Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

When we get inside the house Tate sets me down on the floor and spins me around by my shoulders. Mitch is standing in the kitchen with a bowl of freshly made popcorn and a startled expression on his face. I stand on my tippy-toes to check if there’s any extras – M&M’s or something – in the mix but it’s unadulterated corn and salt for as far as the eye can see.

“That is a sad little bowl,” I say to Mitch, looking pointedly at the corn in his hands.

“I think that her drink was spiked,” Tate interrupts flatly, as if this explains why he’s acting like a Neanderthal.

Mitch’s eyes go crazy wide and he sets down the bowl. “Did you give her some water?” he asks Tate.

Tate’s hands grip tighter. “I didn’t have any,” he replies, and I can hear regret lacing his tone. “Sorry,” he adds, whether to Mitch or to me I do not know.

Mitch runs the tap into a glass and then he passes it to me. I gulp it down and he refills it again.

“Take her to bed,” Mitch orders as he heads to the living room. Tate can feel that I’m about to burst out laughing so he cups his hand over my mouth to stifle the sound. When the wave passes he puts his hand back on my shoulder and he walks me up the stairs to his room.

My room.

Our room.

I realise once I’m over the threshold that I no longer have Tate’s warm, grounding palms encasing my shoulders, so I turn around and see that he’s gripping the top of the doorframe, head bowed and chest heaving. His hair has fallen all over his face and the tendons in his thick wrists are flexing.

The room is excessively dark, lit only by the faintest glow from the streetlamps outside, and the rainfall is thumping fast against the panes. The ambience is obviously quite distressing for Tate because he’s breathing loud enough for me to hear from the other side of the attic.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” I ask, still in that possessed nymphomaniac mind-frame that came over me in the car. “Get inside here now, you vampire.”

Tate tilts his head up and I see a pained expression creasing his brow.

I open the bedside drawer and pull out my cleaning cloth so that I can wipe the rain smudges from my glasses, ignoring the desperation that I can feel radiating off Tate’s body. When my glasses are clean I throw the cloth back in the drawer and storm over to the doorway.

“Get in or get out,” I demand, only inches away from the hard planes of his expansive chest.

“Did you drink alcohol tonight, River? Or do you think that you were spiked? If you’re under the influence I can’t come in here with you.”

That is so nice of him. I grab the soft cotton of his shirt and pull him inside anyway.

“River, I’m serious. I’m not doing anything that you’re not fully… lucid for.”

I move around him to shut the door and twist the little lock, before I start pulling off my trousers. They are so rain-splattered that they keep sticking to my skin. I wriggle them off, fist them up, and then I throw them across the room like a shot-put. Slam dunk.

When I look up at Tate again his gaze has hardened and his jaw is set, which is unanticipated but also arousing. I start unbuttoning my shirt.

Tate grabs my hands, halting my progress, and he fixes me with an unyielding stare.

“Why do you keep saying that I ruined everything for us? How can you say that? I would have done anything for you.” The timbre of his voice is sending shockwaves all the way down to my uterus. I rest my head against the door and my body pulses as I gaze into the dark depths of his glittering eyes.

I want to feel him, just once, and then I can let it go. What happened was so long ago, and he was so young, that it almost seems insignificant now, but it’s still bad enough to make me know that I can never fully trust him again.

But I want one night to indulge myself before I shut him out forever.

Besides, why is it only men who can be casual with sex or wield it as a means of revenge? From the look on Tate’s face right now I think that the idea of our bodies coming together will torture him for the rest of his life and he deserves nothing less.

I wriggle my wrists for him to release them, and then I run my hand up his sleeve to the bulge of his tattooed bicep. He instinctively encases my lower back in the warm press of his forearms, and he rests his forehead against mine, tickling my face with his soft hair, inky black in the darkness of the room.

“I want to start over,” he whispers, his hard pecs heaving with each steadying inhalation.

I work my fingers up into his hair and tug at it hard. “I don’t care,” I whisper back.

He tilts his face back and looks down at me, my head coming to way beneath his chin. It’s such a domineering angle that my stomach flips, and I give him a tiny please don’t hurt me smile, although I guess it’s too late for that really.

