Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2) (6 page)

“Like I said, that’s what’s expected of me.
Men and women alike expect it. Now I just wear it like a second
skin. When you called me out I was embarrassed. But I stopped right
away, didn’t I? I have really been trying to make sure I’m not that
way around you. I’m just me around you.”

She walked back four paces,
crying angry tears, “And how the hell am I supposed to believe
that, you
ape
?
How can I believe anything you say? How can I…”

Sean grabbed her by the back of the head and
reeled her in. He kissed her in a rush of passion, catching her
mouth open in shock and filling it in a rush. He wrapped his arms
around her middle and pulled her close, stroking her tongue with
his, giving her light suction, willing her to let go.

Then she did. She closed her eyes, angled
her head, and held on. She squeezed her eyes tight against the buzz
filling her ears and exploding her senses. Her body was flushed,
sweat was prickling her brow, Sean’s body was hard and tight and
felt just right wrapped around her. She pulled and pushed and
manipulated until her back was against the tree and his was leaning
against her, his leg between her thighs, his tongue pulsing in her
mouth, his hands glued to her waist, keeping them firmly pressed
together.

Strangely, it was the last that caught her
awareness; that dragged her out of mindless delight into the
present. She had her hands under his shirt, feeling the glorious
body she only saw that morning, trying to back up to make room so
her hands could work down to feel his bulge. But he wouldn’t let
her. He held their bodies close, but wouldn’t let her take it too
far.

She didn’t think any further than that. This
was not supposed to be happening!

She pushed his chest, feeling him pull away
immediately.

“How the hell did that happen?” she said
with wide eyes, looking up to connect with his lust-filled
gaze.

Sean’s teeth were gritted and his eyes were
on fire. He shook his head slowly. In a grunt he said, “My
bad.”

Krista struggled and escaped, walked to the
other side of the front yard and turned back to him. Memories were
warring with her. Bashing against emotions. She wanted him. She
wanted to repeat what they’d just done. But she was afraid. Jim had
ruined her life. She’d had to move states, hide herself, and start
over. She didn’t think Sean was even close to the same caliber of
messed up, but he was the same charming womanizer everyone wanted.
She was still fragile, and he was a pro. He would rip her
apart.

“I’m sorry, Sean. I can’t. I’ve been down
this road. My trust for a guy like you is all used up. My heart is
all used up. It was discarded with the trash—well, trampled,
discarded then chased. That’s a hard thing to get over. That one
night stand was me trying to get back on the horse again. So to
speak. It was a mistake. I’ve found I can’t really bring myself to
like Paul. I’m all locked up. Frozen. I’m just…destroyed. I’ve been
destroyed. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head and turned away, willing
herself to stop crying.

“
Okay,” he said softly.
“It’s okay. I won’t push you.”

“I can still work with you if you want. I do
really like that guy I’ve gotten to know. I just can’t do this
other side, you know? I just can’t…”

“Of course I want to work with you. Nothing
changes. We are professionals. And friends, I hope. No romance.
Easy,” he sounded odd.

Krista looked up in time to see pain erased
by an easy smile.

“Well, I guess you’ve met a bigger shit than
yourself, huh?” she said, walking back to him.

“Why would you say a thing like that?” Sean
asked, flinching as if he wanted to touch her, but abstaining to
keep her comfortable. He probably thought he was going to get
slapped.

Krista laughed miserably and wiped her face.
“Have you ever met a bigger cock tease?”

Sean barked out an uncomfortable laugh.
“Yes. Many. I brought it on myself, though. If anything, I am the
tease.”

“Do you generally go around biting
yourself?”

Sean laughed again and faced her. She looked
up at him.

“What am I going to do with you?” he
whispered, his eyes dipping to her lips.

“Probably throw me in a lake with cement
shoes,” she whispered back

Sean traced her face with his finger,
watching the progress over her smooth cheek, under her defined jaw,
and across the slight divot in her chin. He made her feel
beautiful. He made her feel special.

