It takes me a second to remember that I"ve never actually been pinned underneath a guy before. I"m always either standing or taking the top. I"ve never lay in bed beside one. Never touched a guy before just because I want to. Never kissed while feeling any sort of emotion behind it. It takes me another second or two to realize that this moment is going against all of my previous experiences. Because I"m pinned below him, being touched, and feeling something I desperately want to run away from. I don"t do normal feelings. There"s no point. Letting someone in and giving yourself to someone else has no purpose but heartache. I should shove him off and bail before he does.
But as he breathes heavily, leaning down, his lips inching nearer, I remain stationary. Frozen by fear and want. The contact of his lips only heightens the fear and desire, the two feelings mixing so persuasively that I start to weakly tremble as the walls I worked so hard to put up begin to crack. I try to keep my mouth closed as he works to kiss me, not wanting to give in, not wanting to give any part of me to him, knowing that eventually he won"t want me anymore. But as my body warms below him, I can"t help it and my lips readily part. Seconds later, his tongue slides into my mouth and he groans against my lips. It sends vibrations through my body and I shiver.
"Jesus, this feels so much better than I imagined..." he moans as his fingers tangle through my hair, tugging at the roots and it feels so good. "I need this... G.o.d..." There"s an alarming amount of panic in his voice as he breathes heavily. It"s deafeningly quiet around us and I"m about to say something, when his tongue slips back into my mouth more forcefully and his movements fill with desperation. I can barely keep up with him, gasping for air as his hands travel restlessly across my body, over my legs, my stomach, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I"m crushed between him and the seat, pinned down and I don"t do anything to escape. And I don"t want to because for a fleeting, unfamiliar, pa.s.sionate, overwhelming moment, I feel safe with him over me. And I haven"t felt safe in a very long time.
I kiss him back, but don"t touch, feel him with my tongue, keeping some sort of boundary between us. I don"t think of anything else, but the taste of his breath, the blinding heat of his body. His scent: tequila, cologne, and a splash of cigarette smoke.
Then suddenly as quickly as he started, he stops, sliding to the side and nearly falling onto the floor. I turn over and look at him, his chest descending and rising as he breathes. He"s pa.s.sed out and I"m left wide-awake. I lay there for an eternity, watching him sleep, knowing once I sit up I"m probably going to panic over what I just did. Reluctantly, I sit up and face the consequences of my choices, let them hit me square in the stomach.
I open the door to turn the interior light on and search the floor, the glove box, and the visor, for the keys. I want to get back to the dorm before he wakes up. I get out of the truck, leaving him in it, and backtrack to the bar, searching the ground for the keys. The farther I move away from the truck and into the dark, the less safe I feel, yet I keep going because it"s familiar. I continually curse myself for what I just did as I hunt for the keys behind cars and in the gravel, taking my cell phone out to use the screen as a light. That was not a no-strings-attached kiss. It had meaning behind it and I can"t stop thinking about doing it again, even though he probably can"t even remember doing it. It"s a bad place to be and I need to get away from it.
All I end up finding on the ground is the pack of cigarettes Luke dropped. I pick them up and tuck them into my pocket. The only other place to check is in the strip club and I don"t think it"s a good idea to go back in there.
I drag my hand across my face, deciding whether stay here and help Luke or bail out on the situation and hitchhike back to campus. I"ve hitchhiked a few times, wandered around a desolate highway more than once, and slept in the streets. But something is pulling me back to the truck, almost like I feel guilty for leaving him there. I don"t know where the feeling"s coming from. I"ve never cared about anyone before, but then again no one"s ever given me a reason to care about them. And no one"s ever made me feel safe. I don"t want safe-I need danger-because it"s easier.
As a car zooms by, I realize that just like everyone else who"s ever entered my life, Luke is just someone who will be gone by morning when he wakes up with a hangover, unable to remember what happened between us. So I hike up the road beneath the stars and the moon, with my arm out to the side and my thumb up. The possibilities of what could happen float through my mind like they always do. I could get run over. Picked up by some creeper, maybe the one on the phone. Be beaten. Murdered liked my parents. Is death in the cards for me tonight? Is that what I"m searching for?
Eventually, a sleek red car slows down and pulls up beside me. The headlights light up the darkness in front of me as I open the door and climb in. The cab smells like pine trees and there"s garbage on the floor. The driver, a thirty-something, slightly overweight, bald guy, smiles at me as he turns the steering wheel toward the road. The imaginative side of my brain wonders if he"s the guy who"s been calling me.
