One Week of Summer (19 page)

19)

Teekay’s words crashed into me, making my head spin and my pulse rip through body.  My dizziness increased as he pushed himself to a sitting position, then brought both of us to our feet.   He lifted me by the hips, wrapped my legs around his waist, and carried me from the kitchen.

“What’re you doing?” I squealed.

“I want to find out if it feels different now that we’re officially a couple,” Teekay replied.

“If what does?”

“Are you
really
asking that?”

We hit the bottom of the stairs and he took the first six, two at a time then paused in his ascent and gave me a thorough kiss.

“Three days,” I whispered when he pulled away.

“What?”

“We met three
days
ago.”

“So?”

“You just…You can’t…”

“I can. And I do,” he said firmly.

“But…three days.”

“Yes. Three days,” he agreed, then made his way to the landing at the top of the stairs and stopped to kiss me again. “Funny how I thought the first time a told a girl I loved her, she’d say it back. Not try to talk me out of having said it in the first place.”

“Funny how
I
always thought the first time you said it, it would be to get into some poor girl’s panties. But it looks like you’ve already done that.”

At the surprising, intrusive, and sarcastic words, Teekay spun.

Kirby.

Her face, pinched with equal parts amusement and disgust, stared up at us.  She was still wearing the same tiny dress from last night, and her hair and makeup were still perfect.

Where was Donnie? Wasn’t he being paid to keep Teekay safe? How did she get by him?

Teekay’s arms tightened protectively around me.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” he demanded.

“Telling you the truth about that girl you think you love.” Kirby flicked a dirty look in my direction.

The truth?

Oh god.  Somehow, I knew she meant Jimmy.  I tried to keep from shaking.  I didn’t want to revisit that horrible chapter of my life.

Kirby turned her eyes to Teekay. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

“I somehow doubt that,” Teekay echoed.

“Trust me,” Kirby said.

“Fuck you,” Teekay replied.

Kirby rolled her eyes. “Fine. Don’t trust me. But I’m telling you anyway.”

“Darlin’,” Teekay said into my ear. “I need you to stand up so I can deal with this.”

At his use of the word
this
in reference to her, Kirby huffed.

“Yeah,
darlin’
,” she sneered. “Drag yourself off Junior’s cock and let the grownups talk.”

“You’re treading on very thin ice, Kirby,” Teekay warned. “The only thing keeping you from getting a black eye is your vagina.”

“Believe me,” Kirby replied. “I’m well aware of the fact that everything you do relates back to pussy.”

Teekay snarled something unintelligible at her, and set me on the ground.  My knees were shaking so badly that I had to grip the railing to keep from falling.  And I still slipped.  Teekay grabbed my elbow and steadied me.

“You don’t have to stay here and listen to this,” he assured me gently.

“That’s right,” Kirby agreed snidely. “Go wait in bed. Four doors down. Don’t include the bathroom.”

Bile rose in my throat.

“And speaking of bathrooms,” Kirby added in a sickly sweet voice. “I sure hope you’ve checked out
his
.”

Teekay was holding my arm so tight it almost hurt.

“That’s enough, Kirby,” he said.

Kirby ignored him in favor of looking at me. “Oh, you mean he hasn’t showed you his stash?”

What did she mean?

Teekay’s face was stiff.

“Maggie,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “You
will
let me explain this. For now, go lie down. Before you pass out.”

I nodded and dashed for the bedroom –
his
bedroom, I reminded myself, not the spare room.  It was a small difference, but it was something.

For a long moment, I stood just outside the bathroom door, trying to connect the elusive dots.  Both Teekay and Donnie had been worried about whatever was inside the medicine cabinet.  What was inside?

Trust,
I reminded myself.

So I backed away from the bathroom and I sat on the bed and I tried to block out whatever was going on between Kirby and Teekay.  But their voices carried through the walls, making it impossible.

“Stop right there,” Teekay said.

Kirby laughed. “What? You don’t want to be close enough to touch me?”

“Get the fuck
out,
Kirby.”

“I don’t think so. Some of us aren’t doormats, Junior. I don’t take orders from you.” Her voice was cool. “And I’m not leaving until I’ve said what I came to say.”

“Get out!”

Teekay’s holler didn’t faze Kirby in the slightest.

“Two words,” she stated. “Jimmy. Monroe.”

Even though I’d been expecting to hear it, his name still made my skin crawl. 

What I wasn’t expecting, though – and what really made me sick to my stomach – was the change in Teekay’s voice.  When he spoke again, it had a desperate edge I didn’t recognize.

“Where the fuck did you hear that name, Kirby?”

It was obvious to me that Teekay’s feelings about Jimmy ran as deep and dark as my own.  And had nothing to do with a spilled drink.

“I met him last night,” Kirby replied, seemingly indifferent to Teekay’s anguish. “And it turns out he’s a friend of yours. And your sister’s.”

“You bitch!”

“Oh, that’s not the fun part.” Kirby let out a cruel laugh. “It turns out…Jimmy is pretty close with your little girlfriend too.”

