Hide Me Read online

  “When I was a kid, my dad was the coolest. I was that really pathetic little guy telling everyone who’d listen what a cool guy my dad was, even though no one knew who the hell he was, because he was never around. Mr. Rodriguez, he was the boring dad. The one who dragged everyone grocery shopping and made them do yard work and told them when they watched too much TV. My dad? When he got home we had takeout every night. Our lawn was so choked with weeds, the neighbors reported us to the city council. And we’d fall asleep on the couch, in our boxers, cartoons blaring every night. Cohen was so damn jealous.”

  Whit’s fingers run over the curve of my ear and a little shiver goes up and down my spine. Her voice is soft. “I bet you were the cutest little guy.”

  “I had a big head and buck teeth, but I always had my charm. You know all about that.”

  She tugs on my earlobe and laughs. “Right. Get on with your story.”

  “My dad never followed rules. He went where he wanted, took pictures in dangerous situations and sold them for a lot of money. He invested like mad. And he made good money. He was away a lot. So much that I started going food shopping and doing yard work and learning to surf instead of watching the tube at the Rodriguez house. They had a dad who, to this day, loves them to death. I had a dad who came home less and less, and sent coins. Like absentee father tokens or something.”

  “Coins?” Whit’s voice is soft with confusion.

  “There’s a ton of money in ancient coins, and my father was a master, a big deal trader and collector. He’d send me them for my birthday, Christmas, summer vacations… Anytime he promised to show and didn’t, I got a few valuable assets. Literally buying my love.”

  “What did you do with them?” Whit asks softly, her palm caressing my jaw.

  I nuzzle against her warm hand. “With all those coins under my bed, I could be as amazing as I thought my father was when I was too little to know better. I could change my whole life. They were the answer to all my fuck-ups. Every new fuck-up I accumulated, I just figured I’d use a coin to trump it.”

  “So what did you buy?” she repeats, her voice more interested. “Did you make a bad investment?” she asks gently.

  I sit up and look at her. “Do you want a beer?”

  “Sure. Let me grab it though,” she says, jumping up and heading to the kitchen. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says.

  There it is. The out Whit and I always fall back on. We enable each other to avoid the big stuff, the heavy stuff. Maybe she feels like once I confess my secrets, she’ll be obligated to share hers. That’s not what this is. I’m not keeping score, no matter how fucking hard I want to know what’s eating at her.

  She comes back and sits on the couch, hands me a beer, and tucks her feet under her.

  “I want to tell you.”

  “Okay,” she says.

  “I want you to know, it sucks. To admit how stupid I’ve been. How I’ve wasted this opportunity to do something good. I know that, and I want to tell you, because I trust you.”

  I watch her fingers tighten on the neck of her beer bottle. “I’m really glad you do.”

  “I never spent a single coin.” I watch her mouth fall open. “Until today.”

  Her brows press together. “What did you buy?”

  “I made an investment.” I smile at her and hold my beer up. “And now I want to make a toast.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says slowly.

  “C’mon. A toast.” I wait until she lifts her bottle uncertainly. “To realizing that investing in a brilliant mind is priceless. Fuck Mrs. Red Tape Asshole and her chipper messages about financial aid, and here’s to the beginning of a long, successful college career.”

  I clink my bottle to hers and hand her my fake business card. Her face is unreadable, and I hold my breath, wondering if I’ll be kicked out of her apartment at any second for interfering in such a huge way.

  Forget crossing lines. I’ve hacked through so many, it’s unbelievable and irreparable. I’ve finally dragged us out of no man’s land, and I might take a bullet in the head for it.

  But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It felt good as fuck to do what I could for someone I care about as much as Whit. I can’t kid myself. Being able to help her made me feel alive. Made me feel like I have a purpose for the first time. Screw being careful, screw space. She needed me, and I came through. I couldn’t be happier right now, and I don’t give a shit what the consequences might be.

  “You did this all for me?” Her voice is cracked.

  “Of course. We’re homies forever, right?” I attempt to joke.

  Her eyes tear over me. “You got a disguise? You stole an identity? You flirted with those awful business ladies? You pawned your booty?”

