Page 23 of Pretty Broken Things

I kiss him, then climb out of the pool. “If you think that will help,” I call back over my shoulder.

He groans, and sinks beneath the surface. I’m laughing as I enter the house, and for the first time I don’t hate being here.

ChapterTen

Ford

I tellmyself I’m going to dry off and go home. Yeah, I told her we’d watch a movie, but without her next to me I see the error of thinking we could hang out in a dark room and not end up having sex, especially since we’ll probably have the room all to ourselves. Instead of my better judgment, I find myself following her into the house anyway. Unsurprisingly, Shane and Lydia are nowhere to be found. They’re probably still locked away in one of the guest rooms. Which means I’m in the house, unsupervised, and let’s just say I’m not used to exercising self-control when it comes to women.

Tessa is like a siren calling me to my doom, and I’m only too eager to bash myself against the rocks to try and get close to her. Make no mistake, our story is a lot like a Greek tragedy, complete with pseudo incest thanks to our parents dating. All the reasons I shouldn’t go looking for her are still there, but I find I don’t really give a shit that I’m the poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Boys like Jace don’t appreciate her, and I do.

A couple of steps is all that separates me from the stairs that lead to her room. If I take those steps, then the whole concept of taking this slow goes out the window. I’ve already seen the kitchen, and the foyer, but other than that I’ve only ever seen her room. Which is pretty much like my previous experiences with every other girl I’ve ever spent time with. Perhaps in order to have a different outcome I need to seek out different environments. That means no bedrooms and if we say we’re going to watch a movie, then we actually need to watch it.

Giving myself a tour of the first floor, I find a second living room, an entire wing of guest rooms, and an honest to god theater room. That’s where Tess finds me when she finally comes back downstairs.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she says from the doorway.

“You found me,” I reply. Taking a seat on one of the couches, I pat the spot next to me. “Are you just going to hang out in the doorway?”

She pushes off the doorframe and struts over to me. Her walk might have been sexy if she weren’t wearing probably hundreds of yards of fabric. When she comes closer, I grab the hem of her shirt and pull her the rest of the way to me. “I didn’t think you’d actually wear this many clothes. I didn’t even think you owned sweats.”

She fidgets, and my eyes narrow as I really take in her outfit. “Where did you get these? There’s no way these are yours, they’re extra large.”

Her fingers pick at the large sweatshirt that is swallowing her tiny frame. The look on her face is hard to decipher. It’s either embarrassment or guilt, but either way it’s pretty clear she’s wearing another guy’s clothes, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

“Tessa, where did you get those?” I press.

She looks away from me, and mumbles, “I don’t want to tell you.”

I exhale long and slow through my nose. I’ve never given a shit before, not if a girl I was into was talking to other guys, not even if she was seeing other guys. In fact, I usually prefer it. They’re not going to try and stake a claim on me if there’s someone else trying to catch their attention. I’m not the guy girls imagine having a future with. At least, not until they hear about my chances at getting a football scholarship. Then my trailer, drunk dad, and absent mom fade into the background behind dreams of being a pro-athlete’s wife.

This is different. Seeing her talking to her ex-boyfriend made me see red. Imagining another man’s hands roaming her body, worshiping those slight curves, threading through that silken mass of hair, makes me want to commit violence.

I grab her hips and pull her closer to me. Even as she stands in front of me, I’m so much bigger than her that we’re nearly eye to eye in this position. “Tessa, this is all really new to me, and I don’t really know what a normal guy would do in this situation. But leaving me to come to my own conclusions isn’t the way to go here. So I’m going to ask you one more time, where did you get these fucking clothes?”

I should have known better than to challenge Contessa James. She might have seemed a bit more docile when we were in the pool, but I shouldn’t forget that there’s always a fire burning inside of her. One of these days it’s going to burn me.

Her eyebrow curves up as she assesses me. “What does it matter where I got them?”

“I thought I made myself clear earlier. There’s something between us, and not just sex.”

She scoffs. “Can’t be that. You run away every time we get too close.”

I tug her down until she’s straddling my lap. “You’re close now and I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“And fucking me will do that?” She’s breathless, and with her resting right on my dick, it’s hard to stick with my plan to take things slow.

“Tell me, Tess, in your past relationships, did anything ever work out when you slept together too quickly?”

She looks away, and immediately I know I’ve said something wrong. She fidgets, and though she’s not trying to turn me on, the way she’s grinding on my cock is making me harder than I’ve ever been before. I hold her steady, but that doesn’t help much either.

My anxiety climbs the longer she says nothing. “Uhm—” She takes a deep breath before looking at me. “I’m not as experienced as you think. I've heard the rumors that I blew the football team, had a three-way with a couple of guys at Blair’s party last year, and of course that Jace and I screwed in the boy's locker room last spring. They’re all bullshit.”

Now that she mentions it, I’d heard those rumors too. I just never thought much about them then, because I really didn’t spend much time thinking about her. I suppose that’s odd, because Tessa is the most beautiful girl at Ocean Bluff High, but I wasn’t in the habit of pursuing girls. Why would I when they threw themselves at me?

Now, if I had paid more attention, it would have occurred to me sooner that it was a bullshit rumor. I’d never experienced the pleasure of her mouth anywhere on my body until I kissed her in the pool. Hell, I’ve never seen her so much as give any of us even a passing glance. If she were banging the team, surely as the quarterback I would have at least known about it.

I’ve been unfair to her. Without evidence I judged her, maybe not as the other guys, but I labeled her a rich bitch and pushed her out of my mind. Worse, I let my team bad-mouth her for no other reason than she remained unaffected by any of us.

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