It makes me want to smile.
I wish I could smile though. But all my energy is gone. I’m half slumped over him and half leaned against the truck, and I want to crumple to the ground.
Then I feel arms around my waist and I open my eyes. Zach’s eyes are lazy and his lips and jaw are covered with me.
I hang from his arms, limp and sated. “I think I’m dead.”
He reaches up with his other hand and wipes me off his lips. “Yeah? Then how are you still talking?”
I chuckle drowsily. “You killed me.”
Amusement crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Uh-huh.”
“You came too, didn’t you?”
At this, he looks away from me. He straightens my clothes with no help from me whatsoever. I just keep staring at his face, his beautiful sharp face.
“What? Are you embarrassed that you came? It’s okay. I came too. Like a fucking train.”
When he’s done he lifts his eyes to me. “I know. You flooded my mouth.”
I bite my lip, smiling like a lunatic.
“You always get drunk after an orgasm?”
I wind my arms around his neck, letting him take all my weight, and reach up to kiss his jaw. “Maybe.” My eyes go wide. “Oooh! I have an idea.”
“Why don’t you try keeping it to yourself for once?”
I tug at his hair. “How about you give me another orgasm and we can find out.”
Chuckling slightly, he tucks my flyaway strands behind my ear. “Right now, we’re getting you home. I’ll get someone to drive your car back.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Without acknowledging my thanks, Zach bends down and heaves me up in his arms for the second time tonight. Although, this one’s bridal style.
“Oh, you don’t have to carry me.”
He’s silent as he begins walking.
I nuzzle against his collar bone. “I’m heavy.”
“If you say that one more time, I’ll drop you right here and leave. You can find your own way back home.”
I don’t know why but I can’t stop my smiles tonight. Maybe orgasms do make me drunk. Or maybe it’s orgasms given by him.
“You wouldn’t,” I mumble.
Growling, he squeezes his arms, thereby squeezing me to his chest. I snuggle against him as we walk through the still charged-up and noisy crowd. Zach stops by a few people and tells someone to drive my car back.
Then he walks to his bike and sits me down on it. When I touch the heated metal with my bare feet, I realize I left my Mary Janes somewhere back by the truck.
Eh, it doesn’t matter. I have my prince, I don’t need shoes.
Zach fits his helmet over my head and straps it closed, getting in front of me. “Hold –”
“I know.”
I wind my arms around his waist and plaster my cheek over his back, holding on to him.
“This is stage five clinginess, you know that, right?”
Closing my eyes, I reply, “Whatever. You like it.”
I feel his short burst of laughter as he kickstarts his bike, puts his hand on my arms and gets me to tighten my grip around him. The bike comes to life beneath me, vibrating against my sated core.
As we take off into the night and I breathe in the air of freedom, I decide that no matter what he thinks or says, I’m saving him.
I’m going to save him from his glass tower and I’m going to save him from all the cruel people in his life.
And while I’m saving him, I’m also going to kiss him.
On his mouth.
I was six when they diagnosed me.
It started with ADHD that led them to figuring out that I had dyslexia.
My dad wasn’t happy, but I guess he accepted it. He thought extra lessons, special tuition would make me good as new in no time.
But by the age of seven, they found out that I had dysgraphia too.
That pissed him off, I think.
But I can’t be sure.
All I remember was me working hard and my dad not being happy about it.
I remember him finding faults. Tearing up the pages of my book. Every night he’d come to my room and demand that I read to him. When I struggled to spell out words, he’d leave frustrated. He’d tell everyone to not let me go outside or have any play time.
He’d fire tutors left and right when he thought they weren’t doing their jobs.
Then I made them that fucking card. And that was when I realized that my dad, all his anger and aggression, was because he was dyslexic too.
“It didn’t take me that long to learn how to write.”
That’s what he said to my mother that night.
I asked Nora about it and she told me.
So my dad, Benjamin fucking Prince, was dyslexic himself. Maybe all his frustration was due to the fact that his son was imperfect like him. Maybe I reminded him of his childhood days. Maybe he hated me because I was too much like him.
Talk about a fucked psychology. I’m pretty sure a shrink would love to figure him and his self-image out.
