She has got the flat of her foot planted against the building, her knee bent, and a calm, insouciant expression on her face.
“Fuck,” Archie breathes as we stalk toward her, “you can ride me around the carousel anytime, gorgeous.”
She can’t hear us. We are still a little too far away for that, but I know she feels my gaze. She stops looking at the crowd filtering out of the stadium and snaps her attention to us.
I know what she sees. The hard edges of my pecs above a lean abdomen, the lines even more defined by the tan I have from summer. Sweat glistens on my face and down my chest to flatten the black trail of hair that begins below my belly button, disappearing into my field-stained pants. Archie walks beside me, looking like a blonde angel. Her mouth parts as she stares at us, and I can imagine all sorts of naughty things to do with her red, candy-stained lips.
My cock jumps at the thought.
I am distracted, lost in the endless skies of her irises when Archie jogs ahead of me, waving at her. She smiles, and when I realize it’s not directed at me, but at him, my monster roars. I want to kick him in the balls and beat him bloody.
I clench my fists at my sides as he calls, “How did you like the game, beautiful?”
She shrugs, sucking her lollipop before taking it out to say, “I didn’t understand a thing, but congratulations. I think you won.”
Archie laughs, and it’s not the fake laugh he gives other girls. I can tell. He throws his arms around her and drags her against his sweaty self, but she doesn’t complain. She just lets out an oomph, her cheeks burning bright red.
Sparks explode on the peripheral of my vision, and I barrel forward. I jerk Archie back by the hem of his pants and glare at Stormy. She is flushed, her cheeks painted with warmth. Her gaze is wide, round, and dazed.
I am going to kill him. I am going to kill him! I am going to...
The universe melts to blackness. All I hear is her quick breath and the whisper of my name across her stained lips. All I smell is her, apple pie and candy. All I see is her, hair the color of white lightening and a splattering of freckles across her nose.
I can’t take it. My teeth clack together with a collision that delivers an invisible blade straight through my jaw. My fingers bite into my palms as every muscle on me goes taut. My control splinters and then shatters completely.
I seize Stormy’s hand and yank her into the locker room, slamming the door in Archie’s face and locking the deadbolt.
“What are you doing?” she half-shrieks, wrenching free of me. “Do I need to buy you a dictionary so you know what the word no means?”
She throws her hands in the air and scoffs, but when I take a step forward, she doesn’t take one back. She is in my face, shoving me with both hands, and I teeter on my heels from the hit. She’s thrown me off kilter. How fucking appropriate.
“I swear,” she growls, her glare frigid, “you are the most frustrating, most annoying, most…”
I take one step forward, slam my mouth against hers, and devour her words. She tastes like a cherry lollipop, and I run my tongue inside her warm mouth, feeding on the sweetness.
Stormy freezes against me, but she doesn’t push me away, and that’s all the acceptance I need. I lift her up, my hands cupping her ass. She wraps her legs around me automatically, her thighs impossibly soft against the bare skin of my abdomen. Her hands dive into my hair as I back her against the row of lockers.
Her back hits the metal with a clang, a little sigh escaping her lips. She’s so soft against me, pliable, her breasts crushed against my chest. She’s cool against my hot, sweat-slick skin.
I touch every inch of her I can reach, her knees and up her legs to where her dress bunches at her abdomen, her freckled arms and over the swell of her breasts and across her collarbone, up her neck and down her jaw, every-fucking-where.
She mewls, and I feel the purr inside her throat beneath my lingering fingers. My dick is hard, painfully so, under my jock strap, but I can’t adjust and break the contact. I can’t stop touching her.
Archie pounds on the door, shouting to be let in, but I ignore him.
I rip away from her only when my knees threaten to buckle from the lack of oxygen.
“Be mine,” I breathe, my words kissing her lips. “Stop all this shit. It’s killing me. I know it’s killing you too.”
A sound, a cross between a roar and a yell, escapes her throat, and she shoves me away, plummeting to the floor on her ass.
“I don’t know why,” she snarls as she picks herself up from the hard tile, “I ever thought you could learn to just be nice! Why can’t you be decent to her?!”
I stare at her, and the rage, the confusion boils over. I am helpless as it falls like water on a hot burner, combusting into sizzles and steam.
“Don’t you get it?” I shout, my voice cracking at the end. “You are ripping me apart! When you came into my life, you tore me open, Harlow.” I point to the dead center of my chest, stabbing myself there repeatedly. “I’m still fucking bleeding over here.”
She looks at me, tears running in tiny rivulets down her flushed face, her hair wild and untamed. She opens her mouth to say something, her lips swollen from our kiss, but no words escape her mouth.
She turns on her heel and rushes past me, unlocking the
