“Yeah,” I say gruffly, pushing the door open and letting myself inside. The room is small, just a normal hotel room and nothing at all like I would have expected her to pick. Weirdly, Tally stayed in a similar room when she fled from her parent’s house too. “No suite?”
“Someone rented all the suites and the penthouses,” she says derisively with an annoyed shake of her head.
Closing the door behind me a smile spreads across my lips. Just when I’m assuming her and Tally are more similar than either of them realize, she shows me how different they are. She’s only wearing a white robe, her hair’s messy and her face is fresh and makeup free. She looks perfectly fuckable and my dick rises enthusiastically.
“What are you doing here Carson?” she asks, climbing back into the bed and pulling the covers up over her legs.
“I have no fucking clue,” I admit, lowering myself down onto the bed next to her, kicking my shoes off as I stretch out on top of the comforter.
For a second we just sit in strained silence, the rustling of the sheets as Priss fidgets is the only noise.
When she sighs, I turn and look at her, smiling at her consternated expression.
“Do you even like me?” she asks.
“Not particularly. Do you like me?”
“Not really,” she says, a faint smile ghosting across her lips.
“You okay?” I ask, shocking myself that I actually care.
“No. But that’s my problem, not yours.”
I don’t know why I do it, but I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her while she rests her head on my chest. She doesn’t fight me, and although I’m sure she’d deny it if I asked, I swear I can feel the wetness of her tears on my shirt.
“I’ll order us room service,” I say after a while, carefully moving from beneath her and reaching for the phone. “Hi, can I get a bacon cheese burger, a chicken alfredo and two chocolate brownies with whipped cream please.” I say, then glance at Priss, “What do you want to drink?”
“A sparkling water please,” she says, her eyes a little wide.
“And a sparkling water and a beer please, whatever you have on draft. Thanks.” Placing the phone back onto the receiver I turn to look at her and smile.
“I can’t eat any of that,” she says, her voice laced with annoyance.
“Sure you can.”
“I’ll get fat.”
“Priss, you’re skin and bone, who the fuck told you that you’d get fat.”
“Everyone in modern society,” she says sardonically, flopping back against the pillows.
“And your fuckwit parents I’d guess. Seriously did you listen to everything they told you and just accept it as truth? You’re eighteen, it’s time to start thinking for yourself,” I snarl, frustrated that she’s so blinkered by their opinions.
“Fine, yes okay, they told me I’d get fat. My parents told me that I had to do things a certain way, so that’s what I did. That doesn’t make me an idiot, or maybe it does, but my life was a bit more complicated than most eighteen-year-olds,” she says, jumping up and putting the bed between us, her chest heaving up and down. “All I’ve thought about since the day I got that stupid letter from my great-grandfather is how I was going to make sure I got that money. All I’ve talked about is who I was going to marry. All I’ve lived and breathed is those godforsaken rules, so I’m sorry that you think I’m naive or stupid or whatever, maybe I am. But the only thing I’ve ever done that made me interesting and worthy and loved was having my name written into that will.”
As she shouts at me, the front of her robe slips open a little, revealing the swell of her small, pert breasts as her chest lurches up and down. Her hair’s wild, her eyes red and wide, and her lips are parted and full. She’s a fucking mess, but she’s never looked more perfect to me than she does in this moment.
Carrigan is a beautiful woman all the time, she’s stunning in a school uniform, in her usual tight dresses and adorned in evening wear. But right now, raw, unkempt and angry, she is fucking glorious.
Moving, I close the distance between us, until I’m pressed up against her, my chest touching hers. She tips her head back to look at me and her eyes tell me that she’s just as confused about this as I am.
“This, you in this exact moment, is why I’m here Priss. I don’t understand it, but even while I hate you, I need to save you.” Closing the distance between us I kiss her, taking her lips and owning her as I slide my tongue into her mouth. I feel her silent moan as she parts her lips, her movements slow and uncertain, as her fingers clutch at the back of my neck, holding me to her, letting me know that she wants this as much as I do.
After a second we find our rhythm. The kiss becomes a game of give and take, as I nip at her full lower lip, turning my head to the side to deepen the kiss. She melts against me, her nipples pressing against my shirt as I hold her to me, pressing her as close as two people can get while fully dressed.
This kiss doesn’t feel like a prelude to sex, it’s not the tease that will lead to more. I don’t really know what it is, but in this moment with Priss in my arms, hate doesn’t matter, who she is doesn’t matter, my prejudice and her behavior doesn’t matter.
Tally once told me that who you are in the quiet moments is the real you, and right now in the silence of this hotel room, Carrigan Archibald, my Priss, is mine and that’s all that matters.
16
Carrigan
This is my first kiss.
That’s the thought that’s playing on a loop in
