Page 31 of Fall From Grace
Fuck me sideways.
“I’m not bad at all,” Wren says, sounding faintly insulted.
“Depends on who you ask.” My gaze drops to her mouth, and I can’t fight the hunger that rises deep within me. I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her more than I’ve ever wanted to kiss anybody in my life. How pathetic is that?
What is this girl doing to me?
Whatever magic hold on me she has, she releases when she breaks our eye contact and moves closer to the front door. “Night, Logan. I’ll see you in class.” With her back to me, I can’t see her expression when she says that, so I don’t know what she’s thinking.
Is she dismissing me? Or does she want me to fight to follow her inside? We can easily get her sheets as sweaty as we got mine. I can fuck her any which way she wants, and now that she knows what to expect, she can really get into it.
I want to fuck her again. I do. I want to pin her down and lose myself in her all over again—and I’ll take my time. I’ll be her drug, numb her to the pain she feels. She can take a shot of me whenever she wants. She has to know that.
And yet, before I have the chance to say or do anything, Wren slips inside and shuts the door in my face, forbidding me from doing any of it.
I can’t lie; the disappointment in me is huge. It’s such an unfamiliar thing to me, wanting to be with a girl again, wanting someone like Wren. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but it’s like she got underneath my skin the moment we met.
How fucked up is that?
It takes me a bit to pull myself away from the door and turn around. I don’t want to leave. Fuck, I want to stay. I want to go inside that house, grab Wren, throw her over my shoulder and find her bedroom. There’s nothing more I want in the world than to get reacquainted with her body and the way she squirms.
Hanging my head low, I’m halfway to the sidewalk when I feel eyes on me. Maybe it’s just paranoia—I felt the same thing when I tried hooking up with that chick outside the bar. A leftover from my days as Pope, when I had to be ever-vigilant that no one found out any personal details about me. That said, I can’t shake the feeling, and I toss a glance around me.
Nobody’s behind me. Nobody’s around… except for two people hurrying down the sidewalk, coming from the same direction Wren and I had just moments before. But these two, whoever they are, aren’t the ones I felt staring at me.
Huh. Maybe I am losing my shit. Wren must be driving me crazier than I thought.
The two heading toward me make a beeline toward the same house, but one of them stops and decides to come to me. A girl. Pretty enough, but just from a quick once-over, I can totally tell she’s off her rocker. The intensity coming off her is undeniable, and she’s got a wild look in her eyes.
“You,” she says, sounding large and in charge, quite the opposite of her stature. “Who are you? Why are you standing in front of my house?” As the second person slips inside—a guy—I realize just who they are: Wren’s roomies.
“I walked Wren home. She’s inside, and she’s fine.”
The girl tilts her head. “And who is she to you?”
“She’s—” I’m about to saynothing to me, but for whatever reason, the words just don’t come out of my mouth. “Look, I just wanted to make sure she got home safe, okay? I’m out of here now.” I take a step around the girl, or I try to; she doesn’t let me. The girl sidesteps and remains in my way.
“Your name’s not Logan, is it?”
I blink down at her. This girl knowing my name means Wren has talked about me. That’s… interesting. “Yeah, I’m Logan, why?”
The smile that tugs at her lips is more like a sneer. “Logan, you’re not playing games with my roomie, are you? Because if you are… well, I only like games if I’m the one playing them. Wren doesn’t need games. She doesn’t need to be hurt again. She’s better than us, so she deserves more than that.”
“Better than us?”
“Better than me, and definitely better than you—so, yeah, she’s better than us.” There’s an edge to her voice now, and I know she means everything she says. “Listen to me carefully, because I’m only going to say this once.”
Now? Her tone is calm, almost alarmingly so, and I’m so caught off-guard by it that I stand there like a dummy.
“If you hurt a single hair on that girl’s head, I will kill you, and I have more than enough money to make it all disappear. No one will miss you, and by the time they find you, you’ll be nothing but bones.”
It’s not the first time I’ve been threatened; being in the spotlight meant threats every now and then, although those threats were typically sent through sketchy online accounts and not spoken face-to-face like this.
No, you know what? This is new. This whole thing is new—and I know for a fact this girl, whoever she is, means it. The glimmer in her eyes, even in the darkness. The flatness of her tone. If she’s got money, it sounds like she knows how to use it… and money in this country can cover up even the worst of crimes, murder included.
After her threat is stated, she grins at me, but it’s an empty smile with nothing behind it. Nothing but the remnants of achilled promise meant to either scare me off or frighten me into playing nice. Too bad I don’t really care.
I watch as the girl turns away from me and walks to the house, where the guy waits for her, the door propped open with his foot. She says something to him when she reaches him, and he looks hard at me. His face is the last thing I see before the door closes.
