Summer Heat (Cruel Summer #1)(10)

My first thought? Impossible. He was beautiful. The next thought was of our one night together, his mouth between my breasts, the way he clawed at me for more, the way I squeezed my thighs around him and begged him to go deeper.

“Uhhhhh,” I had absolutely no non-sexual thoughts in my head. “No?”

“Is that a question?” He smirked.

I’d forgotten about his smirk.

The way it made him look dangerous, sexy, like the bad boy riding in on the motorcycle, the guy you don’t bring home to Mom because he looks like his only goal in life is to live freely through the prison system and get a tattoo on his neck.

“Are you done?” He pointed to the empty shower.

“No, I was just getting in.” I turned around, trying my best to ignore him. I had a plan, take the longest hottest shower known to mankind and leave him with nothing but cold water and pieces of my hair stuck to the walls just to disgust him and piss him off, maybe a strand would land on him and send him into fits of hysteria. One could only hope!

“Better hurry,” he said with another smirk. “The other showers are taken, and they shut off the water at eleven.”

I gawked. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m shitting you.” He grinned like we were friends capable of teasing one another, having a relationship that wasn’t filled with hate. I didn’t like how hopeful it made me feel. How dangerous that feeling was.

Friendship.

I’d never had real friends. Real people who cared about what happened to me. He’d been my friend that night.

Offered his shoulder to cry on.

And then his body.

I shuddered and let out a rough exhale. “My cabin’s creepy. I really wanted a long shower.”

Why had I just offered more ammunition? Information?

“I’ll walk you back.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a favor. Just as another shower turned off. It was a staff member I didn’t recognize. The shower was right next to mine. Marlo started stripping right in front of me while my hands were still on my own shirt waiting to peel it off. “Better hurry or I’ll be done before you.” That was the last phrase I was able to process before he slid his sweats down to his ankles and hung them up on the hook. Muscle, muscle everywhere. I was staring. I didn’t mean to stare. I couldn’t help it. His ass.

He had an ass.

My weakness in life was a guy who had an ass bigger than mine, hey a girl could dream!

I quickly turned away, stripped, and got into the shower. It was torture, the smell of his soap, the sounds of him slathering his body. Why was I being so stupid? My body was completely failing me with memories of our one night together over and over again.



“Let me love you,” he whispered against my neck. I told him I was wasted. But I remembered everything. I nodded as he slipped my bra down my shoulders and tossed it to the floor like a pro. His mouth was hot and eager against mine. I could taste whiskey on his tongue, smell grass on his skin.

He was stronger than I imagined. Probably from all the hard labor.

We were in my room.

My parents were gone.

They were always gone.

I’d just broken up with my boyfriend at my own party. Marlo had checked on me out of drunken guilt.

And there we were.

Naked.

He ran his fingers down my stomach. I arched up. With every touch, he mesmerized me.



I shook the memories away just about the same time I heard Marlo’s rough voice. “You tasted like candied rum and broken dreams.”

I smiled despite myself. “You tasted like whiskey and smelled like fresh grass and mint tea.”

“Your skin still as smooth as it felt against my tongue?” His voice lowered.

Holy shit.

I squeezed my eyes shut and ran my hands down my body. “Sure feels like it.”

“Fuck.” I could hear him bang something against the side of the shower and then. “Are you touching yourself?”

“Are you?”

“Guys, could you not?” Brax said from one of the showers. “I have a very vivid imagination, and I don’t want to make it so that the only way I can get off is if I hear you guys discuss whiskey and fresh cut grass. That cool with you?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. What just happened?

“No problem!” Marlo laughed like it really wasn’t, when my entire body felt like someone had just electrocuted me and put me back under water holding a blow drier.

The shower shut off.

I finished up, grabbed my towel, and then tried to dress myself in the small shower square. I ended up getting my sweatshirt a bit wet, but it still worked better than changing in front of Marlo.

He was already dressed and waiting for me by the door, same clothes, same smirk. As if our sexually charged conversation hadn’t happened at all.

I sighed in relief when he didn’t touch me or put his hand on my back on our walk to the cabin.

“It looks just as scary as I remember it.” He grinned at the cabin like he was pleased with himself.

“Oh it is, I’ve made friends with at least seven spiders, and I think there’s a rat.” I leveled him with a glare.

He just shrugged. “I don’t like surprises.”

“And I take it I’m the surprise?”

“Pretty much.”