“There was no time. Jobs, remember? We both have one,” I snap.
His eyes drop to my mouth before coming back up to my eyes. I feel like I’m going to explode. I’m hot and sweaty and tired, and I’m breathing way too fast.
“Do you like him?” he asks, looking cool and relaxed.
“What difference does it make?”
“Do you?”
I dig my nails into the counter. “Yes. I like him. I’ve always liked him. I’ve liked him since I was a kid. Since before I met you, and I’ve been looking forward to this date for days now. I wanted to go out with him. I wanted to have a good time.” I know I’m saying these things but they sound weird to me, like I’m trying to convince myself as much as him.
Even so, I forge ahead. “I guess that’s why you ruined it, didn’t you? Because it would’ve killed your fun if I did one thing that made me happy.”
“He wouldn’t have made you happy.”
“I’m sorry?”
“And neither would Neal. Your taste in men sucks.”
“What?”
He scratches his jaw and looks me up and down. “But then again, maybe you like going out with assholes. Guys who cheat on you. Guys who don’t put you first.”
Then he comes even closer to me. I’m so stunned by what he’s saying that I don’t even protest when he splays his palms on the counter on either side of my body and hangs over me.
“Is that what you want from life, Blue? A guy who doesn’t care about you. A guy who doesn’t do anything and everything to be with you,” he whispers. “You should thank me. I did you a favor. I saved you.”
His whispered words are causing a ruckus in my chest. Can whispers do that? Aren’t they supposed to be soft? How can they do mean things to my heart, then?
“The only thing you need to save me from is you,” I whisper.
His features rearrange themselves into something even more unreadable. Something hard like granite and sharp like glass before he rasps, “Believe me, I’m trying.”
A pain shoots up in my chest and I realize it’s my heart.
Maybe it’s bleeding. Maybe the butterflies that he created in me a long time ago are slashing it with their savage wings.
In love, you bleed forever.
I wonder if in hate, you bleed forever too.
Somehow, my hands move. They uncurl from around the marble edge and I put them on his chest. With all my strength, I try to push him away, but he stays put. “Then try harder. Leave me alone.”
I don’t want to bleed.
“Leave you alone, huh?”
“Yes. You said if I stayed out of your way, you’d stay out of mine. You promised.”
“But you’re not out of my way, are you, Blue?” he throws in, his palms still on either side of me. “You broke into my room in the middle of the night. It’s a felony, remember? You broke the law to be in my way.”
I fist his shirt, every bone, every muscle in my body throbbing with fear and with something else I can’t name. “Do you want to know why I broke the law to break into your room? Because I’m tired and I’m exhausted and I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know where to go, who to talk to. I don’t want to dress up for a date and have you ruin it over and over.”
I push at his chest again as I continue, “I came here to be in your way because I want you to leave me alone. I came here because I want you to keep your promise. You were right. This town already has its bully and it’s not me. I don’t want it to be me. I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want you to consume me. I don’t want you in my thoughts. And I’ll do anything, anything at all including tolerating your presence for a while if it sets me free for good. Do you understand that?”
I watch something crackle over his face. Dangerous and hot.
On fire.
The flames of which radiate outward and lick my body.
“Anything, huh?”
A tremble passes through me at his low, criminal tone. A tone that’s darker than his eyes, those thick eyelashes. Darker than the midnight velvet strands of his hair.
Zach’s eyes drop down to my lips.
My mouth is throbbing like my feet. Maybe his stare has the power to bruise it.
His gaze slides down along my throat and settles on my breasts, the throb sliding down, too.
Before I can even form words, Zach shifts. His hands wrap around my waist and he orders, “Spread your legs.”
“What?”
Looking back into my eyes, he shakes his head once. “You want me to stay away from you, don’t you? You want me to keep my promise? And you’ll do anything for it?”
Is he… implying what I think he’s implying?
When I keep looking at him with a frown, he squeezes my waist hard. Harder than I had anticipated, and I whimper.
“Answer me. You’ll do anything to save yourself from me, yeah?”
I nod. Wordlessly. Like a little, plastic, brainless doll.