  “You’re making it sound way tawdrier than it really was.” I wink at her. “I’m good at being a liar. And a flirt. And a pawn star. Wow, that sounds wrong.”

  Then Whit does something I don’t expect at all. She puts her beer down and climbs on my lap. “You’re not a liar. You’re amazing. You are so goddamn amazing, and I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have you in my life.” The tears slide down her face silently. I sop them up with the cuff of my shirt. “I will pay back every cent, Deo. Every single cent, I swear to you. Thank you.” Her lips come down on mine.

  I squeeze her around the hips and try not to pass out from pure shock. Whit, sweet, soft, ready Whit is on top of me and kissing me with such hungry, nipping kisses, I can hardly focus. When I get my thoughts straight, I pull back.

  “Wait. Wait a second. This is not why I did that.” I pick her up by the hips and move her to the cushion next to me, no matter how much I wish I’d just shut my brain off and give in to what she started. “I did what I did because I lo—care about you. I care about you.” I watch her eyes go perfectly round when she realizes what I really meant to say. I rush to cover my tracks. “And I’m collecting every penny back, with interest. That sad little stack of coins is all I got to my name. You? You’ll be rich as Midas one day. Maybe I’ll mop the gold-tiled floors in your thousand-story office building. Don’t laugh. I’ll gladly work in your shadow.”

  “Why can’t you see how amazing you are?” she asks and takes my hand. She tugs me closer and kisses me, her eyes closed. I know because mine are wide open.

  “I. Want. You. Now.” She takes a deep breath. “Please.”

  I know it’s one of those ideas that sounds good in the moment but winds up being bad business.

  But she’s loosening my tie, unbuttoning the buttons that go down my shirtfront, and pushing my jacket off my shoulders. Her small, soft hand slides in the gap in the shirt and runs over my chest. Her lips brush over my neck, along my jaw. She sucks on my earlobe and lets her tongue trace around my ear, breaking my arms out in chills.

  I yank her back onto my lap and rub my hands between her shoulder blades, knocking the ribbon straps of her sundress down off her shoulders.

  I lower my mouth and kiss the skin where her straps were, the skin under her collarbones, the skin that pokes out of the top of her tiny, lacy bra, pink as a Valentine. I push the dress down to her hips and run my hands over the lace of her bra, down the smooth skin on either side of her spine, let my fingers tangle in the waistband of her thong.

  She pops a button off my cuff yanking the shirt off, and her fingers fumble at the button of my pants and try to pull the zipper down, but I’m rock hard and pressed awkwardly against it.

  “Deo,” she gasps, and I lift her up, off the too-tiny loveseat. She wraps her long legs around my waist, and I stagger with her in my arms into her dim bedroom. I set her down on the bed, and she yanks at my wrists, making me topple half on top of her. Her fingers comb up and down my ribs and her fingernails dig lightly into my back before her hands dart south and manage to get the zipper down. My pants hang half off my ass, and her brown eyes are wide, dark, and inviting me.

  The happiness I feel over that look is second-guessed by a naggin
g voice in the back of my head. A voice that reminds me that what happens in this room tends to stay in this room. And, hard as it was to keep my nights spent holding her in my arms locked in this tiny space, I know for sure I’m not going to be able to keep earth-shaking sex in here, too.

  She shimmies her dress down her legs and grabs at the elastic waistband of her thong. I put my hands over hers and shake my head, begging her to let me do these sexy-as-hell things I’ve thought about a million times in my endless morning showers.

  I pull the little scrap of fabric over her smooth thighs, watch her mouth part as it bumps over her knees, down along her calves, and I untangle it from her ankles. I kneel in front of the bed where she sits, her chest rising and falling in time to her frantic breathing. I reach behind her back and unsnap the pink bra, letting it fall aside. And then I lean over her and kiss along those perfect, exactly-a-handful tits, pulling her nipple in my mouth and listening to the gasp that comes like clockwork from the twist of my tongue on her. I rub my face along the sweet, soft skin on the underside, and let my mouth suck and lick until she’s whimpering. I pull back to look at her and totally love what I see.

