Page 40 of The Golden Boys
Startled, I back toward the green-tiled wall until there’s nowhere else I can go. But he doesn’t stop. He comes closer, until we’re breathing each other’s air, and I’m suddenly at a loss for words.
“Now, talk back again,” he warns. “When I’m done with you, you’ll wish your ass had stayed in line.”
I struggle to look into his eyes, but force myself. I’m not his pet, or one of his mindless followers.
“You think you’re hot shit because you have these assholes falling at your feet? Because you rule Cypress Prep with an iron fist? Well, newsflash, I’ve lived with a bastard just like you my whole damn life, West. One who thinks the louder he barks and the more shit he breaks when he rages out the more of a man he is. And, just so you know, I’m not scared ofhisass either,” I snap. “So, whatever youthinkI’ve done to you, you can either man up and say what you need to say, or get the hell over it,” I declare. “But pushing me around? Having your groupies do your dirty work? Threatening to burn this place down? … Bitch moves, West. All of them.”
I just struck a nerve. The vein throbbing in his forehead tells me so.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” I ask. “Are you ready to tell me what I’ve done to piss you off? Or should we just continue with the games because you’re weak?”
The steady glare that’s trained on me is impossible to escape.Heis impossible to escape.
“Weak?” he groans, challenging me with his tone. “That’s what you think of me?”
The deep rasp causes me to freeze. Even when there’s suddenly no gap between his body and mine, I don’t move.
Massive hands press into my hips when he grabs me rough, but I say nothing, show no sign of being affected by his touch at all. Especially not the sick, twisted part of me that doesn’t hate it entirely.
I even stay quiet when his sadistic power-play becomes something more.
Something I didn’t see coming.
The dark centers of his eyes turn even more sinister as a smirk takes over his expression. A smirk that touches his hot, fleshy lips … just before they’re on mine, moving against them.
Heat is coming from everywhere, burning me up, making me perspire a little. I manage to keep my hands hanging limp at my sides, but it isn’t easy. They’re twitching with lust, aching to touch every inch of the beast I hate more than words can ever express.
And he smells so damn good, freshly showered after dominating on the football field. No, I wasn’t there to witness for myself, but I know he’d have it no other way.
I breathe him in deep and it’s my undoing, the reason I’m not lucid enough to protest when his tongue pushes between my lips. A taste of mint lingers in his mouth and I’m keenly aware that this is something I shouldn’t know about him. It’s wrong on so many levels, but there’s no use fighting. It’s a lost cause.I’ma lost cause.
Feverish sucking and tugging on my lips has my head hazy, until I barely know who I am anymore. He’s stolen all traces of flavor from my gloss and still isn’t finished with me. A dangerous feeling builds in the pit of my stomach—the realization that I want more of this.
More from the wolf who’s made it crystal clear he intends to domorethan just blow my house down.
He wants to level my entire world.
A slow, deep push of his hips toward mine reveals something else. He’s rock hard and isn’t bothering to hide it, isn’t ashamed that I now know for sure there’s more than one kind of tension steeping between us. It’s there, it’s real, and in a flash … he takes it all away.
Everything.
The sound of our sharp, rapid breaths is all I hear. He’s still flush against me, and still very much turned on. There’s something different about his eyes, though. They’re softer, kinder as he searches my face for something I’m not sure he’s found. An explanation for the energy that just surprised and then wrecked us both a second ago.
With my chest heaving against his, neither of us rushes to move, which is telling in and of itself. But then, just like that, he flips the switch again, appearing to have felt nothing. The moment I realize he’s reverting back to his d-bag default setting, I snap back to reality, too, straightening my uniform when he backs off.
He’s still West—my tormentor, my worst nightmare.
Brushing the back of my hand over my hot, damp lips, my eyes fall closed. Even with everything he’s done and said fresh in my head, I still let this happen. It seems like as hard as I trynotto become my mother, I’m more like the woman every day. I’d watched my dad walk all over her for years. And now, I’d just allowed West to do the exact same.
He steps back further, and I won’t even look at him. I hate myself enough already.
“You were right; oneof usisweak,” he rasps. “But are you still sure it’s me?”
The lock on the door twists and my head is clear enough to understand exactly what just happened—the transfer of power. By allowing him to handle me this way, I’ve unwittingly made it clear that, even with all he’s done, I’m drawn to him.
He pulls the door open and then I’m alone.
If his goal was to make me see I ought to have hurled that particular insult into a mirror, right at myself, mission accomplished.