Boyfriend for the Summer (A Second Chance Enemies to Lovers Romance) Read online

  Pushing his cock deep, Eric changes the rhythm. He locks our hips together so we can’t move apart. Every motion grinds down on my clit as he speeds up, moving his hips to tease that spot so far inside that it’s hard to reach.

  He has no problem reaching it.

  I wrap my legs around his hips and relax, surrendering to the bright star of orgasm that’s flooding in from every direction. We move toward it together. There’s no holding back or trying to last longer. And it’s beautiful.

  Pleasure spirals up and out, washing over me in a bright wave. In the same moment, I feel Eric fall into it with me, spilling heat deep inside. We shudder together, each other’s pleasure triggering echoes in each other back and forth and again.

  I gasp into his mouth, cling to him until everything passes and we’re left the way we were on that first night together. Just resting. Basking in each other. Ever since then it’s been one of my favorite parts of sex—his comforting weight.

  Maybe this can work. The peace I feel gives me hope that maybe we can be together after all. And I’m glad that we did this, because no matter what happens I will not let this memory be contaminated. This one will always be perfect in my mind.

  But it’s time to face the things that we’ve been avoiding.

  “Why did you come back here, Eric?” My words are loud in the silence, breaking the magic of our silence. But it’s okay. It lets us breathe in a different way.

  “What do you mean?”

  I sigh, running my fingers through his hair. “I mean that you shouldn’t be here. I remember what we talked about when we were here the last time. You’re crazy, stupid talented. And I know you’re in New York and have an agent.”

  Eric startles and pulls further back to look at me. “How do you know that?”

  I blush, biting my lip. “Leena told me. Couple of years ago.”

  He sighs heavily and gets up. “I suppose it’s time we talk about that elephant in the room.”

  I draw my hand down the skin of his back as he reaches for his underwear. “I wish we didn’t have to.”

  He gets dressed quickly, and I reach for my clothes too. Eric doesn’t seem angry, more like he doesn’t want to have this conversation naked. I can’t say I blame him. It’s drawing a line between what just happened and the conversation that we have to have.

  “I have questions too, you know,” he says. “Like why you pretended that what we had never happened? I thought we had agreed if we still felt the way after that summer, we would give it a shot.”

  He drops his head in his hands. “I just want to know what I did. What changed in that month?”

  Shock shatters through me. “What happened? What do you mean what happened?”

  “Why did you cut me off entirely?”

  “I didn’t,” I gasp. “When you came to school you were already with her, and she’s my best friend. You dated her for years. You picked her, Eric. What was I supposed to do?”

  Pain blooms in my heart as I speak those words, because it brings back all the pain. Seeing him with her ripped my heart open, right after the shock of seeing him at all. We had been within days of reaching out to each other, and then there he was. With Leena.

  Eric looks about as shocked as I do. “I didn’t pick her, Seph. You picked her. You didn’t say anything.”

  “How was I supposed to do that? She showed up and was head over heels for you. What choice did I have?”

  He shakes his head. “You could have told her who I was. You could have told her that I was taken.”

  “And you could have told her no.”

  We’re both quiet for a moment, the absence of our voices loud in the woods. The waterfall and the wind in the trees only serve to emphasize the fact that neither of us is speaking.

  “Maybe it would have been different, if we had been together. If you’d asked me to be your girlfriend.”

  “Seph, you can’t put that on me. I tried. I was the one who wanted to stay together. I begged. I told you that I would make the drives to see you. That I would call. I would have done anything for you. You were scared and you wanted to see if we still felt the same way after time apart. I didn’t want that.”

  A tear slips out of my eye. “I know that I fucked up too. I know I did. But I wanted you, Eric. I wanted you to tell me that you loved me and that nothing else mattered but the two of us. You didn’t do any of that. Not even before we left. You disappeared without a goodbye, and the next time I saw you, you were with her.”

  Eric covers his face with his hands. “There’s so much that I can’t change. That I won’t be able to take back. I’m sure that you feel the same. It’s in the past. Is there any way that we can find a way past it? Cause I want that Seph. I want you. I want what we’ve never been able to have.”

  Everything feels like it’s crashing down around me. It doesn’t matter what Mabel says. This is complicated, even after facing it. There’s no way through these thorns without getting snagged and torn. “This is the past, Eric. Look where we are. What are we doing? We’re reliving it.”

  “And that’s bad? We have a second chance.”

  I’m really crying now. It feels like my chest is cracking open because how am I supposed to do this? How am I meant to go back to my phone and that unanswered text message and tell my best friend that I’ve been fucking her ex, even if I loved him first. “It’s too much,” I say.

  “It’s not. We can draw a line under everything.”

  I shake my head. “I thought I could, but I would have to choose between you and her. And I can’t do that.”

  “Leena—” Eric cuts himself off, holding back whatever was going to say. “Persephone please. Please don’t do this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, tears pouring down my face. “I can’t do this.”

  I’m a coward, and Mabel would be ashamed of me, but this hurts too much. I knew when he asked me why I was being cold that it was for a good reason. That it would end up in pain. I was too stupid and hopeful for this to actually work out. And so I leave. I run away.

