Riding Curves by Christa Wick Read Free Book Online Page B

the narrow bed several times
through the night to find myself cradled in his loose embrace, I
had anticipated a more lingering good-bye kiss full of tongue and
licks and gentle nibbles before he joined my father on the
boat.
    Initially, I reminded myself how much
a creature of habit Aiden was -- steadfast and predictable. His
routine at the lake had never before involved teasing me with a
kiss that promised another long night of our bodies entwined, his
tongue invading my mouth as a prelude to his cock fucking slow and
sure in and out of me.
    By the time lunched rolled around, the
predictable creature of habit that was Aiden Perry morphed into a
specter for Monday's kiss-off that I couldn't shove down. I
mentally catalogued every female who had flitted into and quickly
out of our lives because of her temporary, intense relationship
with him. I had often thought he was caught in a cycle of rejecting
women before they could reject him. It was a totally stupid cycle,
but I knew his history.
    I knew his mother. Even after my
parents took Aiden under their wing, she had danced in and out of
his life, arriving when she needed a sympathetic shoulder and
departing as soon as she thought she had found a permanent solution
to her loneliness.
    But even Winona Perry's flings lasted
longer than Aiden's.
    As we rolled into Auburn in the rental
on Monday, I realized I was about to become his shortest known
fling to date. The entire drive, his attention remained riveted on
the road. We made no stops except for gas and lunch, his body and
its language remote across the restaurant table. Each time I
reached across the car's center console to make brief contact, he
tensed.
    I stopped trying once we reached the
city line and remained quiet until we parked in front of my dorm.
He turned the engine off, but didn't say anything.
    "Why?" I asked. Something was going on
inside his head, I knew it. It was not something my dad had said on
the lake or anything like that. It had happened overnight on
Saturday between that last kiss ripe with post-coital bliss and the
pre-dawn wakening.
    Throughout the drive, I replayed all
of Saturday. The kitchen, the woods, the bedroom. He had said he
wouldn't be able to go slow or control himself if he saw me; his
voice and cock had thickened from my needy whimpers and
whines.
    He said he wanted to be my last but
was stiffly dumping me off at my dorm and I had no reasonable
expectation of so much as a handshake good-bye.
    "You didn't mean any of it, did you?"
I bobbed my head under the weight of a slow building realization. I
had no idea why, but he had been playing me. Maybe he knew all
along about my crush and he thought it was for the best that I get
over him. I wished he had found a better way. I didn't think this
way would work.
    I knew it wouldn't. My gut twisted
inside my skin and I felt like I was going to puke.
    He turned to me, looking me directly
in the eye for the first time throughout the trip. Another movie
moment. It always would be -- just as it would always be one
sided.
    "Cece…" Reaching up, he stroked my
cheek with the back of his fingers. "Everything I said remains
true. I want to be your last lover."
    A guilty look washed over his face but
he shook it away before it could settle. "Saturday night, I wanted
to be your first, too. But you went through high school with a fake
boyfriend, baby girl. How many real dates have you been
on?"
    I shrugged, embarrassed to say the
number. Without realizing it, I had fallen irrevocably in love with
Aiden while I played the beard for Kevin. None of the guys in my
circle at college had stood a chance against the man sitting next
to me.
    "Any, baby?"
    When I remained mute, he sighed
heavily and withdrew his hand from my cheek to rub at his forehead
like I had just given him the world's largest migraine
ever.
    "So Saturday was your first kiss, your
first finger--" He strangled on the statement before he could reach
the finish. His hand dropped to cover his