The same boy that tricked me, lied to me.
The only man to ever break my heart.
I’m only here to use him. For what he and his uncle can do for me, in return for what I can give them. I’m not here for anything else. Stephen confessed to me once, while drunk, that Andrew lives for me. That he never got over me. That he suffers every single waking moment because of me.
I didn’t believe it then. I don’t believe it now. And none of that matters, I tell myself. I’m not here to see if any of that is true.
But then, a roar echoes into my new office, an inhuman, hair-raising sound.
“Berkman’s office!”
My heart . . . stops? Oh God, what the hell?
“NOW!”
Fear races into my veins, chilling me, slapping me with a brutal, unforgiving truth.
I lied to myself.
I am here to see if it’s true.
I do care.
There’s an echo of Andrew Drevlow still etched into my soul, and I’m here to make damn sure I’m still etched into his.
18
Denial.
We tend to make it our best friend, our constant shields. A perceived strength; a merciless weakness.
Because, in the face of truth, it flees, abandoning you when you need it most.
He’s coming.
I can feel the energy that is him—an energy I was once addicted to, a rush I could never truly forget, and it’s barreling toward me.
In front of me is a long, metallic shelf that’s built into the wall. I went through the trouble of setting up my things on it; my gadgets, a few pictures of my mom.
I’m holding one of those pictures now. Had been staring at it, reminding myself why I agreed to come work here of all places.
It almost falls out of my hand when I hear the pounding footsteps coming closer.
He’s . . . he’s running to me?
The automatic, steel doors slide open, and I have a split second to lower the frame, inhale, try to fucking compose myself.
The running stops.
Even before I register the sound of his rapid breaths, my knees go weak with sensation.
I haven’t laid eyes on him yet, and I’m completely breathless.
All those years. All that pain. How were they not powerful enough to erase his effect on me?
Why does it feel stronger than ever, stronger than I even imagined it?
Don’t let him see. He can’t know. He once used this weakness against me. He thought it’d be funny to play with me, use my feelings for him to lure me in. All so he could seduce me while his friends watched. While they recorded the whole thing.
The next day, they showed off that recording. To the entire school.
That old, buried rage and humiliation howl to life inside me. It’s a much needed reminder.
My body might be a fool, a victim of a glitching, primal biology, but I don’t want the man behind me.
I despise him.
I only want what he can do for me.
And every ounce of pain I can rip out of him along the way.
The thought hardens me, pushing back the ludicrous response I’m having to him.
I turn—
And nearly stagger back into the shelf behind me.
It’s him. Oh God, it’s Andrew Drevlow. I didn’t allow myself to keep tabs on him all these years. Didn’t look at a single picture.
In many ways, he’s still looks the same.
But no, he doesn’t. He really, really doesn’t.
A man stands before me. One that somehow seems taller. Way, way bigger, and he’d been a tower of muscles at eighteen.
Dressed impeccably in a dark blue suit, he stands there, staring at me, his eyes eating me up.
Like he’s been starved for the sight of me.
A small place inside me trembles.
His facial expression is so harsh. Everything about him is harsher, harder.
Darker.
A sort of madness glitters in his eyes. It scares me, but only because a part of me awakens for it.
I’ve been walking around dead for so many years, that part of me gone, eradicated. One look at him and it roars back to life, banging inside me. A volatile storm I’m not sure I can contain.
I hate him. Hate him, I remind myself. And I do. Regardless of everything else I’m feeling, the hate is still there.
But . . . he’s shaking.
So am I, can barely hide it. The emotions wrestling within me are too different—disgust. Hate. Rage.
Sadness.
Desire.
Fuck. I still want him?
Looking at him, I know the answer to that loud and clear.
That dark, reddish brown hair.
Those lazy, toffee-colored bedroom eyes.
He was everything I ever wanted once. A mountain of a man I was dying to own.
Now, I can barely stand the sight of him.
His reaction to me is messing with my head. Why does he look like it burns him to lay eyes on me? Like all he wants in the world is to come closer?
I swallow, struggling for calm, and finally bring myself to say his name. A name I despise. Another reminder I need. “Mr. Drevlow.”
His expressions twists. There’s no mistaking the agony in his gaze. The agony I hear when he says my name. “Lexi.”
A heart I’d believed to be hardened splits wide open inside my chest. Yearning hits. Hard. Fast.
And then he starts coming at me.
19
No. Fuck. No.
Heart roaring, I stumble backwards, but there’s nowhere to go. My back hits the shelf behind me.
Everything I know, everything I believed the last seven years, every hope I had for my future slams into the floor.
All I have is this moment.
This very second and the horrible truth it brings. The blood rushing in my ears. The speeding of my already bruised heart. The reopening of this chasm within me, a pit of bleak, unforgiving despair I’d thought I had closed.
And the very thing my body is pounding for coming at me full-throttle.
He takes my air with his proximity.
My hands slide uselessly along the metal behind me. I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m looking for.
A way out. I need a—
Andrew grabs me and practically flings me into him.
