by Lily White
Red-hot anger flares across Hillary’s cheeks. “We just kissed-“
“Uh, huh. I believe that about as much as I believe Ezra said any of that shit. Especially since it was Damon you were making out with. Or did you not know that?”
Hillary flinches. “No, it was Ez-“
“Really?” Ivy laughs. “You sure about that? Can you tell me whose dick you smell like right now? Do you know? Whose pubes did you just use as dental floss? Because I know the answer to that. Everybody in the pool house knows. But the joke is you don’t. So do you have anything else to say around my friend? Or would you like to go back inside and ask the twins which one just played you?”
Tears shimmer in Hillary’s eyes that she blinks away, her chin tipping higher in feigned confidence.
Her eyes flick to me as a sneer curls her mouth, but rather than saying a word in her defense, she hisses, “Fuck you all.”
We watch as Hillary and crew storm off, a dangerous feeling fluttering inside me that I know I need to quash.
Hope, no matter how unwarranted, is infectious. It’s pernicious, all soft and warm, a ray of sunshine striking cleanly through a thick carpet of dark clouds.
I shouldn’t hope for anything.
Still, I do.
“Was she really kissing Damon?” I ask, my voice weaker than I like.
Blue eyes flick my way, Ivy’s thin shoulder shrugging as she wraps her arm with mine to walk me into the house behind Ava.
“I have no idea. I just said that to piss her off.”
The hope I feel dies a tragic death, but I refuse to mourn its demise. It’s better not to have it. Not to care. Especially when secrets have a way of getting out into the open, and I have a future to protect, even if I don’t want it.
Once inside, the loud music assaults us, neither Ivy or Ava feeling as heavy as I do. They’re not afraid of having their hearts broken, aren’t burdened by the knowledge they have no control over their lives.
Ava is going off to Yale when we graduate, and Ivy is still undecided, but at least they have options I don’t have.
“Gabriel’s already piss drunk,” Ivy whispers in my ear, laughter coating her voice. “I told you I have nothing to worry about tonight.”
I glance over at where most of the Inferno guys are seated and roll my eyes at the girls standing or sitting around them, desperate for attention.
Ivy is wrong if she thinks Gabriel hasn’t planned something. The second we walk into the room, his emerald green gaze lifts and seeks her out.
Amused by how the two of them always look for each other without realizing it, I make the mistake of glancing left to find another dangerous stare locked on us, this one a pretty amber color with green flecks you can only see when up close.
My first thought is Ezra, but the truth is it could be either of them. I can’t claim to have superiority on Hillary. I never really know who is tugging me into a room, whose lips brush mine, whose voice whispers words in my ear that make me melt.
“I need to go,” I say, yanking my arm from Ivy’s hold.
She turns to stop me, but I’m too fast as I weave my way through the crowd of bodies, cutting through them like a warm knife through butter. I have no idea where I’m going, just that it’s away from Ezra or Damon or both.
Unfortunately, the best laid plans and most innocent of intentions have a way of going south fast.
I realize it as a hand locks over my arm, my body melting at the touch, my brain short-circuiting as I’m dragged into a separate room, my eyes clenching closed as a door shuts.
My back presses against a wall, the cool temperature of the plaster sinking through my dress to tease my skin. The heat of warm lips running up my neck is the perfect counterpoint to a wave of cold tremors racing through me.
“You were going the wrong way.”
A smile tugs at the corner of my lips, both happy and bitter. “I don’t think away from you is the wrong way.”
Fingertips tempt my skin as they skitter over my neck to move my hair. I’m so out of my element with him that I could be floating in space, my legs kicking and arms doing a breaststroke even though there’s no water to propel me back to Earth.
His warm palm slides up the line of my jaw, his thumb sweeping over my cheek.
“It is.”
And then his lips are on mine, the tip of his tongue flicking out to taste my mouth. I hold it closed, refusing to kiss him back, refusing to speak, refusing to let his touch render me boneless and stupid.
My refusal means nothing.
Not with the heat surging through me.
Not after my mind loses the ability to function.
Not after I stop caring for once that I was raised only to comply with the future my parents decided for me.
“Who are you?” I ask because I always ask.
He grins against my mouth. “Does it matter?”
Instantly I remember what Ivy said to Hillary, the tears in Hillary’s eyes, the fact that Hillary had been kissing one of them at some point before I arrived tonight.
It’s a blessing when I realize that none of it matters. That regardless of what I do right now, and regardless of who I do it with, I’m still going to marry someone I don’t want.
“No,” I whisper, my heart thudding against my chest when his lips grin against my mouth.
Cupping my face with two hands, he nips at my bottom lip, his voice a growl. “Good.”
My mouth opens, and his tongue dives in.
I let him kiss me without caring which twin it is, because in the end, when I’m married to a man I don’t love and living a life I don’t want, none of this can matter.
Emily
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Or why I’m doing it.
Or even how, for that matter.
I just am.
Maybe it’s to rebel against my pre-ordained destiny. Or to flip the finger to my parents. Or to steal from Mason all the things he doesn’t want and that I don’t want to give him.
