My heart leaps into my throat, and it feels like my body is vibrating I’m so aroused. My impulses and reactions feel like they’re on a three-second time delay, I’m not registering what happens until Miles has moved on to another tactic. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. I’ve dreamed about it, imagined how it would happen and what he would say. I don’t think half-drunk in a disgusting bathroom is what I had in mind, but I make the best of any situation.
Miles has me pinned against the wall, his huge frame towering over me. He has to drag me up to kiss me, and he is, I can feel the tips of my gray flats brushing the floor.
He’s kissing me with such raw hunger that my lips hurt from his rough exploration. He’s consuming me, biting and sucking at my lips as he brutally assaults my mouth with his tongue. And I love every second of it. No one has ever been this aggressive with me, and I can feel my slick lust coating the inside of my thighs beneath my navy-striped dress.
Miles has an exacting grip on my jaw. He’s using his hands to move my face and mouth where he wants it, when he wants it. My fingers dig into his biceps to hold on as he keeps me suspended.
One finger accidentally stabs the cut on his arm, and the sound he makes is primitive. He starts to feast on me even harder, grinding his massive erection into my stomach. The move makes me whimper, and I feel faint. I can’t get a proper breath, but I don’t care. He grinds into me again, and I break his onslaught against my mouth to moan a breathy “yes.”
My feet hit the floor at the same time my head collides with the wall, a bite of pain racking my whole body. Miles dropped me, the spell broken by my moan.
He’s bracing the sink, staring at me over his shoulder. His eyes are feral, his breathing ragged. His chest is moving with such force that it looks painful for him to huff the next breath out.
I’m shaking, my heart spasming violently in my chest. My arousal is so sharp that I can smell it in the air. I’m not sure if Miles is going to physically attack me, or rip my clothes to shreds.
Instead, he wrenches open the bathroom door and flees like the devil is on his heels. I’m left standing here, disoriented and weak, with his blood dripping off the fingers of my left hand.
7
Miles
Death must feel better than the hangover I have right now. That’s my first thought as I gingerly open the door to the theater building. My second is that I might still be drunk because I swear I just saw five guys dressed like moose walk by.
It feels like someone took an ice pick to my left temple it’s throbbing so bad. Plus, I have a line of bruises on my torso and this gnarly gash on my arm. I guess that’s what happens when you try to fight a speaker system and lose. I’m never drinking again.
My feet are fighting me as I walk down the hall to our Saturday morning studio. I wish I could cut and run in the other direction, but my ego is forcing me to stay. If Chloe has the balls to show up, I do too.
I’m a fucking idiot for kissing her last night. No, I did more than kiss her. I basically branded her, tried to engrave my tongue onto hers. I was rough, but she didn’t shy away. Which only made me more violent. Is there anything I could do to make this girl hate me?
Not that I want to make her hate me anymore. Or I did. I don’t know. I’m confused, and this hangover is not helping.
And there she is, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as if we hadn’t been at the same shit-show party last night. Today, she has on a white bodysuit, a gray sweater that ties under her tits, and white heels with these fuzzy tubes around her ankles. She looks like a hot 80s dancer or something.
I haven’t thought much about what I’m going to say to her or how I’m going to play this, but ignoring it sounds like a good idea. Even though smoldering make up sex is the only thing that has been playing on a loop in my brain for twelve hours.
I drop my drawstring bag heavily so she can hear my arrival over the hum of the classical ballad streaming around the studio. Chloe whips around, her black ponytail fanning out as her head turns, the strands like black silk floating through the air.
“Oh! Good morning …” She is already making things awkward, an uneasy pitch marking her tone, her high cheekbones turning the shade of bubble gum. I think I hear hope in her greeting, and it twists my gut. I shouldn’t feel guilty, I didn’t promise her anything.
“Hi.” My answer is short and brusque. I join her, making a real effort to appear intensely focused on my stretches. In reality, I’m so limber from all the baseball and dancing these days, I don’t even really need to warm up. I can feel her eyes slide to me every so often, the hitch of her breath like she’s going to speak, and then deciding against it.