  Strange how completely different she looks naked than she did in a bikini.

  Maybe because the bikini was for everyone. Just Whit, just all her soft, bare skin is for me and me alone. I kneel back and kiss her knees, watching the goose bumps prickle up her thighs. I follow their bumpy trail, leaving wet kisses imprinted on her soft skin, until I make it right to the top.

  “Open your legs.” We never talk when we’re together in this room, but I want to. I don’t want this to be silent. I want to hear her voice during this.

  She drops her head back and does what I tell her to. I lay my palms flat on her thighs and run my hands up to her hips, let my fingers grip her hard and kiss along the sweet, wet center of her. I assumed that Whit was experienced based on her booty calls before we started shacking up, but she presses her thighs closed and slides back on the bed, away from my mouth.

  “No,” she says, shaking her head and trying to pull me up to her mouth.

  “Yes,” I counter, hooking her under the knees and pulling her back with one tug.

  “No.” This time it’s fainter, because I’m kissing and licking whatever I can, and she likes it. And wiggles away from it at the same time.

  “Why not?” I ask, kissing the tops of her thighs and dragging my mouth down to her knees.

  She looks down the length of her perfect, sweet body at me and bites that sexy-as-hell pouty lip. “It’s…too exposed.”

  I trace my thumbs along the wettest, slickest lines of her and watch her head roll back. “I’d like to.” I keep my voice soft. “Every single part of you is beyond sexy to me. It will make you feel good. I promise you that.” She squeezes her knees together, then loosens them. “I really want to. I’ve thought about doing it a thousand times.” She moans a little and opens wider. “You can trust me, Whit. I promise.”

  Her knees fall wide to the sides, and I put my mouth on her, licking and sucking until her breath changes from steady and labored to panting and frantic. She balls the sheets in her fists and her heels push against the bed frame, and her entire body shakes as her hips lift off the mattress.

  “Deo!” Her head is thrown back and, suddenly, I want her so badly, I can’t imagine a single damn thing that could stop me from being with her.

  “Are you sure you want this. Whit, you want me?” I’m going crazy, but there’s no way this is happening unless she wants it. Absolutely, no questions, wants it.

  She rolls over on the bed, her sweet heart-shaped ass facing me, pulls open the drawer next to her bedside table, and grabs a condom. She rolls back over and sits up, pulling down on the waist of my boxer briefs with a rough yank and rolling the condom on my dick. I kick my pants and boxers the rest of the way off, and lock my mouth over hers, sweet, open, and busy gasping and pleading my name. Her tongue twines quick and sure in my mouth, and her hands go low with mine. I slide one finger, then two, into her and her teeth catch my bottom lip. One of her hands pushes mine away, and she leads me to the slick, hot center of her.

  I want to wait, drag it all out, prolong what I’ve already waited so long for, but I slide into her and she’s hot and tight and her hips are pressing in a frenzied rhythm against me. I press my forehead into the space between her neck and her collarbone and focus on making it good for her, on holding back and not thinking about how sweet and warm and slick she is, so ready for me I know she’s probably imagined it as many times as I have.

  I hold out until I feel the very beginning of her shudders, proud as hell of myself for not letting go before. Her fingers brush through my hair, then fist in it and pull as her shudders deepen. My name flies out of her mouth fast and urgent, and there’s not a thing I can do to stop myself from coming, hard and satisfied against her, into Whit, in this bed we’ve slept in dozens of times but never done this in.

  Her breath comes out hard and harsh, and I pull out slowly, remove the condom, and throw it away. She’s curled on her side, not looking at me or anyone or anything. Her eyes are closed. I pull the covers down under her body, already heavy with sleep. I crawl next to her and pull the blankets up, our naked bodies pressed against each other’s, and snuggle her in an entirely new way tonight. This time, she sleeps with loose limbs and easy, gentle breathing while I’m tense and worried.

  “Whit,” I whisper in her ear like a pussy, knowing she can’t hear a single thing. “I love you. I hope to hell this didn’t change anything.” I run a rough hand over her shiny hair, dreading the dawn.

