Black Waters (Tainted Waters #2) - India R Adams Page 0,2

honest, I don’t know.” Connie words were heart-wrenching. “But I can’t stop hoping for this to somehow make you see I’m here, willing to love you the way you need.” Her tone changed, telling me how serious she was. “Reether, either do what I ask, or shame me into submission, making me leave without another opportunity for you to come as close as you ever will… to her.”

I was stunned for two reasons.

One: Connie’d come up with a somewhat unsavory plan.

Two: I was desperate enough to agree to it.

Constance took my silence as an answer and began to leave my bed. In horror, I watched my hand as it reached out and grabbed hers, begging her not to take Whitney—the false Whitney—with her. Connie squeezed my hand with an expression that said she felt guilty for using my weakness against me, but not guilty enough to not lie back down with me. “Close your eyes.”

With my eyes slammed shut, I breathed rapidly because I was nervous about the questionable line I was about to cross, yet hopeful that this idiotic plan might work.

Her lips touched mine, and I couldn’t react. I couldn’t get the skin attached to my mouth to move. Connie told me, “See her. Envision her.”

That was easy. Whit was always on my mind, so her smiling green eyes popped into my blind sight in an instant. Lips touched mine again, and I tried so diligently to pretend they were Whit’s, but her smell was off. I smelled hair product, not the lake or fresh, hard-earned feminine sweat that Whit always exuded after a dance practice. Thinking of what I didn’t smell had me smelling Whitney. That’s how much I yearned for her. In my mind, Whit was soaking wet, running down my dock toward my backyard— toward me.

Connie moaned as my mouth opened to hers, and that moan distracted me from the precious image in my head. The visual of Whitney in my arms, kissing me, started to fade until I heard, “Link.” Whether it was in Connie’s voice or not didn’t matter. The only one to call me Link was my Whit. Next thing I knew, I was on top of Connie, with my eyes closed, captivated by the closest I could get to Whitney Summers.

Maybe one would have thought that having a pretend Whitney would ease my continuous aching for the real thing, but it only increased my need. My body was not fooled, and it longed to feel Whit intimately. The next morning, simply being in the school parking lot made me want her even more. I knew Connie could sense my stress because she leaned back against my car. “Whenever you need to imagine, I’m right here, Reether.”

My body moved of its on accord, and I dove in. My eyes closed, and I was crushing Connie up against my car with my own body, my own lies…

“Really? It does nothing violent to your stomach?”

Hearing the real voice that rules my world, my body jerked away from Connie’s. Constance was heartbroken. She pushed me away and took off running in tears. I should’ve chased her. I should’ve tried to right my wrongs, but instead, I found myself leaning against the back of my car, watching perfection as one of her dancer friends told Whit what I already knew.

I smiled, so proud of my little dancer chasing the dream her parents despised. Whit’s red hair blew in the wind as her eyes searched for me. The relief on her face, when she found me, gave me an inner peace that no substitute Whit could ever have me experience.

Even with this knowledge, when Constance came back, I tried to use poor her to fill the void again. There seemed to be no other choice. Crash, the ass, drove his yellow Lotus into the skating rink’s parking lot. Whit beamed, talking to him. In my car, I dove into Constance’s mouth trying to find shelter, solace from the truth in Whit’s gleaming smile. I believed her smile belonged to me—the way it did when she found me—needed me at school to reassure her that her dreams were justified.

Well-fed jealousy had me abandoning my substitute, leaping from my car, and banging on Crash’s passenger window just in time to stop their first kiss. I almost puked. I found myself mentally concocting a ludicrous plan to follow Whit and Crash everywhere, preventing any possible contact. My shit-eating grin was the outward proof of me not being of