And, finally, I lose it.
I grab the offending duffel and flop it upside-down, shaking it violently until all of her shit falls onto my bed in an unceremonious pile of all things Beth.
“What the hell are you doing!” she hisses, climbing onto the bed to regather her clothes.
I don’t even think. I take hold of her calves and jerk her knees straight, and she squeals with surprise, falling facedown onto the bed, right atop the heap of clothing. But I don’t back off. I grab her hips and flip her onto her back in one not-so-smooth movement, bending over her and planting my palms on either side of her face in a makeshift cage. Beth’s lips part in a small o of shock, but she can’t escape my gaze, trapped beneath me like she is.
But that goes both ways, and I force myself to close my eyes, and inhale a choppy rush of air before meeting hers.
Something changes when I reopen my eyes. Beth’s temper seems to have dissipated, her dark blond brows pulled together in helpless bemusement. Her eyes are deep blue oceans, and they draw me in like an undertow, luring me into their shallows before drowning me in their depths.
But somehow, they calm me, and the anger is drained right out of me as something tugs inside my chest. For a moment I forget how we even got here. All I register are her sharp, shallow breaths as they whisper against my lips in soft gusts.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I know this is dangerous—her lying beneath me like this. It calls to that reckless part of me. The same part that risked dancing with her tonight…that wants to just say fuck it, again and again and again. The part that can’t remember the reasons to stay away.
Beth’s tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip, and my dick jumps in my jeans, still swollen and aching, which it has been all night on some level or another. I suck in an uneven breath, the air hissing between my teeth, and I know I need to either get off of her or inside her in the next sixty seconds or I’m going to fucking implode.
My fingers fist the comforter on either side of her, and I close my eyes again to regain my bearings, refusing to look at her until I’ve backed up off of her and put a few yards of sense between us.
Beth doesn’t get up. She just pulls her knees up and plants her small bare feet on the bedspread, blinking slowly at the ceiling as if emerging from some kind of daze.
Yeah, I know the feeling.
But her flushed skin and heavy breathing catch me off guard. It’s not that I didn’t think Beth was attracted to me. I know it sounds cocky, but from my experience, most girls are probably more or less attracted to me. But her reaction makes me wonder, for the first time, if she might actually want to act on it. My already throbbing cock jerks at the thought, my pulse going haywire at the chaos it invokes. Because that’s what it would be if Beth and I ever happened—utter fucking chaos.
I have to consciously resist the urge to drop my palm to my raging hard-on just to ease the ache, and I run it through my hair instead, if only to occupy it elsewhere.
I lean back against the wall and cross my arms over my chest. Beth sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed, her shoulders sagging in unexpected defeat.
“You’ve been seeing Falco.” I mean it to be a question, but it doesn’t come out like one.
Beth shakes her head. “I met him for coffee. Twice.”
“And lied to me about it…” I grit my teeth.
Beth meets my gaze from under her long, thick lashes, her mask of innocence belying the deceit I didn’t think her capable of before tonight. What the fuck else has she been lying about?
Was it really just twice? Was it even just coffee?
Did she let him fucking touch her? The thought makes my hands ball into fists, and I cross my arms more tightly to hide them behind my biceps.
Beth doesn’t say a word, and her silence just leaves a clear, smooth path for my anger to snowball out of control.
My slow, liquored-up brain suddenly recalls her slinking in just before ten on Monday night, when I’d thought she’d been at the library with Toni, a girl from her Psych 101 class who lives in my building. They’ve been walking home together when I’m not around, and I took it for granted that Beth knew better than to walk that far alone, especially at night. You know, being as there’s a fucking rapist on the loose who just so happens to have a history of stalking her.
Not for the first time I think I might have fucked up in downplaying the whole situation to Cap—in corroborating Beth’s story that she’s staying with me for every reason but the truth. It’s closer to her classes, it’s nicer than the dorms, to give Lani privacy with her fictitious boyfriend…My stomach rolls at the reminder that I lied—continue to lie—to my oldest friend, and my eyes narrow at the reason for my uncharacteristic betrayal.
“Monday?” I demand.
Beth’s nod is tentative, even as she meets my hostile glare with unapologetic defiance. “It was just coffee, David.”
“Just coffee with motherfucking Falco, who you’re sneaking around to see!”
Beth jumps to her feet. “I didn’t—”
“You didn’t walk around alone at night? Without telling anyone where you were going or who with?” I accuse. Images of all the terrible things that could have happened hit me all at once, but my jealous, riled up, intoxicated mind fixates on the one of Falco’s hands on her above all. Because I didn’t have enough to fucking worry about before her piece-of-shit ex weaseled his way back into the picture.
And I’m not a fucking worrier. This shit isn’t me.