“You do care.” His voice is low and scolding. I press my hips against his and he stirs agitatedly.

He definitely cares.

“I got over it a long time ago,” I reply, blasé, although I feel kind of dizzy. “But I deserve a parting gift before I go to college, is all.” His hands splay across my lower back, slowly inching their way down, and my thoughts short-circuit.

Just as his fingers dig into the round curves of my ass I push him off me. He stumbles back and swallows hard.

“I need water,” I say matter-of-factly.

He runs his hand through his hair, breathing jagged, and then nods down at the floor. “I’ll get that for you,” he breathes out, and then he carefully steps around me and heads out of the door.

As soon as he leaves I throw myself onto the bed, moaning. Why the hell is he acting like this? And, more importantly, why the hell am I?

I think back to the Halloween dance and maybe Tate’s right – maybe I was spiked – but a little shot of liquor in my system isn’t the sole catalyst for these feelings. They have been festering since the moment I saw him again, as soon as I stepped foot in this room, as soon as I started sleeping in his sheets.

I pull off my uniform, leaving only my thermal vest, and I shuffle into my pyjama shorts. What the hell is wrong with me?

When Tate comes back into the room, he closes the door quietly behind him and holds out the glass of water for me. I go to take it but then he lifts it just out of my reach.

“I want a truce,” he demands. He’s using his low and commanding what would you like to confess voice that runs like a shot of whiskey down my naval.

“You’re a jerk,” I retort, but then I squeal because I feel something icy splash against my leg. He tipped a drop of the water on me and, when I get a good look at the glass in his hands, it’s full of frozen ice cubes.

“Truce,” he says again, expression unwavering.

I narrow my eyes on him. “Only if you give me what I want in return.”

His eyebrows pinch in surprise but he quickly shakes it off. “You won’t want that when you’re sober,” he replies. Then he yields, passing me the water and making me feel a little smug.

When he goes to exit the room I quietly ask him, “But what if I do?”

Tate’s body stills, the large expanse of his back facing me for a few moments, and when he turns back around I can see that wild animalistic need has smothered all moral and rational thought. His body is thrumming with the want to satiate himself, and I am devoted to helping his plight.

I sit up onto my knees so that I’m closer to him, and he seals the space between us in one easy stride. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me to the edge of the bed so that our torsos are flush against each other. I cup his jaw in my hand and he leans into my touch, only tilting so that he can kiss the base of my thumb. I run my other hand up his abs until I meet his crucifix, and I grip it in my fist, causing him to release a deep strained breath.

“Will you do that for me, when I’m sober?” I whisper, euphoric at the realisation that – for some unbeknown reason, call it his conscience – Tate will do anything that he can to make amends. I grip the pendant a little tighter. Thank you, God.

He nods, his head ducking down so that our faces are at a more equal height and his fingers holding me firmly in place.

I think for a moment. “And will you tell me what your tattoo says?” I ask, because why not.

“John 7:38,” he murmurs immediately as he laces his fingers through the red ribbon at the front of my pyjama shorts. His breathing is so laboured that he’s practically panting.

“Thank you,” I say, making a mental note to check that out later. I watch him pinch the ribbon between his fingers and then he tugs it roughly. I make a small quivering sound and Tate’s eyes flash upwards. His hand leaves my shorts and it moves around to the back of my neck, clamping it as if he’s trying to squeeze more noises out of me. It works, and immediately his whole body is humming.

“One kiss,” he whispers, and his eyes flicker down past my lips, to my throat. He lowers his mouth so that it’s hovering over my pulse point and he murmurs, “Just here.”

Once I give my small confirming nod he crushes his lips against my neck.

He laps at my skin, groaning at the taste, and then he sucks it hungrily into his mouth. One of his hands descends down my back, and when he reaches my behind he kneads the flesh desperately. His other hand climbs upwards until it reaches my chest, at first tracing gently around the curves and slopes, but then gradually pressing harder until he’s palming me in frenzy. I lock my hands in his hair, holding him against me as he works my body into a grinding mess.

