The Worst Kind of Promise (Riverside Reapers Book 2)

FAYE

If it wasn’t for the bruises on my breasts and thighs, I would’ve thought sex with Kit was nothing but a wet dream. It took me thirty minutes to cover up the mauve markings, and even though a pool party isn’t a party without the pool component, I made a vow to myself not to tread any bodies of water in fear that I’ll get bombarded with questions pertaining to the identity of the vampire who sucked the life out of me.

I’m in a good place right now. Better than good. Kit’s made me happier than I’ve been in a long time. And he’s shown me how fun sex can be. Roughness isn’t always a bad thing, not when it’s consensual between both parties. There’s something about his possessiveness that makes me want to embrace my own sexuality.

I can’t stop thinking about how life-changing yesterday was, and that includes the consequences. People do bad things all the time, right? Way worse than keeping an itty-bitty secret from your brother.

I’m just trying to avoid a fight. Fears haven’t stopped filling my head. What if I ruin Hayes and Kit’s friendship? What if I somehow ruin the team dynamic? Hockey is both of their lives, and what I just did could destroy all of that.

Yet despite the guilt, all I can think about is the next time I get to be alone with Kit.

The party’s been in full swing since one, the bass from the stereos and the ruckus from hundreds of voices shaking the foundation of the house. It would be an understatement to say I’m brimming with nerves right now. Nerves about seeing Kit. And not just any Kit, but a shirtless Kit. A shirtless Kit is an Avengers-level threat for women everywhere.

Kit is an attractive, competent, talented, and wealthy guy who women have fawned over probably long before me. After all the time we’ve spent together—after being with the Kit I know—I forgot about the other side of him that’s projected to the public. The playboy hockey player who has a new flavor of woman more often than a person changes their bedsheets.

Great. Now I’m worrying about where we stand.

When I step out of those sliding glass doors, feeling overly naked than I already am, I’m greeted by the picturesque scene of rotating twenty-somethings talking, kissing, or swimming. From my first once-over, I can make out a few familiar faces from the hockey team, but I can’t pinpoint the identities of the plethora of coeds filling up the spacious backyard.

The surface of the pool glistens from the sweltering sun, refractions of light branching out in aqua ripples, only occasionally splashing against the edge of the sodden concrete. The vibrant shade of the grass matches the saturated color of neighboring trees, their leaves flitting about and casting shadows, boasting a plushness only achievable through generous increments of rain. The humid air snaps around me, and even though I’m shaded by an overhang, I can feel the heat beating on my skin, already slicking me in a fine sheen of perspiration that my deodorant is actively fighting against. With gales of wind comes an enticing waft from whatever meat product is cooking on the grill.

You’d think that Kit would be easy to spot in a crowd given his size, but he’s not. Or he is, but he just isn’t here right now. I’m about to turn tail and search inside when a hand clamps down on my wrist and pulls me into a death grip of a hug.

“Faye!” a disembodied voice squeals, squeezing me even tighter. I’m pretty sure my heels lift momentarily off the ground.

There’s only one person who’s consistently happy to see me and who embraces me like a crocodile doing a death roll in the water.

“Aeris, hi,” I wheeze, and upon knocking the breath out of my lungs, Aeris sets me down with an apologetic smile.

She brushes nonexistent dust motes off me. “Ahh, sorry.”

I wave her off. “I love your hugs. I just need a warning next time.”

Lila, Aeris’ best friend, catwalks over to us on six-inch heels, balancing a juicy wedge of watermelon in one hand and a cocktail in the other. She looks stunning with her waves of blond hair falling to her lower back, the natural brush of makeup over her prominent bone structure, and the tiny bikini accentuating every well-proportioned asset of hers. Curves in all the right places, toned muscle definition, an enviable height, sun-kissed skin. It makes sense that she’s a model.

“Faye, you look gorgeous,” she says, enveloping me with a lot less strength. God, she even smells amazing. I pull away before she realizes that I’m sniffing her.

“You look gorgeous! Are you guys enjoying the party?”

“It’s incredible. Just the summer kickoff we needed,” Aeris replies, leaning over to take a sip of Lila’s drink.

Lila glares at Aeris as she takes a prolonged pull, but she doesn’t dare cut her off. “We wanted to take you out to lunch sometime next week if you’re up for it.”

A large grin snags the corner of my mouth, warmth broiling in my chest, a far cry from the mess of hormones I was only a few days ago. “I’d love that.”

“Perfect!” Aeris claps her hands together, the heat-treated curls of her hair bouncing against her shoulders. “It’s been so long since either of us had a girl’s day! I just need a break from the testosterone, you know?”

