Unlovely Things (Love By Design Book 2) Read online

  I’ve never gone bare before, and it feels out of this world.

  “Me either,” he said, and I realized then that I’d verbalized that out loud.

  “God…” Groaning was the only audible form of communication as Damien continued to pump hard, giving me what I needed. He wasn’t gentle and sweet and he seemed to know that wasn’t what I needed right then. My perfectly fucked-up relationship with Damien Hart was nothing I wanted, but everything I needed and fought against with a valiantly failing effort.

  “Not my name.”

  Of course Damien wasn’t God, but his hip-thrusting felt divine when he grabbed me, driving forcefully as I rode out the pain-tinged pleasure. There was something about being so turned on right then that the cramping pain ceased and I floated to a place of pure bliss with the impending orgasm taking over.

  “Give it to me,” I commanded.

  “You ask so nicely, Kristen.” His voice sounded droll, sarcastic, and a little bored as he drilled into me. He leaned in close, “Say my name, Pebbles.” He smiled against me. The stronghold around my heart relented for a brief second.

  “Demon—will that do?” My nickname for him rang true. I felt like I’d entered the hottest and sweetest pit of hell with him.

  “Yeah, it will.” Grunting, Damien kept up the pace until my arms leaning on the bed gave out and I collapsed. He fell on top of me, groaning against my ear and damp skin. On a shout, he released within me, filling me before pulling out and picking me up.

  “What? Where?” My bedroom seemed to spin around me, I was disorientated until cool tiles met my bare feet when he put me down in the bathroom. Damien deposited me on the floor and turned the shower on full blast, heating up the bathroom though the door was wide open.

  “Shower. I want to go again.”

  Looking down, I saw he was still hard, impressively long and thick. A tang filled the air as hot water beat down on us. Our arousal was smeared colorfully on my thighs, but strangely I didn’t mind when he gently washed it away, our eyes never leaving each other. The squirt of cold body wash felt good on my skin while he took his time rubbing the soapy bubbles into me. Demon massaged away all the hurts, both physical and emotional hang-ups from years past.

  “Kristen, I….” His eyes seemed to want to say something, and I didn’t want to hear whatever it was that could possibly ruin the moment. I pressed my lips against his, closing my eyes and blocking out the light and any other thoughts. We kissed with hunger, grabbing for each other when he pushed me against the shower wall, entering me in a single thrust.

  He was grunting so loud I wondered if my neighbors could hear him in the house next door. It figured, Damien Hart was a damn yeller.

  “Shhhh. Cool your jets, Demon,” I told him, and our kissing slowed into something more heavenly as we gave each other what we needed.

  11

  Damien

  “No. No. No.” She said thumping her hand into the poufy sheets on her bed. Sex with Kristen was more complicated than politics or football strategy. Every time I thought I was getting closer to making a play she would pull back or throw a ball impossible to intercept or catch. The effort to keep up with her gave me a headache. Mr. Bryant was right in calling her a hellion.

  Gritting my teeth from saying what I wanted to say, I rolled to my side so I saw Kristen fully. Her skin glowed with a rosy hue, flushed and sated for the time being. Her hair fanned out over her pillow and I saw her as a dark angel come to drag me back to my own personal hell of existence.

  There’s something I want from her but I don’t know how to go about getting it without a huge fight ensuing between the two of us. I asked the question anyway watching her expression go from calm to murder in a flash of lightening. “I don’t understand why we can’t tell everyone we’re together. What would be the big deal?”

  Her bed is comfortable, more than mine probably because it has all these girly pillows and crap I don’t have at my house. I rolled punching the pillows on my side preparing for a long discussion. A sheet draped over her body slipped away letting me passively admire her yoga toned body. It’s rare I to have these moments with the wildcat. Usually it’s a battle to not get items thrown in my general direction as I’m picking up my clothes and shoes on the way out the door. When the mood strikes she can be feisty, and cut throat more often than I care to think about.

