The Pact Read online

  Sometimes she felt like she was rolling around in the back of the Jeep with this incredibly gorgeous, sexy guy. And sometimes she felt like she was wrestling with her own brother. Try as she might, she couldn't untangle one from the other.

  She gently pushed on Chris's chest, trying to get him to sit up. When he lifted his head with a frown on his face, she smiled at him. His lips were still shiny and wet, and she felt a cooling ring around her nipple. She twisted her fingers with his. "Do you feel, you know, close to me?"

  Chris's eyes burned. "God, yeah."

  Emily faltered. "I don't mean it ... like that," she corrected. "I guess, well, it's just that you know me better than my own brother."

  "You don't have a brother."

  "I know," Emily said. "But if I did, you'd be it."

  Chris grinned wickedly. "Well, let's all thank God I'm not," he said, bending his head again.

  She tugged at his hair. "Do you ever think about me like that?" she asked shyly. "Like a sister?"

  "Not right now," he said in a strangled voice, and he touched his lips to hers. "I can promise you that I never," he kissed her again, "ever," and again, "have wanted to do this with Kate." He rolled away of his own volition, the thick ridge beneath his jeans going soft. "God," he said, shuddering. "Now you've got me all freaked out."

  Emily placed a hand on his chest. She loved his chest, with its light dusting of hair and long muscles. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." She moved into Chris's arms and felt them close around her. "Let's not talk," she suggested, and buried her face in the heat of his skin.

  HIS BREATH FALLS into my mouth, the only air I have. His hands start at my ankles and slide up my shins, pulling them apart like a vise, and I know what is coming as his fingers stab into me.

  He won't let me close my legs, he won't let me curl away. There is blood on his hand. He pushes against my shoulders and draws a red line down the middle of my chest. It cracks open and I feel him reaching deep inside me, tight and uncomfortable; then something snakes out like jelly and when I lift my eyes I see Chris's teeth sinking into my heart.

  "NO."

  Emily tugged at the collar of Chris's shirt. "No," she repeated, and when his hands held her tighter, she pinched his neck. "No!" she yelled, rolling him off her with an unholy shove. "I said no," she panted.

  Chris swallowed hard, his erection pink over the edge of his unzipped jeans. "I didn't think you meant it," he said.

  "Jesus, Chris," she said. She rubbed her arms, covered with goosebumps, and turned away. The problem was, in a Jeep, there was not all that far to go.

  She waited for his hands to close over her shoulders, like they always did once they came to this point. It was like a play, coming to the same end of the act, every night. The curtain would come down, and they'd do it all over again tomorrow. But Emily didn't feel Chris coming toward her this time. She heard the rasp of his zipper as he dressed himself, the creak of the Jeep's flatbed as he came to his knees, maneuvering around her. "Move," he ordered tersely, and when she did he snapped the rear seat back up into place.

  It was not until the overhead light went on as Chris opened the front door to slide into the driver's seat that Emily realized he meant to leave. Scrambling over the steering console, she managed to lock herself into her seat belt as Chris roared out of the empty parking lot.

  He was driving fast and frenzied, very unlike Chris's natural caution. When he took a turn in the road on two wheels, Emily put her hand on his arm. "What is the matter with you?"

  He stared at her, his face so tight in the glare of the streetlights that for a moment Em did not recognize him at all. "What's the matter with me?" he parroted. "What's the matter with me?"

  Without warning, he swung the car down a dead-end street off to the right and slammed the stick shift into Park. "You want to know what's the matter with me, Em?" He grabbed her hand and shoved it hard against his groin. "That's what's the matter with me." He released her wrist, letting her hand crawl beneath her thigh in hiding. "It's the only thing I can think of, the only thing that keeps me going. And night after night you say no, and I'm supposed to sit back and deal with it my own way, but the thing is I can't deal with it. Not anymore." Emily's face reddened and she stared at her lap, hearing Chris sigh after a moment. He rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. "Do you have any idea," he said, his voice soft, "any idea at all, how much I want you?"

  She bit her lip. "Wanting isn't the same as loving."

  He laughed, startled. "Are you joking? I've loved you for--well, Christ, for my whole life. It's the wanting part that's new to me." He stroked Emily's temple with his thumb. "Wanting isn't the same thing as loving," he agreed. "But they might as well be, at least for me."

  "Why?" Emily managed.

  Chris smiled at her, melting her strongest defenses. "Because wanting you, Em," he said, "has only made me love you that much more."

  EVERYTHING WAS SHARPER. She could smell his black breath, feel the coarse hairs on the back of his hand, see her own face staring back at her. She was wearing something with elastic at the waist; it snapped back against her hips. There were the familiar sensations of his fingernails scratching at her, his palms grinding up against her nipples, the burning between her legs.

  But this time there was more. The droning whirr of--what?--bees? The tang of disinfectant. And the unmistakable scent of a kitchen, of something being fried in grease.

  RATTLED, EMILY WOKE UP, unable to remember what it was that had left her so alert and tense that going back to sleep was an impossibility. Probably, she'd been dreaming of what would happen the next night. The night she and Chris had reserved to have sex for the first time.

  Make love, she reminded herself, as if the euphemism might change it into something easier to accept.

  She squinted in the dark, trying to locate her sneakers. She dragged them out from beneath the desk and slipped her feet inside, leaving them untied. Then she pulled Chris's swimming sweatshirt over her nightgown and tiptoed downstairs and out of the house.

  It was warm for May and the moon was high and swollen, ribboning the path between the Hartes' and the Golds' like a silver stream. Emily hurried, her arms flashing white as the thin limbs of the birches she passed.

  To her surprise, when she reached Chris's house, his bedroom light was still on. At three in the morning? On a Thursday night? She picked up a small stone and whipped it at his window, seeing his face appear almost instantly. The light winked black and suddenly Chris was standing a few feet away, in a T-shirt and boxers, his fingers flexing on the frame of the side door.

  "I couldn't sleep," Emily said.

  "Me neither," Chris admitted, with a smile. "Kept thinking about tomorrow and getting all worked up."

  Emily didn't say anything. Let him think that was what had kept her awake, too.

  He came off the porch, barefoot, wincing at the gravel and twigs that cut into the soles of his feet as he approached Emily. "Come on," he said. "Might as well have insomnia together."

  He pulled her along the edge of the Hartes' lawn, to the point where it ran into forest. The ground there was softer--pine needles still wet with winter, moss that grew in a ratty green fringe. Chris's step grew more sure as they headed into the woods, toward a massive granite slab.

  It had been years since they'd come there to play, with sticks for muskets and small cannonball boulders. Chris climbed onto the high, flat rock and helped Emily up. He curled his arm over her shoulders and looked back toward his house. "You remember when you pushed me off here and I had to get stitches?"

  Emily's hand went blindly to the spot on Chris's jaw. "Seventeen," she said dryly. "You still haven't forgiven me."

  "Oh, I've forgiven you," Chris assured her. "I just haven't forgotten."

  "Okay," she said, spreading her arms. "Push me off, so we'll be even."

  Chris lunged, rolling Em onto her back as she laughed and kicked her heels against his shins. They tickled and squirmed the same way Emil