Page 21 of Play the Part (Marsford Bay #2)

She’s touching me. It’s fucking bliss. A hand on my cock. My fingers finding her soaked. Breathy moans against parted lips. Heated exchange of words. Pleading. Begging. I shove her pants down. Bend her over the sink.

Eventually, Connie breaks the silence with a question. “Do you believe that coincidences aren’t just coincidences?”

I don’t answer immediately. Instead, I mirror her posture and press my feet against the railing, settling deeper into my seat. Folding my hands over my stomach, I let out a long exhale before my head drops toward her. She hasn’t stopped staring at me, waiting for me to answer her question.

“Elaborate,” I finally say.

I know what she’s implying, but something in me just wants to hear her muse out loud.

“You know,” she says impatiently, elongating her last word. “Do you believe everything happens for a reason? That somehow every decision you make leads you right where you’re supposed to be?”

Foil wrapper ripped between clenched teeth. A hand trailing down her back, pressing her down. Groans. Moans. Breathing. Panting. The head of my cock pushing against her wet slit. A thrust of the hips. Bliss. Fucking bliss.

I collect my thoughts before I give her an honest answer. I distance myself from the hard truth instead.

“You’ve been living in LA for too long.”

Connie snorts a laugh before gulping down a healthy amount of tequila.

“I’m being serious, Hux.”

The shortening of my name tickles my nape again. I chew on my words, my thoughts turning bitter. I don’t want to ruin the moment, but how can I tell her that her woo-woo belief is one of privilege?

What a comforting thought to have, when everything has come so easily for her, while her fate gave me a shitty childhood and a one-way ticket to prison.

“Even the bad stuff, you know?” she says, breaking me out of my train of thought. She hands me the bottle. “If my ex hadn’t cheated on me, I wouldn’t be here now.”

I study her for a little while longer before speaking again. “Ask me again when something good actually happens in my life. Maybe I’ll have a better answer then.”

Pain flits across Connie’s face when she realizes the implication of what she was just inferring. This time, her reaction doesn’t bother me. Maybe this girl needs a reality check. Life isn’t a fucking magical journey full of wonder. Not for a lot of us, anyway.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” she says helplessly.

I shoot her a crooked smile, trying to lessen the tension. “It’s fine. I don’t believe in that shit anyway.”

She watches me take a large slug of tequila, the burn almost as soothing as her eyes on me. Her expression is serious when she speaks again.

“What about people?”

“What about people?”

“You don’t believe that some people you’re just,”—she looks up at the ceiling before her gaze lands back on me—“meant to meet? That no matter what happens, you were always destined to have them come into your life?”

“Like your ex?”

I regret the dig immediately, but Connie just rolls her eyes, letting out a large puff of air. She drops her feet to the floor and bends her knee flat on the seat so she can turn to the side and face me.

“Like Jamie?” she continues, her tone slightly annoyed while waving her hands animatedly. “Like, Like —”

Her cunt squeezes. Flutters. Pulses. My thrusts are hard, my cock sliding in and out.

Fucking her. Fucking Connie. My mind turns hazy.

I’m burning up. My fingers dig into her thighs as her eyes stare back at me through the mirror.

Her mouth is open. A moan slips out. I pull out.

Flip her over and lift her up onto the sink.

I catch her lips with mine one last time before it’s over.

One last time before this inevitably ends.

“Like me.”

It’s not a question.

Her hands drop to the armrest between us, her eyes bouncing back and forth as she stares back at me. She chews on her lips as the silence turns into a perfume of unspoken desires.

If I can feel it, I know she can feel it, too.

“Like you,” she whispers.

I don’t second-guess myself before placing the bottle of tequila at our feet and leaning across my seat. I catch her bottom lip before she has time to protest.

The kiss isn’t gentle.

It’s lethal.

Pulverizing my universe into a million little pieces.

Connie wants this just as much, her lips parting for my tongue as easily as I remembered.

She lets out a small whimper as if she was waiting for this all along. As if she’s been thinking about my lips just as much as I have hers. My head is spinning, and it’s sure as hell not the tequila.

Her fist twists around my collar, pulling me closer. I feel crazed, my hands on both sides of her face as the kiss deepens and intensifies. It turns into a promise of her naked body against mine. I’m practically crawling out of my seat just to get to her.

Then, she pulls away.

“Huxley, we can’t,” she says.

Her eyes are wide as she pants, trying to catch her breath.

I don’t give up so easily this time.

“What happened to everything happens for a reason?” I rasp as I try to kiss her again.

But she pushes at my chest, and I fall back into my seat with an irritated sigh, dragging a hand over my face.

“This is a mistake, and you know it,” she says.

It almost sounds like a plea as if she’s hoping I’ll believe her bullshit just like she’s trying so hard to do.

“A mistake,” I repeat, laughing dejectedly. “So I guess all your woo-woo bullshit doesn’t apply here.”

She says my name again. This time, I hate how it sounds on her lips.

“Hux, please.” She takes an anxious inhale. “Don’t be mad at me. I don’t want this to ruin what we were finally managing to build.”

“What?” I reply in disgust. “A fucking friendship?”

She looks so innocent then as she blinks back at me with big owlish eyes. I forget for a second that she’s almost four years older than me.

“Well … yeah.”

The bitterness only builds and builds inside of me. Before I start choking on it, I swallow hard and lick my lips. I break eye contact and pick the bottle back up from beside me. I take a swig of tequila and stare straight ahead.

“Fine.”

I feel her stare burning a hole through me until finally, she sighs and straightens in her seat, facing forward.

“Fine,” she repeats, ripping the bottle away from me.

This time, the silence that follows isn’t comfortable. It’s thick and insufferable. But neither of us seeks to fill it. We don’t speak a single fucking word, passing the bottle back and forth until it’s all finished and gone.