Inferno Anthology (100 page)

“Really?” My heart thumps wild in my chest as a series of low lying clouds move in and steal the sunshine from the watery blue sky. “What’s going to happen to your man parts?” My eyes widen, my cheeks blush bright as candy apples as if I had outright propositioned him. “I’m sure there are some serious ramifications to denying them their regularly-scheduled testosterone release. Rumor has it blue balls are a very real thing.”

“I’ve taken a cold shower or two in my time.” His steely gaze locks onto mine, and all of nature goes off like a siren around us. It’s as if the birds, the bees, and every creature known to man is cheering us on, every living creature except for Bryson, of course. I’m pretty sure his vow of celibacy has very little to do with me—unless, of course, I nauseate him—kill his appetite for all things estrogen.

“Cold showers, huh?” I edge my face in toward his to see if he’ll bite. Bryson glances down at my mouth and wets his lips. He’s eyeing me like a snake that might jump out and inflict him with a venomous bite. I’ve kissed a few boys in my time, and leaning in like this was all the nudging it took, just a little movement in the right direction, and before I knew it, their tongues were being fed to me by the inch. But Bryson doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe or say a word. He just stares me down as if a standoff at high noon were taking place—his testosterone against my estrogen. His eyes widen. His shoulders nudge toward mine, but he stops and presses his lips together as if he’s made up his mind not to continue.

We finish our donuts, and he races me downhill all the way back to campus.

He lets me win, and I’m okay with that for now.

Bryson is the real prize.

I wonder if I can win his heart like he seems to be winning mine?

Bryson

Baya looks damn hot tonight in her barely-there jean shorts, her pink workout bra that annunciates two of her greatest assets. She’s strutting her stuff at the Sky Lab, walking over the lunar-inspired flooring as if she owned the place. Lucky for her, one of the waitresses on duty had to go home early, and now she has twice the tables she had last week.

“This is fantastic.” She waves a ten-dollar bill in my face. She’s so damn beautiful, I can actually feel my balls weeping in her presence. “Those guys weren’t even here five minutes after their food arrived. I keep scoring the big bills like this, and I might trade in U.S. History for my new—might I add lucrative career—as a waitress.”

“I’d hang onto the books if I were you,” I say, passing a group of shots off to the drink waitress. She doesn’t looks so thrilled with the fact Baya is here, but I didn’t take an opinion pole, so it really doesn’t matter. “You can always wait tables once you’re through with school, but you won’t get these years back, and, who knows? You might regret not going.” Holt runs through my mind. “My brother decided to chase his tail after high school and now laments the fact I’m getting ready to graduate. But, if you did quit, you could always go back. At least that’s what I tell my brother.” I give a sober nod. “He didn’t bother showing up, and now wishes I kicked him in the balls until he did.”

“You’re pretty encouraging, you know that?” Her doe eyes blink up at me a smooth lime green, and I want to lose myself just staring in them. “Usually I hear the opposite from Cole and Mom. You know—do as you’re told, not as you wish. Not that I want to quit school or anything. I just got here, and I really like it so far.” Her face lights up pink as cotton candy, and I swallow hard at how fucking gorgeous she is—how preciously sweet. I wish she wasn’t. I wish she was hell on heels, wearing the bitch suit of armor twenty-four seven—that she was just some girl in a sea of Whitney women. I might have done her by now if she was either of those things, but she’s not. Baya has the face and body of an angel. She has me shaking every time she’s around, and yet she’s off limits. Not because of anything Cole said, but because I say so.

“I’m glad you’re sticking around.” I take a breath. I can tell by the way she’s been looking at me all day she’s feeling something. I should probably end this right now before things get too out of hand. Baya deserves someone as gentle as she is—someone who’ll tell her he loves her and mean it before ever thinking about taking her to the bedroom. A part of me would die to be that person, but deep down I know I can’t.

A barfly pops up at the counter—a plastic girl with a spray on tan, hair bleached of all its natural color, leaving a dry straw-like mess in its wake. That’s who I should be pining for tonight. For sure I shouldn’t be entertaining Baya with her wonderstruck lust for me. I’m not the person she thinks I am. I’m not even close.

