A cool, wet glass graced the back of my neck and I turned once again, assuming I’d have to ward off Elle for a final time, but was met instead with an amused, albeit cold Ophelia where the girl was standing seconds before.
She raised an eyebrow, waving in the direction of the crowd. “If you’re looking for the blonde, she just got picked up by her parents.”
“Where did you go?” My tone was immediately aggressive and I couldn’t take it back.
She breathed out a sigh of disbelief, jingling the glass of water and its half-melted ice cubes in front of my face. “Coming to get the drink you got too distracted to bring back to me.”
“You seemed pretty occupied yourself, O. Didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Oh, you can’t be serious right now.” The strobe lights painted us both in blues and greens as loud music vibrated the floor.
“I can’t be serious? I have two eyes just like you do.”
“Maybe you need to get them checked. Sam is your friend, Frankie. You were the one who brought me over there in the first place. I didn’t tell you to get caught up at the bar with Blondie, but you were quick to do that.”
A bitter laugh ripped out of me. This girl was nothing short of a constant challenge. “We both knew how this was going to end, Ophelia. That was fine, but I thought you might at least wait until the plane fucking boarded first to find a replacement.”
“He was being friendly.” Her eyes zeroed into dark pinpoints.
“Friendly?” I stepped close enough to feel her little puffs of aggravated breath on my throat. “When I touch you like this, am I just being friendly?” My finger hooked through the belt loop on her jeans and I tugged her toward me, flush against my chest, then pinched her chin between my thumb and forefinger as Sam had. “Tell me, honestly.”
“Honestly?” Ophelia’s hands sunk into my shirt and she shoved me away. “This is you being a jealous dick.” She whipped around, swaying toward the exit doors that opened onto a dark side street, and I bounded after her immediately.
“Have I ever told you how much I love chasing your pouty ass through bars?” I shouted as I caught up to her, just as she pushed through the heavy black door and outside. “I told you the first time we met, Ophelia. I don’t share.”
The sounds inside the club were snipped in half by the exit closing behind us. Only a dull thudding bass and the telltale sound of raucous chatter filtered through. My ears popped and my eyes adjusted to the darker alley we were standing in. Cigarette butts were scattered around the concrete at our feet.
“Sam wasn’t fucking hitting on me,” she growled, finally turning around.
“Only because he knows you’re mine.”
That visibly knocked the wind from her sails. Her clenched fists softened at her sides, while the crease between her eyes flattened to a silent acquisition. I watched her full, plum red lips part and my body recognized that change in her like an invitation.
I tried to wrap my fingers around the pulse at her neck and drag her to me, but she batted my hand away with little force instead.
“Now I belong to you?”
“You’re goddamn right you do, Ophelia.” I stepped forward, crowding her back into the brick wall, hiding in the shadows where the moon couldn’t dip through the buildings and touch us. “We let this happen, we fucking did this to each other, O. And now we have to deal with it like adults. I have to find a way to bleed you from my veins, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to treat you like what you are while you’re still here, and that is fucking mine.”
This time when I reached for her she let me. I dug my fingertips into the tangled hair behind her ear, let my palm take on the pounding beat of her heart as it rested against her neck. She was fuming mad, pupils dilated into pools as dark as tourmaline, and our breath mingled in harsh, tandem huffs.
“You can’t say things like that,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“I don’t care.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she stressed, tugging on my loosened tie until it was wound around her little wrist. She was so close I could taste the hint of fruity alcohol she’d been sipping all night on her breath.
“Well it did.”
A wave of loud cheering erupted from within the building, and the music hushed to rhythmic ticking, like a countdown on a clock. We both looked toward the door, neither moving, listening to the descent of muffled numbers as they dropped from thirty to twenty and then heightened to an unmistakable chorus as they began from ten.
Our friends were probably looking for us. I could read the same thought crossing Ophelia’s mind, and yet there wasn’t a fucking hurricane that could sweep through the city at that moment that would have pulled the two of us away.
“I want my New Year’s kiss.” I traced my thumb over her lips, pulling down the trembling bottom one to reveal little white caps of clenched teeth.
A muscle in her jaw tightened.
“Bite hard if you’re going to.”
The counting rattled down. Three. I nudged her firmly into the wall, wedging the cap of my knee between her thighs. Two. My grip on her jaw tightened and I tipped her head back, brushing the tip of my nose down the ridge of hers.
One.
Ophelia jerked me forward by my tie and molded her mouth over mine with a hard gasp like she had been holding her breath. I answered, sliding my tongue across the sharp edges of her canines, dipping it deeper to massage along her own. Kissing her was always tender, warm foreplay, but this was something more charged and desperate. She tugged on my lips with her teeth, biting me, licking me, directing us with her fingernails wedged into the long hair on the back of my head.
I ran my shaking, hungry fingers down her chest feeling her nipples bud against her soft velvet top. I squeezed her tits in my palms, pinching and tugging, rubbing quick circles, as she whimpered into my mouth. I would rip her fucking clothes off in the shadow of this alley without another thought, but it was a risk and this wasn’t something either of us wanted interrupted.
She ground herself down onto my knee, catching the seam of her jeans exactly where she wanted to and sighing out a fuck-all sexy sound of pleasure. My dick ached like I’d never quite felt before, bulging against my belt. Half of my mind was already back in the hotel room, giving her every last deserved inch of it.
As if she could sense it, Ophelia reached down and fumbled with my buckle, pulling blindly with our lips still attached. She skated her nails up and down the length of me and I stifled a downright growl into the gentle curve where her neck met her shoulder. I wouldn’t last another minute of it.
“We’re leaving,” I told her. “Now.”
39