Fearless

by Allana Kephart

Without even pausing, I smack him hard across the cheek. He stumbles back and I follow, my arm raised to strike him again. But a thick, strong arm wraps around my waist and pulls me away from him before I can do any real damage. “She’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  Instinctively, I want to elbow him in the ribs. Turn around and break his nose. Something. Anything to get hands off me. But I force a deep breath from my lungs and turn in his arms, my small hands resting on his wide pecs. “Gorgeous,” I say. “Hello.”

  Lincoln smiles down at me. “You really are trouble, huh?”

  I smirk up at him. This feels better than hurting the jackass behind me. Fun, harmless. He feels strangely safe to me, even being a stranger in a crowded room, like my soul recognizes his and feels content in his presence. Like I could be the troublemaker he dubbed me as.

  I did agree to be young and reckless tonight anyway, didn’t I?

  “You have no idea,” I purr.

  “Fucking bitch.” The guy making grabs for Riley sways where he stands. He rubs his cheek where she struck him, a perfect red handprint already darkening to a purplish bruise.

  Riley glares over her shoulder at him. “Eat it, McGrabby.”

  I bite back a chuckle.

  He looks over her head at me, ignoring her remark. “Listen, man, she was coming on to me. I was being friendly. She just went psycho cunt on me.”

  Riley tries to pull out of my arms and attack him again, but I hold fast. She could beat his ass, I have no doubt, but selfishly I want to impress her and play the knight in shining armor right this moment. “I shouldn’t have to come stand behind her for you to get the hint, she wants nothing to do with you.”

  She looks up at me again, tilting her head like I’m something fascinating to behold. The guy—McGrabby, as she called him, and therefore he will always be known as—sputters for a comeback, but Riley shoves me backwards and says, “How about that dance?” before he gets the chance.

  She leads the show, forcing her way to an open spot of floor with me in tow. She guides my hands to her waist, and she leans her back against my chest, rocking her body into mine with the beat. Her arms wave in the air for a song or two, before she gets bolder, and covers my large hand with hers. Her other hand snakes around behind her, cupping the back of my head as I trail my lips over the back of her neck.

  She swivels her hips against me in response, and I go a step further. I lower my hand to her pelvis and pull her back against me, grinding my hips into her ass. Her eyes fly open and she bites down on her lip, slowly transitioning to a gentle shimmy.

  Fuck, it’s torturous, being surrounded by people while some temptress of a woman pushes your every boundary. I spin her in my arms, bringing her front to mine, and repeat the hip thrust. Her lips part now, feeling the weight in my pants rub against her leg causing two red splotches to cover her cheeks.

  I smirk down at her, emboldened and shameless of the half hard cock pressed against her leg. She makes it evident it’s not bothering her by arching her back, letting her hands creep from my chest to my waist, to the back of my neck again.

  “I knew you were trouble,” I whisper in her ear, and her steps falter from her shiver.

  Then she kisses me.

  Sudden but somehow still a bit timid, she pulls my mouth down to meet hers in a scorching kiss. The music stops, the people all around disappear in a puff of smoke. It’s just her and I, our bodies locked together in a memory of our dance, alone in the world.

  Her tongue glides over my lip and I part my lips to pull her in, the vibration of her whine setting me on fire as I stroke her tongue with my own. I pull her closer and bite both of her quivering lips, soothing the bruises with small kisses. Her knees buckle and she leans her weight into me, and I tighten my grip on her waist.

  Then someone strikes her from behind and she jumps, and we teleport back to the crowded, stinky party. I pull Riley away from the attacker, ready to pummel whoever laid hands on her, only to find her slimy friends dancing together and looking at me like I’m actual shit on their knockoff shoes.

  Riley buries her face in my neck while her friends giggle and mutter amongst themselves. She starts to pull away, go back to her peers to be slut shamed and taunted, and who knows what the fuck else. I pull her back to me and cup the side of her neck, forcing her eyes back to mine. She looks like she’s ready to cry, and I want nothing more than to bring back the bliss she just felt.

  “Wanna get out of here?”

