Finally Ours (Harborview #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Seven Years Ago

CARTER

Angela Burns looks better than she ever has before.

Maybe it’s the glow of the firelight dancing around her features, or the way the short white dress she’s wearing flows around her body. But I actually think it’s her hair. She normally has it up, but tonight, the curls are loose down her back and the wind is picking them up and playing with them, blowing them around her face like it can’t resist touching her.

I’m at a Memorial Day beach party at Huddle’s Point, and even though I came here with my friends Hunter and Jamie, we’ve quickly split up. Hunter is down by the water trying to woo Cassidy Smith, and Jamie is currently chasing his best friend Cat around the bonfire like they’re still ten.

I head closer towards the fire where Angela is standing, and take a swig from my beer. I watch the flames flicker and dance, the coals glowing bright and sharp in the night. I’ve spent the last nine years with a pathetic, desperate crush on this girl, and tonight, I’m finally going to do something about it. I take another step, now only a few paces from her, and stop.

“Mustering up the courage?” she says without turning around to look at me. Her blonde hair is cast in reds and golds from the flames. I want to reach out and touch it, loop my fingers through one of the perfect ringlets and see how soft it is.

“How’d you know it was me standing here?” I ask instead.

She turns now to face me, meeting my gaze and giving me a grin. “I’m a witch.”

“Now that I can believe,” I say, warmth suffusing me and my nerves vanishing. “Angela Burns, Harborview’s very own ergot-riddled witch.”

“Oh my god, only you would take something fun and make it about rotting wheat.” She rolls her eyes at me, but I can tell that she’s happy to see me.

“We learned about it in my bio class this year,” I tell her.

“And I learned about it in history.”

“We make a perfect pair. We should coauthor a paper about it,” I quip.

“In your dreams, Steel.”

We both laugh and then just stand there for a moment, basking in the mirth and absorbing one another’s presence. I can’t help it—I love being around this girl, and have for years. Everything she is calls out to me, lights me up inside. And hearing her laugh makes me feel like it’s possible she could feel the same way.

“So,” I start to say.

“Why has it taken you all these years?” she interrupts and asks. “To approach me, I mean.”

I don’t deny what I’m doing; she’d never buy it.

“I have the courage now where I didn’t before,” I say simply.

“Funny, that’s what I was thinking about myself, too,” she says, her smile bright and sharp in the firelight. “This is the first summer I haven’t felt like a kid.”

“We’re barely twenty.”

“Feels an age away from nineteen, though.”

“I haven’t felt like I was a kid since I was twelve,” I say, giving her a goofy smile, even though I mean it. My parents are always busy with my sister or with their own things, and there were definitely moments where I raised myself as a child.

“An old soul to your core, Carter,” she says.

“Something like that.”

We turn and watch the party unfold together. Hunter and Cassidy are sitting down near the fire and it seems his wooing was successful because she’s leaning into his side. And Jamie and Cat have taken to running down the beach after one another.

“Those two are definitely still kids,” Angela murmurs.

“Forever,” I agree.

“I’m glad we both have the courage now,” she says, circling back around to the matter at hand.

“Who knows if I’ll actually be brave enough to ask you to come home with me.”

“Well you better, because my moms are both home, so no chance of us going there.”

I wouldn’t want to cross either of Angela’s moms. I’ve only spoken with them a few times, but everyone in Harborview knows everyone else. One of her moms, Donna, made her money working on Wall Street in the eighties and nineties, and carries herself with a serious, steady grace. Kate, on the other hand, is a firecracker, always the first to offer to whip up a pitcher of margaritas for the other moms or interrupt others to give her opinion in town meetings. And Angela is their beautiful, intelligent daughter—poised like Donna, with Kate’s blonde hair, and the quiet confidence of someone who knows who they are because their upbringing allowed them the chance to explore themselves freely and while loved.

Angela Burns knows exactly who she is, and that’s why the fact that she wants to go home with me rocks me to my core. She doesn’t do things lightly, without thinking them through, and she means what she says. I realized this fact the summer that I met her, when we were eleven.

“Do you remember when we met?” I ask her, staring at her profile as she looks into the fire. The slope of her nose is perfect. I want to catalog it, and the curve of her cheeks, too. Her cupid’s bow. The arch of her dark blonde brows. The turquoise of her eyes dancing with flames.

