Текст книги "Falling Away"

Автор книги: Penelope Douglas

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

“Why?” I could hear the crack in my own voice. I didn’t want to come home now.

She raised her eyebrows as if I’d just asked a stupid question. “Because it’s my responsibility to watch over you.”

And it wasn’t two weeks ago? When I needed her?

My jaw tightened. “Why now?” I accused.

And she slapped me.

My head flew to the side, tears sprang to my eyes, and I grabbed my face, trying to soothe the burn. I should’ve known that was coming. I was never supposed to mouth off.

“Now go shower,” she ordered, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “Do your hair and your makeup, and then you’ll join me and a few friends for dinner tonight.”

I closed my eyes, feeling a tear run down my cheek as she walked around to my back and unwrapped my hair from its ratty nest.

No, no, no … I was twenty years old. I didn’t need her to groom me anymore.

But everything needed to be in its place with her. Everything needed to look pristine on the outside, even as the dirt festered on the inside. Why did she worry about appearances so much? Did it make her feel so much better after the heartache of losing my sister—and my father, too, for that matter—for everyone to see us as perfect when we still felt like shit?

I heard her sigh, displeased. “Your hair needs to be trimmed. We’ll give you bangs like me. But …” She walked back around to my front and grabbed my hand from my cheek. “There’s no time for a manicure. We’ll make sure you get fixed up good as new before the luncheon next week.”

Gutless and helpless.

My mother continued on and on about waxing and coloring, but Jax’s words were the only ones I latched on to.

“What’s your favorite color? Your favorite band? When was the last time you ate chocolate?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, my scalp aching as my mother pulled and scanned my hair more closely, probably looking for loose ends.

I rubbed my hands together, remembering Jax’s gritty, greasy hand in mine last week. Loving the way it felt. Wanting that feeling again.

“I wanted to dirty you up.”

Gutless and helpless.

Gutless and helpless.

Gutless and helpless.

“Stop!” I yelled, feeling my mother jerk back and gasp at the exclamation.

Spinning around, I yanked open the door and jumped outside, sucking in lungfuls of air as I raced through the yard.

My mother didn’t yell after me. She would never make a spectacle in front of the neighbors.

CHAPTER 8

K.C.

Shane watched me pace Tate’s living room like a caged animal. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I huffed, rubbing my thumbs across my fingertips and sucking in air that was getting me more worked up than calmed down.

“Obviously.”

I stopped and turned to her. “My journals,” I shot out, my chest shaking with … I didn’t know what. Fear. Nerves. Anger. “You have to go to my mother’s house and get my journals,” I ordered her, and began pacing again.

“No, you need to go to your house and get your journals. You know your mother makes me twitch.”

I barely heard her grumbles. Now I knew why I never wanted to come home. It wasn’t my past behavior. It wasn’t my mother.

It was me.

I let the abuse happen even long after I could’ve stopped it. I let her talk to me that way. I let her judge me.

I let it all happen. I hated her. I hated my father. I hated that house. I hated the grooming and the classes I was forced to take.

I hated my sister.

Sudden tears overtook me, and I stopped, breathing hard and my face aching with sadness. My five-year-old sister, who never knew me and wasn’t perfect. She would’ve made mistakes, and she would’ve been hit. I hated her for escaping.

And I hated myself for thinking that.

She hadn’t escaped. Not really. She’d died. I had the chance to live, and I was jealous of a sister simply because she no longer had to exist.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I wiped the tears from my cheeks before Shane could notice. Was I so scared to live? To take chances? To be anything other than gutless and helpless?

“I was actually upset when she wouldn’t welcome me home,” I told Shane, choking through the few tears I’d shed. “Now I feel nauseated that I was even in that house.”

“Juliet, seriously.” The concern in her eyes was true. “You need to confront her. You need to wig out. Get in her face. Scream. Throw shit. She deserves that and more.”

There was no love lost between my mother and her sister’s kid. In fact, my mother barely communicated with her sister and husband, since Sandra Carter was a closet racist. She’d hated that her sister had married someone nonwhite, and even though she never admitted it, she kept her distance and looked down on Shane’s family. It didn’t matter that her dad was a doctor, or that he’d attended Stanford. My bitch of a mother barely tolerated Shane.

Feeling the roll of nausea clench my insides, I began pacing again, slowing my breathing in an effort to calm myself.

It wasn’t working.

The last thing I wanted to do was think about that woman, much less lay eyes on her again.

