Page 59 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“Wedon’t. But we need to be more like him. We need to look deeper. Harder.”
“I know. One time in class I watched him watch everyone else in the room. When you looked, really looked, you could see people’s secrets. He saw me doing it and asked me if I was having fun. It rattled me.”
“Then we have a plan. On Monday we start watching every one of our classmates more closely. Any changes in patters, behaviors. Anything that might lend itself to a sense of desperation.”
“Why wait until Monday? We should start tonight. We can use this party as an opportunity, especially when everyone will be drunk. Who knows what secrets we could get them to spill?”
I frowned. Really? That’s what she wanted to do on our firstnot date?
“I had other plans for this evening,” I said with a low voice. Geezus, I sounded like a serial killer.
“Like what? Because you said this wasn’t a date.”
“I said that? Oh, that’s right. I said that.”
“Yes. You said you didn’t want to kiss me. That you just wanted to drive me to this party. Which, really Fitz, now that I think about it, doesn’t make any sense at all. Why me? Wick basically alluded to it when he asked you if you were fucking me now. I’m not popular. I’m not that pretty. Now you know I’m basically poor. What is your agenda? Why have you been nice to me? Or have you been? Was it really just a trap to get me to do the fashion show with you? And if it was, then what is your ultimate plan? Because I’m telling you right now—”
Mid rant, I unbuckled my seat belt and turned to her, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck and shutting her up the only way I knew how. With my mouth.
I sucked in her gasp of air and waited. That precious second when you know you’ve crossed a line, but you don’t know how it will be received. I had a sense of what Beth felt for me, even if she wouldn’t admit it to herself. Now it was time to find out if I was right.
Then it happened. The softening of her mouth. The tremble I felt through her whole body.
Let me in.
Then I was. It was everything I thought it might be. There was an innocence to Beth’s kissing, that was obvious, but the power of her personality, her passion, her fierceness. All of that was there, too.
I wanted more. I wanted all of it. I’d spent years with the certainty that, somehow, we were connected. That all this tension that had always existed between us was there for some kind of reason.
I didn’t think about where to put my hands, or how to tease her lips, or to thrust my tongue against hers in a way that would elicit a groan.
We were simply kissing and breathing and groaning. Her hands on my face, my one hand reaching for her breast. I wanted her under me. I wanted her naked and on a bed where I could destroy her. I wanted to teach her how to fuck like I’d been taught and find ways to make her orgasm that she hadn’t even considered in her, until now, pure and innocent life.
I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to fuck her now.
I heard a noise I didn’t like. A squeak instead of a moan and I backed off immediately.
“Are you okay?”
She rubbed near her chest and I realized I had squeezed her breast too hard.
“I lost control,” I muttered, sitting back in my seat. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t… I mean, I liked it…I just…it startled me.”
No, I’d pushed too hard too fast. I knew I couldn’t do that with her. I took a breath. Patience. Control. My dad had had the sex talk with me years ago and he’d instilled that in me. Take only what girl is willing to give. Don’t push for more than she wants. Focus on her, and in the end, I would enjoy it more.
That had all proven to be true. I liked giving pleasure. I liked watching someone while I did it. I loved the feeling of control it gave me beyond the pure sexual thrill.
But Beth. Beth was different. Beth made me want to grab and hold tight so she couldn’t squirm away.
Too tight.
Lost in my thoughts, I wasn’t even looking at her when I felt a weak punch on my shoulder. The sad part was when I faced her, it looked like she’d put a lot of effort into it.
“You said this wasn’t a date!”
I smiled and refastened my seatbelt. Then I started the car because we were going to the party. The tension, for now, eased.
