losing gravity, floating into a bottomless depth in space when he clasps my chin with his thumb and finger to lift my head. I can’t breathe. I’m not sure I want to, either. My towel drops to the floor with a thud even though I secured it over my chest, and I realize that he tugged at it intentionally. I’m naked. My body, my soul, my heart. All my walls are down. Somewhere in my head, a red alarm blasts, and my inhibitions are arming, ready to fight back. I’m trying to decode his expression. He is amused, irritated, and…playful? The mixture of emotions doesn’t make sense.
“Mess with me, Followhill, and I will ruin you.”
“Not if I ruin you first.” I can’t hide the lust in my tone.
A beat pulses between us.
“Actually, you’re right. I do like what I see. Some of it, anyway.” His fingers slip around to the back of my neck, and my eyes flutter shut. My brain is screaming at me to open them.
This is a hoax, the alarm screeches. He hates you.
“I definitely like what I see.” His breath is sweet and hot. It caresses the tip of my earlobe, and a shudder ripples through me. My nipples pucker so hard, even the faintest brush of air makes me drip between the legs. This could go in so many directions, and I have no control over any of them.
His mouth crashes against mine, and I yelp into his open lips just when his tongue invades me. He is swallowing me whole, and I’m so frustrated with my sick attraction to him. I bite his lower, bruised lip and feel his blood gushing out, warm and coppery. My hands clutch the fabric of his top, clawing to find the hole and fill it with my greedy fingers. He grabs the back of my neck and clutches like a lion taming his lioness as he deepens our kiss. There’s nothing shy or experimental or promising about our second kiss. We’re not the same kids. Not the same hopeful human beings. Our teeth clash, but we don’t laugh it off or stop. At the same time, it feels like we’ve never moved from that spot next to the trash can. We’re hungrier, and wiser, and angrier.
I’ve never been kissed this way before.
Not by him. Not by anyone.
His mouth disconnects from mine, and it takes me a few seconds to register what’s happening.
“The rarest thing in the world should not be given to a basic bitch. I hope you didn’t save me your firsts because I have no interest in taking them,” he whispers into my ear, and my eyes snap open. Penn shoves something into his back pocket, then steps back. He turns toward the door, and before I have time to tell him to go screw himself or drop dead, he coils his head over his shoulder.
Those snake eyes, they speak to me.
They tell me that he doesn’t want to be my friend.
That he is fully prepared to be my enemy.
“Nice seeing you again, sis.” He slams the door in my face.
My hand jumps instinctively to my sea glass necklace, preparing to clutch it in shock.
It’s gone.
Like all families, mine has a mind-numbing routine that rarely changes and includes me very sparsely.
When Melody picks up Bailey from school every day, they go straight to ballet, and Dad comes home from work around six. That means I have at least four more hours to avoid the jerk living under my roof, and I’m starving, thirsty, and constantly reaching out to play with the necklace before realizing it’s not there anymore.
I pace my room, text Blythe and Esme, then decide to write an entry in my little black book.
Entry #1,298:
Sin: Snuck into Penn’s room when I heard the bastard taking a shower and stole his pencil (Who uses pencils anymore? Is he five?). Swirled the eraser around my clit and masturbated with it. Put it back in his pencil bag.
Reason: Jerk walked in on me naked. On purpose. And I didn’t hate it. At all.
Sometime after exchanging texts with my friends, I crash in front of Teen Mom. I wake up to a gentle knock on my door, the colors from the TV frame dancing over my bedroom walls.
“Lovebug, dinner’s almost ready,” Mel singsongs from the other side. I fling an arm over my eyes. I don’t want to face him. I especially don’t want to face him after he saw me naked and kissed me and made my