"Don't worry, sweetheart," I say. "Just because I was high and wanted a quick lay doesn't mean anything."
She looks at me with an expression I can't quite figure out. I think it might be disappointment, but she's the one who's fucking rejecting me. It passes as quickly as it appeared. "Just -- just keep your hands off me, Caulter," she says.
"Keep my hands off you?" I can't hold back my laugh. "That's rich. Don't worry, Princess, your pussy isn't magic and I'm certainly not hurting for it. It won't be a hardship to keep my dick away from you."
She narrows her eyes at me and her jaw clenches. "Good. I'm glad to hear it. We should be adults. Friends. We should be civil to each other." She stands there awkwardly, her words just hanging in the air, and I just stand there. I'm not thinking about what she said, though. I'm really thinking about the fact that my dick is not moving from where it's lodged, pressed up against the zipper of my jeans. I think her holier-than-thou attitude might have even made it harder.
Clearly, my dick has poor taste in women.
"Do you want to go back to my father's house?" she asks.
I shrug. "Nah," I say, taking my pack of cigarettes from my back pocket and opening the flap. "I think I'm just going to go out. There's no sense having a hard on and not being able to use it."
I say it just to hurt her, and it looks like it works. She blinks a few times, standing there with her hands balled up into fists at her sides, before she whirls around. "Fine," she says. "Whatever. Have fun."
I stare in the opposite direction, watching her leave out of the corner of my eye but not looking at her. I won't give her the satisfaction of looking at her. The way she wiped her mouth after she kissed me, like I'm some kind of sleaze she can't wait to get away from? She may have been a good lay, but great lays are a dime a dozen. I don't need her.
CHAPTER SIX
Katherine
I've always loved summer in New Hampshire. When my father first became Senator, he sold the farmhouse in Loudon where I'd spent my early years, and moved us to DC for the school year. But my mother and I would come to the house on Lake Winnipesauke for the summer. My father would join us, flying between New Hampshire and DC during early summer and only coming back full-time when the Senate broke for summer session. He never liked the state, even though he's tied to it politically. He returns here, but spends most of the summer bitching about being out of the loop and finding excuses to fly into New York or DC for fundraisers and political events.
Me, on the other hand? I love this place. I cried when he sold our first house. He said it wasn't healthy to be attached to something like that ("It's just a goddamned house, Katherine"), and I was seven, so I said I'd never get over it. But I did. The summer house became my favorite place in the world, and it stayed that way after my mother died because she was my tie to it.
So coming here for the summer isn't so bad, even if it means doing what my father wants as far as the re-election campaign goes. He's the incumbent, and honestly, the election is no big deal. He'll win by a landslide, just like he always does. He just thinks it's the biggest deal in the world. And besides, until summer session breaks, he'll be flying in and out, so I get this whole place to myself. Or I would, if Caulter weren't in the picture.
I still might, though. I don't know where Caulter is. After what happened in the park, he never came home that night. I know, because I was listening for him. The fact that he went out and screwed some chick after kissing me, just because he had a hard-on, is so disgusting it makes me hate him. So when Ella said that Caulter was going back to Malibu for a few days, excuse me for being happy.
If I'm lucky, maybe I won't ever have to see him again.
The problem is that I can still feel his lips on mine, that bruising kiss in the park lingering even now. My body craves him, and I hate it.
I just have to think about something else. Like how great it'll be to be back here for the summer. I love this place, with its white painted walls and airy spaces. I love the wraparound porch, and the little balcony outside of my bedroom where I sit and sketch when I want peace and quiet. I wish I could spend the summer here alone. I don't want Caulter and Ella here, intruding on this place that used to be my mother's and mine. I don't want their presence tainting my memories of her.
And I especially don't want Caulter here, reminding me of that night every time I look at him. I don't want him here, reminding me of the fact that he's awakened feelings in me, even if the feelings are simply lust. Ridiculous, inappropriate lust. It's ridiculous and inappropriate not just because he's about to be my step-brother, either. It's ridiculous and inappropriate because of who Caulter Sterling is. He's a crude, caustic prick who can't keep his dick in his pants.