Waiting for Summer Read online

  Even though she’d asked Aiden if he wanted to watch a movie with her, she didn’t think he’d sit so close to her on the couch. Close enough for her to pick up on how amazing he smelled after a shower. Close enough that she couldn’t ignore how sexy he looked in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt. Oh, man, my body hasn’t been this in tune with a man in...well, ever! Who told him it was okay to cause her discomfort in an area that would remain nameless? It had been difficult enough trying to silence her attraction when they were in high school, but now again, as an adult? Not. Fair. At. All.

  “Do you want to watch Titanic instead?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Now?”

  He looked from the movie to her. “Yeah, since neither one of us seems to be into this movie at the moment. Titanic was another one we liked.”

  “You hardly liked it,” she said with a laugh. “You can only watch the movie if we act out the good scenes. I actually like the entire movie.”

  “That’s not true. I also like it for the special effects.”

  “Okay, so you like it for the special effects and the fact that we act out the scenes.”

  “Exactly.” He looked back to the movie, but she doubted he was actually watching it. “So, are we changing the movie?”

  Summer adjusted herself yet again so that she wasn’t so close to him. “Aren’t we a little too old to be acting out Titanic?”

  He clamped his hand over his heart as if he was offended. “No, you didn’t just diss Leonardo and Kate’s love.”

  She slightly threw back her head in a laugh. “You mean Jack and Rose?”

  He gave her a blank stare. “No one remembers their names in the movie. They will always be Leonardo and Kate. If it were up to me, they’d be married today.”

  Summer laughed even harder, and eventually Aiden broke out in a wide grin. Without waiting for her okay, he took The Godfather out of the DVD player and put in Titanic.

  “Prepare to lose, Dupree. My acting skills were already better than yours.” He stretched and began running in place as if he were preparing for a boxing match instead of some movie reenactments.

  “I didn’t know we were competing over who’s the better actor,” she said in between laughs.

  He gave her a look of disbelief. “We’re always competing, but I assume you only said that because you were always the worst when it came to reenacting scenes.”

  Ten minutes into the movie, she was still laughing at Aiden’s crazy antics. Twenty minutes into the movie, she realized he was right. He was a much better actor than she was. There were so many things she’d missed about him, but the way he made her laugh just by being himself was by far the thing she missed the most.

  As it neared the first scene where Jack and Rose meet as Jack tries to save her from jumping off the back of the ship, it took all of Summer’s energy to control her laughter.

  “Are you going to keep laughing?”

  “I’m sorry.” She fanned herself. “Okay, I’m ready. But you can’t expect me not to laugh when you get so engrossed in playing Leonardo.”

  She walked over to the chair in the corner of the room, to use it as a platform to lean against so she could pretend it was the edge of the ship.

  She rolled her neck and did a little hop, mimicking Aiden when he was preparing to act out a scene. “Okay, let’s do this.” She leaned against the chair as she glanced behind her to view the scene on the television.

  “I changed my mind,” he said from behind her. “How about I pretend to be myself, instead.”

  When did he get so close? His breath fanned the side of her neck. “Don’t come any closer,” she said mimicking the scene. “I mean it. I’ll let go.”

  “No, you won’t,” he whispered in her ear. “I know you, Summer. You can’t let go and neither can I.”

  She sucked in a deep breath at his nearness. “Those are the lines.”

  “I know.” He moved to whisper in her other ear. “I’m done acting. Done pretending. At least for tonight. You were right. We’re too old to play games.”

  As Summer kept her eyes trained on the television, she was extremely aware of the seductive tone in Aiden’s voice. A tone that didn’t embody any of the comical innuendos he’d been using earlier.

  She was sure that now was the time for her to respond, but her words were so jumbled in her mind, she wasn’t sure she could even formulate a complete sentence out loud. Instead, she leaned against his body as opposed to the chair.

  As he always did, he wrapped his arms around her and placed his head in the curve of her neck. When they were younger, she’d never understood why some of her friends would claim that she and Aiden didn’t hug in a friend’s sort of way, but rather a lover’s sort of way. At the time, she didn’t understand what they meant. Of course she’d realized their hugs had progressed after the kiss they’d shared in the closet. However, she still hadn’t really understood what they meant. Until now...

  Her backside pressed against his front, his arms wrapped around her and his forehead against her skin felt intimate. Private. It felt like a hug between two people who were in tune with each other. Summer wasn’t even sure if she could keep saying they were just friends anymore. Nothing felt the same, yet everything felt the same. It was so confusing.

  Of its own accord, her body molded more into his and she leaned her head back to give him better access to her neck. The light groan that escaped his lips sent tingles throughout her entire body, and within seconds she felt his lips lightly brush the exposed area. In an effort to control her moans as he placed sweet, tender kisses all across her skin, she rolled her head to the side. The movement only made him switch from kissing one side of her neck to the other. The touch of his lips on her skin felt so good, she couldn’t help but squirm a little. Then he placed his hands on either side of her thighs to keep her in place.

  You should do something. She just wasn’t sure what that something was. Should she lean more into him? Turn around to face him? Maybe she should move out of his embrace to the other side of the room.

