Her tongue looked for mine, and when they met, I almost died from pleasure. She pulled me down, and I couldn’t control my hands, which went crazy feeling her all over.
My hands climbed her thighs and touched the fringe of her panties. My God, I wanted to touch her there, make her shout with pleasure, hear her say my name over and over!
“Nick,” she panted.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” I said, looking her in those eyes that seemed to have come up from hell to torture me and drive me insane.
She said nothing, so I kept going. My fingers pushed aside her underwear, and she groaned into my shoulder. She was shaking, and I held her up with one hand as I pleasured her with the other. I watched her the whole time, bewitched.
A minute later, I had to cover her mouth with mine—I was worried someone would hear her.
She was perfect…and I was falling in love like an idiot.
27
Noah
I was shaking so hard—shaking from pleasure—that I had to let him hold me up. I couldn’t believe what had just happened; I hadn’t seen it coming, and it had been so fast. I had been giving him his present and laughing, and all of a sudden, he had me pushed against a tree and his caresses had been making me tremble. I’d wanted to stop him. My God, I should have, but feeling those hands all over me… It had been incredible.
“You’re precious,” he whispered in my ear after kissing me to keep me from shouting and getting us both caught.
I could still remember all the times Dan had tried to touch me that way. I’d immediately said no, and he hadn’t even gotten close. Nick, though… I must have been losing my mind.
“I think…we should go back,” I said, adjusting my dress. Why did I feel so bad all the sudden?
“Hey,” Nick said, grabbing my chin and making me look up. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just… I didn’t see that coming,” I said, trying not to look at him. “We let ourselves lose control, or I let myself lose control, and I’m sorry about it… Go back to Anna or whoever. You don’t have to stay here with me.” I was trying not to let him see how stirred up I was.
I wanted him to hold me. Deep down I wanted him to stay with me. I wanted us to be in love or at least to know each other better. Nick was a total mystery to me, and I was to him, too. I couldn’t let him know that a part of me wanted him to tell me he loved me or to take me somewhere we could really be alone instead of leaning against a tree at a party.
“You want me to go be with Anna?” he asked, suddenly pissed. Maybe he was mad I didn’t want to keep going. Maybe he thought I wanted to do the same to him. But just thinking about sex with him in the middle of the woods made me sick.
“Yeah, go be with her,” I said, looking down at my toes. “You don’t have to stay with me. I told you—this was a mistake, we’re going too far, it’s not right.”
Nicholas turned around and kicked a rock. I heard him curse under his breath. Then he turned around in fury, his eyes looking like ice.
“Fine,” he said. He reached back with one arm and pulled off his shirt. Before I knew what he was doing, he’d turned around, pulled off his jeans, and taken off running for the lake. The people swimming there saw him and chanted his name.
My good mood and my self-esteem sank like his body sinking into that cold water.
* * *
For the next hour and a half, I avoided him as much as possible. I didn’t want to see him; the mere thought of it made me nervous. When five in the morning struck and most of the people had gone, the only ones left were Anna, Lion, Jenna, Mike, who owned the place, someone named Sophie, a friend of Nick’s named Sam, Nick, and me. We were in a living room full of big white sofas and armchairs, sitting in a circle. Sophie and Jenna were on one side of me; Sophie was a bleach-blond dummy. Mike was to my right, and Nicholas was next to him. I was glad because that meant I didn’t have to look him in the face.
He hadn’t said a word to me since we’d been standing by the tree. Maybe he was mad, or maybe he was glad he could wash his hands of me. I felt an ache each time our eyes accidentally crossed and he looked away, but part of me felt relieved. I’d rather he ignore me than have to talk about what happened.
“Why don’t we play that game we used to play when we were kids?” Sophie said.
“Truth or Dare?” Jenna said, grinning. “Grow up, Soph.”
“No, come on, let’s play,” Mike said, looking mischievous. That put me on alert. I hated that game. I’d said dare one time, and they’d made me drink a glass of cooking oil. It was disgusting.
“Grab the bottle on the table there,” Mike asked his friend.
He placed the beer bottle in the center of the circle and spun it, and it pointed to Anna.
“Truth or dare?” he asked. Nick shifted uneasily.
“Uh…truth,” she said, glancing over at him. I looked down. If it hadn’t been ridiculous, I’d have covered my ears to not hear them.
“What’s the last time you hooked up with someone?” Mike asked.
For real?
Anna smirked. I hated the way she looked over at me as she described sleeping with Nick.
“It was in the back seat of a car,” she said, laughing. “I’d have preferred a bed, but you know…”
Why did it hurt me so much to hear that? Why did the simple thought of Nick’s hands roving her body make me want to get up and pull her hair out?
I spun the bottle myself. I didn’t care if her story was over or not. I wasn’t interested in the details.
Shit, now the bottle was pointing at Nick.
“Truth or dare?” I asked him, a little brusquely.
“Dare, obviously.”
I tried to think of something that would really irritate him, but before I could, Sophie butted in.
“Take off your shirt,” she ordered him, and I huffed as I watched her devour him with her eyes.
“That’s not an actual dare,” I said.
“You should learn to be faster, little sister,” Nick said, stripping it off. All the other girls in the room must have been as entranced by his physique as I was. He was still to die for, even with the bumps and bruises Ronnie and his guys had dealt out to him.
“Thanks for the view, Nick. My turn,” Jenna said, reaching out and spinning the bottle.
Dammit. I was up. I almost shivered wondering what she’d ask me.
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” I shrugged.
“Tell us the worst thing you’ve ever done in your life,” Jenna said. She thought I was a good little girl who never did anything out of the ordinary. If only she knew…
Seeing the mocking looks on everyone’s faces, I felt the urge to open their eyes, but did I really want to tell them about the thing that had been eating me up inside since I was eleven? No. Honestly, I didn’t.
“I stole a pack of gummy candy from a store in my town when I was nine. They caught me, and I tried to run off, and I ended up pulling down two shelves full of stuff. I was grounded for a month. I’ve never stolen anything since then,” I said, remembering that day affectionately. The chase had been the most fun part.
Everyone laughed.
Some friend of Nick’s whose name I’d forgotten had to spin the bottle this time. He’d had his eye on me all night. To my great displeasure, it slowed down and came to a stop on me again.
“Truth or dare?” he asked with a twisted smile.
“Dare,” I decided, since I’d picked truth last time, but I had the feeling I might have made the wrong choice.
“Take off your dress,” he said, and the blood rushed into my face.
No. I couldn’t do that. The lights were too bright; everyone would be able to see every inch of my body.
Nicholas didn’t seem to like the idea, either. All I wanted was for him to come up with something that would get me out of it.
“Can I change back?” I asked.
Anna, clearly amused, asked me whether I had some kind of hang-up about my body. “It’s just a game,” she said.