  19

  Eric

  Six Years Ago

  It’s the last day of camp, and my heart is heavy. I don’t want this to be the end of everything that Seph and I have, and I don’t want the summer to be over. I’m excited for the possibility of some of things to come this next year, but this has been the best time of my life.

  I’m eating breakfast with my parents, as is our tradition on the last day of camp. “So,” my father says, “we thought that you might introduce Persephone to us.”

  I swallow the bite of pancake that’s in my mouth. “How much do you know?”

  My mother chuckles. “You two aren’t as subtle as you think you are. But we like her. She seems sweet. We figured there was a reason.”

  I sigh. “It’s just hard. I want more than camp, and she’s nervous that the real world will ruin us. I thought that meeting my parents as my parents might be a little much in the middle of that.”

  “Fair enough,” my father says, taking a sip of his coffee. “What are you going to do to convince her?”

  I smile, because he already figured out that I was going to try. “I have a couple of ideas.”

  “And we have something that might help,” Mom says, holding up a set of keys.

  Keys to the family RV.

  “What are those for?”

  She passes the keys across the table to me. “Your father and I went to get the camper yesterday so that we could use it to haul things tomorrow. If you want to use it tonight, your father and I are okay with that.”

  I gape at my parents. Are they seriously saying that they’re fine with me sneaking my girlfriend into the camper and having sex? “Really?”

  My dad gives me a look. “We’re not stupid, Eric. You two have been spending time together since the beginning. If you guys haven’t slept together, I’ll be a horse’s ass.”

  “Aaron,” my mother drops her face into one hand. “Jesus.” They’re both laughin
g though. “But yes, Eric. Your father and I both know what it’s like to be your age, and as long as you’re being careful, you can use it tonight.”

  I’m not meeting either of their eyes because I don’t really feel comfortable talking to my parents about my sex life, but still. “That’s really nice of you.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” my dad says, raising an eyebrow. “I have a reputation to maintain as a hardass.”

  I roll my eyes. Everyone knows my dad enforces the rules, but no would ever say he’s a hardass. Finishing my food, I grab the keys. Now I have more plans, on top of the things that I was already doing.

  “Have fun,” they call after me.

  I find Seph where I knew I would: writing by the lake. I’ve done everything I can, and now I have to make my play. Dinner has passed, and the sun is setting. We haven’t seen each other much today. Partially because I’ve been busy getting ready for tonight. Partially because tomorrow is going to hurt.

  “Hi beautiful.”

  She blushes before she even looks up, and as long as I can make her blush, I think that I’ll be happy. “Hi.”

  “I missed you today.”

  “Me too,” she says, closing the book and turning to me on the bench. This picnic table is one that she’s frequented with her writing, and it’s become the place that I check first when I’m looking for her. “You didn’t seem like you were anywhere.”

  I smile. “That’s because I was getting ready.”

  “For what?”

  “To give you your gift.”

  Her eyes sparkle. “You got me a gift?”

  “Well, kind of. Actually, my parents kind of did.”

  Seph’s eyebrows raise. “What?”

  I laugh and tell her about how they cornered me at breakfast, and about what they offered. “You said that you wanted to sleep together.”

  “I did say that,” she leans into kiss me hard, and I wrap my arms around her. To hell with pretending that we’re not together. Not when my parents literally got us a room and there are only 12 hours left of camp anyway.

  I have another gift for her, but that’s going to come later.

  “Think you can sneak out the stuff you need from your cabin? I mean, we have permission but we probably don’t want to draw that kind of attention.”

  She smirks. “Yeah. My bunkmates figured out what was happening when I was sneaking out every night. It’ll be fine.”

  “Okay,” I say. “We can go whenever.”

  Seph laughs. “The sooner the better. We should grab snacks.”

  “Done,” I say.

  “Really?”

  “Where do you think I’ve been all day? I’m prepared.”

  She smiles. “I have to see this now.”

  Twenty minutes later she hops out of the window of her cabin and into my arms with a bag slung over her shoulder, and we’re walking to the RV, which is parked near my parents’ cabin, but not so close that we won’t have privacy.

  I open the door to it and bow. “Your carriage awaits.” She’s grinning when she walks past me. It’s just an RV, and to be honest, there’s not that much that can be done to hide the fact. But I’ve done what I can. I stole blankets from as many places as I could find them, and more lanterns like the one I used at the waterfall.

  The blankets are tucked here and there, making the inside of the RV look like a tent, and the bed as made as nicely as I could find, surrounded by the lanterns and flowers that I found arranged on one of the pillows. Along with a bag of Starbursts that I was saving for a goodbye gift.

  Seph turns back to me. “You did all this for us?”

  “Well, me and my parents, but I’ll take the credit.”

  She laughs as she grabs my shirt and pulls me close. “I so do not want to think about your parents right now.”

  “Me either. I can think of something else I’d much rather do.”

  Seph drops her bag to the floor, and we reach for each other at the same time.

