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  WITH YOU (New Adult Contemporary Romance)

  Ann King

  Copyright 2013 by Ann King

  All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, God for all my blessings. To my wonderful son and husband for your unconditional love.

  With gratitude to my family and friends for your endless support.

  WITH YOU (A New Adult Contemporary Romance)

  I didn’t know how I was going to get over losing Peter—the guy I was supposed to spend my life with.

  Losing him was like losing a part of my soul. I didn’t know if I could start over again. To trust again.

  Then hot and sexy as sin, Cory “Mr. Trouble” Knights came back into the picture. He was Peter’s best friend and my sworn enemy…

  Stranded alone…in the middle of a deadly storm, fighting for survival, was the last place I thought I’d see Cory again. But it turned out to be an experience I will never forget…

  CHAPTER ONE

  Peter looked so beautiful as he lay on his back with his eyes closed.

  As if he were dreaming. His lips curved into a subtle smile. My eyes traced the perfect features of his handsome face. His eyelashes were thick black and long against his beautiful pale skin. Eyelashes so beautiful they’d make any girl jealous. He had smooth chiselled cheek bones and looked like an earth angel. No. He looked more like a sexy Greek god.

  My heart squeezed in anguish as I leaned over him to press my lips to his. A heaviness centered on my chest. His lips were so…cold. Oh, God. So icy cold. Frigid. Stiff. Not warm, soft and caressing as they used to be.

  But that shouldn’t surprise me, should it?

  Peter was dead.

  That sweet scent of cologne that always melted my insides whenever he was near me was no longer there. It was replaced by a strange concoction of embalming fluid and whatever else they’d used to preserve him for his big day.

  The shiny oak casket was lined with silky, cream-colored interior and he looked so immaculate in his dark grey suit and blue tie as his head rested on the smooth satin pillow.

  I gulped hard, hot tears rolled down my cheeks. The first of many to drop in the coming weeks and months. God, I missed him so much. My heart ached for him. To talk to him again. To ask him what happened that night. What really went down when he was out with his so-called friends, Cory and Daniel. Why had they survived while he perished? Why? Why? Why?

  I was only twenty-two years old. We both were. It was crazy to think that life could be cut so short when we hadn’t really begun to live.

  I knew life could throw you some crazy curve-balls and you had to always have your bat in hand but I never thought I’d be struck out like this. I never thought Peter would be out of the game so soon.

  He’d seemed so…immortal. As if he had his whole future ahead of him. That only taught me one thing—that every day was a gift. A present to be opened and fully enjoyed. When you woke up in the morning and realized you could still breathe, it was to be considered a precious present. Something I would never take for granted again. Ever.

  I learned that nothing was promised to me. It wasn’t what happened to me but what happened inside me that I had control over. I wished it was easier to put into practice as it was to say. I was an emotional train wreck inside. Torn to shreds.

  I was inconsolable right now.

  It had been said that time healed all wounds but I think it would take a hell of a lot of time, self-analysis and therapy to get over what happened.

  How was I supposed to look forward to a future without Peter in it?

  Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost obviously didn’t know the heart crushing pain of losing the one person you love more than anything in the world, knowing you’d never ever be able to hold them again or talk to them again. My heart wasn’t broken when I heard the news of Peter’s death, it was shattered into a billion tiny pieces and I didn’t know if I’d ever have the courage to piece together what I had left.

  Peter understood me. He understood what it was like to be…different. I grew up not knowing who my real father was and had issues with my curves and fitting in at school. He was extremely tall, heavy but firm and muscled. The captain of the Rexton High football team with a perfect 4.0 average. Girls swooned over him in the hallways by their lockers. Okay, so I was one of them but I didn’t think I’d have a chance with him until he asked me out one day. I was stunned. My throat had closed up at the time. I couldn’t speak. Why me? Why had he chosen me when he could have the Mandy, the prom queen, or any of the gorgeous cheerleading girls? Why had he chosen simple, frumpily dressed me?

  Peter came from a good family. An adopted one. Kind of like me. Only it was my estranged grandparents who took me in when my mother died, which had left another gaping hole in my soul. Peter’s dad was some hot shot Assistant DA and prominent member of the community. He had adopted all his kids since he couldn’t breed on his own as Peter once told me. His words, not mine.

  Tears blinded my eyes as I hugged myself to stifle the violent trembling inside me. Longingly, I gazed at Peter’s body. His beautiful lips. The guy who’d given me my first kiss. My first real kiss on the lips.

  I remembered it all as if it were yesterday. It was kind of weird. We were out with a group of friends after a game. Cory and his girlfriend were also with us.

  Cory was his good friend and a guy I first had a crush on but he sort of brushed me off. In fact, I had my heart set on Cory first, fantasizing about him everyday in Bio class. He was sinfully sexy hot. But he was also untouchable. He was seriously involved with a college girl at the time and I pretty much gave up on any chance of being with him. I had heard he even knocked her up and was going to be a daddy soon. Those rumors were never proven.

  I tend not to believe rumors anyway, since I’d been the recipient of fake, stupid rumors about me by haters from my school. From haters who came across as friends at first.

