Another thing I’m not going to complain about.
Her room is somehow exactly what I’d expect—everything matches. It’s all purple and gray. “Can I sit on the bed?” I ask.
“Unless you want to sit on the floor.”
“Wow. Tequila turns you into a smart-ass.” My glass joins hers on the bedside table. Casper kicks out of her shoes and I do the same before we both sit on her bed. We’re quiet the whole time we eat. I keep looking over at her. Studying the way her mouth moves when she chews and how her neck moves when she swallows. I watch her tongue peek out of her mouth to lick some syrup from her lip. Fuck, this girl turns me on. It has to be the innocence and the fact that she feels so impossible to get, but that doesn’t make it easier to deal with.
“So?” I ask her when both our plates are clean.
“They were all right…”
“What the f**k ever.”
She laughs and I pretend to push her before grabbing the plate from her hand. “I’ll put the plate away from the pancakes you hated but ate all of.”
She doesn’t stop me while I walk into the kitchen and put our stuff away. It doesn’t take long before I’m heading back to her room and she’s sitting on the edge of her bed. Somehow the air in the room has completely changed in the thirty seconds it took me to walk to the kitchen and back.
I feel pulled to her. A little poem beneath my skin that’s called by her rhythm, but I hold it back. Don’t let my pencil try and etch the words because it feels too close.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks.
I shrug. “Sure.”
She tries to smile, but there’s something fake about it, like she’s changed her mind about asking me what she originally planned.
“What do you like so much about pancakes?” she asks.
Her question shoots a bullet through my chest. BBs jetting out from the round and hitting every major organ inside me. She had me in her sights and didn’t even know it. It’s not the question she wanted to ask. It’s supposed to be light, funny, but it brings back images of big brown eyes, looking up at me from the table. “Cakes! Cakes! Cakes!”
I see Ash’s chubby hands clapping. His eyes so big and happy.
My vision blurs and I suddenly want a lungful of smoke to wipe it all away. “Do you mind?” I ask as I pull out my pipe.
“Kind of…”
I shove it back into my pocket. “They’re f**king good. What’s not to love about pancakes?” The words hurt to come out, like I’m screwing with Ash’s memory by not telling her about the little boy who loved my pancakes.
“I have another one for you. What would you do if… if you knew something that could hurt someone else. Not physically I mean, but emotionally. Would you tell them?”
This question takes me by surprise and I have to think about it. I wonder what’s going on in her life, but I won’t ask.
It hurts so f**king bad to think about Ash. To miss my sister so much that I would do anything not to think about it. To be able to forget. “If they’re doing fine without knowing, why screw with them?”
And now the time for talk is over. I want to forget about everything else, so I step toward her. I get so close that when I look down, I can see her pulse in the base of her throat. See it beat like crazy. I want to lick it. Hold my finger to it and count the beats just to feel connected to her. “What are we doing here, Casper? Are we gonna keep dancing around this?” Reaching out, I cup her cheek. Run my hand through her hair. “Are you going to let me stay, or do you want me to go?”
Please tell me to stay.
Chapter Twelve
~Delaney~
I asked. I asked and he said I shouldn’t say anything. That it would be screwing with someone to tell them the truth, which in a way is exactly what Maddox said too.
“Your ghosts are back, Casper.” His voice is low but somehow echoes through me. Fills me up until he’s all I hear, or know, or think. Adrian’s thumb brushes my face, right below my eye. “Let me help you forget about them. We can forget our ghosts together for one night.”
A shiver jolts through me. I said before he was good, but good doesn’t begin to describe him. Two voices are battling it out inside me: logic, who’s telling me to make him leave. Or to tell him the truth. To do anything other than let him stay with me. It’s telling me to be strong. That staying with Adrian is almost as bad as being like my mom. That I’m weak and giving in, but God, do I want to give in. I want to listen to that other voice, which tells me I—no, not even just me—we deserve to try and chase each other’s ghosts away. Which is what I came here to do. To try and make things better.
It’s a stretch. I know it, but my body buzzes to feel his hands on me. I want to feel his words, poetry on my skin, because those secret words he wrote were beautiful. And I want to see more. To know what other magic he hides inside him.
We’ve both had so many things taken from us that I think we deserve to give something back to each other. Whatever we can.