I head over to the blonde who’s already trying to impress me and my dick by showing off the cherry stem she’s tied in a knot with her tongue.

“It takes a talent.” I lean in and smolder into her, letting her know with every nonverbal cue, she’s about to get lucky tonight. I glance back at Baya and catch the viral look of grief sweeping across her face.

Crap. I can’t do this.

“If you need something, just ask Jim.” I call the backup from the other end of the bar and head over to Baya. “Now where were we?” I press out a sad smile. “Oh, that’s right, we’re both really glad you came.”

The rest of the night Baya glows and shines as she swindles customers out of their hard-earned dough with nothing more than that million-dollar smile. I watch her tight little bottom in those barely-there shorts as if I were her personal security team. Each passing minute I try to picture what it would be like to hold her, to twirl my tongue in her ear just to hear her moan and giggle. I watch as her lips curve and imagine she were doing it for me while lying beneath me without any clothes on—how soft her perfect body might be.

The clock strikes three, and we do the world’s fastest close before I whisk her into the cool night air.

The lamp from the parking lot illuminates her like an angel. The lot has cleared out, leaving just my truck for as far as the eye can see. It’s just Baya and me. And no matter how hard I want to resist it, I like it like this, a whole hell of a lot.

“So what’s the haul?” I nod into her overstuffed shorts.

“I think it’s over a hundred, but I’m afraid half of it will blow away if I try to empty my pockets.” She rubs her bare arms, and her teeth clatter like castanets.

“Here.” I pull off my sweatshirt and glide it over her so fast, she can’t protest.

“It’s so
warm
.” She yanks it down past her knees, and it springs back up to her bottom.

Baya looks up and gives a shy smile, her sweet perfume pulls me in, and I can’t help but get caught up in the moment. It takes everything I’ve got not to bury my face in her hair, pull my lips over her neck. Earlier today she wanted a kiss. I’ve been to the rodeo enough to know what’s about to go down, and she outright begged for one while we were on that boulder. Every part of me wanted to give it, but I held strong. I’m not feeling too strong right about now. My mouth wants to cover hers. My body wants nothing more than to wrap itself around her like a blanket.

She hedges in and folds her arms around my waist.

“Baya,” I whisper with an unspoken agony I hope to never relive. It’s coming—all those feelings I had so long ago. I swore I’d never go there again. I need to stave them off—deny them. It’s the only way I know to keep my heart safe—hell, keep
Baya’s
heart safe.

“Is something wrong? Is it me?” Her eyes round out in horror as if maybe I’m repulsed by her.

“No.” My hands float up to her waist, and I brush over her hips with my fingers. Baya is soft, her hair smooth as silk. I lean in and inhale her scent while touching down over the top of her head with my cheek. God she smells nice—like vanilla and cinnamon and suddenly I’m very fucking hungry for vanilla and cinnamon. “You’re perfect, I promise.” A little too much.

“Is it Cole?” she whispers. She knows I’m stalling and demands to know why.

Cole is the easy out. I should take it and run with it all the way back to Whitney Briggs. A part of me wants to evict Jeanie from her dorm just to keep Baya a safe distance from me for the rest of the night—hell, the rest of the year. But I’m right there, I’m about to cave and when I do I’ll take everything she’s willing to give me.

“No, it’s not Cole.” I shake my head in defeat. The last thing I want to do is lie to her.

Tears well up in her eyes and she blinks them back. Crap. Now I’m humiliating her. That’s the last thing on the planet I want to do.

“Bryson”—her voice breaks—“do you think maybe we could share just one kiss?” The desperation, the outright pleading in her voice kills me on a primal level and my body starts to shake because I want that kiss just as bad as she does. Probably more.

My adrenaline picks up until my heart feels like a bomb is about to detonate in my chest. What the hell. It’s just a kiss. Although a part of me knows it will be anything but just a kiss with Baya.

I cradle her cheeks in the palms of my hands and draw to her to me, slow and measured. I give a gentle smile as her eyes close, her lips part waiting for mine to greet her. I want to freeze this moment. This is innocent and pure—untainted from my past in a way that I wish the rest of my life could be.