“So let’s get to this. We have a long day, right? Gotta prepare for Tuesday.” Chloe nods at my statement. Tuesday is our first dance in the competition. The first time we’ll dance in front of an audience, collect a score. We have a lot of work to do.
For the next hour and a half, Chloe and I choreograph a dance, slowly moving around each other, suggesting a step here, a turn there. Occasionally, we touch each other, trying to work the routine out together, but the moves are disjointed, awkward.
Finally, I suggest we try the lift we’ve been talking about. I think it’ll set us apart, show people we aren’t fucking around.
“I’m not sure we really need to do one.” Chloe’s eyes dart around the studio, her fingers pulling at the ends of her long, sleek mane.
“You don’t want to win?” I almost sneer at her. I’m at my wits’ end and we still have probably four to five hours ahead of us. We haven’t even timed the dance to music yet.
“Of course, I do, I just—”
“Okay, so let’s go, twinkle toes.” I walk a short distance away from her.
“Okay, so we’ll try to add a boat lift. I’ll sashay toward you, when I get close, grab my hips and I’ll push off, you raising my body over your head, and then holding me there. Kind of like Baby in Dirty Dancing.” She shakes out her limbs, rolling her neck. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s nervous.
“Got it. Move your ass, princess.”
Chloe’s eyes narrow, her focus pinned to a singular spot in the middle of my chest. Her whole body tightens, and when I count in beats of eights, she starts off, skipping elegantly but powerfully toward me. When she comes toe to toe with me, I grab her hips, ready to launch her above my head.
But at the last second, she lets her body go heavy, rooting herself to the floor. “Agh …”
She pushes against me, and I release her slim waist, I can practically encircle the entire thing with my big hands. Chloe casts her eyes down to the floor, but I know that reaction. The fear, the mental block, the disappointment. I’ve had hitting slumps. I know what it’s like to balk when a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball is coming at your head.
“Why did you chicken out?” Okay, probably could have said that nicer.
“I didn’t chicken out!” she snaps. Woah, that’s not the princess I know. She looks wigged out, pulling on the ends of her ponytail extra hard now. I realize that’s her nervous tic.
“Okay, let’s just try again.” This time when I do a count and she runs toward me, she stops short again, letting out a frustrated yelp.
“What’s wrong with you?” Again, probably could have phrased that differently. Oh, well. She already thinks I’m a prick, now I’m just proving the point. A small part of me wishes I would stop myself.
“Nothing is wrong with me!” Chloe grabs her water bottle. She loiters over by her bag, just lingering there. I’m unsure about what to do next.
“Are you scared?” I really can’t say anything that will comfort this girl. I just don’t have it in me at this point.
“I just … I don’t like lifts, okay? I don’t want to be dropped.” The words come out of her mouth in rushed, quiet remarks.
“So you don’t trust me?” I shouldn’t care if she says no, but for some stupid reason I’m really hoping she doesn’t.
“Well … no. I really don’t.�
� Dammit.
“Okay …” I try to not angry glare at her, but my trademark scowl fights to stay off of my face.
“Miles, come on. Why would I trust you? You can’t even own up to the fact that you kissed me last night. Let’s not pretend things haven’t been awkward all morning.” Coming from anyone else, her words would sound feisty or whiny. But from Chloe, they sound genuine, just an apologetic statement of fact.
Her honesty throws me off a little. “I mean, what do you want me to say? It was a mistake? Sorry, it happened. I was really drunk, and you were a girl who trapped me in a tiny bathroom.”
Hurt flashes in her amethyst-colored eyes, and I instantly regret being such a dick. Which is a very new feeling. I know she’s liked me for years, and I really don’t have an excuse for why I never went for her. Maybe, because, deep down, I knew it would be very different with her. I don’t do well with real emotions, real connection. Perhaps because after Jay was gone, I was never on the receiving end of affection again.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Chloe.” I surprise myself by using her name. “Look, I won’t drop you. You can trust me. If I do, you can … make me wear a tutu or something.” My joke evokes a small smile from her. It shouldn’t make me feel like a hero, like I’ve just rescued her from a dragon-guarded tower, but it does.
