Unfiltered & Undressed (The Unfiltered Series) (3 page)

LAUREN

Morning came way too fast, and when I tiptoed out of my bedroom—a room that was only slightly larger than my dorm back at ASU, I almost tripped over the suitcases and boxes still piled all over our cramped living room.

I shushed myself and then covered my own mouth so I wouldn’t wake Emerson as I navigated more carefully. Emerson usually slept like the dead and was probably still comatose after staying up late to revise her Christmas wish list to include
Lucas and his superfine abs
. After all, she told me, still giggling after we’d downed most of the bottle of warm champagne we’d opened to commemorate our first night in our new place, she didn’t want Santa to send her a boy with just “ordinary abs.”

Climbing onto one of the boxes and double-checking the duffle bag I’d hidden away in the small attic when Em hadn’t been looking, I felt the weight in my chest lighten the moment I laid eyes on it. Eventually I’d need to find a better place to store it, but for now the ceiling would have to do.

I wondered if I’d ever get used to the hiding. Not just the money, but myself.

My entire life had changed that night at the coffee shop, the same place I’d always gone to take care of my internet transactions. Before then, I’d had secrets, plenty of them… but nothing like this one.

I’d always figured it was safer using The Coffee Cave’s free internet to do all my business transactions—banking, answering emails, accounting—since their IP address couldn’t be traced back to me. I took every precaution to avoid letting anyone know it was me in front of that webcam.

There was no way I could have known I’d picked the wrong night to go in there, and that I’d end up covering up the murder of a gun-wielding drug dealer, along with eleven other people, in the middle of the night.

At first I hadn’t been all that traumatized by the whole shoving-a-dead-guy-in-a-trunk thing, probably, to be perfectly honest, because I hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger. I hadn’t even put my hands on the actual body or anything.

It had almost been like being in a play—a really graphic play—and my only role had been as a witness. Although I might have been the one to suggest we split the money as well.

Besides, if I felt guilty over the death of some lowlife drug dealer, I’d managed to console myself with my share of his cash.

At first, I’d viewed what happened that night as the opportunity I’d been searching for. My chance to stop stripping in front of the webcam for money in order to escape ASU-Rio Verde, which had always been my parents’ dream, not mine. I could never have saved enough if I’d been a barista or a waitress, letting a bunch of frat guys who over-drank and under-tipped play grabass with me. And, who knows, maybe I’d have never saved enough the webcam way either.

But the dead-guy way, well, that was a whole other story.

Maybe not the kind of story I could someday tell my kids, or anyone for that matter—like ever. Even Emerson thought we were paying for our summer at the beach with the money I’d made stripping. But that night at the coffee shop had definitely bought me the brand-new start I’d always dreamed of, away from the landlocked desert of Arizona.

Problem was, things were never that simple.

Even though I probably wouldn’t be signing up for post-traumatic therapy any time soon, that didn’t mean it wasn’t having an effect on me. Call it a conscience or a delayed reaction, but lately I was finding it harder and harder to sleep. Harder
not
to look over my shoulder at every turn. Harder to believe I was safe or would ever be safe again.

That’s all behind me. This is my new life,
I told myself as I locked the front door behind me and made sure my keys were tucked safely inside my bag before heading toward the beach Emerson swore she’d spotted the day before.

It wasn’t hard to find. I just followed the sound of the crashing waves. The salty smell was thick, and the second I stepped off the blacktop and my feet sank into the sand, I’d never been surer of my decision to leave my old life behind. The boys of California had nothing on the beaches.

This was the place my dreams would finally come true. I just had to learn to swim and everything would fall into place. I kept repeating that thought in my head right up until I was standing ankle-deep in the very first waves I’d ever met.

That was when the panic kicked in.

This is the freaking ocean
, I realized. Sure, I’d seen a million pictures and watched a thousand YouTube videos and dreamed of this moment for, like, forever. But standing here, ready to jump in, was an entirely different story. Suddenly I wasn’t sure I could go do this.