  “I’m still mad at you.” Controlling the urge to roll my eyes or dismiss the statement is a chore hard learned over the years. Just when I think things might be better, it’s her safety net to throw the past back in my face. Today, I’m not very good at letting it roll off my back and not hurt my feelings.

  “Ten years wasn’t enough to get over that.” I said sarcastically hoping she was joking. There were things you just couldn’t take back and should have a statute of limitations on them. Something that she claimed happened in the seventh grade, for one. She’s never let that moment go, nor will she give me five minutes to explain what it is she thinks happened. I consider suggesting counseling, but I might have to enter the witness protection program when she found me.

  “I see you still insist on dismissing my feelings in the matter.” I don’t but what she thinks happened didn’t exactly happen and trying to explain it would be a moot point. She doesn’t believe me and I can only keep defending myself on something for so long before I have to let it go or get just as crazy as she does over it.

  I’m tired. I don’t want to fight and I say the first thing I’m thinking related to the incident. “No, but I don’t know how you can harbor something that far under the bridge.” I’m certain this is about the foreign exchange student but she doesn’t let me explain and I’ve gotten to a point where I almost wish something happened because she won’t believe otherwise.

  It’s her stillness that should have warned me to stop while I was ahead. I had come over here to discuss a job offer for her from Hunter and me–yeah, now I was going to have to see Hunter and explain I never got to asking her about it.

  “Under the bridge? Under the…. Arg… you know what, it’s time for you go.” She pushed me up and out of the bed as quickly as she pulled me into it. Maybe this wasn’t the space and time Grandma Halle had in mind when she told me to walk away a little bit.

  “Go? Where?” We’re standing in her bedroom naked as the day we were born staring each other down. Nothing sexy about her glare that finds me lacking right now and when I step forward she puts her hand up and stepped back.

  Night and Day.

  Hot and Cold.

  I would never figure her mercurial moods out.

  “Home. I don’t know, don’t care. Just get out of my bed.” She picks up my pants from the floor and throws them at me stalking off.

  “Seriously?” I hoped she wasn’t serious but she had already walked away and I figured that was the only answer I was getting from her. I didn’t have my truck right now and no way to get a ride back to my house, but she didn’t know that seeing as how I also didn’t tell her that my license was suspended.

  I remembered other times in my past when I screwed up and that look of disappointment on her face. I didn’t need that right now, I didn’t need a lot of things right now including her judgment. If I told her about the suspension, I’d have to tell her that Evan was the arresting officer and then we would have to argue over him and the snowball became bigger and bigger as I mulled it over in my mind. I didn’t have that kind of fight left in me.

  “Yes, be gone when I get out.” She slammed the door to the bathroom quick as a bee sting. Kristen wasn’t giving me a chance. She never gave me the chance and I was feeling used and tired–a usual thing with her.

  “Pebbles come on.” I banged on the door when it swung open shocking me. Her tear streaked face broke me no matter obstacle lay in our past.

  “Can you go to the store for me?” Her lips trembled and I sighed heavy. I would do this for her because it was one thing she would let me do.

  “Yeah, whatever you need Pe
bbles.” Shutting me out, she turned on the shower faucet and ignored my attempts to talk through the bathroom door.

  Sitting on the bed, I waited until her shower ended in case she fell in and couldn’t reach her life alert button. I didn’t want to be accused of not caring enough. The door opened with steam pouring out into the space.

  “Still here?”

  “Of course, but I’m leaving now. Any other grievances you’d like to air?”

  “No, I think that’ll do for now.”

  “Excellent.” I pushed off from her bed and decide the walk home will do me just fine. I’d wait to call Hunter until I rounded the corner off her street.

  I’m leaving her house when I open the door to find Taylor in mid-knock looking shocked to see me. “Howdy, TJ. I hope you’re prepared to get your head chomped off this morning.” I give her a jaunty salute and walked down the steps.