Oh, do I. I haven’t been living in the house for more than a week, and already I’ve craved more female interaction that I have in all my life. Living with six guys is not for the faint of heart. An overflow of unwashed dishes, underwear in places underwear should not be, sometimes pee on the toilet seat—which is weird since I thought hockey players were supposed to have good aim.

“We want to hear all about what’s going on in your life,” Lila adds, rubbing her hand down my arm in a motherly fashion.

My life? Oh, God. Before I have the chance to make up some bullshit excuse and get the hell out of whatever I just agreed to, Aeris gives me a kiss on the cheek.

She loops her arm through Lila’s. “We’re going to make our rounds, but come find us later.”

And then I watch as the two get swallowed up by the crowd, leaving me alone at the threshold of the party. I contemplate finding Kit, but the universe decides for me when it delivers him up on a silver platter right before my eyes. The moment he sees me, something strange distorts his expression. I can’t tell what’s going on in that head of his, but it doesn’t seem to be good as he bulldozes through groups of people to get to me.

I’m beginning to think I have some sign taped to my chest that says “PULL HERE,” because for the second time this day, my arm gets yanked out of its socket. Kit leeches my balance, leading me to a more private sector of the party, his body so close that if someone were to see us right now, they might be smart enough to put the pieces together.

“What—”

When we take refuge away from potential spectators, he releases me. I know I should be questioning his urgency, but my thoughts seem to crack and disperse when I get a glimpse of his naked torso—brawn packed into muscles that bear subdued strength.

I remember the way he practically rearranged my guts with his giant cock. We burn fast and bright like a shooting star, a once-in-a-life kind of experience, so rare that a connection like this doesn’t happen for just anyone.

His own train of thought seems to have derailed. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“Your bikini.”

I glance down at my party-appropriate attire. “What about it?”

“I…it’s…well…you…” Kit croaks, the tips of his ears turning crimson. It’s smaller than something I’d normally wear, and I guess the tiny piece of fabric only covering my nipples could warrant some lewd stares.

I tighten the black bikini strings twisted around my torso self-consciously. Polyester strips wrap around me three times, creating a skin-revealing cutout, complementing the equally revealing bottoms. “I…?”

“You’re going to ruin me,” he whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear.

What?

There’s a pregnant pause, then Kit shakes his head emphatically. He adjusts his swim trunks ever so slightly. “That’s not why I came over here.”

There’s a visible fight ensuing on his face, oscillating between guilt and conviction. “We need to talk,” he says, his bravado chilling me to the core despite the temperature being in the steady nineties.

My distracted mindset is completely eviscerated in the span of two seconds. He sounds serious. Kit’s never serious. Something’s wrong.

“Is everything okay?” Bile cradles the back of my throat, rising up from a sour stomach lining.

His biceps strain, the inked tiger eyes on his forearm undulating from minuscule muscle movements. I don’t expect the next words that come out of Kit’s mouth. They catch me off guard, and I have no emotional capacity to digest them.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

Whoa, what?

I freeze at the roughness in his voice, the one that peels open a sore on my heart, that batters me from all directions. Shock responds before sadness does, before self-pity coerces tears to dam my eyes.

My blood coagulates, my confusion palpable. “What are you talking about?”

With a torn breath, his fingers badger tousled strands of his hair, cutting through a raven sea like a shark’s fin, a frown favoring the right side of his face. “Yesterday was a mistake,” he whispers.

I feel my heart stop, feel the goddamn world stop. Everyone around me fades into a blurry background, merging until bodies are rendered indecipherable, chatter a mere shuffle of mouths that don’t convey any meaning. I strangle the dread that welcomes me like an old friend.

Yesterday. Was. A. Mistake. Sex was a mistake. I was a mistake.

I can’t…I…

My mind’s playing host to millions of questions right now, yet not a single one makes it from my brain to my mouth. How could he have changed on me so fast? Is he being blackmailed? Was this all some sick game to him? I don’t know what to think right now. He got what he wanted, and now it’s time for him to move on—like he always does.

God, how could I have been so stupid?

Pain bolstered, I involuntarily inch backwards, my back hitting the side of the house, forbidding me from going any farther. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. I don’t want to be having this conversation at all. He doesn’t list closer to me. He stays a reasonable distance away, as if entering my personal bubble will deliver some kind of shock to his system.

“What?” My voice is small, just like it was that night at the gas station. I keep convincing myself that I’m getting better by the day, acknowledging that I’m in control of my trauma, yet here I am, back at square one.

“I should’ve never kissed you.”

