by Cora Carmack
I add a little more vodka to my drink before I turn and leave. This isn’t new territory for me. After Levi graduated, I was the frigid bitch who wouldn’t give any guy a chance, especially football players. And the scum at the bottom of the male barrel always seem to think a girl who says no is just a girl who’s a challenge.
I tip my cup up, and swallow steadily as I climb the stairs. I didn’t really mix in that last pour of vodka, and the first few swallows burn. But I keep going, and my cup is half-empty by the time I’m outside the door that Carson mentioned.
He’s pacing when I enter, just the lamp on beside the bed.
He looks gorgeous, and I wince.
I gulp down more of my drink and tell myself that there’s no way Carson is in on that bet. He’s been entirely too sweet and patient and caring.
“Hey.” He folds his arms around me and presses his face into the crook of my neck. “I missed you.”
Maybe he’s too sweet. Is that a thing? Are there actually guys like him that are really this great? Or do they all have some ulterior motive?
I tip my head back to sip more of my drink, and his mouth opens over my pulse. “You taste so fucking good. You drive me crazy.”
“Are we in Silas’s room?” I ask.
He nods before trailing his lips down to my collarbone.
“I know. Not exactly the most romantic place, but we’ll just stay standing and not touch any surface.”
Silas and a few other guys are in on it.
He can’t be. He just . . . He can’t be. He said he didn’t listen to the locker-room talk about me.
He lifts his head up and cups my chin. “Hey. Where are you?”
I finish off the last of my drink and say, “Sorry. I might have poured a little more vodka than I thought into that.”
He presses his forehead against mine and says, “You okay?”
“Yep. A little vodka never hurt anyone.”
He grins. “Famous last words.”
My heart twinges at that grin.
He has nothing to do with the bet. I repeat it in my head until I’m sure I believe it.
And yet . . . I’m so sick of being the frigid freak. So tired of being the kind of girl targeted for shit like this. Maybe it’s time for me to get over the thing with Levi. I’m certainly not the first girl to lose her virginity and regret it.
I just need to let it go.
I put my cup down on a dresser, and wrap my arms around Carson. I move my mouth to his, and he wastes no time dipping his tongue inside. His hands start at my hips, gripping me firmly. They slip up under my jacket, stopping around my rib cage as his lips tease mine.
“It was a stupid idea coming to this party,” he says. “All I want to do is be with you.”
I step back, smiling like I know what I’m doing.
“So be with me.”
“You wanna leave?”
I shake my head and peel off my jacket, tossing it on the floor. Silas’s bed is made, and I take a quick glance at the comforter. “As long as we don’t get under the covers we’re probably safe.”
“You love testing my control, don’t you, Daredevil?”
I think back to the night we met. There’s no way he knew who I was . . . right? But he heard me arguing with Silas. If he and Silas are friends, wouldn’t he have recognized his voice?
I shake my head and force myself back into the present.
“I love it when you call me Daredevil.”
That’s the girl I want to be—the girl who doesn’t give a damn about football or bets or sex. I want to be the girl who takes what she wants. And right now, bet or no bet, truth or lie . . . I want Carson.
And I want to stop being scared that everything will hurt me. I’m stronger than that.
I crawl up on the bed on my knees and crook my finger at him, and he practically jumps on the bed.
We both laugh, and I smooth my fingers through his hair. He does the same, combing softly through the strands and then settling his hands on my back.
He makes me happy. I’m comfortable around him. No one is that good of an actor. Even when I’d had sex with Levi, I could tell he wasn’t all the way in it. Everything was too mechanical. It hurt, but I went through the motions.
It wouldn’t be like that with Carson. It would be hot and sensual, and it would get me past this hang-up.
I tip my lips up, capturing his. But everything about the moment is a little too soft. I thrust my tongue against his, press my chest into him, and then lie back, pulling him on top of me. I need him to lose himself in me, so that I can lose myself, too.
Chapter 25
Carson
I know that this isn’t the best place for this. I’d rather be home in my bed, but I can’t bring myself to pull my lips away from hers long enough to actually put those thoughts into motion.
Her lips move fast and hard against mine, and I think maybe we’re both a little high off the night’s victory. I try to slow her down because if I don’t, it’s going to be mighty uncomfortable heading back downstairs. But she’s not having it.
She pushes on my shoulder, and I roll to my side, thinking that finally one of us has the sense to suggest we leave, but then she presses me back and straddles me. I groan, the sight of her above me taking me back to the first night that we took things a step further. She’s nothing if not determined, and with just our hands and mouths, that night was the best sex of my life, even without the sex.
Her hips circle above me, and in that purple dress and tights, I know she can feel me straining against my jeans. She rubs herself against me and I gasp, “Fuck, Dallas.” I want to get her out of here right now, but I can’t seem to get anything but those two words out of my mouth.
I’m squinting up at her, wanting to close my eyes, but unable to stop watching her. She reaches for the hem of her dress and pulls it up and over her head, baring her slim waist and a black bra.