“Carter, can you please just?—”

“Just give me a minute here, Ange. I want to know if you remember when we met.”

“I do. We were eleven. It was at Cat’s house.”

“Her parents were throwing a barbecue. Though, they only had veggie burgers so I’m not sure if that actually counts as a barbecue.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that one day, soon after that party, we were at Inlet beach, choosing teams for volleyball. And you pointed right at me and said?—”

“‘You’re mine.’ That’s what I said. I remember.”

“Even then you knew exactly what you wanted,” I tell her. “And that day, I figured out what I wanted, too.”

“We were eleven,” she says, but a blush blooms across her cheeks and I know that she’s pleased to know how long I’ve been pining.

“Doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “I knew. Come home with me?”

“Yes.”

I hold my hand out to her, and she takes it, placing her palm against mine, interlacing our fingers. This first contact between us sends a jolt of electricity through me, striking like lightning over and over again in my chest. We slip off the beach together without saying goodbye to our friends, and no one seems to notice us as we leave, which is fine by me. Neither Angela nor I are fans of the Harborview gossip mill, and I’ve never heard anyone say a peep about her dating life, probably because she keeps it tightly under wraps.

As for me, I’ve barely dated anyone in Harborview because I’ve been fixated on the girl beside me for the last nine years. No one else compares to her. No one else has her wit or intellect or smile or laugh.

We get into my car, and for a moment I have to remind myself that this is not a dream—this is actually happening.

We drive to my house in silence, just enjoying each other’s company, and Angela rolls down her window, the wind catching her hair and whipping it around her face. When we get to my house, we head in through the back door, and the lights illuminating the deck and pool are still on.

“Should we take a midnight swim?” Angela asks.

“Definitely. I’ll just go change into some board shorts, and I can see if we have an extra suit for?—

“Carter,” she says, looking me dead in the eyes with that fearless stare of hers.

And then she slowly unbuttons her shorts, and slips them down to her ankles, stepping out of them. My mouth goes dry at the sight of her long, tanned legs and her rounded hips. Her hands come to the hem of her shirt, and she lifts it over her head, revealing a lacy white bra. She takes that off too, and her heavy breasts swing free.

Not saying a word, she shimmies out of her underwear, and then takes a perfect swan dive into the deep end of the pool, her blonde hair flowing behind her in the water like a mermaid.

I stand there in stunned silence for a moment and then I scramble, tugging my clothes off and following her into the deep end.

ANGELA

“God, Ange, don’t stop, you’re killing me.”

I never thought I’d hear Carter Steel’s voice rough with desire, like it’s been hewn from stone. But here we are. And here I am, my hand wrapped around his cock, my mouth lightly sucking the tip.

“Is this okay?” I ask.

“It’s perfect,” he groans.

I’m kneeling between his thighs on his king-sized bed. At his sides, his hands grip the sheets, and his eyes are closed, as if he’s trying to hold himself back.

“You can touch me, you know,” I say.

This whole time, he’s been such a perfect gentleman: letting me set the pace, attending to my needs before his, making sure everything is good for me. But this is the third time we’re hooking up this week and I’ve decided I’ve had enough of gentlemanly Carter Steel. I want the controlling, asshole Carter who I know and love. Not that I’ll admit that to him.

His hands find my hair, and he grips my ponytail hard and then guides my mouth further onto his length.

“That okay, Ange?”

I merely moan around his shaft in response.

“You like having my cock in your mouth, don’t you?” His tone is all smug satisfaction, and I don’t need to see his face to know he’s smiling his best know-it-all smile.

I pull my mouth away. “About as much as you like having my mouth on your cock,” I say, grinning up at him.

Because while Carter might be a controlling know-it-all, we’re evenly matched, and always have been. If we tallied up the score for our many sparring matches over the years, I’m sure it would be tied. I like to think I’m less arrogant than he is, and that I outpace him when it comes to wits and my infamous poker face.

“I like having your pussy on my cock, too, Angel,” he says.

And before I can come up with an adequate response to that nickname, he’s hauling me up and positioning me astride him.