  20

  Persephone

  Six Years Ago

  I’m looking up at the ceiling of this camper which right now feels more like an Arabian escape with all the blankets. Everything that happened after my bag hit the floor happened fast. I’m trying to catch my breath while I stare upwards, and Eric is beside me doing the same.

  That was…it was amazing. He could have just brought me here and done nothing and I still would have appreciated the gesture. But he went to all this trouble to make it special. And I love that.

  Eric turns on his side toward me, brash in his nudity. It’s nice that we don’t have to hide. And the fact that we’re actually in a bed together. I have a blanket draped across me, but he doesn’t seem to care.

  I have to admit that it’s a nice view.

  He leans across me to where he’s stashed the snacks and grins when he comes back. “Starburst?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I say. “Have you ever done that thing where you unwrap it inside your mouth?”

  “What?” He gives me a look.

  “Girls at school used to do it all the time,” I laugh. “They always said that it was supposed to tell whether you were a good kisser because you could use your tongue to unwrap it. I was always too scared to try because I had never been kissed and I didn’t want them to make fun of me if I couldn’t do it.”

  Eric looks intrigued. “Well, we’ve had enough practice at kissing to give it a go, I think.”

  I sit up. “Sure.”

  We both take a candy and pop them into our mouths fully wrapped. Immediately I realize that this might be harder than I thought. Starburst wrappers are stuck down. I twist it and turn it in my mouth, and giggle because Eric is doing exactly the same thing and it looks hilarious.

  I have to admit that the amount of making out that I’ve done with Eric does seem to have helped this endeavor. My tongue is a lot more flexible that in used to be.

  There. I find a tiny corner of the wrapper that’s undone, and I spear my tongue under it. I’m not sure if you’re allowed to use your teeth or not. In those same groups of girls there were arguments about that too. But I decide to try it without.

  Across from the little corner I freed I find the opposite one, and I work it loose. After that, it’s easy. Just a little flap that unrolls around the candy, and I pull the wrapper between my lips victorious. Eric’s eyes bug out in shock, and the contortions of his mouth grow more hectic as he tries to complete it. It takes him a little longer, but he does get it. Rolling his eyes as he chews his hard-won candy. “Jesus, that’s harder than I thought. Had to use my teeth to get the wrapper unstuck.”

  “Some people might say that’s cheating. I didn’t use my teeth.”

  He tackles me gently, giving me a kiss that tastes like cherry. “I guess you’re just a better kisser than me.”

  “Damn straight.” I show him just how good I am for a few minutes. “Eric, I had a thought.”

  “Dangerous things, thoughts.”

  “I know, but…it might help things.”

  He rolls onto his side so we’re lying next to each other, our faces closer. “I always want to know what you’re thinking, Persephone.”

  I ignore the tingling in my skin and the heat in my cheeks. “I think we should take one month after camp. Thirty days. Without each other. To see if this is real. And if we’re both still here, then I want it all. But if we’re not, then it will be okay.”

  His face falls a little. “Are you sure?”

  I laugh, even though I don’t find this remotely funny. “No. But it’s the only way I can think of that makes sense.”

  “Besides just taking the leap? And being together?” he asks.

  I close my eyes. “I want that. I do. But every time close my eyes and imagine what it’s going to be like to watch you leave, I’m terrified. And I don’t know how to go from this—seeing you every day—to nothing at all.”

  He leans in and presses his lips to my neck softly, and then more firmly, leading to w
hat I’m sure will be much more of the same for the night. And I want it all. “Two weeks,” he says.

  “Three.”

  He looks up at me. “Until school starts.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes are entirely serious. “And if three weeks go by, and I show up on your doorstep telling you that I feel exactly the same way that I do now, what happens?”

  “Then I’ll do whatever you want,” I say. “We’ll give it a go, even if it’s hard.”

  “I will,” he says. “I know that there’s nothing that I can say right now that will change your mind, so I won’t try. But I’m going to prove to you that this is real, Seph. I’ll do what I have to.”

  My heart and stomach settle. I’m not sure why I’m so convinced that I need this time, but it’s deep in my gut. And I’m so happy that he agreed that my whole body relaxes. “Three weeks,” I whisper.

  “And not a day longer. If you think that I won’t think about you every day, you’re crazy.”

  I shake my head, because even after all this, I don’t quite believe it. I’ve known too many people who meet the love of their life at camp and as soon as school starts, they’re tangled with someone else pushed up against the lockers and that’s the new love of their life.

  We’re seventeen. What do we know about love? No matter what my heart says. Eric kisses me, and doesn’t let me go. And for the rest of the time that we have, I know I’ll be able to enjoy it. In an actual bed.

  I’m smiling as Eric rolls on top of me.

  It’s dim in the camper when I open my eyes, entirely alone. Next to me, there is a CD in a case with a note.

  You asked for a recording. This was the best I could do here.

  Three weeks.

  -Eric

  Terror floods my chest, and I put on my clothes and burst out the doors of the camper. The whole camp is the usual frenzy of the last day. Campers running around for last minute swims and packing. I sling my bag over my shoulder and head toward the main camp. I don’t see Eric.