Dressed in black jeans with holes in the knees and a white tank top, a flannel tied around her waist.
She watches me. Her eyes are shrouded, but under the cover of shadow, I know she’s watching me.
And immediately I know that I can’t even fool myself. I’m not in control.
She has my heart in her fist.
I dance for her, my hand grazing between my legs and across the sliver of visible bare skin between my shirt and my skirt. Reminding her of what I felt like. Of who loves her good.
Arms slide around me, lazy but invasive, his finger slipping under the waist of my skirt and touching my skin. Callum presses himself into my back, and I watch Liv, knowing she’s watching me. Watching us. Under the shadow of the speaker above her. Under her black lashes and dark eyes that could’ve been closed, but I know they’re open. I know she’s watching. Her hand hangs over her knee, her thumb calmly and steadily grinding back and forth in her fist.
And I don’t stop him.
Callum moves, bringing me with him as his hand creeps up my torso. His lips graze a line up my neck, and Liv still doesn’t move, digging her thumb into her fist back and forth, over and over, her gaze still hidden under the cover of darkness.
Krisjen spills out of the crowd, laughing with her drink sloshing and spilling over the rim of her cup. I reach out to grab her, Callum’s hands falling away, and I break into a smile as I steady her. She looks like she’s having fun. More fun than I’ve seen her have in a long time.
She shoves the drink in my hand and wraps her arms around me. “I love you!”
I shake with a laugh. “I’ll bet you even love Amy right now, don’t you?”
“Huh?” she shouts over the music.
Whatever. “Nothing!” I shout, drinking down a couple gulps of her beer as “Fuqboi” comes over the speakers.
Krisjen gasps, excited, and starts bouncing, because right now she loves this song, too. Belting out the lyrics, she takes my hand as I turn, tossing the cup into the trash, and she pulls me to the center of the room, everyone dancing around us. The chorus starts, Callum is forgotten, and Krisjen grabs hold of me, her arms hanging over my shoulders as she starts to dance. She rolls her hips, slow at first and then faster, and I only hesitate a moment, thankful that someone saved me from him. Even though I think it was working at making Liv jealous.
I join in, both of us swaying and dancing, smiling and laughing as the music belts out, filling up the room. We move into each other, and I can only imagine Callum is somewhere off to the side, enjoying the view. Krisjen puts her hands on my waist, the lyrics making us laugh, but she sings with it, almost shouting in anger.
She rocks her arms behind her, back and forth, and I don’t know if it’s intentional, but she brushes up on me. Again and again, her chest meets mine. I let my eyes fall, her breasts like half peaches, poking through her thin top. The dark outline of her small nipples shows through as her hair brushes my lips.
I dart my eyes to Liv.
Her thumb has stopped grinding.
She doesn’t move.
She sits there, and I grab onto Krisjen, our legs threaded as we dance. The heat of Liv’s eyes travels over the band of bare skin between my tank top and skirt, watching me move, and maybe she’s remembering exactly what I feel like under these clothes.
And that maybe Callum isn’t a threat. Another girl will eventually want me.
But when I look back, Liv is gone. Krisjen moves into me as sweat trickles down my back. I twist my neck left and right. Where is she?
Where did she go?
And then I tip my head up, seeing her climb the spiral staircase. A girl holds her hand, pulling Liv after her, but it’s not Martelle.
What the fuck? I stop. Who is that now?
They disappear around the curve of the stairs until I can’t see them anymore, and my stomach sinks.
“Whoo!” Krisjen squeals, oblivious.
But I fall away from her, stepping back and watching the stairs. How many girls did she have? She thinks she can just move on? She thinks I’m disposable? Replaceable?
Some cute brunette shakes her skirt at you, and you think you can have her? I clench my jaw.
I’m sick of chasing her. She said she wouldn’t put pressure on me. She said we could keep this quiet. I know what she must’ve felt, me leaving her on the street like that, but what was I supposed to do? What would she have done? Let’s not pretend that after years of me treating her like shit, she’s prepared to be seen with me either. How would that look?
