Tripp (25 page)

As if she senses my need, she reaches her hand up and lightly traces her fingers across my brow, my cheek, my jawline, and down to my lips. “Thanks for being here,” she says and her voice is quiet, reverent, needy.

“Always.” My lips take hers to seal the words between us. She encourages me by abandoning her towel and gripping the back of my T-shirt. Desperate, nearing the brink with just that small move, I push onto my knees long enough to rip my own T-shirt over my head and push her towel to the side.

Beautiful. I don’t know if I say it, but it’s all I can think as she lifts her knees higher and brings me closer, our bodies lining up perfectly, our mouths tangling and our skin sliding.

When she asks me to touch her, her voice breathy and desperate, I’m overwhelmed. My lips travel from her lips to her neck, down to the beautiful collarbone and even farther until I’m at her breasts. I taste one and then the other before moving on to the sensitive skin of her ribcage and abs.

She responds to me every time, her breath hitching, her hips moving, her back arching as her fingers press and grab at my skin in encouragement. The taste of her is intoxicating, and when I finally shed my clothing and put on a condom, we’re both desperate.

My hips flex as I push inside; though my body and hers beg me to move, to bring us both to that edge we desire—I hold still, needing one more thing.

“I love you.” My weight is rested on my forearms on either side of her head, my eyes locked on hers. I ignore the tingling at the base of my spine and say the words again, desperate for her to know that nothing has ever been more real than what I feel for her. “Rachel, I love you. Always.”

When she says the words back to me, her hands reaching up to cup my face and bring our lips together, I begin to move, bracing my weight with one arm and gripping her hip with the other, repeating the words against her lips over and over as we move together.

The climax shatters us both; collapses us together. I’m on my side holding her, and her head is nestled in the nook of my shoulder and collarbone. Her arms are solidly around me, our hearts knocking against our ribs in a game of competitive ping-pong. Her hair is damp, almonds and coconuts pereating my every breath, and her skin is a smooth canvas for my fingers to trace patterns on while I hold her.

There are times when we love that we’re silly; others when we’re desperate. Tonight was more. It was necessary, raw, as emotional as it was physical.

“Marcus’s mom has been finding me and asking me about Gracie. She wants to be a part of her life.”

Son of a bitch.

The high from being with her depletes from my body like water from a sieve. I’m no longer loose and reverent, no longer thinking of how she smells or feels. Anger is boiling beneath my surface, a geyser ready to spew, and my muscles have contracted until they’re flexed around her, ready to protect.

“It started in January, right after that night you brought Gracie to me at practice? We ran into Marcus’s sister in the locker room. She’s a sophomore. Understandably, we’ve avoided each other because she made it clear she didn’t believe the rumors and I didn’t want to dissuade her. One look at Gracie was all it took.”

G had been in the parking lot that night, waiting for Rachel because G had an appointment she needed to get to and didn’t want to take Gracie. I offered to take her, bring her to the gym and Rachel so G could leave. Something innocent, an attempt to help, and now it’s the reason Rachel’s been so scared; the reason Marcus has begun popping up and following her places again.

Jesus, I want to
hit
someone right now.

My response is primitive; her scent is still on me and she’s still in my arms. I can’t even fucking think of someone attempting to manipulate her without going postal. Unfortunately, I can’t freak out, yell, scream, rage; Rachel’s story is not done yet.

“I told Mrs. Kash
no
, flat out. I explained Marcus didn’t want anything to do with the baby, and I was happy with that. But I misstepped, I know I did. She got this look.” Rachel pauses and I tense even more. “It was one that told me in admitting he was Gracie’s sperm donor, I had given her the golden ticket. Last night, she proved my theory when she laid an envelope of incriminating photos on my doorstep, encouraging me to think of what might happen to Gracie if someone else saw them.”

Her body is tense now, too. I rub her shoulders, pet my hands through her hair, and press my lips to her temple without saying anything. She needs support, not anger. I’m going to give it to her, be here like she needs me to, and make sure she understands she has done
nothing
wrong.

