The Worst Kind of Promise (Riverside Reapers Book 2)

KIT

I didn’t expect Faye to take me up on my offer. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if I’d see her during future holidays because I had to go and make things awkward between us. But by some miracle, she said yes, and now she’s standing scarily close to me.

Sun-dappled and glowing—even despite sleep trying to mute her beauty—Faye stands at the height of my chest, staring up at me, enthusiasm playing in her russet eyes. Golden light, as soft as silk, outlines the profile of her face, dusting over her barely there freckles.

She looks beautiful.

My gaze gravitates toward her eyes, which might seem like safe territory if it wasn’t for my desire to get lost in them.

“I honestly didn’t expect you to say yes.” The reality of the situation hits me square in the chest like a boomerang. The side effects of my proposition—namely anxiety and uncertainty—take turns folding my stomach into an origami crane.

Faye looks up at me through her lashes, a smile rounding her lips. Lips that I would give anything to kiss right now.

“You made some good points,” she explains, reaching down to pick up the phone. When she leans past me, I catch a faint blush spill over her cheeks. She puts the phone face-down in the handset, effectively ending the call.

“I could use a distraction from all of this. And you’re right, you know. I need to work through this around people I trust.”

Am I retaining what she’s telling me? Not really. Am I memorizing whatever is responsible for her heavenly peach smell? Yes. Am I memorizing the speckles of honey strewn throughout her brown irises? Very much so.

She suddenly sobers, pushing her lower lip out and crossing her arms over her chest like she means business. “You just have to promise me something.”

God, she looks cute even when she’s trying to be intimidating.

“Promise?” My voice cracks—which I didn’t think was even possible anymore—and I pass it off as a throat clear, which may or may not be very convincing.

“Promise me you won’t tell Hayes about what happened here,” she says, something formidable lurking in her eyes, threatening to probably snipe me where I stand if I don’t agree to said promise.

Hayes is one of my best friends. No, I don’t feel great keeping the truth from him. But, given the situation, it seems justified. And it’s not really my secret to divulge.

“I gave you a chance to mull over my offer, and you accepted. You’re giving me a chance to mull over your offer, and I’m willing to do whatever I can to make this summer easier for you. If that means keeping your secret, then I, Kit Patricia Langley, promise not to tell Hayes what happened here,” I pledge, planting one hand over my heart.

Faye cocks her head, snickering. “Your middle name is Patricia?”

“Unfortunately, yes. And none of the guys know that, so I’m praying you won’t say anything.”

That spark that I know lives within Faye—the one I’ve always admired from afar but now have the privilege to witness up close—lights her up brighter than any goal lights. It’s like, in this fleeting moment, she’s sloughed off the pain, and I can see through to the depths of her very essence. And if you ask me what that essence looks like, it’s a radiant, glowing ball of fire, one that has every possibility of charring me alive.

But I don’t think I’m afraid to get a little burnt.

Her eyes hood to catlike slits, her voice roughening to a husky whisper, one that makes my dick perk up in my boxers. “I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of causing a little trouble.”

Fuck. Trouble with Faye sounds like the perfect pastime.

I swallow thickly, my Adam’s apple bobbing in my throat. “You wouldn’t dare.”

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, feigning innocence. “How else am I supposed to keep myself entertained this summer?”

I don’t know how, but she’s somehow moved even closer to me, her breasts practically brushing against my chest. This weird, primal urge washes over me to pull her closer and kiss her with abandon, using my tongue to map the inside of her mouth and the suppleness of her skin and the swell of her curves. I wonder if her pussy tastes as sweet as I’ve imagined—glistening, pink, begging to be defiled.

“You’re gonna make this summer hell for me, aren’t you?” Nervous energy thrums through my veins.

“You’re telling me that the big, bad Kit Langley is afraid of a little trouble?”

“When it’s fun sized and dangerously addictive like you, I am very afraid.”

Easy laughter breezes out of her, lyrical sounding, soft enough to cushion my eardrums. “I never would’ve thought it’d take someone like me to bring you to your knees.”

Uncurbed desire simmers deep in my gut, popping like oil against blistering steel. “If you wanted me on my knees, Faye, all you had to do was ask,” I drawl, taking advantage of the proximity to ghost a knuckle along her jawline.

Her breath hitches from my touch, her eyes falling closed, like she’s soaking up every last second of us being alone together. “You can’t say stuff like that,” she whispers.

“Say stuff like what?”

Faye’s eyes pop open, and her short-lived smile flatlines. “Kit…”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

I want to say I didn’t mean it, but I did.

“It’s not that. I mean, this is all just some harmless flirting, right? It’s not like anything’s going to happen between us.”

Ouch.

Emptiness saws through me with jagged edges. My heart’s always been half-empty, and I used to fill that hole with booze and girls and hockey. But with Faye, just an arm’s length away from me, I think she could be the cure for my perpetual heartache. Except she doesn’t want this…me.

“Is that what you want? For nothing to happen?” I ask, my world giving out underneath me.

Please don’t say yes.

“If we complicate things between us, it could put a strain on our friendship—on the group. You don’t want that, do you? You couldn’t possibly want me.”

My heart blips in my chest, singing out for her. Except as loud as it sounds in my ears, it’s a noiseless mumble in hers.

