Sugar Daddy (Travis Family #1)(30)

"Thank you, Mama." I was grateful that she had given her permission, but some inner devil prompted me to say, "He's only one year younger than Hardy, you know."

She understood my unspoken question. "It's not the same."

I knew why she'd said that.

At nineteen, Hardy had already become more of a man than some men ever were. In the absence of a father he'd learned to shoulder the responsibility of a family, providing for his mother and sisters. He'd worked hard to ensure their survival, and his own. Luke, by contrast, was sheltered and coddled, secure in the belief that things would always come easily to him.

If I hadn't known Hardy, it was possible I would have come to care more about Luke. But it was too late for that. My emotions had bent around Hardy like wet-molded leather left to dry and harden in the sun, until any attempt to alter its shape would break it.

One night Luke brought me to a party held at someone's house while their parents were away for the weekend. The place was filled with seniors, and I looked in vain for a familiar face.

The hard blues rock of Stevie Ray Vaughan blasted from outside patio speakers, while plastic cups of orange liquid were handed out to the crowd. Luke brought some to me, advising me with a laugh not to drink it too fast. It tasted like flavored rubbing alcohol. I took the tiniest sips possible, the caustic liquor stinging my lips. While Luke stood talking with his friends, I excused myself by asking where the restroom was.

Gripping the plastic cup, I went into the house and pretended not to notice the couples making out in shadows and corners. I found the guest bathroom, which was miraculously unoccupied, and I poured the drink into the commode.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I decided to take a different route outside. It would be easier, not to mention less embarrassing, to go out the front door and around the side of the house rather than return through the gauntlet of amorous couples. But as I passed the big staircase in the entranceway, I caught sight of a pair of entwined bodies in a shadow.

I felt as if I'd been stabbed through the heart as I recognized Hardy, his arms around a long-limbed blond girl. She was riding one of his thighs, her upper back and shoulders revealed by a black velvet bustier top. One of his fists was closed in her hair, holding it back as he dragged his mouth slowly along the side of her throat.

Pain, desire, jealousy...I hadn't known it was possible to feel so many things so strongly, all at once. It took every ounce of will I possessed to ignore them and keep going. My steps faltered, but I didn't stop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hardy's head lift. I wanted to die as I realized he'd seen me. My hand shook as I grasped the cold brass doorknob and let myself outside.

I knew he wouldn't come after me, but my pace quickened until I was half running to the patio. The breath shot from my lungs in hard bursts. I longed to forget what I had just seen, but the image of Hardy with the blond girl was permanently seared in my memory. It shocked me, the fury I felt toward him, the white heat of betrayal. It didn't matter that he'd promised nothing, owed nothing to me. He was mine. I felt it in every cell of my body.

Somehow I managed to find Luke in the crowd on the patio, and he looked at me with a questioning smile. He could hardly fail to notice the burning color of my cheeks. "What's the matter, baby doll?"

"I dropped my drink," I said thickly.

He laughed and laid a heavy arm around my shoulders. "I'll get you another one."

"No. I..." I stood on my toes to whisper in his ear. "Would you mind if we left now?"

"Now? We just got here."

"I want to be alone with you," I whispered desperately. "Please, Luke. Take me somewhere. Anywhere."

His expression changed. I knew he was wondering if my sudden desire to be alone with him could mean what he thought it meant.

And the answer was yes. I wanted to kiss him, hold him, do everything Hardy was doing at that exact moment with another girl. Not out of desire, but furious grief. There was no one I could go to. My mother would dismiss my feelings as childish. Maybe they were, but I didn't care. I had never felt this kind of consuming anger before. My only anchor was the weight of Luke's arm.

Luke took me to the public park, which contained a man-made lake and several wooded copses. At the side of the lake there was a ramshackle open-sided gazebo lined with splintery wood benches. Families went there to picnic in the daytime. Now the gazebo was empty and dark. The air rustled with night sounds, an orchestra of frogs croaking among the cattails, a mockingbird's song, the flap of herons' wings.

Just before we had left the party, I had chugged the rest of Luke's tequila sunrise. My head was spinning, and I reeled between waves of giddiness and nausea. Luke laid his jacket on the gazebo bench and pulled me onto his lap. He kissed me, his mouth wet and searching. I tasted the purpose in his kiss, the message that tonight he would go as far as I would let him.

His smooth-skinned hand slipped beneath my shirt, over my back, plucking at the clasp of my bra. The underwire garment loosened across my chest. Immediately he reached around to my front, finding the tender curve of a breast, capturing it in a rough squeeze. I winced, and he loosened his grip a little, saying with a shaky laugh, "Sorry, baby doll. It just...you're so beautiful, you make me crazy..." His thumb rubbed over the hardening tip of my breast. He pinched and chafed my ni**les insistently, while our mouths moved together in long unbroken kisses. Soon my br**sts were raw and sore. I gave up any hope of feeling pleasure and tried instead to simulate it. If something was wrong, it was my fault, because Luke was experienced.