Clarity - Nicole Dykes Page 0,14

my body along with him. He doesn’t flinch at my touch. He doesn’t push me away. He pulls me closer, and it should be hot. I should love that this guy runs his hands all over my body as we dance. That he wants me to touch him.

“Jesus, your body is insane.” He shouts into my ear because the music in the club is really loud.

What a dumbass.

I just want him to shut the fuck up. I keep dancing with him though, letting his dick press against me. A promise of what’s to come, and by the way he’s dancing, I'm betting it won’t be me.

So why do it?

I stare out into the crowd, searching for eyes that aren’t there, for a man who can’t stand for me to touch him.

Who only wants quiet.

And I drift back to the beginning of the end as I lift my hair and drop it slowly, letting it fall, and the guy grinds against me.

But I'm not here with him.

I’m there.

Almost a year ago

This has been the trip from hell. Going on this road trip with Sean, Mel, and Rhys to see Quinn in concert was so epically fucking stupid.

I’ve hooked up with Rhys a lot over the last year. We’ve kept it quiet because who the fuck needs to know?

I feel bad for not telling Melody, but she figured it out anyway because, when I’m around Rhys, I can’t fucking hide it.

It’s been nice. I don’t ask him any questions. I don’t touch him. We just fuck, but lately . . . I don’t know. Maybe I want a little more.

Maybe I want to know if he’s fucking other chicks on the side.

I haven’t been with anyone else for a while now. But I don’t ask. That would make me vulnerable, and I don’t think he’d answer me anyway.

He doesn’t talk.

He doesn’t want me that way. I’m a warm body for him to sink into.

But after we’re done fucking, I have this lingering desire to stay behind, to make him talk to me, to find out who he is. To ask him about his scars on the outside as well as inside.

I made the mistake last night of asking him to tell me about his childhood. Anything. Some stupid little detail about him.

His response?

“Don’t.” One word. A command. Don’t ask.

Because I’m no one to him. And I'm an idiot.

So now, at Quinn’s show, I find a warm body to dance with. A body that will fucking dance with me. I turn around, and the guy presses against my ass. I can feel all of him as my eyes lock with Rhys. He’s sober. He shouldn’t even be in a club, but for his precious Quinn he will be.

I’m starting to figure him out even if he won’t talk to me. The way he looks at her? Yeah. She’s the one he wants, but she’s with Logan now. Quinn told me she used to date Rhys. She played it down like it was nothing, but I can see it meant something to him.

I wonder if he let her touch him. Did she get to kiss him?

I bite my bottom lip and make a big show of moaning and leaning back into the nobody behind me. The guy’s hands move up my sides as he presses his dick against me, his hands making contact with the rose tattoo Rhys gave me over the fabric of my dress.

I see Rhys’s eyes flash with something as they dart to where the guy’s hand is touching me.

Does he care?

One of the guy’s hands moves over my stomach and pushes up between my breasts as I dance and I allow it, keeping my eyes on Rhys.

I see his jaw ticking with something that looks like jealousy, but I’m not sure if he feels that emotion. I don’t know if he feels anything.

The guy’s lips move to my neck, and he starts to lick and suck like a slobbery dog. I don’t want him to. I don’t like it, but still I moan, making sure Rhys thinks this is what I want. Because fuck him.

It’s been almost a year of him using my body. Of me accommodating him and letting him fuck me in positions so he doesn’t have to look me in the eye. I don’t make him talk. I don’t make him do anything, and he’s all too happy to use me, but he doesn’t want to know me. He doesn’t want me to know him.

He’s like every