The pause after her words was too long.

I wanted Kirby to leave.

I wanted to be alone with Teekay.  With the ride-the-line between dangerously sexy and devastatingly sweet man whom I’d spent the last few days with.  Who had – not five minutes earlier – told me I was his first girlfriend.  And who was now taking his time in responding to the mean girl who really was telling him the truth.

I curled my legs up and pulled the blankets over my head.  But I could still hear them.

“She slept with Jimmy,” Kirby added.

“Like fuck she did.”

“
Exactly
. She went to your school. Did she tell you that?”

“I would’ve noticed her.”

I cringed at that claim.

“Would you?” Kirby replied scornfully. “Between the partying and the endless parade of girls and the crazy—”

“That’s enough!” Teekay snapped.

But Kirby wasn’t done. “Once upon a time, you and I had something that worked.”

“Before I found out what kind of person you really were. Before I found out what kind of people all of my friends were.”

Kirby’s responding sigh was audible, even through the door. “No, Teekay. You were just too much like us to know the difference. Everything changed for you, but it stayed the same for us. And before you try to shut me up again…There’s one more thing.”

There was a shuffle and I braced myself because I knew what was coming.

“Photographic evidence,” Kirby stated. “I know how you like it.”

I had no problem picturing what happened next.  There was a click and a snarl and the sound of smashing glass and a clatter.  Then silence.

Finally, Kirby spoke again. “Well. I can send you a bill for the phone. But you’re on your own for the goddamned chandelier. Maybe
Ghost
will pay for it.”

And I knew that if the picture hadn’t already nailed my coffin shut, that nickname would.

I closed my eyes and braced myself.

20)

Even before I heard him, I could feel him standing at the edge of the bed.  Then his feet slapped across the floor, and the bathroom door opened.  There was a lot of rattling before it opened again, and Teekay climbed into the bed.

He draped an arm over me, and I thought he was going to go to sleep.  Instead, he spoke right into my hair.

“How much of that did you hear?”

The dark undertone in his voice kept me silent.  His hand crept up my thigh to my waist, then moved to my elbow.

“I’ve been watching you sleep for three nights in a row, Maggie. I know you’re awake now. Your breathing’s different. And so is your pulse.”

His finger dragged up my arm to my shoulder and rested on my throat. 

“I can feel it racing. Is that because of me?” he asked.

I could sense the dangerous edge in his words, and I still couldn’t form an answer.

“Do you know Jimmy, Maggie?”

“Yes,” I barely managed to say.

He was quiet for a long moment. “And did that sack-of-shit sonofabitch have his dick inside you, or just in your mouth?”

Oh.  Kirby had shown him
that
picture.

“Both,” I whispered.

Teekay drew in a hissed breath. “And this whole time, you knew we’d gone to school together?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“No.”

“What else do you know about me?”

I couldn’t tell if he really wanted an answer or not.

Just like with the bullies at school. Just like with Kirby and her friends at the beach.

Because yes, he’d likely have been friends with the kids who tormented me.  He probably could’ve easily been friends with the boy who manipulated me into having sex and then shared it with the world.  He’d slept with a girl who enjoyed picking on the weak.  Who knew how many more there’d been just like her?

And now he was taking her word before even asking me for an explanation.

Maybe he asked her to swear a vow of honesty too,
I thought.

And maybe everything he’d done and said to me was just a repeat of something he’d done and said with every girl before me.

I stared at Teekay, making myself see his handsome face for what it really was – one of
theirs
. 

And just like them, the hateful look in his perfect, beautiful eyes was directed at
me.

I’m back to square one.

“I think I should go,” I stated woodenly.

“I don’t think so. Not yet,” Teekay replied. “Do you want to see what I have in my bathroom cabinet?”

“It’s not important.”

“Actually, I think it is.”

He yanked me to my feet and dragged me to the bathroom, where he flung open the medicine cabinet.

A barrage of pills lined the shelf inside.  Anti-depressants and anti-anxieties.  Names I recognized from my father’s battles.  My eyes sought Teekay’s face, reading new things into his reticence to share his past and seeing his angry outbursts and trust issues in a new light.

“Did you know the whole time?” he asked in a raw voice.

Teekay’s hand slid up my thigh from behind, under the borrowed boxers I was wearing, and between us. 

“Did I know what?” I gasped.

“About the craziness in my life…in my head. About how my parents died? About Jolene? Was that story about your dad and the accident even true?”

His parents were dead too?  Then whose house was this?  Who was paying Donnie?  And who was Jolene?

My head was spinning.

“Answer me, Maggie!” Teekay hollered.

“Of course it’s true!”

He spun me around and pressed me into the sink.

“Really, Maggie? Or was it all just a game to you?” he demanded.

I wiggled away, slipped underneath his arm and ran back into the bedroom.

Teekay was quick to follow.  His arms snaked around my waist and he crushed me to him.  My chest rose and fell in a combination of fear and desire, and his eyes strayed to my breasts.  After a moment, he seemed to realize where he was looking, and a slow, deliberate smile formed on his face.  It didn’t even come close to touching his eyes.

