Sweet Alibi (21 page)

“I’m always safe, Georgia. With every one of them,” he whispered seductively, tauntingly, causing my blood to boil every time he mentioned the other girls he'd been with. Every time I thought about their high heels locked around his waist. Him peeling the sexy underwear off their bodies.

“You weren't with me,” I whispered as I rocked gently into him, my eyes closed, my brain swimming with desire and lust and the fading vestiges of anger.

“I couldn't think straight when I was with you,” he hissed in my ear, his warm breath washing over my skin, sending tingles through my body. “Say yes, Georgia, and I’ll do whatever you want. There's so much I want to do to you. I dream about all the ways I can take you.” Two long fingers caressed the seam of my shorts, causing fire to race through my veins and lust to spike through my entire body. I thrust my hips at his touch involuntarily. “I’ll take you right here on this counter if you let me.” He lifted and set me on the counter, spreading my knees and resting his hips between my thighs. “You just need to say the word, Georgia, and I’ll show you how good it can be. I can make you forget him. I can make you forget everything if you just let me. I would slide in slowly, your back would arch, your breathing would hitch.” He thrust his hips into me so I could feel his rock hard arousal. A choked whimper escaped my throat. “I can make you scream my name, Georgia.” He wrapped one hand around my neck and held tightly as he dragged his tongue across my sensitive skin and breathed hot in my ear. The action had me sitting on the edge of release. So close, I could fall over into him. It would only be a minute, if I just said yes, I could be his, he could make me lose myself, and isn't that what I wanted? To be lost? To forget? To have the pain taken away? Tristan was my drug if I’d only let him in.

“I don’t want to be one of them,” I moaned.

“You aren’t. You never were.” He husked and I arched. I ached for him. “Come on, Georgia,” he whispered. My eyes flickered open as he moved his hands to the top of my thighs and held firmly, tightly enough that it almost hurt. He continued to rock into me, his straining erection sliding against the seam of my shorts, providing almost enough friction. His eyes revealed determination and anger and lust and need, all brewing under the surface. The intensity in those green irises held me chained to him. I couldn’t look away if I tried.

“God, Tristan,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

“Let me help you. Just say it. Say yes and that's it.” He rocked harder and my breathing came out in furious pants.

“No, Tristan.” I ground my teeth together as anger and fear and shame spiked tears behind my eyelids. “No, I can’t… I can’t… Please.” I held his upper arms tightly, pushing him away yet clutching him for dear life. “Please stop,” I whimpered. He stood away from me for a moment before the tension left his body and he wrapped his arms around my trembling body in a tight hug. I locked my hands behind his back and held him to me. I knew it was unfair; I was torturing him as much as I was torturing myself, but I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t take the leap like he’d begged me to.

Twenty-One

Tristan

I regretted every fucking minute. Why did I find myself regretting so many things with her when she was the one person I wanted the most? I craved her love, I craved her mind, I craved everything about her while she abused my emotions like a rag doll.

I’d made a rainfall of bad decisions lately, starting with taking that girl home after I’d forgotten my boat keys, but I’d been so angry I couldn’t see straight, and while I hadn’t planned on Georgia catching me in the act like she did, naked bodies strewn across cotton sheets, some sick part of me had wanted her to catch me just the same.
 

But the look on her face had said it all. I’d gone too far, I’d stepped over bounds, and for once it’d actually made me feel good. I’d gotten a reaction from her and that’s all I’d ben looking for.
 

I had anger burrowed deep in my gut, anger at her refusal to acknowledge my feelings. I may have a checkered history with women, damn Drew for telling her any of it, but Georgia had just met me, why was I being judged by my past sins?

I knew deep down that if things were different, if we’d had a different start, a better start, we could have been different together. I could see us falling together, both single and unattached, my heart soaring with every kiss, her body coming alive under mine with every stroke of my fingers. We would have been kinder, no season of pain between us, more in tune, we could have been great. And suddenly meeting Georgia felt like a lifetime too late.