“I want my journals,” I whispered, but it sounded like a prayer. As if they were going to magically fall into my lap.

“Then go get them,” she urged, her voice stronger this time.

I shook my head. No. I couldn’t. I’d rather stick my fingers in shit and make snowballs.

“Oh, of course.”

I shot my eyes to Shane. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a wimp, Ju-li-et.” She dragged out my true name, making her point.

And I glared at her, curling my toes into the hardwood floors. “Piss off,” I ordered.

And I flipped her off before spinning around to stomp upstairs.

I stared at Liam’s Facebook page, and I could see why he’d never unfriended me. I would have unfriended him, but I had abandoned all my social networking lately.

There were pictures of him and Megan. Out at the Loop last weekend, selfies of them kissing, and a picture he posted recently of them at a Christmas party. A Christmas party last year, while we were still together.

He’d wanted me to see all this, and I bit my bottom lip to keep from giving in to the tears.

“How could he?” I whispered, realizing just how long he’d been going behind my back. And then I saw the post about how I’d gone off at him at the club, how I was mad that we’d broken up, and how I was arrested and carried from the club kicking and screaming.

Which was a lie. I was picked up outside the club on my way home.

And then I did what we should never, ever do on the Internet. I read the comments.

I realized that Tate and Shane were the only people I really had. Everyone else thought I was a joke.

I just stared at the computer, not noticing that I’d been digging my nails into Tate’s wooden desk. Until I heard the scratching and looked down to see I’d left four abrasions where I’d dragged my nails across the wood.

And I slammed the laptop closed, hearing Jax’s music pounding the foundations of the house again.

“Asshole.”

Jared on the phone.

Liam in the Internet.

Mom in my head.

And Jaxon Trent in my ears!

Swinging open Tate’s doors, I squeezed the railing as I hollered over the side. “Hey, hello?” I shouted to the people in his backyard. “Turn down the music!” I bellowed.

A few of the guys looked up from their worktable that had engines or some such shit and then turned back to their work, ignoring my request.

“Hey!” I hollered again, and a couple of girls looked up and started giggling.

Barreling back into the bedroom, I grabbed my cell and dialed the police. Again.

I’d already called twice. Once, an hour ago after Shane had left—probably to go to the party next door—and again forty-five minutes ago when the music, coincidentally, got louder.

“Yeah, hi. Me again,” I chirped through my fake smile. “The music next door is so loud that I think my dead grandmother just shit her pants.”

The lady paused, and I barely heard her babble as Pop Evil’s

“Deal with the Devil” pounded and thundered out of the speakers next door.

Jesus. It was as if he knew every time I reported him!

I could feel the music in my chest, and I only knew the song because Tate had put it on the iPod.

Good song. But I needed quiet right now.

“What?” I jerked my attention back to the phone. “Um, yeah, I watched my language the first two times I called. I’ve listed my complaints. In English. You speak English, right?”

But then I heard a click.

“Hello?” I shouted into the phone. “Hello?”

Throwing my phone on Tate’s bed, I didn’t even watch where it bounced to.

“Jax wants music,” I gritted out, exhaling. “Fine.”

Darting around the room, I yanked Tate’s surround-sound speakers off all four walls and dragged them, along with their thin gray cords, to the open French doors.

One down on the floor peeking out of the corner of the rails. Two and three down in the middle, and four down at the other corner.

All facing Asshole’s house.

Stomping over to Tate’s iPod dock in my red-and-white-pin-striped pajama shorts and red T-shirt, I curled my bare toes into the rug and punched buttons, looking for Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

The light tinkling started, and I smiled, jacking up the volume full fucking blast.

Bobbing my head, I scowled through the doors, seeking my revenge and hoping that my tunes were drowning out his. Peering over the railing, I gritted my teeth, smiling viciously hard at the wide eyes and looks of disgust.

Take that, asswipes.

Katy’s voice rooted in my stomach and filled my chest, crowding the room like a thousand firecrackers in my heart.

And I started singing.

Hard.

I belted out lyrics, growling and shouting, feeling angry and sick. I squeezed my eyes shut, screaming the words throughout the room.

I can’t hear you, Gutless. No one hears you!

Tears spilled down my cheeks.

Gutless. Helpless.

I screamed the lyrics, the pitch coming deep from the pit of my stomach.

I pounded my fists. I wasn’t those things!

I was violent. I yelled so hard that my throat ached with rawness.

I was furious. I threw my head back and pounded the floor with my feet.

I was wild.

Violent. Furious. And wild.

And that was when I felt it.

