Page 122 of Past the Broken Bridges

I hate pity. Always have. Always will.

What I hated more were the looks on their faces when I had to fill out the information that would appear on my future license. Their eyes went to my hair when they read what I’d put for my natural hair color because the wig, which cost more than my mother’s monthly car payment, wasn’t anywhere near the tone I’d been born with, and my eyes, which Dad used to say reminded him of the ocean, were so dull from the drugs that they looked gray.

I could feel their questions—their doubts—but they never came. The day that I’d been looking forward to for sixteen years was nothing like I’d expected at all. It was ruined, along with every other big milestone teenagers should experience.

I don’t want Banks to look at me like that—like the broken girl I am. I want him to like me, to judge me, to be here with me in the moment even when I almost kill us or total his truck.

“Where’d you go?” he asks, his hand coming down on mine to bring me back to earth.

I simply shake my head. “Nowhere. I’m here.” Curling my hand around his, I caress his skin with my thumb and think back to the look on his best friend’s face earlier. “I think Dawson saw us holding hands.”

Banks’s gaze drops, his fingers involuntarily squeezing mine. “Screw Dawson.”

I give him a sad smile. “You don’t mean that. That’s what makes you a good person.”

The scoff that comes from him has me frowning. “Maybe I don’t want to be.”

I don’t believe that for a second, but the way his eyes flash has me unbuckling and sliding over to him. He watches each movement carefully, his eyes darkening as I find the courage to climb into his lap and straddle him.

His hands find my hips. “Hi, Birdie.”

I smile innocently. “Hi.”

Cupping his face with my hands, I lean my forehead against his.

“What are you doing?” he asks, voice a notch lower than normal as I feel him harden underneath me.

Taking a deep breath, I move my hips experimentally and hear him groan. I shake my head and whisper, “I don’t know yet.”

I stop the conversation with a kiss, silencing any other questions he has. He meets my lips, his fingers digging into my hips before moving upward to cup the back of my head.

It’s a sea of sadness and passion all mixed together, and he doesn’t even know it as the kiss grows deeper and more demanding. The ball in my chest tightens, expanding, consuming me as I undo the button of his jeans and pull the zipper down.

“Birdie,” he rasps, catching my wrist.

“You will always be a good person,” I tell him. “Who deserves so much better than what he’s gotten. One day, I hope you see that.”

His throat bobs with a thick swallow.

Peeking at him through my lashes, I dare to close the distance between us, wrapping my hand around him until he jerks. I let him watch me as I stroke him through his boxers, fascinated by how he grows in my palm.

Leaning forward, I press a tentative kiss against one side of his mouth, then the other. My lips trail downward, nipping his jaw and then the column of his throat as I keep moving my hand.

A breath stirs when I slide to the truck floor, nervously peeking up at him as I free him. One palm wrapped around his base, I lean forward and hear him suck in a breath right before my lips experimentally cover the tip.

One of his hands goes to the back of my head as I take my time with him, not guiding me, simply resting there as if he needs to be grounded. I can feel his eyes on me, so I angle my head up while still keeping him in my mouth.

Banks cusses, shaking his head before pulling me away and tugging at my jeans.

“Did I do something wro—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” he cuts me off, somehow undressing the bottom half of me quicker than I ever could.

I gasp when he pulls me back onto his lap and crushes his lips against mine before his fingers do a dance of their own between my thighs until I’m panting into his mouth.

From there, it’s a frenzy.

Everything is clouded by lust, and everything that happened today gets pushed to the side the second I feel him nudge against me before slowly, torturously, sliding in.

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