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)
My heart begged me to get out of the car and throw myself into his arms, the only place I could possibly feel safe or comforted. But now, more than ever, I needed to distance myself from Hendrix.
I met Bellamy’s gaze in the rearview. “Can you take me to Kyle’s?”
In an annoyed huff, Hendrix grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the backseat before kicking the car door closed.
“Wait—”
Bellamy backed out of the drive at breakneck speed, leaving me alone with Hendrix and my demons.
“You’re staying here,” he said before turning his back on me, and trudging through the overgrown weeds toward the porch.
I should have turned around and gone to Kyle’s, but even if I could muster the will to walk away from him, he probably wouldn’t let me. And so, I followed him into the old, familiar house.
A sense of home washed over me the moment I stepped inside. A lifetime of memories lived here, and despite our poverty, they were all good. No place would ever feel as much like home as this ramshackle old house.
He disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me in the living room surrounded by the obvious aftermath of a party. I took in the beer cans and the snoring, drunk guy on the floor, wondering why Hendrix was in Barrington instead of here?
The floor creaked when he stepped from the kitchen, wiping a dishcloth over his tattooed, blood-spattered throat.
“Why would you leave your own party to go to a Barrington one?” I asked.
He chucked the bloodied towel to the coffee table, every muscle in his body tensing. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.” Not that I wasn’t grateful for his interference. Part of me wanted him to have come for me and to tell me that.
Without a word, he passed by me and headed upstairs. I followed, and when I stopped in the doorway of his room, I told myself it was because I wanted answers, knowing all too well I wanted more.
He yanked the bloodied T-shirt over his head, then shoved out of his jeans. My gaze slid over his broad, tattooed chest before stopping on my name scrawled over his ribs. “I’ll never not be with you,” he’d said when he’d gotten it done. Spoken with the kind of faith only a fifteen-year-old boy with a fake ID could have. I diverted my attention to the faded Spiderman sheets he’d had on his bed since he was eight.
“Stop standing in the hall like a weirdo,” he said.
“I’m respecting boundaries.” Mine. His. I wasn’t sure.
“Boundaries,” he snorted, then crossed the room, latched onto my wrist, and yanked me inside. “That’s what you want to call it?”
“Yes.”
He flipped off the light. “Those same boundaries you were respecting in the restroom last week?”
I was grateful he couldn’t see the heat flushing my cheeks. “Just give me a shirt, and I’ll sleep in the spare room.”
“You’re not sleeping in the spare room. It doesn’t lock.” His shadow moved to the dresser, followed by the scrape of a drawer opening. “And there are people I don’t know downstairs.” A shirt landed on the bed beside me.
On a huff, I changed into it before unfastening my bra and pulling it through one of the sleeves. “Fine.” After I stepped out of my shorts, I got into my ex-boyfriend’s bed. The last place I should have been right then. Or ever.
The squeak of the springs rang out like a warning when he crawled in beside me.
I stared up at the faint glow of the dying stars on his ceiling, my heart clenching at the sight. I’d stuck them up there when we were little because Dayton was so crap you couldn’t even see the stars… The little plastic designs barely glowed anymore, just like us. A weak representation of something that had once been so bright.
Silent moments stretched between us, that sense of discomfort growing worse.
On a huff, Hendrix shifted in the bed. “This is weird as shit.”
“You’re the one who wouldn’t let me go to Kyle’s.”
Springs creaked before his hand landed on my stomach. Something in me settled at the small, familiar contact.
“What can I say….” He fingered the hem of my shirt. “I’m a jealous dickhead.”
“It’s Kyle.”
No one could be less threatening. In all our years of friendship, Kyle hadn’t once looked at me like that. Hendrix had never been rational though. He’d made Kyle faint, for God’s sake.
“And it’s you…” He pushed onto his elbow, staring down at me while indecision played through his eyes. “This is such bullshit.” He gripped my jaw before lowering his face to mine.
I had time to pull away before his lips pressed to mine, but I didn’t. Because no matter what had happened or how much life had damaged us, I’d always want him.
My lips parted. His tongue swept against mine, and I fell into the kiss as though I could drown in him. This was such a bad idea, but I craved his hands on my body, his lips, his dirty words whispered in my ear.