  I don’t know what possessed me to ask her that. I can’t exactly take her home, no matter how tempting a thought that may be. But it’s so...not fucking me in here, I can’t think straight, and despite the wicked glint in her eyes, she’s uncomfortable as all fuck. Especially now that her friends are trying to pull her away from me once again. The fact I had to pull her off of killing some perv tells me that much.

  She blushes. “I—excuse me?” she stutters, and it makes me even angrier at her catty friends. Now she thinks she’s leading me on to getting fucked, when really, I just want to get away from them before I say something awful to Choppy Hair Camel Toe and Ginger Bucktooth.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna try anything kinky.” I hook my fingers in the belt loops of her shorts and pull her closer. Her lips part with a gasp, her body melting back into my embrace as I lean forward to growl in her ear, “Well, unless you say please.”

  She turns her head to look up at me, wide green eyes swimming with intrigue. She gnaws her lip, taking a long moment to just stare at me, weigh the options she has presented. Then, by some miraculous twist of fate, she nods. “Yes.”

  I smile like a fool, unable to feign calm and collected, and her body relaxes further under my touch. “C’mon,” I urge. I tug her through the thralls into what I could only assume is a bedroom—there’s a futon with magazines beneath in it, next to a lamp and lotion with one ratty balled-up sheet at the end. I don’t want to think of what else it could be.

  Above the pit that probably makes Rhett’s bed look like holy ground, there’s a small window. It leads to the alley behind the business upstairs, outside in the cool night air. I’m expecting a fight from Riley, some girly nonsense about getting dirty on the concrete, but she’s pulling herself up and out without so much as asking for an explanation.

  Okay, yeah, drop dead gorgeousness aside, I like this girl.

  I pull myself out and she’s already two steps ahead, pulling the fire escape ladder down to the ground. “Where does this go?” she asks.

  “All the way to the roof,” I say. I checked.

  She grins. “Perfect,” she says. And once again, without a word to give her any ideas, she climbs up the steps.

  The roof is slanted slightly, so she straddles the vaulted rooftop and grips the peak, her back to the world and her eyes on me. She scoots backwards until she’s almost at the edge of the building, her tongue caught between her teeth to keep her focused.

  “Come on! I don’t bite,” she says, patting the spot right in front of her. She shimmies her shoulders, oozing sarcasm when she says, “Unless you say please.”

  Trouble is a fitting name for her.

  My hands shake, but I make it up beside her regardless. She’s wild, and I’m not about to let on I’m not as tough as her. It’s all for naught, though. The fear is evident in my face and body posture. I can’t hide the tremors, or my complete inability to look down. Her hands cover mine as I settle, the adventure in her eyes fading to a tenderness that makes me feel vulnerable. Naked.

  No one has ever looked at me like that before, and I don’t know what to feel about it.

  “I won’t let you fall, Gorgeous, don’t worry,” she teases lightly.

  I think I like it.

  “I’m not afraid of heights,” I lie.

  She hums, pursing her lips. “What are you afraid of, then?”

  I raise a brow. “Getting a little personal, aren’t we?”

  “Is that a problem?” she squeezes my han
ds, coaxing their white knuckle grip off the shingles until she can lace her fingers with mine. “I’m afraid of being irrelevant. A nobody—forgotten in the endless void of death.”

  “Getting deep on me, Trouble,” I say.

  She shrugs. “Your turn.”

  What am I afraid of? I could tell her something macho—“I’m a grown man. I’m not afraid of anything”—or shallow as sin—“Hornets, clearly”—but she just bared her throat to me. She’s tipsy, I know that, and I’m just a stranger she probably intends to never see again. But, somehow, I feel guilty not letting myself be a little open with her, too.

  “I’m afraid of the dark,” I say.

  “The dark?” she says, biting back a giggle.

  I grin. It must look pathetic, because her laugh dies on her tongue. “I guess, the night. Going to sleep, facing my own mind in my nightmares.”

  She tilts her head. “What are your nightmares about?”

  I push her shoulder until she teeters. She doesn’t even flinch. “Buy me dinner first.”

  Her eyes widen. “That’s my line.”

