by Holly Renee
I could see her working her jaw as she took a step back, but she didn’t dare look my way.
I kept my eyes on her as the game continued. Will landed his next shot as was expected but his friend didn’t. The two of them only had two cups left to hit while the girls still needed four.
Allie shot again, but she didn’t stand a chance. Carson also needed to give her a throwing lesson while he was fucking that animosity out of her.
Josie grabbed the next ball, but before she could throw it, I stood and quickly made my way behind her. Her body stiffened even more so than it already was, and she threw her elbow back toward me. I grabbed it before she could make contact.
Her skin felt electric under my touch. Like somehow both of us felt more alive now that we were this close. I knew that was insane. I knew that she probably felt nothing other than the urge to knock me the hell out, but my fingers zapped with pleasure just from feeling her again.
"Let me help you," I whispered at the back of her neck, and she jerked her arm away from my touch as goose bumps formed beneath her delicate skin.
"I don’t need your help," she growled out her words, and if I was smart, I would have sat my ass back down and listened to her. But I hadn’t done one smart thing since I met her.
"You look like you do." I pressed my chest into her back gently, and I could feel her harsh breaths as they hammered in and out of her lungs.
Whether she wanted me there or not, she was affected by me, and that knowledge felt like a fucking drug hitting my system.
It didn’t matter if it was good or bad for me. It didn’t matter that I wouldn’t be able to stop once I got a taste, I just needed a small hit of her to tide me over.
"You always think people need something from you. Don’t you?" She looked up at me over her shoulder, and her bottom lip looked red from where she had been biting into it.
"They usually do." I wasn’t lying. My family and my friends, my brothers, they were the only ones who weren’t always expecting something from me. But even they had their expectations.
"I don’t." She was still staring up at me, and she was searching my face. I had no idea what she was looking for. Probably the truth or the secrets she thought I was still keeping from her.
"I need you." I let my hand move over her elbow, and she jerked away from my touch and my words.
She didn’t respond to what I had said, and she put at least a foot of distance between us. I looked across the table, and Will was trying to hide his smile as he looked at us.
Fuck him. Fuck him and everyone else at this damn party.
She lifted her arm to throw again, and I knew she’d miss before the ball even left her hands.
"Who taught you how to throw?" I moved to the side of her, and she looked up at me with an annoyed glare.
"My mom." She attempted to line her arm up again. "My dad wasn’t really in the picture, remember?"
"Lower your elbow," I instructed her and nodded when she did what I said. "Don’t just fling your arm forward. Use your shoulder." I showed her what I was talking about with my own arm, and she watched. I could see a small amount of tension melt from her shoulders as she focused on what I was saying.
She practiced the movement a few times. "There you go." I took a step back and watched as she lined herself up again.
She looked over at me one last time before she threw, her lashes hitting her cheeks, and I could have sworn she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. She threw the ball as I had shown her, and it landed with a small thump in the first of the four cups.
She jumped up, shocked by her own ability, and when she smiled over at me, I felt like my chest was going to explode.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away from me quickly as if she had a lapse in judgment, and I took my seat back by her side.
Will and his friend ended up winning, but she played much better after my small throwing lesson.
"You playing the winner?" She turned toward me and hiked her thumb over her shoulder toward Will. She had to drink far too many cups of beer since she lost the game, and I could tell that she was feeling a little buzzed.
"No." I shook my head and leaned back in the chair. "I only wanted to play with you."
She took a step toward me and her knee bumped into mine. I wasn’t sure if it was by mistake or on purpose, but I wanted to reach out and pull her closer to me.
"I could play another game. Beat you with my new moves." She smirked down at me, and I knew she was trying to get under my skin.
"You don’t think I’m better than Will?" I arched an eyebrow, but that playful smile fell from her lips.
"No." She shook her head. "From what I can tell, you are so much worse."
She was right. I was nothing like him. He would be good for her. A guy like him would be the right choice, but I didn’t care.
"But here you are talking to me instead of him."
She stared down at me, and I knew that she was seconds from walking away from me. She was seconds away from telling me to go straight to hell.
"I’m sorry." I leaned forward and reached out for her hand. It was lax in mine, but I held on to her fingers. "Being an asshole is kind of a reflex."
"I can see that." She didn’t pull her fingers away from mine, though. She let her soft skin settle in my rough fingers.
"Can we go somewhere and talk?" My fingers tightened around hers, and I could see the flash of uncertainty in her eyes. She wanted to, but she didn’t. She wanted to be around me, but she also wanted to run so fast in the opposite direction.
"I don’t think it’s a good idea." She looked to her side before her gaze slid back to me.
I held up my hand that wasn’t holding hers in defense. "Just to talk. I promise."
She chewed on her bottom lip, and it took everything inside of me not to tug it free from her teeth.
"You get three minutes." She held up three fingers and wiggled them in front of my face. It was three minutes I was willing to take.
She let her fingers fall for mine and walked away from me. I stood and quickly followed her, no idea where she was going, but she pushed to the back door before I had a chance to question her.