“Stay…,” I whisper. I try to look away, but Adrian doesn’t let me. The hand on my face gently holds it in place.
“I need to know how drunk you are right now.”
“Kind of late to ask that, isn’t it?” Fake laughter forces its way from my mouth.
“It’s too late for a lot of things, but not that.”
He’s right. Adrian doesn’t know it, but that’s exactly what I need to hear. I think it’s too late. Too late to walk away and too late to pretend there’s not more to my reason for being around him. There’s something about him that I don’t want to deny. Something that speaks to me, me. When others feel like this foreign language I’m trying to work out, I somehow understand Adrian. Not all of him. I’m not that stupid. I also know it could all be in my head, but it feels real and I like him and it’s too late to turn back.
I don’t know if it was the food or our conversation, but when I speak, I know my words are true. “I couldn’t be any more sober right now.”
He gives me a small nod and walks over to the bedroom door, flipping the lock. Adrian drops to his knees in front of me, putting us at eye level. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes me want you so f**king bad.”
They might not be the words a girl longs to hear, but I cherish them. Because they’re real and real is better than a pretty lie.
Adrian leans toward me, his body fitting between my legs. I think he’s going to kiss me, but his tongue circles the hollow spot at the base of my throat. Tingles start in that spot and shoot through me.
“I could see your pulse and I wanted to taste it.”
Before I have a chance to swoon over his words, his mouth comes down on mine. I expect it to be urgent, frenzied, but he takes his time, letting his tongue stroke my own. His hands move to my neck, push through my hair, and it’s so soft that I want to cry, but it feels so good I almost can’t help the moan that slips out. His bandages scrape against my skin, which makes my pulse skyrocket, to feel that small bit of rough in all of Adrian’s softness. I wonder if that explains him. If he’s made up of rough and soft, each giving and taking, unsure which will overcome.
“This shirt has to go,” he says when his mouth pulls away from me. Adrian grabs each of my arms, his hands running up them as he tugs mine in the air before he starts to lift my shirt. There’s a brief moment where I think I should be embarrassed. This is different than the darkened car, and I know our journey will take us farther too.
But I can’t. Not when he’s throwing my shirt to the floor, his mouth kissing the swells of my br**sts, his skin so warm. His kiss is electric and I find myself wishing my bra was gone, too.
Without my having to ask, deft hands make quick work of the clasp. His mouth is on mine again, tasting of syrup as he slides my bra away. His eyes trace me, like he’s reading me. Like I’m the paper he writes on or the book he keeps hidden but must be important to him.
“Jesus, you are so hot.” His fingers trace the freckles on my shoulders. “I want to connect all the dots. See every spot on your body,” he tells me.
My heart drums. Heat burns through me. “Girls stand no chance against you, do they?”
He laughs at that. “I pay attention,” he says. “You like to be touched. Anywhere. Skin to skin makes you smile.” Adrian traces a path down to my hips. “Or blush. I bet it makes your heart race too. I feel you shiver every time I touch you.”
I can’t help but to close my eyes. I’m afraid I’m going to cry because he’s right. It makes me feel close to someone and that’s what I want. I want to feel close to him.
“I don’t have condoms with me, Little Ghost.” The name shocks me. It’s different than Casper… somehow more intimate. He’s placing closemouthed kisses to the corner of my lips now. My jaw, my neck. It’s almost too much for me to think, but his words push through.
It’s another thing that should scare me. The fact that I’d be willing to give him something tonight that I’ve never given to anyone else. That I want to. “But I thought…”
“There are other things we can do. I don’t go there without condoms. Ever. I’ll still make you feel good, though.”
There isn’t a second I doubt those words. I look at him and smile. His hands are on me when I do and I wonder if he thinks it’s because he’s touching me. That’s not the only reason.
“Stand up.” Adrian scoots back enough for me to stand. He’s still on his knees, and I know when he does what he’s about to do. His face will be…
“Should we lie on the bed?”
“We will,” he says. And then he’s helping me to my feet. His fingers work the button on my jeans. My zipper goes next. Adrian’s slow as he pulls my pants and panties down my legs. He looks up at me. At all of me, his eyes reading me like they do and his hands running up the curves of my calves, behind my knees. I want him to see my story, but I want to cover myself too. It’s too much. Too painful and embarrassing.