"Where you heading to, sweetie?" he asks as he flips on the brights, the road ahead getting brighter, yet it feels like I"m falling farther into the dark.
I stare at him, noting that his voice doesn"t sound like the guy"s on the phone. I wonder what he"ll want from me in exchange for the ride. Will he want me to suck his d.i.c.k? Will he hurt me if I refuse? Try to hit on me? Or is he simple just a nice guy giving a girl in need a ride. "I"m not sure," I mutter as he drives down the road.
"Not a problem, gorgeous," he replies. "I know just the place where we can go, if you want to have some fun?"
I don"t respond and contentment settles in my chest as I step farther and farther into the unknown, just like I have been since I was six.
Chapter 7.
Luke I open my eyes to the stained ceiling of my truck and my body feeling like it"s been run over. My head is throbbing and my eyes sting against the sunlight shining through the window. It"s not the first time I"ve woken up in a situation like this and I"m sure it won"t be my last.
I know not to sit up quickly otherwise I"ll end up hacking up my lungs, so I take my sweet time getting upright and then move for my pocket where my cigarettes should be, but they"re gone. I start to feel the anxiety of addiction stir awake as I reach for the glove box where I keep an extra pack for emergencies just like this. Once I get one lit up and the smoke saturates my lungs, I feel a little bit better and I quickly check my insulin. Something about doing it registers a memory of Violet... helping me check my insulin... Violet giving me pills. I rarely let anyone know I"m a diabetic, not wanting to reveal my weakness, and if someone does find out, it"s usually by accident. If I"m remembering correctly, which it"s hard to tell, I"d willingly asked her for help and she willingly gave it.
I"m so confused and all I want to do is get out of here and go take a shower, wash last night off me. I pat my pockets, not surprised that my keys aren"t there-I have a thing for losing keys when I"m drunk. But my phone"s gone too and that p.i.s.ses me off because I don"t have an extra one of those. Irritated at myself, I gradually climb out of the truck and head for the gas tank where I hide a set of spare keys for situations just like this.
Last night"s events start to crash over me. I drove out here because I"d heard rumors of how the bouncers like to get rough with guys if they messed with the strippers and I wanted a fight without the worry of cops getting involved. What I didn"t plan on was Violet walking in and saving my a.s.s. I can barely recollect anything about it other than her leading my stumbling a.s.s out of the club and to my truck. I have no idea where she went afterward or why she"d shown up in the first place and I"m not sure whether to track her down and thank her or get p.i.s.sed off at her for ruining my brawling moment.
As I open the gas tank and remove my spare set of keys I take a long drag off my cigarette, the sweet taste of the nicotine calming me. Rubbing my eyes, I climb back in the truck and drive toward my dorm. At first I"m planning on just going straight to my room, but I keep thinking about Violet and how I have no idea where she went last night. The strip club isn"t in the best part of town. What if something happened to her? Why do I care? I don"t usually care about girls that come in and out of my life, and I definitely shouldn"t care about Violet. I don"t do relationships at all. Letting someone in like that, means actually letting someone in, letting them be a part of my life, which means giving into things they want, letting them have control over things. I don"t want to let people into my life so I can slowly go back to that place I lived in when I was a kid, doing things I hated, hating the person that I was and hating the person who made me that way.
Apparently I"m not thinking clearly, though, and I make a last-minute right instead of left when I arrive at the intersection and turn into the parking lot to the side of her dorm building. It"s the tallest of the dorm buildings at the University of Wyoming and it blocks the sunlight flowing over the mountains. The yard in front of the dorm is pretty much empty, the few people wandering around look like they"re only there to clear out the rest of their stuff. The inside of the building is even emptier. And quiet. It reminds me that I only have a day or two left to get my stuff out and move to wherever I"m going.
When I get to Violet"s dorm room, I expect it to be cleared out like the rest of the building. But I hear some extremely angry music playing through the door that I doubt Callie"s listening to and I knock.
The music turns down and then Violet opens the door. Her damp hair runs over her bare shoulders in waves and again she has no makeup on. The outline of her red lacy bra is visible through her top and she has a floor-length black shirt on. Her cheek is also really swollen and red, but her expression is neither surprised nor happy to see me. Just neutral like always. I want to look equally neutral but my body comes alive at the sight of her and for some reason the idea of kissing her seems so tempting and oddly familiar.
"You"re alive," she jokes flatly with an arch of her eyebrows as she stands just inside the doorway.
"Don"t act too happy to see me." I lean against the doorway with my arms crossed, aiming for relaxed but I"m too hung over to get all the way there. "What happened to your face?"
