Page 23 of Dare To Take

She nods.

“Have you ever smoked it before?”

“Not really.”

“Have you ever smoked anything before?”

She shakes her head. I purse my lips, tongue flicking at my lip piercing.

“Okay,” I say eventually. “If that’s what you want to do. Get in the car.”

***

It takes around forty minutes to reach Montauk Point. I park the car, open the glovebox, and take out a small tin. Reaching into the back seat, I grab a spare hoodie and toss it at her.

“It’s fucking freezing. I’d rather not be accused of bringing you here to catch pneumonia, so put this on.”

Instead of leading her up to the lighthouse, I take her down toward the beach. There are fewer people there. The breeze from the sea is icy and Arabella is shivering by the time we find a place to sit. My hoodie swamps her, making it easy for her to draw her legs up and pull it over the top of them so only the tips of her feet are on show.

I flip open the case and take out a joint. “Are you sure about this?”

She nods from the depths of her hood. Shielding the flame of the lighter from the wind, I light the joint and take in a lungful of the smoke, then pass it to her. Her first drag on it has her coughing and spluttering. I laugh.

“Try again.” I settle back against the rocks, stretching out with one hand tucked beneath my head and look up at the sky.

When she hands the joint back to me, I take a long slow pull on it and let my eyes close, letting the drug do its work. We pass it back and forth in silence, apart from the occasional cough from her, and after a short while she lays down beside me.

“I don’t feel so cold now.”

I chuckle. “Do you feel anything?”

“Relaxed.” She rolls onto her side to face me. “Did you get a tongue piercing?”

I push my tongue out and wiggle the piercing against my bottom lip. “Day after you ran.”

I take another pull on the joint and blow out smoke rings. She giggles.

“Teach me how to do that!”

Chapter 16

Arabella

Eli watches me through half-closed eyes. “Draw in a mouthful of smoke. Then press your tongue to the bottom of your mouth. Hollow your cheeks out like you’re sucking on a lollipop and open your mouth to form an O.” He follows his own instructions, and a smoke ring pops from his mouth and hangs between us.

I take the joint from him, follow his instructions, giggling when I blow out, but the smoke is just a cloud. “It’s hard.”

He takes the joint back from me. “Not bad for your first time.”

My head feels odd, buzzy, and I’m happy. All my worries are so far away. This doesn’t seem real. Maybe I’ve stepped into an alternate universe where my stepbrother isn’t an asshole. Maybe it’s a dream?

I rest my chin on my palm and stare at the boy beside me on the rocks, studying his features. Boy doesn’t really fit. Not with those sharp cheekbones, shadowed jawline, and firm lips. “You’re much prettier than the other boys at school.”

I’m either losing my mind, or Eli just blushed.

“I thought you had a thing for swimmers and jocks?” He takes another drag from the joint.

“They have a thing for me.” I sit up and climb, a little clumsily, over his legs to straddle his hips.

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