Page 4 of Lovesick
“Sorry, I have to text my parents to let them know I’m okay,” I tell him, twiddling my thumbs over the virtual keyboard.
Them checking in on me every hour is a buzzkill, especially when my parents are prone to thinking of the worst-case scenarios. Did I fall down the Grand Canyon? We’re nowhere near the Grand Canyon, but anything is a possibility in their minds.
“It’s nice that they care.”
“It’s overbearing.”
He shrugs. “Some of us would kill to have overbearing parents.”
Looking down at my cryptic thumbs-up emoji in response to a consecutive flood of questioning bubbles, something strange thrashes in my belly. Guilt, maybe.
“I never thought of it like that.”
Composed of sultry sex appeal and Sauvage, this man is solely responsible for blending my brain into mush. “Just trying to keep you open-minded. Another thing I’m great at aside from cherishing women.”
I cross my arms over my chest.“And what makes you think I’m interested in being ‘cherished’?”
Mystery Man—whose stool is butted up against mine—cages me with an outstretched arm, though he still gives me the option to run if I want to. He leans in so close that I can memorize the constellation of sun-faded freckles over his cheeks, that I can smell his minty breath and the lack of alcohol that apparentlyisn’timpairing his judgment. “Girls don’t say no to me.”
“I’d love to be the first.”
“Then say it.”
My traitorous gaze drops to his lips, and the hunger that rears inside of me is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. So profoundly animalistic—a long-suppressed desire to sink my teeth into something soft and never let go until copper inundates my taste buds. Predatory. All-consuming.
I thought I was being calm, cool, and collected, but my voice suffers a humiliating crack. “I…”
I still don’t even know this guy’s name, and he’s single-handedly rewiring all my man-hating genes—which were instilled in my stone heart when my hockey-playing ex cheated on me.
As if the proximity isn’t bad enough, he uses his knee to nudge open my legs, sliding into the space as I part them unresistingly. His touch stirs a tornado of butterflies in my belly, andI’d deduce that they’re hell-bent on total-world destruction. I’m sweating in places I shouldn’t sweat, I can hear the rush of my blood in my ears, and I can feel my heart begging to burst through the dam of my chest.
“You can’t, can you? Because secretly, deep down, I think you like making me work for it. And sweetheart, I love a challenge.”
Oh, fuck me.
2
DICKNOTIZED AND PROUD
MERIT
Should I have gone to a second location with a stranger? Probably not, but my mortality is dwindling by the second, and I have to grab life by the balls while I still can.
We stumble into his apartment, practically mauling each other’s faces off without so much as a grace period, and his hands work double time to divest me of the offending jacket clinging to my shoulders. While he’s busy undressing me, I slip my smart ring off before he—or my parents—are ever the wiser. His touch is hungry, urgent, but there’s an underpinning of gentleness that blares a sense of respect for my body and my time—a rare currency in this hookup-based culture.
I can’t see where I’m going. The only lead I have is this stranger’s Midas touch melting the very legs I’m standing on. He licks into my mouth, caressing my tongue with his, vying for deeper access with a growl that reverberates through me like the rumbling announcement of an earthquake.
Hands mapping my curves—gripping in areas with extra give—he brings me flush against his front so that I can feel the evidence of his arousal filling out his zipper. Even with myvision compromised, I can tell that his humongous punisher is about to rip my vagina in half.
I’m about a foot shorter than him—evident given the way his erection bulges against my stomach—but I never have to rise to my tiptoes because he accommodates me with a hunch of his towering frame.
I feel so small in his arms, so fragile. It’s like he has the power to destroy me completely, but all my self-preservation instincts have fled the scene. I should be running. I should be protecting my body and my heart.
But the darkness has never felt so…right. I live for it. I’d kill for it. I crave it. I cravehim.
When his fingers skirt the spaghetti strap of my tank top, he freezes. “Is this okay?”
Due to the lack of sufficient lighting, all I can make out is the shadow-contoured plane of his face, the whites of his eyes that seem to swallow me whole, and the glint of his teeth not unlike the pointed canines of a carnivore.
