With This Heart(48)
I could feel him responding to me, and I didn’t care that we were at a party. The bonfire danced behind him, silhouetting his body and blocking out everyone else. I felt life coursing through me, exhilaration fueling my seduction. I strung my hands into his hair and pulled his head toward mine as I continued to grind in slow circles on his lap. We’d moved past public decency long ago, but I couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of my heart thumping wildly. When his lips met mine, we kissed like we’d been starving for it. He swiped his tongue over mine and tangled his hand in my hair, gripping me against him. Our hips moved together and I was no longer in control of our lap dance.
We were having sex with clothes on, in front of twenty people.
“ Alright, you two! Jeez, get a freaking room!” the ring leader’s voice finally penetrated through my lust-filled haze. I pulled my mouth away from Beck’s and pressed the back of my hand to my lips to conceal my overflowing emotions: elation, embarrassment, shock, and desire. He smiled up at me with hooded eyes. His brown hair was even more unruly thanks to my fingers.
I sat there frozen in lust.
“ I’m not complaining, but if you don’t get off my lap soon, this might not stay so innocent.” He couldn’t even hide the amusement in his voice. He squeezed my hips once more before I pushed off his lap and plucked myself in the seat Ian had previously been occupying. Beck took my old seat without a word. I brushed off the fine layer of sand coating my knees and calves. Then I straightened the hem of my dress out and tried like hell to keep from looking up toward the rest of the group. They were already focusing on a new contestant for Drink or Dare, but the flush on my cheeks wouldn’t recede and I felt like I was on display at the zoo.
Jason leaned forward so he could see me past Beck. “What’s a lap dance among friends , right?” His tone held a note of annoyance. Did he think I lied to him before? Beck and I were friends and we weren’t dating, so it’s not my fault that at a party I didn’t feel like recounting our complicated-as-hell status to a random surfing instructor.
I couldn’t look at Jason or Beck throughout the remainder of the game. Beck and I just sat there in silence until everyone started clearing out. I grabbed my phone out of my purse and motioned that I would walk ahead so I could make a call. I prayed Caroline answered.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“ Oh my God, finally!” I felt the flutters of relief wash through my nervous belly when Caroline answered on the fourth ring. It was late for her, but when all you do is sleep, days don’t seem to be divided quite the same as they used to be.
“ Hey, Abs,” she answered with a voice that sounded like it was being grated. None of her usual cheeriness was present either.
“ Hey, did I catch you at a bad time? I could call back?” Maybe she was just tired.
She cleared her throat and I could hear the bed rustling like she was trying to sit up a bit further. “No. It’s okay, just feeling extra crappy.”
Usually she sugarcoated her illness. She would talk about being in the hospital like it was an extended stay in a hotel and nothing more.
“ Is that why you haven’t been answering my calls? I don’t care if all we talk about is how shitty you feel. I miss you.”
There was a long silence and I stared down at the sand. In the moonlight, it almost looked like snow. Warm, grainy snow.
“ Abby, I want you to be happy and I’ve just needed some time to process everything.”
My heart dropped.
“ Process what?” I shouted into the phone with no regard for anyone around me. I didn’t care what they thought.
“ Abby…They gave me a new timeline.”
A timeline. They gave her an expiration date. As if anyone could predict the fucking future. A timeline was statistics and nothing more. It didn’t account for externalities. The fact that Caroline was the best goddamned human being I’d ever known and that she deserved longer than whatever timeline they decided to give her.