Wild Summer (13 page)

Summer came to life at his side, took his hand back, and squeezed.

“I just came to pick up my stuff. Please don’t try to stop me,” he said to Ren.

“You’re always threatening something you can’t carry out,” Ren sneered. There was a plastic bag in his hand, and he thrust it toward Summer. “It’s a phone. You’d only bitch about not having one.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from you. I never want to see you again.”

Ren’s jaw twitched, but he said nothing.

They walked toward the front door, opened it, and Summer’s fierce grip on Crash’s hand that had been beginning to cut off circulation relaxed a little.

It was too easy.

Crash had dealt with being deaf his whole life—he had been profoundly deaf from birth—so he knew no other way of being, and he accepted it completely, not wishing for the sense he’d never had, but as Summer’s grip was brutally torn from his and Summer was dragged rapidly backward, Ren’s arm around his throat, Crash wished he’d had some other warning than the sudden loss of contact with Summer’s hand. Some other warning that would have fired his senses, given him a chance to react that fraction of a second faster to stop Ren as he ran.

Summer kicked and struggled as Crash bolted after them and tried to reach him. But Ren was too fast. He was across the living room and onto the balcony overlooking the sea in seconds. With a speed that seemed unreal, Ren slammed the sliding door shut and jammed something into the track so Crash couldn’t open it, could only beat his hands to a bloody pulp as he smashed his fists desperately against the glass, all the while knowing it was futile, knowing he couldn’t break through.

He had never been so scared.

Summer clung to the railing, kicking and flailing wildly, his mouth wide open as Ren tried to lift him over.

No one could survive that drop. And even though Crash couldn’t hear Summer’s voice, he knew the terror in it because his own heart was full of the same fear that Ren was going to succeed in throwing him over.

Summer’s eyes met his through the mess of bloody marks his fists had left on the glass. It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t
doing
enough. It couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t let it. Their time together was just
beginning.

The fishbowl, thankfully devoid of fish, caught his eye and he ran, picked it up, and lobbed it with all his strength at the wall of glass. A fracture appeared in the center at the bottom of the window. Frantically he looked around for something else heavy to throw. The glass-topped coffee table looked heavy. But he quickly realized as he struggled with it that it was probably the heaviest object he’d ever tried to pick up. Crouching down, he hoisted one side of it onto his shoulder and, using his body weight, slammed the table into the fracture. All at once, in what felt like a great exhalation of breath, the window shattered. Glass flew everywhere, huge shards of it raining down and being blasted sideways by the wind. If they hit him, Crash didn’t feel it. He just went for Ren, knocking him to the floor with a shoulder to the stomach and then pinning him.

As soon as Ren was down, Summer shakily slipped off the railing and safely onto the floor. Crash’s head was spinning, and he felt too shocked to focus enough to understand the words spilling out of Ren’s mouth as he fought to get away. Instead he concentrated on keeping Ren trapped where he was.

“Summer, come here,” Crash said, not wanting to let go of Ren lest he try to finish what he started but needing Summer close all the same.

On hands and knees, Summer crawled through the glass to him.

“You okay?”

Summer shook his head, then nodded, realizing Crash meant was he seriously hurt. He was bleeding, but it was only from the glass. He didn’t seem to want to come too close to Ren.

“I need you to call the police, okay? Can you do that?”

Looking dazed, Summer nodded. He crawled through the broken window and across the room. Crash kept turning to check. He watched Summer make the phone call, drop the phone, and curl up on the floor.

W
HATEVER
S
UMMER
said to the police, Crash didn’t know, but they were there in minutes, red and blue flashing lights spilling into the house from the open front door.

Crash supposed it was because he couldn’t hear what they were saying, and that he refused to let Ren go until the police were out on the balcony with them, that he was dragged to his feet and marched backward, his hands pinned painfully behind his back. All the time he kept his eye on Summer, watched as a blanket was placed around his shoulder and he was helped to his feet. One of the police officers marched Crash inside to a sofa, and he collapsed down. Feeling was beginning to return, and the pain in his hands was making him grit his teeth.

