I looked the other way to avoid his penetrating gaze. I didn’t want to look him in the eye. It was too hot in here.
“You managed to finish that quickly?” No way, he wasn’t actually saying that. “You beat me. You just looked at my—”
“What? There’s absolutely nothing to look at,” I insisted, but instead of this making him mad, he smiled mischievously.
My eyes burned, sweeping across the perfect curve of his full mouth, and I felt like I was running out of oxygen.
“So you didn’t finish.”
I lowered my head. I couldn’t be around him anymore. I was catching fire.
“You didn’t, did you?”
I involuntarily shook my head slightly.
James slithered behind me like a predator on the verge of catching its prey. I felt my skin burn when his warm chest reached my back without even grazing against it, setting off a trickling sensation in my stomach. The sensation amplified when his ring-clad fingers spread around the edge of my shorts, tickling me.
He slid his hand lower, slowly, and brazenly surveyed the strip of skin softening a little under my navel.
Why wasn’t I stopping him? Why did it feel so good?
James whispered in my ear warmly and languidly. “Maybe you’ll manage it later.”
Was he still talking about that?
I gulped loudly, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “To do what?”
“To not think of me.”
My lips still burned from kissing Will, my throat burned from the alcohol I’d drunk, and now my skin seemed like it was going to go up in flames too. At the exact place where James grazed against me. I felt my legs fold, literally. I stumbled, and James grabbed me quickly.
“I need some air,” I whispered faintly.
James glanced quickly at the girl he’d been grinding on up until five minutes ago. She beckoned him back.
“Damn it, White.”
At first he cursed, irritated, then he held on to my shoulders and shoved us through until we left the place and the cold air woke me up like a shower.
“Are you better now?” he asked worriedly.
He leaned on a colorful wall, and I concentrated on his hands, which swiftly looked for a vape pen cartridge that was full.
“Tell me if I have to fucking babysit you instead of pounding a girl who’s dying to give it to me.”
“You know I don’t care,” I grumbled, squeezing my chest with my arms.
“You should. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your innocent face.”
James lifted his jacket collar. I saw him barely shiver when the night air blew around us. What if Amelia was right? What if I was blinded by an idea of him that didn’t exist? Or blinded by his perfect physique?
Maybe his past could’ve been terrible, but what if it was that past itself that led him to be a terrible person?
“Come on, let’s hear it.” He blew smoke out.
“What do you want, Hunter?”
“I want to hear what you have to say. It’s written all over your face that you’re curious.”