The flutters.

In my stomach. In my chest. In my head. In my legs.

I broke out in a huge smile, gasping through my laughter.

I dropped my head and continued to let the rumble pour out of my lungs, and I let the tears fall, streaming down my face and making me a sloppy mess.

Because with every tear, every laugh, every breath, all the years of feeling powerless left my body, and I felt what I don’t remember ever feeling before.

Freedom.

I just let go.

As I bobbed onto my knees, the words came out shaky.

“ ‘You just gotta … ignite … the light,’ ” I stuttered, my voice growing stronger, “ ‘and let it shine.’ ” I spread out my arms and belted out the goddamn lyrics.

“ ‘Just own the night like the Fourth of Ju-ly!’ ”

And when the drums started pounding, I popped my knees up off the floor and jumped up and down like a crazy person, whipping my head front, back, side to side, and singing. Singing for me.

Laughing, smiling, throwing my arms in the air every which way, I leaped onto the bed and bounced back to the floor, twirling around the room and forgetting the party outside.

The song was inside me, and I was fucking happy for the first time in my life. Liam didn’t do it. Neither did Jax. Nor my friends or my family.

When the song ended, I played it again. And again. And again. Dancing. Laughing. Living.

I guessed we’ve all built ourselves up through sadness, disappointment, and experience. It just happens at different times and in different ways.

Jared’s parties pissed off Tate, so she beat him.

Jax’s parties pissed me off, so I joined him.

CHAPTER 9

JAXON

If there was one thing I craved day after day, it was the feeling of want.

We want a house, a car, a fancy fucking vacation, and prestige, so what do we do? We go to school, and we get jobs we hate to pay for the things we want. We deal with people we don’t like and waste years of our lives sitting in stark, fluorescent-lit rooms and listening to coworkers who bore us so we can pay for a small amount of precious time to enjoy what makes us happy. To achieve a fraction of our lives just feeling as if it was all worth it.

We sacrifice to earn.

Well, I had a house. Not a mansion but a warm, clean home given to me by a woman who loved me and became the mother she didn’t have to be.

I had a car. Not a Ferrari or some other coveted sports car but a loud and fast Mustang GT given to me by a brother I loved.

I had a fancy fucking vacation. I was still on it. Given to me by a new mother and a good brother who had rescued me from abuse and foster care.

I had prestige. Sure, it was in the small town of Shelburne Falls, and no one outside the county limits knew who the hell I was, but the people I saw every day and considered friends were the only ones who mattered.

I had everything everyone else sells their entire lives for.

I had everything except K. C. Carter, the one thing I wanted.

The first time I ever saw her, the ground flipped beneath my feet, and the world spun all around me. Even though I’d had girlfriends and had sex more times than I could count, I’d never had a crush on someone.

And I loved it. I loved the way she resisted me.

Wanting her was more addicting than the idea of actually getting her. I started to live for that feeling of knowing I was going to see her every day at school. She’s in the cafeteria. I can feel her.

Standing in a group with her and feeling the pull to touch her as if we were two fucking magnets, and I had to fight the urge not to reach out. The hair on my body would stand on end as soon as she was near. Knowing her eyes were on me, and relishing the way she’d look away as soon as I caught her.

Every time she shot out some snotty insult or made a face at me, I nearly laughed, because she was going to be a fucking prize when I finally got her.

But I never pushed too hard. I never really tried. Wanting her was an addiction, and that was why I’d never made my move. I wanted her in my head more than I wanted her in my bed. I never wanted the chase to end.

Until I’d had a taste of her in the weight room. Then everything left my control.

“Are you serious?” she screamed, loud enough to hear over the party music.

I stood outside, leaning on my car with a group of people around me including Madoc and Fallon as we watched the two cops confront her about the noise as they all stood in the doorway of Tate’s house.

I grinned, and everyone started laughing around me as she stormed past the cops in her cute little pajama shorts, short T-shirt that showed a sliver of her stomach, and bare feet.

Her arms swung back and forth as she stomped right toward us, growling the whole time. “Keeping me up for hours with your racket, and you file a noise complaint on me?” she shouted. “I’m going to make you hurt, Jaxon Trent!”

My chest shook with laughter. Damn, she’s so cute when she acts like she’s five.

She rushed up, straight toward me, swung her hand back, and I ducked just as she was about to slap me. Crashing myself into her thighs, I hauled her off her feet and swung her over my shoulder, her ass rubbing against my cheek.

“Whoa, Tiger,” I chided, rubbing the back of her thigh.