“Baya,” her name strains from my lips as threadbare as the wind as I bring my mouth to hers. I offer a barely-there pass, soft as down feathers before landing hard over her mouth like I want to, like I’ve wanted to ever since that afternoon she first arrived. I swipe my tongue over hers and a groan rips from my gut as if it’s waited all my life to come out. A burst of passion releases from me like I have never known. I’ve waited years for a kiss just like this one—an entire lifetime. I had never had a kiss that mattered so much—that I’ve craved so badly before and now I know why—Baya wasn’t there to give it.

Steph tries to surface but I hold down the past and refuse to let it cork to the top. This is my moment with Baya and once she learns the truth about me, we may never have another.

She runs her hands up my T-shirt and warms herself over my skin. I pull her in tight, and she jumps up on my waist, wrapping her legs around me as if I were a life raft—her lips never leaving mine. We indulge in the pull and push of ecstasy like I have never experienced before—the hard-on blooming in my jeans can attest to that. A series of soft groans emit from her and it takes everything in me not to ride my hands up her shirt—not to take her greedily in the back of my truck, if she wanted me to, and something tells me she more than wants to.

Baya reaches down and plays with the button on my jeans, and I catch her hand in flight.

“No,” I whisper, dotting her lips with a kiss.

“Yes,” she pants trailing her molten hot lips to my ear then pausing.

“No way,” I insist, soft as a whisper.

She gives a little sigh over my lips and it makes me dizzy. “You’re off the hook for now, but I want this.” She pulls her finger up my belly in a solid line, and I take a breath and seal it in my lungs.

“You hardly know me.” A dull laugh brews in my chest as I spin her gently with my hands tucked beneath her knees.

“Hardly know you?” She averts her eyes and I’d do just about anything to please her any way she likes but I know the damage I’m capable of. “
Right
—you have one-night stands all the time. And, I know exactly how many.” She taps my chest, resisting the urge to laugh. “Your wall whispered all of your secrets to me this morning while you were in the shower.” Baya tries to hide a smile, and I nibble on her lower lip before pulling away.

“I’m not having a one-night stand with you, Baya.” True as God. If I had Baya one night would never be enough. “We’re just kissing buddies nothing more.” There. Somehow I managed to set a boundary—not that my dick agrees.

“Buddies, huh?” She reaches down and strokes my hard-on over my jeans, and I lurch into her.  I’ve never felt so damn turned on, so ready to come with such little effort. “Your pants feel awful friendly.”

“They’re not, and neither am I,” I tease as a light rain starts to fall.

“Let’s get back to the kissing.” She pulls her lips across my cheek down to my mouth. “We can figure the rest out later.”

Baya lands her candy sweet mouth over mine, and everything in me feels as if it’s floating on air. It’s as if Baya’s kisses were the exact elixir I’ve been waiting for all these years, a salve in the form of another sweet girl reminiscent of the one I lost.

I’ve hung out in the dark for so long, I’ve forgotten what it really feels like to live, too soar with the promise of something wonderful on the horizon.

Baya just might be the light at the end of this long, hellish tunnel. But does she really have the power to pull me from the wreckage? I doubt it. I’m too far gone, too much of a fucking mess to ever hope to recover.

The rain starts in, heavy and hard, matching the rhythm of my heart over hers.

I hope to God, Baya is the cure to this disease I’ve been wasting away from because it feels like I’m about to die, or at least it did just before I met her.

Her tongue knifes over mine in strokes of lust-driven madness, and I’m right there with her. Not another person on the planet exists right now, not Cole, not a thousand faceless girls from Whitney Briggs—and not the one I left behind in the past.

Right now, it’s just Baya and me, drowning in a sea of kisses that taste and feel like the sweetest release. They feel like hope. And, for the first time in a good long while, I have it.

I push Baya up against the truck, and we indulge in the hot of one another’s mouths until the sun illuminates a new day with its feather soft beams.

Baya Brighton is in my life, and, now, nothing will ever be the same.