Eighteen years old with a diploma metaphorically in hand, Remi was free. Even the weather had cooperated, rewarding the early June date with a bright and shiny day warm enough for her to wear her new dress. A long, backless number in watercolor blues and greens. The breeze tugged at her skirts. The rest of her classmates, all six of them, had shown up to the post-graduation celebration in St. Ignace in shorts and t-shirts.
Just another way that she didn’t quite fit in. But it finally didn’t matter.
With high school officially behind her, she was a few short months from reinventing herself. The fragile asthmatic. The weirdo synesthete. The trouble-making little sister. They all disappeared with one last ferry ride to the mainland in August.
Then her life would officially begin at art school—thank you, scholarships and financial aid. Sure, Detroit was still in Michigan. But it might as well be a separate country from idyllic Mackinac. She’d be close enough to home in case she flamed out in the first week or two, but she wanted the fresh start bad enough that she wouldn’t let that happen.
The art shop, her intended destination, beckoned the eye with windows full of color and order just begging to be messed up and rearranged. Brand new brushes pined for a swath of paint. Miles of blank canvas held its breath, waiting for someone to write their story across them.
Waiting for her to create a future.
“What are you doing, Remi?” He appeared in worn jeans and that gray t-shirt that fitted to his broad chest. Every time she got within a foot or two of the man, her skin buzzed with awareness. He wasn’t that many years ahead of her and her classmates, but Brick Callan was all man.
“Daydreaming. What are you doing, Brick?” she asked with a flirtatious smile.
“Making sure you don’t get into any trouble. Why don’t you go back to the party?”
She threw her arms wide and spun in a little circle. “Haven’t you heard? You can officially retire now.”
A smile played on his firm lips. “Just like that?”
She shrugged, annoyed that he wasn’t seeing the magic of her transformation. “I’m eighteen. An adult. A high school graduate. I’m leaving for college in August.”
The hint of smile disappeared. “I am aware,” he said.
She let the silence stretch on, testing him to see how long it would take for him to break it.
“I didn’t get you a graduation present yet,” he said finally.
“Did you get Spencer one?” she asked.
“Nope.”
She wasn’t quite grown-up enough to hide the triumphant flush.
“Are you still mad at him for the accident?”
He uncrossed his arms and pressed a palm into the stone above her head. His nearness disoriented her like one too many wine coolers. He made her feel small but safe. Treasured. Protected. And part of her craved it. But there was another piece that wanted to break free, to shed this life and its expectations.
Maybe then he’d see her for the woman she was instead of a collection of amusing anecdotes and memories.
“I am.”
His voice held the rough edges of anger. She winced. “I’m sorry about your truck.”
While other schools salivated over the chance to host their prom on the island, the senior class of Mackinac delighted in venturing to the mainland. Her platonic date Spencer, who’d been devastated when Audrey moved with her family, had been too busy rehashing his mother’s invitation to visit her in Vegas for the summer to realize the traffic light had turned red.
“There’s prostitutes out there, Remi! Lot’s of them.”
She’d been just about to remark that he was more likely to get into trouble with a loan shark than a prostitute when a Honda Fit had bounced right off the passenger door.
Brick had looked positively murderous at the ferry landing.
The look he leveled her with was stormy. He held her gaze for a tumultuous minute before he gave a rueful shake of his head. “It was never about the truck. He wasn’t careful with you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. They’d been dancing around the issue for an eternity. She was single. She was of age. And she was more than willing. Was he finally admitting that he cared?
“Breathe, Rem.” His hand, big, warm, callused, closed over her shoulder and covered part of her chest. It felt so good. So right. So inevitable. Why the hell wasn’t he kissing her yet?
“Brick. I’m eighteen. I’m out of school. I’m not seeing Spencer anymore. I’m not a damn virgin. What the hell are you waiting for?” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Don’t what? Damn it, Brick. Don’t you want me?”
“Is that what you think?”
“I’m tired of thinking, of guessing. Spell it out for me. You’re there every time I need you, sometimes even before I know I need you. You know all my deepest, darkest secrets. You are the only person who can tell when I’m lying. When you look at me after you’ve worn through all your willpower for the day, sometimes it looks like you can’t decide if you want to devour me or destroy me.”
She could see the clench of his jaw, how the cords of his neck stood out, and knew he was close to breaking.
“God damn it, Remi. Please stop talking.” But he didn’t back up. He didn’t take his hand off her. It anchored her to the spot, to him. It gave her the focus and the strength to see it through.
“You need to say it,” she insisted. “One way or another, you need to tell me where I stand with you.”
“You’re safe with me. That’s all you need to know.” His fingers curled into the flesh of her shoulder like they couldn’t help themselves.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m sick of being safe. Aren’t you tired of protecting me?”
“Yes!” he bellowed. “I’m fucking exhausted! Are you happy? I’m tired of keeping you out of trouble and keeping my damn hands off you.”
Her hands shot up triumphantly. “Finally!” The transformation was already beginning. He could see her as something more than his little brother’s annoying friend. He would let her be more.
“Remi. You’re leaving for school in a couple of weeks,” he said.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” To her, a summer fling was the epitome of adulthood. Being grown-up to enjoy a temporary relationship that they both could look back on fondly? Share secret winks across the Thanksgiving table. Maybe pick back up where they left off once she was done with college. Yes, please. Sign her up.
“You’re leaving,” he said stubbornly.
“And?”
His jaw clenched in that adorably annoyed way of his. “And I don’t want to ruin you.”
“Ruin me? Good lord, man, have you had your ears cleaned? I’m not a virgin.”
“Jesus, Remi!” He threw a glance over his shoulder and towed her into the alleyway between buildings away from the spring foot traffic. He kicked the decorative gate shut behind them and deposited her against the cool stone of the building. “If I let myself touch you? If I let myself go? Neither of us would survive.”