There were a few people mingling out in the backyard, but it was much quieter here than inside the house. Suddenly, I felt nervous with her.
I felt like a fucking pussy.
I had been able to do all those things with her, to her, without an ounce of fear of repercussions, but as I stared down at her with her sad eyes and her hair whipping slightly into her face, I knew that I couldn’t fuck this up.
I wouldn’t get another chance with her. I didn’t deserve the moment she was giving me.
And even though I knew this wasn't a conversation we should be having while she was buzzing off alcohol, I was fearful she wouldn't give me the opportunity again.
She crossed her arms in front of her and looked down at her shoes. "I really don’t understand what you would have to talk about."
My heart raced as she looked back up at me.
"You haven’t let me explain."
She shook her head, and I knew that she didn’t care about what I had to say. She didn’t want to hear any other sorry excuses that left my mouth, and I couldn’t blame her.
"What’s your favorite memory?" I asked the first thing I could think of before she turned away and left me standing there like a fool.
"What?" She pushed her hair out of her face.
"What’s your favorite memory?" I repeated myself and looked around. There was no one close enough to hear anything we were saying. I could have asked her anything and it wouldn’t have mattered.
"It doesn’t include you." She huffed, and I laughed.
"I wasn’t expecting it to."
She rolled her eyes and walked over to the large tree that stood in the center of the yard. She kicked at the bark near the bottom before turning back to me. "My least favorite memory includes you, though."
"Ouch." I rubbed my h
and over my chest. "You mean there isn’t like a broken bone story or a really bad stomach bug that outranks me?"
"Nope." She leaned back against the tree and stared at me. "You’re the worst."
I opened my mouth, but she quickly interrupted me. "I take that back. I won’t give you that much credit. Watching my mom die was the worst."
She said it so nonchalantly, and I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. I could deal with her hate and her sass, but I didn’t know how to do this.
"I’m sorry." I tucked my hands into my pockets and her gaze followed their movement. "I bet your favorite memory is with her too."
A small, sad smile formed on her lips. "It is. It’s weird, though, because it isn’t some grand memory either."
"What’s it about?" I needed to keep her talking. When she was talking about her mom, she wasn’t hating me, and I felt like I could breathe.
"When I was about ten, she had set up this elaborate haunted house for me and my friends. Our whole house was decked out in strips of black trash bags and hanging ghosts that were probably twenty years old." She fidgeted but there was still a smile on her face. "I was so embarrassed at first, but my friends loved it. My mom had set up this entire murder mystery for us to solve, and we were scared out of our minds by the end of the night."
She looked up at me through her lashes.
"That’s stupid, right? That shouldn’t be my favorite memory."
"It’s not stupid." I took a small step closer to her, and she tensed. "It sounds like a great memory."
"It’s not even the actual memory of the night that makes me love it so much. It was just the way she cared. Ya know? I was being a brat because I was worried about what my friends would think, and she had cared enough to put so much effort into making that one night special."
She looked up at the long branches of the tree, and I followed her gaze to try and see what she was seeing.
"She was always like that, and I never appreciated her enough."
I knew I was probably going to screw this up, but I had to say something. "I don’t think any of us truly appreciate what we have until it’s gone."
She nodded her head. "That’s so fucked up, though, right? We are all so fucked up."
"We’re human." I shrugged, but she was right. We were fucked up, and I was more so than her. "Give yourself a break."
"Is that what you want me to give you?" She turned her head to the side and looked up at me. Her beautiful neck was completely exposed, her lips open and begging me to kiss them, but she wasn’t mine.
I had fucked everything up, and I didn’t get to do those things anymore. I didn’t get to touch her like that after what I had done.
"Do you think you deserve a break?" There was a fire in her eyes that dared me to push her. She was looking for a fight, but I wouldn’t give it to her. I wouldn’t demand things from her that I knew she shouldn’t give me.
"No." I shook my head but didn’t let my gaze fall from hers. "I just want you to understand."
She scoffed. "You want me to understand why you put a sex tape up of me?"
"Technically, it wasn’t a sex tape."
She narrowed her eyes, so I decided to move on.
"And I swear I didn’t post it. I know it doesn’t make me innocent, but I didn’t post it for everyone to see."
"No." She turned harder in my direction. "According to you, you only sent it to my stepbrother to watch. Do you know how fucked up that is? Do you know how fucked up it is that you’re asking me to believe that he would do that to me?"
"You believe I did."
"Because you recorded it," she yelled, and I saw a few heads turn our way. "Even if I’m to believe that someone else posted it, you are the one who had the video of what we did. You made me fucking trust you, then you exploited my trust in every way possible."
"I know." I did know. She was right. There was no excuse for what I had done. There was no reasoning that made me any less the villain simply because I hadn’t shared that video with everyone.
I was the one who had betrayed her.
I was the one who had entangled her in my fucked-up plan for revenge.
