Page 30 of Miss Behaved
I might be a closed-door kinda gal on the pages of my books, but I’ve had my fair share of sex over the years. Appropriate, charming, vanilla sex. Sex with men I can list the first, middle, and last names of. Enough-to-get-me-by sex.
But none of them lived up to Carson. Even if we were awkward and barely eighteen, inexperienced and not quite sure what we were doing. There was still something there I haven’t felt since.
Complete.
Whole.
Innocent.
Add ten years of experience and that body of his that seems to know no bounds, and I can’t begin to imagine what round two would do to me.
Carson is definitely all grown up now. The lean boyish parts of him filled out with solid muscle. I bet his fully formed biceps could pick me up without a second thought. And that stubble would leave a sweet burn on my skin.
No!
I’ve got six words all right—get your hormones under control, girl!
I shake my head to dislodge my thoughts and search for anything to change the subject. “How about,Loving her changes how it ends.”
Carson sticks out his tongue like there’s a sour taste on it. “Are all of yours going to be sappy?” he throws back at me.
“Maybe.” I grin at him, appreciating the genuine smile it brings to his face. “Okay, here’s a not-sappy one for you:Death sounded better than being alone.”
“That’s a good one.” Carson nods slowly, sinking back in his chair. He tucks his hands into his pockets and stares off into the distance. “How about,Drinking himself dead would hurt less.”
Carson’s eyes are cold oceans that avoid me, and I can’t skate past the pain in them.
His father.
Even when we were kids, Carson didn’t really talk about him. The things I do know are more or less a collection of observations over the years.
Like how I knew his dad drank a lot all the time because he always had a glass of whiskey in his hand. But I knew it was especially bad if Carson showed up at my house in the middle of the night to crash on my bedroom floor. Or how I knew they looked a lot alike, but it was never a good idea to bring that up with Carson. He seemed to have this unspoken fear that their physical similarity could turn them into the same person.
But even in all the things I knew, there was still a depth that Carson kept hidden, which he made crystal clear the time I saw him with a bruise on his face that he refused to talk about. A lot can be said without saying anything. That bruise was proof of it.
Carson’s gaze meets mine, and I realize I’m holding his hand under the table. It’s like history took over, and the memory of his dad dragged me back to being that little girl, caring for that little boy, wishing she could take his pain away.
My fingers squeeze Carson’s, knowing time may have taken us from friends to lovers to strangers, but history never really erases itself. As much as I may want to forget the hard parts of what we shared, I know there’s still a lot of good beneath it.
And even if I walked away with pain in the end, it doesn’t mean Carson didn’t as well.
“Six words.” He gives my hand a little pull, and my heart races. “Losing her hurt worst of all.”
I no longer know if he’s in the writing exercise or out of it, so I just nod and say, “That’s a good one,” before pulling my hand from his and turning back to my notepad. We don’t speak for the remainder of the exercise, even though I don’t stop coming up with them.
Love is everything and never enough.
He had her heart without knowing.
She fell in love. He didn’t.
Saying nothing is what changed everything.
“Love the top, babe,” Luce says.
I laugh and look down. “It’s a slip; I’m not going out in this.”
Luce shrugs, and Kennedy starts laughing. A video call martini session is just what I need right now—sans the martini for me, since I’m stuck with cheap vodka from the in-room mini bar.