She kicked her legs. “Put me down!”

I tightened my grip around her knees and looked at the cops. “Thanks, guys. I’ll take it from here.” And I jerked my chin, letting them know they could leave.

“Seriously abusing our friendship here, Jax,” Wyatt, one of the officers, grumbled as he walked away with his partner.

“Put me down!” She slapped my T-shirt-clad back and I grunted, struggling to hold her as she thrashed.

Turning around, I walked up the steps and into the house, the tremors of the music pulsing through my feet and up my legs as we walked in the door.

“Listen up!” I called out, ignoring her shrieks. “This is K.C. She’s queen of the castle tonight. She tells you to fuck off, you fuck off. Got it?”

I didn’t wait for responses as I swung K.C. back over my shoulder, plopping her on her feet again. Before she even had a chance to react, I circled her neck with my arm and yanked her in close, nose to nose.

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” I said, and reached over to yank a Seagram’s Jamaican Me Happy wine cooler out of the tub of ice by the door. Twisting off the cap, I shoved it into her chest and turned to Fallon and Shane, having noticed that everyone had trailed in behind us.

“Fallon and K.C. You remember each other, right?” And I looked at K.C., hooding my eyes in a warning as I spoke to Fallon and Shane. “Get her drunk, ladies. But don’t let her take any drinks from anyone other than you, Madoc, or me, okay?” I smirked at K.C.’s narrowed eyes and mouth hanging open. “Have fun,” I whispered to her, and walked away.

Even though I knew she was pissed at me, I also knew she’d stay. Fallon and Shane were there to hold her hand if need be, and it just so happened that I had just planted her favorite alcoholic beverage in her grasp.

And even though I barely ever got wasted, I was very interested in seeing her get a little loose tonight. Maybe she’d finish what she had been doing to me in the car last week.

When Shane had finally trailed over a couple of hours ago, she mentioned K.C. being upset about seeing her mother, something about journals she wasn’t able to get back, so I decided to lure her out. Every time she called to file a noise complaint, I got word of it and jacked up the music more.

Now here she was, friends at her side, drink in her hand, and—I looked over as she and the girls plopped down on the couch—a smile on her face.

Score. God, I’m good.

I tried not to grin as I played pool with Madoc and snuck glances at her from time to time. K.C. was such a little thing. Not so little that you’d mistake her for a child, but she was definitely more petite than Tate, Fallon, and Shane. Her small, flat waist would take absolutely no effort to circle using only one arm. Which I proved in the weight room. I swear her legs had absolutely no fat and she possessed the sexiest damn toned thighs I’d ever seen on a woman. Even her calves were toned, and her tanned feet and peach toenails had me drinking in every naked inch of her body.

I liked that she dressed colorfully, and I liked pretty things. I’d seen too much darkness growing up, and K.C. was like a red flag to a bull.

Her dark brown hair, the color of chocolate, spilled to the middle of her back and was parted in the middle, swinging in her eyes every so often. I’d never thought green eyes were attractive, but K.C.’s were beautiful. Like summer’s first grass with the sun shining on it. Light green with gold glitter.

I squeezed the pool stick clutched in my fingers, having a sudden urge to haul her upstairs and take a shower with her.

What the fuck? That was random.

“So you’re still into her, huh?” Madoc’s voice broke into my head, bringing me back.

Turning back to him, I leaned on my upright pool cue and evened out my expression. “K.C.?” I clarified, trying to sound casual as I grinned. “I might still like to do a few things with her.”

“That’s what I thought about Fallon.” He nodded. “It was like ‘whoa, this is fun!’ Now it’s like ‘whoa, I’m married!’ ” He gave a shaky laugh, and my chest shook with amusement.

I couldn’t help being still shocked at Madoc and Fallon getting married when they were eighteen. First year in college, and they’d never even dated each other. But so far, so good. They kept an apartment in Chicago, where they lived while they attended Northwestern during the school year, and they spent their summers either traveling or at their house here in Shelburne Falls.

“Listen,” Madoc started, looking between me and the table. “Fallon wanted me to talk to you about something.”

I raised my eyebrows, noticing Madoc was staring at the table, mulling over a shot when he was already whipping my butt, because I was too preoccupied trying not to stare at K.C.

And when Madoc couldn’t meet my eyes, I knew he was having trouble saying what needed to be said, which was also probably something I didn’t want to hear.

So I waited.