  I learned quickly that those that gossiped to you will gossip about you. But that was another story. I vowed not to let haters inside my skin or inside my head. They weren’t worth my thoughts or my time.

  Anyway, I couldn’t be with Cory realistically but his buddy, Peter, always had his eyes on me. In fact, I’d heard him once tell Peter to keep the hell away from me. That really stung my self-esteem like acid. I couldn’t understand why but I felt as if Cory didn’t think I was good enough for himself or Peter. Screw what Cory thought.

  I had gotten over it. Sort of. Okay, it racked my insides and tore me to shreds to think of the audacity Cory had then. But then Peter just asked to hang out with me one night after we’d gone for soda and pizza after a game. Then he walked me home. He held my hand. It felt odd. I’d never held the hand of a guy before. Not like that anyway. His hand was softer than I’d imagined, yet strong. I tingled inside as we walked home under the moonlight that night. Then…

  Well he surprised me when he got to the door and told me he had enjoyed my company and he wanted to see more of me. I was stoked. The captain of the Rexton High football team wanted me? My heart hammered hard in my chest when he got so close to me. I thought I would faint from all the dizzying feelings inside me. Butterflies exploded in my belly. He stroked my cheek with his soft finger and rested his fingers on my chin pulling me closer to him. I could still feel the warm breath on my lips.

  “You okay?” Peter had asked.

  “Y
eah, why?” I replied, breathless. God, it was so embarrassing. This was not at all like I’d imagined it would be. I just knew it that night. I would get my first real kiss. At least I’d hoped that would be the case.

  “Well, you look nervous. Don’t worry, I don’t bite.” His boyish grin melted me inside. “Can I kiss you goodnight?” he asked in a low voice out of the blue. I didn’t think it would be something I had to give permission to.

  At least that was not what I’d read in romance novels. I mean, it usually just happened, right?

  Maybe he felt just as awkward as I’d felt that night but he was so popular, I just figured he’d done it tons of times with other girls. There I was sixteen and getting my first real kiss once I consented, of course. Lame, I know. But I wasn’t exactly as confident as the other girls in my class. They’d snicker and talk about the various sizes of some of the guys at school—where the guy’s crotch was concerned. How they’d gagged when they’d taken him into their mouth for the first time.

  My inner thigh pulsed at the thought. Would Peter ask me to…? Give him a blow job, too? Did guys really get that kind of pleasure from the girls at the school or was it just rumors? I’d heard some of them did it between classes as Rexton High, but who really knew. Tons of stuff went on at my school. Shit! There were prostitution rings and drugs going around. It wasn’t the best school in the world, but it was the one I had to attend. I really didn’t fit in there at all. I had even thought with a tinge of paranoia if Peter was just having me on and wanted to screw with me so he could tell the guys what he did with me but those thoughts melted away. I trusted Peter. I really did. There was something that connected with him. He’d always taken things slow with me. He’d never pushed me, not even to have sex until I was really ready. What a gentleman, I thought.

  “I guess you can kiss me?” I had told him that night.

  “You guess?” he cocked a brow.

  “Yes.” I rolled my eyes. What else was I supposed to say?

  As if he’d rehearsed the moves he tilted his head and I tilted mine the opposite direction and well, he slid his hot tongue inside my mouth. We were both scared at the time. I could tell by the trembling and whenever he was nervous he would rake his hand through his mousy brown hair, like several times.

  Wow! It wasn’t how I’d thought it would be at all. I was sorry to say but it was awkward. Not at all like the sparks flying stuff I’d read about. But it was a nice kiss—and my first real kiss. Maybe it was me who was a bad kisser and he really had to work hard with me. I didn’t really know then. But he’d had a lot of girls to compare me with. I had no other guy to compare with. Maybe this was how kisses were and everybody was exaggerating how awesome it really was.

  Or maybe he wasn’t really my true soul mate.

  I mean it wasn’t as if I’d practiced kissing or anything. And I hadn’t done it with anyone yet.

  Peter had pulled away breathless. I was also breathless because I thought I would suffocate if I didn’t come up for air.

  But after that night it actually got better—at least we got the mechanics of the kiss right. After a few weeks of “dating” we sort of progressed to doing other stuff with each other.

  When I first saw him with his boxers pulled down I was stunned. I mean, really stunned. Again, I had no real life experience at that point to compare to but I was so sure he wouldn’t fit anywhere inside me. There was this night when I told him I wasn’t ready to go all the way and he seemed a bit disappointed but he tried to hide it. We were at the park near my house in the evening. It was pretty quiet since we were the only ones there.

  “I understand,” he had told me. “Maybe we can take it slow.” He lowered his head to kiss me on the cheek and something just came over me.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the sexiness of his cologne or his closeness that sent my blood pumping but I’d felt a rush. An urgency to be with him then. My body was so not saying the same thing my mind was. I moved my head so that our lips were lined up. I wanted to feel the softness of his lips on mine and the warmth of his tongue inside my mouth. It was weird but I grew fond of his kisses. I felt as if I were losing him that night and I didn’t want it to end that way. Before long we were French kissing and one thing meshed into another. He’d slid his warm hand under my blouse and upwards towards my bra. I was nervous as heck and trembled again.