"But you’re so beautiful." She reached her hand up and ran it along my jaw, and I couldn’t breathe. I was so caught off guard by her words. "It’s a shame you’re so damn cruel."
She leaned closer to me, and her sweet smell overwhelmed me.
"You’re beautiful." I pressed my hand against hers and held it to my face to keep her from escaping.
"But not beautiful enough."
"Don’t say that shit." My blood felt like ice in my veins at her words. "Why would you say that?"
"Because." She pressed her body into mine, and even though I knew this was a bad idea, I couldn’t help feeling intoxicated by her touch. "Cami’s beautiful."
I grabbed onto her shoulders and pushed her far enough away from me so I could get a good look at her face. "Cami is beautiful, but not like you."
She shook her head slightly, and I knew that she didn’t believe what I just said. I was a fucking idiot and made her compare herself to Cami. I had made her compare herself to someone who wasn’t even on the same playing field as her.
"But you wouldn’t have done this to her." She looked up at me, and without question, I could see nothing but hurt in her eyes.
I didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but that fact didn’t stop me from wanting her.
"I shouldn’t have done this to you." I pushed some hair out of her face. "I’m an idiot."
She ran one of her hands up my chest, and I felt like every living part of me followed the movement. Her hand was like a magnet attracting every feeling my body could handle, and I didn’t know what to do or think or say as her hand curled around the back of my neck.
"I guess we’re both idiots then." She pushed up onto her tiptoes, and I knew she was going to kiss me. It was the determined look in her eyes, the way her body pushed slightly harder in the mine, and the way her lips opened slightly as her mouth moved closer to mine.
I didn’t say a word as she fell into me. I could barely breathe, let alone think, but I knew that I couldn’t let this happen. If I wanted any chance in her forgiving me, I couldn’t let her kiss me simply because I felt like I couldn’t go another moment without it.
I craved her kiss like a junkie, but it would do neither of us any good. She had been drinking, and she still hated me. And when she woke up tomorrow morning and remembered that I had let her kiss me, that I had taken advantage of the fact that she wasn’t thinking clearly, she would hate me even more.
Her breath fell against my lips as her focus moved to them as well. She was so close. One of us would only have to move an inch to close the space between us, and I wanted to. More than anything, I wanted to lean forward and kiss her and not come up for air until she knew that this is exactly where she was meant to be.
I didn’t want to let her go until she knew that what I said to her was sincere and that nothing else mattered besides me and her.
But I knew that wouldn’t happen. Regardless of what I wished for, she wasn’t going to forgive me simply because I wanted it to be so. If I wanted her forgiveness, I would have to work for it, and this wasn’t how I would do it.
I leaned forward before she could do anything reckless, and I pressed my lips to her forehead. She huffed as her hand tightened around the back of my neck, and she tried to force my head down to meet hers.
"Josie, stop." I tried to push her away from me gently, but she clung to me as if she never wanted to let go.
"Kiss me." Her lips hit my jawline, and everything inside of me wanted to turn my head slightly to meet hers. No one could see us, no one was paying any attention, and I could have just devoured her mouth at that moment and made her remember why she liked me in the first place.
It would be so easy.
My body was thrumming with the feel of her against me. The idea of stopping her felt so terrible, so foreign, and every part of me w
as bucking against the idea.
"Josie, you’ve been drinking, and I want this to be more than a mistake you made."
She stumbled back from me, and I knew she was pissed. Her eyes were full of that fire that I loved, but they were mixed with so much hurt, so much pain that I had caused her. I hated that I was causing her even more right now.
"You don’t want to kiss me?" She took another step back. "What, I’m only good enough if it’s gonna be caught on camera? Is that how this works?" She motioned back and forth between us with her hand.
"Of course, that’s not how this works. But I’m not taking advantage of you."
She laughed, and there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. She sounded like she was on the edge of snapping. "You’re not going to take advantage of me? Is this the new thing you’re doing? I thought that’s what Beck Clermont did."
I ran my hands through my hair and tried to think about what to say to her. Her small hands were clenched in fists at her sides, and her gaze bounced over me like she was thinking of the perfect spot to strike. I would let her if that would make her feel better. She could hit me, take her anger out, whatever she needed if that meant she would forgive me after.
"Let’s not do this tonight. That’s not why I came here."
She stepped toward me quickly as if she was in a rush to get the answer from my lips. "Then why are you here, Beck? You just want to make sure that I’m not having a good time. You just want to ruin everything for me?"
"Of course not." I shook my head and reached out for her but then thought better of it.
"If you don’t want to kiss me, that’s fine. I can go right back into that party and find someone better. I can go find Will." She turned on her heels and started to walk away from me. The thought of her walking through that door and putting her gorgeous fucking lips on anyone else enraged me. My heart felt like a caged animal inside my chest, and I had no control over my body as I reached out and grabbed her hand. I pulled her back into me before she could get out of my reach. Her back hit my chest in a rush, and my breath left my lungs. Her breathing was harsh against me, and I could feel every push and pull as she tried to calm herself down.