He leaned down to take his shot. “She knows you’re working for her father, Jax. Ciaran Pierce might be a nice guy, but he’s a dangerous man. What are you doing?”

I hooded my eyes, bracing myself.

“Jax?” Madoc prompted, and I could tell he was looking at me. “Fallon doesn’t like it. Hell, I don’t like it. And Jared definitely won’t like it.”

I straightened my back, his chiding backing me into a fucking wall.

Of course Jared wouldn’t understand. He was perfect. He did right even when he was doing wrong. He judged, laid down the law, and called the shots according to his assessment of how he thought things should be. There was no gray area with my brother.

So I had learned a long time ago not to tell him certain things. He didn’t know what I did in Chicago on my nights alone in the city. He didn’t know that I used my computer skills to hack and create illegal software for Fallon’s father, who lived in Boston and worked outside the law.

And he didn’t know what had happened in that basement at our father’s house six years ago.

“Jared sees everything as black and white,” I said, leaning down to take my shot. “There’s just no talking to him about some things.”

“He’s your brother, and I’m your friend. We have your best interest at heart.”

I let out a bitter laugh, shaking my head. “Because I’m too young to take care of myself?”

Walking to the wall, I sat down on a stool and slouched with my hands in my pockets.

“I may be a whole year younger,” I explained, “but I’m also bigger and have taken more hits than the two of you combined. I’ve been feeding myself since I was five, and you don’t even want to know how, so just stay off my back.”

Awareness vibrated off my skin, and I knew others in the room had heard me, but I didn’t give a shit. My brother and Madoc—as much as they tried to act otherwise—had no fucking clue how sick the world was. Who cared how I made my money as long as I ate?

When they were five they were raiding their refrigerators, trying to decide between the orange soda and the grape soda. I was rummaging through the trash for my father’s leftover McDonald’s and drinking beer because the water had been turned off.

And while Jared’s mom—Katherine—was as close as I’d ever had to a mom, I wasn’t about to be a burden on her even though I knew she didn’t see it that way. She tried spoiling me with clothes and gadgets she thought I’d enjoy, but I spoiled her right back. I had to pay my way.

Madoc narrowed his eyes, probably stunned by my sudden irritation. He wasn’t used to it, but I didn’t feel bad. Questioning my decisions was an insult.

“Jax—,” Madoc started.

“Don’t,” I cut him off. “I don’t want your sympathy, and I don’t want your concern, so fuck off.” Every muscle in my face tightened. “I just want you to shut your mouth and go back to worrying about what kind of board shorts you’re going to wear for your next trip to Cancún, okay?”

He looked away, sucking in an angry breath and hardening his eyes. Placing the cue back on the rack, he stopped in front of me on his way out of the room.

“You’re my brother,” he pointed out in a low voice. “You have choices now. That’s all I’m going to say.”

And I watched him leave, knowing that he was right. I had opportunities, chances, and lifelines. I wasn’t back in the foster homes I’d spent years in, and I wasn’t living a nightmare in my father’s twisted house anymore.

And that was why I did what I did for Fallon’s father. To make sure I never lived like that again.

K.C. was AWOL.

Absent without leave, and she’d better not have left, because I’d damn well climb through Tate’s French doors tonight if I had to.

Madoc had brought shit up I didn’t want to think about tonight, and I really just wanted to see K.C.’s pouty little lips and pretty eyes right now.

Where the hell was she?

No lights were on next door.

Climbing the stairs, I saw a couple going at it in Katherine’s old room, so I shut the door and checked my room. Not that she’d be in there, but it couldn’t hurt to hope.

Empty. People knew my room was off-limits.

I heard a door behind me open up, and I turned around to see her stepping out of the bathroom down the hall.

She lifted her eyes, spotted me, and halted.

“I thought you left,” I called out.

She stayed there, looking as if she’d stopped breathing and was afraid to meet my eyes. She rubbed the toes on one foot over the ankle of the other, scratching, and I had to clench my fists to keep from adjusting myself. Every fucking little gesture she did turned me on, and I was glad she didn’t know her power.

I cleared my throat instead. “Are you drunk yet?” I asked, grinning.

She pinched her eyebrows together as if I were stupid. “No, just a little buzzed.”

She walked toward me, tucking her hair behind her ear, but I caught her arm. “But you’re happy?” I pressed, reaching over and pulling her hair back out from behind her ear and letting my fingertips graze her cheek.

Chills spread up my forearms. How could I not touch her? I wanted to grab her. Dig my hands into her soft skin.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Feeling better.” And then she tucked the hair back behind her ear.

