1
Five Years Ago
Oh My God!
He’s kissing me, and it’s the best feeling ever. I don’t want to forget a single detail, so I commit everything to my memory.
The way his lips are soft but assured against me. Roaming and testing. His tongue is demanding… leading me toward my deepest fantasy.
I’m dying.
Dying of pure, sinful pleasure that my eighteen-year-old psyche just may not be able to handle.
I’m not sure if I can handle it because I’ve been in love with Hunter Markham since I was just shy of ten years old. For eight long years, I’ve pined after him.
It didn’t help, and certainly only fanned my flames, that I’m best friends with his sister, Casey, and I practically grew up in his house. He was always teasing me, as a boy four years older will often do. That only made my crush that much stronger, because surely… the reason he was teasing me was because he liked me.
Right?
And tonight… things couldn’t have been any more perfect.
Casey and I graduated high school not but five hours ago. When I walked across the stage to accept my diploma, my eyes scanned the audience. I passed briefly over my parents, who I love and adore beyond measure. They sat right beside Casey’s parents, beaming with pride. I vaguely acknowledged both set of parents, who are the very best of friends, clapping enthusiastically.
Then my eyes landed on Hunter. He was smiling at me, bright and cheerful, his teeth dazzling against his tanned skin. I love the way he’s wearing his hair longer, all shaggy brown and streaked with pale blond from the sun and salt water. He flew in just last night from Fiji, where he had competed in the Volcom Fiji Pro as part of the ASP World Championship Tour. That’s fancy talk for saying Hunter is a professional surfer, and he’s quite good. He placed second in that tournament, but he’s ranked number five in the world.
In the entire freakin’ world, which yeah… makes him that much hotter in my mind.
And tonight… Casey and I made our rounds to the normal beach parties that were going on around Hatteras Island. I’m riding high on the fact that I’m an adult, I’m graduated from high school, and Hunter Markham gallantly offered to shuttle Casey and me around while we celebrated the time-honored tradition of getting drunk on graduation night in our tiny, North Carolina hamlet. So as not to be completely bored with high school parties, he roped his best friend, Wyatt Banks, into riding shotgun with him, which is funny in its own right. You see, Wyatt just started with the police department up in Nags Head, but tonight he was off duty and turning a blind eye to our underage drinking.
Not that Hunter and Wyatt were going to let Casey and me get out of control. In fact, they strictly monitored our beer intake, insisted we drink a bottle of water every time they drove us to a new party, and hovered over us like protective mama bears.
Not that I minded said hovering in the slightest. Any chance for me to be next to Hunter was a chance I was going to relish. He’s more than just a celebrity in these parts. He’s practically a god, and said god-like status brings about a certain amount of fawning and swooning by the female persuasion. I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to watch as Hunter turned down pass after pass by blonde surf bunnies because he was taking his chaperoning duties seriously.
Now… back to the kiss.
It started out innocently enough, even though I may have provoked him a little. I’d had five beers over a two-hour period, and I’m not gonna lie. . . I had a good buzz going. We were just leaving Troy Bean’s party, which was really quite good. His parents were uber-cool and didn’t mind the underage drinking that was going on. They had built a huge fire pit down on the beach, just below the deck of their oceanside house, and had a band playing. It was getting late and, even though we had responsible chaperones, my parents insisted I be home by midnight, fully aware that Hunter and Wyatt would probably be bringing home two very drunk girls.
My parents were cool like that, because I have been, in every sense of the word, the perfect daughter. I graduated top of my class, had never done anything stupid, and got a full ride to the University of North Carolina. My parents trusted me—or rather Hunter—to be safe and smart, even if I was doing a bit of graduation celebration.
When we had less than half an hour to make the approximately ten-mile trip home, Hunter grabbed onto my elbow, bending down near my ear to whisper, “We need to get going, Gabs.”
I couldn’t help the shudder that rolled through me at the nearness of his lips to my skin or the way he called me Gabs. He was the only person in the world that called me that, and thus it was special.
Turning around, he uttered a small curse. “Where the hell did Casey go?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I scanned the area filled with buzzed and frolicking teenagers, but I couldn’t spot Casey. She was most likely off in a dark corner making out with a cute boy. Casey was high-octane wildness times ten, and she owned her sexuality. She made no apologies for the trail of broken hearts she left behind, and always had at least three condoms in her purse at any given time. Casey had it tough the last year, what with her brother and Hunter’s twin, Brody, being sent to prison. She’s been sort of acting out ever since then, and I spend much of my time letting her cry on my shoulder or listening to her shout out curses to the heavens for taking her older brother away.
“I’ll look out here for her,” Wyatt said with a grin. “You look inside on your way out, and I’ll meet you at the car.”
Hunter nodded, his teeth gritted. “I hope to God you find her, man. If I catch her with someone, no telling what I’ll do.”
I shivered again, this time from the menace in Hunter’s tone, because it was just plain hot the way he was so protective. Grabbing my hand, he said, “Let’s go, Gabs.”
And yes, I shuddered once again because of the way he said my name and the feel of my hand in his.
Hunter led me through the house, weaving his way among the indoor partygoers. He nodded at several people, fist bumped a few guys, and gently removed the hand of one whorish girl that tried to grab him by the neck to pull him down for a kiss. I muttered the word “skank” under my breath as we walked past her, and I heard Hunter chuckle.
We never did find Casey inside, so we assumed she was out on the beach somewhere and Wyatt would find her. Hunter led me down the front steps, and we walked along the narrow beachfront roadway to where he had parked his parents’ car a few hundred yards down.
As we walked in the dark on the uneven pavement, Hunter grumbled, “I swear… Casey better not be…”
He trailed off, not wanting to voice what he hoped Casey wasn’t doing. The disappointment rang clear in his voice.
“Give her a break, Hunter,” I said, stumbling slightly over a crack in the road. Luckily, he still had a hold of my hand and steadied me instantly. “She’s having a hard time because of Brody.”
I could feel the tension in his body when I mentioned his twin’s name, and he practically growled, “It’s no excuse.”
He pulled me along faster, and I doubled my pace to keep up. “I’m just saying… she could use some understanding from you.”
Hunter immediately stopped and spun around on me, and of course, I barreled straight into his chest. He released his hold on my hand and immediately gripped my waist to keep me upright. The beers I had swimming in my gut and clouding my head caused me to sway, fortuitously, in closer to his body. My hands came up of their own volition and rested against the hard muscles of his stomach, and I internally sighed over the fact I was touching Hunter Markham.