“What made you decide to lie to me?” he asked.

“I never lied to you!”

Teekay backed me up to the bed and forced me down and held himself above me. “Lies of omission are still lies, darlin’. And somehow, you forgot to mention that you weren’t a virgin.”

I drew in a breath.  Was that why he’d pursued me so ardently?  Was that why he was so angry now?  Because his former friend, Jimmy the Skunk Monroe, had his hands on me first? 

“You slept with Kirby,” I pointed out. “And failed to mention that.”

“Kirby was a mistake,” he told me. “She – and twenty other girls like her – are what I did to bury the hurt I had everywhere before I got on the meds. I’m not going to apologize for my past. I have things to be sorry for. Sex isn’t one of them. But you…I was holding back because I thought you deserved hearts and flowers and because I wanted your first time to be special. I even felt guilty about the car. You really had me fooled.”

His jeans rubbed the soft, sensitive skin on my thighs.  And in spite of his cruel words, in spite of the way my heart felt like it was going to collapse, I still wanted him.  I struggled against the feeling. 

“I never told you I was a virgin,” I whispered.

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But you sure as hell didn’t shout out that you were experienced. In fact, you’ve spent every moment being shy and sweet. Blushing at the mere hint of sex. A perfect act.”

He dragged his hands down to my knees and spread them apart roughly, then drew my legs around his waist and held them in place tightly.  He eased his body down and brought his mouth to my breasts.  He sucked and teased and bit through the fabric of the t-shirt, drawing them into hard points.  Then he moved down, and his finger went straight for my clit.  And even though somewhere in my mind I knew I should be fighting against his dark, sexual onslaught, I couldn’t do anything but rise up to meet his ministrations.

“Tell me...” he said.

I had to work hard at forming a reply. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me why your heart is beating so hard that I can feel it right through your perfect, sweet pussy,” he said into my neck. “Is that because you like this? Or because you’re scared?”

“I don’t know!” I gasped.

“You don’t know which part?”

He leaned down, and his teeth sought the tender flesh on my earlobe and he bit it hard enough to make my eyes water.  At the same time, he drove his finger inside me and circled my wetness with his palm. 

I tried to answer, but all that came out was a want-filled whimper. 

This wasn’t the same as the other times we’d been together.  Not even close.  This hurt.  But it felt good too.

“Answer me, Maggie, or I’ll stop.”

Please, no.

And then he went still.  He held his hand in place, unmoving, and my legs dropped open further and my hips rose in an involuntarily attempt to get him to start again.

“Would you like a little more, Maggie?” he asked.

I managed a nod.

“Fear? Or fucking? Which is it?”

“Both,” I whispered.

“Louder,” he ordered, and his thumb pressed into my clit, not gently.

“Both!” I cried out.

“Good,” he growled, and his hand drove into me once more.

My head went back and I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out as he pushed harder.  His fingers and his hips moved together in a punishing thrust. 

And then, without warning, he flipped us over so that I was straddling him instead.  I was surprised into stillness.  But Teekay’s fingers were still inside me, and he wiggled them, hitting a spot that made me gasp.

“Show me,” he said. “Show me how bad you’d like to fuck me.”

With his free hand, Teekay shoved my hips forward, driving his fingers into me further.  He let go and I eased backward again, but he wasn’t willing to let me go.  He grabbed and held my rear end, forcing me forward again.  He released me again and I slipped back, only to have him push me once more.  On the third release, my body moved toward him all on its own.

I rocked back and forth, reluctant at first, and then with increased wantonness.  He felt so good, with his palm poised just outside my wet sex, putting pressure on just the right spot while his fingers toyed with my deepest, most sensitive parts inside.

“Did
Jimmy
do this to you?” Teekay demanded suddenly.

“No!”

“Did he make you come?”

“No!”

“Did you make
him
come?”

“I don’t know!”

“Again with the uncertainty, Maggie. I thought we were past all that. Is any of what happened between us even real?”

His questions should have turned off my desire.  But I didn’t seem to be able to stop.  I continued moving against his fingers, even as the tears started pouring from my eyes. 

I waited for him to notice, but all he did was move his hand faster and faster.  And in a blistering heave that somehow left me unsatisfied, I came against him.

I reached for his zipper, but he slapped my hand away.

“No, Maggie,” he said. “I’m not interested. I just wanted to remind you of what you’ll be missing.”

I flinched back as though I’d been slapped.

“Please, Teekay, let me—”

He answered me just as coldly. “
Now
you can go.”

I stood, but once I was on my feet, I couldn’t move.  I was unable to reconcile the deep, good, physical ache he’d left behind on my body with the horrifyingly empty one that was growing in my mind.  They were too incompatible to be coming from the same place.

“What are you waiting for?” Teekay asked. “Permission? An order? You can have both. You are more than welcome to get the fuck out.”

And I obeyed him.  Because it was better than having to face the crushing reality that I’d let my years of carefully constructed walls crumble because I thought Teekay was different.  When he was really just the same.