  His hands began massaging her thighs, which made her shorts tighten, causing the most delicious friction against her core. Okay, so moving out of his embrace is definitely not an option. She wasn’t even sure her feet could move at the moment anyway. She was vaguely aware that her inner thighs were producing more heat than bacon crackling on a hot pan.

  With his hands and lips on her at the same time, she couldn’t think straight. All she could do was feel. She leaned her head back even more and glanced up to look at him. Oh, my. The thoughts reflected in his eyes weren’t guarded, but instead left open for her to analyze. He’d promised he wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t considered friendly, so she assumed that also meant kissing. But you want to kiss him. Oh, she wanted to kiss him badly. When he reached out a hand and ran it through her hair, a little more of her resilience broke.

  What’s one tiny kiss? she thought as she took control of the situation, turned around to face him, and leaned on tiptoes to place a soft kiss on his lips. At least, soft had been the idea until her lips actually crashed onto his. Instead of soft and slow, the kiss was all-consuming and demanded every part of her to pay attention. When she’d first kissed Aiden when they were fifteen years old, she hadn’t really known what she was doing. She’d thought that maybe she’d French-kissed a boy before Aiden, but the moment his tongue had played with hers in that closet, she’d realized she had never ever been kissed like that before.

  They’d shared a few kisses after that, but this kiss right now felt slightly different. They weren’t two kids learning how the other tasted for the first time. Now they were adults and much more experienced in the art form.

  His tongue slipped into her mouth at the same time his arms pulled her closer and his expert lips moved exquisitely across hers. She wasn’t even sure she
’d remember her own name if someone asked her.

  Her hands moved underneath his shirt and she ran her fingers across his pectoral muscles. Eventually her hands made their way to the back of his head as she slipped her tongue even deeper. The groan he released was so strong, she shivered at the fact that she had gotten him so worked up with one kiss.

  His hands moved to her lower back and soon she felt the cool surface of the wall. Her thighs lifted of their own accord and as she’d hoped, Aiden grasped her to hold her in place. Within seconds, they were grinding fully clothed against the barrier and kissing so passionately that she wasn’t sure who was leading the kiss anymore.

  Him. Definitely him... Only Aiden could kiss her so thoroughly. So completely. He held her effortlessly and as seconds turned to minutes, everything around her blurred.

  “Damn, I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you outside your boutique,” he said into her mouth.

  She’d wanted to kiss him, too, but for so much longer. If your life hadn’t spiraled out of control in college, you could have had him. That timid voice in the back of her mind crept to the surface, reminding her once again of what she’d lost. Time that she’d never be able to get back. Reasons she and Aiden could never be the Summer and Aiden she’d imagined.

  Mustering all the strength she could, she broke off the kiss, but Aiden didn’t let her feet touch the ground. He only looked confused for a few seconds before his expression changed to acknowledgment.

  Don’t get emotional. Don’t get emotional. She chanted the words over and over in her mind, determined to keep her face as expressionless as possible.

  Aiden leaned his forehead against hers. “We have to talk about it, Summer.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” she said quickly.

  He lifted his head, peering at her as he released her thighs from his hands. Her body immediately missed his touch.

  “Do you really believe that?” he asked. “You think there’s nothing for us to discuss?”

  “I do.” She shrugged and shuffled from one foot to the other. Her heart rate had finally started to slow down. “I didn’t mean to kiss you, so just forget it happened.”

  “Don’t ever apologize for kissing me.” Aiden leaned closer to her, and to her surprise, she stood in place and didn’t falter. “We don’t have to talk right now, but eventually we will. After all these years, you have to understand why I want to talk about it.”

  She averted her eyes before looking back at him. “Can we just finish acting out the movie?”

  A sly smile crept across his face. “Of course we can.” He plopped back down on the couch and grabbed the remote. “How about I fast-forward to the part where Jack and Kate dance?”

  “Why?” she asked, joining him on the couch.

  “Well, if I fast-forward to that scene, then you’ll have to do some dancing.” He grinned. “Or maybe I’ll fast-forward to the scene where Jack paints Kate in the nude. Think you’re up for it?”

  She knew he was joking, but she still got butterflies in her stomach. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Says who? When do I ever joke about seeing you naked? Do you remember when I dared you to skinny-dip if you lost that card game?”

  “How could I forget?” she asked with a laugh. “After I lost, you wouldn’t drop it and teased me the entire night.”

  “You damn right I teased you,” he said, laughing along with her. “You never turned down a dare, but you thought it would be okay to turn down that one?”

  “Of course I did. It involved me being naked. I didn’t want our entire class to see me naked. I didn’t even want you to see me naked.” Not entirely true, but oh, well!

  “Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers in recognition. “I forgot you had that third nipple that you were always worried about me seeing.”

  “I did not and do not have a third nipple,” she said, punching him in the arm.

  “Oh, then you must be talking about that brown birthmark on your butt that’s shaped like a perfect heart.”

  She froze. “You saw my birthmark?” It was smack-dab in the middle of her right cheek, so there weren’t too many people who knew that it was there.