Five words. Five words that have a cataclysmic effect on my inner world, crumbling the pillars of our relationship, pulverizing the compassion I have for him deep down. No emotion, no display of anger. It’s just a statement, and it hurts so much more as a result.

I don’t know why my first instinct is to correct him, but I do it to lift the pressure pressing on my sternum. “I kissed you.”

“I meant at the hotel,” he explains, barely able to hold eye contact with me, his thickset chest ballooning with deep inhales. The worry lines creasing his skin are anomalies themselves, and I don’t remember there being such dark circles under his eyes—eyes that look like they’ve been drained of life and light and laughter.

The hotel. He regrets everything. Everything.

I refuse to believe him, believe he can change his mind just like that. I want to lash out, but the encroaching anxiety makes me muzzle myself. I want to get to the bottom of this, not give him another reason to believe we shouldn’t be together.

I drop the strong woman act. “What’s going on, Kit?”

There’s a crack in his visage, large enough to let me peek in for a split second. But then it’s gone, and those walls come right back up, a physical barrier that will always stand in my way. “Nothing. I just think we should nip this in the bud before it becomes anything serious.”

“It’s fucking serious,” I retaliate, my tone smoldering with undue ire. “You’ve led me on this whole time. Do you realize how messed up that is?”

“I’m sorry. I never meant to lead you on, Faye.”

There’s probably an inkling of truth in there, but it’s buried beneath a toxic waste of lies.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I know this isn’t what you want. We’re in a good place, Kit. Why do you want to ruin that?”

He flings his arm wildly between us. “This was never going to work.”

He can’t even say “relationship.”

“So everything you’ve said to me has just been a lie, then? How much you care about me?” I hit him where it hurts, wanting him to feel the pain he’s causing me, wanting it to hurt so badly that he can’t eat or sleep because he’d rather feel nothing at all. He knows how badly I’ve been hurt, yet he has the audacity to say this to me? The one person who broke down my walls and helped me heal from my past is now leaving me with more scars than my rapist.

My cheek is the first victim of the crystalline tears that rain down, streaking through my foundation and sluicing down my neck. Betrayal and heartache engage in a dogfight where neither one is guaranteed to win. The back and forth leaves me disoriented, delirious, and instead of having one overarching emotion take the reins, I’m bazooka-blasted with too many emotions to differentiate. My heart romps from the adrenaline rush, and my stomach knots. I feel like I’m about to be sick.

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings” is the pathetic response Kit gives me.

The one I give him is just as pathetic. “This isn’t the Kit I know.” As hard as it is for me to keep my vision clear, I wipe globs of tears away to look him in the eye, to force him to watch as he breaks my heart.

“If you’re going to fucking talk to me like that, you’re going to look at me,” I growl, using what little strength I have left to grab his jaw and spin him toward me.

His eyes slide to mine. Dark pools of obsidian that couldn’t be more devoid of warmth, of the gentle tenderness that’s kept me whole for the past week.

“This has always been me,” he counters in a clipped tone. “I’m selfish, and I play to get what I want. If I want a win, I play hard on the ice. If I want sex, I play girls. It’s how I operate, and you know that.”

“You’re more than that.”

“I’m not. You were just so blinded by something you could never have.”

Could never have. He means him. He means a healthy, long-term relationship. He means love. He means I was never good enough for more than sex.

My wrath relights over and over again, but when it’s finally drowned beneath my sadness, there’s no chance of it surviving. I’m collapsing; my body is shutting down. I can’t…I can’t deal with what’s happening right now. I can’t accept it.

“Why are you doing this to me? To us?” My stilted words pelt him, but as if they mean nothing, they slide off him like torrents of rain off a waterproof coat. I foolishly believe that this is all one terrible nightmare. A nightmare that I’ll wake up from with Kit’s reliable arms wrapped around me.

“There is no us. There never was. This was all a means to—”

“Sleep with a warm body,” I finish for him, indignation gleaning on my tongue, an incoming migraine knocking on my skull’s doorstep. My head is fuzzy in all the wrong ways, and I feel faint, the wall I’ve been clinging to the only thing keeping me upright. If I wasn’t so afraid of making myself look even worse, I’d fall to my knees.

The hint of a snarl weighs his lips down. “Like I said, it was a mistake.”

“What about everything you’ve said to me? How I confided in you? Was being friends all a lie too?”

For the first time in our argument, Kit’s eyes flash with realization. It’s brief, probably unnoticeable to anyone not paying attention, but it’s there. The Kit that was treating me differently? He’s gone. This is the Kit I should’ve worried about. The one who charms, fucks, then moves on. I don’t know why I believed that I’d be the exception.

