He never lets me look away, and I can’t anyway, caught up in the way he’s losing himself too. Sharp need etches his face, his jawline drawn with desire and lust and need.
Does he still think about us…
“All the fucking time.” I think he says, but it’s loud and I didn’t speak. Did I?
One song glides right into another as his fingers slide in and out.
My chest rises up and down. My hands tug on his nape, pulling up close until I can see the flecks of white in his ice-blue eyes.
Smoldering eyes land on my mouth, his breath warm and smelling of beer as he puts his forehead against mine. “Come while I’m watching you, baby.”
His tongue licks at my lips, just barely a touch as I go over the edge, my heart and body crashing into tingles and vibrations that shake my body. I close my eyes and pulse around his fingers, stars detonating behind my lids.
God. This, him, him. How I’ve missed his touch, craved it.
“Just like that,” he says, not letting up, and I move, riding him, getting every bit of that nirvana, every single ounce of that gaze on me.
He…he stares at me like I’m a girl he wants to worship.
Another song comes on as I come back to myself, woozy and warm and still turned on.
His breathing is labored, and my hand reaches out to palm him through his jeans, wanting him to receive what I did—
He eases us apart and holds me a few feet away as we stare at each other.
My hand cups his cheek, and I’m past reason when I nod my head toward the corner under the stairs, to the lower exit that will get us out of here.
He shakes his head, his lips parted as he pushes up on his mask until it sits on the top of his forehead, tangling with the longer hair there. Bright and glassy-eyed, he looks at me.
I’m frozen in place when he touches my mask and pushes it up off my face.
“Hey,” he says softly.
I can’t speak. He’s beautiful, so much that I ache.
“Didn’t fool you, did I?” I say.
“Knew the moment you walked in. Always do.” He touches my cheek and lets his hand fall. He sticks his hands in his jeans and looks away from me. “Was starting to think you…forgot what we had, Charm. It was always hot with us—was all I thought about for a long time.”
Was.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re a dangerous girl.”
Then why did he even ask me to dance?
I shake my head at him, anger at myself rising up. Why did I put myself through this with him?
I can’t win.
He always wins.
He has me in the palm of his hand.
Because I still need him. I still want him. I still l—
Penelope is next to me, crooking her arm around my shoulders. Her eyes flare when she sees my mask is off. Her eyes dart from me to Blaze, and something on my face must tell her everything she needs to know. “Found you! Let’s get out of here, ’kay? Margo’s been found out and they already tossed her. They’re searching the party, and I have a feeling we’re next.”
I let her spin me around and lead me away from him.
14
She walks away, and I let her. My heart thuds as I watch her go up the staircase and out to the party upstairs. I picture her at the front door of the Theta house, looking over her shoulder to see if I followed.
I won’t though.
I could.
I could…
But my head spins as I imagine going up to her and spilling my guts—and then what?
No one has ever cared about me before, so why would she?
I can still smell her on me, and my cock is rock hard. In the middle of the crowd, I take a deep breath, willing my body to stay under control as I give myself a pep talk.
Snap out of this. You don’t want her. You fucking don’t. You don’t need her.
You is all you have.
Shouldering through the crowd on the dance floor, I make my way up the stairs. I never should have started talking to her, but as soon as she walked in with Margo and Penelope, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist pretending we didn’t know each other.
And her in my arms? It was three months ago all over again.
Her under my hands…her sweet body against mine…everything I want to forget.