I tried to say something to her but my lungs were too focused on dragging in ragged breaths to allow words just yet.
“Shit man, I’m sorry!” Danny’s voice came as he ran into the library and I was vaguely aware of a crowd gathering around me, but my gaze was fixed on Tatum. “I’m so fucking sorry, Jesus, I didn’t mean to, Chad took us out and, crap, oh fuck, oh shit, oh balls, oh-”
“Can someone shut him up?” Tatum snarled.
“What the hell, Danny?” Mila demanded. “What did you do?” I spotted her swinging a text book over her head and he cursed as she struck him with it, the noises coming again and again as she kept demanding an explanation and they moved further away from us.
“I, need…” I gasped, the pain in my body taking my breath away for a second. But I could wriggle my fingers and toes, there wasn’t the blinding burn of a break to be felt. I was just battered and bruised. And who really gave a shit about that? Because I’d fucking won. First to the library. No one could say I did shit by halves.
“What is it, Blake?” Tatum asked, her blue eyes wide with concern as she leaned right down over me.
“I need…one last kiss before I die,” I whispered, doing a good impression of a death rattle deep in my chest.
“What?” she demanded, but I reached up suddenly and caught the back of her neck, dragging her down as I reared up and pushed my tongue between her lips before she could stop me.
She melted for a moment and I growled hungrily as I kissed her with all the fuel of the adrenaline that I’d just been swimming in.
I caught her waist and dragged her down on top of me. I wondered if I asked the crowd to fuck off real nicely they’d do it so that I could bury my dick in her and get her screaming my name. There was nothing like dicing with death to get the blood rushing to my cock and there was only one girl who I wanted to put all of that thrashing energy into pleasing.
Before I could get too lost in my dirty fantasy, she yanked herself away from me and stood up with a haughty expression on her swollen lips.
“What the fuck, Blake?” she demanded. “You could have died pulling stupid shit like that.”
I barked a laugh because it actually sounded like she gave a crap and wasn’t that just fucking ironic after everything I’d done to her?
“Are you giving me a view up your skirt on purpose, Cinders?” I teased as I took a peek at the lavender thong I could see from my vantage point. “Or is it a happy coincidence?”
“Are you drunk?” she demanded, backing up a bit to rob me of my view.
“No,” I replied. “I came to pick you up.”
“I thought Saint was coming. Can you even stand?”
I groaned a bit as I got to my feet, but I was pleased to find that my initial assessment had been right. Nothing broken, just a bit battered.
I dusted off my jeans and offered her my arm with a grin as blood slid over my bottom lip.
“I can stand,” I announced dramatically, glaring around at the lemmings to warn them that now was the time to fuck right off. They scattered obligingly and I got a little kick from the power I wielded over them.
Tatum frowned as she moved closer to me, a war of rage and concern taking place behind her eyes.
She reached out to swipe the blood from my lip and I smirked roguishly at her.
“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” she asked seriously.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But it was fun.”
For some reason, my answer seemed to upset her and she sighed before heading away to grab her stuff.
I shot Saint a message to let him know I was escorting her back and I tried not to hobble as I headed outside. The golf cart looked a little worse for wear with its front end kinda smashed up against the bottom step before the library, but I managed to shove it away from the concrete it had crumpled around and was pleased to find it still ran okay.
Mila was bitching Danny out for almost getting both of us killed and he was hanging his head as he tried to explain himself, looking the picture of whipped as he failed to impress her with his apologies.
I hopped into the cart behind the wheel and Tatum reluctantly followed me into it a moment later, tossing her bag on the back seat as I started the drive back home.
Chad and Toby were suspiciously absent with their cart and I was willing to bet they were trying to cover up their involvement in the whole thing like a pair of pussies. I’d rat them out to Monroe just for running off without checking I wasn’t dead and laugh while he gave them detention and let me off scot-free.
“Do you make a habit of crashing golf carts all over campus?” Tatum asked as we zipped along the paths and I wasn’t sure if she was amused or not.
“Nope,” I replied. “But I do make a habit of trying new things for fun.”
Silence stretched between us and then she sighed.
“After I lost Jess, I stole my dad’s car one night, got in it and drove down the highway at full speed just to feel…well, anything other than what I was feeling,” she said and my gut twisted at her words. How was it that she was able to dissect me so completely with a single sentence? Give me one look and