But that was the thing:
I had to
. If I didn’t, my parents won. I’d spent my entire life fighting against my mother’s irrational fears—never being allowed to take swimming lessons at the “Y” like the other kids, never allowed to go to a single lake or river, or even stay at a hotel with a swimming pool. If I didn’t do this—jump into the Pacific Ocean when I had the chance—I’d never forgive myself.

I threw my towel down on the sand behind me, determined to do this. My skin prickled against the early morning breeze rolling in off the waves, and I tried not to think about the way my skin had tightened last night, when Will’s tongue had grazed over it. But it was too late—the thought was there, same as it had been almost all night long, keeping me awake as I’d replayed it over and over. The way his mouth had lingered too long over my stomach, testing and exploring, making me shiver…

I shook off the memory. This wasn’t the time. It would
never
be the time, I vowed. In my brief encounter with him, I’d learned enough to know that Will was exactly the kind of guy I’d always steered clear of: arrogant. Hell, he was downright cocky.

Other girls might find that kind of brashness utterly irresistible. Me, I found it obnoxious.

I shuffled forward, my toes sifting through the sand. With each step, I steered my thoughts away from the night before, forcing myself to forget about my keys and Will…the feel of his tongue against my bare skin.

Cold water rushed forward to meet me until my knees were submerged, and then they weren’t, and then they were again, as the waves moved in and out, and then back in again. I trudged farther, getting bolder and more daring as the surf lapped at my skin.

When I was waist high, I was struck by a breaker that sucked me back toward the shore, and I struggled for a moment to maintain my balance. The sand beneath my feet was unstable, fluid like the water, and when the wave went back out I was hauled with it.

I had another moment of panic as I grasped just how powerful this ocean actually was, something I thought I’d known from all my research—all I’d read and the videos I’d watched. But I’d never experienced anything like it firsthand.

Once I let myself go with it, however, and recognized that the water would, eventually, move back toward the beach again, taking me with it, I was able to relax, bobbing along with the tide as my feet still dragged across the bottom.

I wasn’t swimming, or even floating. I was just…drifting…and it was bliss.
This
was my bliss.

It wasn’t until my feet slipped out from beneath me and I realized I’d gone too far from shore that shit got real. This wasn’t part of my I-got-a-dream campaign anymore. The waves that just a second ago felt all floaty and safe suddenly got scary as hell.

I flapped wildly, thinking I could somehow
swim
my way back to safety and manage to find my footing again, but it wasn’t that simple. Swimming, I quickly realized, was a skill—something I’d never mastered, thanks to my parents and the fact that I’d been too humiliated to sign up for swim lessons once I was out from under their overprotective wings.

The first time I went under I still believed I just needed to get my feet, or my toes, or any part of me, on the sandy ocean floor. But I quickly discovered it was too far below me, and I came up to the surface again choking. My mind was spinning as I scoured the coastline for anyone who might be out at this hour, someone who could rescue me.

Lifeguards! Where the hell were all the lifeguards?

But this wasn’t like my TV shows. There were no beefcakes running across the beach in slow-mo. Or bleached blondes with bouncy implants whose mascara never streaked.

No, I was sure I was going to die out here, all alone because I’d been too stubborn or too stupid to do things the right way.

Thrashing violently, and coughing and sputtering, I tried to shout above the thunderous waves, but it was no use. No one could hear me.

This time when I went down, I couldn’t find the bottom at all and I didn’t bob back to the surface. My eyes burned as they went wide beneath the murky saltwater, and my lungs ached as I strained to hold that one last breath.

I didn’t want this to be the end, but the edges of my vision grew darker and darker, tunneling, until my chest felt like it was going to explode.

Right before everything went black, pain exploded in my head. I wasn’t sure what it was that struck me, or where it had come from, but it was more than I could take and gasped, bubbles bursting from my mouth. I choked on a huge mouthful of the briny water. My skull, where I’d been hit, was on fire and felt like someone had smashed it with a crowbar.