I tilted up the corner of my mouth, pleased with her defiance.

And for the first time since knowing her, I didn’t have the first clue what to do with this chance. She stood there—maybe waiting for me to make a move—and she wasn’t scowling, sneering, or shouting at me.

But she broke the spell before I could decide how to react.

“What’s in there?” She jerked her chin to the door in front of us.

It was my old room when Jared lived here, but now that I’d moved into his room, it housed my office. The door was secured with a padlock, and I kept the key on my key ring. Normally I didn’t lock it if I was home, but during parties when anyone could venture in, it was off-limits.

“Porn,” I replied flatly.

Her lips spread in a wide smile at my joke, and I felt my heartbeat throb in my neck as I flexed my jaw.

She’d never smiled at me before. Not like that.

Reaching into my jeans pocket for the key, I unlocked the room, having no clue why I was doing it. Hell, she asked, she was interested, and I wanted to prolong my time with her before she came up with a new corncob to lodge up her ass.

Opening the door, I waved her in ahead of me, but her eyebrows shot up and her eyes went wide.

“Wow,” she blurted out before she’d even stepped into the room.

She inched in, and I followed behind, shaking my head at myself. Even still, the sensation of a bubble wrapping around us tighter and tighter, forcing us closer, was there.

I twisted the key out of the lock and threw it down on the table by the door, shutting it after we’d walked in.

I leaned back on the table, crossing my arms over my black T-shirt and watching her circle the room. “I don’t let many people in here,” I said.

I wasn’t worried about the computers. They weren’t important to me. The information I could use them to gain was. This room, and its contents, gave me the ability to protect myself and my family, make a living, and be aware of every stumble in the road before I even turned the corner.

When I was thirteen, and my father had been sentenced to prison time, I’d been sent to live with a family that had two computers. One of them was old, so they had let me tinker and explore with it. Once I discovered how to use it and the leverage that’s at a person’s fingertips if you’re clever and diligent enough, I was hooked. I wanted to know everything.

She strolled down the wall, studying the six flat-screen monitors I had mounted in two rows of three each. Two were shut off, two had updates and installations running, and the other two had accounts I was trying to crack. Not that she’d know what she was looking at.

There was a seventh flat-screen I had supported on a tripod that controlled the others. The room wasn’t decorative. Instead of portraits or wall decals, I had bulletin boards and whiteboards with my scribble all over them, and desks lining the walls with electronics and computers sitting around.

In this room I was a god. I watched, and I swirled the paint every so often with no one the wiser.

K.C. passed each monitor and table, stopping to study a few things and swaying ever so slightly to the music coming from downstairs. Her thumbnail was in her mouth, but she looked relaxed.

“This is how you make your money, isn’t it?” she said, turning away from my notes on the whiteboard to look at me. “Are you doing illegal things, Jax?”

I licked my lips, taunting her. “Would it get you hot if I said yes?”

“No,” she grumbled, looking away again. “It gets me hot when you touch me.”

My heart plummeted into my stomach, and I felt as if I were falling.

What the hell did she just say?

She spun back around, her mouth hanging open. “I can’t believe I just said that. Oh, my God.”

I didn’t blink, and her chest wasn’t moving any oxygen.

I swallowed, standing up and stalking toward her. “Say it again.”

“Damn wine coolers,” she bit out, looking to the floor and retreating. “I never usually feel anything. How did you know they were my favorite?”

I smirked. How cute she was. I tipped my chin down, inching toward her and loving every backward step she took. Why did I like her being afraid of me?

“I didn’t know they were your favorite,” I lied. “And it’s not the wine coolers you’re feeling. It’s me.”

Her back hit the wall, and I came in front of her, bearing down on her. Her hair tickled my cheek.

“Say it again,” I breathed into her ear.

Her hands went to my chest, trying to keep me away. “No.”

“Coward.”

She peered up at me, narrowing her eyes. “Now I’m a coward.” She nodded sarcastically, pressing her hands into my chest with more force. “Gutless, helpless, and coward all because I won’t sleep with you. Next, my girly pink wine coolers and peach nail polish will be under attack. Let me help you with some more names: princess, self-absorbed, weak, wimp, arrogant, snotty, sellout, conceited—”

Grabbing hold of the backs of her thighs, I heard her yelp as I hauled her off her feet and pressed her into the wall, forcing her legs around my waist. I cut her off, bringing us nose to nose. “I like your pink wine coolers, and I think your pretty toenails are sexy as hell.”