Georgia and I deserved that life, I could see it plainly in my mind, but it was if fate had other plans. But fate had to be so mother fucking wrong, why else would it hurt so much? Not having her was like a physical pain I could hardly bear, the only thing deferring the heartache was inflicting it on her. It was messed up, so wrong, and horribly selfish, I just couldn’t see it for what it really was, me barely keeping my head above water without her.

It was fucked up, it made me bad, wrong in every way, but it was the only reaction I had. It was pain and desperation and desire all rolled into a tightly wound ball. I couldn’t decipher my way in or out, I just knew I had to throw with everything I had.
 

Maybe my emotional compass was off, but I was fucking lost.
 

I needed Georgia to tell me what was right and wrong, how to help her, how to save her, how to keep her. I could feel the love between us in my bones, but she was just too stubborn and loyal to admit it.
 

But not so loyal that she wouldn’t give her heart to someone else.
 

I’d fucked up with her already, maybe irreparably, but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t keep trying. I could be better, I would be, if I could only get control of these raging emotions. If I could only make her see that we could be right, we could be everything.
 

If she’d only say yes.
 

Just say yes.
 

Just give me a chance.
 

I just needed one chance to give her everything, and I knew then she would never walk away again.
 

Twenty-Two

Georgia

“YOU LOOK EXHAUSTED, G.” Drew and I sat on the beach a few mornings later. I hadn't slept for shit in days and Tristan's most recent indiscretion with the threesome was eating away at me. Another image that’d been burned in my brain. Every time I settled into bed and closed my eyes, the images played of all of the girls and the positions he could be in in that very moment.

“I haven't slept.”

“At all?” Drew sipped a spritzer through a straw.

“Pretty much. Don't you think it's too early to drink?” I nodded to her drink.

“Nope,” she answered. 

“I orchestrated this girls-only beach day so now it's your turn to dish.”

I heaved a great big sigh in response.

“Silas will be pissed we had a beach day without him.” I was trying to divert again.

“Silas is off getting laid somewhere, so he’s shit out of luck. Come on, G, this summer was supposed to be great. And it has been for everyone but you.”

“Maybe we should invite Justin over. I like him; I think he and Silas could be really good together.” I continued to shift the topic of conversation away from myself.

Drew wasn’t having it. “Things are getting worse, Georgia,” she said. “You’re having nightmares every night, honey. I hear them.”

“I’m sorry for waking you up.” It felt like the weight of the world sat on my shoulders. I needed to relieve it with someone. Anyone. I thought I would go crazy keeping everything locked up in my own head like this.

“It's not that, G. I’m worried. Silas too. Maybe if you told Tristan…” she trailed off.

“Told him what? Everyone wants me to tell him something--what am I supposed to tell him?” I raised my voice.

“Tell him why you can't be with him. Or why you think you can't anyway.” She took another sip of her drink.

“I’ve never told anyone, Drew. Just you, Silas, and Kyle.”

“I know, but maybe that's the problem. I think that's why the nightmares are getting worse. I think a part of you wants to let Tristan in, but you’re so afraid…”

I looked at the rolling waves licking the sandy beach. “I’m angry that Kyle hasn't been here,” I whispered.

“I know, I am too,” she said.

“I’m afraid to tell Tristan, I’m afraid he'll walk away. Things are so fucked up.” 

“I know you’re afraid of that, but he wouldn't,” she rubbed my arm gently.

“You don't know that. What happened was fucked up, Drew. It fucked me up for years. It still does.”

“I know.”

“It’s a lot to deal with and it isn't even over. It comes up to bite me every few years.”

“If he doesn't want to put up with it then at least you'll know he was never worth it. But as it is, Georgia…”

“So I’m supposed to gamble on Tristan and fuck up what I have with Kyle? Kyle can't forgive something like that. Not ever.”

“Ironic, really,” she murmured. “So were you never going to tell Kyle? Was that your plan? Because it’s eating away at you. Whether you choose Kyle or Tristan, I know you, Georgia, and it’s going to eat away at you.”