We’re not a couple. That’s not what this is.
But we’re also not done. I charge after her. She doesn’t get the last word. I do.
I step up the stairs, the grates vibrating under my shoes, the whole staircase shaking a little with the weight of all the people standing on it. I push past bodies, looking up as I climb and squeeze through the crowd. Windows stack about five feet from each other, one on top of another, letting in what little moonlight seeps through the clouds.
The lantern at the top stopped functioning decades ago, Saber Point Lighthouse falling into ruin like so many lighthouses now obsolete with the invention of computers and radar. The last lightkeeper died the year my mother was born, some of his furniture still sitting in the living quarters that he had shared with a corgi named Archie. Rumor has it he also shared the living quarters with a woman about thirty years younger than him, but no one ever saw her, so I don’t know how the rumor started. Some say she was here illegally and hiding. Some say he rescued her as a girl and she refused to leave him when he tried to send her on her way. All versions of a truth no one would ever know because he died, and as far as I know, the place was empty when they found him.
Except for Archie.
Old places have a way of growing more alive the longer they stand. The stories they house, the memories they facilitate… We can’t meet Elvis, but thousands of people visit his home every year, because to be where he was is like seeing his ghost.
Saber Point erodes more every year, and eventually they’ll tear it down when it becomes a hazard, taking its century-long history with it like the lightkeeper and Archie (and the girl) were never here at all.
Like I was never here at all and about to kill Olivia Jaeger.
The crowd falls away as I climb and climb, and I hear a door slam above me. The service room and watch room are before the catwalk at the top, and I launch up the rest of the stairs, drops of rain pummeling the windows like darts as the music fades to a low beat below me. I jump up to the landing, grab the handle, but then I pause, my heart beating so hard it hurts my chest.
Pressing my other hand to the door, I lean my ear in, listening. But I Prevail’s rendition of “Blank Space” drowns out everything. Even the sound of my breathing.
I should leave. What will I accomplish by ripping both of their hair out? I’m better than that. I can have anyone. She should beg for me.
But my gut twists into knots, and I can’t ignore it. I’ve lost everything that’s important. I’m not losing the only other thing that matters anymore.
Twisting the handle, I inhale and hold it, bracing myself as I open the door and enter the room.
Moonlight casts a dim glow through the fifteen or so small, circular windows spread out around the room that lightkeepers used to watch the weather, the walls paneled with wood, unlike the brick of the rest of the structure.
A blackboard sits on the wall to my right, remnants of chalk still dusting its surface, and a square, wooden table fills the center of the small room alongside a large cannister. The old gears and axles inside the glass windows that once operated the lens are now still and quiet.
Another narrow, spiral staircase leads up through the ceiling, but the small hatch door to the lantern is closed.
No Liv.
I spin around, heading for the service room, but she’s there, stepping around the corner and into the doorway.
I halt. The other girl isn’t with her.
“You dance nice,” she says.
She leans into the doorframe, pulling her gum out of her mouth and sticking it in a piece of foil.
I steel my spine. “None of that was for you.”
“All of that was for me.”
She finally looks up, cocking her head, and even though I can’t see her eyes, I feel the self-satisfaction rolling off of her.
Bitch.
“How much have you had to drink, Clay?”
Not nearly enough. The slight buzz in my head is probably from the hundred bodies downstairs, sucking up the oxygen, rather than the shots I did in the car.
“Where is she?” I demand.
“Who?”
“You know who.”
A flash of white and I know she’s smiling. I glance above me and then back to Liv, knowing her slut is waiting either in the service room, or up at the lantern. I wouldn’t have missed them if they’d come back down.
She sticks the foil back into her pocket and steps farther into the room. “About that dress, Clay,” she says. “You’re losing weight. I need to measure you again.”
The dress? She’s making it after all?