  He stopped laughing as his eyes dropped to her lips again. “I saw everything that night.”

  His penetrating stare seemed to pierce right through her.

  Summer sat up a little straighter on the couch as his stare intensified, his eyes never faltering from hers. She gave her mind a mental shake for forgetting how easily Aiden could go from annoying, to charming, to downright seductive. The man had been born with a gift and he wasn’t ashamed to use it. She knew from experience that once Aiden Chase put his mind to something, he was all hands in. Literally.

  Twelve years ago...

  “Aiden, come on. This was a stupid dare. I’ll do anything else.” Summer glanced at all their friends standing along the edge of the water waiting for her to skinny-dip.

  “No can do, Dupree. A bet’s a bet and you lost.”

  Summer groaned as she looked at Aiden. She knew that look. He wasn’t going to let her out easily. Sometimes, she forgot how competitive he was.

  “Don’t you remember when you made me streak in the gym last year?”

  Oh, right, I did make him do that. Whoops! “No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, really?” Aiden said with a laugh. “I think the exact words that you and the other girls in our class chanted were ‘Aiden, man up and do the dare. You know you lost fair and square. So lose those clothes and lose them quick, because you just lost to a chick.’ And a lot of the girls changed the last part to rhyme with something else, but I’m not even gonna go there.”

  “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.” She had never backed down from a dare, but skinny-dipping in front of half the class wasn’t remotely close to what she wanted to be doing after senior prom. She was looking forward to relaxing at the lake house they’d all chipped in to rent, not show everyone how she looked naked. Although she was looking forward to leaving Claysville, she still wanted to have one last celebration with her classmates.

  “What’s taking so long, Dupree?”

  She cut her eyes at Aiden and mouthed the words I hate you. “Just remember that I plan to pay you back,” she said wading up to her knees into the water. At least it was dark outside, so people wouldn’t really see her. She wasn’t stupid. There was no way she was leaving her clothes on the ground. She was bringing everything in with her and would strip under the water. She was pretty sure that was what Aiden wanted her to do, anyway.

  Of course that’s what he wants me to do. An idea sparked. She doubted Aiden wanted her taking off her clothes in front of any of the guys, so she decided to tease him. She waded back to shore and began lifting her shirt as if she were taking it off. As predicted, Aiden jumped in front of her when it was only a couple of inches high.

  “What are you doing, Aiden?” one of the guys yelled.

  Aiden ignored him and turned his head to her. “Summer, what are you doing? Why aren’t you going under in the water to block yourself?”

  “What’s the matter, Aiden?” she whispered. “You made the dare. Don’t want any of the boys to see me naked?”

  “Not a chance,” he whispered back. “I’m the only one who should see you naked.”

  His head jerked back to hers so fast, she knew he realized his mistake. “I mean...well, I don’t want the guys...wait, that’s not how I meant it.”

  He’s stuttering. She smiled at him. Aiden only stuttered when he’d accidentally said something he’d rather keep to himself.

  “Forget this,” another guy yelled to all their classmates. “It’s our last time being together and we’ll probably never see one another again. Let’s all skinny-dip!” Within minutes, clothes were flying e
verywhere as people ran into the water. Some nude. Some still wearing their underwear. Others were fully clothed. To Summer’s surprise, it seemed to be less about the nudity and more about enjoying one last hurrah.

  “What do you say?” Summer asked Aiden. “Since we’re both going to schools in California, we’ll only be a few hours apart. But who knows how much we’ll see each other?”

  Aiden glanced around the lake and Summer followed his gaze that had landed on a tree that was partially in the water and partially on land.

  “I’ll race you to that spot,” Aiden said, removing his shirt and taking off running. Summer followed his lead, removing her top layered shirt as she caught up with him. When they reached the tree, she noticed it formed a cove that was semiprivate. In the dark, she assumed others couldn’t see much, despite the lights along the lake.

  “You getting in or what?” Aiden asked as he began unbuttoning his jeans. Summer hesitated, surprised he was actually undressing.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Skinny-dipping,” he said, slipping off his jeans completely and kicking his gym shoes to the side at the same time. She’d already removed her top shirt, but she hadn’t removed her tank or anything else. Well, I guess he’s seen me in a bikini, so wearing my bra and panties isn’t a big deal. She slid off her tank and flip-flops before she unbuttoned and removed her wet jeans. By the time she’d finished, she saw Aiden in her peripheral vision, removing what looked to be his boxers.

  She glanced over at him and froze. Holy Mother Nature. All thoughts washed from her mind as she stood there glancing at Aiden in all his naked glory. Shy he is not, she thought as he walked toward her wearing a confident smile.

  “You can leave on your underwear if you want, Dupree.” He waded into the water and leaned against the tree. “But you only live once.”

  She knew what he was doing. He was baiting her. And it was working. “I’m not getting my hair wet,” she said as she turned her back to him and unclasped her bra. She tossed it on top of her jeans, then removed her panties and tossed them aside, too. She glanced over her shoulder at Aiden after she was completely nude. The passionate look on his face made her breath catch. She wasn’t sure what happened in that moment, but a wave of confidence washed over her as she finally turned to join him in the water.