  “Uh…” She’s speechless and pink cheeked. I figure Pebbles can have the honor since I’m tired of hiding this from those closest to us. Sometimes I wish I had the balls to tell her to screw herself and walk away, I should–but I don’t. Love doesn’t work that way.

  12

  Kristen

  Sputtering in my doorway, clearly shocked by the revelation of Damien Hart leaving my house looking disheveled and thoroughly fucked over by me, Taylor is pointing out the door, and then back at me, and then out the door, and then back at me. I might have found it comical if I was feeling like quite the asshole I was today. Maybe my thing with Damien was nothing more than a decade old misunderstanding–easily solved like an afterschool television special, but I couldn’t let go of the past no matter how hard I tried to cleanse myself of something so stupid.

  “B—but I thought Evan?” Taylor made a harrumphing sound clearly as flabbergasted as I was. I had used other men, men he hated like Evan and plenty of alcohol to numb the feelings of my first love. None of it had worked and now I had my best friend looking hurt and angry over something even I didn’t have words for.

  “Oh my god! Did you two have period sex last night?” She stuck with the obvious eying me with a piercing glare. “I thought you hated each other and only tolerated each other for Hunter and me?” I was positive Taylor didn’t mean it in the selfish about her way but I didn’t put this front up for her or Hunter, it was to keep my heart from fracturing any deeper. Demon and I mutually used each other and that was as far as I was willing to go with this.

  “Come inside?” I left her at the door to sit down resuming my gorging on a left over cilantro chicken and lime taco from the Burrito Barn.

  “Don’t you ignore my question Kristen Calloway.” If stomping her foot demanding an answer was her tactic we would be here all morning once I dug my heels in. Plus, this was our routine in giving up secret bestie classified information. She knew I was going to make her work for it.

  “Hmm?” I eyed her over the bite of my taco giving no fucks to how un-classy I might look right then.

  “Damien just–and we’re on the same cycle–and–ugh put the food down and tell me what’s going on.” Her hands met her hips and I almost cracked a smile feeling relieved this might actually be all out in the open now. “Right now, Kristen.”

  I continued to eat letting Taylor work this all out in her mind verbally before I had to clarify the details for her.

  “Seriously, put that down and answer me right now.” Taylor got close enough to reach my plate but I backed away wary like a zoo animal. There is no way in hell I am: one–giving up a two day old burrito that tastes of heaven and promises, and two–disclosing the nature of my last sexual encounter even though she walked right into him as he was leaving. Despite the fact we all grew up on the same street and considered each other close enough to be family or something akin to kissing cousins I wasn’t shedding any unnecessary light on the details without a fight.

  “Don’t make me call Hunter.” She’s cute when she tries to threaten me so I decided to pony up the latter because it’s easier than starving.

  Mouth full, I answered her. “What?” My body hurt, but my va-jay-jay sung like a well-oiled transmission. Who knew Damien was the cure all for a homicidal woman on the rag. Next time I would call him instead of popping Midol like skittles, if he would be kind enough to service me. I winced internally realizing how selfish that sounded but that’s kind of where I was in the moment.

  “I just saw Damien leave your house sporting sex hair and you–you have wet shower hair and look like you got off on a bull at a rodeo.” Taylor leaned in to sniff my shoulder. “Yup, I know the post sex shower gel smell.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t feel like letting his scent get rubbed into my couch. I’ll use the deer pee next time.”

  “Gross, Kristen. Besides we are not talking about me, we are however talking about you.” She pointed her finger at me. “You and Damien.” This time she jabbed her finger in my direction and I gently moved it from the center of my chest.

  “Demon.” I countered.

  “Damien. He has a name. I fail to see why you do this to him.”

  “If he stops calling me Pebbles,” I rolled my eyes. “Then I’ll consent to stop calling him Demon.”

  “Arrrg. You two, I swear.” Taylor huffed and I shrugged.

  I put my plate down and adjusted my blanket and heating pad. The best offense was redirecting Taylor’s attention.