She touches her cheek with her fingertips. "I told you last night that I got into a fight with a wall."
My forehead creases as I attempt to recollect her telling me. "I don"t remember that... and I don"t really think that"s what happened. I didn"t..." I trail off, squirming uneasily as the weight of her gaze becomes almost unbearable. "I didn"t hit you, did I?" I"ve never hit a girl before, but, s.h.i.t, I was really wasted and upset last night and I can"t remember hardly anything.
"No." She doesn"t seem alarmed or upset or anything really. Just indifferent. She moves back, leaving the door open and I"m not sure if she wants me to come in or not. "Where"d you find your keys?" She changes the topic as she roams over to a desk in the corner, which is cleared off. Her entire room is actually; the beds only have a mattress on them and the posters on the walls have been taken down. She must be leaving soon, probably to go back home or wherever it is she came from.
I swallow the lump in my throat, thinking about how I have to go back where I came from soon, too. "I keep a spare set in the gas tank."
She glances over her shoulder, elevating her eyebrows. "And you couldn"t have told me that last night when I couldn"t find them?"
I shrug and finally cross the threshold, stepping into her personal s.p.a.ce. "I swear I did, but then the next thing I know I"m waking up in the truck by myself, the sun is up, and you"re gone."
She pulls the desk drawer open and reaches inside it. "Yeah, I"m not one for sleeping in trucks with guys who like to hog the entire seat."
I sit down on the mattress, wishing I"d gotten a shot or two in before I came here. At least then, my headache would be gone. "You could have put me in your car, you know, and driven me back with you." I"m half joking, because I don"t really care. I"ve slept in the front seat of my truck more than once and I"m sure I"ll do it again.
She retrieves a prescription bottle out of the drawer, reads the label, then tosses it into an open box on the floor. "I didn"t drive back." She grabs her iPod off the dock on the desk, the last thing left in her room. She throws it into the box and then leans over the desk to unplug the dock.
"Then how"d you get back?" I ask as I stare at her a.s.s. G.o.d, the things I"d like to do to that a.s.s.
"I hitchhiked." She stands back up, drops the dock in the box, and kneels down on the floor. She adds a purple teddy bear from her bed, then gathers her hair out of her eyes, and grabs a roll of tape from the desk. She folds up the top of the box and stretches a line of tape over it, sealing the last of her stuff.
"You hitchhiked?" I say, unfathomably. "Are you serious?"
She presses down on the strip of tape, securing it in place. "It"s not that big of a deal." She chucks the tape aside and then stands up and pretends to check to make sure she"s packed up everything, when really I think she"s avoiding looking at me. "Do you see anything else lying around?"
I continue to gape at her. "So let me get this straight. Last night after you put me in the truck, you walked down the highway until some guy picked you up and gave you a ride here."
Her eyes land on me. "Who said it was a guy?"
I scan her body over. So G.o.d d.a.m.n s.e.xy it"s ridiculous and her skin is so ridiculously soft... an image of me touching her in the truck pushes up in my head. Me lying on top of her. My hands all over her. Is it real or from a dream? "Am I wrong?"
She narrows her eyes, ready for a fight, but then puffs out a breath, surrendering. "Yeah, it was. So what? Nothing happened." She thrums her fingers on the sides of her legs as she looks around the floor.
I get to my feet. "You should have just stayed in the truck. Do you know how dangerous. .h.i.tchhiking is?"
"About as dangerous as starting a fight at a strip club when you"re by yourself." She walks over to the box and picks it up, steadying it in her arms. "And you"re welcome for saving your a.s.s." She props the box on her hip and then looks at me like she"s waiting for me to say it.
"You shouldn"t have hitchhiked," I say instead, and then s.n.a.t.c.h the box from her, gazing at her lips, recognition clicking in my head... kissing her, drowning in her taste.
At first she looks like she"s going to s.n.a.t.c.h the box back from me, her hands rising toward it, but then she drops them back to her side as I move out of her reach.
"And thanks for pretending that you were pregnant with my child and crying over bills," I say and then the rest comes rushing back to me. I kissed her. In my truck. I felt her and tasted her because I needed to and wanted to. And she helped, not by kissing me but by checking my blood sugar. s.h.i.t. "And for helping me with, you know, the pills and stabbing my finger with the needle." The last thank-you is harder to say.
The corners of her lips quirk as she folds her arms over her chest. "I"m surprised you remember what happened at all." She pauses, like she"s waiting for me to say something about the kiss.