Summer must have told them he was deaf as someone was signing something a little clunkily to him. The next thing he knew, Summer’s head was in his lap, blanket-covered arms gripping him tightly around the waist.

An ambulance arrived, and they gave their statements separately to the police, the shock of what had happened slowly settling. While Crash was giving his statement, Summer kept glancing around at him, and Crash knew he was making sure he was still there, searching for reassurance that what had happened was really over and they were both okay.

A policewoman with a stony expression handcuffed Ren and led him away.

When the paramedics checked him over, Crash told them he didn’t want to go to hospital to have his hands checked out. They were just a little cut and badly bruised, and sitting in A and E with all those bright lights and people would be hell right now.

What if you’ve got glass in them?
Summer signed.

“Are you squeamish?” Crash asked.

All he wanted to do was go home with Summer, hold him in the dark of his room, knowing he was with him and he was safe. But home was too far away, and although Crash knew if he asked Kay to come and get him, she would without question, especially after what had happened, it wasn’t fair on her. The next best thing would be to book them into that cheap motel he’d stayed in last time he was here.

Summer shook his head.
I’ll pick out the glass,
he replied, gently taking Crash’s hand in his.
I’ll take care of you.

T
HE
POLICE
gave them a ride back into town. Crash gripped Summer’s hand securely in his, even though it felt like knives were being dragged over his bloodied knuckles.

He wasn’t sure the shock of what had happened was ever going to wear off.

“I have to keep checking,” he told Summer as they got out of the car.

Summer nodded, running a cool hand across Crash’s lightly stubbled cheek. “It’s okay. I know.”

There was an all-night pharmacy on the high street. Crash stood near the counter, not quite with it, as Summer went around the shop, frowning as though deep in thought and chewing his lip ring between his teeth as he picked up sterilizing wipes, tweezers, bandages, Vaseline, and condoms. He caught Crash’s eye as he paid and smiled, that flash of brilliance and warmth that would forever make Crash’s knees weak.

They bought a bag of chips from the café outside the train station and took them back to the cheap hotel Crash had stayed in before.

Summer had never been in a hotel room.

“I thought they’d be cleaner,” he said wryly, washing out the sink in the tiny bathroom as he prepared to take a look at Crash’s hand. “People are such slobs. Do they not know how to clean around a tap? I mean, who doesn’t clean around taps? It’s where all the dirt congregates and reproduces and turns into slime cities.”

For the first time in hours, Crash felt like himself. It was going to be okay. He smiled, watching Summer scrub away every visible sign of dirt. They were such opposites in so many ways, but they fit together. And that was why it was going to be okay
,
because they fit together. They would argue and mess up, but they would still fit, whatever happened.

After Summer had cleaned the entire room, he instructed Crash to sit on the edge of the bath, and as though he were repairing a precious work of art, methodically turned Crash’s hands this way and that, searching for glass and carefully tweezing it out if he found any. By the time he’d finished, there was a little line of bloody shards along the sink.

“Shall we keep them?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and a grin.

Crash rolled his eyes.

The alcohol wipes and the bandaging afterward hurt more than the glass being dug out. Crash winced, trying not to let the pain get to him.

“And now we put a condom over it to keep it all protected. Latex is good at keeping everything sealed in.”

Crash looked at Summer askance.

“Oh, did you think we’d be using them for…?” Summer said, all mock innocence, and proceeded to laugh so much he nearly fell off the toilet seat he was perched on.

As the shock of what happened at Ren’s had worn off for Summer, he’d begun to change. So much so that if Crash hadn’t known him before, he would suspect Summer was a different person. All the tension in his body and the worry and fear that lined his face and darkened his eyes had started to lift, as though it had been pinning him down all this time, and this bright, beautiful creature—so much more like the Summer Crash had met all those years ago—had sprung up. Though Crash suspected he was still fragile, and perhaps always would be after what he’d been through, his strength and his light, would get him through.