“The photos… they’re bad. Not all of them. It’s obvious she’s had me followed for a while; they date back to pretty much the day after I saw Gabriella, and all of them are only part of the scene. But the most recent ones… they’re of me that night of Katie’s party—when I left with Dean and ended up at home with you.”

Rage is too calm a word to express what’s zinging through me right now. I can’t let it out, whatever it is, but I can do one thing. I lift Rachel’s chin until she leans back enough to look at me.

“I got you,” I say and wait for her to really hear it. “I’m here, Rachel—you aren’t alone anymore.”

Never alone. That’s what I have to make her see. She’s not alone emotionally, and she sure as fuck won’t be alone physically until this is figured out. I don’t say that, yet, because I’m not ready to fight; the look she’s giving me tells me she isn’t thinking of fighting, either.

“I want you,” she says and I let her roll me. “I need you.” This time it’s softer, but potent.

“You have me.” And she does. Body. Mind. Heart. They’re hers, and she’s mine.

35

Present

“I need you to head to campus instead of school.”

I stare at Rachel as she slams the door of my truck, my eyes sweeping over her outfit of sweats and a hoodie, her hair piled on top of her head. It should be off putting—unsexy in the very least, since she’s wearing basically the same thing I am—and yet, somehow, I still want to lean over and take a bite out of her. Maybe it’s because I can still remember the way she looked last night, damp from her shower, smooth skin pink with pleasure… when she repeats her odd request, I cut my memory short and look at her face.

“What?”

She gives me a wry smile, like she knows what I was remembering. “I need to skip training this morning and pay a visit to Katie’s ex-boyfriend, Doug.”

This is news. “When did he become an ex?”

“Sometime yesterday, apparently. She asked him to move in with her after she graduated, and he declined. Which, don’t get me wrong, relieves me. I don’t care how good of a person he is, he’s also an idiot who is in no way cut out to take care of Katie.”

“So, why are we going to his house?”

She rolls her eyes as if it’s obvious.
Girls
.

“
Because
even if I’m glad that he doesn’t want to live with her, he broke her heart…and worse, he made her feel alone—like there’s something wrong with her. She has a deadbeat dad and an immature mom who have already left her—she didn’t need some kid who was all about promises earlier in the year to do the same thing now that she’s finally slept with him.”

“Got it.” Not really.

“And since you’re hell bent on driving me everywhere until someone can prove Marcus isn’t a threat—which we both know could be never—you’re going to have to come with me. Which is probably best. Doug’s afraid of me, but when he sees us together? Christ, he might just crap his pants.”

Despite the black cloud hanging over my head after my conversation with her last night, I laugh. I’ve always enjoyed her sadistic streak, and now that I’m not the one on the receiving end of it, I can go back to enjoying the way she isn’t afraid to kick ass.

I turn the key and rev Betty’s engine before pulling out and heading toward campus.

After Rachel let it spill that Marcus has been popping up places like the grocery store or gas-station parking lot, I decided I wasn’t letting her take chances. He never approaches Rachel, but always stares at her—letting her know that like his mother, he can get to her at any time, and he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. I’m here to prove him wrong. She yelled at me, cursed and argued with me, but when her mother got home and sided with me, she was outnumbered.

Maybe it was because she was in my arms, maybe it was because she was finally sharing her burden with me, or maybe it’s because in having her, I realize I can’t change who Rachel is, but I didn’t yell at her, not even after she told me that she’d seen Marcus and had neglected to tell me. Instead, I reminded myself what I’d promised G only hours before, and then I pulled Rachel close, promising her the same.

“I got you. I’m here, Rachel. You aren’t alone anymore.”

When she brought me close and straddled me—taking us both to the place that was just the two of us—I understood she didn’t have the words to express what was between us either, but she trusted me.

Pulling onto the main drag leading through campus, I’m brought back to the present when Rachel points to a couple of girls wearing last night’s clothing—their short skirts and barely there tops showing too much skin for a pre-seven o’clock walk—who are sneaking out the side door of a fraternity. “That could be you next year…standing on the porch of your Frat, letting out last night’s female—amusing yourself while she tries to stay upright and warm all at once.”