But he did that to all the girls. She had to
keep reminding herself it wasn’t real. That she wasn’t special.
That suddenly he wouldn’t change just for her. Girls tried that all
the time. Hell, she’d tried that with Jim; tried to change him. It
had ended up being her who was completely altered in the end. She
was still trying to find the girl she was before she’d met him.

She couldn’t fall again, and get crushed, no
matter how good it felt.

Chapter Four

Sean looked down at Krista. She was so
breathtakingly beautiful. Her heart-shaped lips were slightly open,
her whole body was open to him. He could kiss her. She was
resisting this, but completely vulnerable and she wouldn’t stop
him…

He took a big step back.

“Shall we head in?” he asked in a quiet,
soothing way.

He had to keep her comfort level up or he’d
lose her. After today, he did not want that to happen. He was still
in the game, whether she wanted to admit it or not. He would get
her in the end. One thing he had in plenty was perseverance and
determination.

Also blue balls, but that was another
story.

“I’ll just hang out a minute, if you don’t
mind. I’ll see you in there in a sec.”

“No problem. Take your time.”

Sean had no choice but to leave her. He was
turned on, uncomfortable, and very near the end of his control. If
he stuck around, he’d let her hands go south.

Why
hadn’t he let her hands go south? From where he stood right
now, with a body’s worth of blood in his groin, he was badly
regretting that decision.

“Hey Sean.”

Darleen. Darleen and her huge rack. Oh holy
hell—what was this? Karma? He didn’t even believe in karma!

“Hey Darleen. Excuse me.” Sean eased around
her, squeezing his eyes shut and keeping his hands in the air as
her breast scraped against his chest.

He met Ray on his way across the yard.

“Hey…”Ray looked at him askew. “You
okay?”

“No,” Sean said through gritted teeth. “I
kissed her. Then got rejected. Now I’m trying to be good. It’s
torture. Not sure she’s worth it.”

A shit-eating smile smeared Ray’s face.
“It’s good for you.”

“I don’t care what lessons
you had in mind, Ray,
this
is not good for me. I’m going to go listen to
some racist jokes. I’m hoping they’ll take the wind out of my
sails.”

“Go jump in the pool. It’s
cold.” Ray laughed and shook his head. “I like her more and more.
But it
is
worth
it. If she ever does give in, you’ll have manners.”

“I don’t want manners, Ray, I want—“

Ray gave him a warning look. “You want
manners. Go talk to Mable. Tell her you’re German. She just learned
a bunch of German jokes. Or Jewish. She always has a million of
those.”

“She
is
Jewish!”

“Only when she’s not telling Jewish
jokes.”

Sean shook his head.

~*~*~*~

When Krista got back to the table her face
was dry and the outlook was gloomy. The one good thing was that
Sean was hanging out with an old woman who yelled a lot. He didn’t
seek solace with a young, cute chick. That would have severely
ruined her day.

More so than it already was.

“What’s going on?” Kate asked through the
fog.

“Sean kissed me.”

“What?”
Jasmine said. Kate just stared.

Ben got up and tried to walk away, but
Jasmine grabbed him by the pants and pulled him back down.

“This is girl talk,” Ben said.

“Then you just grew a vagina. This is about
a guy you know. We need the male perspective on this.”

“Then, as a guy, you won’t meet better. He
would bend over backwards to help a friend. As a woman, I say steer
clear. I would hate to see you get hurt, Krista.”

“You guys, I said no to him. I kissed him,
yes—he’s hot. How the hell do you say no to that?” Kate and Jasmine
nodded. It was reason enough. “But after that I said no. He
respected that.”

“That was why he was walking so stiffly. I
wondered,” Jasmine said as she looked toward Sean and the lady who
was currently nudging him. He was grim-faced.

Ben got up again.

“Let him go,” Krista said. “That way I can
give you details.”

“I’ll be with Sean and the racist,” Ben
said, scurrying away. Girl talk scared him. Rightly so.

No sooner did Ben run for his life than Ray
showed up with beers.

