Page 31

Chapter Nineteen

I hadno intention of going out tonight, but when Skye mentioned the boys were coming over to watch a movie and hang out, I knew I had to get out of the house before Liam showed up. I ran into him a couple times after the track pants incident and managed to be polite and stay cool. I made sure there was always someone else around when we met. Liam behaves himself when other people are around. He saves his special kind of pervert just for me. His words may be polite and casual when other people are around, but his eyes—they speak a language of their own. Those eyes tell me things that keep me awake at night. He’ll be nice and casually touch me, his fingers trailing down my back or arms. It all looks so innocent from the outside. It’s anything but. He knows what he’s doing, and it’s driving me crazy. Hence the need to flee my own home tonight and be at this party. It’s been three hours now and I’ve had enough of the loud music, the mixed smells of perfume and cheap beer, and too many bodies bumping into me in the cramped space. Three hours should have been enough to watch a movie. I texted Skye fifteen minutes ago and asked her to pick me up, yet again.

The party is getting out of control. Two girls are making out with each other much to the delight of the hockey team. I try to get away from the girls, but I’m trapped in the corner by the half open window where I stand trying to get a breath of fresh air. I check my phone again. Skye said she’d text me when she gets here to pick me up. Nothing. I will never ride with Becca again. This is the third time she left me to fend for myself this semester alone. Yeah, right. I snort at myself. I know I will, if for no other reason than knowing that Becca doesn’t have many friends and I need to watch her back.

The girl-kissing duo tries to pull me between them.

“Err—thank you, girls. But I will not be the third one on your ménage à twats. I kind of like dick.”

I’m trying to pull away from them when a big muscular arm wraps around my waist and picks me up, pulling my back against an equally big and muscular chest. My feet are no longer touching the floor. Lips touch my left ear.

“You seem to be obsessed with dick. Every time you open your mouth, the word comes out. Or does this only happen when I’m around you?”

Liam. My arms instinctively grasp his, holding on as he easily gets past the girls and through the throngs of people. They part for him like the Red Sea.

“Put me down! Liam! Put me down right now!”

He stops, still holding me tight against his chest, and my body is all too happy about it. “Did you leave anything behind?”

“No, I have my phone and my purse.”

“Then there’s no reason to let you go.”

He ignores my trying to pry myself from him and continues to hold on to me. We’re outside and he keeps on going, cutting across several lawns until he comes to Logan’s truck. I can feel him, all of him through the fabric of my dress and his jeans. Then my brain registers it. I CAN FEEL HIM! And he’s hard. Really hard against my ass. Fuck! I’ve been struggling this whole time, trying to get him to let me go, and all I did was rub myself on him. I stiffen. And his chest rumbles with contained laughter. He’s enjoying this.

Then he opens the passenger door while still holding me, my feet still dangling, and slowly, very, very slowly, Liam slides my body down his. I feel his warm breath on my neck and his lips move into my hair, but he says nothing.

My dress of course rides up in the friction between our bodies and I’m so aware of him, of his smell, of his heat and the way his arm pushes into me and how my hands can trace and feel the muscles and the veins beneath it.

When he finally lets me go, I wobble a little and both his hands go into my hips, steadying me. I turn to face him, pulling my dress down my thighs, but it’s too late. Thanks to the lights coming from inside the truck, he got a good view of my bare ass.

He smirks. “Now tell me please because I can’t quite tell. Are you wearing a thong or are you panty-less?”

“I have underwear on! Not that it’s any of your business!”

He pouts. He freaking pouts! And fuck me! Fuck me hard if I don’t want to suck on that lip and bite it. What’s wrong with me? Bad River! Bad, bad River!

“What are you doing here?”

“Skye was busy with Logan. I saw the message on her phone. I volunteered to come get you in her place.”

“You volunteered? Is this the Hunger Games now?”

He looks me up and down slow, taking in the red dress I’m wearing, the four-inch fuck-me red sandals that lace up my calves. He licks his lips. “Yeah, I’m really, really hungry right now.”

My body tightens. There’s so much lust in his eyes and so much promise in his words. I suck in a breath and mutter under my breath.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, but I heard you, River. You said, ‘fuck me, fuck me hard.’ I can do that. I can fuck you hard and I can fuck you slow. I can fuck you any way you want. Just say the word, River.”

I scoff. “In your dreams!”

“Oh, River, in my dreams you have already been thoroughly fucked. In every way possible. You have no idea. But I can show you. Just say the word.”

I bite my tongue, get in the truck, close the door, and look straight ahead. I can feel him looking at me through the window and then again while he drives us back to the house. I don’t say another word until we get home. In fact, I just walk right into the house, past Skye and Logan entwined with each other on the couch watching TV and go straight to my room and lock the door. I don’t say another word until the next morning when I first open my eyes, and when I do, the only thing I can say is, “Fuck me! I’m so fucked!”