My eyes find him again and I keep them on him. I don’t care if someone thinks I’m staring at him. I don’t care ifhethinks I’m staring at him. He already knows. I watch him and I agree with what Callie said. He does look okay. He looked okay that first night too, when I spilled my drinks on him. He looked like nothing happened six months ago. He looks that way now too.
Even though she is here. Isadora.
But looking at Shepard, you wouldn’t be able to tell he knows she’s here. But he does. I know he does. Because the longer I watch him, I realize he always has his back to her. He always looks away if she comes into his line of vision. He ducks his head. He laughs at something. He turns completely around.
God, he’s good.
He’s good at pretending she doesn’t exist. He’s better than me, and I’ve had nine years of practice in pretendinghedoesn’t exist forme. Nine years of hiding my pain, and he still hides it better than I do.
Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he say they were about to bench him? That he’s struggling and… Actually, I should’ve known. He’s so allergic to emotions and want to deflect and deny and bury things. Of course, he’d be hiding something. Still, he came to me for help and all I could do was make excuses. About our stupid connection and my lies and the money and God… He came to me forhelpand I rejected him.
As I see him break away from the group, I go after him. I leave my things, my purse, my phone, everything, like I always do, and follow him through the back door. There’s a hallway flanked by doors that lead to the kitchen and the dining area. It’s empty though, so I’m not sure where he went, but I keep going until someone grabs me by the arm.
Just by the grip of his fingers, I know it’s him, and my heart starts pounding in my chest. He yanks me into Callie’s bathroom and shuts the door with a bang, pressing me against it. Then, “You wanna keep this a secret from my little sister, Strawberry, you gotta stop giving me fuck-me eyes.”
I knew he knew that I was watching. I knew that and it makes my heart so full, so achy and heavy that my hands find his shoulder and hold on as I whisper, “I don’t care.”
Something flashes through his gorgeous eyes, and his fingers find their way into my hair. “No?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He fists my strands and tugs. As much as I hate my hair and want to keep it tied at all times, I’m wearing it loose because I know he likes it that way. He unties it often enough when I’m dancing for him, watching the strands frame my face, tickle thesmall of my back. He smells it often enough too while wrecking me to pieces for him.
“Tell me why,” he growls, his grip in my hair tight.
It’s okay though, because my grip on him is just as tight. “They’re going to bench you.”
“What?”
I lick my lips, taking in his beautiful features. Those sharp peaks of his cheekbones, that perfect square of his jaw. His messy hair, grazing his forehead, his nose with a bump. Everything about him is so familiar to me, so perfect and dreamy. So wrong and so right. So thrilling, so toxic. Sowrecking,yet somehow, healing too. He breaks my heart, but he somehow makes it beat harder and faster than anything else in this world.
It's because I’m his.
I’ve always been his. His distraction. He told me that, right? Since the moment he saw me. So all I have to do now is embrace it.
“Callie told me,” I explain, twisting his shirt in my grip. “She said they’re talking about benching you for the season. Because they think you can’t win. They think… I can’t believe they think that. I can’t believe anyone would think that about you. You’re amazing. You’re a fucking rockstar. You’re their best player and no matter what happened six months ago, no matter what happens, ever, you’ll always win. You’ll always bring home the trophy?—”
“Shut up,” he growls.
“What?”
He leans closer, his grip in my hair growing tighter. “Shut thefuckup.”
“But—”
“How many times do I have to tell you,” he keeps growling as he tugs my hair and shakes my head, “I only want you forone thing. That tight hole between your legs. If I wanted a fucking groupie cheerleader, I’d go bang one, yeah? But here I am,wastingmy fucking time with a strawberry-haired girl who doesn’t seem to get that cheering me up isn’t in her job description. Neither is fucking pity.”
I know what he’s doing. I know he’s trying to piss me off so that I stop. So I don’t prick and prod. Even so, that deserves a fucking smack to the face, and I give him that. I slap him and I slap him hard for being such a fucking asshole.
But once wasn’t enough so I go for a second one, but he stops me. He wraps his fingers around my wrist—both wrists, in fact—and pins them to the door by my head. But that doesn’t mean I’m done. I need him to hurt more, so before I can really think about what I’m doing, I go for his neck.
With my teeth.
I bite him on the side of his neck, onhisjugular, and God, he tastes of sweat and strawberries. It’s thick and sweet and I’m about to moan with his taste, especially at the groan he emits, rough and growly, thickened with a curse, when he rips my mouth away. He yanks my head back so hard and so fast that I bump it on the door, or I would’ve if his hand wasn’t there to cradle the back of my head and protect it from the impact. He unfortunately doesn’t have that luxury, or any protection from the pain I dealt him, though. Because his cheeks are flushed from it, from the bite I gave him.
I can even see it. My teeth marks on the side of his neck, glistening with my saliva. A couple of seconds more and I know I would’ve broken skin.
His eyes are blazing as he looks down at me. “You wanna walk out this door with my teeth marks for a necklace, you say the word, baby, yeah? Because next time you bite me, I’ll fucking bite back harder and leave the bruises for the whole world to see.”
