Page 12 of Slick & Spooky

“Say it then” I press, taking a step closer. “Say you don’t want me.”

I’m shoved from behind, bodies surging tighter, and my hands shoot out instinctively. They land on his chest and I feel my own hot skin smeared with the sticky fake blood splattered across his body. Before I can pull away, his grip locks on my hips, steadying me, caging me in.

The crowd swallows us, hides us. No one can see. Which is why I let my hand drift lower, sliding until my palm cups the thick, unforgiving length straining behind his zipper.

A tremor runs through him, quick and violent, as if I’ve hit a live wire.

“Yeah,” I murmur against his ear, lips brushing the shell. “That’s what I thought.”

“What’s your problem?” His voice is tight, teeth gritted, jaw stone.

“You, Sir.” I drag my teeth across my bottom lip. His eyes drop, hungry, unguarded, then snap back up to meet mine. “And it’s getting harder to ignore.”

What comes out of him isn’t a laugh so much as a release like pressure hissing from a valve. It scorches down my spine, proof I’ve pushed him too far.

Exactly where I want him.

“You don’t have to perform for me.”

“What if I want to?”

His eyes betray him as I watch his own desire strain against everything he’s trying not to say.

“Then you’ll deal with the consequences.”

My body moves before my brain argues. I pluck the solo cup from his hand, tip it back, drain it in one swallow. His gaze tracks my throat as I gulp, the lukewarm beer sliding past my lips. A single trickle escapes, running down my chin, catching at my jaw.

I don’t wipe it away. I let it linger.

The cup crumples in my fist. I drop it to the floor.

“I’m counting on it.”

4

“What you want is already yours. Don’t be afraid to take it.”

My father’s voice rattles in my head like a curse as I force one foot in front of the other. Then the next. Knox’s stare still clings to me, heavy as chains, but I keep moving, pushing until the crowd swallows me whole. The bass punches through my chest, but it doesn’t drown the thought.

As usual, my father’s wrong.

It’s easy to take when you’re the kind of man people bend for on instinct. When doors open before you even touch the handle, but I’m not him.

I don’t want to be him.

Walking away is a gamble. A dangerous one. It’s about letting the silence speak, letting the tension stretch tight instead of snapping. About resisting the scream in my bones telling me to turn back and force him to see me.

Hope is pathetic, but it has me convinced that if I walk away, he’ll follow. That if I don’t hand myself over, he’ll finally want to earn it, but hope’s a bad bet. It lies. It tells you you’re the exception when you’re another story that ends the same way.

Still, I keep moving.

Even though my pulse stutters every time I replay his hand on me. Even though every step feels like I’m tearing something out of myself.

I don’t look back.

If he follows, it has to be because he chooses to. Not because I begged or stayed, and definitely not because I’m easy.

He has to decide I’m worth chasing.