“Well, somebody ate a bowl of Humble Flakes for breakfast this morning. Your chivalry is so admirable,” she snapped.
“You and your goddamn smart mouth.”
“Go ahead. Teach me a lesson,” she taunted.
He leaned in until their foreheads touched. She wished she could bottle the smell of him. She’d call it First Crush and make a billion dollars.
“Remi, baby, if you knew one-tenth of the things I’ve thought about doing, you’d run away and never look back.”
Her heart was hammering in her chest as adrenaline and lust released into her bloodstream. “I don’t run, Brick.” No one had ever made her feel like he did. And deep down in some secret part, she was worried no one ever would.
“You better fucking start now.” His voice was barely a rasp.
“If I reached under that belt right now, what would I find?” To drive her point home, she curled her fingertips into the waistband of his jeans.
He squeezed his eyes shut and hissed. “Jesus.”
“No use praying for help. Jesus isn’t worried about your dick, Brick.”
“I’m not touching you.” He gritted out the words like a rusty mantra.
“What if I touch you?” she whispered. She’d lost the thread of the fight. Lost the point she was trying to make. She skated her fingers over the buckle and listened to the intake of his breath. “Do you want me to? If you do, you have to say it. You can’t just hope it’ll happen. You need to say the words.”
She watched his face change as he looked down at her, something like pain in his eyes. Oh, God. He was going to walk away. He was going to stroll down the sidewalk and leave her with wet panties and a broken heart. And she was going to have to make it her life’s mission to torture the man for the rest of his earthly years.
Cool, rough stone at her back. Hot, hard Brick at her front. It was her new favorite place to be.
His gaze dipped to her chest where the material gaped, and he clenched his jaw so hard his cheeks hollowed.
Very deliberately, he placed a hand on either side of her head. She could see the war waging behind his eyes. Want and need with right and wrong. He wanted her. The extra-large bulge behind that soft denim told her that. But he was fighting it like she was poison.
“Do you want me to touch you, Brick?” she asked again in a silky whisper.
He was crowding her with that big, wonderful body of his. Looming into her space and still not touching her. As much as it pissed her off, his willpower, his desire to do the right thing, was a goddamn work of art.
His eyes were squeezed shut. His entire body was rigid, like a trap set to spring.
And then he nodded.
She sucked in a breath, not daring to blink. “Say it,” she said softly.
Life went on outside the little alley. Tourists window-shopped. Baristas brewed coffees. Birds dipped into the water, hunting silvery flashes of fish. But none of it mattered. None of it existed. The only thing she cared about was the hum of Brick’s body mere inches from her own. The scent of him burrowing its way into her brain.
“Yes.”
It was a broken rasp.
And it set them both free.
She didn’t give him a chance to rethink, to change his mind or regroup. To rebuild the walls she’d managed to knock down.
Remi slid her palm over his belt buckle and lower. When she cupped his erection in her palm, he shuddered against her like a man destroyed. Again, he dropped his forehead to hers. His hands fisted on the wall on either side of her head.
She felt strong, powerful. And when she pressed her palm against his rigid shaft, when he trembled against her, she felt like a goddamn goddess.
“Fuck,” he groaned, thrusting into her hand.
One tight fist struck the wall in slow motion.
It wasn’t enough. She needed to feel him in her hand. Needed to grip him, hard.
But when she reached for his belt, he stopped her. “No.”
“Huh?”
“Remi, baby. If you take my dick out, I’m going to fuck you in a dirty alley.”
A fantasy. Not being seen as some fragile little thing in need of coddling. To be taken. To be needed. To push him so far he could no longer take care.
“I see no problem with that,” she said. Her breath was coming in little, short heaves.
“I do. Breathe,” he reminded her.
“You breathe.”
“We’re not doing this here,” he said firmly.
“Then where?”
“Not here.”
“But somewhere? Soon?”
He dipped his head until his mouth hovered just above hers. “Yes.”
She was dizzy with it. One word, and he’d made her feel like she was exploding into a thousand pieces. “Will you kiss me?”
His lips parted, and she breathed in his exhale, wanting every piece of him she could have.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Promise me?”
“I promise.”
She woke in a mood brighter than the morning sun. An hour before she usually dragged herself out of bed, Remi bopped into the kitchen.
“Ooh! Bear claws,” she said, pouncing on the box of baked goods. “What’s the occasion?”
It was only after her first bite of sugary goodness that she started to read the room. Her parents looked…sad.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Brick left,” her father said.
“Left what?” The house? He’d been here? Had he asked her parents for permission to date her? The old-fashioned notion was both adorable and appalling.
“The island,” her mother announced. “He got a job at one of the horse farms on the mainland.”
The pastry turned to dust in her mouth.
“But…” Mackinac was his home. He’d said so. His grandparents were here. His brother. She was here. “Why? Did he say why?”
“He just said it was time for a change,” her dad said as he gave the morning paper a shake.
“What about Spencer? What about his grandparents? He can’t just abandon them. They need him.” Her voice sounded shrill. He couldn’t abandon her. She needed him.
“He’s hiring in-home health aides for the summer, and Spencer’s spending the summer in Las Vegas with their mom,” her mother said, clearly not understanding that the world had just tipped on its axis and started spinning backward.
“He left this for you. It’s a graduation gift,” her dad said, nudging a brown paper bag from the art store toward her.
“I’m going to miss that boy,” Darlene mused. “He has such a big heart.”
Remi’s heart, on the other hand, had just splintered into a million tiny shards. He hadn’t wanted her after all. He hadn’t even thought enough of her to say good-bye.
She was never going to forgive him as long as they both lived.
