“Because it’s a distraction!” he snaps. He presses a hand to his forehead and exhales as he squeezes his eyes shut. There’s a long, intense silence. “It’s a fucking distraction,” he softly murmurs. He opens his eyes again, fierce as ever, and his acidic tone is back as he turns back to look at me. “And right now, I could really do with a goddamn distraction.”
The anger at him, the fury, the irritation at everything he has ever said to me, it all somehow comes together at once within me. It’s like a sudden surge of adrenaline and insanity rushing through my veins and triggering something I can’t quite comprehend. His words have only just left his lips when I reach out for him, grasping his face in my hands and feeling the warmth of his skin. I slam my lips into his, overwhelmed by the sensation as my eyelids flutter closed and a deafening silence consumes us. It’s agonizing the way my heart thuds against my chest, but exhilarating the way his lips feel against mine. And then the reality of the situation comes flooding back, and it’s only a matter of seconds before he’ll become enraged at me again, and I slowly pull away from him.
I take a step back, feeling sick to my stomach as Tyler stares at me, his eyes wide. I’m waiting for him to explode, for his firm voice to ask if I’m insane, to which I will have to reply yes.
“That wasn’t me,” I babble, my words catching in my throat as I stutter some kind of an explanation. “I don’t—I don’t know what that was. I—I don’t—I’m—I’m sorry. I was trying to—to distract you—I—”
I’m cut off when his lips come crashing back down on my own. He’s so strong that he knocks me off my feet slightly, pushing me backward until my back hits the wall of his bedroom, his hands cupping my face, his thumbs skimming my skin, his fingers winding into my hair. His lips are fast, eager, forceful. Yet so incredible. I immediately sink into him, my entire body trembling beneath his touch. I can feel his anger; I can feel the intensity. I don’t know why I’m not pulling away. I know I should, I know this shouldn’t be happening, but there’s something so mesmerizing about the entire thing that I just can’t stop. He drops his hand to the small of my back, pulling me against his body for only the briefest of moments.
And then he stops.
Just like that, he tears his lips away from mine, releases his grip, and takes a step back. The moment ends as quickly as it began.
“Shit,” he breathes, so softly and quietly that it perfectly sums up exactly what just happened. Because I’m thinking the exact same thing.
Oh shit.
Chapter 16
Tyler’s eyes pierce mine. Mine are wide, utterly shocked, full of surprise at myself, but warm. Tyler’s are different. They’re a vast ocean of a thousand emotions, flickering through different shades so fast I can’t keep up. And then they dilate with the darkest emotion of them all—quite simply, fury.
“I’m going to Rachael’s,” he mutters. Zipping up his jacket, he runs a hand through his hair and then turns away from me. It doesn’t take him more than a few seconds to leave the room without so much as a glance over his shoulder. But I don’t care. I’m too stunned to even possibly care.
There is no logical explanation for what just happened, and Tyler doesn’t seem to want to figure one out. I stand there blinking for what seems like an eternity, until the sound of the front door slamming shut snaps me out of the numbness.
My mind is awhirl and my pulse is still racing as the realization sinks in: slowly, and then overwhelmingly. I’ve just kissed Tyler.
My stepbrother. I’ve just kissed my stepbrother. I’ve kissed the guy who infuriates me, the one who makes my blood heat up whenever I see him. The guy who has a girlfriend. A girlfriend who just so happens to be my friend.
What the hell, Eden?
Bile rises in my throat, and I clasp a hand to my mouth. I feel like I could throw up, and as my lip trembles, I deeply inhale. I may have kissed him, but he kissed me back. And with a lot of damn energy too.
My mind snaps back to Rachael and Meghan and the party that they’re hosting across the street. The party that I was supposed to be at fifteen minutes ago. I need to get over there and I need to act normal.
As normal as a girl who hadn’t just kissed her stepbrother would look.
Exhaling, I tell myself to keep it together. At least until the end of the night. But given the fact that Tyler is going to be there too, I doubt I’ll be able to. Am I supposed to talk to him? Ask him what the hell just happened between us? Ignore him? I don’t know.
Stumbling back to my own room, I glance at myself in my mirror before grabbing my purse and bracing myself. At least Tyler is going straight to Rachael’s and bypassing his meeting with Declan—if I do try to talk to him, he won’t be under the influence of narcotics.