I don’t give a shit about the dress.
She closes the door behind her, and the music fades a little more, my hands shaking the closer she gets. I hear my breathing now.
“Hold out your arms,” she says in barely a whisper.
But I don’t. “How do you know I’m losing weight?”
She approaches, taking out her phone and opening an app. Her eyes meet mine, and while she doesn’t reply out loud, I read it in her eyes. She knows my body.
A thrill courses through me, and I dip my head a little, wanting her mouth only a few inches away. But I hold back.
I hadn’t been trying to lose weight. I’d just…forgotten to eat. I’d spent more time at the gym the past week. I was waking earlier and staying up later, my head preoccupied.
She forces my arms wide, ready to use her phone and some kind of measuring app, I guess, but I push her hand away. “Who is she?”
“A friend.”
“Someone you’ve been with before?”
“Yes.”
My chest caves, and my stomach knots. Tears burn my eyes. Fuck. I don’t know what’s worse—Martelle or someone she has a history with.
Definitely someone she has a history with. It’s a reminder that she had a life before me. That there are other people who can make her happy.
What the hell’s happening? I see Callum talking to girls. Girls looking at him. I don’t give a shit. In fact, it relieves me a little to see him preoccupied, his attention off of me.
With Liv, I could stab someone, because there’s nothing I can do to stop the past. That girl above us has kissed Liv. Touched her. Liv was alone with her, doing things and tasting and biting and not thinking about me at all. Ugh…
I grab her waist and yank her in. She shoves me off, growling, but I grab her again. “I’m sorry I drove past you last weekend,” I whisper over her lips.
I’m sorry, okay?
She stills, her hands paused, about to push me off, but she doesn’t.
“You didn’t deserve that,” I tell her. “I wanted you there more than anything.”
“Would you have done anything differently?” she asks.
I stare into her eyes, her nose an inch from mine. The lie sits on the tip of my tongue. Yes. I would’ve told them I’m tired, and I’m going home and to find their own rides. Then, I’d swing around the corner, risk being seen, and pick you up. How easy would that have been?
But I know I’d be scared. They were right there, watching me.
She takes my face in her hands, not blinking once. “You know what I want?” She hardens her voice. “For you to stop lying to me.”
She backs me into the table, and I reach back, gripping it with my hands to steady myself.
“I don’t need you to be soft,” she says. “And I don’t need to be seduced. You wanna fuck, because it feels good, right?”
No, I…
But she shakes me. “Right?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes, it felt good.”
“Because I get you off.”
“N—”
“Right?” she grits out.
I nod. “Yes.”
She leans into me, pushing me onto the tabletop. The pulse in my clit thrums like a jackhammer as she positions herself between my thighs and sets her palms on the table at my sides, looking down at me.
“Liv…”
“Because I’m safe, right?” Her tone is an icy bite. “The dirty Catholic girl cliché you’ll tell your husband about someday?”
I can’t swallow. I touch her neck, holding it in both hands and caressing her jaw and throat with my thumbs.
“Right?” she asks.
Tears sting my eyes, and I hate this. I hate that I did this to her.
“Right,” I whisper, but the sob in my throat says the opposite, and I know she hears it. “Like I would ever love you.”
“You would never.”
I shake my head.
“I’m convenient and quiet,” she tells me, “because you’re not a slut or a whore if you’re doing it with a girl one night during a naughty sleepover, right?”
I want to tell her she means so much more to me, but she and I both know whatever happens between us won’t last.
So I play along. “No one will ever know I’ve been touched,” I tell her.
My future husband will never know what really turns me on.
But for now, I’m hers. “Open your camera,” I say.
She stares at me.
I take her phone out of her hand, still unlocked, and open her camera app. Turning it to selfie mode, I switch it to video and put it out to the side, fitting us both in the frame. She looks into the camera and I meet her eyes before hitting record. Slowly, I dip my head into her neck.