Suddenly I’m pushed backwards and I sink against the thick quilt, need coursing through me as I look up at Tate towering over me. He smoothes my wrists down against the bed, caressing the soft skin with his thumbs, and then he eases his groin between my hips. My body is thumping harder than the storm outside as he sinks his teeth back into my neck, the taut muscles of his back rolling effortlessly as he grinds against me, and his sharp stubble grazing at my sensitised skin.

I’m drowning in the pleasure of my willing surrender until I hear a gruff voice grit out, “You really are a piece of shit.”

I gasp and startle, at first thinking that the words came from Tate, but in a second Mitch is hauling his son off my body and slamming him into the dresser.

Shit. I quickly look to the doorway to check for my mom but luckily no lights are on and I think that Mitch is here alone. I close my legs and try to balance myself on my elbows.

“Are you kidding me?” Mitch growls, his eyes boring into Tate. “This chick hates your guts, and the one time she has liquor in her system I find you pinning her to her bed and warming your dick between her thighs? Explain this, now!” The words are being spat out through clenched teeth, but his voice is hushed enough for me to realise that he has no intention of my mom finding out about this.

Tate rubs his head and looks down at the floor. “It’s not like that,” he replies.

“I am dating her mom, Tate – and if her mom finds out what you’re trying to do, she will literally kill you. And then I’ll have to break up with her, because I can’t be in a relationship with the woman who murdered my son.”

Mitch runs his hand over his face and turns around, but as soon as he remembers that I’m still here, he spins right back.

“She’s not going to be here.” Mitch jerks his thumb at me from over his shoulder. “She’s going to go to college, and you know it.”

Tate squares his shoulders, standing at an insane six-foot-four, and making himself an even match against Mitch. I feel evil and guilty realising how attractive they both look right now, so I squirm on the bed in shame.

“We don’t even know that she wants that,” Tate counters, folding his arms over his chest.

I quietly take a sip of my icy water.

Mitch makes a sort of unfunny laugh. “It doesn’t matter what she wants. It doesn’t matter what you want, and it doesn’t matter what I want. If her mom wants her to do it, she’ll do it. She has that kid in chains.”

I shift uncomfortably because I don’t like the fact that Mitch seems to sense how repressed my life has been. Introverted nerdy girls are not born this way. If it wasn’t for all of the stolen moments that I had with Tate when I was younger, I wouldn’t really have any childhood memories at all.

Tate clenches his jaw. “College or no college, I can make it work. I can do long distance.”

Wait, what?

Mitch keels forward like he’s about to rip his own brains out. “Tate!” he hisses incredulously. “The girl doesn’t even like you, man! She broke your heart and she’s going to do it again! When will you ever learn?”

Wait, WHAT?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say, but when I try to stand I feel like I’m going to vomit a little, and I realise that I didn’t eat dinner tonight. They both turn to look at me so I swallow and try to wet my mouth. “That’s not what went down, Mitch,” I say. I take off my glasses to blur out his hot angry face. “And you’re right about my mom, I don’t get a say. But I’m almost eighteen and… whatever we were doing here, my mom doesn’t need to know.”

Whatever I just said was definitely the wrong thing to say. Mitch is so furious that when he turns back to Tate he’s practically aglow.

“Are you telling me,” he grits out slowly, “that my almost-nineteen year old son was about to engage in sexual relations with a high school girl, and, to top it all off, she isn’t even eighteen yet?”

Wow, I really did say the wrong thing.

The room is so silent it’s vibrating. We both know what Mitch is implying.

“This can’t happen again,” Mitch says in an and that’s final tone. “I don’t want to catch either of you trying this because there will be consequences – and I’m not talking about from me.”

Mitch flashes me a distressed look and runs his hand over his hair. Then he claps Tate on the shoulder and nods for him to get out of the room.

Before he leaves Tate’s eyes meet mine and there’s a dark flame flickering beneath the surface. He’s thinking about where his hands have just been, working, squeezing, rubbing, pressing. He’s thinking about my softness splayed out before him, ready and willing to take his touch.

Mitch nudges him, irritated, but I see everything that I need to know.

Tate grips his belt with one hand and his crucifix with the other.

Tate is my penitent, and he’s ready to confess.