“Then let’s see how much you wanna be saved. Show me how much you hate me, Blue. Spread your fucking legs.”
I get a serious case of shivers at his low tone. I’m not sure if my thighs drop open themselves or he powers his way between them.
But suddenly, he’s here.
Between my thighs.
“You’re an a-asshole,” I stumble over my words, raking my nails over his chest, panting slightly at the bulk of him.
“Heard you the first thousand times before.”
Zach’s hands travel down from my waist, smooth down my dress, and the throb follows. My skin beats like my bleeding heart.
He keeps going until he reaches the hem of my dress, just above my knees. In the silence of the bathroom, my harsh breaths are the only sound. I couldn’t stop them, even if I wanted to. I need extra air, extra oxygen to be able to survive this.
His bronzed hands get under the skirt and all I can see are his wrists, one of them with the tattoo peeking out.
The feel of his callused fingers makes me whip my eyes up at him. Only to find him watching his hands on me, as well. Something about that is so… needy. As if he has to look with his own eyes before believing that he’s touching me.
Touching the tender skin of my thighs, making me squirm.
“Zach…”
He lifts his eyes up to me. “Are you a virgin?”
My thighs shake at the intimacy of his question. At the expanse of his broad chest that’s filling up my entire vision.
“What?”
“Your cherry. Do you have it?”
I should push him away. I can end this whole thing now. I can just jump down from the counter and take off. I don’t care if he ruins my dates, uses me for his amusement.
I don’t care. It’s okay. I don’t want to date or fall in love or anything even remotely that.
As long as I don’t feel this way. Heavy and panting and so, so lazy yet so awake and throbbing.
But my mouth opens and I answer his question, instead. “No.”
His thumb moves in circles, hot and rough against my soft skin, as he says, “You’re lying.”
I am.
“I’m not,” I reply, fighting against the effect of his circling thumbs.
Why is it hypnotic?
It’s making me drowsy.
His skin is flayed and half peeled-off in places – probably from the bike – and every circle he makes feels scrape-y, full of friction.
Zach’s mouth stretches into a lazy smile. “But you blush like one.”
Then he moves again. Putting pressure on my thighs, he slides me down the counter until my ass almost hangs over the edge. He hitches up my calves around his waist and my ankles cross at the small of his back, just over his tight butt.
I thought his thumbs were driving me insane but the scratch of his jeans along my thighs turns every breath into something… erotic.
Before I can dwell on that, Zach grabs my face.
His hands are so large that they span my entire cheek, going up to my messy hair. “So, if I shove your panties aside and stick my finger inside you, I won’t find that tiny little piece of flesh that proves you’re untouched?”
I shudder at the graphic picture he’s painted.
Inside me. His finger.
Fingers that are tangled up in my hair right now. Fingers that are rough and raw.
I shake my head. Only I don’t know what I’m shaking it for. Am I telling him he can’t do it? Or answering his question?
“I won’t, huh?” He takes it as a reply. “I won’t find it.”
“No.”
Why am I lying?
His fingers in my hair tighten. “Who took it?”
“What?”
“Who. Took it?”
“Who took what?”
“Your cherry. Who did you give it to?”
My lips part under his hovering ones. When did we get this close? Not touching but breathing over each other’s skin.
Grabbing his wrists, I find my voice. “None of your business.”
His black eyes are swirling. “When’d it happen?”
“After you left.”
His smile is cold. “Did it hurt?”
I jerk out a nod.
“It did. Was he big?”
“Stop. Please.”
“Was he big or not?” He squeezes my cheeks, his fingers curled around my hair in a vise-grip. “Did he stretch you out, Blue? Or is your pussy tight as fuck for me?”
I have no idea what’s happening. I literally have no idea why he’s asking these questions.
All I know is that I’m flushed and shaking and quivering.
Everything inside me is… in chaos. The pounding of my heart, all the extra air that I’m sucking in, the tug in my stomach.
It’s like an earthquake.
I’m a victim of an earthquake. I’m a victim of him.
“He stretched… he stretched me out,” I whisper, looking at him with foggy eyes.
Except, aren’t victims supposed to be in pain? Aren’t they supposed to be either lifeless or close to it?