Lisa Jackson - Confessions - He's The Rich Boy / He's My Soldier Boy

At seven o’clock, she was finally relieved by Thelma Surrett and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Carlie. Thelma worked as a waitress at the ice-cream counter of the Rexall Drugstore and Carlie was a couple of years behind Nadine in school. With raven black hair, round blue eyes and high cheekbones, Carlie was drop-dead gorgeous and had already attracted a lot of male attention. Even Kevin, who was twenty-two, had noticed her.

Nadine quickly showed them the cash box, how to change soda canisters and the portable cupboard in which the extra paper cups were stashed. She offered to work longer and help out, but Thelma waved her aside. “I’ve spent half my life serving these folks down at the store. I figure Carlie and I can handle a few cups of root beer. You two go on along.” She shooed Nadine out of the booth. “Have some fun. Dance.”

Sam didn’t need any encouragement. Grabbing Nadine’s hand, he headed toward the stage where a group of local musicians were tuning up and one of the technicians was trying to eliminate the feedback that screeched from the microphone.

She had no choice but to dance with Sam. She had promised that she’d be with him for all of the celebration, yet she wasn’t comfortable in his arms, had trouble laughing at his jokes, avoided his lips when he tried to kiss her.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked as he held her close and swayed to the band’s rendition of “Yesterday.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she lied, knowing that Hayden Monroe was at the heart of her discontent.

“Sure.” He tried to pull her closer and rather than argue, she let him fold her into a tight embrace. How could she explain that she was falling for another boy—a boy she barely knew, a boy who would probably never look her way again? She closed her eyes and remembered the kisses she and Hayden had shared, the feel of his skin, the way his touch could turn her bones to water....

“That’s more like it,” Sam whispered against her ear. He kissed her temple and Nadine tensed. She felt like a Judas, dancing with him, holding him when her heart was far away with Hayden Monroe.

As the song ended, she disentangled herself and made an excuse about needing to go to the bathroom. Sam found his friends and she hurried off toward the restrooms, intending to splash cold water on her face and find a way to tell Sam that she wasn’t interested in him romantically.

“Having a good time?”

Hayden’s voice stopped her short. She whirled, hardly daring to breathe and found him in the thickening shadows, lounging against the rough trunk of a massive cedar tree.

“I’m trying to.”

“That your boyfriend?” He cocked his head in Sam’s direction, where, along with a few of his friends, Sam was adding to his soda from a bottle hidden in a brown paper bag.

“He’s...he’s just a friend.”

“Looked like more than that to me.”

“You were spying on me?”

His teeth showed white in the coming darkness. “Just happened to see you.” He stepped out of the shadows, and Nadine’s heart lurched at the sight of him—his smooth, disjointed walk, his thick dark hair and blade-thin mouth. His eyes, midnight blue in the gloaming, held hers and the night seemed to close around them. Laughter, music and conversation grew suddenly distant, and the air, still and muggy, became thick. When his gaze shifted to her neck, she knew he could see the tempo of her heartbeat at the base of her throat.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” she said.

“Command performance.”

“Who commanded?”

“The king.” When she didn’t smile, he explained, “You called me the prince. That would make my father—”

“The king,” she said.

“So now I’ve done my duty.”

Her heart dropped. “And now you’re leaving.”

Smoldering blue eyes held hers. “Want to come along?”

“And go where?”

“Does it matter?”

No! her heart silently screamed, but she knew she couldn’t just take off. Not without an explanation to her parents and to Sam. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” He cocked his head toward the group of boys huddled in the parking lot. “Your boyfriend disapprove?”

“I already told you he’s not—” He took hold of her shoulders, pulled her impatiently against him and cut off her explanation with a kiss. Hot and supple, hungry and anxious, his lips molded firmly over hers.

She didn’t protest, but sagged against him, her arms encircling his neck. She drank in the smell and taste of him, felt the sweet wet pressure of his tongue as it insistently prodded her teeth apart and explored the dark inner reaches of her mouth.

When he dragged her deeper into the foliage, she followed willingly, her lips still pressed to his, her body beginning to respond in wanton, lusty abandon. His hands spanned her waist, and his lips claimed hers with such passion that her head spun and her body began to ache.

When one hand moved upward to cup her breast, she sighed into his mouth. His thumb brushed in eager circles over her nipples and her bra was suddenly far too tight. He slipped his fingers beneath the hem of her blouse, upward until he touched the webbing of lace that covered her breasts. Groaning, he pushed her back against a tree and she sagged as his fingers probed and plundered, massaged and sculpted the shape of her breast until she felt as if she were on fire. The ache between her thighs began to pulse.

“Why do you do this to me?” he whispered hoarsely, as if he were angry with the world. He still held her breast, but now his body was pressed against hers and he was breathing in deep, trembling gulps of air.

“Do...do what?”

“Torture me.”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, hell, sure you do! You’ve got to know it! I’m crazy when I’m around you.” With his free hand he reached up and tilted her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes, then slowly, deliberately, he circled her nipple with his other hand, gently rolling the taut bud in his fingers.

Nadine could barely breathe. Her diaphragm pressed hard against her lungs. His hips were snug against hers and his hardness was forced deep against her midriff. “You’re all I’ve thought about for days,” he admitted. “I want you, Nadine,” he said simply. “And I can’t have you.”

She wanted to ask why, but knew the answer deep in her heart. He was the rich kid, the boy who was used to taking anything he wanted, and she was a poor girl whose father worked for his, a nobody, and therefore off-limits.

“Nadine?”

“Oh, God, that’s Ben,” Nadine said with a gasp as she pushed herself away from him.

“What is it with your brother? Doesn’t he trust you?”

She glanced back at Hayden and flipped her hair away from her shoulders. “I think it’s you he doesn’t trust.”

Hayden’s eyes narrowed. “He’s smarter than I gave him credit for.”

She looked back to the dance, the torchlights being lit, the streamers and balloons and Sam, standing a little less steadily, laughing with a group of his friends. Ben was walking crisply along the path leading toward them and if it weren’t for the fact that Patty Osgood called out to him, he would have surely discovered his sister with Hayden.

“I want to come with you,” Nadine said impulsively, and for a second, the ghost of a smile played upon his lips. He reached for her hand, then dropped it quickly.

“Forget it.”

“But you invited me—”

Hayden stared at her so hard, she didn’t dare say a word. “I want nothing more in the world than for you to climb into that car and go home with me,” he said, shoving a handful of dark hair from his eyes. “But it would only get you into trouble again.”

“I don’t care.”

“Your brother—”