“You haven’t ridden me yet. I want to watch your tits bounce as you take my cock, and then I want you to come all over it.” His words surprise me—they’re much more confident and sure than those of the few guys I’ve hooked up with at school. But then again, Carter has always been different and together we’ve always had something special.

“Silly boy,” I say, leaning down and dragging a finger over his lips. “You’ll be coming first.”

“That a bet?”

“The winner buys the loser dinner,” I say, my heart pounding. While we’ve spent the last few days holed up in his room in Harborview having sex while his parents are away on vacation, we haven’t gone on a date yet. And we haven’t discussed what it will mean either. What we’re going to tell people.

“Deal,” he says.

And then he thrusts upwards and fills me completely, and all I can do is gasp.

“When I win,” he says, rolling his hips, “I’m getting surf and turf at Watchman’s Dock.”

I can’t think of a come back quickly enough, and he starts to stroke my clit with his thumb. I tip my head back and sit up straighter, the angle deep and delicious this way. Carter groans, and I start to move on him, knowing that this angle makes my curves look their best.

But as he continues to stroke me, I wonder if winning this bet is even worth it. Wouldn’t it be nice to just let Carter have this one? To luxuriate in the feel of his hands on me, rubbing me in a near perfect rhythm?

But I know that half the fun for Carter is the fight. And it is for me too, I’m finding.

I move faster, my tits bouncing just like he wanted, and I pinch my nipples, rolling them between my fingers. Carter can’t help himself, and he palms both of my breasts, kneading them as I continue to ride him.

“Fuck, Ange, you look so good like this,” he says, jerking his hips upwards and meeting mine.

“I’d look even better covered in your cum,” I say. The words are cruder than we’ve spoken to one another before, but I can tell he likes the honesty as he fucks me from below even harder.

“You would,” he admits. “But Angel, this isn’t about me. It’s always about you.” His touch on my clit is feather light now, and I let out a whine. He grabs my hips and stills me on top of him, and then moves so that his cock is no longer inside of me. “I want,” he starts, and then hesitates.

“What, Carter? Tell me.”

“It’s too much, and I’ve never done it with?—

“Me neither. Nothing like this with anyone else before.”

Before him, I’d only had sex with a few random guys at college. All of this is new to me, and I had a feeling it was for him as well. The chemistry between us makes us both bolder, willing to do things we wouldn’t dream of doing with anyone else. With another man, I’d be shy and unsure. With Carter, I know he can handle everything I want to give him.

“Beg me,” he finally says. “I want you to beg. And then I want you to come only when I say you can.”

“And in return?” I ask.

“I’ll make you come harder than you ever have before.”

“Okay,” I say.

He rubs my clit a little harder, but still doesn’t let me move on top of him.

“Please, Carter,” I say, the words coming more naturally to me than I thought they would. “Let me ride you. Let me feel your cock again.”

He thrusts upwards against me. “This what you want, Ange?”

“Yes,” I moan.

“Tell me how much and maybe I’ll let you have it again.”

“Badly,” I say, fumbling for words. “I’ll do anything. I’ll suck it again, Carter, just?—

He thrusts inside me fully once more. “You asked so nicely. Now ride me,” he says, his voice having taken on a commanding tone.

We’ve slipped in our new roles easily, and I do as he says, moving my hips up and down on him, grinding my pussy against his hand below, hoping to please him—to earn his praise.

“Don’t come yet,” he says. “I want you begging even more.”

“Please let me come,” I choke out, heat rising to my face as I say it. “Please,” I say more quietly this time.

“Louder, Angel.”

“Please,” I say, my voice hoarse.

“That’s it, beg me like a good girl.” He starts rubbing my clit again, faster this time, and between that, and the feel of him inside me, I almost lose it.

“Hang on for me,” he says.

I gasp and grip his hips, abandoning myself to the feeling of fucking his hand. “Please let me come, Carter, I can’t?—”

“You’re so perfect, Angel,” he says, using that nickname again. “Now come for me.”

He circles my clit faster, and the orgasm sweeps through me in pounding waves. I all but fall apart on his cock.

“Such a perfect girl,” he tells me, “coming when I told you to.”

“Carter, please, please, please,” I hear myself say as I come down from the high and his hand is still moving on me.