This is the last tug of an elastic band, the final stretch before it snaps completely. And I’m right there. Two broken halves that Kit Langley has destroyed with his bare hands.

He opens his mouth to answer me, but nothing comes out.

“I hope it was worth it. I hope this was all worth it,” I say, wishing I could shout and scream at him right now, throw a tantrum, do something.

Even when fighting, even when my world is falling apart, we remain in the shadows. That’s all this will ever be. Something that will never see the light of day. Something to always be hidden away from prying eyes.

I don’t give him a chance to respond. I pick up the last remaining pieces of my dignity and flee the scene, pushing past partygoers as tears stream freely down my face. But this time, I know Kit isn’t right behind me. I know he isn’t calling my name.

I swirl my feet in the cool water, watching tiny whirlpools form. I’m glad that everyone is too encompassed in their own lives to pay much attention to the girl crying her eyes out. I can’t get Kit’s words out of my head. Just like that, at the hands of a single person, my summer turns to complete and utter shit.

I’m so tired of feeling. I’m so tired of always wearing my heart on my sleeve. I wish I could turn my emotions off. I wish I could stop feeling.

I’m about to say fuck it and retreat back to Kit’s bedroom when a large shadow occludes the sun cocooning me. With a grimace, I glance up through bleary eyes to see a figure towering over me. I can’t make out any defining features until the stranger comes into view. A handsome man whom I’ve never seen before sits down next to me, suspending his own rolled-up pant legs into the pool.

He’s conventionally attractive with wild curls of hair peeking out from a backwards baseball cap, clear skin that looks like he’s never experienced the pain of a blind pimple, and a lean body that belongs on a walkway. His cheeks round with a smile, a dimple popping at the corner of his lips. But despite how handsome he is, he does absolutely nothing for me.

“You look like you could use some company,” he says.

I bite the tissue of my cheek, adamant about keeping my eyes down, partly because I don’t want him commenting on my tears. I will them to subside, wetting my throat of its dryness in case I have to speak to him.

“What? Cat got your tongue?”

More like Kit got my tongue.

Awkward tension bobs between us before guilt eclipses me, and a sigh precedes my response. “Sorry. I’m not really in the mood for talking.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he teases, brushing his pinky toe against my ankle.

His touch doesn’t have the same effect that Kit’s does. It’s not life-altering and electric. It doesn’t make my heart trip or my nerves spike. It’s…unwanted.

I don’t want to drag this conversation out. I don’t want him to think I’m interested. I’d make a beeline for the house if that was a socially acceptable way to escape a situation.

The stranger reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small baggie of God knows what. Either he’s as dumb as a doorknob, or he doesn’t understand social cues. He’s about as persistent as the wedgie I’m getting from my bottoms right now.

“I think you could use this.” He shakes the mysterious thing in his hand, and I credit my curiosity to my shortage of sensibility—thank you, Kit.

What looks like white powdered sugar swishes around in the bag.

“What is that?” I ask, though deep down I think I have a very clear idea of what he’s offering me.

“A pick-me-up. Something to help you have some fun.”

My spine snaps straight, the cadence of my heart speeding up. I might not be a big party animal, but I’m a college student. I know what drugs look like. I try to steer clear of them because the thought of being out of control terrifies me, but I’ve known plenty of peers who swear by Adderall before midterms.

I can’t believe I’m actually considering his offer. The all-consuming pain from my talk with Kit continues to chafe me, to rub my emotions raw.

“What is it?”

He opens it, dangling my ecstasy escape in front of me like a carrot on a stick. “A little friend of mine named Molly.”

My brain misfires. Molly? Dear God. The only “hard” drug I’ve ever done was marijuana, and that was only because I accidentally ate a pot brownie at a party once. I then spent the rest of the night curled up on the bathroom floor, having the worst trip of my life. I made a promise to myself to never dabble in drugs ever again.

But here I am—at a fork in the road. The high road tells me to distance myself, to confront my emotions in a healthy way. The low road—which looks very appealing right now—tells me to take the drugs, stop feeling, and forget about Kit Langley. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I deserve a break. Plus, I’m surrounded by people. I doubt anything bad will happen to me.

People do Molly all the time, right? And they don’t end up in the emergency room.

I’m walking a tightrope, hundreds of feet up, not sure if there’s water beneath me to break my fall. Maybe falling is the least of my worries. How much more damage could my body sustain after Kit’s death blow? One hit shouldn’t hurt. If I’m lucky, the pain will disintegrate.

“Do you want it or not?”

I nod.

When he holds out the daunting bag, I wet my index finger, dip it into the snowscape of powder, and stick it into my mouth.