and I can’t stand it. I can’t keep doing this like this! You were going to let me move to Seattle without anywhere to live just to try to force me not to go!”

Hardin stands before me in silence, and I take a deep breath, expecting my anger to diminish, but it doesn’t. It grows and grows until I am literally seeing red. I grab the rest of the pillows, imagining that they’re actually glass vases that shatter to the floor, leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. The problem is that I would be the one doing the cleaning—he wouldn’t take the chance of cutting himself in order to spare me.

“Get out!” I scream at him.

“No, I’m sorry, okay, I—”

“Get the fuck out. Now,” I spit, and he looks at me like he has no idea who I am.

Maybe he hasn’t.

He hunches over and leaves the room—and I slam the door behind him before going back out to the balcony. I sit down on the wicker chair and stare out at the sea, trying to calm myself down.

No tears come, only memories. Memories and regrets.