“That’s it, come another time for me. I love seeing you like this, I love giving you pleasure.”

I let out a sob and start to come again, my back arching with waves of pleasure until I’m shaking on top of him.

His hand stills, and I go limp on top of him. I lay there for a moment, before rolling over onto my back next to him. I stare at the white ceiling, the fan whirring around and cooling down the August air, my mind completely blank, the aftershocks of pleasure still whipping through me.

Carter rolls onto his side and pulls me closer, and I let him. I don’t say anything about how I don’t like to cuddle, or how I won’t be able to fall asleep next to him if we take a nap. I’m willing to try because it’s him, and I’ve had the stupidest, biggest crush on him since we were kids.

And besides, the way he strokes my back and my arm is nice. The way he tucks me against his chest feels just right. So right that I don’t even mind the fact that I lost the bet. I’ll happily be buying him dinner later, and I hope he orders every damn thing off the menu.

“That was perfect, Angel,” he tells me.

“But you didn’t come,” I say, the realization hitting me.

“So? Sex isn’t a score card. I’m sure you’ll make me see stars later,” he tells me.

“You’re just happy you won the bet,” I grumble.

“No, that’s not it at all,” he says, and pulls me in closer.

That evening we drive to Watchman’s Dock, which is in the next town over, and as promised, I buy him surf and turf. But Carter is too kind to let me pay for the whole thing, and he buys me pasta with clams and dessert. We eat while watching the sunset, and spend the rest of the evening cuddled up together on the beach with a blanket.

When we get back to his house, we go straight to bed, but I just can’t seem to sleep. My mind is going at a million miles a minute, thinking about everything that’s happening between us.

“What is it?” Carter asks from beside me in bed, sensing somehow that I’m agitated.

“I’m just thinking about everything,” I say. “I can’t wait for the rest of the summer.”

“Me too,” he says.

We keep talking, and eventually, I stop feeling anxious and start feeling relaxed and happy. He doesn’t know how much it means to me, to have him stay up with me like this. Normally when I’m tossing and turning, unable to sleep because of anxiety and insomnia, I’m all alone.

It feels nice to have Carter here with me. And when he falls asleep first an hour later, I don’t mind one bit.

Two days later, Carter calls me while I’m in the middle of dinner with my moms. My heart leaps, but I don’t pick up because my mama gives me dagger eyes, just daring me to do it. She’s never approved of phones at the table.

After we’re done eating, I call him back.

“Hey Carter,” I say.

“Hey Angel,” he says. My insides flip at that nickname—one he only started calling me a few days ago.

“Why’d you call?” Something has me nervous—wary, even. We’ve never talked on the phone before, preferring to communicate over text to make plans.

He takes a deep breath that is audible over the line. “I got an internship for the summer,” he says. “A really cool one. I’ll be working with a team studying colonies of shore birds up and down the Northeast.”

“That’s incredible!” I say, and I mean it. Carter has been telling me all week how excited he is to finish his degree in two more years and start grad school, where he can hopefully get to work doing what he loves: wildlife conservation. “How’d you manage to get one?”

“One of my professors from school emailed me about it and told me to contact the team if I was interested. They said they’re happy to have me. But I leave on a boat tomorrow. I’m packing right now.”

“Oh,” I say. “That’s still good though. We can keep in touch until you’re back.”

“That’s the thing. I’ll be gone until I have to go back to school.”

My heart sinks into the pit of my stomach. I thought we’d have the summer together, but I guess not.

“We’ll keep in touch,” I say.

“And Thanksgiving isn’t far away,” he reassures me. “We’ll both be home then.”

My heart swells at that—that he thinks we’ll be together until Thanksgiving. We chat for a few more minutes, and he tells me about the trip and the stops they’ll be making, but soon he has to hang up to finish packing. I don’t ask him if he has time to see me tonight, because it’s clear that he doesn’t, and he doesn’t offer to.

The next day, I text him good luck. He doesn’t respond right away, but that’s okay. I’m sure he’s busy or that they have spotty service out on the water.

A few days later, he finally texts me back, and I’m relieved, even though it’s just a single, solitary, “Hey.”

That’s the last time I hear from him for the rest of the summer.