He’s a boy...
That’s just the way it is...
And so is the person kissing me now. Can I be blamed when he’s just doing what boys do?
A thousand excuses and explanations roll through my head, one after the other, a parade of them, complete with dancers, and floats and large balloons that people fight to keep under control in turbulent weather.
I’m angry, and I don’t know why it matters now. I’m desperate, which is why my fingers curl over shoulders wider than mine. I’m turned on because I’m letting someone touch me when I know I shouldn’t.
Damon or Ezra.
It can be either of them, and I’m not sure I care right now.
Because this isn’t about the boy. It’s about me taking back what destiny and family obligations have stolen.
A low sound vibrates in his throat when I pull my lips from his and tilt my head. It’s all the permission he needs to run those lips down the line of my neck, to flick his tongue over the taut tendon. I shiver against the new sensation, caring more about rebelling than who this even is.
I should care which twin I’m with.
I want to.
This entire thing started with Ezra, but I don’t really know him. We haven’t talked much beyond the secret moments we’ve stolen, haven’t done more than kiss and touch, his hands greedy and mine demure. I haven’t let his fingers explore places they shouldn’t, haven’t yet crossed that line.
Except now, when his hands slide up the outside of my thighs and my skirt is pushed higher, my modesty snaps back in place, my heart thumping hard before I finally stop him, my mind screaming the same thought over and over until it volleys from my throat.
“Stop. I do care.”
Amber eyes trap mine so fast and fierce that my breath catches in my lungs. He dips his head in that feral way he always does, bringing us to eye level while still somehow hovering over me.
I watch the corner of his mouth tug up.
“Why?”
“I just do. Who are you?”
A wicked glimmer brightens his eyes for only a second. “Ezra.”
“Promise?”
He nods his head, his fingertips tracing lines down my thighs, teasing the skin.
I can’t help it. Jealousy roars through me, wild and unfettered, and I have no idea where it came from. I have no right to be jealous, but I am.
Maybe it’s because I have no experience with this. Or maybe I’m placing too much importance on a boy who gave me my first kiss. I’ve heard that happens. I just never understood it until now.
“Were you just with Hillary?”
Before he can answer, the door pops open, a line of soft, yellow light seeping in to break up the heavy shadows in our dark room. Ezra’s head snaps in that direction, his jaw tight, his body going frighteningly still.
I don’t know who’s at the door, nor do I care when I see for the first time the pattern of an ugly bruise on Ezra’s neck and shoulder, the dark blue-black stain dipping down beneath the collar of his shirt.
Without thinking, I grab the fabric and yank it down to see the shape of a handprint, four distinct fingers leading to his collarbone that I trace with my own, the touch snapping his attention back to me.
“Who did that to you?”
Anger flashes in his eyes, that and something else I can’t name. He pushes away from me, but I step forward to yank at his shirt again and see the damage.
I’m not even thinking, I just feel so full of fury that someone - anyone - hurt him like that. It’s visceral, this feeling, as if I have some claim on him that gives me the right to be mad. I barely know him, and already, I want to shelter him from some unknown danger. I want to stand in front of him and rage at whoever believed they could touch him without my explicit permission.
And really, how ridiculous is that? The twins fight for the fun of it, but I’m still livid at the idea that a person believed they had the right to hurt him back.
They say redheads have fiery tempers, and judging by what I’m feeling now, they’re right.
“Who?” I demand.
The anger bleeds out of him to be replaced with amusement, Ezra’s lips curling at the corners despite the way my brows crash together, and my mouth thins into a volatile line.
There’s an odd kinship between us now, a bond forged in fire and the threat of violence. Ezra recognizes in me what he has in himself, even though I don’t throw punches, and I appear weak and pampered on the outside.
The truth is far darker, and judging by the look on his face, he sees it and likes it.
“Are you mad?” he asks, soft laughter lining the question.
“I’m pissed.”
Ezra rushes forward, and I step back. My thighs hit a barrier, my bottom falling to sit on a mattress. Before I can push to my feet again, Ezra is above me, against me, all around me.
Feral.
There’s no other word to describe him.
His teeth nip at my skin just above the neckline of my dress, and I can’t move.
Not one inch.
I’m frozen in place, partly terrified because I’ve never been on a bed with a boy before, but mostly because that boy is Ezra, and I have no idea what he’s thinking.
The new terror chases the old anger away, his expression changing to see it.
Head tilting to the side, he pushes up to his knees that straddle my legs, reaches behind him and pulls his shirt off.
I’m frozen again, except this time, there’s a lake of fire expanding through my body, hot and vengeful, my mind swirling with such rash decisions and chaotic thoughts that I’m in a vacuum of sorts, time frozen, my hand reaching out past the incandescent hurt to trace the shape of spider webs.
“Who did this?”
They’re everywhere, like paint splotches on a well-used drop cloth. One bruise fading into another, dark at the center before they spin out in a web of threads, the color changing from black to purple to blue and green.
Everywhere.
All over.
“They don’t hurt,” he whispers as my fingers trace a particularly ugly one.
