Page 32 of The Promises We Were Never Meant To Keep

He swipes a hand over his jaw. “Jeez.” Throwing open the passenger door, he commands, “Get in, demoness.”

“Demoness?” I throw my head back on a laugh. My nose scrunches. “For real?”

“Fits, don’t it?”

I tsk at him as I climb into the seat, letting out a little shriek when his palm lands sharply against the swell of my butt. “Holt!”

“That’s for teasing me.” He closes the door, but I can see through the glass, he’s laughing.

“I thought we were spending the day together.” I can’t fully keep the disappointment from my voice as I stare at my house through the window.

Holt shifts the truck in park, swinging an arm up over the seat behind me as he angles to me. “We are.”

The scent of him hits me at his movement, like it always does. Now that I sit so close to him in his truck, it’s impossible not to smell the earthy, warm scent of Holt, now mixed with the spicy cologne he wears.

Cologne. He’s growing up.

I need to get something other than the vanilla and peach body mist Mom shoves into my stocking every year for Christmas. Something more grown up. Something older.

“Then what are we doing here?” I ask. He knows I’m not allowed to spend time with him at the house alone. Mom and Dad are working at Dad’s store, so he knows we can’t chill here.

I mean, we could, I gnaw my lip at the thought. But it would suck, a lot, if we got caught.

Holt throws me a smirk. “Get your swimsuit.”

I perk up. “We’re going swimming?”

“We’re going to the beach.” His eyes drop to my lips, before dragging reluctantly back up to mine. His voice has deepened in pitch. “I have everything packed. Towels. Lunch. Just need you in a swimsuit.”

“Okay.” My own voice sounds breathy in the small space between us. I can’t help but recall the last time we were in the water together. The way I felt in his arms. The way his arousal had pressed between my legs through our clothes, igniting me in feelings I’d yet to experience, and have dreamed about every night since.

“Hurry.” Holt gives me a little push and a wink. “We’ll get ice cream on the way.”

14

WE’RE FOREVER

JUNE 2007 – 15 YEARS OLD

“Are you trying to kill me with that thing?”

I blink, my brows drawing together as I look up at Holt beside me. He’s parked the truck in the lot of the day use area at the lake, the radio playing, the windows down.

I’d kill for AC right now.

There’s just one other car here, but whoever drove it is nowhere to be seen. They’re probably walking one of the trails.

“Kill you with what?”

I take another lick of my ice cream cone. Holt’s dark gaze follows with a new hunger I’m beginning to recognize, and really like, burning the depths of his gaze. I’m addicted to all the new emotions he calls to the surface of me. The wants and desires he opens from the depths of a part of me I know will never close off again. It’s like a birth. Once done, there’s no going back. No end to the growth until death.

But we won’t die. I have the unwavering confidence of youth on my side. And this thing between us is too powerful to ever end. Again, it’s thought with the kind of confidence only youth can know and trust.

I haven’t been hurt yet. I haven’t been burned.

With another slow lick, Holt cracks. He leans over, snatches hold of me with a tight hand around my wrist as he brings my cone to his mouth. He takes a massive bite of my cookies and cream ice cream, chews and swallows, before he gives me a throaty, “There.”

I blink big eyes at him. “There, what?”