  “How dated of you.”

  She smiles, the same one when I caught her staring at me. A beaming, toothy one that shines a light from the deepest corners of her heart. “You have a great smile.”

  She covers her mouth. “Shut up.”

  Surprised, I take her wrist, pull her palm back to mine. “No. You do.”

  Her eyes narrow into slits, her lips pressed into a thin line to hide the smile that’s melting me from the inside. She stares me down, waiting for me to take it back, or justify myself. I don’t. I let my words seep into her mind and take root, until every time she smiles for a picture my words will echo back to her.

  “Thank you,” she says finally, giving up.

  “You’re welcome,” I say with a little grin of my own. “So. Where were we, before your friends so rudely interrupted?”

  Kissing. We were kissing before my friends saw and hit me in the head with an ice cube. And damn it, we were kissing good. I’d never been kissed like that, and once again, they ruined it.

  I need better friends.

  Although, I’m beginning to wonder if Lincoln is real, or simply a highly vivid hallucination. That could be why Cheyenne and Carly are being such bitches—I’m actually traipsing around the night with a broomstick. Surely, I hadn’t drank enough to fabricate a whole person, had I?

  But what else was there? Those pretty lips were about to be my undoing, and the more he kept talking, the more promiscuous I wanted to be. His firm body against my back felt like heaven on earth, the shape of him fitting so solidly against me. I’d never felt a need so intense, and I’d only just met him.

  I giggle and lean backwards until I’m nearly hanging off the rooftop, deciding to focus on the stars instead of the heat building inside me. He’s being nothing but a gentleman tonight. And more to the point, I have no idea how to have sex on a triangular roof.

  “Whoa, Riley, jesus.” He wraps his hands around my thighs and pulls me closer to him, and it takes everything in me not to whine.

  “My dad calls me star girl,” I muse aloud, instead of purring at him like I want to. “Y’know. ‘Cause I’ve always been a night owl. I want to touch them.”

  “Don’t fall off, Trouble,” he warns in a low voice. “Or you’ll be up there with ‘em.”

  “What a terribly morbid thing to say.” I swing back up, our faces so close together his breath ghosts over my lips. I rest my hands on either side of his neck, feeling his pulse thundering, the jump of his throat as he gulps. “Hi,” I giggle.

  He smiles again. That breathtaking, easy smile that makes my toes curl. “Hey.”

  I take a moment to study him. Maybe it’s the thought that I will probably never see him again after tonight that makes me so brave, or maybe it’s the peace he exudes in everything he does. Regardless, I touch him. I let one hand fist around the collar of his shirt while the other trails his face. I draw across his brow and down his nose, my thumb brushing over his parted lips while I scratch the light stubble on his cheeks. It’s no beard, just feels like he may have been too lazy to clean up this morning, and I’m a little bit obsessed with it.

  I want to know what that scruff would feel like against my skin.

  “Riley,” he breathes, his deep voice hardened and gravelly. I shiver at how my name sounds on his tongue, not like a little girl, not like the stupid goodie-goodie no one can trust. He says my name like I’m something he desperately needs, like my touch is forbidden yet he can’t turn it down.

  “Kiss me again.” It pours out of me before I’ve realized the thought has even crossed my mind. I bite down on my lip, holding back the need to apologize, to take it back when I don’t want to. I want to soak in this bravery he brings, for just a moment.

  He doesn’t give me the chance to second-guess myself for long. His grip on my thighs tighten until I’m sure he’s imprinted himself on me as he closes the gap between us. His mouth takes mine with confident ferocity, tongue deftly coaxing my lips apart until he can taste me, until he pulls the breath from my lungs and leaves me gasping with want.

  It’s like my every button is presented to him, ones I didn’t even know I had, and he takes his time breaking each one. He lures my tongue past my lips just to suck the tip and push it back in with his. He drags his teeth roughly over my lower lip, pulling until I whimper and then drags slow, heated kisses across them until my whole face tingles with sensation.