Suddenly, I’m pressed face-first into his massive chest, his heartbeat like a violent war drum against my forehead.
His scents; it hits.
His arms; they squeeze around me tight.
He trembles. Inhales me.
His cock is a hard, heavy rod against my abdomen.
The world tilts. The core of me shifts.
Hunger pierces me, leaking down my thighs, legs, spreading to every part of me. I lose sensation. My knees buckle.
Andrew catches me up against him, lifting me. His face presses into the crook of my neck. Another inhale. His lips ghost my pulse with his exhale.
I hear the sound of my voice breaking on a whimper.
He melts around me, arms locking with all the strength of his body. A primal groan rumbles out of him—part pain, part hunger, all desperation.
It shouldn’t send a pulse of heat through my body.
But it does.
It’s strong. Too strong.
I have no choice but to hang onto him.
His chest expands, shoulders rising, a constant growl reverberating within him. His body is coiled.
Like an animal about to strike.
He does.
His teeth snap down around the sensitive skin of my neck.
He bit me!
Andrew doesn’t let me go. The tip of his tongue circles the skin trapped between his teeth. Somehow, his arms squeeze harder.
He bites lower, licks me again.
And I do the one thing I would’ve never thought I’d do; I moan his name. His nickname. “Drew.”
Andrew groans, pushing forward, pressing me into the shel
f behind me. He lets my neck go, rising his head, and I shudder at his expression.
He looks like he’s been hit and the pain of that hit is killing him. His large, hot hand encircles the back of my neck, trapping me. His eyes drop to my mouth. That madness again. There’s something very, very wrong with him.
This isn’t the same Andrew I once knew.
And I want this version more than I ever wanted the other. I want the darkness I sense in him. It thrills me. I’m so wet for it.
After everything I’ve been through. How could I want that?
Oh God. I’m the sick one!
I place my hands on his shoulders to push him away. He forces his large body between my legs. “Need . . . that mouth, Lexi.”
What seems to be a sonic wave of pure energy pounds through my lower body at the thought of him kissing me. Common sense gone, I whisper desperately, “I’ll come. I’m going to come if you kiss me.”
He groans sharply, eyes flashing, and he dips his head.
Last second, I somehow manage to tilt my head back, avoiding his lips.
If they touch mine, they’ll ruin me. Fucking ruin me.
Running on pure self-preservation, I push him away, putting all my force into it. I rush away from the shelf, stumbling toward my desk.
The sliding door to my office opens. Richard Drevlow steps through.
I fall into my chair, shaking like an epileptic.
Andrew steps toward me.
Lips pressed together, I shake my head, fighting to hold back the whimpers that want to break through.
“What’s going on here?” Richard asks.
I can’t formulate a response, trapped by this destructive hunger. Stuck in a memory I’ve tried so hard to erase—the last time I had Andrew’s lips on me, his tongue between my legs.
20
I park next to Drew’s car in the parking lot. My hands are still shaking. I can’t stop replaying what happened back on that couch.
It felt so good.
He felt so good.
I squeeze down on the steering wheel, my thighs rubbing together restlessly.
Drew exits his car and walks around to my side. I’m unable to stop myself from eating up the sight of him as he saunters closer.
His wide shoulders swing back and forth with each step he takes. He changed into a black tshirt that clearly shows off his tight mid-section.
His other shirt is somewhere in his car. Because he used it to clean up my hands after he came all over them.
My cheeks heat up at the reminder.
Hunger gnaws at me.
My slick pussy aches for him.
Drew reaches me. Leaning down, he taps on my window, signaling for me to lower it.
I do so, shaking at his nearness.
“You okay baby?” he asks with that deep sexy voice of his.
I remember him moaning for me, the things he said.
His voice breaking on a roar as come spurted out of him and onto my hand.
My lips part. Only one word leaves my mouth. “Drew.”
His toffee-colored eyes flash, and his hand reaches into the car, unlocking the door. He yanks it open.
He leans into the car faster than I can process and brings me to his lips.
I moan at the feel of them, wet and thick, owning my mouth completely.
He slides his tongue into me, groaning in the back of his throat.
Nothing has ever tasted as good as Andrew Drevlow.
Nothing has ever smelled as good. Felt as good.
I know that nothing ever will.
He lifts his large hand, running his fingers down my cheek while sucking on my bottom lip.
The hot ache inside me explodes into that familiar, uncontrollable force—a hurricane of pure want, hellbent on ruining me if I don’t have him.
“God, those lips.” He bites me, ripping a wild groan out of me. “You have no idea, Lexi . . . no idea . . . “ His tongue licks mine. “I’ll do anything. To anyone.”
What is he talking about?
There isn’t enough brain power for me to contemplate it. His hand circles the back of my neck and his kiss turns rougher, his body pushing me into the seat.
My body short circuits. I hear my needy whimper above the rush of blood in my ears. I hold onto the back of his head, arching against the seatbelt.