I back toward the door with the box in my hand. "I"m actually good at drunk remembering." I wink at her, trying to play it off, because I can"t go there. I"ve never stuck around afterward and had to endure the awkwardness of the morning after. Granted, we didn"t have s.e.x, but still I touched her breast and slid my fingers up her legs.
She offers me a small smile. "I"m sure you are."
I feel this heat swell inside my chest at the sight of her smile and it feels both good and bad at the same time. I"ve never flirted with a girl like this before. I usually give them like an hour and use little effort, just enough to charm her, get laid, and leave. Building too much of a connection defeats the purpose of what I"m trying to accomplish with s.e.x and that"s to control a few moments and forget all the moments I didn"t have control. Things have crossed that line between Violet and I, especially after last night. I can"t have s.e.x with her without feeling bad afterward, which means it would be next to impossible to bail after I got what I needed from her. But the thing is I want to slip inside her so bad it"s seriously becoming hard to control.
"I have a question," she says, grabbing a bag off the bed and draping the handle over her shoulder.
Her tone makes me wary. "Okay."
"I thought," she starts but then reconsiders. "I mean, I thought diabetics were supposed to give themselves shots."
I get a little uneasy as we veer toward two subjects I hate. My diabetes and needles. "Yeah, it doesn"t do any good when there"s alcohol in my system."
"But usually you use a needle."
"Yeah." My throat feels thick.
"Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes it does," I say, sounding choked. "Depending on my mood."
She observes me briefly then drops the subject.
"So where"s the box heading?" I ask, patting the bottom of the box.
She hugs her arms around herself as she glances over her shoulder at the window. "Outside, I guess."
I nod, and then head out into the hall. She follows me, shutting the door behind her. As we walk to the elevator I try not to think about the fact that after I get done helping her, I"m going to have to go back to my own dorm and figure out what to do with my stuff-figure out where I"m going. When we get outside, I glance around the parking lot. There are hardly any cars left on campus.
"So which car am I putting the box in?"
She stops at the edge of the curb and bites her lips as she looks at the road to the side of us. "You can just set it down here."
I lower the box onto the concrete, lost. "Is someone picking you up or something?"
"Or something," she mutters and plops down on the box. She props her elbow on her knee and her hair falls to the side of her face, veiling her expression from me as she lets the handle of the bag slide off her slumped shoulder and to the ground. "Thanks. You can go now."
I lean forward and try to catch her eye, but she won"t look at me, so I have no f.u.c.king clue what she"s thinking. I want to know and that"s not a good thing because it gives her some control over me.
I begin to back up the sidewalk and force myself to walk away, go back to my Jack Daniel"s, and women who don"t interest me enough to pull me back to them. But right as I"m losing sight of her, I spot her lowering her head onto her arms, looking so defeated I know I can"t leave her like this.
I backtrack my steps and halt beside her. "Violet, where are you going?"
Her chest rises and falls as she sighs deeply, keeping her face buried in her arms. "I have no idea."
I feel the faintest acceleration in my pulse as I crouch down beside her and sweep her hair out of her face. "Do you need me to take you somewhere? Because I can. As a thank-you for last night." What the h.e.l.l am I doing?
Her eyes are closed, her face angled toward me. "I don"t need a thank-you," she says. "I just need a ride... somewhere."
Despite my initial reservations, the least I can do is give her a ride as thanks for getting me to my truck and not letting my dumb-a.s.s get beat last night and for helping me get glucose pills in my system. "Okay, where do you need to go?"
"Just outside of town." She opens her eyes and her pupils shrink as the sun hits them, absorbing any emotion with it. But for a concise instant, I see something in her: the very familiar feeling of helplessness-the same thing that drove me to the strip club looking for a fight. "It"s on one of the back roads just off the freeway... you take the road where the strip club is," she says.
"Why were you walking down that road last night? And what made you stop at the strip club?"
"A freakish coincidence," she states, searching my eyes for something.
"A coincidence?" I stroke my finger across her cheekbone and she doesn"t flinch or move away, staring at me like she stared up at me last night. "I"m not buying it."
"Okay, you caught me. I was stalking you," she jokes dryly, then shuts her eyes again. "I have a headache," she mutters, breathing in and out.