“I don’t know. Part of me thought if Tristan and I never happened again…” I hesitated. “I cheated on Kyle, Drew. I’m not worthy of either one.”

Her eyes softened as she took in what I was saying. I'd never told her in so many words, but I knew she'd suspected that Tristan and I had slept together at some point. “You made a mistake, that doesn't mean you don’t deserve love. It means you’re human. And I think you'd be surprised what Tristan can handle
―
and what he’d be willing to handle.” She cocked a brow at me. “Just talk to him. He's pretty fucked up right now. Gavin said he's never been like this…”

“Like what? A whore?” I mumbled.

“No, he's always been a whore, but not like this. Not every night. Not different ones like this. He's in rough shape.” She frowned. “Just talk to him. I think he needs to know why you didn't choose him.”

I frowned and worked over her words in my mind for a few moments. “I need one of those.” I pointed at her drink.

“Great! Take mine.” She handed me her drink. “I’ll go make another.” She sped up the stairs to do just that.

I reflected, waiting for her to return. I dragged my fingertip through the sand and made random shapes. A sailboat. The letter T, the letter G, the letter K… I swirled before brushing it all aside. My brain was so jumbled and confused, I wasn't sure what was up or down anymore. Kyle entered my life when I was twelve and my life had changed for the better. Months before, I’d been in such a dark place. Hopeless was the only way to describe it
―
dark and hopeless. I had stopped talking for nearly a year, but when I met Kyle, he didn't care. He talked to me even when he knew I wouldn't answer, but he knew I was listening. I was hanging on his every word. He was my light in the dark recesses of my mind.

Slowly I began to open up, but only to him. We talked about nothing in particular, and certainly not what had happened to me. Everyone wanted to talk about what had happened, but he didn’t. It made all the difference…Kyle made all the difference in my life.

One night he'd finally asked me why I had nightmares. He had heard me scream from his next-door bedroom window one summer night. The next morning he’d asked me and I’d told him. It’d all come flooding out. I couldn't stop it, and I didn’t want to. He sat and listened to everything but his face betrayed nothing. Finally, when I’d finished, he asked me if I wanted to walk down the street for ice cream. He treated me as if nothing had happened at all, as if I hadn't just laid my entire horrific past at his feet, and it was exactly what I’d needed.

From that day on, Kyle became my protector. When the kids bullied me at school for being quiet, he stood up for me. When things at home got tough, I crawled into his bedroom window and he held me all night and kept the nightmares at bay. He was my savior in the darkest time of my life. He was my knight
―
always there to protect and defend. It had only been the last few years that life had taken us down different paths.

I knew Kyle must have felt it, but we didn't talk about it. And I tried to overlook it for as long as I could. I still held tightly to those memories I had from when we were kids. I couldn't let go of Kyle. He'd been the only person to pull me out of the darkness. What happened if I went there again and I didn’t have him? Would I get lost in it? Would I lose myself? I was too afraid to find out.

* * *

DREW AND I had spent the day cleaning out the upstairs to ready it for remodeling. Gavin and Tristan had worked all day in their makeshift office, and Silas had done whatever it is that Silas does while he’s in between jobs. Kyle was set to come down in a few days for the Fourth of July weekend and things with Tristan were strained. We'd been trying to work through it the best we could, which meant avoiding each other, but I quickly found that wasn't going to work. It made for awkward tension that permeated the entire mood of the house.

“Will you walk with me?” Tristan approached me on the deck a few evenings later. The sun was just beginning to set, bright pinks and oranges streaked across the sky.

“Sure.” I forced a smile. I flinched when he placed a steadying hand on my back as we made our way down the steps and out to the beach. The day had been humid, nearly stifling, a typical southern summer day. A thin sheen of perspiration clung to my skin and had me itching to head straight into the water, but I knew we should talk if we wanted to survive the rest of the summer without driving our friends insane.