  Chapter Twelve

  WHIT

  “Did you know that if you have a cat, they’ll eat you several days before a dog will? Like, cats will only wait a day or two before they start chomping on your brain matter, but your dog will wait like a week. Isn’t that crazy?” I peer into my lukewarm cup of coffee and notice the congealed skin of cream on top. Should I drink it? How much do I need this caffeine exactly? I can’t believe I’d actually consider drinking this.

  Deo narrows his eyes at me. “And pretty insanely morbid, Whit. What the hell are you studying in that weird-ass class? Last week, it was the people who breastfeed till their kids turn eight, and now face-eating pets? Also, why are you even worried? We don’t have any animals.”

  I can’t help it. I flinch when he says “we.”

  “Wait, are you even studying? Like, are there face-mauling cats in that chapter, or are you thinking about zombies again? Because, I told you, I have us covered if the apocalypse breaks out.” He picks up a rubber band he finds on the floor across the room and shoots it at me.

  I deflect it with my book, then slam it shut. “Just my morbid imagination hard at work. I guess that means I’m ready for a break. You want to go get something to eat?” I’ve been sitting cross-legged on my bed for hours staring at this damn book. I try to stretch, but everything just aches.

  “No need.” He tosses a dish towel over his shoulder, looking so very delicious. And domestic. “I made us some dinner.”

  “No kidding?” I toss the book aside and follow Deo to the kitchen, breathing the enticing aroma of home-cooked food deep into my malnourished lungs. It smells incredible; I must have really been into that anthropology book to miss the scents and sounds of Deo preparing a meal. “This looks amazing.”

  “Sit.” He motions to the bar, and I pull up one of the stools. Deo has cleaned off all of the clutter—the mail, keys, clothes, and whatever else we toss up here on our way in and out of my apartment. In place of the junk are two mismatched place mats and an even more mismatched pair of place settings. But somehow, it’s perfect. “So, pan-roasted chicken with roasted tomatoes and white beans.” Deo scoops a heaping portion onto each of our plates and then takes the stool next to mine.

  “Are you sure you made this?” I tease.

  “Hey, Marigold is the one that can’t cook. I learned from my gramps. He used to be a Navy cook, you know. E
very time he makes a damn pizza, there’s enough to feed the whole freaking town.” He gives me an eager smile and waits for me to try it.

  I stab a forkful of chicken and pause after taking a bite and moaning over the flavor explosion in my mouth.

  “Mmm. Mmm, seriously. Amazing.” I point to my mouth and moan again. “But what’s the occasion?” Deo has basically been living at my place for the last couple of weeks, going home just to check in on his grandfather or grab some extra clothes. Neither one of us has cooked in all that time, and, instead, we’ve been surviving on a diet of Honey Nut Cheerios and rice cakes. I’m starved for a decent meal.

  “Your last final is tomorrow. Would I be a total dweeb if I confessed that I can’t wait for you to finish up the semester so we can surf and you can seduce me anytime of the day?” He lets his fingers tiptoe up my arm. I reach over and mimic the movement, but this time, I move up his thigh.

  I hop off of the stool and press my lips to his throat. His skin is salty like the ocean air and once I start, it’s always hard to pull away.

  “Hey, hey, why are you being so nice? You know that freaks me out,” Deo jokes, pulling back from me.

  He’s right. I enjoy every second of our nights together, but it’s been a struggle to carry that same strong connection during the day. It’s too much, still. And way too scary. I just can’t allow myself to give in to the happiness or the fallout that Deo could bring. It’s bad enough that I feel like I keep running right up to the edge of the water, but stopping before my feet dip into the waves. I can’t force myself to jump in, no matter how amazing the water might be.

  He pulls my hand to his chest and disrupts my spinning thoughts. “Feel my poor, shocked heart. It’s beating out of my chest.”

  The feeling of his racing heart is familiar, since my ear is usually pressed against it at night. I listen to that steady thump as it goes from pounding with lust to slowing with sleep and satisfaction. Then Deo rubs his hands over me in slow, relaxing circles and our limbs tangle together in the most perfect mess ever. And I steady my breathing and try to concentrate on that rhythmic beat alone.