I watch her sink farther and farther into herself, her lips part as she forces air into her lungs. It"s like watching someone break apart and I"m not sure if I want to fix her, try to catch the pieces, or step back and let them fall all over the ground. G.o.d, the look is tearing my heart in half. Needing to make her feel better, more than I need to make myself stay under control, I start to lean in toward her, to either kiss her or hug her... needing to touch her again... comfort her. She holds completely still, her expression neutral but her eyes widen. I still have my hand in her hair and I pull gently on the roots, causing her breathing to quicken. Her chest rises and falls and images of the things we could do together pour through my mind; things like what we did last night in my trunk. I could touch her again and remember it more vividly-soberly. Suddenly I realize I"m thinking of us together. I"m not thinking of just me getting off. I"m thinking of getting her off. This is no longer just about me anymore. I snap out of it, untangle my fingers from her hair, and straighten my legs to stand up. "Do you want me to carry your box to my truck?" I ask, trying to get my s.h.i.t back together. I refuse go back to that place I used to live with when I was a kid and my mom controlled everything I did. And getting involved with someone, means giving up total control.
She watches me with her head still on her arms, her eyes scaling me, then she sits up, running her fingers through her hair as she rises to her feet. "No, I can get it." She bends over and scoops the box up. Even though I can tell it"s a little heavy for her, I let her carry it to the truck, putting a much-needed boundary line between us. It"s the line I put up between most of the people that breeze through my life, to keep people away, to keep me safe from ever having to go to that place I lived for so many years. The one where I feel lost. The one where I"m weak and have no control over anything.
Violet I think he might have almost just kissed me. I could feel it in the electricity in the air and through his energetic pulse in his fingers. I"m glad he didn"t otherwise I would"ve had to hurt him and I don"t want to hurt him. Go figure. I"m too upset to keep my anger under control today and I"m too lost over last night with him. I don"t even know if he can remember it, the electric kiss that, at least for me, had feeling behind it. And if he"s forgotten, then I"m going to forget, too.
Forgetting is a good thing. I wish I could do that with everything; what happened with Preston, that I have no home, and that come Monday I"m going to have to drag my a.s.s down to the police station and face my parents" reopened case alone, like I"ve done with everything in my life. All I want to do is stand on the top of a building and inch my way to the edge, feel the adrenaline of knowing I could fall and everything would end.
The longer I sit in the truck with Luke, the more I want to taste the adrenaline rush instead of having this unsettling feeling about going to Preston"s house and facing whatever"s waiting there for me. By the time we"re pulling up, I"m contemplating if I should just grab my boxes and bail. Just leave before Preston can tell me to. Go live in the ditch just a little ways down the road.
"Thanks for the ride," I mutter to Luke as he parks the truck behind Preston"s Cadillac.
Luke stares through the windshield at the trailer house and the people pa.s.sed out in lawn chairs on the front porch. "Whose house is this?" he asks as I flip the door handle.
"A friend"s." I swing my legs out of the truck, preparing to jump out.
He snags me by the elbow. "This is where you"re living for the summer?"
I don"t look at him, face forward, torn on how much to say. "I don"t know where I"m living."
"Seriously?"
"Yep." I bend my arm and wiggle it out of his grip, making sure to look straight forward as I kick the truck door shut.
I grab my box out of the bed of his truck and trek up the driveway, my long skirt dragging in the dirt behind me. The entire yard is littered with beer bottles and cigarette b.u.t.ts. There"s vomit on the lawn and gravel and the front door to the trailer is agape. As I approach the Cadillac, the screen door swings open and Preston appears in the doorway with his hand cupped around his cigarette as he lights up. Once he has it lit, he blows out a cloud of smoke and looks over at me. By the lack of surprise in his expression I bet he saw me pull up, but what I can"t tell is if he"s still mad at me.
He doesn"t say anything as he trots down the stairs. He kicks some bottles out of the way with his bare foot as he makes his way down the rocky path over to the driveway. When he reaches the front of the car, he glances down the driveway.
"Who"s that?" he asks, nodding his head at Luke"s truck.
"Someone," I say without looking back as I pause at the trunk of the car, debating on how to go about this as I drop the box beside my feet. I don"t want to let it go. I want to allow myself to get angry at him, because he deserves it, but I also feel that stupid gnawing guilt. I owe him, for giving me a place to stay.
"Don"t be a b.i.t.c.h." He grazes the pad of his thumb across the bottom of the cigarette as he approaches me. He doesn"t have a shirt on and the cargo shorts he"s wearing hang low on his hips, the top of his boxers peeking out. The bags under his eyes and the redness in them scream that he"s hungover and irritated.
"So you"re still p.i.s.sed," I say, through hooded eyes. "Good, so am I." I sidestep to the left to get to the driver"s door so I can pop the trunk open, but he moves with me, blocking my path.