Page 99 of A Wreck, You Make Me

I’m putting the finishing touches on my lipstick when I hear the front door open and then slam shut. I frown at myself in the mirror. Who is that? Everyone should be arriving at the party right about now. Everyone who lives here anyway, except me.Because I’m still getting ready and I’m supposed to ride with Tempest, but she said she was running late.

Snow spent the day at Callie’s because Callie called yesterday and said she’d love to have Snow over so they could bond. And since Snow does want to bond with her new half-sister, she agreed. I also think she’s been getting a little stir crazy, sitting in the house all the time. while recovering. Their plan was to leave for the party from Callie’s house.

The other member of this house should be going to the party right from his workout. Even though, it was his day off, he insisted on going to the gym slash soccer club in town. He’s doing that a lot these days, practicing, working out. While he does come home in time to play with Snow, he spends most of his time away from the house. It’s like ever since I told him to come home that night a few days ago, he doesn’t want to.

As for Tempest, I know she has keys but I’m pretty sure she’ll ring the bell instead of just letting herself in. I’m about to go out and check, but I don’t have to because I have my answer.

My answer is actually standing in the hallway right now. Or more like coming to a screeching halt in his tracks at the sight of me. I’m paused mid-action too. My lipstick tube is still in my hand, poised over my mouth, and I’m turned halfway away from the mirror, about to walk out.

And the first thing that hits me is: we’re alone.

Truly and absolutely. No one else is in this house other than me and him and it hasn’t happened in all the time I’ve been here. Snow is always with us. Or sometimes Callie or Tempest. Ledger stops by too. Even Reed. Conrad came over once as well with Wyn. But since he lives up in New York, it’s hard for him to stop by often.

“What…” I ask then, remembering I can speak. “What are you doing here?”

His only response is to keep staring. He lets his eyes take me in, my face, my hair, my mouth. God, he stares at my mouth for a really long time. So long that my lips start to tremble. They start to feel all swollen and stung. He also glances over to my lipstick that I’m holding in my hand, that I then lower because my fingers are trembling too.

And then he moves along, takes the rest of me in and I remember what I’m wearing. I haven’t gotten to putting on the dress yet. It’s hanging on the back of the door while I finished with my hair and my make-up. I was probably two minutes away from putting it on.

But that doesn’t matter now. Two minutes or two hours. What matters is that I’m in my underwear. A strapless bra and matching pair of panties. All black, all lacy and he’s staring at me like he… wants to eat me.

In fact, I can already feel the sting of his teeth. The sting, the pain.

The fuckingpleasure.

“I thought…you were at g-gym,” I say when he hasn’t responded yet.

And he looks like he really worked out hard. He’s all sweaty and his workout shirt is clinging to his chest and his torso. I can actually see the ridges of his abs through the fabric, which is just crazy. Not to mention, I think even his gray workout pants are clinging a little tighter to his magnificent thighs. Or maybe that’s how they always fit and I’m just losing my mind because I wasn’t expecting to see him. I wasn’t expecting to be hit with such deep need.

For him.

“Is that why you’re running around naked?” he asks.

I snap my eyes up at his voice and curl my toes. Both at the scrape-y, hurt-y quality of his tone and the fact that his eyes look shiny and pitch black. “I’m not n-naked.”

“Close.”

“And I’m not running around,” I say, curling my toes harder because his voice seems to be getting rougher with each passing second, and because my mind tells me to be embarrassed at being caught like this. “I’m in the b-bathroom.”

“So why isn’t your door locked?

“Because no one was home,” I tell him, somehow not embarrassed at all but disappointed that I’m not what he described me to be: all naked. “No one wassupposedto be home.”

And I know I have been naked once in front of him and it didn’t turn out so well. Even so, I wish I was naked again. I wish we could… do those things again.

He stares at me a beat. “That’s what I thought when I came back to get ready.”

I lick my lips. “I thought you said you were going to go directly from the gym.”

He takes in my action before murmuring, “Changed my mind.”

I clench my thighs again because his voice was even lower, if possible, and continue uselessly, “Tempest is l-late picking me up.”

“Probably Ledge,” he murmurs, his stare thick and his words just as useless as mine. “He’s late to everything.”

“I think it was”—I fist my hands tighter, noticing the shift of his chest with a breath, somehow making his t-shirt even tighter—“the twins. They, uh, weren’t ready on time.”

He hums in response.