Fuck. This has gone too far.
“Dallas.” I sit up and her hand darts to the hem of my shirt, tugging it up. I push her hands away. “Dallas, stop. Not here. I won’t be able to stop.”
“So don’t.”
She reaches behind her for the clasp of her bra, a line we haven’t even crossed back at my place, and I seize her hands to stop her.
“Dallas, why don’t we just go back to my place?”
She slips her hands out from under mine, leaving mine against her back. She runs her hands up my arms to my shoulders and rocks her hips into mine.
“Please,” she murmurs, diving down to drag her lips across my neck.
“Please what?”
She grasps one of my forearms, pulling my hand off her back and guiding it to her breast. She closes her mouth over mine, rocking harder against my dick, and whispers again, “Please?”
I break away, groaning, capturing her shoulders in an attempt to hold her still. “I don’t get what is happening here, babe. Just tell me what’s going on.”
She makes a small cry of frustration and tries to kiss me again, but I’ve got her held tight.
“This is what you want. It’s what I want.”
“This is not what I want, Daredevil.”
She jerks in my arms, and I can’t tell whether she’s trying to get closer or pull away. “Please. Just help me,” she demands.
“Help how?”
Her fingernails dig into my shoulders, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Not at all.
“Fix me,” she whispers.
“Baby . . .” I release her shoulders to cup her face, and her hands go back to wandering along my chest, but I can tell she isn’t even really feeling it. I shake her, just enough that she stops for a second and looks at me. “You are not broken. And even if you were, this would not be the way to fix it.”
She starts to cry, and it’s just like her laugh—silent, only her expression doing the work. Her lips tremble and tears crawl down her cheeks. I press my face close to hers, forehead to forehead, so that I can feel some
of her tears against my own skin.
“I want you, Dallas. I have since the moment I met you. And when you’re actually ready, I won’t waste one moment before I take you to bed. But you’re more than this. We’re more than this.”
She collapses into my arms, crying, and it’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from her. In fact, other than her dance and the emotion that I see in her gaze when she looks at me, I’ve only ever really seen anger from her. Nothing like this.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. This was stupid. I just . . .” Her chest shakes as she struggles to breathe. “I thought this would help.”
“Help what?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Nothing that makes you feel like this is stupid.”
She scrambles back off of me, grabs her dress, and bolts for the door. As soon as she has the dress over her head and chest, she pulls open the door, still tugging the dress back into place. I tear after her, catching her just before she hits the top of the stairs.
“What the hell, Dallas? Talk to me.”
“I can’t. I just need to be alone for a little while. We can talk later.”
“No.” I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and pull her so close that our lips would touch if she just tilted her head up. “You promised me you wouldn’t run. Not without an explanation.”
“Carson, please just don’t.”
Her expression is angry, but her voice just sounds sad.
“No. I am not letting you walk away from me.”
“Maybe you should let her walk away, man.”
I jerk back to see Ryan at the foot of the stairs. Stella and Silas are beside him, and the three of them are doing their best to block us from the dozen or so people behind them, craning their necks to see what’s going on.
“Shit.”
I let go of her, even though I don’t want to. I look down and see that her dress is stuck up over one hip. You can’t see anything because of her tights, but I reach out and tug her dress back into place anyway. I hate that people have already seen us arguing, but I sure as hell don’t want them to see any more.
I step back, but I keep my eyes fixed on hers. “You promised. You have to talk to me.”
Her voice is small and her eyes wide. “I will. Tomorrow.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and watch, aching, as she flees down the stairs. Ryan and Stella walk in front of her, pushing their way through the people, and when they move out of my line of sight, I collapse against the wall and slide down to the floor.
I don’t know how much time passes before Silas grips my elbow and pulls me up. “Come on, man. Just go home and sleep it off. Whatever it is, isn’t helped by sitting up here. Plus, you’ve got fangirls at the bottom of the stairs planning how to fix your broken heart.”
That pulls me out of my funk, and sure enough, he’s right. There’s a group of girls not-so-casually hanging out at the bottom of the stairs. I turn my back on them and scrub my hand over my face.
“I just don’t know what happened. We were fine and then . . .” I don’t say any more, knowing Dallas wouldn’t want me to. But everything just happened so damn fast, my head is still spinning.
Silas holds up his hands. “There are plenty of things I know about women, but how to deal with an angry one is not in my skill set.”
The thing is . . . I don’t know if she was angry. I don’t know anything
“She’s gone?” I ask.
“Yeah. Your boy drove them home ’cause Stella already had too much to drink.”
I grab my phone and text Ryan. I keep texting him all the way down the stairs, past the group of girls, and out the front door. I’m probably blowing up his phone, but I don’t care.
When I get to my truck and don’t trust myself to text and drive, I call him. He answers on the second ring.
“Relax, dude. She’s fine.”
“No, she’s not.”
Ryan sighs.
“She’s going to be fine. She and Stella are back at her dorm, and they’re talking some things out.”