“Hi ladies, thought I’d bring refreshments,”
he said with a smile as he sat down. “Also thought I would get in
that interview.”

“These are the best interviews I’ve ever
had,” Kate said, shimmying to get comfortable.

“I am generally a tougher sell than Sean,
however,” Ray replied solemnly.

Krista minutely shook her head at the girls.
Absolutely untrue statement.

“We didn’t bring our portfolios, though,”
Jasmine said.

“That’s okay. How about you just give me an
example of the hardest project you have ever worked on.” Ray
crossed his arms on the wooden table and waited patiently.

Kate and Jasmine exchanged glances. Then
looked at Krista.

“Aw
, c’mon you guys—you’re gonna cite the final project for
Statistical Mechanics aren’t you?”

They both nodded. Ray looked on
patiently.

“Seriously, that wasn’t
the
hardest
project you’ve ever done. Be honest.”

“
She has a point,” Jasmine
conceded, looking at Kate. “It wasn’t the hardest project
content-wise. I will give her that.”

Kate turned to Ray. “It was the first
project, where we met Krista—“

“We already knew each other,” Krista
interjected.

Kate looked at her for a
beat, waited for her to close her trap, and looked back at Ray. “As
I was saying, it was the first project where we
properly
met Krista. We all knew she
was a goodie-goodie who knew all the answers, but we had never come
face-to-face with her overachieving complex.”

“Serious
complex,” Jasmine helped.

“Not
serious complex,” Krista defended.

“Serious
,”
Kate said gravely to
Ray.

“I’ve worked with her. I agree,” Ray said,
just as soberly.

“Oh good, let’s all turn on Krista just
because she wants to do a good job.” Krista threw her hands up in
the air.

“Anyway,” Kate said, “we got put into
groups, all met up and discussed what needed to be done. Everything
was fine—“

“What’d I miss?” Sean was walking up to the
table with his liquid grace and confident bearing.

“Kate and Jasmine were just explaining their
hardest project,” Ray said amicably. “Apparently, it was the first
time they worked with Krista.”

Sean shined his brilliant green eyes on
Krista. With a smile, he sat down next to her, making Jasmine scoot
down the bench to give his big body room.

“Not true,” Krista said in a pout.

“Any
way,” Kate continued, “we met, outlined the parts each would
do, and left the first meeting with names and numbers of everyone
else in the group. The group leader was yours truly—“

“Only because you were the loudest,” Jasmine
said dryly.

“—
and I was assigned to
make sure everyone did their parts, everything looked good, then
we’d all turn it in. Well, the second meeting, when we checked
progress and compared what we had, all hell broke
loose.”

“Hell!” Jasmine exclaimed, leaning
forward.

“Not hell!” Krista said, laughing.

“Hell,” Kate affirmed. “Everyone showed what
they had, which was a couple pages of outline. Except for one…”

Everyone looked at Krista, who turned
red.

“We’d had a
week
!
” Krista
said in defiance.

“We had a week, yes,”
Jasmine nodded. “
At the
end of the term!”

“Right,” Krista put her arms on the table in
anticipation for a fight. “The project was in place of finals. It
was a week of studying.”

“Ray,” Jasmine said,
breaking it down. “I don’t know if you remember college. And you
are probably thinking we are seriously inexperienced because we are
citing a college example. But imagine, if you will, a math major,
with a fine point put on Statistics. Imagine the end of the term,
when four
math-
based classes are ending, and finals are right around the
corner. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the pressure a student is
under.

“Now, here you have a
project instead of a final. A
project,
Ray. Sure, it’s
time-consuming, but you have the internet at your disposal. If you
are an idiot, you just have to put more effort into finding the
material and putting it together. Kate and I—and all but one of the
aforementioned team—weren’t idiots. We had three weeks, and no
final. Happy days.

“Well, after that first week we had a good
start. We had other projects, other finals, a million things going
on—we were ecstatic with our group of smart people. The professor
put the highest grade earners together. It would have been
paradise…”