“Bye, Remi,” the girl says, and Remi turns, hurrying to the door. She closes it behind her, standing in front of me, close enough for me to touch her.
And I do.
My hand goes to her throat, just like I promised her it would. “You arefucking. Up.”
She narrows her eyes into slits, and I see they’re lined with red. She smells like marijuana and alcohol and underneath it all, her coconut scent. But her words aren’t slurred when she speaks. “You already did, so I guesswe’re even.”She throws the words I spoke to her in the cemetery back in my face.
I push her against the wall beside the door, one hand cradling her head. My eyes rake over her dress, her bare thighs, those fucking boots.
“Happy birthday, baby,” I tell her, slowly looking back up into her golden eyes. “Twenty never looked so fucking slutty.”
She grabs my forearm, clawing her black painted fingernails into my skin. “Are youjealous, Cortland?” she whispers, her voice dripping with venom. “For a boy who passed me around to his fucking friends, you’re actuallyjealous?”
I tighten my grip on her throat. “I’m not aboy,baby. And don’t worry. Tonight, I’m not passing you around.” I lean in close to her, my mouth over hers. “Because when I’m done with you, there won’t be anything left to take.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
REMI
When we’rein his truck, parked on the main dirt road that forks off to the different cabins, after he dragged me through the house, he turns on me, pinning me against the passenger side of the door, his hand on my chest.
“What the fuck was that?”
I swallow down my nerves at his anger, his eyes gleaming silver in the lights from his dash, the engine not running, but the battery on.
“Passenger”by Deftones is playing, and that, combined with my heartbeat, are the only sounds out here in the dark, this far from the party.
My head is against the window, one hand on the dash, the other on his leather seat, the way I’m twisted toward him. “I should’ve sucked his dick and let you watch,” I tell him, my chest heaving under his hand. “I should’ve let them both fuck me while you stood in that doorway like a fucking stalker.”
He grabs the collar of my dress, pulling me closer, his mouth over mine. “Is that what you should’ve done, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Nah,” he says, laughing, his breath minty against my lips. “What you should do is tell me you’re fucking sorry that I had to see that.”
I laugh, my temper flaring. “You areunreal.”
He tilts his head, running his mouth over mine. I suck in a breath, butterflies flipping in my stomach, despite my anger, and my words. “You sorry, baby?”
“Fuck you.”
“Not unless you apologize.”
“You let her suck your dick.”The words come out jagged, and I hate that, but I can’t hold it back. What I’ve been wanting to say to him for over a week. “You let her…” I close my eyes, his hand still wrapped around the collar of my dress. “She said she fuckingloved you.”Those words taste bitter in my mouth.
He’s quiet, but he doesn’t release me.
“And you… you’ve been following me, and touching me, and all along, you were fucking around with her.” I grit my teeth, unwilling to say anything else, to damn myself here in this truck with him.
He runs his mouth over mine again, and I hate that my stomach twists into knots, fire in my veins. “It was beforeyou, and it didn’t happen,” he tells me, his voice low. “And anything that might have actually happened before you, that didn’t mean anything.”
“Well back there,” I counter, my eyes flying open, staring at him in my face, “that was mycousin,and that wasafteryou, and it wouldn’t havemeant anythingeither, so why don’t you let me finish?—”
“Yourcousin?”He sounds livid, but not disgusted.
I don’t look away from him. “We’re all fucked up, aren’t we, Cortland?”