Page 147 of Wicked Little Darling

He took one hand off the door and moved to the side, but not enough that I could get past him without touching him.

And as I brushed by him, he ran his fingers through my pathetic little mohawk.

“Kinda suits you,” he murmured. “I kinda like it. Don’t like why you did it, but it’s cute.”

Heat spread across my face, and I rubbed at my cheeks, making my way to my bed.

I hadn’t noticed before, but the room had been picked up. Guilt slithered through me, and when I saw that he’d even made my bed, it intensified.

I sank down onto my mattress and watched him cross the room to his own bed, where he sat with spread legs, leaning forward as he rested his elbows on his knees and watched me with keen eyes.

“Why’d you go to that party?”

Just jumping right into it, then.

I shrugged. “I was out walking and saw it and…I just went.”

“Because…?”

“Because of the texts. Because I was upset. Because I didn’t know where you were or if it was you sending those messages.”

He shook his head. “I told you last night, I didn’t say those things to you. I left my phone at the manor because I had to take Val to the hospital in a hurry. I didn’t have my phone until last night. I’m pretty sure that Everett wrote those messages. You know I’d never say those things to you, right? You know that’s not how I feel, don’t you?”

I knew in my heart of hearts that he would never say those things to me. I knew he wouldn’t play me like that, or throw me away like yesterday’s news. Scrape me off his shoe like annoying gum. And to have it confirmed—by him—soothed every last bit of my aching soul.

“Then how do you feel?” I whispered the question, like I didn’t actually want him to hear it, didn’t want him to answer it, didn’t want to talk about any of it—while desperately needing to know at the same time.

Wait, Val had been in the hospital? “What happened to Val? Is he okay?”

Dakota had been by his brother’s side in the hospital this entire time while I was here having a breakdown. Guilt crowded my mind as I thought about the moments I’d doubted him. I was disgusted with myself, that I’d let myself believe, for even a fraction of a second, that he would ever send me messages like that.

Fuck, I was the worst.

“Yeah, he’s okay. He has a really weak immune system so he gets sick a lot, but he’s okay.”

I knew Dakota loved Val more than anyone in the entire world, had seen it with my own eyes—had been shamefully, bitterly envious of that love, if I was being honest—and to know that he’d probably spent the past few days a worried mess while I spiraled and blamed him…

All of a sudden Dakota was right in front of me, pushing me down onto my back, climbing on top of me and pinning my hands to the bed above my head.

“Stop it,” he said, pushing my wrists down into the bed for emphasis. “Stop thinking that shit.”

“You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”

He leaned down and rubbed his cheek against mine, then murmured in my ear. “Course I do. You can lie pretty good with that mean little mouth, but your eyes can’t hide a thing.”

“Oh yeah? Then tell me what I was thinking.”

He bit down on my jaw, making me gasp at the sudden sting, and when I realized I was pushing my hips up so I could chase the heady sensations that were sliding through me, I tried really, really hard to stop moving.

So he started moving instead.

He rolled his hips slowly, sending a burst of pleasure through me. “That while I was at the hospital, you were here by yourself,cursing me for leaving without a word and losing your mind because you couldn’t touch me for days.”

I was absolutely losing my mind right now as his raspy voice slid under my skin, making me shudder beneath him. He’d started sucking down the column of my throat, nipping at the skin and then sliding his tongue over every bite until I was making embarrassing little noises under him.

“You were missing me because you can’t handle being away from me for so long. You realized that you just can’t live without me, not even for a second, and got mad at me for leaving you all alone. You wrecked our room to get back at me, then thought you could go get wasted to forget about me. But you couldn’t, could you?”

He’d let go of my wrists at some point, and one of his hands was in my hair while the other one slipped under my hoodie.