I leave little pecks at first. Soft kisses on her warm skin, my gaze flickering to the camera every once in a while. She watches me on the screen, and it only takes a moment before her chest starts rising and falling faster and harder and she tips her head back.
My kisses grow stronger—taking in more of her skin, using my teeth, sucking… I glide my tongue up the nape to her ear, seeing her watching the screen out of the corner of her eye.
I trail wet kisses up her neck, over her jaw, and then take her mouth in a few short nibbles. “I liked it when you fucked me,” I gasp loud enough for the video. “I want to do it again.”
She shudders, and I take her hand, sucking one of her fingers into my mouth.
She turns her head, forgetting the camera and watches me blow her. In and out, I suck, flicking and swirling my tongue and showing her what I want to do. “I want to bury my head between your legs under the sheets,” I tell her.
Her mouth falls open like she can’t breathe, and she reaches up, taking my face again, forehead to forehead as she stares at my mouth like it’s a meal.
I stop recording, smelling the spearmint on her breath from her gum. Reaching around, I slip the phone into her back pocket and hold her tight to me. “I’m in your hands now,” I whisper. “That’s how much I trust you.”
She can shatter my world any time she wants with that video. I will happily give her that power to prove that I’m willing to risk almost anything for a few more months with her.
I wrap my arms around her, burying my face in her neck and holding her close. “We always think that if we can have the one thing we want, we’ll be happy, but the wanting never ends, does it?” I say, muffled in her neck. “There were things I wanted before all I wanted was my brother back.”
I’ve wanted her longer.
She clasps my chin in the crook between her thumb and index finger, nudging my eyes up to her. “What are you doing to me?” she murmurs.
But I get smart. “Nothing yet,” I whisper. “But I’d really like to do that bury-my-head-between-your-legs-under-the-sheets bit.”
&nb
sp; And she loses it. She moans, slides her fingers underneath my tank top, and pulls it up and over my head. It falls off my body, but before I have time to feel the chill on my breasts, she yanks my body in, grips the back of my neck, and fuses her mouth to mine, kissing so hard a roller coaster does a barrel roll between my thighs. I suck in a breath between kisses, pressing my breasts into her, and squirming as my hands roam, because I can’t get close enough or feel enough to be satisfied.
Liv’s hands slide under my skirt, and I smile through the kisses, unable to contain my excitement. Christmas never felt this good.
She leans into me, and I fall back onto my hands, her standing over me as she runs her hand up and down my torso. She cups my breast and meets my eyes before she pinches my little, pink nipple. An electrical current shoots through me, and I clench my thighs, moaning.
Yes.
“Liv, did I see you come up here?” someone calls out.
I pop my eyes open, hearing the wooden door hinges creak, and I dart up, ducking into Liv’s chest before I can see who’s behind her.
“Liv?” a man’s voice says again.
“Get out,” she tells him.
One of her brothers?
There’s nothing for a moment, and then I hear him again, his tone amused this time. “Damn, who you got there?”
“Trace, seriously,” she barks over her shoulder. She holds my naked shoulders as I cover my breasts and huddle into her body. “Get out!”
But he doesn’t. He steps up behind her and meets my eyes.
“All right,” he says, smiling. “Way to go.”
“Fuck off,” she blurts out next.
“Okay, okay.” He shrugs and leaves, the door shutting after a moment.
“He won’t say anything,” she tells me. “I’ll make sure of it.”
I put my arms around her again. I don’t care about that right now.
I hop off the table, pushing her back until she falls into an old, wooden chair in the corner. Pushing my panties down my legs, I step out of them, climb on top and straddle her, and see her eyes fall to my breasts.
I love watching her watch me.
She slouches down a little in the chair, gripping my hips, and I don’t need instruction. I start to roll my hips, grinding on her through her jeans, rubbing my pussy up on her fly. Heat floods me, and I know I’m wet as the rough fabric of her clothes feels so good against my bare skin.
Tryst Six Venom Page 23