Page 57 of Wicked Me
17
Paige
ISENT IT. I SENT THEaddress for Rose’s rehabilitation center to Rick. And afterward, I felt like a big fucking coward. It wasn’t anyone’s business where Rose was, especially his. Would it even be enough to make the nude picture of me disappear from Janice’s desk?
Soon my phone vibrated with another text from Rick. A picture of Janice’s desk, emptied, along with the wordsGood girl.Talk soon.
It didn’t make me feel any better about myself, and it sure as fuck made me hate Rick even more.Good girl.That made me want to throat punch him, and I didn’t have a violent bone in my body. Maybe the address was enough for now, but there were plenty of senators with family problems. I had a feeling he would be back for more fuel to add to the fire.
To drown my self-loathing, I made sure we played about a thousand more rounds of Charlotte’s drinking game, while the back of my mind spun a wobbly circle around what to do next. I could call Her Number, beg her parents to have a paternity test performed, and then drag Rick’s career down with mine. But that wouldn’t solve anything. Not yet anyway, but I was too drunk for any more rational braining tonight.
I came home feeling like my back teeth were floating and swayed up the steps through the quiet, dark house with a finger pressed to my lips as a reminder to not fall down and go boom.
Riley’s car was gone but Sam’s wasn’t, so he was probably asleep. The thought of him sleeping magnetized me toward his closed door. What did he look like while he slept? What if he wasn’t sleeping?
We had the entire house to ourselves. To talk. To apologize for my text to Rick about Rose’s whereabouts. Through a closed door. Like adults. While one of them was drunk off my ass. Yep, this plan had zero holes in it.
Oh, who was I kidding? My entire body buzzed with possibilities, which made it difficult to form a fist with a shaking hand. I rapped on the door softly.
He was probably asleep. Maybe I should go back to my room and play with Slave. Maybe I should knock a little harder.
Still no answer.
I could talk to him tomorrow. That way, I wouldn’t disturb him. I would just have to redirect the guilt I felt over becoming a traitorous spy, crumple it up into a more manageable size, and toss it on top of the mountainous pile of shame called the rest of my life. I’d learned to forget before; I could do it again.
Yet standing outside his door in an otherwise empty house excited me so much, it nearly buckled my knees with want. The ache between my legs drew me even closer to his door. My face grew hotter as I lifted a hand to the doorknob.
Just a peek to see if he was okay. As I pushed inward, slivers of moonlight angled across my knuckles from the window. A man with a bow and arrow I recognized from Sam’s zombie show squinted from a poster above the dresser in the corner, judging me, or maybe urging me on. Jeans and T-shirts lay in heaps all over the floor. A fan spun lazily overhead, pushing his leather and oak scent all around the room. He lay on his bed in the dark with only a thin sheet covering his lower half. His chest, carved with muscle and shadows, rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
I stood there staring, my lips pushed together to hold back a moan. Even sleep looked good on him. I should’ve left instead of ogling him like some kind of voyeur, but he was too gorgeous to look away from. My fingers twitched to touch him, to slide my hands down that beautiful body, to taste him. To make him come. To make me forget my betrayal.
A flush bloomed across my skin, and my breaths became pants. I gripped the doorknob tighter to keep myself upright. My blood sizzled with a kind of longing I’d never felt before. There was no turning back, not even if I tried.
Every step inside his bedroom charged the air with an electrical intensity that peppered my arms with goose bumps despite the heat. Just a taste, a way to make what I’d done up to him. Wow, was I the master of talking myself into something, or what?
I stopped at the foot of his bed while struggling to contain my nervous breaths. His full lips turned down at the corners in a frown, and I licked my own at the thought of his mouth all over me. Theyhadbeen all over me. Devouring and claiming me like no one else had.
The memory ignited my body once again. My hips rocked forward into the wooden post of the footboard, and I grasped it to keep from flipping over onto the bed like some crazy person.
God, what was wrong with me? I’d been sloppy drunk before, but was it normal to be so goddamned horny? Or was I under some kind of sexual spell Sam had concocted?
Just a taste. Just until he comes.
With slick hands, I reached for the sheet covering the lower half of his body. The sheet slid down, down, revealing a very naked, and a very hard, Sam Cleary.
I swallowed at the sight of his impressive length, at the way the moonlight glinted off the patch of blond curls, the long, lean columns of his legs. The man was gorgeous.
I didn’t need him. But fuck if I didn’t want him.
Slowly, carefully, I hoisted a leg over the footboard and hoped the mattress didn’t squeak under the press of my knee. I followed with my other leg and waited with breath held for any sign of movement from him. If he woke up now, I had no idea what I would do. Bend over and start sucking? No, I wanted to wake him gradually, make him think he was still dreaming, then when he realized he wasn’t, I wanted to see that realization dawn all over his face, just like the smiles he reserved for me.
