Dead of Summer - Page 98

“Promise you won’t get mad first,” I demand, heart fluttering in my throat. I’m not sure this is going to go well, since I’d basically spied on him and looked into his past without his permission.

“I could never be mad at you, sweetheart.”

“Not even if I ran you over with a semi?”

“Stop trying to drag this out.” His fingers scrape against my scalp, his other hand still on my lower back with his fingers splayed.

So I suck in a breath and close my eyes, not wanting to see his face. For good measure I bury my face in the pillow, knowing it’ll be harder for him to understand what I’m saying. “I looked you up,” I mumble, my words half-obscured by the pillow and the rain. “During the time between camp sessions.”

“Oh yeah?” he massages my scalp rewardingly, like I’ve done something good. “What did you find?”

“You know what I found.”

“Maybe,” Kayde allows, humming thoughtfully. He removes his hand from my hair, both of them going back to smooth down my spine before he massages my tense muscles once more. Seriously, he shouldn’t be so good at this. “But sometimes new articles pop up about me. It takes a little while for my dad to get the take down notices to go through, if they’re bad enough. So maybe you read something unflattering about me.”

“Like your swim times?” I quip, looking at him over my shoulder just as lightning flickers through the room.

That draws a barking laugh from him, though he bites down on his lip with a grin to muffle the sound. “You know how to go for the throat, don’t you, babe? My swim times were immaculate, thank you very much.”

“So why’d you stop? The articles all said that you were amazing, and that you were being scouted for a college team. I saw one said you were the best swimmer in the state and you could’ve gone to any college on a scholarship. But you…didn’t,” I trail off lamely. I have no idea why he didn’t, only that he simply stopped swimming, according to the internet.

For a long few moments, Kayde is quiet. “What else did you find?” he asks, voice rough around the edges.

“That you were in a bus accident with your team. That it took days to find you, and that you were the only survivor. Did you…No, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business?—”

“Did I see their bodies? Yes, Summer. Did I have anything to do with the crash? No, absolutely not. Now, ask me what you really want to know.”

My mouth opens, then closes. I bite my lip and work the question around in my mouth before I finally get the nerve to whisper, “Did you kill anyone?”

Kayde leans down, the line of his body slowly pressing against mine. “Yes,” Kayde murmurs in my ear, one arm wrapping around my shoulders so he can lightly grip my throat. “Yes, Summer. I killed my best friend. How fucked up is that?”

“I don’t—Why did you?—”

“Because he begged me to. Because he was dying and there was nothing anyone could have done about it. Because he wouldn’t have made it past that first night, and he was in so much pain that he couldn’t stand it anymore. So I found a piece of glass and I slit his throat.” He kisses the side of my face lightly, and I feel myself relaxing into the pillow. That’s not…as bad as I was expecting. If anything, it was a mercy to his friend, and?—

“Now ask me who else I killed that day, baby girl.”

My breath catches, oxygen choking off in my lungs as I turn just enough to look at him. Thunder rumbles again, just as lightning strikes close enough, I swear I can feel it in my bones. The light on my nightstand flickers out, plunging us into complete darkness.

“N-no,” I stammer. “I don’t want to?—”

“Ask me who else I killed.” His free hand moves, going between us and shoving my shorts down my hips. When they’re closer to my knees, he presses flush against me again, and I realize instantly that his shorts have disappeared somewhere as well. He presses my thighs apart, sliding his fingers against my slit until he finds my clit, where he focuses enough of his attention to make me whine.

“Please don’t fuck me while you tell me about killing someone,” I protest, turning enough to grip his hair and sink my fingers into it. “That’s tasteless, Kayde.”

“I killed my co-captain.” He’s obviously ignoring me, and as he talks, he slides one finger into me when he’s done stroking my clit. “He was such a good swimmer. An amazing athlete. He was the only one in the state who could come close to beating me, and he would’ve had a great career in college too, if he’d wanted.” He sounds like he’s off in a memory, and I close my eyes against the blackness pressing against them.

“Why would you kill him? Wasn’t he your friend?”

“No, baby, he wasn’t my friend.” He adds a second finger and I whimper, surprised at how easy it is for him to fuck them into me. “I hated his fucking guts. So I dragged his insides all over the clearing where the bus crashed and made it look like a horrific, terrifying accident.”

My mind races with that knowledge, and I barely realize he’s pushed another finger into me until he’s fucking me on all three, as whimpers and soft sounds falling from my lips with abandon. “What did he do to you?” I ask finally, forcing the words out of my mouth. “H-he had to have done something, right? To make you kill him?”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Kayde huffs in my ear, his fingers suddenly leaving me and causing me to hiss at the loss. “He did something to me, all right.” Kayde sits up just enough that he can slip my shorts the rest of the way off, and when he kneels between my thighs, my breath catches at the feeling of him sliding against my inner thigh.

Deftly Kayde tugs one of my pillows free from the head of the bed, and shoves it under my hips before his fingers dig into my thighs, dragging them apart. I don’t have time to protest, or really do more than grip the pillow still in my possession before Kayde slams into me, dragging a soft shriek from my mouth that I muffle with my pillow.

“He beat me in a race,” Kayde growls in my ear before pulling out until just his tip still spreads me open, then slams into me again, nearly shoving me up into the headboard as he fucks me. “He lived instead of dying in that fucking crash.” His laugh is harsh in my ear, and I twist enough to keep my grip on his hair, surprised he doesn’t mind at how harshly my nails dig into his scalp.