She coughs out her hit and extends the joint through the smoke with a lazy smile. I avoid her fingers when I accept. My cigarette burns idly and my thoughts slip to it for a second, to the fact that I waste as many of the damn things as I smoke. Still, I prefer the weed, so I take a few indulgent draws. I know this shit will soften me to her, but maybe it just might quell the alpha male that wants to crash through my calm and show her some things those other boys can't.
I wait for the high to dull the anger she's also stirred. Usually it's so easy to pretend that she's just a kid, that she doesn't know what she's doing. But she can't pull that shit now, not after yesterday's meeting and the plan she's trying to form. That she would still push the line with me is infuriating. She's never seen me get mad.
When I pass the smoke back, she lets her fingers brush mine, as blatant as when I avoided hers. The result is a double helix of desire and temper that twists my insides and makes my body tense. Does she love us all in some way? Does she want us all under her finger? Or is she really just a whore?
My thoughts are as thunderous as her touch, and the overflow leaks into my expression – a hard-set brow and downturned lips. Rather than be reproached by that look, that bright curiosity burns in her gaze.
“What exactly are you doing, Maria?”
The words speak themselves, come with just a touch of venom. If anything, she's right. Even I have a boiling point, and if that's what she wants, she's so damn close to finding it. It occurs to me, on the wake of my question, that maybe that is what she wants.
She doesn't seem surprised that I've chosen a head-on approach, doesn't seem off-put at the flare of emotion that usually stays beneath the surface. She hits the joint with practiced disregard, holds my eyes, and makes a triumphant, smoky smile.
She blows the smoke at the ceiling, but her eyes don't leave mine. She is totally at ease, at full contrast to the fury that's gathering in my gut. She says, “I could be dead soon. Maybe I just wanted to see all of you, just once.”
My hands ball into fists. What a perfectly enticing answer. What a completely dirty move.
“So you can stack me up to your little boys?”
The words are more of a growl and my heart bangs away in my ears. My blood's rushing too fast and my cock is swelling. This isn't the tension break I wanted, not this crumbling of will and torrent of honesty.
Her eyes widen and there's a hitch in her smile. She's not quite offended, just surprised that I would finally call her out. No, she's not mad. She licks her lips.
She says, “If they're just little boys, then what are you afraid of?”
The pressure gauge teeters precariously in the red. I wanted her to defend herself, to bite onto the distraction of her sexual tendencies. Instead, she's goading me. I launch myself from my chair without thought, slam my hands against the chair on either side of her head, and draw so close that our lips are almost touching. For a painfully tense stretch, I stare at her.
Her proximity is intoxicating, but not enough to assuage my harder emotions. She's frozen in her spot, staring back as the weed smoke drifts between us. Still, she's not startled. She's waiting to see what I do, basking in the reaction she has finally coaxed from me. And she wants me. It's so goddamned heavy, if my fingers weren't digging against the wooden chair back, they'd be twitching to touch her.
“Do you even care what you know you do to me?”
Again, my voice comes out a strained rumble. She's ready for me and I'm so hard against my shorts it hurts. What am I doing? I'm not sure I know, but I continue anyway.
“You don't know what you're fucking with, and you don't care. That's the real thing here, isn't it? You don't fucking care. Every one of us is following you around like dogs, and all you want is to tear us to shreds.”
I hadn't intended to drag the others into this, but the words are forged in some place beyond my command. These are my grievances, they want to be heard whether I consent or not.
I search her face for the hurt, but her expression is maddeningly steady. She doesn't move, doesn't flinch or cry. She's doing a damned good job of proving that she's not that girl anymore, the one I so desperately want her to be. As often as I've wondered what she wants from me, have I ever really considered what I want from her?
Her voice is silk when she says, “You know that's not true, Izzy. You're afraid of something, afraid of what you are. Scared to be human.”
One of my hands fists into her hair. I don't pull it, but it makes me feel a tiny bit better to know that I could. The action ghosts a smirk across her lips. It's gone just as fast.
I say, “Don't pretend to know who the fuck I am or why I am this way. One thing I'm not is a spot in your rotation.”
What do I want from her? It's sure as hell not forever, and I can't believe in undying love. I don't need comfort, or love, not even compassion. What else could it be but a teacher's chance to test his pupil in the game he has been teaching? What have I been for her but a man, in a way her brother could never be – a man who wouldn't let her win with her wiles, who wasn't an instant slave to her whims. I'm the one who makes her think before she moves, to force her