I quit figuring him out a long time ago.
All I care about is making him as unhappy, as miserable as he made me all my life. If that means never learning to read and write like a normal fucking person or unlearning whatever I’d learned, then so be it.
Blue thinks I’ve been bullied into believing all the crap about myself. She couldn’t be more wrong.
The thing is, I don’t care what they made me believe.
All I care about is my revenge.
My hatred for the man who gave me life.
My bully.
I’m in Zach’s room.
It’s nothing illegal. I’m just here to clean. Actually, Grace was supposed to do that, but I switched towers with her.
She smiled at me a little but other than that, she didn’t say anything.
It’s okay. She’s good at keeping secrets. Not that anything secretive is going on here. I’m just doing my job.
Among other things.
The only kinda iffy thing is that the door was locked and even after knocking, he didn’t open. But I got in anyway via a hairpin; I had it on good authority that he was home.
And he is.
He’s in the bathroom, taking a shower, and I’m out here, making his bed.
Over the gentle hum of the water and trying not to imagine him naked, I straighten out his pillows, tuck his bedding the right way and pick up his strewn-about clothes. Even with that, I think his is the cleanest room I’ve cleaned.
His book is nowhere to be seen and I wonder what he did with it. I wonder if he still has it.
Then the shower’s turned off and a shadow falls across the room – as crazy as that sounds – and I know he’s out.
He stands at the threshold of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his slim but muscular hips, and he’s drying his wet, extremely wet, hair with another one.
His eyes are trained on me but he doesn’t look surprised to see me. I might be losing my touch there.
I might also be losing my mind and all my senses because all I can do right now is stare at him. Stare at his gorgeous cut body.
I’m not one of those girls who go all crazy over a good physique. Nope. I mean, I enjoy it but I don’t make it my wallpaper. But I’d make him my wallpaper and I wouldn’t even be ashamed of it.
Take his neck, for example. It’s something so innocent and mundane, but not on him. On him, neck takes on another meaning. Long, graceful, tendons rippling, veins standing taut.
There are drops sliding down and I’d lick all of them, snaking down his prominent, beautifully sculpted collarbones, his chest.
Oh God, one goes to his tight, dark nipple.
And the ridges of his abs. Six. I count like an idiot. He has a six pack and that V. Now I know why everyone’s so crazy about the V.
I get it.
It’s all about where that V leads to. It’s about…
“My face is up here.”
I snatch my gaze up, feeling flushed all over. “I know.” I bat a wayward curl off my forehead. “Are you planning on putting on some clothes any time soon?”
With a dark sort of amusement, he looks me up and down, making my uniform feel tight, tighter across my chest. My tits. “Not particularly.”
I swallow. “Do it. It’s good for the environment.”
He’s setting the room on fire.
“Can’t say I care about the environment very much.” He smirks, giving my chest one last glance. “But I do care about how flushed you look. And the state of your nipples. They’re trying to punch holes through your uniform.”
With that, he gives his hair one last rub with the towel before dropping it on the floor and walking away.
“You asshole.”
He goes to his dresser, his back rippling, and I swear I hear him smile.
“I take it you’re here for something,” he says as he fishes a pair of jeans out and then casually drops the towel from his waist.
I slap a hand over my mouth to stop the squeak.
His ass. Jesus Christ.
I’m not an expert but holy shit, I think that’s how all asses should be. Tight and hard and firm and round and oh my God, I don’t know how he got that part as bronzed as the rest of him but yup. It’s bronzed and tempting and corded with muscles.
I watch him put his jeans on with an open mouth and a thundering heart that’s on the verge of giving out.
As soon as he turns around though, I force it to close. Quickly, I look away from him too. Can’t give him too much indication that I’m perving over his body. Though I do notice that he hasn’t buttoned up his jeans. They’re just hanging around his hips with… nothing.
I clear my throat. “Yes. I’m here…” I approach towel number one by the bathroom and pick it up. “To clean.” Then, I make my way to where he’s standing and kneel to pick up towel number two at his feet.
Our eyes clash, me on the floor and him hovering over me like the sky.
It messes with my breathing, so I get up and stand before him. “My job, remember? I take it seriously.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”