My eyes snap up to his face, the anger there again which only makes him smile.
“Who?”
Instead of answering me, he cups my face with both hands and kisses me, his lips forcing mine apart, his tongue sweeping in to taste the anger I’m feeling, as if my fury is a drug that gets him off.
Hands hesitant, I run my palms up his chest and over his shoulders, gentle, so extremely gentle because I can’t stand the thought of adding to the marks on his skin.
So lost in my worry for him, I forget that I’m in a dark room with a boy on a bed, and that lack of realization is why he is able to lay me flat, to crush his body to mine.
The panic doesn’t return until his knees cage my legs together, his hand sweeping behind my neck to hold me in this blistering kiss as his other hand drops to tickle my skin with curious fingertips.
When his palm flattens against my breast from over my dress, I freeze again, every muscle tight and painful.
“I haven’t...”
It’s a whisper against his lips, an embarrassing confession, one that catches his attention and forces his eyes open.
Now I feel awkward laying here with a boy straddling my legs and his palm on my tit. We’re staring at each other in the shadowed room, my eyes filled with fear and his telling me nothing at all.
“Never?”
The question falls off his lips, half a tease and half honest shock. Rolling my eyes, I attempt to ignore the embarrassment I feel, my sudden attempt to shove him off a wasted effort since he’s twice as big as me.
Even for his size now, I realize Ezra still isn’t fully grown. He’s eighteen just like me, but not a man. I’ve seen men, and I’ve seen high school boys. There’s no comparison. It makes me wonder what Ezra will look like when he’s older, when his body has filled out fully and experience has sharpened his mind.
I bet he’ll be even more terrifying than he is now.
“Just let me go,” I breathe out, my eyes dancing anywhere to keep from looking at him. The ceiling, the wall, the door across the room I can use to get out of here and forget this happened.
His fingers squeeze my boob, just a light flinch of his hand before he pulls it away and presses his palm on the mattress by my head.
“Why not?”
“You know why,” I answer, still refusing to meet his eyes.
My cheeks are burning from the blood rushing to them, and I wince when his fingers touch my jaw. I struggle against him turning my face so that I have no choice but to look at him.
“Is this about Mason? About the bullshit agreement your parents made for you to marry him?”
Nodding my head, I let go to the feeling of sinking. Mason’s name alone is a weight pulling me down, a shadow that hovers over me constantly.
“He told me you don’t have to follow through with it until you’re thirty.”
“By the time we’re thirty,” I correct him. “My parents want it to happen immediately after college.”
Ezra blinks, his dark lashes full where they line those beautiful amber eyes. “Which means you have ten years, at least, to have fun. Why not start now?”
Annoyance trickles in my head like rain. “Because I’m supposed to save myself-“
“For what?” he asks, interrupting me. “Mason doesn’t care.”
I’m not sure why the comment stings, but it does. Not because of Mason. What he thinks or does means nothing. It’s more because I’ve been trapped in perpetual wait for a marriage I don’t want. Like the only reason for my existence is to be someone’s wife.
“If my parents find out-“
Pressing the soft pad of his thumb to my lips, he doesn’t let me finish the thought.
“Just fun. And they won’t find out. I’ll make sure of it.”
“How?” I ask, the movement of my lips allowing his thumb to brush the front of my teeth.
I can’t deny how weird this is, I’m practically sucking another person’s thumb, but it feels right for a million reasons I can’t figure out.
Keeping his thumb in place, he leans down to speak against my ear, his chest softly brushing mine, his breath hot against my skin.
“Because if anybody says a word about it, I’ll hurt them.”
The look in his eyes tells me he means it. But not just that. In a way, it feels like Ezra is arching over my body protectively, like I’m somehow vulnerable and he’s the only person strong enough to watch over me.
It’s a strange feeling to have, but it’s there, just on the edges, a bond formed after he showed me the secret of his bruises, and I revealed the secret of my inexperience.
My gaze drops down to the mark on his shoulder again, the direction of it like someone was holding onto him from behind, a punishing grip that sets my teeth together and my jaw painfully tight.
Before I can mention it, noise erupts in the house beyond the room, laughter and catcalls and voices rising up. The door opens again a minute later, all that noise rushing at us without being muted.
Ezra’s body twists to growl at whoever dared walk in this room, every muscle tense, like a beast ready to rip out the throat of any person threatening what he protects.
Ava squeaks and looks away, but she doesn’t shut the door. “We have to go, Emily. It’s Ivy.”
Oh, God. What has Gabriel done?
It’s only then that I realize Ezra’s thumb is still in my mouth, the pad pressing against the muscle so that I can’t immediately speak.
Pulling away, I stare up at him. “I have to go.”
He doesn’t appear to care, but he crawls off me anyway, our eyes still tangled together as I sit up and become angry that I can’t finish whatever was happening between us.
I’m on my feet when he grabs my hand, amber eyes locking to mine with a silent promise that will follow us into adulthood.
“I mean what I said,” he reminds me. “I’ll hurt anyone that -“
“Let’s go, Emily.”