I smile and wonder vaguely if it’s Tanner letting out his female. The only kind of commitment he understands is the kind to his own satisfaction. And apparently, it takes a lot of girls to satisfy that commitment.

“Well, when you paint me a picture like that, maybe I should rethink this whole love thing. You’ll be here in a few years, right?”

I say it as a joke, but then we park and she’s pauses with her hand on the door and looks at me. “What are you going to do next year, Tripp?”

I turn, a little surprised by the serious tone of her voice. Usually, it’s me asking the hard questions, especially when they have to do with the future. “Rachel, I was kidding. I’m not jonesing to join a frat and run through a gaggle of girls.”

She mocks my word (yes, I paid attention in ninth grade English). Then she reassures me she isn’t baiting a hook to catch me and skin me alive if I give the wrong answer. “This isn’t a girl-game where you say something I don’t like and I get offended—even though I pressured you into doing it. So just answer the fucking question. What do you want next year?”

Poetic prose from the love of my life. Clearly,
she
did not pay attention in ninth-grade English, because Juliet would never have said that to Romeo. Still, her answer makes me laugh because it’s so her. For a second, I glance out the window and wonder how much I can tell her without scaring her off. I mean, she has no problem accepting my help to scare the crap out of some poor, unsuspecting guy who had the bad sense to fall in love with Crazy Katie, but feelings… those are tricky with Rachel. She’s as likely to punch me in the face for having them as she is to return them.

Figuring the last time I held back was when I lost her, I go for it and lay it all out there. “I don’t know. I guess my plans have always been to go to school, get my physics or mechanical-engineering degree and work at the shop—maybe expand from putting cars back together to building them custom.” I shrug to play it off; everything inside of me is tense and gauging her reaction. “Really, I guess my plans are to make a future. I’m hoping you want to join me.”

Her eyes get soft—a little thoughtful, and for once, I think this is the moment, the one where she lays her feelings out there for me to see.

“Wow, I feel like an asshole.”

What’s that, Juliet? More poetry?

I laugh. The tension in my shoulders eases; it isn’t a declaration of love, but she’s not running for the hills either. “Why?”

“Because…before Gracie, even after her, my entire goal was to go somewhere on a volleyball scholarship and play for as long as possible. I’ve never really thought of the future unless it was to mourn what might not be, and here you are making plans and being all adult-like.” Her scowl is genuine, and makes my own smile bigger. “It’s a little annoying to realize I’m not as mature as I think I am.”

I shake my head. It’s hilarious to me that even
maturity
is a competition to her, but I don’t tease her about it. I take her hand and promise to help her get her dream as long as she’s a part of mine.

“How about this? You work on that scholarship; I’ll make the plans. We’ll both do what we’re good at.”

When she asks me if I want to play basketball in the future, I just shake my head. “Rachel, I’m six-three on a good day and a power-forward. That means nothing in college. I need to be six-eight. And it’s not playing that drives me.”

“What does?”

I know she isn’t fishing for compliments, just as I know she isn’t being purposely dense. Rachel’s driven, motivated, and competitive; her sport is as much a part of her as breathing, and now that she has it back, it’s something that pushes her to excel every day.

My drive comes from something a little more basic. Pointing to the apartment building, I smile at her. “Do you think I’d come intimidate some wannabe-biker kid for just anybody? You, Rachel…the thought of us—the future—where we can go, that’s what I want. The rest is just filler.”

She leans over and smacks her lips against mine, and then she clarifies that she wants a future with me also. “But I kinda want volleyball, too. That okay?”

I press a friendly kiss on her nose. “Most definitely. Now let’s put a move on or we’ll lose the element of surprise, and that’s half the fun.”

“God, I love you.”

“Ditto,” I murmur, but she’s already slamming out of the truck and heading up the stairs, ready to kick the crap out of some poor underfed hipster for hurting her best friend. As crazy as it is, I follow her, because if Rachel needs to stand up for someone, I’m always going to stand next to her.