Page 45 of X's and O's
“Why are all the good ones gay?” I asked him grumpily. But then offered him a smile, because despite my own tragic love life, it really did make me happy to see him all gooey and in love. “Why don’t you just go over there?”
“It’s nine o’clock!”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh no. Not nine o’clock on a school night!”
He made a face. “He’ll think I just want sex.”
I couldn’t hold in a giggle. “Don’t you?”
His grin spread slowly, and he jumped up to his feet. “You know me so well.” He stopped a few steps toward his room. “You sure you don’t want me to stay with you tonight though?”
I waved him off. “Go. There’s no need for my misery to infect you too.” I switched off the TV. “I’m just going to read my book for a while and then go to bed. So you may as well go have fun. At least one of us should be having hot sex tonight.”
And it certainly wasn’t going to be me.
Toby practically skipped out the door, and I deadbolted it behind him. Once he was gone, I switched into my pajamas, did a little skin care, brushed my teeth, then got into bed.
I reached for my book on the bedside table, only to remember I no longer had it.
I groaned. It was probably on the sidewalk outside Mr. Geordi’s apartment.
Otherwise known as the site where X had ambushed me.
A tremble racked my body just thinking about him stepping out of the shadows like a goddamn stalker. Then fighting me for my bag while I tried to find my Mace.
I hadn’t given myself time to think about the whole event, focusing on my meetup with Levi instead. But now that I didn’t want to think about him ever again, the memories of both experiences I’d had with X came rushing back in.
Neither were ones I wanted to relive.
I buried beneath the covers, really wishing I had my book to escape into. Dark romance was a lot more fun toread about than to live, and I’d been at a really good part in the book too.
There wasn’t much I could do about my paperback, but I downloaded the Kindle version onto my phone and skipped ahead a few chapters until I was at the point where I’d left off in my paperback.
Genevieve, the heroine, was locked in a club basement with four other women, a group of masked men outside the door, waiting for the buzzer to sound.
My breathing quickened as she looked for somewhere to hide, realizing the mistake she’d made, and that those men were there to hunt her down and claim her.
I scrolled through the pages, faster and faster, a gasp slipping from my mouth at Genevieve watching a man catch one of the other women. Through her eyes, I saw the man fight others for her, then claim her body with his own, fucking her right there on the arena floor.
My fingers slipped between my thighs, finding my clit before I read on. When Genevieve’s turn came, I got hot with her, everything happening to her suddenly feeling like it was happening to me.
I twisted, dropping the phone and grabbing my vibrator instead.
I closed my eyes, imagining the scene from the book.
But instead of Genevieve’s masked man, the one chasing me was X.
I was messed up in the head. I logically knew that, but the dark romance fantasy had been ignited, and even though the man terrified me, I couldn’t deny he was gorgeous. All dark hair flopping in his eyes. Cheeky smirk. Snake tattoos and scars and piercings…
He’d claimed he was in love with me right then andthere, and maybe that was just part of his psychotic brain, but after Levi’s flat-out rejection, the broken part of me replayed X’s declarations of love over and over.
Because it was probably the only ones I was ever going to hear.
I pushed the vibrator between my legs, imagining it was him.
I was so close to coming, I almost missed the out-of-place noise from out in the apartment.
I paused the vibrator so I could hear better.