  “I know you’ve done it with Hunter before. He can barely keep his bear paws off of you. Don’t tell me I’m the only woman who’s done it and actually liked it.” Eyes rolling, Taylor shoved off the couch leaving me to curl up hugging a throw pillow.

  “Are you really going to avoid talking about what I just saw?” She wants to know about Damien. I’m not ready to talk about it.

  “Eh, probably. Do you want to compare sex notes?” I let her think we reached a stalemate.

  “I only let him spoon me with clothes on.” She husked.

  “Oh come on, not even butt sex for you two?” Watching Taylor turn crimson was the sweetest revenge I conjured up while my insides revolted at being a female of reproductive age.

  “Shut up!”

  “Party pooper.” Giggling I let her off mercifully.

  “Whatever, I prefer to not have a crime scene in my shorts.”

  “You know that they have special underwear for that now.”

  “Ugh, I don’t know how our friendship has survived this long.”

  “Because you love me, and you’re going to stick this heating pad back in the microwave for exactly two minutes and twenty-two seconds.” I thrust the pad at her playing off the pout on my face. Yeah, she loves me.

  “Hand it over number freak.” Taylor grabbed the heating pad from my hand walking into the kitchen where I have to call out to her to make sure she heard my next demand.

  “So did you bring me dough nuts?”

  “Of course KC. I know better than to come over empty handed when you’re in the middle of your moon cycle.” She shook the bag of fresh made doughnuts she dumped on my side table and my mouth waters greedy and expectant.

  “Grandma Halle loves these.” I stuffed a doughnut in my mouth letting the powder fluff out as I speak. I can’t decide if I want to punch him in the face or have his babies today. It’s tough call and one I can’t leave up to the ESPN commentators.

  “And just what would she say about your shenanigans?”

  “I think she would approve and tell me to put on some red lipstick for good measure.”

  “I miss Grandma Halle. It was so great to see her for the Fourth of July party. When is she coming back to town?” Taylor leaned back on my sofa, her eyes closed looking relaxed.

  “Soon, I can’t believe she stills drives three and a half hours from VT to come to everything for us. Are you inviting her to the wedding?” I asked.

  “Of course, I think the shower is a bit much and Hunter wants to keep things small and uncomplicated.”

  “Of course he does, he’s a guy, but it’s
your day too.” I grumbled forced to hide my secret envy.

  “Yes, but we agreed to not invite his family from down south since he hasn’t spoken to them in years.” Taylor frowned and her sadness becomes mine in a way close friends–nearly sisters do.

  “Since the accident with his parents right?”

  Taylor nodded. “I think he’s really hurt by that and I want to respect his wishes. We could always try visiting them later but I don’t want to force the issue. Beside we have Damien’s parents here and they’re really the only family he acknowledges.”

  Having grown up in a loving, if at times neglectful family dynamic, I can’t imagine how Hunter feels at all and so I responded with an answer that sounded agreeable. “Hmm.”

  “Right, so back to what I saw.” Taylor looked ready to gouge me with the stolen steak knives from my old waitressing days in my utensil drawer. I returned the look through one eye wondering if this is one of those come to Jesus moments I’m learning to regret.

  Sighing, “It was a thing. An itch and now it’s done.”

  “Didn’t look done when he left.”

  Signing I wish for her to let it go, “Well, it’s done.”

  “I don’t understand why you won’t give him a chance or at least explain to me why and then I can stop bothering you about it.”

  “We would be terrible in a committed relationship. Just picture it, Damien the consummate jokester and party boy with me the wild child of a municipal judge. We would be every disappointment people expect of us and more.”

  “I think you’re being hard on yourself. Worse, I feel like you’ve written Damien off.” Rubbing the small indents on my arm, I know she’s right. So fucking right, but I pushed it down deep into the recesses and joke instead.

  “Hey, I’m not opposed to hopping on when the mood strikes me and I wouldn’t call that writing him off completely.” I bumped my shoulder with hers and she grunts back, must have been something she was picking up from Hunter.