“Why can’t she talk to me?”
“She will. Just give her some time.”
“I can’t.” Or I don’t want to. All I can think about are her damn rules. What did she say? If either of us thinks it’s too much, then we just say the word, and it’s done. We walk away.
What if that’s what this is?
“You can.” Ryan’s voice is surprisingly firm. “She doesn’t want you to see her upset. She’s not going anywhere, man. Just wait and talk to her tomorrow.”
He hangs up on me then. And I barely resist the urge to throw my phone against the windshield.
I drive around for a while, getting closer and closer to her dorm each time before I convince myself to stay away. I’d be there in a heartbeat if I were certain it wouldn’t push her away faster. Finally, I head back to my place and do the only thing I can think of.
I run.
Chapter 26
Dallas
I make a beeline for the shower as soon as Stella and I get inside our dorm. She tries to stop me, but I can’t talk right now. I don’t know how to deal with stuff like this. I’ve spent my entire life actively not dealing, and now I’m ripping at the seams because of it.
It’s a Saturday night after an incredible victory, so the dorm is pretty much a ghost town. I have the shower all to myself, so that even if anyone could hear me crying over the water, it wouldn’t matter.
What scares me more than anything is that I don’t know who the girl at that party was. She sure wasn’t me.
I know my tendencies and my faults. I know that I jump to anger first, and when that doesn’t work, I walk away instead.
That girl? She was throwing herself into the fire instead of trying to escape. And that’s not a version of myself that I’ve ever had to face.
I don’t think Carson had anything to do with that bet, not with the way he reacted, the way he stopped things from going further, but that doesn’t help with the humiliation burrowed so deep beneath my skin that even the scalding-hot water of the shower can’t touch it.
God, what he must think of me.
At least I didn’t mention the bet. At least he doesn’t know just how little I trusted him for a few moments there. Because the only thing that hurts more than my own pain is the idea of causing his.
But when I finally pull myself out of the shower, wrap a towel around my frame, and face my bloodshot eyes in the mirror . . . I have to ask myself—
Regardless of how much I like Carson, do I like the person I am with him?
It would be an easier question to answer if I had any idea who I really was.
Back in the room, I tell Stella everything. Including the fact that I slept with Levi. As I predicted, she’s hurt. I can see her questioning our entire friendship. What else haven’t I been telling her? But I promise her that I have no other outstanding secrets. Not after I tell her everything about Carson and me, too.
When I finish, I’m furious to find myself crying again, but at this point, it’s not something that I can turn off or stuff down anymore. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to do that again. She pulls me into a hug, and together we lie on my tiny twin bed until I’ve gotten it all out of my system.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Stella assures me.
“Is it?”
“Of course it is. That guy is head over heels for you, and this is just a bump in the road.”
“It’s not Carson I’m worried about. It’s me. I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust myself.”
She pushes my hair back out of my face and sighs. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re going to be just fine. You’re nowhere near as screwed up as you think you are.” I know that’s a dig at herself. I recognize the self-loathing because I am a master at it. “This is just what it feels like to get older. It won’t be the last time you look back at your life and realize just how stupid or naive or terrible you’ve been. I’m pretty sure that’s a
reoccurring thing until death do us part. The truth is . . . we’re all a little screwed up. If humans were capable of being perfect there would be no such thing as Jerry Springer, and the world would be filled with unicorns and fairies, and families would never be broken, and children would never disappoint their parents, and things wouldn’t hurt as badly, but it also wouldn’t feel so damn good when things go right. And friends wouldn’t have anything to stay up late and talk about because everything in the world would be too boring to matter. The only thing we can do is try to find people whose scars compliment our own. And I’m pretty sure Carson McClain would carry your baggage around the world and back if you asked him.”
“You think?”
“In a heartbeat.”
We fall asleep that way, two grown women in one twin bed, like we’re still freshmen in high school having a sleepover, whispering about boys and gossip so my dad won’t hear. Things were so much less scary then. We were rushing headfirst into the future with no idea just how complicated things would get on the way.
WHEN A KNOCKING at the door wakes us, the sun is bright and bleeding through the blinds. Stella mumbles a “Go away” and burrows deeper under my covers. How the two of us managed to sleep through the night in one twin bed is one of the great mysteries of the universe, but when the knocking gets louder, I snap to attention.
Carson. It has to be Carson. I scramble over Stella trying to get out of my bed, and my knee accidentally sinks into her midsection.
“Easy on the bladder, Dallas, unless you want a mess in your bed.”
“It’s Carson,” I whisper. “Just a second!” I call toward the door.
Stella props up on an elbow and says, “I’m guessing you want me to make myself scarce?”
“Just for a little bit? Please.”
She nods. “I’ll go take a shower.”
While she gathers her things, I take a quick moment to look in the mirror. I pat down my hair, tucking stray strands behind my ears, and resituate my pajamas so everything is covered.
When it’s as good as it’s going to get, I open the door.
My stomach plummets.