Drew shoots back, accidentally hitting the steering wheel. The blare of the horn makes us jump.
I tremble all the way to the tips of my toes, my hands aching to pull him back to me.
He’s breathing like he just ran several miles. The sound turns me on, because I love being the one that turns him on.
He moves back to sit on his haunches before me, eyeing me with darkened eyes.
I grab onto the steering wheel again since I have nothing else to grab onto.
“You okay?” he asks again, but his smirks tells me he knows the answer to that very well.
I respond to him honestly. “I can’t breathe.”
His expression softens into something that steals the last of my breath. “Good. Because I can’t either.”
Emotion suffocates me. For so many years, I missed him, my once close friend. How could I have forged such an intense connection with him when we’d been only kids?
A better question: how did that connection survive us being separated after what his father did?
Mr. Drevlow drove my father to suicide.
And, yet, I’m connected to his son on a molecular level that frightens me because I know what it means. I knew what it meant the day he approached me and first spoke to me after all those years of not speaking to each other.
“Wait for me here, okay baby? I’m going to get some things for us.” Drew motions with his head to the convenience store in front of us.
I nod.
Closing my door, he rises and walks into the store with that lazy, confident swagger.
I want that boy.
He’s going to be my first.
Swallowing, I admit the truth to myself.
I’m in love with him and I can’t freaking wait to give him my virginity.
21
“My boy said it’s okay for you to leave your car here. It’ll be safe,” Drew tells me once he returns. He’s holding two shopping bags in his hands. I’m curious as to what’s inside them, but don’t have a chance to ask him.
Drew reaches through the open window and unlocks my car again.
I have no idea what he has planned for us—for me. Doesn’t matter. When he murmurs to me in that rumbly, silky voice, “Turn off the car and get out here, baby,” I move faster than I’ve ever moved in my life.
Every inch of me is shaking as I exit the car, my legs almost too weak to hold me up. “Where are we going?” I ask him, biting my lip in an effort to control my nerves.
I want.
I want so much right now. Too hard. I’m hopeful. Scared. Excited.
I want him to tell me he’s taking me somewhere private, really private, where we can be all alone so he can make me his.
Where I can make him mine.
Only mine.
I think about Kaylee and all the other girls at school he’s probably slept with, and my body flushes with anger.
Then I remember his dick pumping in my hand, how beautiful he looked coming, and greed floods my veins like an unrelenting tidal wave.
“First, you and those sexy lips are coming here.” He wraps his free hand around my waist and brings me in.
I go willingly, wrapping my arms around his neck. Our lips meet on a wet slide.
He growls for me, low and hungry.
I moan, utterly desperate.
His tongue forces my mouth open and takes mine, tangling wetly. Pleasure spikes low in my belly. He squeezes my ass, ripping a whimper out of me.
He sucks the air right out of me, and I don’t care. My ribs are on fire from the need to breathe, but I kiss him harder. Press closer. Rub my aching body against him.
“Whoa, baby.”
Groaning, Drew ends our kiss, his panting breaths hitting my wet lips.
My pussy clenches. My frantic fingers move along the back of his head, my hands curling to pull him to me.
His hand tightens on my ass and he licks my jaw. “Yeah, baby, I fucking need you, too.” He rocks his hips into me, blatantly rubbing his big dick against my lower abs. “But not here.” Grabbing my hand, he begins leading me toward his car.
“How about when we get to wherever we’re going?” I ask breathlessly.
Drew presses on the button to unlock his car and the lights flash. He opens the back and carefully places the bags inside. I hear what sounds like glass bottles clinking together. He closes the door and leads me round the side of the car to the passenger side.
I’m very aware he hasn’t answered my question, so I tug on his hand. “Drew?”
We make it to the passenger side before he seems to snap. Whirling around, he grabs me and presses me into the sleek, carbon gray surface of his car. His hands sift through my hair, fisting, pulling. Holding onto it like he’d been dying to grab it.
I get a kiss, one quick, hard kiss, and a low, rough warning. “Don’t tempt me, Lexi. I’m trying to do right by you.”
My hands slide up his abs, feeling each hard indentation, up, up, until both of his pecs are pressed to my palms.
There’s no common sense left in me, no other urge I care to focus on. I want to tempt him. More than anything.
So I do. I arch against the car, letting him feel my needy body on his, and beg him in a soft voice, “Kiss me, Drew. Please.”
“So fucking sweet,” he groans, giving me what I asked for, what I want. His lips, perfect, firm, owning mine. His tongue slick and unrelenting. Fucking mine.
And it’s not enough. Not enough. I need more. I have to be closer. I want him inside me, under my freaking skin if possible.
I need him so damn much that it fucking hurts, and I have to suck back a sob at the pounding agony.
Drew lifts me up with one arm around my waist and opens the passenger door. He places me inside and snaps the seatbelt around me as I struggle to catch my breath.
“Drew!” I’m giggling like an idiot, light-headed with happiness.
Systematic Siege Box Set: Parts 1-3 Page 6