  His hands move slowly upwards, fingertips teasing the waistband of my shorts as he pulls me closer with a hand on my tailbone. His other hand moves between my legs, his palm cupping me through my shorts, and finding me wet. Damn, I’m as surprised as he is. He’s ruined my shorts, and all I can think is he might as well rip them off me now.

  “Fuck, what I’d give to touch you,” he growls from low in his stomach, before he turns his head to pepper kisses up my jaw.

  “What’s stopping you?” I ask. I sound sheepish, and blatantly shocked. How sexy. “I want it.”

  He drops his head back and bites hard on his lip, groaning at the sky. “Shit—we’re on a roof?” he offers. Ah, right. Forgot about that.

  “We can fix that,” I say. With a finger on his chin I bring his face back to mine, mimicking his teasing by nibbling his lower lip until he lets me suck it instead. He growls and runs his thick fingers through my long hair, wrapping it around his fingers and pulling my head back. Lust glimmers in his eyes, dimmed only by the flashing red and blue lights.

  Wait a second...

  He feels my freeze, and his grip on me softens instantly. “What happened?”

  “No,” I say. I grab his shoulders and lean to the side, spotting at least three state trooper squad cars parked in front of the house. “The cops are here.”

  “What?” Lincoln pulls me to his chest again, this time to keep me safe while he stretches to see below. “Fuck. Fuck, I gotta get out of here.”

  So do I, like a bat out of hell. My dad is Denver PD, not the state troopers, but I have a bad feeling my presence at this party will eventually circle back around to him anyway if I’m caught.

  Lincoln slides down and helps me to the ladder after, but we freeze at the window we escaped from. He pushes me toward the front. “Go. I’ve gotta get Duke out of here.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, holding fast to his hand. “Your friends’ll be fine. We should get out of here.”

  He has zero reason to be hiding from the cops, I know that, but I want him to run with me. Find a little corner to duck behind, get caught up in the moment again. One hit of a rush and I want to drown in it, with him, tonight, right now. Fuck the consequences.

  He laughs, but it’s not amused. It’s the laugh that breaks free of a person just before they shatter. “Mouthy, drunk black kid surrounded by cops? Nah, Trouble, that doesn’t bode well.”

  If he didn’t look so utterly panicked, I’d be offended. His hands shake and his jaw is
locked, and while he tries to keep a cool expression, his eyes are like open windows to trauma I could never even begin to comprehend.

  Nothing illegal is happening here except underage drinking. Well, that I know of. For the most part, the house is packed by horny adults. But Lincoln looks like it’s the end of times if he’s seen here.

  I reach out for him, brushing my hand against his cheek. “Well...what are we gonna do?”

  “We?” he asks.

  I nod. “C’mon. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Hold on.” He grabs my phone out of my back pocket, tapping the screen a few times before sliding it back in. When I stare at him, he winks. “Text me when you get home,” he says. “Or...any time.”

  I try and fight back a smile, but fail. “Seriously?”

  He narrows his eyes, playful as ever. “Just text me, Trouble.”

  “As you wish,” I say with a shrug.

  He shivers. “If you do, I’ll introduce you to some better movies.”

  I gape at him, glaring at him from the ground. “Remind me to kick your ass for that later.”

  Butterflies ripping through my stomach the whole while, I slink through the basement window as Lincoln laughs at my empty threat. My cold-shoulder sweater catches on the window on my way in, and I tumble over a couple making out on the futon. I squeak, trying to avoid sticking my foot up someone while they’re trying not to get smashed. The squirming makes me trip, and I land with a thud on the unforgiving concrete floor.

  “Ri Pie!”

  I pick my head up, rubbing the scuff over my eye. Paris is fumbling to readjust her boobs, flattening her hair down when she says, “Girl, why were you outside?”

  “Paris,” I gasp. “Have you seen—”

  “Duke,” Lincoln grumbles, landing over the two of them with far more grace than I had. He scowls down at the boy, who is half passed out and still trying to make out with my friend. “What the fuck are you doing, man?”

  “That,” Paris snickers. “Fucking. Well, almost. Four’s a crowd.”

  She stands up and helps me to my feet while Lincoln tries to force Duke up and out the window. “We’ve gotta get home. Where’s Rhett?”