She reluctantly lines up in position again, ready to come at me. I count off, positioning my hands to grab her tiny hips. This time, when her chin lines up with my pecs, I grab her firmly, feeling the power from her legs shoot her off the floor. I maneuver her feather-light body above my head, where she arches her back and bends her legs at the knee. Her arms are thrown out to the sides in an elegant position, but I know she’s using the muscles from her shoulders down to her fingertips to tighten them. She must weigh all of twenty pounds, and I turn in circles holding her above my head.
When I think we’ve held the position long enough, she folds her body in half, signaling her need to come down. I slither her down my body slowly, making sure I don’t put her down too quickly. Her knees brush against my collarbone, then her waist grazes my abs, and then her breasts make contact with my pecs, before her toes reach the floor and she’s pressed snugly against me.
I see the trust and adoration sparkling in her plum orbs, and I can’t help the question that pops out of my mouth.
“Why do you want me?”
Her gaze narrows off into the distance, her eyes thoughtful as she ponders my question. “You’ve always stood out in a crowd to me. Even on that playground at Mitchum Elementary. I’ve seen you loud and goofy, I’ve seen you surly and damaged. I guess I just always wanted to peel away those masks, see the real Miles underneath. I think I’d really like him.”
She’s gutted me, figured me out in thirty seconds or less.
I open my mouth, ready to say what, I don’t know. “I … let’s take a break. I’ll be back in an hour.”
I have to get out of there before I do something stupid. Like kiss her.
8
Chloe
Taking the glue, I brush it onto the ends of the fake strands, blowing on it while holding the corner with a pair of tweezers. Very carefully, I stick them to my natural lash line, making sure they lay evenly with the thick line of smoky black gracing my upper eyelid.
“I don’t know how you got so good at that.” Minka gapes at my precise skill as I put my fake lashes on.
“Years of practice. I could make myself look twenty-five when I was only eleven.”
“That’s gross …”
I giggle, having meant to weird her out.
“So, are you nervous?”
It’s the first night of the new season of Dancing with the Greeks, which debuts the first week of October every fall semester. If Miles and I make it all the way through, we’ll be in the live finale the week before Thanksgiving.
I’m nervous, but not for the reasons she thinks. Like I said, an audience and performing never make me nervous, not even when it’s a packed room full of my peers. And I am never nervous to dance. It’s inherent, in my blood. I’m was nervous to walk out onto that floor and be held, swooped, and led by Miles Farriston.
He’s pretty much ignored our earth-shattering kissing session in the football house bathroom, running through our Saturday practice like nothing even happened. But after our lift, which I was surprised I even let him do with me, he looked like he was about to do it again. And then balked. Funny, we both backed out of something that day.
After “taking a break,” which I knew he had taken to get out of having a real conversation about anything, we practiced our routine to music, getting the timing and steps just right. I have no doubt we’ll kill it tonight. Whether I’ll have an internal meltdown seeing Miles in his costume is another thing.
I consulted with the designer late last week. Miles and I are wearing all black. I know it will make an incredible first-night impression, a killer dance with sharp, dark outfits. He’ll be in a traditional tuxedo. When I eventually see him I think I may faint.
My dress is a backless halter wrap with a giant slit up the side. Just sexy enough without being overly slutty. Not unlike the tango itself.
“Nah, you know I never get nervous about these things.” It’s one of the handful of times I’ve lied to Minka.
“How have thing been with Miles …” she asks cautiously, as if I might duck and run if she doesn’t phrase it just right.
“They’ve been … strained. I told you practice was interesting, and now he answers my texts in one-word phrases. I don’t know how we’re going to make it all the way to the end.” I sigh, wishing there were something I could do to erase all the ugly words and unreturned feelings between us. Conflict in my life eats away at me like nothing else.
