Page 35 of Where We Left Off

Tate’s hands grip tighter. “I didn’t have any,” he replies, and I can hear regret lacing his tone. “Sorry,” he adds, whether to Mitch or to me I do not know.

Mitch runs the tap into a glass and then he passes it to me. I gulp it down and he refills it again.

“Take her to bed,” Mitch orders as he heads to the living room. Tate can feel that I’m about to burst out laughing so he cups his hand over my mouth to stifle the sound. When the wave passes he puts his hand back on my shoulder and he walks me up the stairs to his room.

My room.

Our room.

I realise once I’m over the threshold that I no longer have Tate’s warm, grounding palms encasing my shoulders, so I turn around and see that he’s gripping the top of the doorframe, head bowed and chest heaving. His hair has fallen all over his face and the tendons in his thick wrists are flexing.

The room is excessively dark, lit only by the faintest glow from the streetlamps outside, and the rainfall is thumping fast against the panes. The ambience is obviously quite distressing for Tate because he’s breathing loud enough for me to hear from the other side of the attic.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” I ask, still in that possessed nymphomaniac mind-frame that came over me in the car. “Get inside here now, you vampire.”

Tate tilts his head up and I see a pained expression creasing his brow.

I open the bedside drawer and pull out my cleaning cloth so that I can wipe the rain smudges from my glasses, ignoring the desperation that I can feel radiating off Tate’s body. When my glasses are clean I throw the cloth back in the drawer and storm over to the doorway.

“Get in or get out,” I demand, only inches away from the hard planes of his expansive chest.

“Did you drink alcohol tonight, River? Or do you think that you were spiked? If you’re under the influence I can’t come in here with you.”

That is so nice of him. I grab the soft cotton of his shirt and pull him inside anyway.

“River, I’m serious. I’m not doing anything that you’re not fully… lucid for.”

I move around him to shut the door and twist the little lock, before I start pulling off my trousers. They are so rain-splattered that they keep sticking to my skin. I wriggle them off, fist themup, and then I throw them across the room like a shot-put. Slam dunk.

When I look up at Tate again his gaze has hardened and his jaw is set, which is unanticipated but also arousing. I start unbuttoning my shirt.

Tate grabs my hands, halting my progress, and he fixes me with an unyielding stare.

“Why do you keep saying that I ruined everything for us? How can you say that? I would have done anything for you.” The timbre of his voice is sending shockwaves all the way down to my uterus. I rest my head against the door and my body pulses as I gaze into the dark depths of his glittering eyes.

I want to feel him, just once, and then I can let it go. What happened was so long ago, and he was so young, that it almost seems insignificant now, but it’s still bad enough to make me know that I can never fully trust him again.

But I want one night to indulge myself before I shut him out forever.

Besides, why is it only men who can be casual with sex or wield it as a means of revenge? From the look on Tate’s face right now I think that the idea of our bodies coming together will torture him for the rest of his life and he deserves nothing less.

I wriggle my wrists for him to release them, and then I run my hand up his sleeve to the bulge of his tattooed bicep. He instinctively encases my lower back in the warm press of his forearms, and he rests his forehead against mine, tickling my face with his soft hair, inky black in the darkness of the room.

“I want to start over,” he whispers, his hard pecs heaving with each steadying inhalation.

I work my fingers up into his hair and tug at it hard. “I don’t care,” I whisper back.

He tilts his face back and looks down at me, my head coming to way beneath his chin. It’s such a domineering angle that mystomach flips, and I give him a tinyplease don’t hurt mesmile, although I guess it’s too late for that really.

“You do care.” His voice is low and scolding. I press my hips against his and he stirs agitatedly.

Hedefinitelycares.

“I got over it a long time ago,” I reply, blasé, although I feel kind of dizzy. “But I deserve a parting gift before I go to college, is all.” His hands splay across my lower back, slowly inching their way down, and my thoughts short-circuit.

Just as his fingers dig into the round curves of my ass I push him off me. He stumbles back and swallows hard.

“I need water,” I say matter-of-factly.

---