  He pulled his hand away and I shuddered. “Why did you stop?” I panted.

  “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret, Kate,” he said, biting his lip.

  “No. I won’t regret this,” I whispered, still breathless. I wasn’t sure why he was so nervous then. I mean it wasn’t like it would be his first time. We were both sixteen but still…I thought he’d be used to this. Maybe it was me who made him nervous. I didn’t even know if that was a bad sign or a good one.

  Under the dark moonlit sky, we sat for a while on the park bench just talking. About all kinds of stuff. “It’s getting cold, why don’t we head back to the car? I’ll turn the heater on.”

  I thought it was so sweet of him. Goosebumps erupted all down my arms and anywhere else exposed on my body. Peter was the one to always notice things. I really wanted to take our relationship to the next level. I really did. I just didn’t know why I was so damn nervous. Was I afraid of screwing it up? Or maybe not liking it? I knew or at least I heard about all the other girls at school doing it with their boyfriends. Giving it up and losing their V’s before graduation. I really cared about Peter and I didn’t want us to miss out on anything special.

  We then went back to his car so that he could take me home. Before he shifted his gear into drive we spoke about tons of stuff like school and football and the guys on the team and what everybody else would be doing next Saturday. He turned on the radio and had the station on an oldies radio show. It played all these old tunes my mother used to play back in the day. There was this song that would always stick in my mind. The tune was beautiful. It was a cool ballad. I later found out that it was called “The Search is Over” by some group named Survivor. It was our song. I would always remember it.

  Then the words just slid out of his mouth. “Have you ever…?”

  “What?” I queried, my heart thumping hard in my chest.

  “You know?” His cheeks flushed and a sheepish grin touched his lips. “Gone under the table?”

  “The what? What table?”

  He tilted his head back and laughed. My reaction seemed to amuse him. His undiluted laughter was deep, warm and rich. His laughter was infectious and before long, I caught it. In spite of myself, I chuckled.

  Okay, I knew then I was so clueless about some stuff. But he found it somewhat amusing.

  “I’m sorry, Kate. I love you so much, girl,” he said, stroking my chin with his finger, sending shivers of delight down my spine. “God, you’re so innocent,” he whispered. “But you do know what a blowjob is, right?” he continued. He gave me a loving smile. His eyes were compelling, magnetic. They always drew me in.

  “Oh,” I said. A rush of heat shot through my blood. I couldn’t help but draw my eyes down to his crotch. Oh, God, he was tented. His thing was hard and practically standing up. Did I have that kind of effect on him? I was stoked.

  “I really care about you, Kate,” he murmured as he inched closer to me. “You have no idea what you do to me?”

  “I care about you, too, Peter.”

  “Look if you don’t want to…”

  Before he finished, I pulled his face closer to mine and slid my tongue inside his mouth and kissed him softly. My belly was tingling with butterflies and my inner-thigh pulsed like crazy. I felt the moisture pooling between my legs. I knew then I was ready to take it a step further. I felt it was right. I wanted him.

  He reached under my blouse again and slid his hand under my bra, I throbbed with need as he played with my taut nipple, tweaking and squeezing it, rubbing and caressing. His hand moved to the swell of my other breast and began stroking and playing with my o
ther nipple.

  I moved my hand down to his zipper and unzipped his pants as he shifted on the seat to give me better access. I reached inside his boxers and pulled his manhood out as we continued to kiss hungrily.

  “Oh, God,” he moaned with pleasure. “God, you turn me on, Kate.”

  He slid his hand inside my panties and before long we were petting and stroking each other’s hot spots. “Fuck, you’re so wet, Kate!”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured not sure what else to say.

  “No, Kate. Don’t be,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “That’s a good thing. You enjoy this don’t you?” He smiled into my lips as we continued to pleasure each other.

  He stroked between my legs as my inner thighs became engorged with erotic pleasure. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe how turned on I was. He really had a way with his hand.

  Peter guided my hand to his erection and cupped his hand over mine, sliding it up and down his hard shaft. He tilted his head back on the headrest and groaned, breathing harder and faster. I worked my hand up and down and before long he moved his hand to my head and guided me down to where his crotch was. “Pretend it’s a popsicle,” he moaned in his throat. “Just suck on it.”

  Pretend it’s a popsicle?

  I lowered my head to his erection and opened my mouth and slid my tongue over the top, over the wetness of his silky fluids and licked. It tasted like a mixture of salty cream and soap. He smelled clean and fresh like he’d just showered with Irish Soap. I was sucking and licking on his manhood as he convulsed with pleasure while his other hand touched the buds of my nipples. He had no idea how turned on I was. My nipples were so sensitive to touch and the sweet arousal rippled through my body. I felt so…mature. I was being somewhat intimate with a guy I was so hot for. Then…

  “Ouch,” he growled.

  “What?” I’d stopped. I could taste the moisture of his sex on my tongue but I dared not swallow. I held his water in my mouth not sure what to do with it. Girls didn’t really swallow the fluids, did they? I grabbed a tissue from his tissue holder and discreetly wiped my mouth while unloading the excess fluid from my mouth.