Page 16 of Secrets That Bind Us
Chapter Eight
Dean
Age Sixteen
She’s nervous, scratching behind her ear.
Her eyes dart behind me before they meet my gaze again. Caramel eyes with red and black flecks. I wonder if she knows her eyes sometimes look maroon– or if it’s just a trick of the light. “I… I have a question. A favor to ask of you.”
“Okay?”
“I’m… I’ve been writing, and… and I think I have somethinggoodgoing here. There's a publishing house in New York, by Columbia University. They’ll be accepting manuscripts again sometime next year. But the thing is… I’m not very…experienced. Mrs. B said, ‘Write what you see. Write what you know,’ except… I don’t know anything.”
“Experienced, huh?” I love watching the way her blush creeps up from her neck to the tops of her cheeks.
“I… I was wondering if you could maybe help me with some… things?”
I ignore the rush of the other students on their way out to go home, walking in groups as we make our way out of the school and to the field house beside the practice fields. The closer we get, the emptier the school grounds are. I keep my grin inside– along with the beast that’s panting, ready to lunge. For a second I wonder if she’d accept that side of me. Sweet little Verity and the Big Bad Beast. I salivate. “Whatkindof things?”
“I…” Verity stops walking, closes her eyes and grimaces– her brows knitting together in a way that tells me she regrets saying anything. “You know what, forget it. I- this was dumb. I’m sorry. I’ll see you later. I think Mama is making enchiladas for dinner.”
She turns to leave, but I grab her by the elbow. She squeaks as I slowly crowd her, until her back is flush against the brick wall. I brace one arm above her, caging her in, and use my thumb and forefinger to tilt her chin until she meets my gaze. God, those eyes of hers… They dilate– the brown barely visible as her pupils blow– and my heart races. I’m so close, I can smell the faint perfume of her shampoo, the intoxicating fading scent of citrus and sunflowers. I can smell her mint gum on her breath and can feel the swells of her breasts on my ribcage. “What do you need, Verity?” I breathe.
Ibreathe,because I want the very air that exists in her lungs for myself. I want her scent on my shirt, my body, in my nostrils, in my head. I want it to fester in my lungs– so I never forget it. But that’s ridiculous. How could I ever forget the girl that makes my dick swell, my heart pound, and makes my veins buzz like an electrical current? How could I forget the shape of her eyes, the color, or the way they look at me likeI’mincredible? Fuck. She looks at me likeI’mthe most incredible thing she’s ever seen, and even though it makes me feel weird inside, I love that feeling.
I love her.
Her lips part, and God I’d do anything to feel them between mine– to lick and pull them between my teeth. Any part of her. I want to kiss any part of her. “Would you teach me… how to do stuff?”
I suppose this wouldn’t be the right time to tell her I don’t exactlyknowa lot of stuff. The one andonlytime I had sex– not only was I stopped in the middle of it– but I was reprimanded for it in the worst way, by being sent away to an all-boy’s Christian alternative school two towns over.
“Like kissing… with tongue?” her little blush turns crimson across her cheeks, and I love it.
I grin, the joy flourishing in my chest making me feel drunk. I don’t think she understands the severity of what she’s just asked me to do– or the fact she’s just given me permission to make her mine. ‘Cause I just know that after this, there ain’t no going back for me. I nod once. “I can do that.”
And so I just do. With her lips still parted, I stake my claim. I crash my lips to hers, latching on to that bottom one, sucking it into my mouth, and then licking it, imploring her to open her mouth. If Tiffany Myers taught me anything, it was how to kiss. But it didn’t feel anything like this at all. Like nothing else in the world could ever matter except the girl whose tongue moves with mine, exploring and tasting me as much as I am her. It feels right. And she feels so mine, I think my heart has stopped beating. Especially when she reaches up– her warm hands sliding from my waist to my chest, then around my neck to grip the hair there, pulling me closer. I take it asencouragement. One of my hands find her waist, the other to the nape of her neck– and I fuse her to me. As if our bodies could merge like this.
I want that.
A bell rings– signaling I’m late as shit to practice– but fuck if this singular moment wasn’t worth every lap coach is gonna have me run.
We pull away, panting.
She smiles up at me, fixing her glasses, chest heaving against my ribcage– and fuck if the sight of her smile alone wasn’t worth being late, too. “Thank you.”
I kiss her again, simply– just because I can. “Any time, baby.”
The way she blushes, lashes fluttering, I know – she’ll be the only girl I’llevercall ‘baby.’
I wonder if she knows she’ll only belong to me, now?
I’ll make sure she does.
Practice goes hard till a light drizzle starts, and we’re sent home at the first strike of lightning. Will’s supposed to drop me off at home, but I tell him Verity is tutoring me. He scoffs, “Your grades are better than mine– what the hell are you doingpayingfor tutoring?”
“And that’s our secret.” I grunt, sitting back in the vinyl passenger seat of his Escalade. The plan is for me to still be able to get into any school with a partial scholarship if I can’t get in through football. So yeah, my grades are pretty good.
“Oh, I get it. You’re tryna get back in her good graces so you can hump the Humpback whale?”