I should be careful with what I say, but it’s like my brain short-circuits whenever I’m near her. “I could, and I do. Nothing has to change. We don’t have to let this thing between us uproot the friendship we’ve already built.”

Tears pool in her Bambi eyes, her entire body trembling, and even though I want to reach out and silence her tremors, she’ll just steer away from me. “I don’t do casual, Kit. I’m not some conquest you can just toss aside when you get bored. I’m not interested in fucking for the sake of fucking. I want to mean something to someone.”

Faye means more to me than she’ll ever know.

It feels like all I’ve ever known is chaos—having to deal with the aftermath of my parents’ divorce, trying to prove to the entire hockey world that I’m more than a trust fund baby, never letting myself grow close to someone because I don’t know if I could ever truly love them. I don’t know much, but I know one thing for certain: winning Faye Hollings’ heart isn’t a game. It’s the end of the line.

“I would never ask that of you.”

It dawns on me that Faye will never believe a word I say unless I prove it to her. So I do just that.

Adrenaline skyrockets through me, tipping me to Faye’s lips, and I swallow her in a kiss that seems to stop both time and my heart. She meets my mouth with hesitancy at first. I wait for her to pull away, but to my surprise, she retaliates with an intensity as blinding as volcanic lightning. Electricity pulses through me, and when my tongue finds hers, she lets out the most delicious moan.

That tiny taste of a sound—orgasmic in all the right ways—makes my cock strain painfully against my boxers, weeping at the mere idea of being inside of her. Just thinking about her tight pussy clenching around my girth, moving me deeper with her slick arousal, has me harder than I’ve ever been before. I’m pretty sure there’s pre-cum staining my underwear right now.

My hand comes up to root in her hair, and I bring her into my body with a forceful pull, loving the way she fits around me like we were made for one another. Her arms slink up my back, and I’m grateful for my lack of shirt, granting me full feeling of her fingernails scoring into my skin. She clings to me like she doesn’t want to let go, like breaking our connection will make the heavens themselves crumble to dust.

I don’t want to let go, either.

But eventually, one of us has to. And Faye does.

When she pulls back, her cheeks are splotchy, and her lips swollen. Then she starts whacking me on the arm.

“You kissed me!” she screeches, not ceasing her onslaught.

I wince and try to shoo her away like she’s a pesky fly. “Yeah, I was there! Why are you hitting me?”

“Because”—slap—“you”—slap—“kissed”—slap—“me!”

When I unfold from my standing fetal position, she’s huffing and puffing, red in the face from exertion.

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time!”

“It wasn’t!”

“That’s not what your body was saying,” I argue, gesturing to the erect state of her nipples against my T-shirt. And yes, I’m fully aware that my dick’s at full mast right now.

She gasps and immediately covers her breasts.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re no better!” Still keeping her arm plastered to her chest, she waves at my engorged crotch with a stiff hand.

I don’t even bother looking down. “No shit, Faye. I’m so fucking hard right now that I can’t think straight. You do this to me. No other girl does, okay? All of the girls I’ve been with haven’t held a candle to you. You’re all I ever think about, and it kills me that I can’t have you.”

Faye’s expression drops like a stone in ice-cold water, the frustration leaching from her eyes. Her arms fall to her side, and I want to smooth the little crease between her brows.

Her voice is quiet and wobbly. I almost don’t hear it over the boisterous clamor of traffic outside.

“Do you really mean that?”

I caress her cheek, beginning to believe that I might wither away if I don’t touch her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t know what you would say. I was worried it would scare you away.”

“I’m just as much at fault as you are,” she says, her lashes kissing her brow bone as she stares up at me.

I show her some eyeteeth. “Then I guess we’re both big idiots.”

I manage to elicit a genuine laugh from her, and I’m pretty sure my heart grows two sizes just from hearing it.

Her hand rests over mine as she leans the slightest bit into me. “My brother’s going to kill me, isn’t he?”

“If he’s going to kill anyone, it’s going to be me,” I admit, and upon seeing the frown twisting her lips, I quickly fire back, “But it’s fucking worth it.”

Faye sighs out the weight of the world, which doesn’t seem humanly possible given how tiny she is (at least compared to me). I expect her to keep arguing with me, but she doesn’t. All she does is hug me, her small arms wrapping around me, her nose smushed against my pectorals.

I have no idea how something so simple, so ordinary, could bring me such immense pleasure.

We embrace for what feels like an immeasurable amount of time, until my stomach grumbles audibly and we break apart.

Faye’s eyes round in realization. “I cock-blocked your breakfast, didn’t I?”

“Maybe a little, but it’s perfect. I want to take you to breakfast. At a real dining establishment that sells full-sized sausages instead of mini wieners.”

She does a double take. “You want to take me to breakfast?”

It kills me that she seems so surprised, like she couldn’t understand why I’d want to spend every second of my time with her. I’m obsessed with this girl. I’d give her anything she wanted. If Faye asked me to make her a dining table from scratch, I’d make her that goddamn table, even with my one woodshop class worth of experience.

Butterflies skitter inside me, creating a small windstorm with how much they’re flapping their wings. “You’re spending the summer with me, Faye. Eating breakfast with me is a requirement.”