Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
I barely had time to freak out before someone wrenched me to the surface.
“Breathe!” Hendrix pulled me tight against his warm, hard chest as I coughed up gross water.
I clamped my thighs around his hips like I could climb my way out of the lake to safety. It was pure, meaningless survival instinct, right up until I registered the way every inch of me was plastered against every inch of him. I suddenly forgot all about the water and the fish and any dead bodies.
Water lapped around us as I stilled, watching the moonlight dance over the sharp angles of his face.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah…”
He brushed a damp strand of hair behind my ear, and for a single, pure moment, he looked at me the way he used to. Like he loved me. Like he was terrified of losing me.
The lost, broken part of me wanted him to kiss me, to breathe oxygen back into lungs that had been starved far longer than the last few minutes. But he couldn’t be that for me anymore. I’d tainted him, turned him into something toxic and poisonous.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, stroking a wet trail along his jaw. An intimate touch I had no right to but couldn’t seem to stop myself from taking. “For everything.”
His eyes closed. His hold on my waist tightened. His dark brows pinched together. “Don’t fucking do this to me…”
I touched my damp forehead to his and breathed in his pain until it clawed and stabbed at my insides. My trembling fingers trailed from his jaw to his lips, brushing over them the way I wished I could with my mouth. “Hendrix—”
“I swear to God!” Wolf’s voice echoed over the open water. “If you’re fucking Voldemort in that lake, you will never hear the end of it.”
We both shoved away from each other like we’d been caught doing something bad.
My face burned when I swam around Hendrix toward the pier.
“Man, I’m not fucking her. She almost drowned.” No thanks to him.
When I reached the ladder, Wolf folded his arms over his massive chest. “Poor Kyle. But, once a cheater…”
The insinuation boiled my blood. Kyle was my friend.
“Fuck off, Wolf.” I hoisted myself onto the pier. “Like I would ever touch Hendrix again.” The lie nearly choked me.
Wolf tipped his head back, staring at the sky. “Please, for the love of God, put some clothes on.”
“Grow up. I know you’ve screwed far worse.”
He groaned. “I forgot how annoying you were.”
Hendrix hauled himself out of the lake. It took everything in me to turn my gaze away from the wet T-shirt clinging to his carved muscles.
When I bent over to reach for my clothes, a massive splash came from behind me.
“Dude,” Wolf coughed. “What the hell was that for?”
“Looking.”
When I turned around, the conflicted expression on Hendrix’s face nearly killed me, but I couldn’t study anything that had happened tonight too closely.
“Thanks for not letting me drown in body soup.” I wanted to say more, and that was the problem. There was too much between us that couldn’t be said.
Don’t fucking do this to me.
I’d hurt him, and I would keep hurting him. That was why I walked off and kept going. Why I needed to keep going until I was nothing but a distant memory in Hendrix’s life.
I’d already done enough.
Chapter 7
HENDRIX
I watched, confused as hell, as the darkness swallowed Lola.
I’d wanted that apology for two years. Now that I had it, it didn’t change a thing. It didn’t make anything better; it just made me feel more like shit.
“You’re a dick.” Wolf pulled himself up the ladder. “I wasn’t looking at her.”
“Bullshit.” I yanked off my soaked T-shirt, twisting the water out before I headed across the field to the party.
“You’re one doomed motherfucker, Hendrix,” Wolf called behind me.
And from the way it felt a few moments back when Lola’s slick body had been plastered against me in the water, I hated to say it, but I thought he was right.
The next morning, before school, Wolf dropped me by the electric company.
We’d sold enough weed at last night’s party that I was able to pay the reconnection fee and buy a Slushie. Which was good seeing as how that girl never showed up about renting the room.
I stood outside of the 7-11, slurping back the drink while I stared across the street at the school parking lot. Specifically at Kyle’s red Honda. He had a Chewbacca sticker on the back windshield.
I bet he purrs like Chewbacca when he comes.
Watching her kiss him last night set my ass on fire, and then having her wet body pressed against me in that water…my dick hurt this morning from beating off with Country Peach lotion all night.
I had a good mind to skip—just so I wouldn’t have to be around Medusa and all the snakes wriggling around on her head, but even with the power now on, my house would feel like an inferno. I’d rather suffer through Lola’s shit than roast my nuts off, so I crossed the street and checked into school in time to meet up for a drug deal in the library before lunch.