I am utterly, utterly crazy about you,
Crash thought as he watched him, overcome with feeling.

Eyes still glimmering brightly, Summer stood up and held out his hand.

“No offense, but I’m sure we can think of a better use for a condom than covering your hands….”

Crash’s brain had fallen into first gear with the look Summer was giving him, his trousers grown tight.

Slim fingers encircled his wrist, and Summer tugged him upright, pulled him close. His breath was warm on Crash’s skin as he spoke.

“Sir, we should probably get you out of those clothes. You seem to be having a bit of a problem fitting into your trousers. I have some medical training. I could probably sort that swelling out for you, suck out the—”

Hoisting Summer up into his arms, Crash didn’t let him finish. Instead he carried him into the other room and fell with him onto the bed.

Crash kissed him hard, loving the way Summer responded, arching into his touch and wrapping his slender legs around Crash’s hips.

“I don’t even know what you like,” Crash mouthed, insecurity taking hold as he remembered that awful night in the club four years ago and Ren’s words about Summer being turned on by pain. He wasn’t sure he could ever cause Summer pain and live with himself. He didn’t understand the rules to those sorts of games.

“
You
. I like you,” Summer mouthed back, eyes glittering in the low lights. “Isn’t finding out what turns us on the fun bit?” he asked, then added as if he could see Crash’s thoughts caught in the air between them, “Bodies react to stimulation, but Ren never turned me on here.” He touched his chest above his heart.

“You just have to suck your lip ring into your mouth, and I have a hard-on,” Crash replied, brushing the blue hair away from Summer’s eyes.

On cue, Summer sucked the lip ring and lifted his hips, rubbing their erections together. The friction was delicious.

“I want to know what another piercing feels like against my tongue,” Crash said suddenly, moving out of Summer’s arms and pushing his T-shirt up to kiss across his chest and down his taut stomach.

“Nipple ring?” Summer gasped, throwing back his head.

“No, the one at the tip of your cock,” Crash mouthed, feeling smug as Summer lost the ability to speak.

Swiftly he unbuttoned Summer’s trousers, gazing up into eyes more black than gold, before pulling his underwear down and pressing his face between the top of Summer’s hairy thighs, nuzzling his balls and exploring the base of his slender cock with his tongue. He worked his way up the rigid length.

The ball piercing was slick with precome. It tasted like the sea, and he loved the feel of the hard piece of metal against the velvet of Summer’s skin. He tongued it again and again. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t use his hands—Summer was gone, fists buried in Crash’s hair, mouth open, panting. Crash felt the way his body tensed just before he came, the spasmodic jerk of his hips, the way his hands tightened in Crash’s hair as if he wanted to pull it. Sucking him down as far as he could, Crash felt Summer’s come hit the back of his throat, and even though he wasn’t touching himself, it near pushed him over.

“Come here,” Summer mouthed, dragging him up, pupils still blown dark. He reached for the condoms.

“I won’t last,” Crash mouthed. The slightest sensation right now would be too much, never mind the thought of pushing into Summer’s body, of connecting with him so utterly.

Summer grinned, his eyes half-closed, sexy as hell. “Lasting was never part of the plan. I wanna do this with you all night.”

Two months later….

T
HE
SUMMER
sky was so intensely blue, it hurt Crash’s eyes to look up. Curled against his side, Summer had his eyes closed, but he wasn’t asleep—he was becoming nervous again. Not that anyone but Crash would be able to tell. Summer was outwardly confident, but Crash knew—not just from the continual sucking of his still unbelievably sexy lip ring into his mouth, but from the way he gently squeezed Crash’s hand every couple of minutes as though checking he was still there and the quickened beat of his heart that Crash could feel against his side.

They’d caught the earlier train down to Cornwall, and Romeo and Julian weren’t expecting them yet, so they’d bought food and had a picnic in a nearby field on the edge of a copse.

Even the bottle of Cornish cider hadn’t helped calm Summer’s nerves.