"Out of Season"
Part 11
By Sister Rose
Standard disclaimer applies.
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Ryan Atwood unlocked the door to his room and let Summer in. She looked about to drop as she went into the bathroom. Ryan closed the door and heard running water. He sat on the bed and took his boots off while he waited. He hung Summer's keys on the nail he had hammered near the door for just that purpose about a year ago. Maybe he would be pulling that nail soon.
When Summer came out, her face was scrubbed of makeup and she was kicking off her shoes. Ryan took his turn to wash his face and brush his teeth.
"I can't unzip this dress with one hand," she said when he came out of the bathroom, stripping off his T-shirt. He tossed the shirt wad in the general direction of his closet.
Ryan stepped quietly to Summer's side. His hands went to her shoulders and turned her around. He swept her silky hair over one shoulder, letting a hand linger over the soft skin at the base of her neck. He unzipped the dress, ran his his knuckles down the exposed skin, and pushed the dress forward over her shoulders and down her body.
He knelt and traced the zipper line of her backbone with light kisses.
"Atwood, I'm too tired ..." she started, though her shivers told him differently.
"You're not going to do any work," he said.
He stood and picked her up and put her on the bed. Ryan laid a gentle, fluttering kiss on the top of her ear, then rimmed the edge in light pecks, ending at the lobe where a silver hoop hung. He bathed the lobe with his tongue.
"Atwood, what are you doing?"
He started the trail of light kisses down her neck, stopping at her delectable collarbone for a more lengthy visit.
"Oh," she said. "OK. Atwood. You have to stop. Now. Oh."
He ignored her, moving his mouth down the front of her chest and climbing beside her into the bed.
"Oh," she said.
He pushed a bra strap away, then a red lace cup. His hungry kisses inched closer toward his target.
Summer put one hand on his chest and one on his forehead, pushing him away firmly.
"Stop," she said.
He lifted his mouth and looked in her eyes for a moment.She really meant it. He flopped back onto the bed beside her and covered his eyes with his hands.
"What were you doing?" she said.
"Kissing you," he said, eyes still covered.
"No, you weren't," she said. "You were doing some sort of apology thing."
"Summer," he said. He couldn't think of how to say what he needed to say, that it was his fault they had been stopped and questioned by the police and that it was his fault that she was sore and tired and that he hoped sex would make it up to her.
Words wouldn't work. They rarely did for him. He had thought his actions would explain but apparently he couldn't even get that right.
"I thought you would like that," he said finally, inadequately, uncovering his eyes, hoping that if he saw her he could figure out what she wanted him to say.
Oh, how he hated talking. It always came out wrong, and it apparently had again, because she was sitting up and pushing her bra strap back into place and the red lace cup with it.
"Oh, I was liking it just fine. That's the problem," she said. "Please look at me."
He sat up and turned toward her. His eyes were on her bellybutton ring. It was silver and matched the ones in her ears. Everything in Summer's life matched except him.
"No," Summer said. "Look at my face."
He obeyed, reluctantly.
"From the beginning, we've never talked about what we have," she said.
Ryan felt his feet racing away from him, swooshing miles away. He swung them around and put them on the floor, trying to make sure they were still there. He spread his naked toes a little, staring at them, bracing for what Summer was about to say.
"Chip called the police."
"What?" Ryan said.
"The police got a call that a red convertible was swerving on the highway and the people inside were yelling and hitting each other. The caller said it looked like a carjacking."
Ryan swallowed hard, mentally adding up the damning pieces: expensive car, expensive girl with an injury, low-rent thug driving.
"I should be in jail right now," he said slowly. "I don't know what you said to the police, but thank you."
She shoved him between his shoulder blades.
"Don't thank me!" she said. "It's my fault. It had to have been Chip who called. He was the one following us. He had to have seen me punch you."
"His fault, not yours," Ryan said.
"No!" she said. "I was feeling down tonight, so I went looking for you to make me feel better."
"That's what I'm for," Ryan said.
"No!" she said again. "Please, just let me talk, OK?"
"Sure," he said, putting his head in his hands, feeling dizzy. She should get to end their affair the way she wanted. "Talk."
"Do you remember how we got together?" she said.