Page 70 of Hate Wrecked

“I know this was stupid. I care about my job. I’m sorry, Riley, but… I need it.”

I hated myself for the weakness I harbored for her. I wanted to know what she tasted like, what she felt like under my touch, my tongue, my desire. I’d fantasized about her on the very bed she laid on, touched myself as I touched her in my mind. It was a dangerous game, our false friendship. I was a fool. A fool like my father had been.

Riley looked at me with green eyes, dark eyes full of desire. “No one will know,” she whispered, descending down. She kissed my neck and moved her mouth up to my ear. “I want you.”

I wanted to pull away and askhow, why, andwhat about Barry, but that would end in a fight, as it always did. I didn’t want to lose, and I knew I would.

“Want what?” I asked, digging my own grave.

“You, all of you,” she replied, moving over me.

I gripped her hips, watched her dark hair fall over her shoulder.

I’d known her since she was eighteen. And I knew her secret, her little lie as she partied and pretended with her friends and Asa and Desi’s friends. She was a virgin. And I knew it was a way to hold some sort of control over something in her life where everything always felt out of control.

I wanted her. To feel her tightness around me, around my fingers, my tongue.

God fuck.

“You don’t know what you want,” I answered, gripping her hips and lifting her off me. “Time to grow up.”

Riley rolled to the side, crawling off the bed. “Oh, please, Rowan. Then tell them what I want. Just like every other person in this fucking world.”

“Riley,” I groaned, raking my hands over my face. Thisfriendshipwas going to be the death of me.

“It’s true. You think you know me better than I know myself.”

“I do,” I stated, coming up on my elbows, eyeing her. “I know you better than you know yourself, Glenne Riley Williams. And you may want me now, but you’ll want something else tomorrow, just like you do withhim,just like you do with your mom. The hot and cold is…God, I know it’s not as bad with me. I feel like you can be open with me, or maybe I’m delusional, I don’t know. But I don’t ever want to be treated the way you treat other people. I know you’re hurting, but I won’t be a casualty in this war you have going on in that house. Come home to me? Do you even know what that word means?”

She looked like I’d slapped her, but I knew it was the truth, the hard pill she wouldn’t swallow.

I needed to say it, to douse the fire between us, because my willpower was fading fast. And part of me had already found home in her green eyes.

Riley crossed her arms and looked at the door as if she wanted to run. Then she glanced back at me. “So you know what I want? Okay. What doyouwant, then?”

I clenched my jaw, stuffed my feelings down. “For us to be friends. That’s it.”

“That’s not what I want,” she said, her voice steel.

“What do you want?” I asked, voice tight.

She walked out of the room, her voice lingering behind her. I closed my eyes as she left. “Nothing anymore. Except for you to be my bodyguard.”

YOU’LL WANT ME TO

ROWAN

The blanketon the mattress is itchy. I toss and turn, not just from the blanket but from thoughts of Riley. She’s tempting me and pushing at my boundaries. Transforming before my eyes.

I roll over, staring out into the night. Before I can think better of it, I throw the itchy cover off, heading for the beach. The stars are out in full brilliance, and they greet me when I break from the jungle.

And so does the sight of Riley. Sitting by a fire, cross-legged, her mother’s manuscript in her hands. The glow of the fire illuminates the pages.

“I hope you didn’t use a page of that to start the fire,” I joke, walking closer.

Riley looks up, startled. “No. I’m tempted, though.”

“You didn’t like what you read?”

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