hard to see how much more to life there really is.”
“He said you’d fail?” I asked, remembering his words from the night of the festival.
She nodded. “I got into college. He didn’t.”
“He knew he couldn’t hold you back, so he found someone he could.” Maybe it was the pent-up energy still coiled inside me, but I couldn’t stop my stomach from tensing in frustration. Was it jealousy?
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Either way, he’s partially right. I haven’t made it yet. But I will.”
I scoffed. “Zoe, you’re smart as hell, fuckably gorgeous, and currently flying back to your little hometown on a private jet. I think you’ve made it.” I downed the rest of my soda, leaving the ice cubes to melt.
“It’s not my jet,” she countered with a chuckle.
“Semantics.” I abandoned my glass in the cup holder of the coffee table and my fingers started drumming on the seat beside me. I was going to have to come up with a new way to channel the post-show high or I’d never stay sober.
“Do you still feel like a ball of electricity?” Zoe asked, sitting up slightly as she watched my fingers.
I nodded. “It’s always been like this for me. Jonas and Quinn get the post-show high too, but for me, it’s different.” How could I possibly explain this to her? “What’s your favorite drug? Don’t look at me like that, I don’t mean illegal ones. I know you better than that.”
“Caffeine.”
That was something I could work with. “Okay. You need caffeine to function because you’ve taught your body to expect it. Right?”
“Right.”
“So, you need it, but then something like tonight…it’s like being fed espresso shots by a hundred thousand people over the course of two hours, and they’re draining that energy out of you, sure, but not at the same rate they’re putting it in. Maybe you’ve burned off fifty thousand of those shots when you walk off the stage, but there’s still fifty thousand more coursing through your bloodstream, giving you the jitters, searching for an outlet.”
“You get overstimulated,” she said quietly. “The alcohol helped you manage the sensory overload.”
I nodded. “It feels…” There weren’t enough words, but then again, I’d never tried to describe it before, so I stopped trying. “Like this.”
I showed her instead, spearing my fingers through her silken hair and bringing my mouth to hers in a hard kiss. Fuck the professional lines. There was no one here but her and me. The only lines between us were the ones we chose.
Her lips parted, and I plunged into her mouth, taking it with deep, sweeping strokes. She tasted like ginger ale and the sweetness I now recognized as Zoe, and I tilted us both to seal that perfect angle of our lips.
God, this was exactly what I’d needed. The first time I’d kissed her, I’d gone in playfully. It had been symbolic to start with, then quickly sparked to more.
This felt like pouring jet fuel on a bonfire.
Her hands gripped my shoulders as she gave it back just as hard as I was dishing it out. There was too much space between us, too much clothing, too many reasons we weren’t supposed to be doing this. Handling the first problem was easy. I left the other two to sort themselves out later.
I palmed her hip and tugged her toward me. She slid over my lap, then groaned in frustration when her skirt didn’t accommodate her. I grinned against her mouth as she yanked her skirt up so she could settle a knee on either side of my hips.
I stopped grinning when she sank onto my lap. Then I was the one groaning, tightening my grip in her hair to hold her mouth to mine as I kissed her breathless, losing myself in the process. This wasn’t just chemistry—this was nuclear, something capable of powering the world or destroying it.
She rolled her hips over mine, grinding against my dick, and I ripped my mouth from hers, sucking in a breath through my teeth before setting my lips to the column of her neck.
“God, Nixon.” Her fingernails bit into my shoulders as her head rolled back.
“How do you feel right now, Zoe?” I asked, then ran my tongue over the patch of skin between her jaw and ear. Given where she was sitting, she already knew exactly how I was feeling.
“Good.”
I bit gently on her earlobe, letting my teeth scrape along the sensitive skin. “Just good?”
She rocked against me. “Better than good.” Her lips dipped to my jaw,