“Maybe he’ll come around.” Minka shrugs, picking up a blush brush on the table in the “dressing room.”
“Whatever, talk to me. Distract me. How are you and Owen?” I pick up lip liner, plumping my already full lips and filling them in with lipstick. I hope I come off as nonchalant as I’m trying for.
“We’re good …” Her eyes get dreamy and far away. “He gave me his baseball jersey to wear, so I did. The other night. I didn’t know we were in a rut in our sex life until that moment …” She breaks off in a fit of giggles. Clearly, they haven’t been in a rut. Clearly, they just had mind-blowing monkey sex. Lucky brat.
“I seriously hate you right now. You’re so lucky.”
“Yeah, but it took me a long time to get here. There are still insecurities I have with Owen. Why is he with me? I still find myself thinking that when I watch him sleep in the morning.”
“Minka, come on. That boy thinks you hang the moon. He would cut off his right arm if it meant you were happy.”
She sighs, a smile dusting her lips. “I know. He’s just, he’s it for me. He makes every day better. Even when he’s acting like a cocky bastard.” She winks, and I examine my finished work in the mirror.
“That’s as good as it’s going to get.” I pinch my cheeks for just a bit more color.
“Shut up. You always look amazing—” Just then the door swung open, revealing Owen and Miles. “Miles, please tell your partner that she looks hot.”
I know Minka is inciting him, trying to get both of us together. I almost laugh at her attempt. No way would we ever be her and Owen. Miles hates me too much.
But when I look up, heat dusting my cheeks from Minka’s obvious ploy, my breath hitches as his remarkable eyes latch onto mine. I watch in the mirror, facing forward, as Miles rakes his gaze over the exposed flesh at my back. He takes in my hair, long, loose black curls falling out of the artful updo I’ve constructed. His green eye glows like the brightest emerald, his blue one darker than the water on the ocean floor.
My mouth has gone dry looking at him while he peruses my body. He looks even better than I thought he would in his all-black tux. His massive shoulders fill the entire top out, his long legs seemingly endless under the perfectly fitte
d trousers. The dark material makes him seem more intimidating than he already is. He’s slicked all those gorgeous blond curls back, leaving his face completely exposed. His strong jaw and cheeks have a coating of five o’clock shadow, which only makes him more dapper.
“I think we better give these two a minute.” Owen chuckles, grabbing Minka’s hand and leading her by the small of her back from the room.
I turn and give Miles a small smile. “Well, at least we’re dressed to impress.”
He sneers. “You really had to come out looking all flashy for the cameras, huh?”
His words feel like a slap, and I almost flinch at the surly look on his striking face. I quickly turn back around, hiding behind the curtain of curls cascading over my face while I silently pack my makeup bag.
“I … didn’t mean that, Chloe. I’m sorry, I guess I’m just nervous.” Miles sounds hesitant, like he might rub a supportive hand over my upper back. “You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.”
This comes out as a whisper. I don’t even know if I’m meant to hear it he says it so low. It sends a thrill down my spine, nonetheless.
“We’ll do great. I can feel it.” I put my plastic grin on, the one reserved for audiences. He’s so hot and cold toward me that sometimes I don’t know which way is up. Best to fake it and stay on his good side. He is lifting me during our dance, and I don’t want to give him any excuse to drop me.
* * *
Miles and I are interviewed together shortly after we make our way to the main stage, which is set up in the large campus auditorium. The broadcast student asking us questions is peppy, her over-shellacked blond hair not moving an inch as she asks us how we’ve been getting along. “Great,” I responded at the same time Miles said, “Just peachy.” At least he’s treating me like a human being in front of the cameras.
Then, we are ushered to our seats, a lounge type area located a little ways off the dance floor, where we can sit and watch four other couples perform their routines before us. We are slotted to dance fifth out of the six pairs, and as we stretch out in the back of the arena, my heart begins to pound.
Over the Fence Box Set Page 25