I tossed my head violently beneath the surface, and then felt arms reach around me. Despite myself, and the fact that this was what I’d wanted all along, I resisted. But the water made my actions sluggish, and the arms were insistent as they dragged me anyway, hauling me out of the water until I fell onto dry ground.

I didn’t know how, but somehow whoever saved me had dragged me back to shore. And after what felt like forever, I finally managed to stop gagging and choking. That was when a familiar face came into focus above me, and suddenly I wanted to bury my head in the sand.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Will-not-Billy from the night before announced as he peered down at me.

“You…” I gasped, still struggling to catch my breath. “You have got to be kidding m—” I struggled to sit up, but my words were cut off by a violent coughing fit and Will pushed me back onto the sand.

“Take it easy, Brown Eyes, you need to rest. You just inhaled about a gallon of ocean water. Give your lungs a minute or two to recover.”

It’s not like I had much choice. I collapsed weakly onto the sand, staring sullenly up at the sky as I waited for my wheezing to subside. I wasn’t sure why, but I definitely wasn’t as grateful as I should have been. I hadn’t drowned, which was a win considering I’d just given myself my first real swimming lesson.

Instead, I was disgusted.

My mother had been right: swimming was terrible. It was hard and it was dangerous, and the ocean was nothing like I’d imagined it would be. It was too powerful, and way too cold and salty, and not only had I almost died, but I itched everywhere. I had sand in places I might never be able to reach.

And now this: Will, of all people, coming to my rescue.

This was most definitely not the magical experience I’d dreamed of.

“What are you even doing here?” I finally groaned.

Will’s absurdly green eyes appeared above me again, his eyebrows pinching together. “I was gonna ask you the same thing. What were you thinking coming out here alone? These might be good surfing swells, but maybe not so good for swimming, don’t you think?” He said it like he was asking me, even though he obviously knew the answer.

“Is that what
you
were doing? Surfing?” I bolted upright. My head throbbed as I lifted my hand to the bump that was already forming. “Is that what you hit me with?” I searched the sand and saw a long white board with green and yellow patterns on it, only then noticing the skintight wetsuit he was wearing.

Yet, even the wetsuit couldn’t hide the fact that he had a body most girls would kill to get their hands on…you know, if you were into that kind of thing.

His expression softened, and if I’d been one of the girls from the bar last night, I might have fallen for the sincerity he managed to muster. “I swear I didn’t see you until it was too late,” he explained, his voice low. He reached out to brush a salty strand of my hair from my forehead. “How is it?” he asked, his fingers pushing mine aside so he could examine my injury. This time, when he asked, “What were you thinking?” it didn’t come out like an accusation, and I almost believed he meant it.

I tried to think of the right way to answer him. Maybe I had a concussion or something, because suddenly his nearness was wreaking havoc on my brain. “I—I was trying to…” He leaned in close and his lips drew together. I couldn’t tell if he was planning to kiss me or what, but alarm set my heart racing. I felt like an animal caught in a snare—hurt, trapped, completely freaked out.

At the last minute, he lifted his chin and blew gently on the lump on my forehead, and I gasped out loud.

“Swim,” I finished, and realized the word had come out more like a gasp, so I tried again, “I was trying to swim.”

He chuckled against my brow, and I hated the way my stomach flipped, and the way he seemed so completely and totally unaffected. “I guessed that much. But maybe next time you should bring a swim buddy. Or try wearing some of those little arm floaties.”

I pushed away from him, creating some distance between us so I could think more clearly. “You know, this was
your
fault. If you hadn’t tried to kill me with that…that thing of yours…” I waved toward his board, which was lying just a few feet away.

“You mean my
surfboard
?” he filled in when I couldn’t seem to find the right word.

I narrowed my gaze. “That’s right, your surfboard. If you hadn’t hit me, I wouldn’t have needed saving.” It was a lie, but he didn’t know that. Besides, I didn’t appreciate being mocked.

“I said I was sorr—” he started, but I cut him off.

“I was doing just fine until you came along. I would’ve been swimming in no time. Turns out, it’s not all that hard,” I lied again, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of knowing he may have saved my life by bashing into me.